*disclaimer: I do not own the Southern Vampire Series or any of the characters featured below. All rights belong to Charlaine Harris.
"When the rain washes you clean... you'll know"
Stevie Nicks
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When I awoke the next morning, I was still aroused. I blinked a few times, adjusting myself to the blinding daylight, and then squeezed my eyes shut, smothering my face with the pillow. I tried to recover the dream, but to no avail. I sighed heavily and reluctantly climbed out of bed, making my way to the bathroom and turning the shower on cold. I shuddered as I drew back the curtain and readied myself. I hated cold water, but for the first time in my life, I welcomed it.
When I was toweling myself off, I saw everything was still in its place on the sink. No remnants of my mind-blowing sexual fantasy with Eric existed. While I was brushing my teeth at the sink, I just kept staring in the doorway. I rinsed my teeth four times, each time raising my head back to the spot where he'd been in my dreams. It was broad daylight so it was a stupid thing to do, but I couldn't stop myself. I mentally slapped myself for my ridiculousness and went about my morning ritual, blocking the image from my mind. I blow-dried my hair and put on my fluffy blue robe and then headed downstairs for a very stiff cup of coffee.
"Hey sleepyhead," Amelia greeted me, as I shuffled into the kitchen from where she sat at the table in front of a bowl of macaroni and cheese.
"Morning," I said numbly.
"Well, it's not exactly morning anymore," she said with her eyes darting to the microwave.
I followed her gaze to the digital clock on the microwave screen. It was two o'clock in the afternoon. I just shook my head at my new tardy streak and poured myself a cup of coffee that had to have been hours old, and joined her at the table.
"Did you get a hold of any witches?" I asked, taking a sip of my lukewarm bitter coffee.
"Yeah, one," she said, sounding frustrated, "I called Octavia, but she can't make it back that soon. So I called Bob," she said with false nonchalance.
"You called Bob?" I said in disbelief and nearly dropped my mug.
"Yeah, yeah, I called Bob," she said as she waved her hand dismissively, "I called about fourteen other people first, but he was the only one who could get here this quickly. Trust me, it was a last resort, and he wouldn't have agreed to it if it wasn't for you."
"Thanks," I said genuinely. They didn't leave off on the best terms, so I knew that was a big stretch for her to do. "And thanks for covering for me at Merlotte's last night."
"No problem, "she said with a smile, "Would you like me to again today?" she asked, as she shoveled a forkful of cheesy noodles into her mouth.
"No, I need to go in," I said tiredly. "My petty cash is getting a little low, and people will get suspicious if I miss two days in a row." Both of which were true, neither of which I liked.
"Alright," she said, momentarily knitting her brows together in concern and then relaxing. "I gotta take off. Tray's picking me up any minute now for ride on his Harley and I need to do some last minute primping," she said cheerfully. And when she stood from her chair, my mouth gaped open. Normally she was an L.L. Bean kind of girl, but not today. Today she was wearing ripped micro mini daisy-dukes, calf-high snakeskin cowboy boots and one of the really tight shirts you get from the mall with an ironic statement (that I almost never understood) on the front. It looked all the more outlandish with her thin pale limbs and her suburban mom haircut.
"Broadway, what the heck are you wearing?" I said, as I began to giggle. She took a spin for me to get a three-hundred-and-sixty degree view of her getup. "And what the heck does your shirt say? What's a fizzy wibble?" I asked, and she grinned from ear to ear.
"Wouldn't you like to know?" she said, still beaming like the Cheshire Cat. And then an image flashed in her mind of her and Tray in bed doing what I could only surmise to be a "fizzy wibble."
"Holy mackerel," I said, astonished and a little impressed.
"Oh yeah," she said and started laughing.
"Well, I was gonna have some mac and cheese, but I think my appetite is gone now," I said, eyeing her bowl with distaste.
"Oh, lighten up, Sookie," she said chidingly, as she grabbed her bowl and rinsed it in the sink.
Just then my mind tickled just a little bit, like a feather brushed my temporal lobe. I sat still for a moment trying to pick up the source of the disturbance, then I heard a car door slam out front.
"That must be Tray," Amelia said, placing her bowl in the drying rack. "Later Sook," she said and practically skipped her way to the front door. I sat very still in my chair, trying to tune in to the outside. Amelia had said Tray was coming on his motorcycle, not a car, and I was feeling more than one presence. I heard her swing the front door open wide at the exact same time I registered exactly who was in my driveway.
