Total pages in book: 160
Estimated words: 153268 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 766(@200wpm)___ 613(@250wpm)___ 511(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 153268 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 766(@200wpm)___ 613(@250wpm)___ 511(@300wpm)
That wine was close to seventeen hundred dollars. And my time was priceless. Nonetheless, Sophie’s expression remained unimpressed. “Did he just…?”
“I wish I could tell you he didn’t, but we have an audience, so let’s focus on how to remedy the situation and make you happy.”
She curved an eyebrow. “You can make me happy, I’m sure.” The suggestion had been clear.
“Consider it done, sweetheart. Now!” Rhy patted her shoulder, his American Psycho smile still intact. “Please allow me to direct all my wrath—excuse me, attention—toward my volatile, genius boss. Be right back to take your order. And number.” He winked.
He slapped a hand over my back and led me to the kitchen, his face turning from pleasant to murderous. “What the hell was that?” He punched a wall as soon as we closed the door and were out of sight. The whole building rattled. He pointed at the door. “Every single person in that restaurant was staring at you like you were crazy. Know why?”
I had a feeling I did but waited for him to confirm it.
Rhyland opened his arms wide. “Because you are crazy!”
“Kieran made my life hell in high school.” I perched against my station, picking up a Georgia peach and halving it with my knife. I tossed it into a pan, along with a spoonful of lemon juice and some sugared rum, tipped the pan down, and let it flame and caramelize. The fire danced in yellows and oranges between me and Rhy, who rested his fists on my counter.
“Yeah, I remember, I had a front-row seat to that horror show. You two had a four-year-long pissing contest, and everybody got rained on.” Rhyland pushed off my counter, pacing the small space between us as I lowered the flame. “But you’re no longer in high school, and he might no longer be a dick.”
“It’s a free country; I can serve whomever I want.” I tilted the pan here and there, letting the peach simmer in its own juices. “And I choose not to serve male genitalia.”
What I needed was a cigarette. Didn’t give a shit that it was probably giving me cancer. Didn’t have much to live for anyway.
“Fine. Kieran is a sore subject for you, so I’ll let it slide. That thing with the journalist, though?” He pointed at the door. “That’s sexual harassment.”
“I said I don’t want to fuck her.” I glowered at him, sliding the peach onto a plate.
“You said she wants to fuck you.”
“Where’s the lie?” I flicked my gaze over his shoulder to watch through the partition window as a server handed the Sophie chick our best wine. “If I had a drink for every journo who made a pass at me, I’d be Hemingway.”
Rhy tucked his iPad under his arm, shaking his head. “Women don’t like to be told they aren’t desirable. You’d know that if you ever bothered talking to one.”
“You’re making me sound like a misogynist. It’s not like I talk to men either. I’m an equal-adversity person.”
“Well, the good news is, now tonight can’t get any worse.” Rhyland stared out the door’s window.
“Chef?” Taylor came to a screech in front of me, holding on to my butcher block.
“Yeah?”
“The grill station is on fire.”
CAL
McMonster: Still alive?
oBITCHuary: Just barely.
McMonster: Reassuring.
oBITCHuary: You sound disappointed. How is my beloved NYC?
McMonster: Same way you left it. That bad?
oBITCHuary: Worse, actually.
McMonster: What happened to take you back there anyway?
oBITCHuary: My father passed away.
oBITCHuary: Sorry I didn’t say anything. It just seemed…well, honestly, I’m really raw right now. Just typing it out and facing this as my new reality is difficult. But it wasn’t a surprise. He’d been sick for a while.
McMonster is typing…
McMonster is deleting…
McMonster is typing…
McMonster is deleting…
McMonster: Sorry for your loss.
This was a very weird response from McMonster, who was usually so attuned to my feelings I sometimes suspected I was being catfished by a female therapist. I’d been speaking to him almost every day since I’d signed up to the androphobia forum some years ago. My actual therapist had thought it was a good idea for me to talk to people who shared my experience and dread of men, but as it turned out, it was just this specific person I clicked with.
My fears felt intimate, too private to share with strangers. But the thing about McMonster?
He didn’t feel like a stranger at all.
CAL
“Torn”—Natalie Imbruglia
“You should do something with yourself.” Mom pressed her frozen foot across my cheek on my sixth day in Staindrop, making me yelp in protest.
We were both strewn over the couch in the living room, eating ice cream and watching a reality TV show about lavish L.A. realtors who dressed like Barbies. I slapped her foot away, screeching, “I’m trying, Mamushka. Running a true crime podcast is a career, okay?”
So far, I’d been dragging my feet about getting a real job after graduation because the idea of doing my own podcast with the occasional guest appealed to me more than becoming an intern in some marketing agency that refused to pay me enough to subsidize my weekly subway pass. I’d even gone as far as writing a few episodes on my laptop but always ended up canning them for being too long, too graphic, too informative, too quirky, and just…too me.