Hudson blocks me again. “Projecting is a bad look on you, dude. You heard Bea. Go away. She doesn’t want you.”
Dying alone doesn’t sound so bad right now.
No one can hurt you if you’re alone.
But Jake—Jake doesn’t get to see that, so I grab a ketchup bottle and point it at him. “I will use this again. Go the fuck away, and if your family doesn’t quit talking shit about me, I’ll destroy all of you. You’ve spent your whole life fooling people, but you’ve fucked up one too many times and made one too many enemies. We. Will. Take. You. Down.”
He shrinks.
It’s a small shrink, but it’s a shrink.
“I knew you weren’t smart enough to know what you had when you had me,” he says as he turns to walk away.
“A gaslighting prick?” I say.
He turns back, and I let a squirt of ketchup fly in his direction, which sends him running, calling something about me making a mistake over his shoulder.
As if I care what he thinks.
Not long after, Ryker shows up with a box of vegetables that I don’t need until tomorrow, which means he’s checking in on me and I know it.
“You wanna come play with the goats?” he asks me. “Hudson and I have the bus. You can take my truck.”
I scowl at him and don’t answer.
He stays to help cook.
We’re serving fish on a stick as the secret menu item today.
I completely forgot or I would’ve changed it.
Because fish on a stick makes me think of Simon admiring it the first day we met.
Was that the day he decided to write a TV show about my life?
I shake my head and go back to my burgers.
Ryker runs the fryer so I don’t have to touch the fish.
Hudson takes orders and he and Ryker jointly agree we’re not selling spots at the chef’s table today so I don’t have to face customers with my face in the shape it’s in.
Namely, depressed and sad and brokenhearted.
Hudson’s not wrong.
My face is bad for business. Or it would be, if I showed it.
We’re thankfully busy, and we even sell out before it’s time to officially shut down.
Hudson and Ryker convince me to let them clean up and to let Ryker drive my bus home—he drives farm equipment, so he can drive my bus. And that means I take Ryker’s truck back to my apartment.
The plan is for me to shower so I can be a clean lump on the couch when Daphne gets home with the Chinese takeout she promised before she left for work this morning.
I can handle being home alone for shower time.
I might even peek at socials to make sure I’m not the subject of gossip anywhere. Locally or beyond.
If I need to start checking my bushes for paparazzi, I deserve to know.
