Chapter 63: Chapter Two

Demetri

Add evil.

Malicious.

Manipulative.

And crazy to all of Nat's attributes.

Alec wasn't any help at all. I begged. I pleaded.

But they all laughed. Yup, they laughed. And told me it was a good idea.

I was not amused.

And I am still not amused.

Not when I was driving to an actual job in a Mercedes that costs more than the building the taffy is sold in.

Nor when I got out of the car, grabbed my bucket — yes, there is an actual taffy bucket — and plopped myself on the corner of the street.

I've been at it for around five days now. Five days of pure hell with tourists dodging me and paparazzi grinning as they snapped my photo.

The first day hadn't been so bad — nobody had known it was me, thanks to the over-large taffy visor.

The second day was by far the worst. Cameras went off like wildfire, and I'm pretty sure that a chick tried to stick taffy that I had touched down her shirt.

People gathered around. They expected me to sing the jingle, like always. I wanted to kill myself. Why didn't I die in that accident?

“Seaside Taffy,” I began, my voice cracked. It hadn't cracked since I was twelve. Again, I wanted to die. “Loads of fun, in your tummy!

“Yum, yum, yum…” I swear I could feel Bob snickering from twenty feet away; it never got old. “Ice cream, taffy, treats galore! Don't forget to stop at our store!” I gave a dramatic bow.

I expected applause, or at least some sort of acknowledgement that I had, in fact, just given the best performance of my life.

What did I get? One solitary clap. One person. I cringed, thinking of the pity clap. It's the type of applause every performer dreads hearing. Swearing, I turned around. It was a girl.

“Want some taffy?”

I held out a piece of taffy, and the mom suddenly looked horrified, like I was planning on putting a taffy trail all the way to my car in order to abduct her child.

They hurried away, and I was stuck again with a crowd of people trying to get around me while I shook my bucket. “Seaside Taffy!” I yelled louder this time and threw my hands out in the air.

“Seaside Taffy!” I flailed my arms again and a piece of taffy went flying out of my hand, right into the back of someone's head.

Great, add assault to my record.

When the person turned around, I was a little shocked, because to be honest, I thought I had hit some punk kid.

Not. The. Case.

“Seriously?” The girl stomped toward me, all five feet of her, and glared. She was wearing a hat that said The Best Taffy in the World and an oversized sweater, leggings, and boots.

“It slipped,” I offered lamely.

She reached for my bucket. I jerked back. “Nobody touches the bucket.”

Wow. I was so ashamed of myself that I wanted to jump into the bucket and hide. Was I really getting possessive over my bucket? Like some homeless man with his cart?

The girl reached for the bucket again.

I snapped. “What's your problem?”

“My problem?” she repeated, her eyebrows shooting to the top of her forehead. Damn, she had pretty eyes.

I nodded. Since the accident I hadn't written one damn song, so at the moment words weren't really my thing, and I was shamelessly checking her out.

“My problem…” She laughed bitterly.

”…Is that the minute your punk rocker self got into this town, our business suffered, and you don't even take it seriously!” She put her hands on her hips and scowled.

“Whoa!” I laughed. I couldn't help it. “I'm sorry. Your corner? What? Is this Pretty Woman or something?”

“Did you just call me a prostitute?”

Yes. Yes, I did. “Nope. More like a call girl. Prostitutes don't dress like blind middle schoolers.”

“Agh!” She swatted my bucket, making all the candy clatter to the ground. Amused, I crossed my arms and watched the fire blaze through her eyes.

Really it was a pity she dressed so horribly, and that she was wearing that awful hat. Though I guess my visor wasn't any better, but still… I made it look good.

“Just watch it.”

Brawl alert. I almost expected people to start coming out of the alleys with toothpicks in their mouths and newspapers in their hands to watch the entertainment.

How the hell did I get stuck in a Broadway musical?

Since I was committing to the whole Seaside Taffy act, might as well commit to this one too. “Noted, Shop Girl. Noted. Now run along.” See? I could be territorial.

Her eyes widened, and for a second I was shocked again at how pretty she was. With a grunt and a cute little curse, she stomped off across the street to the competing taffy store.

I waved in her direction and started the jingle all over again.

