Page 19 of Spinning Out Of Control

I stand, feeling the chill of the setting sun settle into my bones. Now that I’ve gotten my day off my chest, I feel light enough to walk home.

“I’ll drink to that, honey.” Pops clinks his glass to the phone camera, then tips it back, swallowing the last of his cocktail in one gulp.

“Are you going to be okay, baby girl?”

I can hear the concern in IronDad’s voice and can read it all over Pops’ face. I know they worry about me, and I love them for that.

But I don’t feel depressed or numb or out of control of my brain like I did yesterday.

I feel fucking pissed off.

“I’m fine, Daddy. I promise.” I say. I only pull the ‘Daddy’ card on Pops and IronDad when I really need it, like when I want to soothe their worries or when I had to convince them Ineededa gold Panthère De Cartier.

It worked then–on my last birthday they gifted me a forty-thousand-dollar watch for turning twenty-eight–and it works now. I see them both visibly relax, andthey fill me in on small town gossip once they’re sure I’m not headed down a dark spiral tonight.

We say our goodbyes and I make my way home. Pancakes greets me with a swish of his little fishy tail, and I treat him to a dinner of brine shrimp while placing a sushi order for myself. It took me a long time to eat sushi again once Pancakes came home with me, and even now I can only stomach vegetarian rolls in his presence.

I go over my class plans for the week as I eat, tweaking circuits and playlists while I fill up on avocado rolls and edamame. Even though my day has been shit, I’m in a much better mood now than I was when I woke up this morning. Talking to my dads and spending time with my little yellow son has eased a lot of the ache in my brain.

The second glass of Sauvignon Blanc I just finished doesn’t hurt, either.

I tuck myself under a blanket, curling up in the corner of my couch. I’m not going to back down from the fight. The men of the world may have won another battle, but they haven’t won the war.

For now, I’m going to do my job, ignore the stupid, sexy British asshole to the best of my abilities, and quit all the bitching and moaning.

9

KIRA

“It’s just such a slap in the fucking face, you know?” I say, exasperated. The scent of metal and antiseptic soap fills my nostrils as I take a deep breath, winded from all my bitching. The low buzz in the air provides a soothing score to the moment, helping to distract me from the needle stabbing me repeatedly in the wrist right now.

I never admit to my friends that I was a little scared of getting my first tattoo. After I nearly passed out in the chair when I had my nipples pierced in college, I decided that me and needles were not meant to be buddies. But once the artist began her work and I realized that inking my skin felt no worse than a sunburn, I was fine.

In fact, I can see how people get addicted to these things. The bite of pain followed by the comfortingswipe of a damp towel against my tender skin is borderline erotic.

Or maybe I just need to get laid.

Either way, I’m enjoying myself.

This is the weirdest bachelorette party I’ve ever been to. Not only are there boyfriends, husbands, and fiancee in attendance, but it’s only eleven in the morning and Rachel enforced a dress code. She’s in white, of course, while me, G, and Dottie are in varying shades of yellow day dresses.

Rachel shut down all of my suggestions for co-ed strip clubs, drag shows, champagne bars and penis straw cocktails. Instead, the bride-to-be requested that we celebrate her impending nuptials by following through on something we’ve been drunkenly discussing for months–Pussy Posse tattoos.

And since Rach hasn’t wanted to discuss venues or canapés or anything remotely wedding related while the artists draw permanent cat ears and whiskers on our wrists, I’ve taken the opportunity to finally vent to the gals about my professional woes.

“I don’t get why you didn’t tell us you were even thinking about buying Spin Sync, Keeks,” Dottie says through a wince. I don’t think she finds the hum of the needle as soothing as I do.

“Yeah, isn’t keeping secrets against The Pussy Posse code of conduct?” Georgie asks, her eyes closed as she reclines in her artist’s chair.

It’s already been five days since Warren took over as CEO of Spin Sync, and this is the first real opportunity I’ve had to fill my girls in on everything that went down.I haven’t actually seen him since our fight on Monday. Jonathan was the kind of leader who was up my ass twenty-four-seven, and I’d expected more of the same from Warren. I’d planned to nag and complain and generally annoy the hell out of him until he left me alone, but he skipped right to the ignoring me stage all on his own.

But even though Warren seems to keep to himself doesn’t mean I need to keep my side of the street clean. I may have started a few rumors about our new CEO around the studio. It’s all harmless, of course. Stupid things, like telling the production team that I heard Warren has a Teletubby tattoo on his ass cheek. Or when Maddison, one of my fellow instructors, called Warren a hot daddy and I told her I’d heard from a friend of a friend that he has a micropenis and suffers from erectile dysfunction. I don’t feel good about spreading rumors, but…

Actually, fuck it. I feel fantastic about it.

“It wasn’t necessarily a secret. I was just going to be real casual and nonchalant about it. Show up one morning at brunch like ‘Oh by the way, your girl owns a whole-ass company now. Pass the maple syrup.’”

“I don’t understand how it got so far in the first place,” Amir says, stroking Rachel’s hair as an artist works on her wrist. “Couldn’t you or your dads have sued Jonathan years ago?” I shrug.

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