Her hasty exit from my bedroom and my life had taken me completely by surprise. When I’d decided to share my deep and abiding feelings for her, I definitely hadn’t expected her to break up with me on the spot and leave me naked in my bed, wondering what the hell had happened. I’d genuinely believed we’d connected on a deep level and that she’d been giving me clear signals she felt the same way.
So when she’d fled in panic at the prospect of getting serious, like it had never occurred to her as a possibility, I felt like I’d been gaslit. It had called into question everything I’d felt and believed—not just about our relationship, but about everything else. If I’d misjudged Lucy’s feelings for me so badly, what else was I completely wrong about? Could I even trust my own instincts anymore?
I’d been struggling to put it behind me ever since. Even though we’d only dated for five weeks, six days, and twenty-two hours, I’d meant it when I said I loved her. I’d loved her almost from the moment we first met, in fact.
Maybe that sounded strange. Love at first sight was all well and good in stories, but in real life most people didn’t seem to believe in it. I hadn’t believed in it either until I’d started talking to Lucy that night at the Rusty Spoke and fallen under her spell. Something in her spoke to something in me, and just like that, I knew I loved her.
Only I guess it was another way for the universe to stick its thumb in my eye, because Lucy hadn’t gotten the love-at-first-sight memo. It was just me hanging out there on Love Island by myself with an arrow through my heart.
And now, the object of my unrequited affection was here to witness not only my precipitous decline in professional circumstances but also my humiliating physical defeat at the hands of a child. Truly, this was a stunning new low in the shit-heap of my life.
My only saving grace was this fucking costume. Lucy wouldn’t have any way of knowing it was me inside this thing. Unless someone had told her. But I guessed they hadn’t, or she wouldn’t be headed straight for me right now—probably hoping to capture some heartwarming shots of Sheriff Scoopy interacting with his adoring public.
Speaking of which, Sagacious’s violent attack on my nutsack seemed to have exhausted his reserves of anger. He’d ceased screaming and was giving me a slack-mouthed, bleary-eyed stare that disconcertingly reminded me of a zombie.
Right as Lucy drew near and lifted the camera to her eye, I heard my new little friend utter the most terrifying words a child could say: “I don’t feel so good.”
With my reflexes dulled by the pain still throbbing through my nethers, and my oversized cowboy boots inhibiting my movement, I only managed to stagger a half step back before Sagacious projectile vomited what appeared to be at least five gallons of chocolate ice cream all over me.
A second ago, when I’d thought Lucy was witnessing my lowest moment?
Yeah, no.
This moment right here was the actual low point.
Twenty minutes later, I stood in the employee locker room with my eyes closed and my head propped against my locker, unable to get the stench of puke out of my nose. I was hoping if I stayed here long enough with my forehead pressed against this cold steel surface, I’d fuse with its matte gray nothingness and disappear altogether.
After Sagacious had spewed chocolate-flavored vomit all over me, he’d promptly burst into tears. My ex-girlfriend had leaped to his mother’s assistance, sparing a sympathetic look at me as she escorted mother and hellspawn to the park’s first aid center. So Lucy definitely hadn’t realized it was me in the Sheriff Scoopy suit, or she would have been laughing her ass off instead of feeling sorry for me. Thank god for small favors.
I’d limped back to the employee locker room alone, and after struggling my way out of the vomit-covered costume, handed it over to a thoroughly disgusted laundry attendant.
Now I wasn’t sure what to do with myself. Technically, I had another three hours left of my shift. But without a costume to wear, I couldn’t perform my job.
My job.
Christ.
What a joke my life had become. This job was a joke, my career was a joke, and I was the biggest fucking joke of all.
Kudos to my dad. His plan to humiliate me had been an unmitigated success. He and Nate would probably piss themselves laughing when they heard about this.
For the time being, I decided I might as well stand here with my head against this locker until someone told me to do something else. My supervisor would probably show up eventually and give me a new assignment. She might send me to scoop ice cream at one of the park’s many refreshment stands or reassign me to custodial services so I could spend the rest of my shift cleaning toilets.
Maybe she’d even fire me. I doubted it, however. A park guest services supervisor wasn’t going to fire the CEO’s son. Not without my father’s say-so, and he’d never approve it. He liked having all of us chips off the old block under his command. He wanted us beholden to him for our careers, our livelihoods, and our self-respect. That way he could keep us under his thumb by threatening to take it all away if we didn’t play our assigned roles to his satisfaction.
At this point you might be asking why I didn’t quit if I hated it here so much. Couldn’t I go out and find my own job? Why not start from scratch and embark on a new career I didn’t hate so much?
Good questions, all of them, and ones I’d asked myself many a time.
It was that whole starting from scratch thing that tripped me up. I wasn’t great at taking risks or dealing with uncertainty. The thought of leaving the security of the family business to make my own way in the world terrified the living shit out of me. Maybe ten years ago, when I’d been younger and the world had seemed full of possibility, I might have managed it. Before I’d gotten settled in here and grown accustomed to earning a comfortable paycheck.
The entirety of my professional experience was in sales—the one line of work I knew for a fact I hated. And I’d only ever worked for my dad’s company. Who would want to hire someone like me? I wasn’t even qualified to work at Whataburger. Did I really want to start over at my age? A thirty-two-year-old competing with fresh-faced college grads for entry-level jobs making pennies an hour?
I didn’t love working for my dad, but I didn’t hate it that much. Once he judged I’d completed my punishment, he’d find me something better to do. I just had to eat some crow first to show I was a team player. Maybe I’d actually like whatever new job he assigned me to after this. Even if I didn’t, it’d still be better than anything I’d be able to find on my own. Besides, if I stuck with it and managed to please my dad, I’d be rewarded with a stake in the company eventually. My financial future would be set. If I left, I doubted I’d ever see a dime of the family money.
It might be different if I had a burning aspiration to do something else. I’d have a reason to take the risk and go it on my own. But I had no idea what I wanted to do, much less what I’d be any good at. So here I remained. Because why not? At least it paid well. Or it had, until my recent demotion.
“You trying to mind-meld with that locker or what?”
I turned at the sound of my sister Josie’s voice. Technically my half-sister. Whatever.
My dad had been married three times, and my immediate family was so complicated it practically required an infographic to explain it. Josie was one of four kids from my dad’s first marriage, along with Nate, my former boss. After our dad divorced their mom, he married my mother and had me and my younger brother Wyatt. My mom also had a son from a previous relationship, my half-brother Ryan. After my mom died of breast cancer when I was twelve, my dad married again and had two more kids. As if that wasn’t enough, in addition to all my half-siblings, I also had an adopted older brother named Manny.