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“Four hundred dollars.”

“What?” I grabbed the package of hot dogs and smoothed my fingers across the plastic covering. “Guess we better appreciate every bite. We’re looking at the most expensive Oscar Mayer wieners ever made.”

“It’s like champagne and caviar.” Cody grabbed the Goose and twisted off the lid. He swallowed down a gulp, licked his lips, and sighed. “Worth every penny.”

He handed me the bottle and I took a long swig. It burned going down. I took another swallow and then felt the heat spread through my veins. My stomach was empty and the liquor hit fast. I handed the bottle to Iggy. As she drank, I ripped open the package of hot dogs, held up a link and saluted with it. “Here’s to a fifty dollar hot dog.” Then I bit half of it off. I’d never tasted anything so good in my whole life.

“Don’t you want to heat it up first?” Iggy asked, smiling.

“I’m so hungry, I could eat through the can to get to the beans,” I told her, grabbing the can of country style beans. “I’d eat raw meat at this point.”

Cody grabbed the can and the opener, and then he poured the beans into the microwavable dish. “We can put the hot dogs in with the beans,” he told Iggy.

While the beans and hot dogs cooked, Iggy and I grabbed spoons and dug into the peanut butter. She sat down and licked the spoon like an ice cream cone, moaning about how good it was. “Anybody mind if I double dip?” We shook our heads and she scooped another spoonful while Cody went for the vodka.

Iggy grabbed his wrist. “Can you pretty please go get my clothes before you get drunk?”

He smiled and kissed her on top of her head. “Sure. Be right back.”

I watched Iggy dip a chip into her peanut butter and crunch it down. I said, “He likes you, you know.”

“I like Cody too. He’s like the big brother I always wanted.”

Hearing her say that made me feel better. I took a gulp of Goose and asked, “What about Wesley? I thought he’d be your first choice for a brother.”

Her eyes took on this wistful, sad look, and I regretted bringing him up. She said, “He means more to me than I can say, but he’s not exactly brother material. He always has been and always will be my best friend.” She took the bottle from me and drank, making a face that had me laughing.

“Why do you drink the stuff if you think it tastes so horrible?”

She retrieved dinner from the microwave. “It’s not horrible, it just burns like fire.” She stirred the beans and franks. “Hot sauce and wasabi burn too, but I keep eating the stuff.”

When Cody returned with our clothes, Iggy disappeared into the bathroom, and I changed in the bedroom. Cody was still wearing his wet clothes, and I held my hand out. “Give me your wet clothes and I’ll go throw them in the wash.” He stripped and started to sit down. “Tell me you don’t plan on being naked when Iggy gets out of the bathroom.”

Cody mumbled all the way over to the bed where he yanked off a sheet and wrapped it around himself toga style. I could tell he was anxious to get as plastered as possible, and I hurried through starting the wash so I could get back and make sure he ate before consuming too much liquor.

When I walked back into the room, Iggy was holding the bottle in one hand and shoving a hot dog into Cody’s mouth with her other hand. “Eat the whole thing, and then you can have another shot.”

I sat down at the table with them and fixed my own hot dog. Cody ate his in two bites and reached for the chips. An hour later, he was asleep on the sofa with only a third of the bottle left.

Iggy covered him with a spare blanket from the closet, and then she gently pried his fingers off the bottle and brought it back to the table. “That man can eat a lot of food.” Everything was gone except half a jar of peanut butter and a half loaf of bread.

“You didn’t eat much. Were you saving it all for Cody or something?”

“I think it’s stress. Or maybe the antibiotic shot they gave me in the hospital.”

“Maybe the pain pills,” I suggested.

“I didn’t take any pain medicine.”

“How does your nose feel?” I pushed the Goose toward her and leaned forward on my elbows.

“Like it’s stuffed with cotton. But it doesn’t hurt much.” She took a swig of vodka, shivered, and passed it back. She blinked slowly at me and yawned.

