“Fuck,” he muttered, his eyes on Bonnie.

“Joe –” Violet whispered and he knew she was watching Bonnie too.

“Mah house!” Bonnie screeched, her head snapping back, her lank hair drifting. “Mah man!”

Cal hit the buttons on the phone to call the taxi.

Bonnie crawled toward them and lifted a hand when she got close. Cal moved Violet behind him, dropping his arm and stepped into Bonnie as she took a clumsy swipe at their legs and missed.

He put the phone to his ear.

“Shouldn’t we get her up?” Violet whispered, her hands on his lower back, fingers curling into the waistband of his jeans. She was so close he could feel her tits in his tee brushing against his skin.

“Yeah, I need a taxi, one one eight Elm. Pre-paid, it’s goin’ to Indy,” Cal said into the phone after the dispatcher answered.

“Joe –” Violet whispered, pressing closer.

Bonnie lifted up to her knees, still swaying, her eyes slits and they were on Vi. “You thin’ your shid doan stink.”

“Soon’s you can get here,” Cal said into the phone.

“We should help her,” Violet said at his back.

“Id stinks jus’ like mine!” Bonnie declared.

“Give me a second,” Cal told the dispatcher and turned to Violet. “Go get my wallet on the nightstand. I need my credit card.”

She looked up at him and opened her mouth to speak.

“Do it, buddy,” he ordered gently.

She closed her mouth, nodded, glanced down at Bonnie and then rushed out of the room.

“Id stinks!” Bonnie shouted after her, reeling to the side and down on a hand.

“Christ, Bonnie, shut it,” Cal clipped.

Bonnie turned to glare at him and came back up to her knees, throwing out a hand to grab onto the counter and pull herself up.

While she did this, she asked, “Whas she doin’ in mah house?”

Cal didn’t reply.

With a fair amount of effort, Bonnie got to her feet and repeated louder, “Whas she doin’ in mah house?”

Violet rushed back, she had his wallet in her hand and he took it from her then he used his arm to sweep her behind him again. She moved back into position, close to his back, fingers curled into his jeans.

Bonnie glared over his shoulder at Violet as Cal read out his credit card number, confirmed the address then hit the button to turn off the phone.

The second he threw it on the counter, Bonnie snapped at him, “Ahy come home, shiz in mah house.”

Cal was losing it, even if Vi went to the bedroom she could still hear, the walls were thin and she’d already seen the worst of it just catching sight of his ex-wife much less Bonnie crashing drunkenly to the floor. He was done with her shit, totally over it. He had been for nearly two decades.

Therefore, he didn’t guard his response from Violet when he reminded Bonnie, “Woman, this hasn’t been your house for seventeen years.”

“Mah house!” Bonnie declared, her eyes shifting drunkenly to Violet and focusing. “Joe’s mah man.”

“Maybe we should get her some coffee,” Violet whispered her suggestion in his ear.

“Doan whan coffee. Whan you out!” Bonnie yelled.

“You don’t get to say who stays and who goes in this house,” Cal told Bonnie and her torso pitched as she focused on him. She blinked, confusion hitting her face then her torso pitched again and she got down to the matter at hand, the reason she was there, the only reason she ever came.

“You gonna gimme money or wha’?”

“Do I ever give you money?” Cal asked and the answer was no, he never did, not once, not even in the beginning. No, especially not in the beginning.

“Need money,” Bonnie answered.

“Yeah, I know, know why you need it too. Don’t work hard so I can piss my money away on that shit.”

“Need money,” she mumbled.

“Find it somewhere else, woman, this is the last time I open the door for you. Next time you show, I’m callin’ the cops and they can deal with you.”

Her torso swung back and her hand came up, her head shaking.

“Joe, cops, no.”

“I’m not jokin’.”

She leaned in and had to put her hand flat on the counter to hold herself up. “Wanna come home.”

“Don’t know where that is but I know it isn’t here.”

She blinked slowly and her head drifted to the side, her face going slack then filling with something else Cal was familiar with and he knew they were moving to the next part of the scene, the part he hated the most.

She whispered to the counter, “Was only ‘appy ‘ere wid you.”

Cal was again surprised when that pain didn’t come like it always did every time she got to this.

He’d never in the past responded. This time, he did.

“Then you shouldn’t have fucked it up.”

Her eyes came back to him. “You know ‘ow id was, Joe.”

