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I walked over and grabbed the ring off the table. Oh, it felt so good to have it on my person. Dear lord, it was instant goosebumps! I felt my nips even go a little hard.
“I will dispose of it,” I promised them both very succinctly and with the best performance of sincerity I could muster.
I was lying, but I felt like I’d sold it.
“I’m not getting dinner now, am I?” I felt like I had to add when I got to the door and felt my stomach grumble.
“Zazie, out,” Zach snapped firmly, pointing to the door. It was the same tone Ryan had used when he sent me to my old room.
I put up my hands defensively and opened the door. “Okay, okay. I promise, I’ll get a hold on this.”
“See that you do,” Zach replied gravely.
I spent the night and the whole next day in a shame spiral. Zach was right—I should dispose of the ring. I knew I shouldn’t have taken it.
For years, he had tried to help me train my impulse control to something that I could handle. He’d given me exercises, told me to journal, tried everything known in the world of psychology to help me handle this. He’d read book after book, trying to help me find ways to figure this out.
I had done none of the exercises over the years. I had read none of the books. I hadn’t even tried to make progress. I just kept making the same mistake. Hell, I still slept with all the things I’d gotten away with stealing! I’d shoved them all into a teddy bear, and I fucking loved knowing that there were so many rare gems inside… Hell, I’d grinded myself on that bear. The two of us had a very sullied, toxic relationship.
After the sun set the following day, I pulled myself out of my apartment and went down to my favorite bar, which I happened to live over. Despite us all being part of the twenty-first century where bars weren’t known to be like this anymore, I felt like I had found a very Cheers-like environment. Sure, the owner of the bar looked like Santa Clause (if Santa Clause had been in a biker gang until he got arthritis in his shoulder so badly that he could no longer ride), and the bar always smelled like rotting malt and was kinda always dirty and sticky, even if it’d all just been cleaned. But I felt it was a good home environment for me. I knew everyone here, and there was a lot of comfort in that.
I walked through the bar. “Well, look what the cat dragged in,” Frank, the bartender, said in greeting. “Why do you look like shit?”
“My brother is prompting me to analyze my self-worth,” I admitted, climbing up on a bar stool.
“Isn’t that a mother’s job?” he asked, raising an eyebrow.
“Yeah, but I don’t have one. So he feels like he has to step in,” I explained.
“But he doesn’t. He doesn’t need to be your mom, and you don’t have to be his kid. It’s okay to set boundaries,” he told me in his gruff, should-be-Santa-like-but-wasn’t-at-all tone.
I sighed and looked up at him. “Are you a bartender or a shrink?”
“I am both to a lot of people,” he assured me and put a glass of house-made cider in front of me. He looked up and his eyes caught something in the window. “Dear lord, there’s a man out there who doesn’t realize what street he’s on,” he mentioned with a grumble.
I raised an eyebrow, wondering what that meant. He nodded towards the window, answering my puzzled expression, and when I turned, I saw exactly who he was talking about and why.
It was the butler I’d seen over at Dagon’s house. He was way too well-dressed to be on this street. His suit screamed money. It also screamed ‘Pretentious Nerd!’
I launched myself up from my seat and over the counter, then crouched on the floor, all with very few movements.
Frank didn’t seem surprised by this. As far as I knew, this was a normal occurrence for him. “You know him or something?”
“Yeah. It’s better if he doesn’t see me. The fact that he’s on this street is…” I tilted my head from side to side. “Not good.”
“You steal something from him?” Frank guessed, because Frank knew everything. It was his super-power.
“Not him,” I assured, pressing my back against the cabinets near his knees. “…his employer.”
Frank tsked. “You got to get a handle on your kleptomania.”
“I don’t have kleptomania!” I cried. “You’ve left me alone with your cash register, and have I stolen even a quarter out of it?”
“No,” he admitted with a shrug. “Well, if you don’t have kleptomania, you’ve got something.”
I rolled my eyes and hid my face in my hands.
“Besides, you can hide under my counter all you want. But if he’s here, then he knows where you live. What are you gonna do now? Go home?”
