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)
“The perfect little cherry.”
“What a sweetheart.”
“What happened?”
“Oh my god, how can they get that sweet, innocent little cat involved in such brazen debauchery?”
“What debauchery?”
“That guy tried to tase a kid!”
“Tase?”
“What a horrible old buggar.”
I can’t see anyone who is making those comments, but I hear them, and the last was very prim and proper and old ladyish, with a tight and stodgy British accent.
Ephemeral quickly snatches up Peach Lips and stands above me, giving me a black, murderous staredown.
One more thing I know?
This was supposed to be about redemption, but it has quickly evolved into the most opposite of redemption there ever could be. Not only will I not live this down, but there is zero way to fix this.
Chapter five
Thorn
Ican count on one hand the number of times I’ve apologized for fuck-ups before.
Zero. There have been none.
Technically, I suppose that can’t be counted on anything at all unless your hand is making an O shape.
But this…
This was a straight-up, tremendous, stupendous cock-up of a nut-up of a fuck-up.
“People took photos!” Ephemeral sputters. “Photos last forever!”
I can think of a few ways to make them disappear, but I don’t suppose she’s in any sort of mood for me to be sharing that with her, no matter that it wouldn’t be snarky in the least.
She called it a day, packing up her booth and then writing a short thing online for her fans. Then, she notified the organizers that she needed to leave for a non-cat-related medical emergency. The emergency was my balls, even though I repeatedly assured her I was fine. The fact that I couldn’t stand upright said otherwise, and with some very narrowed eyes and tight lips, she announced I was finished for the day, and that meant so was she, or I’d stubborn it out. And clearly, I needed a hospital.
But I did get her to stand down on that front. She agreed to take me back to her bus so we could talk, emphasis on the ominous. She’s apparently leaving her bus at a campground all this week and cabbing it to the shows and back. She wants to stay plugged in and not run her generator while she’s gone.
Now, I’m sprawled out on the world’s smallest and most uncomfortable homemade bench slash couch thing with a towel-covered bag of ice on my groin, and she’s angrily chopping something on the counter across said bus. She’s about half a foot away, given that the living quarters in here are tighter than a snail’s butt crack—do they even have one of those?
All in all, I can’t believe someone who barely came up to my kneecaps disarmed me and has ball-bagged me straight out of commission.
It’s nice and cold in here, and Peach Lips is lying in her bed which resembles a huge bowl of ramen noodles on the floor at the front of the bus. She doesn’t seem to mind in the least that the show got canceled for her and she gets to nap the rest of the day away.
You know who minds?
Ephemeral.
She’s going to fire me, I can tell.
I’m normally the man of few words type, but I’ve never exchanged so few with someone and yet been able to hear them projecting all their feelings so loudly before. Our agreement is a verbal one. I should have gotten her to write it in blood—metaphorically because that’s juvenile and angsty to the max. I wanted her rules and my requirements—the usual standard shit in black and white for both of us—but she refused. She wasn’t budging on that or the timeframe.
I watch as she picks up her water bottle and chugs back a big swig. That bottle annoyed me all day. Anyone could have slipped something into it at any time. The top is so flimsy.
“The whole world now thinks I’d hire a bodyguard who would taser a child.”
“Anyone who knows anything will believe what you said online. That someone was defacing your booth, I stepped in, and then there was a slight mishap which involved my taser being pulled out and tossed on the floor and then my balls being assaulted. Instead of helping out, people in the crowd decided to stand there and act like complete imbeciles, using their phones to document the whole sordid trainwreck.”
“I did not type any of that when I tried to explain what happened today.”
“No, but you should have.”
“I don’t believe in shaming people, thank you very much.”
That’s the kindest thing she’s said to me. “Thank you.”
Her brows crease, and her eyes get dark. Black. Exceptionally angry. “I was talking about that kid. Not you.”
Now I’m the one getting angry. My balls were nearly punched clean off my body after I did absolutely nothing wrong, and this? This is what the world is going to say about me?
“People are assholes. That’s what happened today. You should try writing that.”