Danville Horror: A Pat Wyatt Novel (The Pat Wyatt Series Book 3) by Laura Del

“And you’re supposed to be my best friend?”
    “Hey,” she huffed, folding her arms, “if I didn’t tell ya when you look like shit, what kinda best friend would I be?”
    “True,” I replied with a nod, feeling a little better.
    “You feeling better?” she asked as she sat next to me on the couch.
    “A little.”
    “Well, you’re not as pale as you were before. I mean, you’re always pale, but you’re not as green.”
    I laughed. “Excuse me, but we can’t be all caramel colored goddesses like you.”
    “Shut up,” she said, nudging me gently with her elbow. We sat in silence for a second until Tina broke it. “You know, you started to look really sick when you were talkin’ about Mike. I know he hurt you, but maybe you need to talk to him because not everyone is like you, Patty. Some people don’t push their emotions aside in order to get through certain things. Some people feel very deeply. And maybe you would feel a little less sick if you got everything out in the open with him. I mean, it would make talking about him, like, a lot easier.”
    “Don’t destroy my resolve with your logic, Tina.”
    She laughed a little then grew serious. “I mean it, Patty. Maybe that’s why you’re feeling sick. You know you did him a disservice by not staying and talking about the problem.”
    I cocked a brow at her. “The problem?” I said, putting my glass of water down on the coffee table. “The problem was that he tried to kill me, and he knew he was doing it. The problem is that he’s a danger to me.”
    “But you knew this before you fell in love with him,” she retorted gently, “didn’t you?”
    “I did and I didn’t. I just—”
    “Didn’t think he would do that to you?”
    I nodded. “But I guess it was only a matter of time.”
    “Maybe. Or maybe you were doing that thing where you put yourself into situations where you try to get hurt.”
    “I don’t do that,” I said, and she narrowed her eyes at me. “Much. Besides, it’s only been recently, like in the last couple of months, that I put myself in life threatening danger.”
    Tina shook her head. “What about the time that you used that rickety ladder outside our two-story apartment building to rescue a cat?”
    “Hey, she was a kitten, and crying. I couldn’t have left her there.”
    “Yeah, and you almost broke your neck,” she reminded me.
    “Only because that kid knocked into the ladder with his skateboard,” I protested.
    “Or the time that you ran after that guy who stole that old lady’s purse.”
    “But I got him,” I said with a sheepish smile.
    “Patty!”
    “I know,” I sighed. “I know. I’m a reckless and dangerous mess.”
    “That’s an understatement,” she pointed out.
    “Keep rubbing salt in the wound, why don’t you?”
    She laughed again, putting her arm around me, pulling my head onto her shoulder. “You know what I think?”
    “No,” I answered, “but I have a sneaking suspicion that you’re going to tell me anyway.”
    “You bet your ass,” she said and then went on to tell me what was in her head. “I think that you like the danger but don’t want the consequences. I also think that you’re not scared that he tried to kill you, you’re just frightened that he did it on purpose.”
    I closed my eyes to the feeling that she was somehow right as usual. Tina knew me all too well, and it terrified me that sometimes she could be a better voice of reason than my own conscious. Then in typical Tina fashion, she said, “Besides, you need to resolve all this so you can have sex with that smoking hot Irish vampire in the other room.”
    “Tina!”
    “Just sayin’.”
    She was always just sayin’, and I sat up to look at her. “Tina, no.”
    “What?” she asked in her innocent baby voice.
    “You know what.”
    “Sex is a perfectly natural thing, Patty. And it would be a shame if you let this opportunity go to waste.”
    “There’s one problem with your plan,” I told