It Happens

by Vale, Lani Lynn

  “True,” I snickered. “You’re just going to have to sleep in your makeup, so your man never knows that you have freckles.”

  She rolled her eyes. “One time just to see how well I could hide them. And you’ll never let me live it down.”

  Turner was a cosmetologist as well as my accountant, manager, and overall go-to girl that one needed when they were running a successful business on their own.

  I, on the other hand, was a mortician.

  Though I could do the makeup and the hair, as well as all that other fun stuff and not so fun stuff that included me being at my desk for more than an hour, I didn’t have the time.

  Not lately, anyway, with my business taking off.

  Ten years ago, I was handed Bear Bottom Funeral Home as a ‘take care of this place. I might have a use for it’ kind of thing from my father. Now, I’d made this place into a successful business that people from all around came to because they liked the aesthetics.

  Though, my business taking off also coincided with a professional football player’s son having his services at my place of business as well. Now everyone in a fifty-mile radius wanted to be buried by me when the time was right.

  “Fuck you,” Turner grumbled. “You never have to put on makeup. That’s your problem. You don’t realize how much it helps the people that need it.”

  Tired of an old argument that always gets us nowhere fast—because telling Turner she was beautiful when she was dead set on thinking she wasn’t was impossible—I changed the subject.

  “How’d your date go last night?” I wondered.

  Turner immediately sighed. “I got pulled over by a police officer and got a ticket before I even got there.”

  “That sucks,” I offered. “Did you at least deserve it?”

  She nodded. “I did. But the cop was a dick.”

  I doubted that.

  “Who was it?” I wondered.

  I knew most of the cops in this county seeing as I knew Ezekiel McGrew, and as much as I tried to avoid the man, I still ended up knowing everybody that he knew.

  “I didn’t get his name. I was late for that date, and I just took the ticket and ran,” she explained.

  “What did he look like?” I asked, bending over to get a better look at the wound on the man’s chest that we were about to start working on.

  “I don’t understand the purpose of embalming,” Turner grumbled. “I mean, what’s the point? They’re going to rot anyway. They’re being buried. What’s the point of preserving them?”

  I looked over at my friend and snorted.

  “Embalming allows people time,” I murmured, poking the wound with my gloved finger. “They can take as much time as they need to plan the funeral, select a burial site, grieve. Whatever they want, it gives them the leeway. And you’re right, they do eventually rot, and some people still choose to bury without embalming because it does cost money.”

  “I want to be cremated.” She paused. “Actually, I want to be put onto a floating pyre, pushed out in the middle of a lake, and have flaming arrows shot at me from the bank. Then I want people to watch my body burn for how ever many hours that it takes.”

  I looked up at my friend. “That’s why we’re friends. I want that, too.”

  Turner grinned, then that grin became calculating.

  “Who did you have sex with last night, Jubilee?”

  My mouth fell open.

  “How do you know that I had sex?” I blurted.

  Too late, I realized my mistake.

  I should’ve denied. If I’d denied, then she might’ve laughed it off and gone on about her business.

  Unfortunately, my knee-jerk reaction had been to blurt out the words instead of thinking about how they would sound when they came out of my mouth.

  “I knew it!” she crowed. “You lost your virginity!”

  So, as I repaired what I could to a wound that was pretty awful, for a used-to-be neighbor that was so annoying that I almost felt nothing as I worked, I told my best friend every sordid detail.

  Only, I left out the part about who it happened with—my worst enemy.

  Hell, she was still trying to get the information out of me two hours later at lunch.

  “Seriously,” she pushed after we picked up our order. “Just give me a hint. Tell me what color his hair is.”

  I downed the rest of my Coca-Cola, picked up a tater tot off the plate, then stood up and tried not to waddle away as I went for a refill.

  It was impossible.

  The longer the day went on, the sorer I got.

  I’d read an article during high school that when you worked out, day three and four post workout were the worst because those were the days that your muscles started to repair themselves.

  Meaning that today, though I might be sore, it wouldn’t be half as bad as two days from now.

  “Are you going to stand there all day contemplating what you’re going to get to drink when we both know you’ll decide to get a Coca-Cola, or should I just go around you?” an amused, not so nice voice asked from behind me.

  I’d been contemplating getting a Coca-Cola, but now I was thinking that I needed to get a Dr. Pepper based on the sheer gall of the man behind me.

  I couldn’t let him know that he was right.

  I also hated the way the delicious shiver ran down my body at hearing his words.

  Clamping down on my out of control libido, I reached forward and started to press my cup underneath the Dr. Pepper, then decided to move it to the Coke. There was no reason in hell I should allow him to dictate what I should drink.

  Anyway, he was right. Fuck him.

  Filling my Coke up while listening to his darkly arousing chuckle behind me, I turned around and glared.

  “Why are you so close to me?” I hissed. “There are these things called personal boundaries. They’re things that society uses so you don’t come off as a creeper to ladies.”

  Ezekiel’s eyes were amused despite my words.

  “I’m close to you because there’s a line behind me and only so much room for said line,” he pointed out.

