"Holy hell." Kristy groaned as she sat in front of her vanity mirror.
Purples and yellows decorated the delicate skin just under her eyes thanks to broken blood vessels. Scowling at the bottle of coverup she kept mainly for concealing Mac marks she didn't relish the idea of putting the cakey substance on her face.
'Looks like I'm going out Tina Turner style.' she thought after the slight weight of her sunglasses proved too much for the bridge of her sensitive nose to bear.
Putting effort into the rest of her appearance in an attempt to make up for the self inflicted atrocities under her eyes was a last ditch effort. She knew Mac just loved it when she did herself up, pride practically rolling off him in smug waves when they were seen together in public.
"Les go goddamnit, we aint got all day!" Mac hollered as he made his way to the bedroom to find her releasing her last curl from its scorching cylinder.
"Rush me and this is going up your ass." she snarled, waving the curling iron at him while opening the hair clamp wide to demonstrate what would happen inside his tight little cavity.
After a wince he walked away muttering something along the lines of "Sick bitch." leaving her to prowl her closet for something to wear. Settling on a cream baby doll style sundress with eyelet lace detailing she paired it with the same sky high wedges that had made last week's still intoxicated adventure to the grocery store a nightmare.
Rather than have it drop Mac had to clench his jaw when she pranced out into the living room. The short dress combined with platforms made her perforated legs look a mile long. Reminiscing on how those legs had felt wrapped around his hips earlier that morning had him hardening in his jeans. Until his eyes traveled up past the full bust accentuated by crossed arms to the glowering face watching him.
"You said let's go, let's go! Quit gawking like a teenage boy looking at his first nudie mag." she taunted, turning quickly on her heel to make the loose skirt of the dress flair out and give him a teasing view of her light pink lace panties.
Not caring to be burdened by a purse and not trusting her slightly blurred eyesight she slipped a wad of cash and the car keys into the hand that wasn't preoccupied with trying to snake under the hem of her dress.
"Quit it, we've got things to do." she hissed, pushing his wandering fingers away for the sixth time as she tried to make her way to the door.
"How bout we jus ferget tha whole thing, tell em all ta fuck off an spend tha day fuckin'." Mac suggested, capturing her hips and grinding his hardness up against her ass.
Kristy leaned back into him, allowing him to bury his face in her neck, inhaling her clean scent, the scruff on his chin tickling her skin. She thought about it for a moment, picturing a day filled with sex on every flat surface in her house and some that weren't. As apposed to a day filled with stress, people, and cooking.
"You are more tempting than the devil himself Mac." she muttered, shivering when his tongue traced the length of her nape.
"But I'm going to have to decline and keep my soul for another time." she joked, slipping away from him only to be yanked right back, almost knocking her off her feet.
"Yer soul's already mine. Alla you is." he growled lowly in her ear, making her almost sigh in frustration at the domineering phrase.
He was stuck on that like a dog with a bone and it was the one thing she wasn't willing to give him.
"No. I'm not, Mac." she growled back, elbowing him in the ribs to get away. "I belong to myself." she corrected him, making her grand escape out the back door, effectively smacking it into his glaring face.
Mac decided to let the subject drop on account of Devon and Regina making their way up the drive, pausing to talk to the pretty terror he called his while he slammed the door shut and stomped his way to the vehicle.
"Should I even ask?" Devon inquired, eyeing the dark bags under her orbs.
"I fell." Kristy replied, a small smile appearing on her face at the irony of the response, a typical go-to for battered women but the gods honest truth in her case.
Ignoring Devon's scrutinizing gaze she turned her attention to Regina whom was still clad in the purple gown she'd gifted.
"Did Devon feed you yet Reggie?" she questioned, raising her hand to silence the little shit when he tried to answer for her.
A slight shake of Regina's sandy blond head in the negative sent Kristy's raised hand smacking into the back of Devon's head.
"There's leftover scrambled eggs and bacon in a pan on the stove." she informed them, shaking her head in contempt at Mac's brother before climbing into the Denali.
"And use the sunscreen on the counter Devon, she's going to get burnt!" she screeched from the passengers seat as they pulled away, unable to see the hateful expression on Devon's face.
"You grab the barbecue sauce for the pulled pork while I get the peaches for the cobbler." Kristy instructed, only to be roughly yanked back next to Mac before she got even two feet away.
"Ya aint goin' nowhere with yer boyfran on tha loose." he commanded, ignoring the stares his manhandling earned them from fellow shoppers.
"First Adam, now you too huh?" she huffed, throwing a bag of sour cream and onion chips in the cart.
"I don't understand this conspiracy about me having a boyfriend everyone seems to have stuck in their heads. I'm firmly single." she insisted, pushing the cart ahead in search of pickles, Mac's presence following close behind her.
"Watchu mean?" he gruffly demanded, almost crashing into her when she stopped abruptly in front of the dill spears.
"He assumed that you are my boyfriend, I set the record straight." she elaborated, placing her selected jar in the buggy.
"Shoulda told em I am." Mac scowled, the words slipping out before he could stop them.
Kristy froze in place aside from the shocked expression coming to her discolored face.
"You're not- we're not- it's not like that between us. We're not…a couple." she clarified after slowly turning to face him, her stomach clenching up in knots.
He wanted to argue that as far as surfer boy knew, they were. But the image of the whore's mangled corpse he'd defiled last night flashed through his mind. 'S' it cheatin' if tha bitch was dead?'
