Suck My Life (Sucking Dead #1) - Andie M. Long Page 0,43
a break, so I’d give up for the rest of the day, go back to my rooms, read a good revenge book where I’d imagine Death was the slain victim, and eat a couple more cupcakes from my delivery. Tomorrow I’d get in touch with Stan and see how quickly he could come sort out the plumbing. I was going to keep busy and out of Death’s way and show him how perfectly ‘fine’ I was about the fact he’d dumped me.
Even decadently eating two triple chocolate cupcakes in bed couldn’t take away my annoyance at being left with bedsheets that smelled of sex and Death. In some strange lament, I wouldn’t take them off to be laundered, instead having a good old pity party for one where I allowed myself a third cupcake, excusing my greed as being part of the healing process.
Wednesday came around and I decided I would go to Book Club after all.
I was just walking out of the front door as Death walked in.
“Oh, you’re off out. I was going to see if you wanted to get the office sorted out. I cleared the old room eight.”
“I’m going to Book Club. You make a start while I’m out if you want. It doesn’t need two of us to put two desks and computers in a room, does it, and Spence would help anyway if it did.”
“Erm, okay, and, Mya…”
I turned to look at him, and damn it but hope filled me. Here was his apology and his regret at ending things.
“You do know you can whizz from inside the house, don’t you?”
“Of course, I know that,” I snapped, annoyed because it was a lie and I hadn’t thought of it at all. “I just like walking out of the front door. It’s like saying goodbye to the house before I leave.”
“Okay,” he said. “I just thought I’d check. So how has everything been?”
“Everything has been absolutely fine.”
“Great. Looks like you’re a natural at this. Spence told me you’d been working really hard and had despatched a significant number of lingering spirits.”
“It is my job. Right, got to go. First rule of Book Club, don’t be late to Book Club.”
“Aren’t you supposed to have a book for Book club?”
I narrowed my gaze at him. “Not if you’ve never been before. Now, seeing as I’m perfectly capable of being entirely by myself and in no need of a companion, I shall bid you goodnight.”
I whizzed down to Gnarly. No matter how many times I tried to imagine landing inside the entrance, I landed outside of it, so I figured it was warded in some way. Sure enough, as I walked through I detected a kind of tingle zipping through my chest. If Death was gonna keep ignoring me sexually, I might have to keep walking through here on my hands.
Passing the boulevard, I carried on until I reached the community centre and then I followed the signs for the book club.
“Mya! I didn’t expect to see you. You said you’d be busy for a while,” Callie’s welcoming smile helped put me at ease as the weirdo twins looked me up and down in tandem; and the other women, of whom I only knew a couple, stared at me as if they were MRI machines.
“I forgot about vampire speed, so things aren’t taking me as long as I thought.” I looked at the circle of seats. “Can I sit anywhere?”
“You can choose any seat, Queen,” Dela said as she walked in. “Even though you aren’t the queen of Gnarly Fell, we still honour your presence here.”
“That’s kind but not necessary. I just want to sit in a spare seat that no one else sits in.”
The twins both pointed to a grey plastic chair. As I sat in it, the chair listed to the side. It was broken. Fabulous. It matched my heart.
The group spent around six minutes lying about having read the book of the week. I knew this because I told them I’d read the book previously after working in a bookstore and I kept saying things like, “Oh when the blackbird pooped on her head’ and watched as they all agreed with me, nodding their heads like the glorious little liars they were.
“Not one of you has read this book,” I announced. “You should all hang your heads in shame, for having a book club and pretending to read.”
A few protested until I explained my trickery and then they did hang their heads and avoid direct