Page 56 of Wicked Me
She sloshed the remaining whiskey around in her glass. “My leg hurts, is all.”
Nicole leaned toward her, her Spongebob necklace knocking into the fancy umbrella in her strawberry daiquiri. “Don’t research what it could be on the internet because it will tell you that you’ll be dead by morning.”
Charlotte squeezed her eyes shut for a second, then patted Nicole’s hand with a grin. “Thanks for that. Next question. If your life was a book, what would it be? Nicole.”
“The Hunger Games?”
I turned to stare at her. “Really? How?”
Nicole shrugged her hair into her face and took a huge gulp of her drink.
“Next.” Charlotte’s double guns landed on me.
Crap. I knew the true answer easily, but saying it out loud would surely earn me some strange looks.
Charlotte swirled her hands through the air. “One, two...”
“Lolita,” I blurted.
“Holy shit.” Charlotte sat back in her chair, her gaze steady. “You two went all in with two of the most banned books of all time. Nice lady balls, you two. Is it weird that I like you both even more now?”
“Yes.” I nodded slowly, her words, the twangy music, all the alcohol flowing through me like syrup. “It’s a little weird, lady balls and all.”
She lifted her glass to me. “I’m perfectly okay with that.”
Nicole linked her arm through mine, either a show of support or to get ready for another trip to the bathroom, I had no idea. But there wasn’t any judgement coming from either of them, no slut-shaming, no tough questions. It made me feel more than a little euphoric, though it did make me wonder about Nicole. How could her life be anything likeThe Hunger Games?
She licked the end of the umbrella in her drink and pointed it at Charlotte. “Your turn. What’s your life’s book?”
“Me? Without the lesbianism, I’m a Batgirl comic book, baby.”
We laughed while my phone vibrated in my pocket. It was a text from an unknown number, but I viewed it anyway. A picture of my face stared back, my dark hair splayed out over a pillow, my naked flesh captured from a lifetime ago. And behind the photo, a mahogany desk with the nameplate Janice McClure.
I buried the phone’s screen against my thigh as a shiver of disgust raced down my back. Had she seen the pictures yet? Because if she had, my dreams of working at the Library of Congress were through.
“You okay, Paige?” Nicole asked. “You look like you’re about to be sick.”
My phone buzzed again, and I jerked my head in a nod. Angling the screen away from her, I peered at the new text.
You’ve had plenty of time.
She comes in on Saturdays.
Give me something useful and this pic will vanish.
