Page 46 of Look at Her and Die

She’d been mad that we now had to pay an extra person, and I’d lost my shit on her in the middle of the diner during the middle of morning rush when I pointed out that she fucking left. She didn’t get a choice what I did to keep the diner afloat.

And, in a fit of a thousand suns, I decided to say ‘fuck it’ and leave for the day.

It was the first day off I’d had from the diner in a while—at least before Koda had left for the military—and I’d intended to make it the perfect day off.

Well, as perfect as it could be when you had no money to spend.

I got home and I worked on my newest set of book covers, got them finished up, then sent them out to the client who’d approved them with zero revisions. Then paid me fully within ten minutes of sending the invoice.

That left me with enough money to spend a little, so I went to the store and got all the kids—even Calliope—a couple new sets of clothes.

When I got home, I laid them all out on their beds, pride swelling in my chest, and started to clean the house.

I started following some lady on Instagram that was a task master with keeping your house clean, and following a schedule to do it, so I spent the day following her orders, video to video, until the house was as good as it was going to get.

At least by me.

After finishing my seventh load of laundry—uncaring about how much detergent I was using thanks to the extra bottle of detergent—I started dinner.

I was halfway through browning the meat for tacos when the door burst open and Kent and Anders came through the door.

I turned around, a smile on my face in greeting, that quickly fell off my face. “What the fuck?”

Kent had blood on his t-shirt, and he had a busted lip.

“Kent had to save me from a ten-year-old,” Anders answered my outburst. “She thought that she could take my new water bottle, and I told her otherwise. When she went to take it anyway, Kent stopped her. Only she has an older brother that’s a complete douchebag who’s three times the size of Kent.”

“Don’t say douchebag,” I ordered. “Kent, who is this guy?”

“He’s eighteen,” Kent grumbled. “And he’s the house on the corner with the yellow curtains.”

I curled my own lip up in a snarl.

I knew that house.

The douchebag in question had an older douchebag for a father that liked to call out obscenities whenever I walked or ran by.

“I hate that guy,” I grumbled. “It doesn’t surprise me that he has kids that are assholes like him.”

Just as the words finished coming out of my mouth, there was a banging on my front door.

“He followed me home,” Kent said in explanation.

And just like that, I was pissed as fucking hell.

My mom.

The joke that was my life.

The utter disgust I had for the world.

It just poured out into a single, shining moment.

With anger in my every step, I scooped up Koda’s old baseball bat and kept walking, it dangling from my fingers in a loose grip.

Four years of softball gave me a good, solid grasp on how best to hit a ball.

The same was about to be said for a fuckin’ head.

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