Page 35 of Badd Baby

"For real." I met Lindsey's eyes via the screen. "I am glad you made me come up for this. I would have regretted missing it, especially over Hayes Motherfucking Willoughby."

"Facts, babe, facts," Lindsey said. "Okay, well, I gotta pack. My flight leaves at the perforated colon of dawn tomorrow."

"The what?"

“Perforated colon of dawn."

"Gross."

"The only accurate way to describe a five a.m. departure."

"Ew, that is gross. I don't believe in being awake before six."

"Me either! I'm a cocktail waitress. I'm usually still awake at five."

"So will you still be awake when you board, or…?"

"Sadly, no. I tried that once when Damian and I went on vacation to Cozumel. The only flight we could find was a six a.m. departure, and I figured what the hell, I'll just work my usual shift, stay awake, and sleep on the plane." She laughed, shaking her head. “Spoiler alert, that did not work. I was crashing out in the lounge before the flight and then completely failed to sleep on the plane. I wasted the whole first day of our four-day vacation fucked up from jet lag, and we only went to Mexico."

"But how will you fall asleep?"

"Drugs."

"How will you wake up?"

"Willpower."

"Linz. That's not gonna work. You'll oversleep."

"Do you have any other suggestions? I've been awake for thirty-six hours, Rune. I will fall asleep. I've got six alarms set on my phone, two alarm clocks in my room, and my next-door neighbor who gets up for work at four is gonna pound on the wall when she wakes up for her shift."

"You're a nutter, babe,” I said, sounding like a demented version of Shrek.

“You're not Scottish, so you don't get to call me a nutter."

"Fine, you're a fucking lunatic."

"Better."

"I gotta go," I said. "I need to get ahold of Duncan and figure out somewhere for Raquel and Hamish to stay tonight."

"Tell you what, though, that boy is earning his BJs."

I glared at her. "Sex is not transactional, Lindsey.”

She rolled her eyes. "No, it's not. But B-Js do make an excellent boyfriend motivator. Offer a boy some head and he'll do just about anything you ask."

"But then you have to follow through," I pointed out. "And isn't that a little manipulative?"

She shrugged. "Maybe? Only if he thinks so. I did it with Damian, once. The man was not motivated to help around the apartment, so I used that to motivate him. I made him that offer—do some cleaning so the apartment isn't a disaster when I get back from work, and I’ll blow you. Let me tell you, Rune, I got back from work that night, and that apartment was spotless. Spotless, I tell you. That boy cleaned his skinny ass off."

"And?"

"And I sucked his soul out through his dick, because I didn't have to vacuum or do the dishes or anything when I got home. He even did laundry. You know how I am."

I did—she was fastidious to the point of obsession. She hated mess, despised clutter, and loathed doing laundry. She would come home from class or work and be dead tired, but she'd spend an hour or two cleaning because she just couldn’t relax with a mess. And to Lindsey, anything out of place or even slightly dirty was a disaster—there was no middle ground between clean and filthy. It worked for us when we roomed together, because my parents are both equally obsessed with cleanliness, so I tended to be pretty neat.

"Did that become an ongoing thing?" I asked.