Page 38 of Meet Hate Love
Blake’s teeth worked her bottom lip. “No, you’re not. We just have to…” Before I could tell her to shelf whatever hair-brained idea had just flitted through her mind, she’d spun around. “Nothing to see here, people,” she sliced a hand through the air like an umpire calling safe. “Just a bunch of blood-thirsty rats trying to attack a urinating man. In the bushes. A urinating man who feared for his life—”
It was worse than I could have imagined. “Blake…”
“And that very fear is what gave him an adrenaline boner—”
“Stop!”
But she wasn’t listening. “That’s right. Adrenaline boner. It’s a thing!”
A few people chuckled, and I slapped a hand over my eyes. She was carnage. The dictionary definition of living, breathing carnage. At that point, I figured it was best to give up. She kept preaching about adrenaline boners while I ducked into the bushes to retrieve my equipment. Thankfully, halfway through disassembling the camera, she fell silent.
Once I’d packed everything away, I shouldered my backpack and stepped out into the dimly lit park.
The crowds had dispersed, and Blake stood there, holding a new bottle of wine.
“Bucket Wine Man gave it to me. Free of charge,” she said. “I think it’s sympathy wine.”
“How considerate of him.”
When an incident can pull at the heartstrings of a street hustler, you know it’s bad.
We walked side by side across the dark park.
“You think if we drink enough, we’ll forget it happened?” she asked.
I stopped underneath one of the candelabra lampposts and cocked a brow. “I will never, in a million fucking years, forget that happened.” And neither would anyone who had witnessed it. It would be one of those ridiculous tales passed down through generations. It would probably end up on at least one semi-viral thread on TikTok.
She fiddled with the label. “I’m not very good in situations like that. You know, situations where I panic or don’t know what to do.”
Like anyone who knew Blake expected her to be calm and collected. I had been in the breakroom with her once when a spider crawled across the wall beside the coffeemaker. She’d screamed. Okay, standard. But then she took the coffeepot from the burner and chucked it at the wall. Glass shattered, and hot coffee went everywhere.
I glanced down at her. “Really? I’d never have guessed.”
She whacked my stomach. “Don’t be so patronizing.”
Fighting a smile, I followed her across the gravel path toward a bench tucked beneath two cherry blossom trees, where she took a seat.
“So, how are you feeling about the whole ‘there’s no such thing as being cursed’ thing now?” She turned up the bottle, then offered it to me. “Stuck in an elevator. Rat attack.”
“Still don’t believe it, and just so you know—” I said, necking the wine as I dropped to the bench beside her—“sharing alcohol this way one hundred percent makes us look like hobos.”
We stared ahead at the tower as we passed the drink back and forth. After my fourth swig, an eerie siren I’d expect to only hear in a sci-fi film came from Blake’s purse.
“What in the hell is that?”
“Margot’s text tone.” Blake handed the wine off to me, then dug her phone from her purse. Seconds later, the noise of traffic came through the speaker, followed by Margot’s excited voice.
“Did you know there’s a Rent-a-Poo company? For the small fee of two hundred bucks, I hired a man named Dean to deliver and spread shit all over your mom’s backyard. Tomorrow’s party should be a complete shitshow.” She cackled. Then Blake cackled.
I turned to look at her, taking another swig of wine as I watched her send an all caps:YOU’RE THE BEST FRIEND IN THE WHOLE WIDE WORLDbefore she slid the device back inside her purse. Okay, so based on that, maybe Blake was evil.
“I take it you’re happy Margot enlisted the help of Rent-a-Poo?” I gave the bottle back.
“I promise I’m not a horrible person. My family’s just…” She took a swig, sighed, then dropped her head back against the bench. “Complicated.”
“Complicated how?”
Her head rolled to the side. “Are you sure you want to get into this?”
