It Happens

by Vale, Lani Lynn

  She never missed a chance to give me a hard time, either.

  Which I kind of liked seeing as she was protective of her friend.

  I was protective of her friend, too, even though we had a much different relationship than she had with her friend.

  “Solid burn branch,” Castiel muttered.

  I looked over at Cass and blinked, trying not to laugh at him quoting an animated movie, or wondering why he’d even seen that particular movie. “What are you doing here?”

  Castiel and the governor’s son, Rylan Newman, hadn’t gotten along in the least. Rylan was a creepy motherfucker that didn’t miss a chance to share his creepiness with the town.

  Inappropriate to stand too close to someone in line at the grocery store? Rylan did it.

  Odd for Rylan to offer a kid standing by himself at a park some candy? Yep, so fucking Rylan.

  Inappropriate touching every time he talked to a woman? Yeah, that almost got Rylan’s hand ripped off.

  Castiel’s ex-wife, Cher, also happened to be his sister.

  Oh, and the governor happened to be her father.

  “I’m working the case,” he muttered darkly. “I’d rather kill myself.”

  I didn’t doubt that for an instant.

  If there was anyone in this world that you didn’t want to be around, it was Cher. Castiel and Cher got along like oil and water, and if they were within spitting distance that was literally what happened—spit. Because Cher couldn’t stop herself from spewing venom in the form of words at her ex-husband.

  Castiel, for the most part, was fairly civil when it came to Cher. But the moment that Cher started to bring out too much bullshit and fling it at him, it was like he couldn’t help himself. He had to respond.

  “Both Zuri and BJ are here,” I muttered. “I feel your pain.”

  Castiel’s eyes scanned the area much as Jubilee’s had the moment before, then his lips twitched at something he saw.

  “It looks like Jubilee’s trying to sell Zuri a casket.” Castiel grinned. “And the mayor is just playing right into her hand.”

  I snorted.

  “I’m fairly sure Jubilee hates Zuri just as much as Zuri hates Jubilee,” I muttered.

  “I’m not sure why Zuri hates her,” Castiel observed. “It’s not like you and Jubilee have anything going on.”

  That was true. Well, just that one night. I don’t have any feelings for her. I don’t even like her.

  What we did have was a healthy understanding that despite our differences, we’d always be there for each other. I don’t have to like her to watch over her, right?

  Zuri had hated that I looked out for Jubilee. Zuri wanted my utter and total devotion. Something that she’d never get because I owed my loyalty to a lot of people, not just Jubilee.

  However, saying that, I paid a lot closer attention to Jubilee based solely on the fact that I…wanted to.

  There was really no other reason than that.

  “What’s that smell?” Castiel suddenly murmured.

  Before I could answer, the music for the funeral changed.

  “Gotta go,” Castiel said. “I want to sit in the back and watch everyone that comes and goes. If I don’t hurry, those assholes are going to claim my seat.”

  ‘Those assholes’ were actually a couple of elderly gentlemen that were already more than halfway to the seats under question.

  Castiel easily went around them, made it to the seat, and sat in it before the other three men could make it.

  And since there were three of them and there were only two seats available, they had no other choice but to go to the next row up.

  “He’s just as much of an ass as you are,” Jubilee muttered as she walked up to us.

  Before I could respond, she was once again gone, and I was watching her go.

  She stopped to talk to a man that’d been holding the doors open for the entering people, and then departing not just the room, but the building itself.

  Curiosity getting the better of me, I glanced around and wondered if I’d be missed.

  Probably not.

  The viewing had been held the night before, which I’d gone to.

  I’d also made my presence known to the governor and Castiel’s ex-wife, sharing my condolences for a second time in as many days.

  What was the objective of staying at this point?

  Plus, I really, really hated the smell that was still rolling off of me.

  Instead of staying like I probably should have, I walked out of the room just as the man Jubilee had spoken with started to close the doors.

  I nodded at him as I slipped out, and then nodded at an attendant that was directing traffic at the front—there were four other funerals going on at the same time.

  Seemed like it was a popular time to die in Bear Bottom.

  Once I got outside, I glanced around, finding no sign of her.

  Thinking that I should probably just go home instead of looking for the girl that I knew I shouldn’t want but did, I halted on the top steps for a few long seconds.

  Long enough for me to see Jubilee bopping around on a swing across the street at the park.

  Before I could rethink my decision, I walked in her direction, not stopping until I arrived at her side.

  “Jesus,” Jubilee said when she caught sight of me. “Even out here the smell is overwhelming.”

  She looked almost nauseated at the smell, so I took pity on her and went to the merry-go-round that was about eight feet away from her and took a seat on the rough, dirty metal.

  “Why are you out here?” I asked.

  She shrugged. “It seems rude to attend a man’s funeral that I’m kind of happy about no longer being here.”

  I couldn’t blame her.

  When Rylan had moved in next door to her, I’d literally almost shit a brick.

  I’d been doing everything in my power to convince him to move short of physically relocating him myself. I didn’t like him being anywhere near anybody I knew, especially Jubilee.

