She cracks her eyes open, giving me a lascivious grin and wetting her lips. “Razor’s so lucky, baby bunny.”
“I haven’t kissed him yet,” I whisper, getting hit with the daunting fact that he’d probably lose his mind if he found out I kissed someone other than him.
My stomach sinks and I drift away, having to clear my throat of the nerves beginning to choke me.
Frowning at me, her palms skate down my thighs and she blinks. “Are you fucking serious?”
I nod, suctioning the inside of my bottom lip between my teeth. Another fricking picture washes over my sight, getting a grand shot of how awkward I am. “I thought you knew that… Why’d you saypracticethen?”
“Oh, psh!” Trilling her lips, she rolls her eyes and starts laughing. “I just talked some fuck to kiss you. I’m elated with the results.”
Talked some fu… Interesting.
“Can I ask you something?” I blurt, immediately blowing my cheeks up and fiddling with my cuticles.
“Doi, whatcha got?” She pivots to me, sucking on her vape and casually leaning sideways into the booth seat—like we didn’t just cross boundaries of our friendship.
“Uh…” I inhale deeply, scratching my middle finger through the fraying of my shorts. “Do you remember what we were doing before this?”
She lifts a brow, blowing a steady stream of smoke from her nose. “Before this? We were doing what we’re doing now. Performing.”
“Here atVore?”
“Yes, Bunny,” she cheers vapidly, then shoves her vape in her pocket and pastes a smile on. “Come on, let’s see our pics!”
She’s scrambling out before me, most likely to get away from the probing questions she can sniff out even while high.
“I’m not sharing this with Xene by the way,” she titters, letting the curtains close me into the Photo Booth. “What the fuck?”
My forehead tightens, and curiosity moves me out of the booth, slipping through the curtains and rounding the back end to where she’s bent over and digging her hand through the photo slot on the side.
“It’s not here!” Ripping her hand out of the hole, her vexed perplexion snaps over to me and she straightens her back.
“Uh, maybe it’s out of paper… or whatever they use in these,” I gesture to the booth.
“No, I heard it.” She looks around, giving everyone in here an accusatory double stink eye.
Okay. Well. If my stomach wasn’t pressing against my butt before, it is now. That’s the last thing I need floating around. And I really don’t like the stalkerish feeling I’m getting from it. It’s combining with the angst of having my alarm clock cut and now my spine feels weird.
If Razor snagged it, he’d be holding it up in my face, probably pressed flush against my backside and tormenting me with his free hand.
So, I don’t think he has it.
“Hey! You!” Ora shouts, pointing at the lip curled around dirty braces.
The kid stops in his tracks, holding an ICEE in one hand and a mound of tickets in the other.
“Yeah, you! Who came by here?!”
He shrugs tensely, warily looking over each shoulder. “Some big guy.”
Some big guy? … Some big guy.
Thoughts and possibilities flare through my mind, slowly panning around the bodies scattered around and the animatronics standing idle on their stage in the dark corner. And the more I really, really think about it, onlyone big guyis coming to mind.
The man that needs to stay away from me just as much as I want to stay away from him now.
Junior.
