Pinky grunts, I assume in surprise.
Highly doubt the man’s ever considered using condiments to protect his clients.
Jake grabs his face and squeezes his eyes shut and yelps.
“Don’t attack my customers, you dickweed.” Bea holds the ketchup bottle straight out as the man I recognize as Jake begins screaming again.
But this time, rather than my character’s name, he’s doubled over, wiping his eyes and yelling, “My eyes! Assault! My eyes!”
The policeman comes running back from down Secret Alley.
I share a look with Pinky, who looks back at me as though he intends to throwmein jail for not going with him when he tugged my elbow.
“It was self-defense,” a woman behind me yells. “She was protecting Peter!”
I try to not wince and miss.
Peter was…not a good person on the show.
That’s one other minor discomfort in this whole fame thing.
People tend to assume I’m personally as big of a tosser as the character I wrote and played.
Much like Bea and Daphne have.
I’ve become accustomed to it.
Not that it took much accustoming.
Not with my childhood being what it was.
“Yeah, the security guy didn’t see him coming, and so Bea had to do something,” a man behind me agrees as the policeman skids to a stop.
“I thought he got attacked by an invisible bird that pecked his nose off!” a woman cries.
“She blinded me!” Jake yells. “My eyes!”
“You’re not blind, you prick,” Daphne says. “Don’t rush at people. It’s not nice. And rushing at people with security guards is fucking dangerous. You did this to yourself. You, Luckwood. Get inside the bus. You’re causing problems.”
Bea growls at her.
Daphne rolls her eyes. “Seen this play out a time or two,” she mutters. “Give him the chef’s table. Can’t hurt to increase foot traffic.”
“Fucker,” Bea mutters back.
I don’t think she’s calling Daphne a fucker.
“Mr. Luckwood—” the policeman starts.
“I didn’t see the man coming at my client, and the burger bus woman saved him before I could intervene,” Pinky says.
He slides me another look.
While Butch, not Pinky, regularly cooks dinner for all of us on top of his other duties, they’re often in harmony, which means it’s likely that in retaliation for me turning this into a far larger spectacle than it should’ve been, they’ll conspire against me to slip cheese into one or two of my dishes this week. And I’ll take it as graciously as possible, because I do, in fact, appreciate Pinky taking Bea’s side.
I’ve caused her quite enough trouble for one day, and shedidsave me.
In a manner of speaking.
