Page 63 of The Mercenary's Guide to Mishaps and Romance

EIGHTEEN

ELLIS

“Looks like there’s only parking in the parking garage,” Jackson realizes.

“Good thing we’re early; it looks pretty empty,” Cassel says as Jackson finds a parking spot just past the first floor, which is reserved. We shuffle out as I look at the taser I still have. Holding it like it’s a fragile egg that I might break open as I waltz into the office building isn’t the best course of action, but I’m not quite sure what else to do with it. “Um… what do I do with this?”

“Take it with you,” Tavish says.

“I can’t take a weapon in there,” I protest.

Three of the four men are looking at me like I’m horrifically confused and the fourth man, Jackson, looks bored.

“Okay, but even if I could take it in there, they would see it, right? How the hell would I hide this thing? And then if I get caught… would I go to jail?”

“For… a taser?” Cassel asks, sounding confused.

Leland tugs back the edge of his overshirt and flashes me not one, nottwo, butthreeguns. Cassel, who is wearing the tightest clothes he could possibly have found, whips out a large handgun.

“Where the fuck was that?” I ask.

He makes it disappear before making it reappear again.

“Your clothes are so tight. Where are you keeping that?” I question.

“Secret,” he whispers.

“He holds it firmly between his tush cheeks,” Leland explains.

“I do not! My overshirt is just lying the right way to cover it!”

“Tush cheeks,” Leland whispers as Cassel glares at him. I realize that they fight like brothers half the time even though they don’t seem to be related.

“Machete,” Tavish says as he pulls a rather large knife out.

I gape at him. “Who the fuck needs a machete?”

“It’s not actually a machete, but it sounded significantly cooler than saying ‘knife,’” he explains. “I have a gun too, but I can’t make it disappear between my butt cheeks like that. The strength those cheeks must have to just hold that gun there… I’m impressed,” Tavish says as he eyes Cassel.

Cassel gives him a look. “I’m not?—”

“He told me he once nearly snapped Jeremy’s dick off with them cheeks,” Leland says.

Cassel throws his hands up in the air. “I did not! I said we fell while doing… up in the air… and like…” He throws in some weird hand motions that make me realize that I’m very glad I can’t understand any of this. Or maybe that I need to get laid moretounderstand any of it. “But it’s fine. It’s all fine. His dick is perfectly fine.”

Then I turn to Jackson, unsure whether I want to be impressed some more or horrified. Because this isn’t right… none of this is normal… right? But now I’m kind of curious and want to see where he’s hiding his weapons.

“Oh, I just have like… uh…” Jackson pats down his pockets before pulling out a stick of gum and his keys.

“The most lethal weapon of all… I killed a man with a stick of gum once,” Leland says.

“You did?” I ask, horrified.

“He’s lying, don’t listen to him,” Cassel tells me.

“I spit it out with such velocity that it lodged into his throat and killed him immediately,” Leland brags. “Dead in seconds.”

“I told you not to listen,” Cassel says.

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