“I didn’t mean to play with hornets, Mom. They took over the Walmart, and before we realized someone had disturbed a nest, I got stung.”
Clarissa drew in a deep breath and straightened her shoulders. “Where’s that bitch?”
“Bitch? Which bitch?” I asked.
“Juliette Carter. This is her fault,” Clarissa snarled.
“Actually, it’s really not. Her husband took her home. Well, it’s only partially her fault; she stole my clothes.”
“That explains why you’re wearing sweats. But whose sweats are those?” my mother frowned. “Are they hospital sweats?”
“No. They’re Christopher’s. Frankly, I’m amazed they didn’t put me in one of those gowns. Maybe that comes if they have to do more than give me a needle or two. I think they gave me every antihistamine on the planet, Mom.”
“That’s better than a tube down your throat. How long did it take you to get to the hospital this time?”
“About ten minutes. Christopher had to kill a hornet that got into the SUV. He parked right near the disturbed nest. It was an ambush.”
Clarissa scowled. “Why is Christopher driving you around, anyway?”
“I’m living with him now. Juliette dropped me off and expected me to stay. Upon some careful consideration and unlimited access to his artwork for my admiration, I accepted her decision with no complaints. Christopher didn’t seem to mind having someone who likes his art around, so we decided it was a mutually beneficial arrangement. Anyway, he needed to run an errand, and I needed clothes, and that was the nearest Walmart.”
“Why are you buying clothes at Walmart?”
“Because it will upset Juliette, duh. That, plus I didn’t have a lot of things.” I regarded my shopping list with a resigned sigh. “I had a good list and everything.”
Second Dad held out his hand. “Give me the list, and I will buy everything. I’ll take your dad with me, and we’ll get out of your hair while the women try to teach you the importance of leaving bees and their kin alone.”
“Winged ass assassins,” I muttered. I tapped at the screen until I figured out how to email a copy of the list, and I sent it to Dad. “Dad, I just emailed you the list.”
“My, my. Someone has joined the modern times. I’m so proud of you.”
Wow. Dad’s sarcasm skills had gone up a level, and I stared at him with wide eyes. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to play with the hornets. They ambushed me. They’re evil. Evil winged ass assassins. I think Christopher got stung, too, but he isn’t allergic.”
I suspected Christopher had gotten stung more times than me trying to keep me from getting stung in the first place, but he had refused to worry about it.
Damned people who lacked bee allergies, treating their stings as a general nuisance rather than a nightmare. I didn’t look forward to having to dish out six hundred for the allergy pens, as my prescription plan was less than ideal.
All mine did was cover the minimums.
At the rate I was going, my hiring bonus would be gone before I got a chance to buy anything.
Both of my dads glared at me, and in a unified front, they left the hospital room armed with my shopping list. That left my mothers, who wore matching expressions of disgust.
“What? It’s not my fault hornets are evil winged ass assassins who hunt at night. It’s definitely not my fault someone had disturbed their nest prior to our arrival.”
My mother sighed. “I’m more amazed you didn’t procrastinate before going to the hospital.”
“I’d told Christopher about my allergy.”
“You told him, but you hadn’t told me?” Clarissa turned her back to me and sniffled. “I am planning revenge.”
“And I’m planning on replacing my Prada, perfecting it again, and destroying it on purpose to get back at Juliette Carter.”
Silence.
“What? Is it that unbelievable?”
“Yes,” everyone replied.
I shrugged. “There’ll be a video, too. I’ll enjoy it. It’s her punishment for forcing me to work for her.”
“You’re…working for Juliette Carter?” my mother asked. “The fashion designer? That Juliette Carter?”
“You knew Shirley was scheming with that devil. Juliette left a ransom note in my bras. You laughed about it and thought it might be nice having a third woman helping to raise your daughter.”
