Page 52 of Liar & Champion
“Maybe I’m not a psycho.”
I snorted. “Please. Then you would have fallen in love with me ages ago. I’m adorable.”
“All my friends think so.”
“Why do you have so many friends? It’s unnatural.”
“You’d have friends if you weren’t a pathological liar.”
“Shut up.”
“Seriously, you should tell your home health care specialist that you’re dying. You’re going to get really unattractive towards the end.”
I made a face at him. “That’s what makeup is for.”
“Oh, right. Makeup totally covers up all the vomiting and seizures. Just put some makeup on it.”
“I’m hanging up now. You have to get to work.”
“He’ll treat you well even if he knows you’re dying, Sunshine.”
“I know. He’s a protector, a champion. I noticed that about him right away.”
“Right away? Scary. Love you, Liar.”
“Love you, Psycho.”
We hung up with mutual satisfaction, although it kind of bothered me that he was so insistent on me being honest with Nix. It was only six months. I didn’t owe him my truth when this was just a deal he made with his mom. And I was a liar. Every day. Because otherwise I was just a walking corpse. Life was too short. Especially my life.
Chapter Seventeen
CHAMPION
The dinner was more chaotic than usual. Pinkie and Dirk were the only ones who didn’t know that I was married. Apparently, Kitten had made quite the impression on Trixie in the lobby.
“Why did you marry her?” Trixie demanded, frowning at me suspiciously, stabbing her lobster, looking particularly irritated.
“Blood loss,” Jezebel said, and then I had to roll up my shirt sleeve and showed Trix the pink flesh while she held her knife too close to my throat. “Her stalker made it personal,” Jezebel drawled, then shot me a bright smile and cut into her steak.
Trix gave my arm a few last prods before sitting down. “Yeah, but marriage? And I met her. She’s a liability. Tom wasn’t able to protect her from being trampled by Horse’s fans, and yours are even more aggressive than his are.”
“She’s not a liability,” I said with a pleasant smile that I directed intently at Trix. “Without her, we wouldn’t have another season, at least not in Vegas.”
“We could take it to China,” Jezebel suggested with a biting smile.
“What about Tom?” Dirk asked without looking up from the diagram he was sketching of some genius tech gadget. “Howlong is he going to be shadowing your wife? He’s an essential part of the team.”
“We’ll get more help,” I said impatiently. “But Tom is one of the few people I can personally trust.”
Pinkie looked up at me, expression mostly icy and distant, because that’s how she always looked, but she was here, taking notes, and hadn’t abandoned me so I had to find another secretary. “Out of what budget? After the last Three-Hundred, with replacements, repairs, and extra security, the overhead is going to be hard to make up.”
I clenched my jaw then relaxed it and settled back in my chair. “We can all walk away if it’s not working for anyone anymore. Jezebel, you can go to China, Dirk and Dani, you can focus on the music and your own business interests, and Trixie, you can drive for Horse. This season he’s got Pixel driving for him, he’s clearly desperate. I’ll take my wife off the grid and we’ll live off the land until her stalker dies. That’s fine with me.”
Jezebel laughed. “Such a drama queen. We’ll include your wife as much as possible, and that will help keep her safe. Trixie can be her bodyguard since y’all are staying in the Providence. You keeping her there is smart. Talk to hotel security and they’ll provide an extra layer of protection. It’s none of our business why y’all got married. This is your show, and you’ve never let us down.”
I stared at my lobster instead of looking at Jezebel. Sometimes I wondered what she was doing in Vegas at all with the way she was loyal to a fault. Vegas should have bled that out of her a long time ago. She’d probably still terrify Kitten, but she’d try not to. Unless this was her pretending to agree before she ripped out my underbelly. “I appreciate the sentiment.”
“As if I’d ever drive for Horse,” Trixie muttered. “If we have to tighten our belts, fine. I can live without white-wall tires for one season. I’ll teach her metal working and keep her close. I’llalso feed her. Your work apartment doesn’t have a kitchen. How is she supposed to live there? She’s wife material if I’ve ever seen it. She needs to nurture things. Do you have a plant? We can get her a plant. Maybe a puppy.”
