Total pages in book: 73
Estimated words: 69018 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 345(@200wpm)___ 276(@250wpm)___ 230(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 69018 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 345(@200wpm)___ 276(@250wpm)___ 230(@300wpm)
“Excellent.” He sounds about as nonplussed as if he’d just had to open a can of tinned liver—I hope to goodness that is not truly a thing—using only his teeth.
“One other thing, Thorns.” I smile at Peach Lips to keep me grounded and sweet and to remind me that even though so many things have gone wrong, I’ve been incredibly blessed. Maybe this is a blessing in disguise as well. Or…maybe it’s just awful—not in disguise. “Most people call me Effy, but don’t you dare. That’s stipulation number one.”
He ignores my purposeful misuse of his name and is quite pleasant behind my back. “I wouldn’t dream of it. I’m nothing if not utterly professional.”
It makes no sense at all that I’m even slightly disappointed to hear that.
Then again, I’d be crazy to believe this could be anything but a clusterhairwad in the making.
Chapter four
Thorn
The convention is now in full swing. I’ve been here since the early hours of the day, doing walkthroughs, talking to the other security, and familiarizing myself with the building’s layout. Then, I was sure to walk past every vendor so I knew who belonged at what booth. There are over four hundred booths, but I have a good memory, and it’s scarily accurate.
Ephemeral—not Effy—got here over an hour early. She had last-minute things to put up, her laptop and tablet to check repeatedly, and a cat to settle.
Or so I thought.
In reality, Peach Lips went from her carrier to the cave cage thing just fine and got a dish of cat food and some water, and then Ephemeral just sat and waited while stabbing at her phone. Probably updating social media about the convention, adding photos, answering messages, and doing all sorts of things to market—or not market, as she firmly stated—her cat and make everyone else happy.
She strikes me as the number one people-pleaser type. I know her background. I know all about what schools she went to, every stage in her life, every phase, every tragedy. I know she’s entirely on her own now, living in a small bus that she painted purple. What other color would someone who wears the brightest cat dresses and has hair like the deepest reaches of the galaxy paint it?
You can’t learn everything about a person by reading their background information alone. I know people because it’s my job to know people, but I always leave room open to be surprised. I refuse to make assumptions as they’re the height of ignorance, and looking like a fool isn’t something I’m willing to live down.
Hence why I’m here, currently watching swarms of people approach Ephemeral’s booth to coo over the little patchy-haired, one-eyed, no-teeth bag of potatoes—fine…her cat.
The current and rather obnoxious lingo is people repeatedly saying this or that is giving this or that. My internal badass bodyguard is so in touch with the younger generation. For the record, I’m thirty-five, but I look like someone in their early twenties who has a fitness obsession, and I feel mentally like someone in their fifties. Sixties. Seventies? Anyfuckingway, this crowd is giving hives.
Wait. Maybe I don’t know how it goes.
It’s pretty much the worst nightmare of anyone who is trying to do any kind of security anything.
There are plenty of animals here, but it’s the human ones who concern me. I’m on ultra-alert mode.
My hands curl into fists as I stand well back in the shadowy black backdrop that divides the booths. They’re small, or at least Ephemeral’s is, which is a bonus because less to watch and guard. I’m following one of her rules. She laid out the list, ending each point with a verbally punctuated skull emoji. She’d stood on the stairs of her bus and ticked them off like a teacher to a group of unruly children. I listened like the perfect angel I’m not because that’s what I’m going to have to be over the next month, which is all the time she agreed to give me. There’s no room for disagreement or error. She’s the one doing me a favor. Redemption isn’t something I usually have to claw my way to, and favor isn’t something I curry, but I’m going to be motherfucking currying today.
I’ll stand back as Ephemeral commanded. I won’t interfere with Peach Lips’ fans, and I’ll make myself invisible. I won’t crack skulls or break bones or appear like a menacing hulk. No scaring anyone off in any way. I’ll respond only to certain dangers and known threats.
Check, check, and fucking check.
My left eye twitches as I watch an elderly man with a group of little kids running around him like flies, screaming and snotty and being generally loud and obnoxious. They’re about as good a reason as any not to procreate if anyone should ever need a reason. Don’t ask me why, but apparently people do.