Page 28 of Please, Sir

He grins. “Gonna call your girl and check up on her?”

“Miss Rivers?” I nearly fall off my barstool. “Why would I call–”

“I was talking aboutJo Jo,” he replies, wearing a smirk. “But good to see who you’re thinking about.”

I roll my eyes.

“Yeah, you still got some high school in you, too,” Dean says, his cheeks red from how much we’ve been laughing. Or maybe the beer. Could be both.

“Learned from the best,” I tell him, then look at my phone. “Nah. I’m not gonna call her. I’m just gonna let her enjoy her sleepover. After I finish my burger, I’m gonna go home, take a hot shower, and–”

“Jerk off?” Dean offers, lifting his brows. “I gotta imagine jerking off with a teenage daughter at home is pretty… hard.”

“Shower, truck, garage,” I tell him, because I do not have a lock on my bedroom door.

“The nomad of jerking off,” he says, clinking his fourth beer against my water glass.

CHAPTER

ELEVEN

Friday nightsat age twenty-four sure look a lot differently than I’d imagined.

I always saw myself falling in love with my high school sweetheart, getting married young, becoming a mama young, and spending my nights and weekends snuggled up in a puddle with my man and my babies on the couch—watching old TV shows and eating toomuch sugar.

I was on the road to that happily ever after, until life slapped me across the face.

Quite literally.

And now? I am driving to the drug store to get AA batteries for my vibrator, because I literally have nothing left to do except masturbate. I may grab some ice cream, too.

In a hoodie, with my greasy hair up in a wad of uncombed hell, no makeup on, wearing my rattiest, most disgusting sweatpants ever—pants so old they have holes around the elastic and have to be rolled several times just to keep them up, I slip my feet back into my boots and step out. The DRUG STORE sign—yeah, that’s literally the name—flickers, and a breeze moves through the parking lot, sending an old, empty bag of Hot Cheetos past my feet. Reaching down, I snatch the old bag which is apparently coated in something gross, right as my phone rings. With my free hand, I dig it out, focused on the trash can ahead instead of the caller ID.

“Hello?” I only hope it’s not my parents. This week has sucked a big dick, and quite frankly, it started with them. The clerk inside the store smiles at me as I approach and I smile too.

“Hello?” I ask again, then take a moment to glance at the phone screen. It’s not programmed into my phone, so it’s not Leah, Michael, or my parents. That article really pissed people off–is this my first angry anonymous phone call? “Hey asshole, I’m hanging up if you don’t?—”

“Miss Riley?” a tiny whisper sniffs my name on the other line.

I toss the Hot Cheetos bag in the trash and swipe my hand down my pants, wiping away the gross mystery wetness from the bag. I turn, facing away from the store for a sliver of privacy. “... Jo Jo?”

“Miss Riley,” she whispers, her voice broken, thin, stressed. She’s in some sort of distress.

“Jo Jo, what’s wrong? Where are you? Are you okay?” I swipe my hand down my leg again nervously, pacing in front of the store.

“I’m,” she sniffles. “I’m at Alexa’s for a sl-sl-sleepover,” she quietly cries, her hand clearly cupping her phone, her words clashing against my ear.

“Is everything okay?” I ask, feeling like it’s a pretty stupid question to ask because obviously everything isn’t okay. The last few times I saw Jo Jo at practice and in class, she was so angry with me. For her to call me now, something must really be wrong. My insides twist, the knot of unease climbing until it’s firmly lodged in my throat.

“Can you c-come p-pick me up?” she asks.

I spin, looking up at the DRUG STORE sign, then peering inside at the clerk. She’s reading a magazine, one leg stacked over the other. No one is in there. I could still grab my batteries, go pee really quickly then go get Jo Jo, but when she sniffles into the receiver again, urgency overtakes me.

My boots hit the pavement hard as I jog to my car, yanking open the door to quickly take a seat behind the wheel. “Where does she live?”

This time, Jo Jo flat out cries, no longer trying to hold back. “I wa-walked down the street. I’m at the stop s-sign at Blue and Bell.”

“Seriously?” I ask, tossing the phone onto the dashboard as I back up, speaker phone engaged. “There are two streets in Bluebell called Blue and Bell, and they cross each other?”

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