Page 206 of Primal

Joke’s on her. That’s half the appeal.

The only thing missing when I load it all into my car? A receipt for my sense of self-preservation.

My phone lights up in the console just as I take the turn onto my street. Steering one-handed, I lick the Flamin’ Hot dust off my fingers and tap speaker.

Too late.

They definitely notice.

Kristy appears first—resting bitch face fully armed. Lana joins a second later, smirking like she can smell the emotional damage through the screen.

“Let me guess,” Kristy drawls, before I can even say hi. “Ben & Jerry’s, family-size Cool Ranch, and that $4.99 wine you pretend is a personality?”

I glance in the rearview at my shame parade. “Rude. It’s Talenti sea salt caramel. Basically self-care.”

“Please.” Lana snorts. “We can see the Cheeto dust on your shirt from here.”

“Trauma has a flavor,” I mutter, “and it’s nuclear orange.”

Kristy sighs. “Honestly, you’re better off. Who needs a thirty-year-old fratboy with a crypto podcast when you’ve got loyal battery-operated company and better lighting?”

I kill the engine.

Damn. Feels good to hear their voices. Somehow, after two years of half-assed texts and birthday wishes, we’ve slipped back into rhythm like no time passed.

Like I didn’t fade out somewhere between rent checks and low-grade panic that hits at 3 am.

Back in college, we were chaos—stealing street signs after tequila shots, comparing dorm-cookie food poisoning like war wounds. Then adulthood scattered us. Lana to her law firm. Kristy to a classroom. Me? My freelance cave, where my most stable relationship was with my French press.

Until I broke the group chat silence with one text three weeks ago:

He fucking ghosted me.

They were at my door within the hour. Lana with top-shelf tequila. Kristy with her breakup playlist (Irreplaceable to Before He Cheats, zero skips). Both armed with the kind of venom only best friends who’ve held your hair over a dorm toilet can muster.

“Forget Brett,” Lana purrs, her cleavage practically eclipsing the screen. “The Verge’s hunters will ruin you in the best way.”

Kristy giggles. “That’s not on their Yelp page.”

“It’s implied,” Lana says. “Eight hundred bucks is totally—”

My key fob clatters to the footwell. “Eight hundred? You said five.”

“Worth every penny when some Jason Voorhees-looking Adonis pins you to a tree.”

The Verge’s Halloween Hunt. One night only, dusk till dawn. No names, no faces, just pulse-pounding adrenaline and very skilled hands in the dark. My stomach does that pre-rollercoaster flip between ‘Oh fuck’ and ‘Hell yes.’

“If I end up sacrificed to some rich dude’s sex cult, I’m haunting you both.”

“Five years running, zero police reports,” Kristy says. “Just glowing five-star reviews. Oh, although there’s one that said, ‘So intense, I blacked out.’”

Lana winks. “That was me. You haven’t lived till you wake up with leaves in your hair and no idea how they got there.”

“La petite mort, baby,” Kristy quips.

“Anyway,” Lana continues, “just transfer your share, P.”

“Eight hundred,” I groan, hauling my junk food haul out of the car. “For one night of—”