Lick Is A Four-Letter Word (18 page)

“I
don’t think they wanted the phone. They wanted to find out where Felicity
lived.”

Felicity’s
heart gave a hard thump. She sat down in the rickety folding chair Josh had
dragged out of the corner for her. “Shit.”

“Your
address isn’t listed, is it?” Josh asked.

She
shook her head. “No. Peter always insisted that we keep our address private.
Phone numbers, too.” She shrugged. “I saw no reason to change that after he
died.” She licked her lips, mouth suddenly dry. “There’s something in that box.
Something he never told me about.”

“I’m
afraid so,”
Troy
said.

“Why
would they attack me? Why not just break into the house after they found out
where I lived?” Felicity rubbed her face again. God, she was tired, and it was
only mid-afternoon.

Troy
lifted a shoulder. “Who knows? Maybe they thought you knew something.”

Felicity
kicked at a piece of broken tile on the floor, abruptly so angry she couldn’t
think straight. “Damn Peter for this,” she muttered.

Troy
crouched down, taking her hand. “Did he say anything to you? Before he died?”

She
shook her head. “He never talked about work with me. When I asked, all he’d say
was work was fine or boring or whatever. It bugged me, but not enough to make a
stink over it. He was an accountant.”

“Let’s
go through the box. Maybe the answer will be inside,” Josh said.

She
nodded. “Go ahead.”

He slid
it over to the edge of the bench.
“You sure?”

“Yeah.
I’d rather you went through
it, actually.” She didn’t want to touch Peter’s things. She wanted this to all
be over. She wanted to go back to bed and forget any of this had ever happened.
“I’m still pissed that the cops detained the two of you.”

Troy
stroked a finger over her palm. “We expected it.”

“That
doesn’t make it right.”

He
shrugged. “Josh used to get pulled over all the time on the highway.
Racial profiling.
They’d ask him questions about drugs and
how fast he was driving, then they’d let him go.”

She
stared at him, shocked.
“Seriously?
That’s awful. Did
that happen to you?”

He
nodded.
“Once or twice.”
He snorted. “I know better
than to act belligerent with the police. You keep your mouth shut and you act
polite and maybe things will be okay.
If you’re lucky.”

“I had
no idea,” Felicity said, still trying to understand.

“We’re
not white. That’s the way the world works.”
Troy
sounded nonchalant about it, but
Felicity sensed an undercurrent of frustration in his voice.

“You
talk just like me. You design video games, for God’s sake. So does Josh.” She
wanted to hit something, as if that would make the world more sensible.

“Our
moms raised us. They’re white. But I can talk smack with the best of them,”
Josh said, pulling on the upper flap of the box.

Troy
made a disparaging noise. “You couldn’t talk smack if your life depended on
it.”

“
Yo
mama is so ugly she makes onions cry,” Josh said in a
serious voice.

Felicity
snorted.

“If my
mama heard you say that about her she’d smack you upside your head, dumbass,”
Troy
retorted.

Josh
gave his friend the finger.

Felicity
smiled. They were ridiculous, but she loved them. She froze.
Oh my God, this
is more than just a crush, isn’t it? It’s more than maybe-falling-in-love
,
she thought, incredulous. The men were still trading jokes, laughing as though
nothing had happened, but she felt as though the floor had dropped out from
under her.
Which is impossible because I’m in the
basement.

“Felicity,
come here a sec,” Josh called while she was still trying to absorb the
implications of what she’d just realized.

“Felicity?”
Troy
nudged her leg.

“Yeah,
okay,” she said, standing up. Her brain whirled with questions—
What
was she going to do about this? Should she
tell them?
—but Josh was already holding out his hand to her, something
silver and flat in his palm.

“Is
that what I think it is?” she asked.

Troy
nodded. “It’s a flash drive.”

When
she heard the front door slam closed and her mother call out to her from the
foyer, she knew she was well and truly screwed.

Chapter
Eleven

Felicity
was pissed. The day she realized she’d fallen in love again didn’t turn out to
be a wonderful, happy day. No, she got to deal with her mother’s hysterics,
discovering that her dead husband had probably lied to her, and oh yeah, having
her boyfriends almost arrested for saving her from being beaten up.

 
“Mom, please, could you just calm down?”
Felicity rubbed her forehead, trying to will her headache away. Her glasses
were already smudged from where she’d bumped them before, but she didn’t care
anymore. She didn’t need to see her mother clearly, anyway.

“No, I
will not calm down, Felicity. You’re telling me that you were attacked on your
front lawn and that your boyfriends saved you?” She leaned into the table.
“Boyfriends.
Plural.
Are you crazy?
Why couldn’t you just find some nice man and settle down? Have a few kids?” Her
mother sat back in her chair at the kitchen table, arms crossed over her chest.
Her dyed-too-dark brown hair bounced as she shook her head at her daughter.

Felicity
glared at her. She didn’t much enjoy dealing with her mother on a good day, and
today wasn’t even close to good.
“Mom, seriously.
You’re making my head hurt. And
Troy
and Josh are both very good men. They helped me a lot, especially this
morning.”

“They’re
not like us, Felicity. Going out with them is only going to bring you grief.”
Her mother put on her best prune-faced expression.

No
wonder my dad asked for a divorce
, Felicity
thought, not for the first time.

