Carrot Cake scrunched up her round little nose, glaring into Vince’s skin.
“Fuck you, Deadwyler,” She hissed between her teeth, grinning. She pushed Vince away from her with a smile, squeezing his bicep as he recovered. “Alright, get lost before I change my mind and chain you down here.”
Carrot Cake didn’t need Vince. In fact, she didn’t need any man, but that didn’t stop her from worrying when two hours became three. She refused to wait by the gates like some delicate waif waiting for her husband to return — Rather, she worked to keep her mind busy. She was helping heave chunks of brahmin meat to a shabby smokehouse when a familiar girl approached: Lolly, an arms dealer who occasionally worked the gates.
“Shitfaced?” Cake snarled when she heard the news. “Are you kidding me?”
She dropped the brahmin meat carelessly onto a cluttered counter as she turned sharply and strode out of the smokehouse. She passed her guards at the gate, immediately sizing up Vince when she caught him in her sight. “The hell are you on, Vincent?”
As he stumbled into view, Vince cut a striking figure against the blue mist enveloping the mall. He strode through the midnight, all wiry muscle, dressed top to bottom in black aside from his mask and the three shiny new dogtags resting on top of his leather jacket. Bright blue swirls of Celtic warpaint adorned the cheeks under the hockey mask’s round, dead eyes, framing a spoked wheel drawn in the middle of the forehead.
At the sound of Carrot Cake’s voice, Vince hastily yanked the mask up to his forehead, his eyes bright with the cocktail of gin and amusement. Miss O’Malley clattered to the ground and left a red smear as she rolled. Hands balled into fists, Deadwyler cocked his head back and roared, “BRONWEEEEEN!”
If she was mad at him—and that was obviously no “if” at all—it was lost on Vince. He ambled over to his love with his arms outstretched and a careless smile spread over his face. “Miss me? Hey, how ‘bout a little kiss, gorgeous.” Vince stopped short, looking Cake up and down with wide eyes. A beat passed and it almost seemed as though he realized she was angry. “God damn,” he finally said, airing out his stupidity, “you are stunning. Fuckin’ knockout. I love you so much, babe, you know that?”
Before he could follow this train of thought any further, Vince gave a sudden jolt like he’d been pricked with a needle. He reached into his inner jacket pocket, rifled around for a few moments too long, had an epiphany, and switched to searching the opposite one. “Got the gun. That gun. Y’know, that one I was talking about. The gun?” The look he gave her to follow this was half-expectant, half-asleep. “Alright?”