I giggled at the thought of my mothers bickering in my second mother’s living room and planning to add a third mother to the mix while it was decorated with lingerie. “I wasn’t scheming. I was cooperating. There is a difference. Also, I’m not sure I want to be adopted by Juliette. She’s a little crazy, Mom. But in a good way.”
My second mother grunted. “She hung my bras all over my living room and left a ransom note.”
“I think she transferred my person to Christopher, so you’ll have to take that up with him.”
“Where is this Christopher?” my mother demanded.
According to my mother’s tone, she wouldn’t leave Christopher alive when she was finished with him. “He’s running an important errand. I forced him to leave so he could attend to his errand. He was very upset with me over being evicted. It’s not like having him stand around doing nothing will change anything, so he gets his errand done, and only one of us has to sit around and wait to see if I up and die from the latest winged ass assassination attempt.”
“Could you please stop calling it that? Take this seriously.”
“Explain how it wasn’t a winged ass assassination attempted,” I countered.
Sometimes, I truly adored the sound of silence.
“There’s only one thing left for us to do. We must wait for Christopher. He can explain everything.”
“I wish you the best of luck, Clarissa. I don’t think he has any more of an idea of what’s going on than I do. But it’s okay. I get to live with pretty pieces of art. That’s worth being stung by a winged ass assassin or two.”
“You’re impossible,” my mother grumbled, and like everyone else visiting me, she settled in to wait.
It was going to be a long night.
Five hours after leaving, Christopher showed up with Sophia in tow, and we pointed at each other.
“You’re Christopher’s sister?”
“You’re his girlfriend?”
I could understand why Sophia would be incredulous. I wasn’t the type to date or do anything interesting, including date someone so far out of my league. Scratching my head, I marveled at how small the world could be. “You tried to set him up with a porn star?”
“Of all the things to bring up, you had to bring up that?” Sophia turned onto her brother and jabbed him in the chest. “And you’re making off with one of my friends?”
“In my defense, I had no idea you two knew each other. I knew you knew Clarissa, but that was inevitable since I’m friends with Jonas. I just hadn’t realized you were friend friends with Clarissa.”
“Friend friends?” Clarissa frowned, and her brow furrowed. “I should be offended by that, but you make a good point. Sophia is one of the few I trust to not be a bitch to Shirley.”
“I was all prepared to come here and defend my brother’s honor from his new girlfriend, but I can’t complain about the girlfriend. This is unfair.”
“How about I direct you towards the hornets? They’re the real reason I was late tonight. Also, I’m sorry I was late. I didn’t want to leave Lee alone, and we were fighting over it, and she didn’t want to make me late, but well, I was late.”
“Chris, all you had to do was call in that your girlfriend’s allergic to bees and got stung. It’s not the end of the world if you’re late for once in your life. Really.”
“I would’ve stayed here, but she kicked me out, so I wasn’t here, and I was late,” Christopher groused.
I raised my hand. “Question?”
“It’s not school, Lee. What is it?” Sophia laughed, shaking her head. “Who am I kidding? You l
ikely have so many questions you don’t even know where to start.”
“While that’s true, what was that errand, anyway? I’m sorry I missed whatever it was.”
“We volunteer at a women’s shelter not too far away from here. We help out unless there’s an incident.”
My eyes widened. “An incident?”
“That’s when someone needs to leave their situation in a hurry. We work with a non-profit, and we help people leave dangerous situations, especially when there are children involved. The police reach out to us if they get a call, and we handle everything from there. Chris tries to keep openings at his company for those who are fleeing a domestic violence situation. If he doesn’t have openings, he usually knows someone who does, so it works out really well. There’s usually an incident every night, though we’ve gotten plenty of mid-day calls. Chris will have one of his employees handle it during the day if he’s busy. If he’s not, he handles it himself.”
I wasn’t the only one who stared at Chris. Clarissa spluttered, and she pointed at him. “That is not something the demon Chris I know would do. No, no. You’re the demon Chris, who seduces my brother!”