“Mom,
you can’t paint the whole world ugly just because your life sucks,” she said
aloud. She didn’t address the bigotry that tinged her mother’s words,
preferring to dodge that particular problem for now. She had no intention of
even mentioning it tonight. She knew her mother had issues and she couldn’t fix
them, not today.
Probably not ever.

“The
police detained them!” Her mother’s blue eyes, so like her own, were wide with
anger. “You know as well as I do that means something.”

“Mom,
for God’s sake, it does not. The police were wrong to do that and I made sure
to lodge a complaint about it. Josh and
Troy
protected me. I don’t know what I would’ve done if they hadn’t been here.”
Felicity took a sip of her water.
There. Chew on that, Mom.

“My God, Felicity,” her mother said, aghast.
“I knew it was taking you too long to get over Peter’s death. This
proves it. You need to go out some, meet some people.
Normal
people.”

“Here
you go Ms.
Rinne
.”
Troy
set a glass of water down in front of
Felicity’s mother, hard. Water sloshed in the glass. He pulled out the chair
next to Felicity and slung his arm along her shoulders, smiling innocently
across the table.

Felicity
almost choked on her water at the look of mulish calm on his face. “Hey, you
guys okay with staying over tonight?” She knew she shouldn’t ask, but she
didn’t want to be alone. Not tonight.

He
nodded. “Josh will be back any minute now with some stuff. You called into
work?”

“Yeah.
My boss is okay with me taking
the day off tomorrow.” She sighed, sitting back against his arm. She was
grateful for any comfort he cared to offer. “I’m really tired.” She
was
tired, but she also wanted to take a look at the flash drive they’d found. Her
mother had interrupted them before they’d had time to plug it into her laptop.

“Felicity—”
her mother began, pushing her water glass away from her with a finger. “Now
you’re skipping work?”

Felicity
narrowed her eyes at her mom. “I’m a big girl. I get sick days and everything.”
She was starting to lose her patience.

“Ms.
Rinne
, it’s getting late,”
Troy
said. “Why don’t I walk you to your
car?”

Felicity
choked back a laugh at his not-too-subtle attempt to get her mom the hell out
of the house. “Yeah, Mom, you have to work tomorrow. You need your sleep.”

Her
mother scowled at her. “Felicity, if you keep at it with these—” She broke off,
clearly not willing to call
Troy
or Josh names when one of them was sitting right in front of her. “If you keep
it up, I won’t be calling.”

Felicity
felt nothing but relief at the thought. She loved her mother, but the woman had
always been difficult. After Peter died, it was her father who’d really helped
her through the grief. “If that’s how you feel, I can’t stop you, Mother.”
Felicity knew it was only a matter of time before her mom broke down and
called. She’d done this before. The longest she’d managed to leave Felicity
alone was three weeks.

Her
mother stood abruptly, making the chair scrape unpleasantly across her kitchen
tile.
“Fine.”

“Felicity,
you don’t have to do this,”
Troy
said in a low voice so her mother wouldn’t hear.

She
weaved her fingers through his so he couldn’t get up. “You know the way out,
Mom.”

Her
mother gave her a long look, then grabbed her purse and walked to the stairs.
She paused there and turned back to
Troy
,
just as the front door opened. “You hurt my daughter and I’ll report you,” she
said, pointing at him. “And you, too.” She twisted around to glare at Josh.

Troy
stood up, shaking Felicity’s fingers off his arm. “I would never hurt
Felicity,” he said, voice hard. “Neither would Josh. We would give our lives
for her.”

Felicity
struggled to her feet and put a hand on his back. His muscles were tight with
anger. Her ankle gave a throb of sympathy.

Her
mother nodded sharply,
then
clomped down the stairs,
rudely pushing past Josh to get outside. Josh stared at them, then watched as
her mother walked to her car, got in, and drove away. Only then did he shut the
door.

Felicity
sighed and sat back down. “Don’t let her get to you.”

“Jesus,
Felicity. You grew up with her?”
Troy
started pacing.

She
shook her head. “My dad and her divorced when I was ten. He got full custody. I
saw her on weekends and holidays.” She tipped her head back and watched the
ceiling fan slowly rotate.
“Seriously.
Don’t let her
bother you. I make my own decisions and she knows that.”

“What
just happened?” Josh asked, coming into the kitchen. He dropped two leather
duffle bags at the top of the stairs.

“My
mother insulted me, then she insulted you and
Troy
, and then she threatened to stop
speaking to me. Frankly, I was happy to hear the last bit. I can’t deal with
her calling me all the time right now. This will give me a breather for at
least a little while.” She grabbed her water and sucked down the cool liquid.

“Maybe
we shouldn’t stay with you tonight, if it means your mother won’t speak to
you,”
Troy
offered.

Felicity
looked at his face. He didn’t want that, she could tell. Neither did
she
. “No, I want you to stay. She’s done this to me before.
I give her three weeks, tops, before she caves in and calls me.”

“I
thought my Aunt Min was a pain, but she’s nothing like this,” Josh said,
sitting down.

“Not
cool, Josh,”
Troy
said. Josh looked startled for a second, then apologetic.

Felicity
sighed. “
It’s
okay,
Troy
. My mom is
not
a nice person.
I’ve known this for a long time.” She turned to Josh. “And I love your Aunt
Min. She’s adorable.”

“Adorable, ugh.
You can’t be
serious?” Josh made a face.