I thought it was a reasonable question, but apparently it was ridiculous enough that the guy burst into laughter. He dropped the light—a cell phone flashlight—as he leaned back in his chair and howled.
Well, that answered my second question. The man sitting across from me was Miles Zhou, Whitney’s husband. Which meant the large human behind me was?—
“Nah. He wanted to, but I said no to drugs,” Jack said as he rounded the chair and crossed his arms.
“Who needs drugs when you have hugs?” Miles quipped as he propped a Croc-ed foot on top of his knee. “And by hugs, I mean a rear naked choke. You were a worthy opponent. Kind of.”
Willow had told me about Miles, and how he and Whitney fell in love when he was her bodyguard. But I knew him as a champion MMA fighter.
But the guy sitting in front of me wearing rubber duck swim trunks, neon Crocs, and holding a rubber chicken, was a far cry from the Octagon badass everyone knew.
At least Willow wasn’t in danger. She was probably with the girls.
I looked down at my hands and spotted the zip ties tying my wrists to the legs of the chair. “Was that really necessary?”
Miles shrugged. “Some people get punchy when they come to.”
“Well, yeah. You?—”
“All right,” he said, snapping into a stern voice. “Your time to ask questions is up. Now I get to do the asking. What are your intentions with Willow?”
Jack peered down at me and huffed. “Seriously, dude. Just answer the questions so we can get out of here.”
I looked around and realized that there was a floor to ceiling plastic playground behind me. “Where are we?”
“An abandoned Burger Palace,” Miles said.
“I’m sorry.” I huffed. “You kidnapped me and broke into an abandoned Burger Palace so you could interrogate me about my intentions with your wife’s friend?”
Before I could blink, Miles lunged forward and smacked me across the face with the rubber chicken. It let out a pathetic wheezing squawk.
“What the hell, man?” I exclaimed as I blinked away the shock. “Tell me you did not find that rubber chicken here.”
I didn’t even want to think about what had been growing on it over the twenty-something years that it looked like this place had been vacant.
Miles scoffed. “First of all, Willow ismyfriend. Second, don’t insult me. Of course I travel with my own rubber chicken. I’m not an amateur.”
“And we didn’t break in,” Jack said. “The door was unlocked.”
“Let’s get down to business,” Miles said as he sat back in his chair, tapping the chicken’s head on his open palm. “What are your intentions with Willow?”
I huffed and looked at the dust clouds that stretched across the playground equipment. “To get to know her.” It was as close to the truth as I could admit, and it wouldn’t scare her if Miles told her what I had said.
The chicken let out a little squeak as Miles tapped his hand exceptionally hard. “Pop quiz. Your girl is crying and you don’t know why. Do you: A—Ignore her and wait for it to pass before you talk it out? B—Ask her why she’s crying? C—Sit with her and tell her it’ll be okay?”
Relationship questions? This was my bread and butter. Easy peasy. “C. Sit with her and tell her?—”
That fucking chicken smacked me in the face again with an insulting squawk.
“Wrong,” Miles barked. “The correct answer is tacos.”
I looked at Jack for help, but he just raised his hands in defense. “I’m no help. At least it’s just a rubber chicken. I got dick-slapped across the face with a dildo. I had a ball bruise.”
Small mercies.
Miles sat with the calm façade of a therapist and tapped steepled fingers together. “Next question. True or false: Whitney, Willow, and Wander are friends.”
I knew it was a trick question; I just didn’t know how.
