Page 3 of Enemy Crush
“Feed me, asshole,” he repeats.
“I swear, I’m going to kill whoever taught you that,” I think out loud as I push the blankets back and climb from bed. I head to the attached bathroom and take my morning leak before climbing into the shower and quickly washing off. I’m out within five minutes but the moment the water shuts off, I can hear Bundy in the living room, making all kinds of racket in his cage. He can be a little temperamental when he’s hungry.
I dry off, get dressed, and comb my brown hair before going to the living room. The moment he sees me enter, he stops the fluttering of his green wings and he watches me.
“Feed me, asshole,” he says again.
I roll my eyes as I grab his food and pour it into the feeder.
“Thank you,” he says as he roams to the feeder to eat.
“You’re welcome, asshole,” I tell him, rubbing his head before closing the cage and heading to the kitchen for some morning coffee. I start brewing a cup of coffee while I dig around in the freezer to find something for breakfast. I usually stop at the coffee shop and buy something to eat, but money is a little tight lately. I haven’t been paying myself very much since the bookstore is failing as badly as it is. It needs every cent it can get and as long as I’m fed and my bills are paid, I’m not picky.
I settle with a couple of frozen breakfast burritos. I open one end and toss them into the microwave as I flip on the TV in the living room. My cup of coffee finishes brewing so I doctor it up with some sugar before pulling the burritos out of the microwave. I toss them onto a plate, pull off the plastic wrapper and take everything to the living room to eat in front of the TV.
I flip through channel after channel but morning TV is total shit and I end up resuming the show I was watching on Netflix—another crime drama to start the day. I’m done eating by nine, so I clean up the mess and turn off the TV. I walk over to Bundy and open the cage. I stick my hand in, waiting for him to jump onto my finger, but his head is still in the feeder. I whistle to get his attention. “Hey, asshole. You want some exercise before I leave?”
He looks at me, eats some more, then jumps onto my finger. I pull him out of the cage and pet him while watching the way the morning light glistens off his bright green feathers.
“Asshole,” Bundy says, shaking his feathers.
I laugh and shake my head. “See, this is why I can never bring a date home. You’ll call her an asshole and piss her off.”
“Asshole,” he says again, adding on a whistle.
I laugh. “Yeah, now it just sounds like you seen an asshole and you liked it. Take off,” I tell him and he flies through the room and up to the top of the bookcase in the corner.
While I let him fly around the house to stretch his wings, I head back to my office to pack up my bag. I have a few books I borrowed from the store that I need to return, not to mention the mounds of paperwork I brought home. I thought that if I looked over it enough times, I’d somehow find a magical way to save it on my own. No such luck.
I throw everything into my bag and head back to the living room to leave. “Okay, Bundy. Let’s go home.”
“Go home,” he repeats, flying back to my finger I’m holding in the air.
I pet him a few times. “Good boy,” I tell him as I carry him to the kitchen for a carrot, one of his favorite snacks. I hold up the baby carrot and he takes and holds it in his beak while I carry him back to his cage. He hops in and I close it up.
“See ya later, buddy.”
“See ya,” he repeats.
I grab my things and head out for the day. I get to the store at a quarter till ten and I don’t bother locking the door behind me. I dump my things behind the register and go about turning on the lights. I open the safe and pull out the starting money for the day and put it into the register. I unload my bag and put everything back in place before flipping the CLOSED sign to OPEN. Nobody is rushing in the door the minute we open. I head back to the counter and pull out the accounting books, hoping that something jumps out at me.
I feel like if the store closes, I’ll be letting a lot of people down. This store was my mother’s dream. While my dad slaved away in the coal mines, my mother ran this store and kept it running smoothly for forty years. After she passed away, my dad was retired and too old to run it. That left it to me and I took the job with pride. In a way, being here in this store is like having a little piece of her to hold onto. I don’t see the store as it is today, I see it how it was when I was just a boy and she was behind the counter.