“Looks like it’s time for you to go to bed.”

“I don’t want to go to sleep. Can we watch a movie?”

“Sure.” I grabbed the Jif jar, a spoon, and the bottle of vodka while Iggy turned out the lights and switched off Cody’s television. I followed her to the giant bed. She grabbed the remote from the dresser in front of us and propped herself up on a couple of pillows against the headboard. I set the peanut butter and vodka between us and then propped myself up beside her in the same manner.

She flipped through the digital guide and we talked about what movies looked interesting. We settled on a thriller, which seemed to be our favorite genre. But instead of watching quietly, Iggy was pretty talkative, and I enjoyed listening to her. She asked about what college was like in New York, and she laughed at some of the stories I told her about me and Cody. I confessed that I’d screwed up by partying too much and then my guilty conscience finally got me to move off campus to share an apartment with some of my friends who were serious about making good grades. I had cut down on the amount of free time I wasted, and my GPA had gone way up after that. Iggy said she’d always wanted to live in a big city, even if just for a year. But she figured it wasn’t meant to be. Though she said she was jealous of my college experience, I knew that she loved the farm. And if she ever did leave for the city, she’d miss it too much to stay gone for long.

She reminded me about some of the stuff we’d done as kids, and we laughed over how scared I’d been of her. Back when she was nine and I was eleven, she’d been tall for her age, and I’d been short. She’d been bigger than me and had bossed me around. I remembered having mixed feelings about Iggy back then. Sometimes I liked her and admired the way she told other kids what to do. Other times, I ran from her for fear she was going to use me as target practice. She laughed when I admitted this to her.

“When did the growth spurt hit, then?” she asked. “I last saw you when you were thirteen, and you were still pretty scrawny.”

“I was a late bloomer.” She giggled and I poked her side, making her jump. “It was a tough time. Really. I didn’t hit puberty until I was fifteen.”

“That’s difficult to imagine.” She drained the last of the Grey Goose and handed the bottle to me.

I set it on the night stand and shifted closer to her. “I hated being small.” I licked the peanut butter blob on my spoon. “I used to have nightmares about you attacking me. You were like twelve feet tall in my dreams.” She laughed. “I can’t tell you how much I hated that you were taller than me even though I was older. It damaged my ego. Along with all that crap you blamed me for.”

She laid her head on my shoulder. “Dad knew better than to believe half of what I said about you. I blamed you for stuff that I or my friends damaged, but he stopped falling for my excuses.” She grabbed my spoon. “I was an evil child, wasn’t I?” She licked off the rest of my peanut butter and said, “But I’m no longer evil, and you’re no longer scrawny.” She handed the spoon back to me.

“And you no longer have buck teeth.”

Iggy giggled. “I wore headgear. Can you believe it? I guess the wheel came around and paid me back for how I treated you.”

“I bet nobody teased you though. You would have beaten the crap out of them.” I tucked some hair behind her ear, carefully moving strands away from her stitches.

“I only wore the head gear at night, but you’re right in that no one dared tease me about my braces. But I didn’t get asked out on any dates until my sophomore year.”

“That’s probably because you scared the boys.”

“Nah. I just wasn’t very pretty.”

“I find that hard to believe.”

“Well, I look better now than I did then. I’ll have to show you some pictures.”

“I bet all those guys in school would take one look at you now and kick themselves for not asking you out.”

She shrugged. “Not with a nose like this.”

“Would you go on a date with me if I asked?” I touched her cheek, careful to avoid her nose. She went still.

“Why would you want to date me? I’m nothing like the sorority girls you went out with up at NYU.”

I rubbed my thumb across her soft cheek and said, “You’re right. You’re smarter, stronger, more special and beautiful than any of them.”

She turned away. “Cael. I’m not beautiful. My nose is swollen and I have eight stitches on my head.”

I sighed. “Okay. Allow me to clarify. Right now, with your nose swollen, you’re beautiful. When your nose isn’t swollen, you are the most stunning woman I’ve ever seen.”

