Page 5 of The Boss I Can't Stand
I laughed. She was clearly excited, like she’d been pumped full of sugar. But that only happened when I babysat because Connor was no fun. “What’s up?”
“You know Kenny from my class?”
“Sure.” I actually had no clue, but whatever.
“He’s having a birthday party!” Her voice turned shrill. “And guesswhhaaaatttt! He invited all the kids in my class!”
“That issocool.” I couldn’t help but smile at her excitement, imagining her tiny face all lit up.
“Tell him what kind of party it is,” Connor prompted in the background.
“Oh, yeah! It’s aRun ‘n’ Gunparty!” Grace announced.
I winced. Did Kenny’s parents not realize how much sex and violence were in those movies?Run ‘n’ Gunwas Hart of Gold’s most popular franchise.
The first movie had been a megahit that had made me an overnight success, and the movies had basically been printing money ever since. But sex, sexy cars, and sexier women did not make for an appropriate birthday party theme for a bunch of third graders.
I doubted Grace wanted to hear that, though, so I rallied to match her enthusiasm.
“No way, kid!”
“Way!” she cried, making me chuckle.
“What are you bringing as a present?”
Grace paused. “Can you get me something special from the movie?” she pleaded. I knew in person it would be accompanied by an adorable little pout that would have had me prepared to say yes to anything. She had me wrapped around her little finger and I was okay with that.
“We were thinking maybe Uncle Finn has some coolRun ’n’ Gunstuff lying around the studio somewhere?” Connor added.
Oh, so much crap, I thought. And with every production, we accumulated more. “Sounds like this is my chance to yank the title of favorite uncle back from Liam,” I said. My older brother and I had a friendly little competition going, and he’d recently usurped my position.
Connor snorted. “I don’t know. Liam still shows up to play that farming sim with her.”
“Yeah, well, maybe I’ll buy her an actual sheep farm.”
“Don’t you dare,” Connor said. I could tell he was grinning.
“Can it be something really cool?” Grace asked.
“Cool, huh?” Lord knew I understood the desire to look cool in front of her classmates. Growing up, our mom had struggled with chronic depression, and we becamethosekids. Everyone knew we were the ones whose mom flaked out on parent-teacher conferences and who didn’t have anything ready for the bake sale and who forgot to sign the permission slip for the field trip.
And that was just the stuff people could see. Behind closed doors, it was worse. Bad enough that Liam started finding part-time jobs when he was thirteen for money in his control, because the grocery store didn’t mind us shopping by ourselves when we were just kids, but they drew the line at letting us use Mom’s credit card without her.
Bad enough that Connor learned to cook when he was ten. Bad enough that I could still—to this day—perfectly forge Mom’s signature, thanks to years of signing checks on her behalf to make sure the bills got paid and the power didn’t get cut off—again.
It wasn’t like that all the time. She had good days. Good weeks. Sometimes even good months. But then something would trigger her again, and she’d just go blank. And when that happened, we were on our own.
Over the years, I’d gotten good at making myself the center of attention in a way that drew the spotlight off my crappy home life. I’d perfected my smile and my schmoozing, however much it annoyed me to turn it on, because people who projected that kind of confidence were automatically seen as successful.
I was an expert at projecting a glossy veneer of “nothing to see here” that kept people from looking closer. And if it made me feel incredibly fake sometimes, then…well, this was Hollywood. We were all a little fake, weren’t we?
All this to say, I understood Grace’s need to make an impression with her gift. The divorce had been tough on her, and I couldn’t blame her for wanting to up her cool factor so that if people whispered behind her back, they did it in agoodway.
“What do youwantto bring?” I asked. “A prop from the movie? A poster signed by the cast?”
Grace hummed. “Do you have anything signed by Violet?” she asked. “She’s the one on Kenny’s lunch box, so I think she’s his favorite.”
Damn, I didn’t realize we had lunch boxes.
