Sometimes, I wonder if it would be better to run and just accept whatever it is that he would do to me.
•
“Oh my god, I would have knocked him out,” Ava tells me, pouring herself a glass of red wine while I recount my night at work.
“I think Vin probably did,” I shrug. “It was so gross. I really need to get out of there.”
I didn’t mind my job when I first started; actually, I loved it. I was working birthday and bachelorette parties almost every night, doing the job that I thought I had actually signed up to do. It wasn’t until I was moved up to working VIP that I started to hate it.
I guess, if I had to find a positive spin to put on it, gun to my head, I at least had the opportunity to learn what I liked, what I definitely didnotlike, and what I might like to try again in the right circumstances with the right person. Now, after years of clients with moreparticulartastes, I’m coming up on the sour end of my time here.
But I’m not sure that anyone has everquitworking for Nash Montgomery. I think they only get fired or...well, there are rumors that accompany those photos that I’ve seen, and I have no interest in finding out if they are true or not.
“What would you do if you got out?”
I shrug again, pulling a pizza from the freezer. “Literally anything else.”
The truth is that I don’t know what Icoulddo. I don’t have any other marketable skills and I never finished high school. Maybe I could go back and get my GED, but if I was the oldest person in the class, I’d be absolutely mortified. I’m twenty-eight, I should have gone back and done it years ago, but life happened and I just never got around to it.
Maybe I could go to cosmetology school or something and learn how to do that; I’ve always liked getting my nails done, maybe it could be nice to do it for someone else.
This is all assuming that I could even get out of Envy, which I just don’t see happening any time soon. I think I’m there for the long haul, or at least until I’m too old to bring in clients. I wonder if anyone has ever actually aged out of that place.
“We could always pool our savings and move to a farm somewhere in Georgia or something,” Ava shrugs with a laugh. “Farmers can be sexy, right?”
Cackling, I bring my own wine to my lips and take a sip of it. “I can just see you now, shoveling cow shit in your neon stilettos.”
“You’re such a bitch,” she laughs, and I press my fingers to my lips, blowing her a kiss. Ava walks toward me and throws her free arm around my shoulders, pulling me close to her while she presses a firm kiss to my cheek. “We’ll get it figured out, angel. We always do.”
TWELVE
Davis
If anyone else asked me to come over and spend a few hours a week hanging out with their kids, I would kindly tell them that I would rather scoop my own eyeballs out with a spoon than do that; but I like Colt’s kids. I wouldn’t sign up to watch them while he was away or invite them to stay at my place, but I will absolutely be fun Uncle Davis who picks them up from their first illegal rager.
Or from getting their first mugshot taken.
The Fowler household is lively as always when I let myself in, making a straight line to the kitchen to drop off the case of stouts that I brought with me. I pull two bottles from the box and use the counter top to pop off their caps, carrying them out to where I hear the family laughing and chatting.
We’ve been getting together every week to have these family supper-slash-game nights since just before Colt and his wife tied the knot – Rowan’s idea, and I’d never fucking tell her this because I’d never hear the end of it, but I’m kind of glad she put the whole thing together.
I look around the room; the littlest Fowler sits in what looks like a big mesh fence...thing, chewing on her hands like they’re the best fucking thing she’s ever eaten in her life. The older one has a stack of games piled high on the coffee table, sorting through them while she explains with enthusiasm howeach one works, and Colt sits in his big-ass armchair that could fit three people, his wife cozied into his lap and his arm draped over her shoulder.
Reaching over with a nod of greeting, I hand my best friend one of the stouts and he inspects the label, giving me an approving nod.
“You didn’t pick sewer water this time.”
“Mighta spit in it, though,” I wink, and the two of us laugh.
“Are you guys ready for Saturday?” Rowan asks us, reaching up to put hand on Colt’s.
“Hell yeah,” I tell her. “People are gonna be talking about that sh—thingfor months.”
“And it all started with Davis wanting an excuse to go on vacation,” Colt laughs, lifting his beer to me in a toast. A quick flinch crosses his features, almost like he feels like he said something he shouldn’t have.
“Everybodylook at me!” The middlest Fowler spawn shouts, and I damn near spit my beer out laughing. She hoists a box over her head and announces, “We’re playing this!”
“Alright, give it here, let’s see.” I reach my hand out for the box and she gives it to me, settling onto the couch next to me while I open the charades kit inside, pulling out the stacks of cards. “You gonna shuffle ‘em?”
