Page 45 of Spike's Perdition
“You don’t findit suspicious at all?”
I down the rest of my beer before glancing at Possum. He’s been yapping my ear off for the last hour about tattoos, so I’ve been tuning him out.
“What’s suspicious?”
“Dude, look,” he demands, and my eyes follow the trajectory of his arm to where he’s pointing. “She’s not even showing.”
I stare at Glitter, who’s walking across the room. I’d been so engrossed in ignoring Possum that I didn’t even realize she'd gotten home from work.
Returning my attention to Possum, I shrug. “Not all women show much.”
“True,” he says. “But c’mon, brother. You’ve gotta admit that you’ve got concerns about her.”
“Of course, I do,” I snap, slamming my empty bottle onto the bar. “But it doesn’t matter.”
“Spike, listen to me,” he orders. “I’ve been where you’re at. And trust me when I say, you want to get confirmation.”
Slowly, I turn on my stool. “What do you mean, you’ve been where I’m at?”
He glances around the room as if determining whether he’ll be overheard, and then he leans in close. “I’ll deny this until the day I die, but a few years back, Candy thought she was pregnant. Told me it was mine.”
I straighten. “Candy? Seriously?”
“Yep. Freaked right the fuck out,” he admits. “Fortunately, Candy isn’t psycho, and I went with her to the doctor to find out for sure. We could’ve had Abyss do the blood test, but we didn’t want anyone to know. Anyway, she wasn’t pregnant.”
“How is that the same position as me?” I narrow my eyes. “And on what planet is she not psycho? We kicked her out because she’s exactly that,” I remind him.
“That’s not the point.”
“Then what is the point?”
“The point is this,” he begins dramatically. “You have nothing proving that Glitter’s baby is yours. Don’t you think you should figure that out?”
“She said she didn’t sleep with anyone after me.”
“And you believe her?”
“Yeah, I guess.”
“Do you really want to hang your entire future on ‘I guess’?”
Possum’s words play on repeat in my brain until my ire is all the way fucking up. I shoot to my feet and stomp across the common room toward the wing Glitter stays in. When I reach her door, I don’t bother knocking. Rather, I use my palm print to open it, knowing that Jez and Fort set it up so all club officers can access every room in this wing. Our hands are a master key of sorts.
Glitter whirls around and glares at me. “What are you doing, Spike?”
“We need to talk.”
She spreads her palm over her still flat stomach and smiles. “I like the sound of that.”
“Sit down,” I command. When she starts toward me, I hold up my hand. “Sit the hell down, Glitter.”
Her smile falters as she slinks backward and sits on the edge of her bed. “What’s on your mind?” she asks tentatively.
I nod at her belly. “Everything okay with the baby?”
Her eyes widen. “Of course. Why do you ask?”
“Well, for starters, you’re no bigger than you were five months ago.”
