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His phone vibrated within his back pocket drawing him out of the world he tended to slip into while painting and he smiled when he saw her face, their faces, on the call screen.
“I’m just wrapping up here. Got lost in it,” he explained without the curtesy of a hello. Wednesday didn’t care about shit like that anyway.
Her response was equally abrupt and without typical greeting. “Do you have a credit card with you?”
“Yeah,” he told her, packing up his brushes and other supplies. “You wanna get something to eat?”
“Will you meet me at the hardware store?”
“Now?” He glanced around, knowing that the place she mentioned was across the street and a block down from where he was working on a new mural in town.
“Yes,” and without another word Wednesday ended the call.
He scoffed, typical.
Five minutes later, when he arrived, supplies pulled in a black cargo wagon being operated by Thing, just behind him, he told the hand to wait outside and shrugged at his signed question.
“Hey,” he found her quickly, at the front counter, glaring at a woman of late middle age, with over dyed red hair, popping gum.
“This woman will not allow me to pay for my purchases.”
The woman eyed her up and down speculatively, warily, and turned to him. She chewed her gum noisily, narrowing her gaze in his direction. “Card only.”
Xavier as well balked at the requirement but took out his black leather wallet and removed the card that his father had given him, handing it to the woman.
“New sheriff’s rules. Anyone buys more than 3 times on this list,” she tapped a clipboard with a sheet of crinkled, lined paper on it, “we gotta get them to pay by card. No cash.”
“This is ridiculous,” Wednesday hissed, grabbing up her packages and exiting the store. He could see her through the window placing them in the wagon beside his stuff and talking animatedly to Thing.
“You better watch yourself,” the woman told him lowly, glancing out herself. “That girl of yours just bought the full murder kit. Every item on the list. And by the looks of her,” she popped her pink bubble gum in his face, handing the card back with a receipt, “it won’t be her first.” She raised her brows, “Or last.”
All Xavier could do to keep from laughing in her face was smirk, lifting his shoulders in a helpless way. “I’ll keep that in mind,” he told her and exited the premises.
Back out on the sidewalk Wednesday had stowed three brown bags, a shovel, and was waiting for him with Thing on her shoulder. They were discussing whether to get coffee before returning to Nevermore and he smiled at the scene. The domesticity. And felt something swell inside of him.
She looked up then, giving him that half smile, eyes big and bright, “We will let Xavier be the tie breaking vote.”
The hand made a crude gesture.
“It is completely fair. Just because Xavier and I have carnal relations does not mean he will always take my side.” The feral look she gave him in that instance told him the complete opposite was true. Or it had better be if he liked said relations. And wanted to live.
He beat her to the punch, “I’m dying for a coffee.” Thing pointed at him before making a whipping motion then dropped from his perch and scampered off, leaving the wagon to them.
Wednesday gloated.
She purchased her quad and his latte and they stepped aside to wait for their drinks. As they did, Wednesday leaned back and into his body, her head resting on his chest, and he leaned against the wall. He shifted, bending to brush his lips against her temple.
“You two are disgusting,” Bianca stepped up behind them, dropping her cup in the trash can. Xavier rolled his eyes.
Lucas Walker waited by the doors for her.
“Yeah, yeah,” he shook his head, no bitterness between any of them. “Your normie is waiting.” It was her turn to make a face.
As they exited The Weathervane, Xavier found the wagon exactly where they had left it, and glanced up and down the street. “Where’d Thing go? We better head back.”
“Probably exercising his five finger discount at Uriah’s Heap or ogling the magazines at the manicure place.”
Xavier sighed, not really wanting to deal with either of those options.
“Oh look, there he is,” she pointed across the street. He was in fact making his way back to them, clutching and dragging a small shopping bag. Upon his arrival he tossed the bag up onto the wagon before climbing in himself.
“I suppose I’m pulling now?” Xavier queried.
Wednesday shrugged, “He’s a righty. They’re not know for their strength.”
Thing lifted one finger toward Wednesday. The middle one. Xavier laughed.
