Packs and Prides - Her Frost Dancer

Chapter 2 - Evie

             Evie sighs deeply as she finishes up the few dishes in the sink, making sure they are all rinsed off completely.  If they weren’t she would hear about it for the rest of the evening and she was already nursing a headache.  The music pounding out of the sound bar in the living room was so loud she couldn’t hear herself think and she was genuinely surprised that the neighbors hadn’t called the local PD to have him turn it down.

Making sure that the sink was wiped out first, she then moved to the dining room table and wiped it off including the four chairs surrounding the table. Not all of them had been used of course, but they were still a part of the dining room and needed to be done. Joe was always such a stickler about everything being clean. As in, see your reflection in the table kind of clean. It was hard to do with the state of the house itself, but she did her best. At least she thought she was… until she was rudely reminded that she needed to do better. To do it faster, to be more mindful of how much time she spent doing pretty much anything.

As she makes her way back to the kitchen she hears a shout and looks over to see him waving his silver travel coffee mug at her. His mouth moves as he is talking but she can’t hear him over the loud screams coming out of the speaker.

He says it's music.

She thought it sounded like someone being murdered, underwater, while trying to sing with a metal milk bucket on their head.

But Evie knew not to gripe about it or he would only turn it up louder and then he might even back out of letting her borrow it when she did her monthly house deep clean when he was gone. It was one of the few times she could really let her guard down and relax, even if she was alone, which was ok with her as she really didn’t like going out anymore. At one time she was all about going out to the local bar, club or barista and doing something fun with her friends. But now she shudders when she thinks about having to go anywhere with more than one person in the building.

Did she even have friends anymore? Evie hangs her head as she tries to remember the faces of the people she used to hang with. Joe had gotten angry with her after a year of being together, stating that she spent more time on her phone doing social media shit and texting her friends than spending time with him or keeping the house clean. After her phone time was up he had changed her number and gotten her a small flip phone with a limited amount of talk and text time on it. While there were quite a few friends that came to mind, only one really stood out. It had been so long since she had seen or heard from her best friend Trevor she was sure he had forgotten her. Her reverie is interrupted when the music stops and she hears Joe's angry voice yelling from the living room.

“Hey! What the fuck are you standing there for? Come get this and get me some damn coffee, woman!”

Joe is sitting on the couch, reclining across it and waving the coffee mug at her again with an annoyed look on his face when she doesn’t immediately go over to him. Dropping the washcloth on the counter bar that separates the kitchen from the dining room she walks over and gets it, receiving a rather hard slap on her butt cheek as she turns to walk off. He doesn’t see the wince since her back was to him and she was thankful for that. Joe hated it when she winced or showed any kind of reaction other than some semblance of sexual enjoyment out of his attention.

He was always telling her that she should be happy that he showed her any kind of affection or attention at all and he reveled in rubbing in that fact whenever he had a chance. After all, he had taken her in and gave her a roof over her head when she needed it, food in her belly and a warm bed to sleep in. Hell, at one time he even told her she should be thankful that he fucked her too since no one else would. She should be grateful to him for that, right?

Evie puts in the measured amounts of creamer and sweetener, making sure to stir it enough that it was completely mixed before attaching the lid and taking it back to him. As she goes to stand in front of the couch to hand the coffee to him, she fights the urge to frown as the music made her eardrums vibrate painfully. She liked her music loud too sometimes, so there wasn’t a reason for her to complain but this was way too loud and she mouths a “You’re welcome” to him even though he doesn’t thank her for it. At the most, she gets a wave of his hand and she returns to the kitchen to finish up what small amount of cleaning she had left to do.