“Babysitting?”

“Every princess needs her knight.” Yates walked off toward the lake.

Zach sighed, “Princess my ass.”

***

Four hours since they left Marrec’s shop and they were still arguing, but now they had moved on to clothes. What Sara shouldn’t wear and what she should wear. The party was 24 hours away and most likely she wouldn’t wear any of their suggestions. But the two of them were like rabid dogs. Once they started arguing it was really hard to get them to stop. She tried to escape them when she closed up the store for Marrec, but they’d argued all the way over to her beat-up white pickup and got in. She was really glad she stopped keeping her shotgun in her gun rack.

Sara sighed and shifted on her bed, trying to ease the pain in her right leg. Honestly, the things she put up with. They were really lucky she loved them both so much. Otherwise, she might have killed them by now.

All this waiting was making her a bit crazy. It was giving her time to think. To worry. Her leg had been getting worse the past couple of months and she didn’t know why. It never fully healed after she and her father had been attacked, although to the naked eye it simply looked like a badly healed wound. That’s why she had been drinking the other night. It was the only thing that truly dulled the pain and her brain. It had become a constant challenge for her to battle the voices that told her nothing was right. Her body wasn’t right. She wasn’t right. Her life was a mess. Although it didn’t seem messy. Boring maybe. She didn’t exactly live on the wild side. That night of drinking was about as wild as she got, and the only thing that she remembered doing was kissing a stranger. A really gorgeous stranger. He had the thickest neck, and those beautiful hazel eyes that just seemed to… Sara shifted again. This time not from the pain in her legs but the throbbing between them.

This was ridiculous. She was a nice girl. Not a whore. All men treated her with the utmost respect or they were cruel about her scars. There was no in between. They either treated her like a princess or treated her like freak. He treated her like she was hot. But she wasn’t the “hot friend.” She was the sensible friend. Angelina was the hot friend. She was the reason guys became friends with Sara in the hopes that she would fix them up with her. Angelina wore designer clothes and expensive high-heeled shoes. She was the only woman Sara knew who would come to Skelly’s on Goth night wearing a champagne-colored dress—her “signature color,” as she called it—matching heels, and a purse.

Miki was the brilliant, super-cute friend. She was the one that could diffuse the bomb in 30 seconds with bubble gum, toothpaste, and a binder clip while still looking cute in a belly shirt. Miki was working on her third master’s degree because she thought the whole “PhD thing” was so overplayed. Miki was the one in high school who hadn’tbeen able to use a computer or phone for three years “as per court order” and knew all the M.O.s of serial killers from the 20th century because every woman should know the warning signs of a serial killer. “What if you’re dating one,” she’d always ask with a smile, just before giving some gruesome detail or two about some murderer.

And then there was Sara. Reliable, dependable Sara. She was like the Golden Retriever of the group. She was always the “good buddy” or the “little sister.” She was never the “piece of ass.” And after 28 years she had learned to accept that fate. She accepted it like the pain in her leg and the scar on her face. It was there and it was who she was. Might as well just deal with it.

But then he came along. Zach. She thought she had dreamed that kiss. That amazing freakin’ kiss. Part of her wished she had. The reality of it was getting a little too much to bear. It was stressful. She had been drunk. Drunk-Sara was fun. Drunk-Sara set things on fire. Drunk-Sara grabbed groping men by the balls and squeezed until they passed out. There was no way Golden Retriever Sara could compete with Drunk-Sara. And Drunk-Sara was a liability. She didn’t remember much about the night besides the kiss. But she was almost positive someone had grabbed her while on the way to the bathroom. And it was the beautiful man that had saved her. And for some unknown reason she was obsessed with his teeth. She just couldn’t remember why.

Sara sighed. She could still hear her friends yelling. Something about a thong and how she wasn’t a slut… unlike some people.

Sara scooted off the bed and stormed into the living room. No use yelling at her friends. Then it would be three crazy women yelling. Instead, she went to her stereo system and turned on some loud techno music from a DJ in Germany.

Miki and Angelina continued to yell for another minute, until they realized they couldn’t hear themselves much less each other. They turned to stare at Sara. When she was certain she had their full attention, she turned the music down, but not off.

“Are you two done?”

“She started it,” Angelina complained.

“I started it?” Miki snapped.

“That’s it!” Sara yelled. She walked to her kitchen and grabbed three beers from the refrigerator. “Here.” She handed one each to her friends. “You two bitches are making me nuts.” Sara opened the ice cold can and took a swig. “Besides, it doesn’t matter what I wear.” She stated again after swallowing, “I don’t have a chance in hell with a guy like that.”

Sara went to her front door, determined to sit on her porch and enjoy the cool night. But Miki’s cutting voice caused her to trip on the doorframe and stumble outside, “If we had left the store, he would have fucked you on the counter.”