AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“I don’t believe I’m either of the people you expected,” Flibbertigibbets says, somewhat distractedly.
“Why are you video calling me at—” My attention flies to the corner of my computer screen. “—seven-thirty at night?”
Frogbutt’s blue eyes turn weepy. “Because. I’ve texted and audio called for work-related things this late before. This call isn’t work-related. I needed a distinction.”
Oh. A distinction. I get it. That makes perfect sense. No big deal. It’s just… Well… Now I need heart medication.
I’m sitting here half naked because he wanted to distinguish that this wasn’t a work call where he’d be telling me to pack my bags and be at the airport in thirty minutes. I am going to cut him in the morning. “Calling me on video this late is extremely inappropriate behavior for the first day of a new relationship.”
“It isn’t even past dusk, Marcella.”
“I always run on winter time. So it is well past dusk and, in fact, nearly my bedtime. I must be asleep by eight, lest the shadows activate my seasonal depression.”
He ignores me to comment, “Is that water damage on your ceiling?”
I balk, scoff, reel. “Excuse you! Do not come into my home and judge my ceiling.”
Something distinctly breaks downstairs, shattering like a bomb going off. In seconds, the least-functional relationship in the world is screaming swears at each other, while more stuff breaks.
No small amount of distress wanders into Frankfurt McGee’s weepy blue eyes.
“Shut up,” I hiss. “Don’t you even—”
“Where are you right now?” He’s standing. I dislike this. Very much.
“You sit back down. You sit back down right now.”
“Your friend, Brigid, is she in an abusive relationship?”
I blurt, “What?”
The camera angle shifts, and I think this man is pulling on his shoes. “I’m attempting to emotionally manipulate you, full disclosure. You mentioned convincing her to leave her husband and move into a mansion with you and…Penny, was it?”
“Do not desecrate my friends’ names in my own abode, sir.”
He comes back into view, brows dipped with disappointment. “What did I tell you about calling me sir?”
“It’s the internet sir, dang it! Note the absence of respect in my tone.”
He frowns. Actually frowns. I don’t know that I’ve ever seen him frown before. Never once. It’s…not a bad expression on him, truly. “Where do you live, Marcella?”
I wish I had a gun. Georgia is a Stand Your Ground state. Thus, lethal force is allowed to prevent things like home invasion. As a wee lassie in my underwear, being preyed upon by Frickerfracker here, if he shows up at my door, I totally have a valid reason to shoot him.
I just, still, don’t have pants.
And Fuzznugget is smart enough to remember he’s my boss and has my address on file any second now.
Before I can scramble for my closet, I learn that someone has a gun downstairs.
The second a shot fires, my skin goes cold, and I spit out my address as though I’m fully clothed, as though my dearest sweetest boyfriend will save me.
I am wearing pants when the cops show up outside my windows, casting red and blue lights into the dying sun rays. I am wearing pants when F-boy—no do not call him that—shows up outside my door, flanked by my two favorite bodyguards in all black.
He’s past my archway in a second, cupping my cheek firmly and scanning me from head to toe. It’s force I’m unused to and unsure whether or not I like, but the palpable worry pouring off him keeps me quiet. A relieved breath leaves his chest once he’s identified that I’m still alive, I guess.
When his attention skims my living room, sheer bewilderment breeds with the worry, twisting his expression into a minefield of concern. “Marcella…you live…here?” Starkly horrified, he covers his mouth. “I thought I paid you well. The economy can’t be this bad.”
I do not want to tell him that my debt is actually somewhat insurmountable if he hasn’t figured that part out yet, so I cross my arms and mutter, “Actually, it can be. Look in my bedroom. I don’t even own a bed. It’s just a gaping floor space, whereby I partake of the occasional existential crisis.”
