Page 45 of Kiss Her Goodbye

Second shrug.“The kids seem happy.I enjoyed their company.”On that note, Daryl grabs his dirty plate and delivers it to the kitchen sink.

I sigh heavily, give up on my own dinner.

“That better not be a comment on my cooking,” Genni informs me, gesturing to my barely touched food.

“No, it’s a comment on what awaits.”

“You are going to call him!”

“I’m not that kind of girl.”

“Honey, we areallthat kind of girl.Give me his number.I’ll do it.”

“Absolutely not!”I snatch my phone up before Genni can make good on her threat.Though deep down, I feel a piece of myself waver.Because the sex was that good?Or his company that comforting?In the middle of the night, he would roll over, wrap his arm around my waist, and pull me tighter against him.The first time he did it, I stiffened in alarm.But as week turned into week…

It felt good to be held close and not because someone needed me, but because he wanted me.

I could’ve stayed.We both knew it.

And yet I couldn’t have stayed.And we both knew that, too.

“I’m going to attempt to feed some snakes,” I murmur.Just in time for my phone to chime with the first message from Bart.

Step one, remove a frozen rat from the freezer…

I sigh heavily and get to it.

I FILL Acoffee cup with steaming hot water, then manage not to vomit while removing Marge’s dinner, a rodent Popsicle, from its vacuum-sealed packaging.

It smells mostly like ice, which helps.As for how it looks once I’ve plopped it into the heated water… My nightmares are going to be particularly vivid tonight.

Petunia has returned from chowing down her salad and is now planted in the middle of the reptile wing corridor, staring at me.

“Any chance you’d like to feed the snakes?”I ask her.Then, remembering: “Oops.Apparently, they’d take that literally and turn you into dinner.Sorry.Though for the record, I hope you’re really appreciating my company right now.”

“Honey, Petunia has a lizard brain.You get that, right?”Genni has her entire six-foot-four self leaning against the kitchen counter.She’s not even pretending to clear the rest of the dishes, just taking in the show.

“Start by delivering thawed rat to the one big snake or byfeeding crickets to the dozen baby snakes?”I ask Genni, since Petunia is no help.

“Have you tried extracting feeder crickets yet?”

“Aren’t they in some box sitting beneath the ball pythons’ terrarium?Just grab with tongs?Deliver one by one to waiting serpents?”

Genni tsks at my naïveté.“They’reshippedin a box, honey.Then Bart dumps them in an aquarium for tending.Can’t feed live crickets if the crickets don’t stay alive.”

I stare at her blankly.Boy Wonder never mentioned any of this, I’m certain.

“Crickets are fed cricket food.Which, between you and me, is ground-up crickets.”

I make a slight gagging sound.

“Also, never give them water—they drown too easily.There’s a pan of green gelatin cricket goo used instead.”

ON CUE, MYphone chimes in rapid succession.Step four, reach into the feeder cricket terrarium and remove the first cardboard egg container…

I swear, then have to quickly read backward.Sure enough, there’s an entire trade craft involved in feeder cricket extraction.Luring crickets into the hollow depressions in cut-up egg cartons, lifting the cardboard piece out carefully before plucking out the intended victim, then offering it to the waiting python baby…

By the time I’m done reading about live cricket distribution, feeding a single semi-thawed rat seems like a much easier proposition.Maybe.