Paige’s eyes get huge in her face. “What? No! Sweetheart, I am so sorry.” Then she pauses and her face turns slightly terrifying. “Oh, that little ginger bitch.” She slams her fists on the table, making me jump. This outburst is so unlike Paige.
“I’m sick and tired of desperate, dirty, douche-nuggets trying to slink in and ruin the lives of perfectly good people.” She’s practically seething, and I have a feeling she’s not talking about Tay-whore anymore. Angry Paige has shocked me out of my brief stupor. Before I can ask what the hell is going on, she turns to me. “The boys are at the garage, researching any and all ways to protect your job and take Taylor down.”
Awe, the boys.One of my favorite things about being with Carter was the times that we all got together with his closest friends. Even though Billy is usually quiet, something about having the other two around him makes all three of them hilarious.
I miss the boys.
“They’ve been at it for days, but apparently decided to hit it harder today. I’m guessing I know now why that is.” Paige finishes, completely unaware that I just suffered a sudden pang of nostalgia.
Wait, They’ve been at it for days?
“What’s your plan?” She interrupts my thoughts and finally sits down in a seat near me rather than hovering over me.
“Oh, um—”What is my—“Oh yeah. I have a print out of some evidence from a message I’m confident was sent from Taylor, the florists who I called and agreed to call the school board and explain Taylor’s duplicity at their shop. I have about—” I pause, then reach into my teacher bag, and pull out a stack of notes from all of the documentation I had completed over the last three weeks, “—twenty pages of documentation from myself and other teachers.”
Paige takes in my stacked folder, openly impressed, and that soothes some of the frantic doom and gloom overcasting my mood. I hate the position I’m in, and I think it’s wild how quickly everything turned to shit. “I also have the girls on their way.” I poke her arm and put the papers back. “You need to stop silencing our group chat. You should have a message from me.”
She raises her brows at me in surprise, then picks up her phone to open the chat. She scrolls a little bit and freezes, a wide smile spreading across her face. She bites her lip to suppress her humor, but fails miserably, sputtering out a laugh. I know exactly what she’s looking at. Our group chat is completely unhinged. Before my more frantic messages this morning, our conversation had centered around the ruination of our childhoods by objectifying the animated characters.
Me
Robinhood is the sexiest fox ever.
Sonya
We all know how I feel about Father Bear.
Me
The father of all fathers…he does look like a bear with BDE
Vicky
The beast. Before his glow down.
Sonya
And he’s a SAILOR. That man FUCKS.
Vicky
True
Me
Yesss
Sonya
What were we talking about again? Oh yeah! I can cover your bus duty tomorrow, Vicky!
I’m so happy we are coming together like this—off-the-wall, x-rated animation conversations included.
“Kovu.” Paige finally stops laughing enough to choke the word out.
“What?”
Paige leans in with her arms resting on the table. “My animated character. Kovu will always be my number one.”
