for—beating up asshole boyfriends and making them treat us right. I’d give any girlfriend of his an ass-kicking if she’d hurt him in any way.
Connor hadn’t really dated. I was pretty sure he wasn’t gay. He had told me he’d bagged a bunch of girls while in Miami. He just wasn’t looking for anything serious. Maybe because he’d never planned to stay there.
“So, he’s a fan then?”
I looked up at Phil and grinned. “Oh, yeah. He used to come with us to all the shows and festivals. He was there with us in ’96 when you guys were on the crap stage.”
“Cool.”
“Yeah, it was.”
“What time are we going over there?” he asked, his fingertips skimming lower, over my pubic bone.
“Later,” I purred.
He grinned. “How much later?”
“Like, lunchtime later. I promised him we’d get Molly’s. He misses his po’boys.”
“Sweet.”
Alys was very quiet. Too quiet.
X and Phil were not. They were singing along to Pantera’s Far Beyond Driven. X was driving us in his Jeep. A box full of po’boys sat between Phil and me in the backseat.
“Are you all right?” I whispered in her ear over the back of the passenger seat.
She nodded in reply.
“Have you spoken to Connor at all?” I asked.
Alys and Connor used to talk on the phone as much as he and I used to. I wondered if they still did.
“Not recently, no,” she replied over her shoulder. “Why?”
“I was just wondering what was up with him. I haven’t spoken much to him since Grandma’s funeral. It’s weird.”
“Me neither. Maybe he’s seeing someone?”
“I asked. He said he wasn’t.”
She shrugged and said nothing more. I could sense that she was nervous, and I guessed it was like she was taking X home to meet her parents, which she had already done. Da was home, and he was just as much Alys’s Da as he was mine.
Phil was headbanging happily. He had nothing to be nervous about. He and Da got along—a little too well, truth be told. Since the day they had met, Da and Gloria had us around for dinner a couple of times, and both of them adored my boyfriend. I had asked them both not to tell Connor whom I was dating, that I wanted him to be surprised.
I thought Gloria had a little crush on Phil. I certainly couldn’t blame her. He was pretty fucking adorable and ridiculously polite when she was around. Poor Gloria had to work today and would be missing his company.
Speaking of work, Rita had closed The Center a day early, figuring everyone would appreciate an extra day off, if anyone needed time to prepare for the holiday the following day. We had all been a little surprised by this. Rita was a workaholic. None of us had complained though.
In fact, Rita had been acting peculiar ever since I had returned from LA. Usually, she was all over the place, checking up on her staff, greeting and speaking personally with the clients—not so much with the patients that Gavin and I had. She truly respected the doctor-patient dynamic of the clinic. But she would come in at least once a day, and she was well-known to our regulars, taking the time to ask how they were doing, if not discussing their reasons for being there.
However, she had recently taken to holing up in her office all day, and she had become increasingly skittish. She was not a woman who was easily intimidated, and I was under the impression something—or someone—had scared her shitless. Gavin had noticed this, too, especially when she’d started showing up to work in different cars and not using her prestigious parking spot.
We’d attempted to talk to her about her behavior—not in those terms though—but she had bitten our heads off, telling us that not only was there nothing wrong, but we should also mind our own fucking business. Rita might be to the point and crass, not to mention tactless at times, but she had never been nasty with neither Gavin or me.
It was needless to say, but that encounter had gone unmentioned to Phil.
Reaching out over the box of twenty po’boys, Phil took my hand and brought it to his lips. My eyes met his, and they twinkled at me with such openly raw elation that it stole my breath.
“What is it?” I grinned.
“Just you.”
“Good Friends and a Bottle of Pills” started to shriek through the Jeep’s sound system. I loved this song, and I opened my mouth and sang the wickedly disturbing lyrics to