"Could be." he muttered, turning his attention to picking at a scab on his arm to keep from having to look at Krystal, not realizing he'd spoken aloud to answer his internal question.
"We are not having this conversation in front of the pickles!" she scoffed, trying to push down the panic and bile rising up in her throat, smacking his hand away from the bleeding dot.
She never thought this issue would arise with Mac of all men, they just weren't the type of people to be coupley.
They were grocery shopping together, they slept together at night, ate three square meals a day together. Lived together. 'Fuck. Are we a couple?'
'I'm sure he's been fucking other women.' she thought sourly, moving to the produce section with him trailing a little further behind. She wished the subject of their 'arrangement' had never been breached, surprised at how pissed off the thought of him being with someone else made her.
'We don't cuddle outside of sleep, we don't kiss or hold hands or show any public displays of affection.' she continued, examining a peach as she thought, only to have it drop from her grasp when Mac buried a hand in her curls, forcing her face to his.
"Wha-" she gasped when she pulled a centimeter back from his mouth, only to have her question cut off by his tongue.
She found herself going with it, returning his uncharacteristically tender kiss. Getting lost in the sour flavor of his mouth anc wrapping her arms around his neck. Nails scraping along his scalp the way he liked, extracting a shiver from him.
An insistent throat clear made Kristy pull back, arms sliding down to rest on Mac's work shirt covered chest, his possessive arms not moving from their place encircling her waist. She was looking up at him with heavily lidded eyes, an almost dazed expression on her face. One that made him smirk, even more so-when another throat clear was heard. Her head snapped in the direction of the noise, her brain fighting to function as it registered the sight of Adam watching them. The showy kiss made sense now.
"Beat it." Mac snapped, fingers digging into the material of her dress as though he was scared the other man would snatch her from his arms.
"May I have a word?" Adam asked politely while pointedly looking at Kristy, trying to keep the jealousy and disgust from his expression.
"Fuck no." came a growled answer from Mac, making Kristy scowl up at him.
"You do not answer for me, I'm not Regina." she hissed lowly, glaring at him before she switched her expression to a reassuring one.
"Let me deal with it. Once and for all." she urged with a pat to his chest before lightly pushing away from him.
Mac let her go but not without a hard smack to the ass that made her jump and an elderly lady down the isle gasp.
Following Adam a little ways away she could already see what was coming when he eyed her bruises.
"Look don't even start, you need to leave me alone." she told him, crossing her arms. They hadn't seen each other since the party, which he'd left shortly after Mac had attached himself to her side.
"Why, because he'll take it out on you?" he asked with real concern before looking in Mac's direction, making her give him a hefty eye roll.
Kristy began walking back to the thoroughly pissed off man in discussion, not wanting to deal with any of this on top of everything else she had to do today. When she felt a hand wrapping around her arm she saw Mac start moving forward, nostrils flaring, ready to gut the idiot touching what he saw as his woman.
"Because I'm not interested." she declared, yanking her arm away before spinning around to back him into a pile of cabbage, jamming her arm along his throat and using all her weight to hold him down.
"I don't want to be your girlfriend, I don't want to fuck you, and I don't want to be your friend." she snarled in his face, adding pressure when he tried to say something.
"No, you need to listen. Because next time you bother me you're going to end up seriously injured or worse." she promised, stating the first true thing she'd ever told him.
"Don't talk to me, don't even so much as look at me anymore. Do I make myself clear?" she shouted with an insane gleam in her eye that downright scared him, taking her arm off his throat only when he nodded his head vigorously.
With one of her many daunting tasks of the day completed she strutted back to the cart, smacking Mac on the ass victoriously as she passed, resuming her procuring of peaches.
"Do we understand why we do not pet the bumblebees Regina?" Kristy drawled flatly as she wrapped a band-aid over the finger she'd just spent the better part of half an hour digging a stinger out of.
She felt like she was playing babysitter to a bunch of children. What with Mac attempting to drown Devon in the pool and Regina trying to catch herself a pet bee.
'Walter better get his ass up here and get his kids under control before I put everyone in permanent, irreversible, time out.' she thought while digging frozen sugar water contained in a plastic pouch from the freezer.
She sent Regina back outside with an ice-pop in hand, ready to get back to cooking, extremely over playing mommy.
The rest of the day went without incident. Everyone enjoying dinner and fun in the sun like they weren't murdering, incestual, drug manufacturers and distributors. Too wrapped up in getting everything accomplished she never noticed the resentful looks Devon threw their way every time her and Mac were near each other or just the spiteful glowers he was shooting in Mac's direction in general.
When it came time to gather round the fire pit Kristy changed into a simple black tee and shorts, not wanting to get ashes and soot on the dress. Smores were made to indulge Regina and liquor was broken out to treat the rest of the group.
As the night wore on Devon drank more and more, quickly becoming trashed. Watching from across the fire with contempt as Mac and Kristy leaned against each other on a log and took turns feeding each other shots of whiskey. Stealing a quick intoxicated kiss here and there when they thought no one was looking.
Upon returning from tucking Regina in for the night down at the motel, which included padded shackles. Devon caught the tale end of Mac ranting about how sick what he was doing with his sister was.
"Lil da yew know yer fuckin' yer own ssister too ya piece a sssshit." Devon slurred, pointing an unsteady finger at the two sitting next to each other before falling over in the dirt.
Making Walter cover his face in shame at his drunken idiot of a son and a simultaneous "What!?" come from Mac and Kristy.