“Far’s I can see, it’s still that way, Bonnie.”

“I need you to keep me straight.”

“You don’t wanna get straight.”

“Ged straight for you, promise.”

Now that, also familiar, made the pain slash through his gut and he felt his body get tight fighting it.

She’d promised that so many times, it was a fucking joke. He’d bust his balls guiding her off that dark path and the first chance she got she’d veer right back there. In the end she’d had more reason than just Cal to stay clean, all the reason in the world, and she didn’t get that then she killed it.

He felt Violet close in on his back, her hands coming out of his jeans to slide up and her fingers curled around his ribcage at the sides as she pressed herself into his back and held on.

At the feel of her softness pressed to him, the heat of her, suddenly Bonnie vanished, the scene in front of him melted clean away and his mind went completely blank.

She was so close he could smell her hair, a hint of her perfume, could feel her knees brushing his legs. Everything that was Vi was pressed deep into him, soft and strong like she wanted him to absorb both those things from her so he could deal.

He’d never had that, not in his life with his Mom dying when he was eight, his Dad losing it then finding Bonnie and taking on her shit. He’d never had anyone give anything like that to him. He didn’t know what to do with it. Until Violet gave it to him, he’d forgotten he’d had it from his mother, forgotten it even existed.

“Joe, da’lin’ –”

His name coming from Bonnie brought him back into the room.

He cut her off. “I know you’re hammered and probably high but you got any healthy cells in that twisted, fuckin’ brain of yours, you need to fire ‘em up because what I’m gonna say to you needs to sink in. Do not come back. You come back, I call the cops and then I’ll sell this fuckin’ place and disappear.”

“Joe –”

“I do not exist for you. In your world, I stopped existing seventeen years ago.”

“We were made for each other, ev’ryone zed we were,” Bonnie whined.

“They said that in high school, for Christ’s sakes, then you showed them different.”

She winced and Cal ignored it, twisting his neck to look at Violet who, when she felt his movement, tore her gaze from Bonnie and caught his eyes.

“Let me go, baby, I gotta get her outside.”

She nodded, her fingers giving him a squeeze, her body pressing deeper for a second then she stepped away.

“We were made for each other,” Bonnie told him as he advanced on her, grabbed her arm and dragged her to the front door.

When he hit the door, his eyes went to Violet. “I’ll be back soon’s I get her in the taxi.”

“I’ll be here,” Violet replied.

He opened the door and hauled Bonnie out of it. Then he hauled her down the drive to the sidewalk.

He pulled her to a stop and looked down at her. “Your car isn’t gone by noon tomorrow, I’m havin’ it towed.”

“Can’t pay to ged id back.”

“Not my problem.”

She blinked at him then she did it again then he watched the drunkenness clear as something profound and ugly sunk in, bringing with it momentary clarity and she whispered, “You hate me.”

“Yeah,” Cal told her the truth without hesitation, not fucking believing she didn’t already know it to the depth of her bones. “I do. I’ve hated you every fuckin’ day for seventeen fuckin’ years. The memory of you is like acid in my fuckin’ veins.”

He watched her face shift, begin to collapse, her lip trembling. “You loved me once.”

“I don’t now.”

“Joe –” she started but he didn’t let her finish.

“You give a shit about me at all, after all I did for you and all you did to fuck up my life, you give the barest, little, inkling of a shit, you won’t come back. You won’t remind me. You won’t set that acid to workin’ in my veins.”

She stared up at him, her once pretty blue eyes clear in her moment of lucidity then she nodded and awkwardly pulled her arm from his hold. She moved to stand a foot away from him, staring at the street, biting her lips, her body gently swaying like a fucking willow branch caught in a light wind.

Five of the longest fucking minutes in his fucking life slid by before the taxi came. He shoved Bonnie in the backseat, slammed the door, pulled out his wallet, leaned in through the passenger side window and yanked a fifty out, handing it to the driver.

“Take her home, she doesn’t know where home is, take her somewhere safe, a shelter if you know where one is,” Cal ordered.

“Gotcha,” the driver nodded, Cal stepped back and the taxi pulled away.

Cal watched the street long after the car had gone from sight. That acid was still in his veins, he could feel it. It had started pumping the minute he woke up and knew she was back and the only time he didn’t feel it eating at him was when Violet was pressed to his back.