Sadey and Maris said at once and then burst out laughing.
“Sam is Silent Assassin,” Summer said, ticking off the name on her finger.
“Because he doesn’t talk! And he’s scary!” Maris said.
“Hunter?” Summer asked, ticking off another finger.
“Wes has been calling him ‘Cunter’ all week,” Sadey said with an eyeroll.
Maris snorted and nearly choked on a bottled Sunkist she was currently chugging. “I haven’t heard him call Hunter that! That’s a terrible nickname!”
“Yeah, well Hunter lost it yesterday and punched in him the dick. And then Wes offered to buy him some tampons because he was too sensitive, and that’s the story about how Hunter poked Wes in the left butt cheek with an electric cattle prod. Wes came in the house spittin’-mad, cussing about how Cunter electrocuted him.” She held up another finger. “Three, Bryson’s nickname.”
“Murder Cowboy,” Maris chipped in. “Ever since he went grizzly and killed that big bull a few weeks back, the boys keep taunting him with Murder Cowboy. He’s probably going to kill one of them next to earn that name.”
“Well, they would deserve it,” Summer said, amused, but not feeling an ounce of pity. The boys gave each other shit all day every day. She pointed at Maris. “The boys call you Princess Pickle Juice because you ride an ATV instead of a horse, I supposed like a princess? And you drink pickle juice after you shoot vodka, which is actually delicious so I don’t understand why they get so weirded out by it. And they call Sadey Sparkle Buns because of the blinged-out jeans she wears, which, by the way, I actually like. If they had ones with black jewels on the back pockets, I would wear them when we’re working cattle. I dare them to call me Sparkle Buns.”
Sadey giggled. “Oh, they wouldn’t dare. Only thing I’ve ever heard the boys call you besides Summer is Wolf.” She poured the crumbs from a bag of pork rinds into her mouth, and around the bite she said, “I can bejewel jeans. I got one of them gem guns. Just bring me your favorite pair for girl-time next week, and we’ll put black sparkles everywheeeeerreeee.” She sang the last word.
“Okay, I have to admit something,” Summer said as Maris turned them under the Kaid Brother’s Ranch sign.
“You’re a werewolf,” Sadey deadpanned.
“Oh, my God, you guessed it!” Summer joked. She swallowed hard, looking for her bravery, because this didn’t come natural to her—expressing feelings. Not anymore.
Make them like you. I like them, Wolf said pushily.
Summer cleared her throat. “Wolf just told me to make you like me because she likes the two of you.”
Maris and Sadey both tossed a look at her in the back seat and then back to the front window. “I didn’t know that Wolf liked anyone,” Sadey said softly.
“She didn’t. That was her gig, hating everyone, but over the last couple weeks, she’d started seeing things differently, bonding with the ranch, and with…and with…you two, the boys, and especially, especially, Wes. And I know it’s not a big deal for a girl to like other girls—that’s natural, it’s supposed to happen—but I didn’t think I would ever have friends again. That was a hard thing for me to accept after I was Turned because I was lonely. But now I do have friends…or I consider you friends. I’m not saying you have to consider me a friend—”
“You’re our friend!” Maris said so loudly that it hurt Summer’s sensitive ears and she hunched her shoulders up and winced. “I mean,” Maris said at a less deafening volume, “of course, you’re our friend. Sorry, I got excited. You just growled at us so much and you tried to fight my wolf so much the first week, I was afraid you would never…I don’t know…like us.”
Sadey twisted around in her seat and gave Summer the biggest grin ever. “If you weren’t my friend, I would never offer to bedazzle your butt.”
Summer was blushing like an idiot. “Okay, that was a lot of mushy talk, and we can go back to normal now.” She ducked her gaze and wrung her hands in her lap, but then added, “I would bedazzle your butts, too.”
“Awwww!” Sadey and Maris said at the same time.
“Yeah, yeah, that’s the last nice thing I’m saying. I am the Dark. I am the Abyss. Fear me.”
“You’re the prettiest little Abyss in the whole world, and I like your hair,” Sadey said primly, then turned back around just in time for Maris to park