"Oh, shit," we both blurted out loud simultaneously.
She must have heard me, too, because she didn't beckon me to come see our visitors. I raised myself from my chair very slowly and headed to the front of the house to join Amelia. She stood in the opened doorway, vibrating with anger. There was a small head behind the wheel of a brand new silver BMW, parked in the driveway right behind Eric's red corvette, and a man standing at Eric's driver-side door fumbling with a ring of keys and key fobs. I started to walk towards the car, and Amelia grabbed my arm. I spun around and she gave me a look of warning, but I returned her look with one that had to have been something close to pure evil. She recoiled back from my glare and looked more worried than ever.
"It's alright, Amelia. I can handle this," I said reassuringly.
I strode swiftly and silently in my bare feet up to the medium-height slender man that was sorting through the largest collection of keys and doodads I'd every seen on a single key ring. He was the same size as Bill, but leaner and lankier. He had the kind of perfectly spiked frosted blond hair you could only achieve from thirty minutes of strategic placement and a jar of pomade. I got right up to the side of the car, standing just inches away, when he registered my presence. He looked up at me with a wide-eyed stare, like a deer caught in headlights. He was handsome with a clean shaven face, but he had a piercing in his eyebrow and his ripped jeans and worn band T-shirt indicated this was someone who considered himself edgy. Not Claude's usual type I thought to myself.
"Hi, Jon," I said abruptly, involuntarily giving him my signature grin that reeked of mental instability. He got visibly more nervous, and I started feeling a little guilty for my aggressive approach.
"You must be Sookie," he said unsteadily. "Nice to meet you." He bobbed his head in greeting. He'd thought I was gone at work for the day. He'd thought the Malibu was my roommates, but Amelia's car was actually parked out back. He'd thought the coast was clear.
Nope.
"Nice to meet you too," I said, matching his brief head bob. "How are Eric and Claude?" I asked smugly. This was definitely a loaded question, and maybe I was being unfair, but his nervousness was confirming he knew exactly what I meant. His mind was a small scramble, and I decided to cut to the chase. I wasn't after him.
"Why don't you ask your friend to get out of the car?" I asked, again with a Prozac smile. He just looked at me for several moments, and I could almost hear the beats of his heart. His mind clicked yes, no, yes, no, yes, no, and mostly what the hell did I get in to? He really liked his job—and he was falling in love with Claude—so he decided it wasn't worth any grandstanding or bravery on his part. He turned his head back to the silver BMW with its ignition still humming—just fifteen or so feet away in my driveway.
"Selah!" he called out to the brunette bobblehead behind the wheel of the ostentatious silver car.
I stepped around him and got closer to the car for a better view. The door opened slowly, and I watched her get out of the car. She was wearing an all-black skirt suit against her orangey spray-tanned skin and more accessories than any woman should wear with a single outfit. She made her way to the front of the car slowly—with an irritated look on her face—and stopped a few feet away, sticking out one leg and crossing her arms defiantly.
"What do you want, Sookie?" she snapped. I heard the car door to the Corvette open and close behind me, then the ignition turned over. I guess Jon was taking cover.
"Good to see you, too, Selah," I said and crossed my arms as well. Her hair was about six inches longer than it was the last time I saw her—she'd gotten extensions. To go along with her fake nails, fake boobs, and pancake makeup face, I thought to myself. I could see in her mind she hated me—I mean hated me—but it didn't bother me, because the feeling was mutual. She was thinking that I was white trash, and she had no idea what either Bill or Eric saw in me. Especially Eric. She thought I must be some kind of lay for these men to even care about me, because I was average and uneducated. Stupid hick, she said to herself. Then she carelessly flipped her hair back, and I saw she was wearing an identical pair of topaz earring to the ones Bill had given me. I felt my face flush red, not because of Bill, but because that one trinket made me feel as insignificant as she was. Like I was just another fangbanger. And that pissed me off. My skin boiled, and I began fantasizing about winding my hand around her horse hair and socking her one good time in the nose or getting in my car and running her over like Sigebert and...
"Ow, freak!" she flinched and grabbed her head with both hands. "Stay the hell out of my head, psycho!" she shrieked. I was confused for a moment, but then I realized I'd been focusing my seething anger on her so intensely it must have penetrated into her mind somehow. I smiled slyly at my unintentional achievement.