  There wasn’t a line. There were three old men standing there talking because it was a convenient place to stand and not be completely in the way of everything.

  “Whatever,” I muttered. “Move.”

  Even all these years later, the man never missed an opportunity to give me shit.

  Zee stepped aside, then waved his hand out in front of himself in a sweeping gesture with a flourish. “After you, ma’am.”

  I gave him my best glare as I passed and tried not to limp or show that my vagina felt raw and split in two—it really did hurt. Like seriously. I had no clue that the act of sex would be so painful.

  Maybe that’s because, of what you can remember, Zee is hung like a horse and things that size aren’t meant to go inside the standard female orifices, my inner mind said.

  I didn’t succeed.

  He noticed the hesitancy in my step almost immediately, and his eyes lit.

  He didn’t say anything, though. Instead, he just watched me walk away.

  I felt his eyes on me the entire way to the table.

  And, unable to do anything else, I sat gingerly in my seat knowing damn well and good Zee’s eyes were settled on me.

  “That guy over there was the cop that pulled me over,” Turner said as soon as I sat down.

  My eyes drifted over to the table that Turner had just gestured to with a tilt of her head, and I turned to survey the ‘cop.’

  The cop was Castiel, and my lips twitched.

  “That’s Castiel,” I said. “And don’t bother fighting the ticket. He’s one of those cops that’s a stickler for the rules.”

  “He looks like he would suck in bed,” Turner muttered darkly.

  I doubted that.

  Castiel was a nice guy, despite his need for law and order, but he also struck me as wild. I’d bet he was unin
hibited in bed.

  “Okay, run through the night again for me,” she pushed.

  I sighed and closed my eyes, remembering what I could of that night.

  “I don’t remember much,” I said softly. “I got to drinking at Boone’s Bar, and from there, I remember only bits and pieces.”

  “You remember the good bits and pieces, though,” she jeered. “You told me that his penis was large and in charge.”

  His penis was on the bigger side of normal. In fact, I’d never met a person or a penis, larger and more in charge.

  “It was,” I admitted, stacking one fist on top of the other. “I could grip him with two of my fists and there was still room to spare.”

  She looked at my fists. “Your fists are small. Really small. That’s not that impressive.”

  I grinned.

  That was true.

  “I remember facing him, my thigh in between his thigh, chest to chest. His cock was resting against the inner length of one thigh, the base of him along with his balls resting against me more than halfway down my thigh, and the tip of his cock was nearly touching my…errm…lady bits.” I whispered, feeling my face flush at the remembrance of that moment.

  I was telling the truth when I told her that I couldn’t remember much. I couldn’t. Bits and pieces were flashing through my mind, but I remembered enough that I could tell her that his cock was large, the sex was great, and that the man was rough.

  Oh, and the man’s identity, but I wasn’t going to divulge that information.

  There were some things that you didn’t tell your best friend, and one of those things was that you slept with the man that she was constantly telling you to ‘fuck out of your system.’

  Apparently with the hate that Zee and I felt for each other, we had crazy chemistry. At least, that was what Turner said. She was constantly telling me to ‘fuck him and get it over with already.”

  Anger and hatred equated love to her.

  The more Zee and I fought, the more adamant that Turner became that we were likely meant for each other.

  Little did she know that she was right.

  Zee and I did have some crazy chemistry.

  Unfortunately, she got one thing wrong. There was no way to get Ezekiel McGrew out of my system.

  “Okay, what else?” she pushed.

  By the time I was finished explaining the night—or what I could remember of it—my face was flushed, and I couldn’t help turning my gaze in the direction of the man responsible for all of those dirty deeds.

  “Wow.” Turner fanned her face with a stack of napkins that she’d grabbed. The stack was two inches thick, and there was no way in hell that we’d ever get through them all, yet she always insisted on getting a lot ‘just in case.’ “I feel like I need to put out an ad listing his many attributes just so we can find him for you again. A dick like that deserves a second go around.”

  I swallowed hard and glanced away just as Zee turned his gaze in my direction.

  “Douchebag is looking at you,” Turner murmured.

  I didn’t have to ask who ‘douchebag’ was. I knew who douchebag was. I also knew who ‘pissant’ and ‘dickweed’ as well as ‘fluffernutter’ and ‘Mr. Pooper’ was.

  Turner definitely had a way with words. She also called people names like a ten-year-old child.

  I just loved her so much.

  Turner and I had been friends since we’d arrived in town at the same time.

  Honestly, it was a fluke, really. At first, both of us had been looking at the same apartment about five minutes apart.

  One apartment manager had been showing me the apartment, while the apartment owner had been showing her the apartment.

  I’d been in the bathroom, thinking that the master bath was a piece of shit, when she’d come in saying the same thing about the guest bath.

  I’d laughed as I’d come out of the bathroom to see her sneering at the view, and we’d hit it off. From then on, we’d been best friends.

  We now lived next to each other, the back of her rental house butted up to the back of my rental house, and spent more than a few nights a week hanging out and being more like sisters than best friends.

  Her parents loved me just like mine loved her.

