“You… thought I invited you to a hospital to have a coming outvillainparty?” Landon asks in disbelief. Like how can his family still surprise him?
“I thought he was coming out as my new best friend,” Brandon says, as if we’ve spoken much to each other. Beyond holding his cheese at one point, I’m not quite sure how much we’ve interacted.
“Hon, didn’t you text me to grab a cat?” Mark holds up a box and I stare at it in horror, positive that I will do everything in my power to keep them from opening that box and trying to pawn a cat off on me. A cat doesnotfit my lifestyle.
“I said to grab abat, not a cat,” Patricia, Landon’s mom, says.
“Huh… I swear it said ‘cat’ earlier. Ah well.” Mark shrugs as he puts his phone away after having confirmed that he was in the wrong.
“What was the bat for?” August asks.
“The piñata.”
Brandon looks enthusiastic. “Ooh, did you fill it with cheese like I asked?”
“Doesn’t matter what we filled it with, we have no bat to bust it open,” Patricia says, and everyone looks down at the box with the cat in it. “What do I do with the piñata then?”
“This will work,” Brandon suggests as he picks up the IV pole that I’m currently connected to.
“Calm down, calm down. Put the IV pole down,” Asmodeus says, and I look up at him in surprise. Is Asmodeus, of all people in this room, the only sensible one?
Disappointed that he can’t use the IV pole, Brandon switches to tying the “Congrats on the baby girl!” balloon on my wrist while I watch Asmodeus pull out an extendable baton from his bag which he hands off to Landon.
“There you go.”
“There he doesn’t go!” I growl. “I’m fine, thank you. I’m not having a baby girl, thank you, and I’m definitely not taking a cat home.” I try tugging the balloon off, but he’s triple-knotted it and it just bounces all around.
“There’s nowhere to tie the piñata,” Baker announces.
“Oh, we don’t tie it off, we just have Brandon hold it so when you miss, you still get to smack something,” Landon explains.
“How nefarious!” Baker says approvingly as he grabs Asmodeus’s baton and whaps Brandon before Brandon even has the piñata raised. I’m wondering if it’s payback for Brandon making him sit on his lap in the back of that SUV… which I’m sure is also how they drove over here.
Brandon just laughs and then it’s Landon’s turn. I notice that no one has actually hit anything but Brandon at this point. Landon even goes for a second whack.
“That tickles!” Brandon says.
“Everyone, stop!” Patricia orders, and I decide that there might be someone with sense in this room as she pulls the baton from Landon… until she hands it to me. “The wounded one should get to go first.”
I stare at her in disbelief. “Excuse me, no. We should put this away.”
“Just give it a single whack, you might like it,” Asmodeus coaxes, wrapping his hands around mine. He’s still in his underwear, and I’m still wearing his clothes… on top of me, of course.
“Once I started whacking things, I sure learned how much I liked it,” Landon says as he cackles to himself. “August does too, dontcha, honey?”
August mutely stands there. I think he’s short-circuiting at this point.
“This is outrageous,” I scold. “A hospital should be quiet and for healing, and only a few people are even allowed in this room.”
“We’re villains, honey,” Patricia says. “Our whole thing is doing stuff we’re not supposed to.”
And then Asmodeus forces my hand to swing through the air and whack the piñata before passing the baton off.
“That was pretty fun, wasn’t it?” he asks.
“Was it?” I question, not quite sure which part of it was fun.
Asmodeus is grinning at me and I don’t know what to do with that look. Like why is he even making that face?
