Landslide by Jenn Cooksey Read Free Book Online Page B

rising just above it. Her hair is hanging in a sloppy and knotted up ponytail with thick strands wet from a mixture of hops, barley, and tears sticking to her face, the carnage a result of when the demure bun I’m guessing she wore to Holden’s funeral was destroyed in her outraged attack of me. Her makeup has gone from subtly highlighting her ocean blue eyes and delicate bone structure to giving her facial features an overall appearance of devastation as streaks of black mascara and navy blue eyeliner continue to follow the tracks her tears have taken, reminding me of tire tread marring the glistening asphalt of a racecourse; the only visible evidence left of a high speed war that was waged, fought, and lost…one that ended with the car and driver both being utterly demolished.  
    Sighing, I gently take Erica’s face in my hands and meet her eyes to say, “You are one hot mess, girl. C’mon, beautiful, let’s get you into a hot shower and then some clean clothes. Sound good?”
    She sobs something incoherent that I take to be either her agreement or refusal, I’m not sure which, as I scoop her into my arms and slowly try to stand up. Now I’m not saying I’m weak or that Erica’s fat, because I’m built like fuckin’ Superman, damn it, and Erica can’t weigh more than a buck-twenty, but smoothly picking up a girl and cradling her in your arms while you carry her all heroic-like to the bedroom isn’t as easy as the movies make it out to be. Honestly, I was worried I was gonna wrench my back the whole time until I practically dropped her and she went kerplunk onto my bed. I power through though and while she’s in my arms and crying into my neck, I make sure to give my house a quick once-over with my eyes to see if people are doing as they’d been told, and just for good measure, I say it again, “C’mon, folks, the party’s over. Don’t let the door hit you on the ass on your way out.”
    Also, and I’m not entirely sure why—maybe to try to make her laugh or because it’s just a habit and saying shit like this is what I do—I remember that when everyone had started showing up earlier, I had been in the process of replacing the threadbare bed sheets I’ve had for like almost a decade with new ones—sheets, mind you, that don’t have a single Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle pictured on them, and aren’t stained and full of holes, but are a very masculine soft blue and are supposedly made of Egyptian cotton or something else just as adult and expensive sounding—so, I decide to add, “My new sheets need breaking in and my bed has been calling Erica’s name, so everyone hurry the hell up and get to gettin’!”
    She grumbles and whimpers something like, “I hate you, you filthy pig,” into my collarbone and just before kicking my bedroom door shut behind us and dumping Erica’s soggy ass onto my crisp, clean sheets, I reply to her by lightly placing a kiss on the side of her head and heaving an overly dramatic, heart-happy sigh as I say, “I love it when you talk dirty to me.”
    From there I go into business mode, turning my shower on and making sure it’s getting warm before smelling the towel hanging on the rack to see if it’s clean enough for Erica to use. Then I start searching the medicine cabinet, drawers, and the cupboard under the sink for a toothbrush that hasn’t been used. I rattle and rummage around bottles of cologne and hairspray, a completely spent tube of toothpaste and another one that has maybe a week’s use left in it, God only knows how many used and unused razor cartridges, several upended and almost empty bottles of hair gel, a couple sticky containers of hair styling wax, that fucking bar of cheap soap, at least five, uncapped sticks of deodorant in a variety of scents, and two cans of shaving cream with dried foam running out of the nozzles. I come across three somewhat questionable toothbrushes that find themselves being tossed straight into the trashcan before I