  We’d also spent quite a few nights and days commiserating about ‘douchebag.’

  So yes, I knew exactly who she was talking about when she said it.

  “I hope he chokes on that French fry,” she muttered.

  I looked at her with raised brows. “Threats of violence?”

  She shrugged. “It’s not just him. I hope that the other cop chokes on one, too.”

  I choked on my own French fry, and then gasped for breath, inhaling a portion of it. Moments after that I was coughing up a storm and drawing the attention of not just Zee, but also Castiel as well.

  “Stop it,” Turner hissed. “You’re making them both look at us now.”

  I tried. Really, I did. But it took me a few long minutes to get myself back under control.

  “Jesus,” I wiped my watering eyes. “I almost died.”

  Turner gave me a glare. “You are so full of shit.”

  I took a drink of my Coke and set the glass back down only to wipe my eyes again because tears were still falling.

  “You’re an embarrassment,” she said with a straight face.

  That was when we both started to crack up, and the tears this time weren’t from nearly choking.

  “He’s still watching you, though,” she said once she got herself under control. “Are you going to finish your chicken?”

  I pushed the last piece over to Turner, but just before she could reach for it, a big hand came out of nowhere and snatched it up.

  “Can I have this?” Castiel asked, looking amused.

  Turner snatched it out of his hand and took a vicious bite. “No.”

  Castiel’s brows rose. “Sorry, sorry.”

  I sighed.

  “Castiel, this is my best friend, Turner Hooch.” I waved at Turner with one hand. “Turner, this is Castiel Hendrix.”

  Turner offered him a glare. “Officer Hendrix.”

  “See you hold a grudge,” Castiel muttered. “Have a good one, ladies.”

  Castiel walked away.

  “Why is he talking to you, anyway?” Turner muttered darkly, glaring a hole in Castiel’s back as he made his way to the drink fountain for a refill.

  “I have no idea,” I admitted. “He usually says hi and bye. Sometimes I get the stray ‘how’s it goin’ but other than that, I don’t usually get much out of him. I’m not sure we’re at ‘chicken stealing level’ in our relationship status, either.”

  “It looked like you were about to push it off the table,” Turner admitted. “I honestly feared for the chicken’s life. Therefore, I could see why he’d reach out like that and snatch it up before it fell. But, just sayin’, that’s only because I understand the importance of Mr. Cane’s chicken fingers.”

  I felt a smirk tilting up the corner of my mouth.

  “I wasn’t going to push it off the table,” I said.

  She gave me a sardonic look. “I know that now.”

  Chapter 4

  Life is like a dick. Sometimes it’s up. Sometimes it’s down. Also, it won’t be hard forever.

  -Text from Jubilee to Turner

  Jubilee

  My thoughts raced.

  Out of everyone that I knew, there was only one person that I knew, absolutely, without a doubt knew would be awake at this hour that was less than a half mile away.

  There was no other recourse.

  If I wanted to smell good, I’d have to do it. Especially seeing as I had a freakin’ viewing in less than two hours.

  I pulled up my phone, pressed his number into the keypad—and no, I would not admit that I knew said man’s number by heart—and dialed.

  It rang for all of half a second before he answered. “What?”
/>
  I swallowed hard. “I’m at the track, and I need you to come rescue me.”

  There was a long silence as he processed my words. “Why do you need rescuing?”

  I looked at the family of skunks that had somehow surrounded me while I was stretching. At least I thought they were skunks. Really, they could be black cats with white stripes down their backs, but it was too dark to tell.

  I was only using deductive reasoning at this point.

  “I think that I’m surrounded by a family of skunks, and I don’t know how to get away from them.” I paused. “I also can’t get sprayed. I have the governor’s son’s viewing today. There’s no way that I can go to that smelling like skunk.”

  He sighed and I could hear things rustling in the background. The jingle of keys. The shutting of a door.

  “I’ll be there in five,” he muttered.

  Then he hung up, leaving me in the middle of the track, on my ass, with skunks coming closer and closer from all sides of me.

  How had I managed to do this? Why was it always me that found myself in these kinds of situations?

  The rumble of a diesel engine started in the distance, and I knew that Zee would likely be here in about two minutes, not five.

  I knew the distance it took to drive here from the fire station that he was currently stationed at. Two minutes and thirty seconds. I timed it once.

  Running it took five minutes and three seconds.

  The sound of Zee’s diesel motor came closer and closer, and soon I could hear his exhaust as well as see his headlights.

  I idly wondered why he was in that and not on his motorcycle, but I couldn’t ask him. That would give away that I paid attention to his comings and goings, and I didn’t want him to think that I cared.

  The headlights turned, and suddenly the track where I was sitting was illuminated, and I could definitely see that the alleged skunks were, indeed, skunks.

  There were also five of them, not four.

  I wasn’t sure if they were in spraying distance—was six feet within spraying distance?—but they were too close for comfort.

  When the lights from Zee’s truck hit them, they scrambled backward.

  One even brushed against my leg in his haste to get away, and I felt more than heard the whimper leave my throat.