  “True,” I admitted. “That’s what I thought, too. But I was forced to go because my boss couldn’t make it. He’s out passing a kidney stone. It was either go or listen to him bitch when he got back.”

  She grunted something that I couldn’t hear, but I didn’t bother asking her to repeat it.

  I didn’t need to hear the words to know that she agreed with me.

  “I think the only thing that’s bothering me at this point was that he was hacked up with an ax while I was sleeping next door,” she murmured. “I mean, I didn’t even hear him scream.”

  That was true. Having something bad happen to someone right next door had to be scary—especially for a woman who lived on her own.

  “What would you have done if you had?” I questioned. “I highly doubt you would’ve been able to do much more than call 9-1-1 seeing as the first hack of that ax straight up killed him.”

  She wrinkled her nose. “I know. I watched the autopsy being performed.”

  A little over a year ago, Jubilee hadn’t thought that her life was hectic enough, so she decided to build onto her mortuary, allowing a certified pathologist to be able to perform autopsies here instead of us shipping the bodies that died of unnatural causes off to bigger cities to perform them.

  I supposed one of the perks of having that sort of thing going on in your own building meant that you got special considerations such as getting to watch the autopsies performed.

  “That’s…interesting,” I finally said.

  She snickered. “You couldn’t sound any less enthused about my life.”

  I shrugged.

  “I’m more of an ‘alive’ person than a ‘dead’ person. I can’t find anything interesting about people once they’ve kicked the bucket,” I explained.

  “You shouldn’t want to investigate his cause of death,” she said. “That requires being around ‘dead’ people…so to speak.”
r />   I snorted. “I see where you’re coming from, but saying that, it doesn’t actually require me to be around the dead person. Only the person’s life before they were dead. We’re not comparing apples to apples.”

  Jubilee suddenly yawned, and I had the sick feeling that she could open her mouth pretty wide…wide enough for me to shove my dick inside.

  She closed her mouth, and I turned away from her and went to the swing that was at her side.

  Sitting down, I sat in silence for a few long moments before saying, “I think that what was done to that man was done because he was a sick fuck. But you should still be careful. That means no more running at four in the morning without someone around to watch over you.”

  She turned her face to mine. “And you’re volunteering? Why? Why do you all of a sudden care? Is it because you fucked me and think that somehow entitles you to take care of me? Is that why you’re being so nice? Because if I’m being honest, I’m kind of worried here. I’ve never seen you be nice in your life—at least not to me. And I like it that way.”

  My lip curled at her in disgust. “You think that I like taking care of you? I don’t. I think you’re spoiled. I wish you had never followed me here, and you’re a painful reminder of what I lost.”

  She looked away.

  I immediately felt like shit for the words that had come out of my mouth, but I couldn’t spit out an apology to save my life. That, and I wasn’t sure there was anything to apologize for.

  It was the truth.

  She was a painful reminder of what I’d lost.

  When Annmarie had died, I’d been eighteen and she’d been fifteen. Sure, that was young in the grand scheme of things, but I missed her every single day. I also missed Eitan just as much.

  And if I were being honest, I did blame Jubilee for us being out there in the first place.

  If she hadn’t gone outside all half-cocked like she always did when she got pissed, we might’ve been inside having the conversation when the lightning had struck.

  “You’re blaming me right now,” she said softly.

  Her eyes were on me, or more particularly, my fingers.

  I’d been absently running my fingers along the raised scars that ran down the length of my forearm. The same ones that matched the ones on Jubilee’s opposite forearm.

  When we’d all been struck by that lightning, Jubilee had been struck at the back of her hand. It’d traveled all the way through her body, into mine where I’d been holding onto her, and out through my opposite forearm.

  Where the Lichtenberg Figures had started on her left hand and traveled upward, they continued all the way across her shoulder blades, to mine, and then down my right arm, stopping just at the tip of one fingertip.

  They were scraggly, jagged scars that resembled a tiny lightning strike—or even a snowflake pattern—all the way across our bodies.

  Mine was a very light shade of pink whereas Jubilee’s appeared a much deeper shade of purple due to her skin color.

  “We shouldn’t have allowed you to go outside,” I said softly. “Eitan should’ve handled that better.”

  Chapter 6

  You’re not allowed to play the lottery. You hit the jackpot when you found me.

  -Jubilee’s secret thoughts

  Jubilee

  Eitan should’ve handled that better was an understatement.

  Eitan had announced before my departure from the McGrew house that he no longer wanted to see me if I couldn’t get along with his brother.

  Me, being pissed off because his goddamn brother—Zee—had been terrorizing me over my terrible grades. I hadn’t been able to take it anymore—at least that day seeing as I was on the verge of failing not just a class, but the grade itself. I hadn’t been very understanding. I’d been pissed, and annoyed that Eitan would once again side with his brother over me, and I’d just wanted to go home to cool off before things could go farther south. Before things were said that couldn’t be taken back.

  I mean, once or twice taking your brother’s side in an argument, sure. That’s understandable. He’s your brother. But I wasn’t a wimp. I could handle my own. And for me to say something at all meant that it was really bad.