Every day after school, I’d ride my bike to the store until closing time. I helped her stock books, ring up customers, and she said I kept the place full of life. On slow days, the two of us would sit behind the counter and read together or we’d play tic-tac-toe and even card games. We talked, laughed, bonded. I miss my mother more than I care to admit. Losing this store will be like losing her all over again and I can’t stand the thought of it. Nor can I even stomach thinking about telling my father that I failed no only him, but my mom too.
I must keep this store going. Not only for myself, but for my father, too. For the town. I’ve tried many things over the last few months that we never had to do before. I started a website and started selling books online, even shipping them out so sales are higher than before, but the cost isn’t really worth it in the long run. By the time I pay for all the packaging, I’m only making a few cents more than what I would’ve made selling it in the store. I’ve found a few books that I’ve discounted and I’ve started up a SALE shelf. I’ve added a chalkboard sign on the sidewalk, announcing new release books and sales. I’ve even started doing an open-mic night on Thursdays where local writers can come to read their work: poems, short stories, pieces of their longer works. It draws in a few of our regulars, but it hasn’t made much of a difference either. I feel my only option left is to reach out to the one person who hates me the most: Stella Flanagan.
Stella is one of the best marketing managers in a one-hundred-mile radius and she’s known for doing a lot of pro-bono work for the local shop owners in town. I know if this place can be saved, she’d be the one to do it. The only problem is that she hates me. If I could only get her to forgive me. For what, I don’t know. She’s held a grudge against me since we were kids and I rode my bike through her stupid block house she built in the front yard. I was a kid! But she doesn’t let anything go.
Asking Stella to do me a favor would be like tucking my tail between my legs, but I don’t want to have to tell my father that I didn’t do everything I could to save the store. I know I need to bite the bullet but I’m nowhere near ready to swallow my pride just yet. I know the moment I ask, she’ll just laugh in my face. I can’t trust her any more than she can trust me. I lost her trust the day I ran through her stupid doll house and she lost mine the following day when she jammed a stick between the spokes of my bike and made me crash. I still have a scar on my elbow from that wreck.
Our little war has survived grade school, junior high, and high school and it’s still holding strong today. Although now we’re both older and more mature. We’ve learned to stay out of one another’s way. Asking her this would be putting myself right back in her line of fire. If she kills me, there will be nobody to run the store anyway. If I don’t ask, I’ll lose the one piece of my mom I have left. Choices are a bitch sometimes.
The worst part about Stella is how beautiful she is. I never could keep my eyes off her for long and those longing stares is exactly what got me in trouble most of the time. Her long brown hair has natural highlights of red and blonde mixed in and it’s always so sleek. With her every step, her hair sways and catches the light beautifully, always capturing my attention. It hangs low on her back, just above her round ass that I’ve never been able to keep my eyes off. Her eyes are big and brown, like the color of chocolate with swirls of caramel. And her body is perfect: big chested, narrow waisted, curvy hips, and long legs. All of it a combination that would be the key to any guy’s undoing. Unfortunately for me, I can’t keep my eyes off her.
I spend my morning by paying bills for the month and going over the books. Every time I look, the numbers just gets smaller and smaller and I know I won’t be able to keep this up much longer. I close the book and put it in the drawer, wanting it out of sight and out of mind. A shipment of books arrives, so I put them into the system and find a place for them on the shelves. A few customers come in, an older lady who buys a new cookbook, a younger man who stocks up on comic books, and a young mother with her toddler son who buys a few books for both of them. By closing time, the store made around ninety-seven dollars for the day. I did the math and it cost me eight-six dollars to open every day between paying myself and utilities. I need to ask for help, but how?
I don’t bother flipping the lights off or locking the door to count down the register and begin closing. I put all the money in the bag and drop it into the safe. Then I head to the back and check the stock room and bathrooms before turning out the lights. I leave the front lights on and flip the sign to closed as I move back behind the register to get my things.