She looked back at me and said, “That’s the vodka talking.”

“Fine. Then I’ll say it to you tomorrow, and the next day. And every single day until you believe it’s not the vodka.” I sat back against my pillows. “You didn’t answer my question. Would you go out with me if I asked?”

“A date?”

“Yes.”

“Yeah. I would. Unfortunately, the world is falling apart, and there’s nowhere to go on a date.”

“Then let’s plan out what we’d do, and when everything is back to normal, we’ll go out.”

And we stayed up talking until Iggy put her arms around my waist, snuggled against me, and began softly snoring.

Chapter 15

Cael

I sat up in bed, careful not to wake Iggy. We’d left the television on as a night light, but maybe someone had woken up in the middle of the night to turn it off. There were no windows, and it was pitch black. When I glanced in the direction of the bedside clock, the red digital numbers were gone. I pushed a button on my watch and it glowed to reveal that it was just past seven a.m.

“Power’s out,” Cody whispered, and I pinned his location to the kitchenette.

I snuck out of bed and used my glowing watch to illuminate my way to the table. After taking the seat across from Cody, I ran a hand through my hair and yawned. I asked, “How long have you been up?”

“Not long,” he whispered. “I sure could use some coffee.”

“Me too,” Iggy said. I heard some shuffling sounds and then a thump followed by a mumbled curse word. Iggy bumped into our table and grumbled, “We lost power? Well that sucks.” She sighed. “How you doing, Cody?”

He chuckled. “That’s sweet of you to worry about me, Iggy. I’m fine.”

“You didn’t leave us much vodka,” she teased.

“I didn’t want you guys to wake up hung over or anything. I was being considerate.”

“Well then, since we’re all feeling good, you guys ready to go?” She bumbled around in the dark, fussing at herself for not leaving her cell phone where she could find it. Then I heard her “Aha!” and she switched on her cell’s flashlight mode. She set her phone on the table and I smiled at seeing her tousled morning hair. She was ridiculously cute. “I’m gonna use the bathroom and then I’m ready to head home.”

“Sounds good,” I agreed.

Once the bathroom door shut, Cody asked, “You sure are spending a lot of time in bed with Iggy.”

I heard the playfulness in his tone and went to grab a glass of tap water. All I could think of to say was, “Yeah,” and Cody didn’t say anything else. He also downed a couple glasses of water along with a couple slices of bread.

Iggy came out, found her coat, and we used her phone flashlight to find our way to the front desk. “Don’t they have a back up generator?” she wondered aloud as she led the way. Our shoes made the only noise as we went from carpet to tile and approached the desk. No one was there.

“This is creepy.” Cody moved closer to the picture window that let in dim light.

“Well, we already paid so let’s just go.” I put the key card on the counter top and we headed for the parking lot. I leaned toward Iggy and asked, “Which car are we hot wiring today?”

Cody grinned and pointed. “The red Mazda RX5 over there. Can I drive?”

I smiled and followed Iggy who had too much bounce in her step for a girl with a head injury and a broken nose. She probably wasn’t even sore from that crazy long run yesterday. “You guys keep a look out,” she ordered, picking up a rock. “This baby probably has an alarm, and once I bust the window, we gotta move fast.”

I rolled my eyes. “I hate this.” I scanned the area for any signs of life. It was deserted, but I half expected a police car to careen around the corner with its sirens blaring. I’d have another charge on the list of crimes I was accumulating. I wondered how many more years I’d get for auto theft on top of attempted homicide.

I heard a loud thunk, shattering, and some grunts. The alarm made me jump, and I turned to find Cody helping Iggy peel out the driver’s side glass. She unlocked the door and dived beneath the steering wheel to fidget with something on the left. I glanced around, my heart pounding, imagining people running at us from the hotel. I growled at Cody, “Next time, pick a piece of junk that doesn’t have an alarm.”