Page 78 of Brutal
“I don’t want you to get bored. I don’t know how housebroken you are,” I try to joke. “You might get on the furniture or some shit.”
The look she gives me is not impressed.
I sigh. “I thought I’d give you a credit card. I want you to be home by the time I get home, but I don’t always know when that’s going to be. I can get you access to my work calendar…” I get up. “Hang on.”
I head to the bedroom, and I open the safe again, pulling out the box with the phone I’d bought for her.
I bring it to her, setting it down on the counter like it’s going to bite me if I don’t get rid of it. “Here.”
Mimosa stops cooking to look at it. Her eyes widen, and for a fraction of a second, she looks vulnerable. “I…” She stops, clears her throat, and says, “Thanks. I’m glad we can agree on a few things.”
She doesn’t open the box, instead going back to the omelets. They smell good, and when she plates them and sets one down in front of me, I can even admit that it looks good.
“You won’t leave, right?” I ask, and I hate how uneven my voice is. How fragile.
Mimosa sits down next to me at the kitchen island. “I don’t know. You’ll have to trust me.”
“In case you haven’t noticed, I don’t really do ‘trust’ very well,” I say, but I look down at the omelet instead of up at her. I take a bite, and it’s surprisingly good.
Different.
Not that I’m going to admit that to her.
“Not my problem,” Mimosa answers. “For what it’s worth, I don’t think I will. Not today, anyway.” She sighs and looks at me. “You’re kind of terrible, but you’re growing on me—if you can continue to shape up.”
“Thanks, I think,” I say, my voice droll. I take another bite of the omelet. “You’re kind of annoying, but you’re growing on me, too.” I fall silent. “There’s a tracker in the phone,” I say bluntly after a moment. “I’m going to… request that you leave it on. Just because…” I sigh. “Look, my two friends? Their girls both ended up in some shit. I want to be able to find you in case you have a crazy ex or your sister has more debts than you know about.”
I’d put a tracker on her — in her body — if I thought she’d let me, but we’re probably not ready for me to be that level of possessive.
“I might,” Mimosa responds. She takes a few bites of her omelet. “Your friends are Hunter and Chase? And that Patrick guy?”
“Not Patrick,” I say sourly. I’d tried to text him, but he’d ignored me. Fuck him, and good riddance, to boot. “And Hunter and Chase have been pushing me out of their sphere, so fuck them, too.”
“Pushing you out?” Mimosa pauses to take a sip of coffee. “Hunter interrupted his date to patch me up after you fucked up my feet. And Chase was at the party, wasn’t he?”
I stop for a moment, thinking. She’s right. They hadn’t had to put their own plans aside for me, but they had. I scowl at her in between bites of my food, though. “I don’t like mushrooms, by the way,” I say in lieu of answering.
“When I stayed at a friend’s place one weekend, her mom cooked for us. She made this mushroom stew, and I wanted to refuse to eat it because I thought mushrooms were gross.” Mimosa looks at me. “What do you think I did?”
“Oh, my god,” I lament. “I’m not five. I don’t have to eat shit I don’t like.” I look pointedly at the growing pile of mushrooms on my plate. “Why do you ask about my friends, anyway?” I make a face. “You don’t want to hang out with Stef. And I don’t know about May.”
“I was sixteen, not five, and I ate it anyway. It turned out, mushroom stew was delicious.” Mimosa skewers one of the mushrooms on my plate and eats it. “And I asked about your friends because I wanted to know more about you. How did you meet them?”
This is such a normal conversation that I don’t really know what to make of it at first. “College friends,” I tell her. “I’ve known them forever.” I squint at her. “What about you? You have a lot of friends?”
Jealousy rips through me, even though I try my best to keep it under control.
Mimosa laughs bitterly. “Not really. We moved after my parents died, and I was dealing with all the trauma and grief around that while also being the new kid in class. I had a hard time connecting to people. In university… I had a few people I thought were friends. I have no idea if they’re worried about me right now, though. I hadn’t endeared myself to most of my peers. You’ll be very shocked to hear that most of my male classmates thought I was a stuck-up, feminazi bitch.”
I snort. “Oh yeah. Totally shocked,” I say, deadpan. But I hesitate for a moment before saying slowly, “Maybe you can make friends now. I mean… If you’re not too traumatized now.”
“It would be nice.” She sighs. “Maybe I should try to get to know Stef and May. They seemed all right, I guess.”
“Stef is a little bitch,” I say, “but she could probably use friends. And May… You’d probably get along with her. She’s a painslut. Maybe it’ll wear off on you.”
“It will not wear off on me.” Mimosa takes another mushroom off my plate. “Anyway. I think it might be time for you to shower and get ready for work, if you don’t want to miss your morning meetings.”
“Thanks, Mom,” I drawl, but I can’t quite hide my disappointment. I wanted someone who would take what I could dish out. That was the reason I’d picked someone who couldn’t say no. And now… Now, I’m somehow in a vanilla relationship with someone who doesn’t belong to me and could leave me at any minute.