“Just because I’m friends with your brother doesn’t mean I’m gay, Clarissa.”
“Why else would you be friends with him?”
Wow. I jabbed Clarissa with my elbow. “Despite your brother’s acts, he can be nice. He’s probably friends with Christopher because they like the same kind of video games, and it’s good to be friends with those who are different from you. That, plus Christopher isn’t the judgmental bastard type. Jonas probably deals with judgmental bastards all of the time.”
“While that’s true, I really thought Chris was gay, too.”
I stared at her. “Are you insane?”
“Wow. That was mean,” Clarissa complained.
“There’s nothing gay about Christopher.”
My friend scowled. “How would you even know? You just met him!”
Sophia laughed. “He’s not gay, Clarissa. I’ve told you this before.”
“He turned down a porn star.”
Sophia shrugged. “I was getting desperate. She thought he was hot and wanted to try him out, and well, it’s not like he was doing anything about his single situation on his own. It never occurred to me to toss Lee at him.”
“Her enjoyment of prissy art should’ve tipped us off,” Clarissa muttered.
“Hey,” I complained. “It’s not prissy art. It’s beautiful art. It just happens Christopher decided to buy all the art I like. That’s hardly my fault. I’m an innocent bystander in this entire situation.”
“You cut up a Prada for a Halloween costume. You only have yourself to blame for how this turned out,” my friend replied.
“I’m going to cut up another Prada, too. Christopher is going to help me get two. One for keeping, one for costuming. Right?”
Christopher grinned and nodded. “It’ll be fun. I’m particularly looking forward to dumping paint all over you and tossing you on the canvas to see what happens.”
Sophia scowled. “You are not doing that to her.”
“It was her idea.”
“There’s going to be a video,” I added.
“Well, shit. They’re on the same page. This is even worse than I feared.” Sophia pointed at Clarissa. “You corrupted them!”
“I corrupted them? I didn’t even know they were interested in each other until she texted me that she was stuck in the hospital waiting to find out if the winged ass assassins were going to actually kill her off this time. Also, I’m so mad at you over that, Lee. You cut years off my life. Why didn’t you tell me you’re allergic to bees?”
“It wasn’t an issue before.”
“Being allergic to bees is always an issue.”
“I’m sorry I didn’t tell you I was allergic to bees. It’s not like I have issues with bees often.”
My mother raised a brow. “Only three or four times a year. Then you call me and complain about your latest misadventure requiring a trip to urgent care, resulting in a medical bill you pay off twenty dollars at a time because you can’t afford them.”
Busted. “It’s not my fault the medical care system is stupid, my insurance doesn’t cover everything, and they’re willing to do payment plans. And after the first visit of the year, I hit my cap and I don’t have to worry about it. I’ve already hit cap this year.”
“Shirley,” my mother warned.
“I see your financial situation is even worse than I thought,” Christopher said, shaking his head and laughing. “Make sure Juliette knows you have medical bills. She hates medical bills with a passion. She’ll also want to know you’re allergic to bees.”
“As long as she isn’t keeping bees in her building, I should be fine. It’s not like I go out of my way to find bees.”
“Getting stung three or four times a year is going out of your way to find bees. Until tonight, I’d gone years without being stung by anything.”
Well, shit. “I just have bad luck and like flowers. Winged ass assassins like flowers, too.”
“Please be careful around anything that might sting you.”
“I can do that.”
Christopher turned to Clarissa and narrowed his eyes. When he didn’t say a word, my friend blurted, “It wasn’t me!”
“Actually, it probably was you,” Sophia replied. “All of this is probably your fault. Particularly, it was you and that awful dinosaur costume. You broke Lee with it. I saw the pictures. Lee looked absolutely crestfallen and traumatized. I knew I should’ve gone to that party if only to rescue her from you. Now you’ve corrupted her into doing what with my brother?”
