Page 25 of King of Hollywood
Yes, she was my sister, but that didn’t mean anything.
Plenty of people had horrible relationships with their siblings, and being blood-related to someone did not guarantee friendship.
Perhaps I had it in me after all?
Besides, Winnie liked me—and she was my oldest and closest friend.
At least…I hoped she did.
I texted her, suddenly worried.
Me: You like me.
Winnie: No I don’t.
I glared at my phone, grumpily shoving it in my back pocket. I weed-whacked the back edge of Felix’s lawn for another half an hour before checking my phone again. Surely, Winnie would’ve texted something a little more flattering by now. Maybe about how good a brother I was—and how important I was to her.
There was no such message waiting.
Just a simple emoji of a—was that—? I frowned, put the weed whacker down, and fished my reading glasses out of my chest pocket. With them perched in place on my nose, I was able to see the tiny emoji better.
I wished I hadn’t bothered.
It was a little fist with the middle finger up.
Me: Fuck you.
Winnie: Love you too, baby bro.
It took me twenty minutes to flip through the emoji…catalog? Thing. The thing with all the emoji options on my phone. Eventually, I found what I was looking for. Ha! Take that.
I sent her a mirroring middle-finger icon.
A neighbor walked by on the sidewalk with her dog on a leash. She stared at me for a second, and I waved—not wanting to look too murder-y with my weed whacker in hand, and an evil grin on my face.
I missed whether or not she waved back because my phone buzzed.
Winnie had replied.
It was another middle-finger emoji.
Go-figure.
I replied back with two.
She sent three.
Stuck in a war I didn’t want to be a part of, I nearly missed when a nondescript black van pulled into Felix’s driveway. I saw it in my peripheral vision, however, and tugged my safety headphones off and around my neck, twisting to watch the new arrivals.
Who were these people?
And why the hell were they at Felix’s house when he was asleep?
My hackles raised—but fell rather quickly when I realized these mystery men were actually the bearers of his package. Packages, more accurately—as he got the same giant box of what I could only assume was some sort of meat—at least once a month.
It was rather large, and quite heavy when I went to investigate after the men left.
Maybe it was nosy of me—but I could see the “refrigerate immediately” sticker, and as I had every intention of courting the box’s owner, I was remiss to leave it behind. It was heavier than it looked as I hefted it across the street and into my garage. Luckily, I had enough room in my backup refrigerator to shove the box in whole, which I did.