Their bikes were chained up on the racks by the old church in the center of town. The matching black cruisers had perhaps been the wisest choice he had made since coming to Nevermore, aside from purchasing that phone for Wednesday.
She unlocked her own bike and picked up Thing, placing him in the wire basket on the front. He got comfortable on the hand crocheted black baby-sized blanket Enid had made him for Christmas.
Xavier hitched the cargo wagon to the back of his bike and they began the ten or so minute pedal back to Nevermore, wending along the rarely used lanes between Jericho and their school, surrounded by a vast woodland on either side. He loved watching Wednesday on her bike, black pigtails billowing behind her as Thing climbed up to let the air blow between his fingers.
They usually left their bikes as well as the collapsible cargo wagon in the art shed, to protect them from the elements. Or friends who thought it was okay to borrow them for midnight rides to the lupin pens on full moons.
Before they turned into the woods, toward his personal space, Wednesday stopped to let Thing out by the front entrance. He clambered out of the basket and Xavier handed him his bag; within he had spied a bottle of nail polish in a rather sickly though shimmery green. And off the hand went, scampering up the stairs, likely back to the girl’s room or to Yoko’s.
He and Wednesday continued on down the path until it became dirt. From there they walked the bikes, the terrain rough and awkward. “So,” Xavier started, “that cashier definitely told me you were going to kill me with your newly purchased murder kit.”
“Murder kit,” she huffed, disgusted. “That woman, and the new sheriff for that matter, wouldn’t know what was necessary to kill, dismember, and dispose of a body if you smacked them in the face with it.”
“So you didn’t buy a shovel, zip ties, trash bags, a hacksaw, duct tape, bleach, and a collapsible mop and bucket?”
“Were you snooping?” She demanded in return though her eyes were twinkling with something like mirth.
He put his hands in his pockets, nonchalant, shrugged his shoulders and looked skyward. When he caught her eye again he could feel his lips lifting against his will. “I was intrigued. Thought maybe you had something fun planned for tonight.”
“A murder?”
“Maybe.”
“Would you help me if I did?”
That had him full on smiling, “You know I would,” he cocked his head, thoughtful, “unless it was one of our friends. Then you’d have to have a really fucking good reason.”
She took three steps toward him, put her hands around his neck, and pulled him down into a kiss, immediately licking into his mouth.
Xavier’s hands worked their way up and under the hem of her black sweater. Formerly his black sweater. They rose over the slim smooth line of her stomach, tracing the ridges of her rib cage, before coming to the lacy edge of what he knew to be her favorite black bralette. He hummed against her, thumbs edging under the bottom band, rucking it up so that he could pinch each of her nipples.
She gasped but pulled away, a trail of spit connecting their mouths. His lips chased after hers.
“Later. I need to take these things down to the hives for Eugene,” she gestured at the wagon.
Xavier laughed, “All that stuff is for the Hummers?”
“Of course,” she rolled her eyes. “I told you. This would be an entirely inadequate murder kit. Eugene gave me a list,” she removed it from the back pocket of her jeans along with a wad of bills. “And petty cash from the club’s honey sales to pay for it. We are preparing for the big spring cleaning.”
He was still chuckling, “Come on,” he grabbed the handle. “I’ll help you.”
“I can do it myself,” she reminded him sternly.
“Oh, I know you can,” he dropped a kiss on the top of her head. “But the faster we get this done the sooner I can peel those fucking amazing jeans down and bend you over the nearest surface.”
“In that case,” she cocked a dark brow and waved a small pale hand for him to follow her.
He stepped up behind her before she could get too far, long strides easily outpacing her own, stopping her movement with an arm around her middle. He released the wagon. “Can we at least keep a couple of the zip ties?” he queried, lips against her throat, his hand moved to grasp both of her wrists tightly in front of her while the other cupped her hot sex through the denim of her pants.
She exhaled a small laughing breath, pressing her ass back into him, “I am far ahead of you as always. I got us our own bag.”
“That’s my deviant little witch,” he grinned against her flesh.