  Which I’d tried to convey to Eitan multiple times. But there was only so much terrorizing one could handle before they had enough.

  Consequently, that day had been the day that enough had been enough, and I’d left.

  Unfortunately, all of them had followed, even my perfect sister who had stayed quiet just like she always did when Eitan and Ezekiel teamed up against me.

  I hadn’t been in a very good mood, and that had shown the minute they’d all followed me outside in the pouring rain.

  Thinking back now, I knew that being outside in that storm hadn’t been the best of ideas in the first place.

  The storm itself had already been producing tornados all over the state from the moment that it’d appeared. By the time it’d reached us, the storm hadn’t abated in intensity, but grown.

  The lightning was going crazy, and the sky was so dark that it appeared to be night even though it was four in the afternoon.

  I felt my stomach start to churn just like it always did when I thought about that night.

  My actions, at least peripherally, had caused two people to die. My sister and my boyfriend.

  I didn’t think that there would ever come a time that I didn’t, at least a little bit, blame myself.

  But I hadn’t been the one to stop me underneath the biggest goddamn tree in the neighborhood, Zee had.

  “You blame me just as much as I blame you,” Zee pointed out. “Let’s just agree to disagree.”

  I stopped swinging and allowed the heels of my black knee-high boots to drag in the soft dirt underneath the swings.

  I didn’t reply to him, though.

  What would be the point?

  This was an old argument. One that served no purpose to bring up again.

  But, since he was in the mood for it, I’d willingly offer him the fight he was so obviously searching for.

  “Fine, I do blame you,” I blurted. “If you’d have just given me a fucking break, left me the hell alone, and not messed with me all the goddamn time, then I wouldn’t have had to tell Eitan that I didn’t want to see him anymore.”

  Zee narrowed his eyes. “You’re blaming your breakup with my brother on me? Am I hearing that correctly?”

  “Yes,” I said. “I’m blaming it on you. If there was ever a time that Eitan had to choose—or Annmarie for that matter—they always chose you. Always. Why is that?”

  He clenched his jaw tightly shut for a few long seconds before saying, “Because you were a bitter shrew.”

  I laughed. “You’re so fucking full of it. I wasn’t a shrew. I was pissed that you always got them to be on your side. Do you know what that’s like? Not only did Annmarie always pick you, but so did Eitan. It was like I was a fourth wheel.”

  He sighed. “You weren’t a fourth wheel. And they chose your side, too.”

  I shook my head.

  “No, they really didn’t,” I told him. “If there was a side to be had, yours always was the one chosen…by them. Our parents, though? They usually knew when it was me being bad or when it was you.”

  “Whatever.” He snorted. “You’re making shit up now.”

  I just shook my head, more than aware that the conversation would be degrading from here.

  “Why are you talking to me, anyway?” I asked.

  “I have no idea,” he admitted.

  I stood up from my swing and started to head back to the mortuary. “Well, do me a favor. The next time you think you may want to—talk to me, that is—don’t.”

  With that, I walked away and managed not to look back.

  Chapter 7

  How to have the perfect body while eating like a fat piece of shit.

  -Books I wish someone would write

  Jubilee
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  “Turner,” I whined. “This better be good!”

  “Not Turner,” my father grumbled. “It’s me. I thought we were meeting for breakfast?”

  I cursed and threw the covers off of my body and sat up on the side of the bed to catch my equilibrium.

  “What time is it?” I asked through a yawn.

  “It’s ten past when you said you’d meet us here,” he informed me. “Get a move on.”

  Then he was gone, leaving me staring at my black bedroom wall and wondering if maybe I could skip just this one time.

  A text came through moments later, letting me know that if I skipped, I’d regret it.

  Snickering, I got up, slipped my feet into my black combat boots—thank God I got cold last night and wore clothes to bed—and headed to the bathroom.

  Once I’d brushed my teeth and used the facilities, I was out the door and heading to our usual early morning dining spot.

  Arriving in record time—a whopping eight minutes from the time I hung up with him—I headed to our usual booth, smiling when I saw my dad’s face.

  That smile dropped off the moment I saw the other man in the booth across from him.

  “Nice to see you cleaned up,” Zee muttered, eyeing my attire.

  I looked down at my black leggings with skulls on them, and at the black shirt that I’d stolen from him the night that I wouldn’t be talking about ever again.

  I immediately felt a blush rise over my face.

  I hadn’t realized he was going to be there, or I might’ve changed.

  At least the shirt, anyway.

  “Nice to see that you managed to peel yourself away from all your duties to have breakfast with your father who drives eight hours to come see you,” I shot right back.

  Zee narrowed his eyes. “It’s not my fault they go on runs that take them through my neck of the woods at random and expect me to show up when I’m at goddamn work.”

  “Children,” Gordon groaned. “Why do we always have to do this?”

  I sneered at Zee before scooting into the booth beside my dad.

  Dad threw his arm around me and pulled me in tight to his chest.

  Having always been a daddy’s girl, I laid my head down on the leather of his vest and closed my eyes, at peace despite the demon of a man sitting directly across from me.