“Nothing yet,” Christopher replied. “I haven’t done anything with Lee yet, except invite her to stay in my home. I was a gentleman.”
I covered my mouth so I wouldn’t laugh. Somehow, I kept my amusement to myself.
“The keyword here is yet.” According to Sophia’s expression, she didn’t trust her brother at all.
“We’re adults, Sophia. We can do whatever we want to each other.”
While true, I could understand why Juliette thought Christopher was his own worst enemy. “I’m a willing accomplice in this, Sophia. No worries. That, plus, have you seen his art collection? And I was the one who started it. I used him as a scapegoat to get rid of an idiot. He was quite the gentleman.”
I looked forward to future incidents involving his mouth, too.
Sophia huffed, crossed her arms, and wrinkled her nose. “Well, considering he is my brother, I’ve had the misfortune of hearing about his latest acquisitions, and as I’m a good sister, I visit him so he can show them off to me.”
“Misfortune? How is that a misfortune? His collection is beautiful. Don’t say such horrible things about his art collection.”
“Right. You’re as art obsessed as he is. We’re going to have to keep an eye on the local museums. If you visit together, you might never come out. You’ll probably stand around talking about the art until you starve to death.”
“Clarissa, you’ve been teaching Sophia bad habits again.”
“I have not. It’s Christopher’s fault. She came to me already corrupted.”
“Why am I being blamed? I didn’t do anything.”
“This time.” Sophia uncrossed her arms and prodded her brother’s chest. “Here’s the rules. You will take good care of Lee. We will be checking in on her at least once a week, making certain you are taking good care of her. If we find out you are not taking good care of Lee, your sketch gets it.”
“Like hell, his sketch gets it!” I waved my fist at Sophia. “Don’t punish me. I love that sketch. I will kill you if you do anything to that sketch or any of his art. I will more than kill you. I’ll shred your fancy clothes and dump the scraps off of a skyscraper.”
Sophia held her hands up in surrender. “Right. You’re an art-obsessed freak. Fine. His game console gets it.”
“No. I plan on playing tha
t. I have zombies to decapitate with broken beer bottles.”
“Well, shit, Lee. What can I do to him, then?”
“Go after his car and mock him ruthlessly over it,” I suggested. “Take it away and show up with a better one, thus forcing him to grovel in thanks for being a kind sister.”
Christopher’s eyes widened. “That’s not even fair.”
“Perfect. If you are at all mean to Lee, your car’s going to get it.”
Christopher’s expression turned puzzled, and he stared at me in helpless confusion. I shrugged. “You heard your sister. Be nice to me, or that car’s going to get it.”
“I’m going to need a clear definition of what counts as being mean and counts as being nice. I’m not sure I know what to do.”
“I’ll just have Lee tell us if you’ve been mean or nice,” Clarissa announced. “Well, Lee?”
“He’s definitely been mean, and you should torture that car within an inch of its life. Then you should force him to accept a new one. He’s been so mean you should get Juliette to help you, because she, apparently, likes cars. You can stage it at Christmas, so he’s forced to cooperate with you.”
“Since when have you been so ruthless, Lee?” Clarissa whispered. “That’s just harsh.”
The doctor came in with a nurse, and they checked my vitals before announcing I could be discharged. I managed to evict everyone except Christopher from the room while I handled the paperwork.
I didn’t look forward to filling the prescription for my new allergy pens.
Christopher, at my invitation, reviewed my paperwork, nodding his satisfaction before handing the sheets back. “What was that about with my sister and Clarissa?”
“That was payback for subjecting me to the dinosaur costume. I’m certain your sister encouraged that travesty, so she’s fair game. You win, since you don’t have to worry about your car, Juliette wins because she enjoys cars, and they lose, as someone who isn’t you has to pay for the car, and I know full well that both of those wenches can afford whatever they’re planning for revenge. My second parents will probably help, as nobody in that family has any common sense.”
Bat Out of Hell Page 19