"Gladly. It's a bad neighborhood in there anyway. Like the red-light district at around midnight." Take that, hooker.
"Screw you, you freak," she said venomously. Then she peered up at me from underneath her hair, as she had still been cradling her head. Then she straightened up, closing her eyes and placing her index fingers on both sides of her temples. I furrowed my brow in puzzlement, but in a split second I was positively paralyzed. I was seized with flashing images: Eric and Selah on the couch in his office, Eric and Selah on his desk, Eric and Selah in the front seat of his car. I lurched forward, clutching my stomach, and I almost threw up on the spot.
"Get off my property," I hissed. She opened her eyes and smiled smugly.
"That's what you get for playing around in other people's heads," she said, sounding pleased with herself.
"Does he pay your pimp or are you still cash on the nightstand only?" I asked condescendingly, trying to mask my trembling. Her mouth gaped open, and she was truly affronted.
Good.
"If he did pay for it, it'd be worth every penny," she retorted sneeringly. I wanted to reach out and slap her, but I was raised better than that. I'm not gonna get in a cat fight over a man, I told myself fervently.
"You've got until I get back with my shotgun to be off my property, and don't you ever come back," I warned in a cold voice and then spun on my heels, heading for my house.
I heard her engine start and gravel crunching under wheels as they backed out. When my foot hit the first stair on my way up the porch, I heard a toot-toot and I turned around. Selah was waving her hand at me mockingly, with a smile. I looked in the Corvette and saw Jon very anxiously trying to back out, almost touching his back bumper to hers. I saw the two cars together, and it upset me more. Two fancy luxury cars that would look just perfect together in the driveway of some fancy house. I ran up the rest off the stairs and blew past Amelia upstairs to my bedroom and flopped face down on my bed. Amelia was right behind me.
"What was that about?" she asked, stunned by the interaction. She was wondering why Selah was picking up Eric's car and why I was so upset.
"He's screwing her," I said, with my face muffled by my comforter.
"What?" she shouted. I was glad I wasn't the only one who had that reaction. I started at the beginning and told her everything I knew about the situation. I told her in detail about everything that had happened the night before with his visit. It felt good to get it out. When I was done she looked around the room cluelessly, like the right thing to say to me in this situation was written somewhere on my bedroom furniture.
"But you asked him?" she said finally, reconfirming that detail of my story.
"Yes," I said exhaustedly.
"And did you believe him?" she asked cautiously.
"Yes," I said weakly.
"Well, maybe he is screwing her, but that doesn't mean he cares about her or anything. You only asked him if he was seeing her, not if he was...you know. She's just another fangbanger, and I know he cares about you more than that," she said compassionately, and then she stayed silent in contemplation for a while.
That made some sense, I guess. If she was doing some legal work for him, it was just a matter of convenience. But Selah? He knew the history of that situation quite well and that was just too low, even for him. Maybe he was trying to get me back for my Christmas exploits, but he didn't have to. I'd never felt more regret about anything in my life than about that stupid night. I just wasn't myself that night, and I don't know what I was thinking, other than of my loneliness. And then I had to mentally slap myself again for having this whole conversation in my head. If he was upset, he had no right. He hadn't stepped up to the plate or given me any indication he wanted a relationship. And I rationalized that I should stop moping about Selah because he wasn't mine either.
But for some reason I was still really, really upset.
"So, do you care about him more than that?" Amelia asked very slowly. Sometimes I thought my telepathy was rubbing off on her. That was a heavy question, and I let it settle into my consciousness for while before I attempted to answer it.
Just then the load roar of an engine revving filled the quite room.
"That's Tray, Sook," she said, and gently patted me on the back, "Be good while I'm gone. Do I need to hide the Benelli from you just in case she comes back?" she asked in amusement.
"No," I said simply, "It wouldn't be manslaughter if I shot her on my property," I said and lifted my head giving her a smile.
"Well, at least you've thought it through," she said reasonably, "But that makes me want to hide it even more," she cocked an eyebrow at me in mock suspicion.
"Go on. Go have fun with Tray. I'll see you later," I said, and the engine revved again. She hopped off the bed and bounded down the stairs.
I lay there on my stomach for a while brewing in my own self-pity. And with Amelia gone, it was certainly a full-fledged pity party. Streamers and all—if tears counted as streamers. I collected myself and changed into my work outfit for the day, still trying to sort it all out, when I thought of a way to get some answers. As soon as dark fell, I was determined to talk to Pam.
