Unbelievable," I heard Christian mutter behind me. "She toops them both?" I head Drustan ask. "And they permit it?" Dageus sounded baffled. I looked between V'lane and Barrons. "This isn't even about me." "You're wrong about that." Barrons reached into his pocket and pulled out a cell phone. "You know how to find me if you want me." He was walking away. "More nifty acronyms?" He was gone.
Karen Marie MoningMy city. I pondered that phrase, wondered why Barrons felt that way. He never said โour world.โ He always said โyour world.โ But he called Dublin his city. Merely because he'd been in it so long? Or had Barrons, like me, been beguiled by her tawdry grace, fallen for her charm and colorful dualities? I looked around โmyโ bookstore. That was what I called it. Did we call the things of our heart our own, whether they were or not?
Karen Marie MoningI contemplate the notion that maybe regrets are a process of accumulation of time, as unavoidable as a closet full of clothes and more bags of them in the attic. Is accumulated baggage what makes people get old? If so, they need to clean out their fecking attics, send the stuff to consignment shops and remember how to walk around naked like kids, little bellies sticking out, always ready for a good laugh.
Karen Marie MoningYou could ask me to teach you.โ โHuh?โ This night is getting weird in a hurry. โTeach me like youโre teaching a class or something? What are you going to call it: โYou Too Can Be a Sociopath 101โ?โ โIt would be more like a graduate-level class.โ I start to snicker. His sense of humour sneaks up on you. Then I remember whoโs talking and bite it off.
Karen Marie MoningThen why was his tongue in your mouth? Was he conducting a clinical test of your gag reflex?" He smiled, but not nicely. "How is your gag reflex, Ms. Lane? Are you a hair trigger?" Barrons likes to use sexual innuendo to try to shut me up. I think he expects the well-raised southern belle in me will think eew and back off. Sometimes, I do think eew, but I don't back off. "I'm a spitter, if that's what you're asking." I flashed him a too-sweet smile. "Didn't look that way to me. I think you're a swallower. His tongue was halfway to China and you were still taking it." "Jealous?
Karen Marie Moning