For the Pride of a Crow by T. S. Joyce

Author:T. S. Joyce [Joyce, T. S.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Wicked Willow Press
Published: 2018-07-13T16:00:00+00:00

Chapter Eight

Taking her lunch break, Leah squinted at her truck in the parking lot as she leaned against the counter of the Hamburger Shack. She crunched on the pickle spear and chewed it, overexaggerating like a cow chewing its cud. Why? Because Billy said she ate like an animal, and he was watching. She was good at three things now: falling a lot, kissing, and annoying people. Her dad had always said, “practice makes perfect.”

“Why does it take you three years to eat lunch?” Billy asked.

“Hypothetically asking,” she said, leaning on the counter and waving her half-devoured pickle spear into the air. “If you sleep with someone, they leave that night, and they don’t call for a week, is that considered a one-night stand?”

“Hypothetically?” he asked as he cleaned the grill in the kitchen.

“Yep.”

“Hypothetically, you are now a floozy. That’s definitely a one-night stand. Congratulations. You are now the same as most of the population of the world. Ho status achieved.”

“I’m going to check out a book on feminism and the harmful ways words like ‘ho’ and ‘floozy’ can hurt women. And I’m going to let you read it.”

“I’m not reading that crap.”

“Then I’ll spend every three-year lunch break reading it out loud to you until it’s finished.”

“I fuckin’ hate this job,” Billy griped.

“I made you a present.”

Billy glared at her suspiciously. “What is it?”

She pulled the blue construction paper out of her pocket and unfolded it, then slid it across the partition between the main room and the kitchen. It was a macaroni picture she’d made of her and Billy holding hands under a bright yellow sun with some flowers around them. Two of the macaroni’s had fallen off in her pocket, but whatever. She’d even glued pictures of their faces to the stick figures. She was smiling in hers, but Billy’s was of his profile and he looked really mad since she’d snuck the picture when he was in the middle of yelling at her for accidentally locking him in the freezer.

He didn’t say anything, just took the picture, stared at it with an unamused expression on his face, then folded it up and shoved it in his pocket. Her creation didn’t go straight into the garbage can beside him, though. Victory.

When the bell above the door dinged, Leah looked up from checking her phone for a text message from Ethan for the four-millionth time to find a delivery worker holding a package and heading her way. “Leah Hawthorne?” he asked.

“The one and only,” she said.

“Thank God there’s only one of you,” Billy muttered from the kitchen. Unkind.

“I’ve got a package for you. Sign here.” The man handed her a little computer and a stick pen, and she signed her name.

“Thanks,” she called as he bustled out of the restaurant.

Life had been really boring without Ethan, and this was the most exciting thing that had happened since he left. Just the vision of his tail lights disappearing into the woods at her house made her sad, and she

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