Page 127 of Ruthless Creatures

“But they were supposed to be protecting you!”

She scoffs. “You never know when one of those idiots is going to decide his honor has been insulted and start spraying bullets at everyone in sight. Plus, if someone other than Stavros decided to get handsy, I had to be able to tell him why that wouldn’t be such a good idea in a language he’d understand. The barrel of a gun shoved against a man’s balls gives him a pretty clear explanation.”

She’s amazing, this girl. I freaking love her.

“Where’d you get the gun?”

She starts to pour again, filling her glass, then mine. “I stole it from Stavros.”

“Stoleit?”

She makes a face. “It’s not like he’ll notice. The boys had weapons lying all over the place the way people leave out dishes of candy for guests.”

“Wow. That must’ve been some cruise.”

Her smile is small and mysterious. She pulls up a chair beside me and sits. “Someday, I’ll tell you all about it. But right now, I need to hear the dirty details about what you’ve been up to with that beautiful monster, King Kong Kage. And start with the butt sex.”

My cheeks flush. “What makes you think there was butt sex?”

Considering me for a moment in silence, she tilts her head. Her small smile grows wider. “You’ve got that anal afterglow.”

I stare at her for a beat. “That’s not even a thing.”

“It’s totally a thing.”

“You’re making it up! Nobody glows because they had anal sex!”

With a straight face, she says, “Sure they do. It’s from the phosphorescent glands in your sphincter. Why do you think my complexion is so great?”

I look at the ceiling and heave a sigh.

“Okay, fine, killjoy. Don’t tell me about your amazing anal sex. But youhaveto tell me one thing.”

“What?”

Resting her elbows on the table, she leans closer and lowers her voice. “He’s hung like a Clydesdale, isn’t he?”

It’s my turn to smile mysteriously.

She gasps in outrage and slaps her open palm on the tabletop. “You twat! You can’t keep that to yourself!”

When I only sip my wine and keep smiling, she glowers at me.

“If you don’t start talking, I’ll shoot you with this gun in my boot. I swear, I will.”

“No, you won’t.”

“Give me one good reason.”

“I kept that picture of you from when you first got your braces on when you were fifteen. Remember how that was during your mohawk and black lipstick phase, when you wanted to run away and join the circus to be an emo clown? And you’d been experimenting with facial piercings? You had such cute freckles then, too.”

She says flatly, “You know those were zits. And it was a punk contortionist, not a fucking emo clown. And you told me you threw that photo out!”

I sigh dreamily, as if lost in good memories. “I lied. But I’m sure the local paper wouldloveto feature a throwback pic of the third runner-up in the Miss Tahoe contest of 2014—”

“2015.”

“—in the Lifestyle section. You’re such a popular yoga teacher in this area. How many Instagram followers do you have now? Four thousand?”