Page 40 of Lethal Seduction

"I’m fine… suddenly got nervous. What if you’re right? What if he’s the one or the guy right before the one. You know how there’s that one person that gets you all prepared to find the love of your life?"

"You’re totally in love."

"Don’t go there, please."

She side-eyes me and lets it drop. I had agreed to go out with him again, but now I’m freaking out. What if he expects too much from me? What if I can’t be the person he wants, but I fall head over heels for him and end up getting hurt along the way?

"What are you two slags crying about?" Devon asks as he walks up to us. "Don’t you have a wrinkly crotch to wax or something?"

"Devon," Tina says. "Why don’t you run along and be the gold digger you were always meant to be."

He glares at us for an uncomfortably long period of time. I'm about to ask him if he’s forgotten his medication to prevent catatonia, but then the spell is seemingly broken.

"I have gossip for you, but maybe you don’t deserve to hear about it," he says.

What could he possibly have to tell us? "We don’t want to hear about how many dicks you had inside you at any given time last night," I say.

"Very funny." He crosses his arms and actually looks hurt by my comment.

Ugh. "I’m sorry, Devon. That was a low blow."

"Not as low as last night, though, Devon? Am I right?" Tina never cared about his feelings and with good reason. He’s always been mean to her. However, something doesn’t feel right to me.

"What’s going on, Devon?" I ask.

He doesn’t immediately respond. His eyes roll back into his head. He’s either being possessed by some long-dead desperate housewife or he’s deciding if he should tell us what he knows.

"I shouldn’t tell you since neither of you deserves to know, but I’m sure you heard about the murders over at Who’s Your Caddy?"

We both nod.

"Well, management here felt it would be a good idea for us to learn self-defense. Officially, the money for this is coming out of any potential raises we were supposed to get, but the class is also voluntary." He crosses his arms and looks away. "If you want to go, there’s a sign-up sheet in the employee locker room."

I turn to Tina. "Should we check it out?"

"This cheap-ass place is going to withhold raises this year because of some stupid self-defense class? This whole thing pisses me off big time. Maybe I should bring my bow and arrow and teach people how to aim for the human heart?"

"Chill, Tina," Devon says. "No one wants to experience your obsession withThe Hunger Games.As if it’s not bad enough we had to endure years of you crying about not getting the main role, obsessively talking about how J-Law messed up one of the crucial lines in the movie that only you could have done well. There’s got to be medication to help you with this."

“Go away, Devon,” I say. “We’ll see you later at the class.”

Tina starts to argue, but I put my hand up to stifle the budding debate.

“We need to take the class,” I say. “Let’s go sign up before they take down the sign.”

“Fine,” she says, standing up. “I guess if we aren’t going to get a raise this year, we can stick it to them. Make them pay for our classes.”

“Thanks, Devon,” I say to his back as he walks away. “We owe you one.”

He waves his middle finger at us without looking back. I really wish he and Tina could work out their hatred for each other so we could all start to get along at work. It’s always so stressful dealing with their jabs at each other.

We hurry into the locker room and put our names on the signup sheet.

“Look,” Tina points at the time listed for the class to start. “The club is shutting down early. The class is going to be in two hours.”

“There goes our tips for the day.” How can I afford my rent with one less day of tips? Fuck.

“We better go try and squeeze some cash out of our morning appointments if we can,” Tina suggests. “If we flirt enough, we might still be able to make enough for dinner tonight.”

---