I yank hard.
And then I accidentally let it fly behind me.
Accidentally.
Prove I’m lying.
I dare you.
But who’d want to?
Gigi screams.
Pebbles howls in response.
Dylan makes a choking noise.
“Captain America!”I shriek, as if I have no idea that I just threw a raw chicken thigh at my grandmother. “Don’t go down, Captain America!”
“Get it off!”Gigi screeches.“Get it off!”
“It’s just chicken, Grandma Lightly,” Dylan says.
“It’s in my hair!”
I silently high-five myself. Even I didn’t think I could dothatwell.
And even knowing Gigiwillexact revenge, in this moment, I feel like the queen of the damn universe.
Suck it, Gigi.
“Saved him!” I cry, lifting the action figure out of the pipe. “Look, Dylan! I saved Captain America!”
He spares me a quick glance, his lips twitching, as he climbs out of the tub. “Stuff a rag in that hole, yeah? Here, Estelle. I’ve got the chicken. It won’t hurt you. Promise.”
His phone camera’s still rolling.
He got every last second recorded.
I have exactly zero dollars in my bank account designated asmoney to pay a small-town cutie for a video that I will lord over my grandmother for the rest of her natural life, but I will literally walk around Deer Drop taking selfies with people for money to cough up as much as he wants.
But I won’t have to.
It’s Dylan.
He’s the kind of nice guy who will give it to me for free and probably make me promise I won’t do any evil with it, except he’ll know I’m lying when I promise, and he’ll probably still give it to me for free.
Good thing.
With that favor Ridhi called in, I now have even less time to pose for selfies in exchange for money, even if I farm out most of the work of planning the party to the people on my team still making my social media feeds roll.
No matter how much I delegate, I still have to decide thewhatand thewhereand the decorations and the catering menu and the guest list.
“Oh my gosh, Gigi, are you okay?” I leap to my feet and bump into him as we both try to crowd into the small area to save my grandmother from the flying chicken thigh.
Gigi aims an eyeball of death at me while Dylan plucks the raw poultry out of her hair and tosses it in his garbage bucket.
“Don’t worry,” I say. “We’ll call Niles. He’ll know what to do.”
