Tabby sniffed pathetically. “I woke up with it this morning.” She moved behind the counter, her expression pitiful.
Cyn poked at the thing sitting on the end of Tabby’s nose. “You couldn’t cover it up with something? It’s gonna scare the customers.”
“Cover it? With what, a burka?” Glory stared at Cyn. Was she crazy? “David Copperfield couldn’t hide—” she waved at the humongous growth on Tabby’s face, “—that.”
Heather fell off the chaise with wheeze and a thump. Glory sure as hell hoped she was still breathing. She knew shit about CPR.
Tabby sniffled as she batted Cyn’s finger away. “Pregnancy glow my lily white ass. More like pregnancy oil slick. And don’t poke at it. It might get mad.” Tabby’s Southern drawl was thick with unhappiness. “I think I heard it growl this morning.”
Cyn ignored Tabby’s plea and poked at it again. “Dios. It’s like Mt. Doom, all ready to erupt and shit.”
“Ew.” Heather picked herself up off the floor and flopped back on the chaise. “Just… Ew.”
Glory shuddered. “Not in here, please.” Just the thought of that monstrosity blowing in the shop made her want to gag. It was the biggest, whitest pimple she’d ever seen. “That thing should have its own zip code.”
“Alex tried to be all helpful.” Tabby sniffled pathetically. “He said I should put hot towels on it.”
“Did you?” Glory couldn’t get over how big the thing was. You couldn’t not stare at it. It was the huge white elephant in the room.
Literally.
Tabby nodded glumly. “It got bigger.”
Heather began giggling again. She was going to get a stomach cramp at this rate.
Cyn was tapping her lip in that way she had when she was really thinking hard. “What about a hot needle?”
Glory and Tabby shared a look, then both women shuddered, Tabby covering Mt. Doom with her fingers. “I thought the idea was to keep it from getting mad?”
“Yeah. I mean, why poke a sleeping bear?” Glory grinned as all three shifters rolled their eyes at her. So far, Glory was the only member of Cynful Tattoos who wasn’t furry, and she planned on keeping it that way for a little bit longer. Ryan Williams might be the cutest Bear this side of Winnie the Pooh, but when it had mattered the most, he’d done what every other person who’d ever claimed to love her had done.
He’d disappeared.
Oh, he’d come back, and his sucking-up skills were excellent, but she knew the truth. Ryan was just like her family, and Glory had no intention of ever allowing anyone to hurt her that way again. The only people who stood by her no matter what were standing in front of her, discussing Tabby’s pregnancy hormone woes. Even her twin…
Well. Glory tried not to think about her twin.
Cyn nodded once, sharply. “I think we should call in an exorcist.”
Now Glory was the one who started giggling. Trust Cyn to try and make a bad situation better with that sharp tongue of hers.
“Bitch.” Tabby pouted, looking adorably miserable.
“Takes a bitch to know a bitch, bitch.”
The banter between Cyn and Tabby was so familiar Glory barely paid attention to it. Soon, one of the girls would probably wind up chasing the other through the shop like wild hyenas, and that was just the way Glory liked it. It was fun and full of life, and no one could ever make her trade in her life today for what had once been.
Not even Ryan.