Three hours later I was seriously rethinking this whole job business. It started to rain shortly after my dancing began.

No doubt people thought it was because of my inability to keep my hips from moving with the stupid candy bucket. Great, so I was doing a taffy rain dance.

With a sigh, I readjusted the visor and tried to protect the taffy bucket.

Thankfully, Bob must have sensed my plight, or maybe he was tired of me texting him every two seconds asking him for an umbrella.

I knew it was pathetic, and okay, maybe a little bit ridiculous, but I was beyond drenched. He motioned for me, and I began to walk toward him, but he pointed at my chest.

My teeth chattered as I looked down at my shirt. I was successfully showing everyone with two eyes my nipple ring through my tight, wet t-shirt.

If the mom from earlier was to come by now, she'd be horrified. And I'd be put in prison.

Which was only sort of true.

Anyway, anything would be better than the pouring rain — or Seaside for that matter.

Ah, prison. Such a pipe dream. At least it's warm there.

“You're getting the taffy wet,” a female voice said from behind me.

Slowly I turned around. It was the big-eyed girl from before. Only now she was wearing a slick raincoat and rain boots.

“Caught that, did you?” I sneered. I wasn't sure why I was so irritated. Maybe it was the rain. Maybe it was withdrawals from drugs.

“I'm not stupid,” I said, shaking my head while still trying to shield the bucket with my body.

“Sure about that?” she asked, folding her arms.

“Are you seriously going to stand out here in the rain and challenge my intelligence?”

“That depends.” Her lips turned upward into a shadow of a smile.

Fine, I'll bite. “On what, sweetheart?”

“Are you going to stand in the rain or move two feet and stand underneath the overhang from the building?”

Shit. I looked up. Sure enough, there was a healthy overhang that could have been shielding me from the rain for the past two hours.

I shrugged, feigning nonchalance. “I like the rain.”

She bit her lip and looked around. People walked around us with their umbrellas, all trying to duck into the shops until the rain stopped. I shivered in response and waited for her to say something.

“You chose the right place to be then.”

If she only knew I had no choice whatsoever in the matter. “Yup, guess I did.” Seriously, I was getting nowhere with this girl.

All flirting genes apparently died in the car accident, while I was left very much alive and very much a loser. What a bright future I had!

I walked underneath the overhang and gently pulled her to my side. I could see drops of water fall out of my messy blond hair and onto my nose. “What's your name?”

She shrugged. “That's not important.”

Okay, different tactic. “Why the sudden Good Samaritan act?”

She laughed. “Ah, so he has read the Good Book.”

“Once or twice.” I grinned seductively.

“Then you should get your story straight.”

“Pardon?” I had the sudden feeling I was way out of my league. Trapped, without a way out.

“I wasn't coming to rescue you.”

“So you were just going to walk by?”

She threw her head back and laughed, causing the hood of her jacket to fall back. Golden brown hair cascaded down her back. My mouth dropped open. She really was a beautiful girl.

“Actually…” She placed a hand on my arm. “I was thinking of beating you and then passing you by.”

“And what purpose would that serve?” I smiled. I couldn't help it.

“I would feel better.”

“And I would be beaten on the side of the road? Is my lot in life to be killed by roads or something?”

“Huh?” Her eyebrows drew together.

“You don't watch much TV, do you?”

She shrugged. “We don't have a TV.”

“Internet?” My mind was seriously going to explode. How did she live?

“Nope.”

“Phone?” I was grasping at straws here.

“For our house?”

I leaned in, my eyebrows raised up as if to say, Duh.

And again her teeth held captive her bottom lip as she looked away in thought. “I think we used to. But now we just have cell phones.”

“Thank God!” I shouted a little too loudly.

She shook her head like I was the weirdest person on the planet.

“I, umm…” I shifted the bucket to my other arm and scratched my head. “What I meant was…” Channel the Bible.

“Right.” She chuckled and looked away. “Well, guess I'll see you later.”

As she walked off, she stopped in her tracks and turned around. “By the way, I really did have a reason for coming out here… you know, other than to cause physical harm.”

“Oh yeah?” I grinned slyly and winked, waiting for the inevitable.

“Yeah.” She nodded her head and pointed behind me. “Your car's about to be towed. It's parked in the handicap spot.”