Total pages in book: 71
Estimated words: 70444 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 352(@200wpm)___ 282(@250wpm)___ 235(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 70444 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 352(@200wpm)___ 282(@250wpm)___ 235(@300wpm)
My raised voice, paired with June’s customary unpopularity, had everyone in the Taco Shop focusing on us.
Which made her retreat into herself…and me think that nothing was wrong until we left the shop thirty minutes later.
She waited until we were in the truck before she murmured a few soft words.
“Take me home, please.”
“What?” I questioned, unsure whether I’d heard her correctly.
“I said, take me home please.”
I frowned. “Why?”
She clenched and unclenched her jaw. “That was embarrassing, okay?”
“What was?” I pushed.
“You telling him off in the middle of the restaurant, and then everyone’s attention being on us. Seriously, you have no fucking clue how hard it is here for me. I just want to go home.” She shook her head.
“I never meant for you to be embarrassed by what I said,” I noted. “But I was pissed off that the little fucker had literally been watching the entire thing go down. Then thought it was a great idea to congratulate you for taking those assholes down. I’m sorry, but if he’d have helped—done his job as a man—then you wouldn’t have had to do that, and I wouldn’t have had to call him a pussy.”
June shook her head. “It doesn’t matter.”
“What do you mean it doesn’t matter?” I asked. “Of course, it matters. If it hadn’t, then I wouldn’t have listened to those catty bitches say you hit those men on purpose. Or that you deserved to go to prison.”
Her spine stiffened to the point I thought it might be causing her pain, and she said five words. Five words with such finality that I knew I wasn’t going to get through to her, no matter what I said.
“I want to go home.”
Then, under her breath, to where I could barely hear her, she said, “Knew this wasn’t ever going to work. I was stupid to think otherwise.”
I tried to think of something to say, but right around the time that I turned the corner out of the parking lot, an alert went off on her phone. I momentarily had to breathe through clenched teeth as my head reminded me it still wasn’t one hundred percent, and probably wouldn’t be for a while.
It took everything I had to get her home, and then I had to watch helplessly as she got out and slammed the door, causing a vacuum seal on my head as the pressure inside the cab returned to normal.
Gritting my teeth, I decided that I would deal with her when I was better.
For now, I needed to get home before I did something stupid and embarrassed myself by throwing up all over her and myself.
Chapter 11
Do not take it as a challenge. If a sign says ‘shoes and shirts must be worn to receive service,’ pants are understood. If you walk in and get your penis smacked by Miss Martha’s broom because you want to test that theory, you deserve it.
-Hostel PD FB page
June
“You think I should what?” I asked in surprise.
“I think you should contest the ticket,” Amanda said. “Then he’ll have to defend himself on why he gave you the ticket. The worst that can happen is that you have to pay the fine anyway. The best that can happen is that you get the ticket dismissed.”
“What do you think the chances are that they might drop it?” I asked.
I was doing better financially.
I had the money to pay my half of the rent this month…but two hundred and nineteen dollars was two hundred and nineteen dollars. I could use that to get fifteen outfits if I wanted to—not that I would.
Now, fifteen burgers? Thirty pizzas? A new pair of tennis shoes? That I would do.
“I think that I have no fuckin’ clue how the law works. I just know what Dad said. He said he had a ticket that was bogus like yours, and he went to court and contested it instead of just paying it. They dropped it because the police officer didn’t show for the court date,” Amanda continued, licking her banana.
Licking. Her. Banana.
Don’t ask me why she liked to lick her bananas.
I had no fuckin’ clue.
It’d been something she’d done since we were kids, and she hadn’t stopped doing it as a grown ass adult woman even though everyone thought it was freakin’ weird.
She’d take a bite, chew, lick the end that she’d just bitten off to make it smooth—her words not mine—and then take another bite.
It was the weirdest thing ever.
“Johnny will show,” I murmured almost to myself.
“I’m sure he will. But two hundred bucks is two hundred bucks. Plus, you have to think of the cost of your insurance. It’s going to go up,” she explained.
And that was another expense I’d been conveniently ignoring as I thought about the benefits of paying this ticket.
Unfortunately, I couldn’t do defensive driving since I’d gotten a ticket from a highway patrol officer last year outside of town. Now I wish I’d contested that ticket, too. Then I wouldn’t have had to think about contesting this ticket, and possibly seeing Johnny’s smug face again.