Dog Collar Knockoff by Adrienne Giordano Read Free Book Online Page A

He’s only sorry he got caught.”
    The back door slammed. Again nothing new because Joey slammed every door he walked through. Between him and Ro, they’d take the whole house down.
    He rushed into the room arms up and ready for battle, his head swinging left and right. “What the hell? Sounds like a goddamn slaughter.”
    “Joseph,” Mom said. “Language.”
    “It is a slaughter!”
    Ro. Heavy on the drama.
    Joey looked at Lucie, nudged his head in Ro’s direction. “What’s that about?”
    “She and Tommy.” Not wanting to say the word divorce and risk more wailing, Lucie slashed her hand across her throat.
    “She’s dumping him? My odds just hit nine to five the other way.”
    “Whaaaaaaa,” Ro wailed.
    “Joseph!” This from Mom. “Leave. Now. Go to your room.”
    This place is an asylum. Twenty-nine years old and his mother was sending him to his room.
    Rushing around the table, Lucie wrapped her friend in a hug and flipped Joey the bird behind Mom’s back. What an idiot.
    He held up his hands. “I’m sorry. I’m sorry. You’re right. Priorities. Ro, you want me to kick his ass? I’d do that for you.”
    Finally. Some concern about their friend. This was the Joey she adored. Idiot or not, sometimes, in his own fatalistic way, he could be sweet and protective. Apparently, Ro responded to that because she pulled away from Lucie, turned to face Joey, and threw herself into his arms.
    “I know you would,” she said. “But no. If I’m taking him to the cleaners, I have to be the loyal wife to pull it off. I’ve been so good to him and this is what he does to me? I can’t believe it. The bastard.”
    At which point, totally behind Mom’s back, Joey grinned at Lucie, slid his hand over Ro’s butt cheek and squeezed.
    As expected, because Joey knew Ro just as well as Lucie, if not better considering their sexual— blech —history, Ro snorted. Her brother had known just what to do to make Ro smile.
    “God, you’re a pig,” she said.
    Mom spun around. “What did he do?”
    “Nothing,” they all said.
    “I made her laugh though.”
    Ro gave him a smacking kiss on the cheek then ran her fingers under her eyes. Her makeup was already destroyed, but she didn’t need to know that. Why make things worse?
    “Yes, you did,” she said. “Thank you.”
    “Ooh,” Mom said. “It’s almost seven. It’s poker night. I need to go.”
    Joey put his hand out to help Mom from her chair. “I’ll walk you.”
    “It’s half a block and still light out. Knock it off. Who’s going to attack me on this block?”
    “Hey, you never know.”
    “Leave her alone,” Lucie said. “She’ll be fine. No one is crazy enough to bother her. Of all people. Between you and Dad, they’d be numbskulls to try it.”
    Her brother pondered that. “All right. I’ll watch you from the sidewalk. But it’ll be late when you come home. I’ll pick you up.”
    Mom let out a frustrated laugh. “I love you, but when your father comes home, you need to move out. I’ll never survive the two of you.”
    “Uh, speaking of…”
    Everyone in the room stopped moving. Just bam , frozen. Speaking of what? Moving out? Could that mean…?
    Lucie gawked. “You’re moving out?”
    And then, shocker of all shockers, her brother nodded. “Yeah. I mean, with Dad coming home, Mom doesn’t need me anymore. And Frankie’s got that empty third floor flat at his house.”
    Two issues here. One, Lucie would be alone with her father and her mother. After Dad being gone two years and her mother proclaiming her newfound independence, there was no telling the drama that would unfold inside this nineteen-hundred-square-foot house. Two, her brother was moving in with Frankie. It shouldn’t have surprised her. They’d been friends—best friends—since grammar school. But—wow—if the lines weren’t already blurred, they sure were now. As long as she and Frankie were broken up, she couldn’t visit. Visiting meant walking past