Page 13 of The Red Rider
“You’re going to get me in so much trouble, aren’t you?”
“Only if you let me. Now, inquiring minds want to know. Who is scarier? The Antichrist or the Teletubbies?”
I don’t think I’d ever been asked a more fucked up or loaded question in my entire life and I’d had plenty of fucked up conversations while high with Miss Mabel and my softball team. It was kind of like the time someone on my softball team asked who would win in a fight between King Kong and Jaws. There’s basically no place for that fight to take place without giving one the advantage except for outer space.
“That’s kind of a loaded question.”
“I’m curious too,” Aeron said.
“It’ll help us protect you when we get to D.C. We still don’t know how you’re going to react. We have no way of knowing until we get there.”
“Well, Teletubbies aren’t real. My father is. Look what he’s managed to accomplish so far. Teletubbies freak me out, but I’m definitely much more afraid of him since he’s flesh.”
“No one is judging for being afraid of seeing him again,” Aeron said. “Just keep in mind you’ll have four angels as backup.”
Dice popped his toothpick out his mouth and started swinging his leg again.
“Personally,I think that talking sun baby is way more terrifying than the son of Satan and I don’t care who judges me.”
“Now that we’ve gotten the Teletubby talk out of the way and Dice has officially proclaimed he’sTeam Jacob,are the two of you good now?”
“I was never bad,” Dice said. “Aeron was the one humping your leg in a show of dominance.”
“There may be some residual leg humping, but I’m feeling much better about Dice jumping the gun and coming here. I still think he should be playing with his bombs, but you need to learn to use your grace as a weapon, and Dice would be best at teaching that.”
Dice just couldn’t let it sit. We were finally making progress, and he had to shoot his mouth off.
“Good. Now get the fuck out and go kill things. She’s not going to learn a damned thing with you manhandling her.”
Aeron just stood up and flung his hair out his eyes.
“Shelikesthe way I manhandle her. She clawed my back up when I manhandled her in the shower.”
“You’re leg humping again,” I pointed out.
“Oh, fine,” Aeron said, stomping out.
Dice wasn’t even phased. When I turned back to him, he was chewing on his toothpick again.
“I’m shocked that it didn’t take longer. Back to you, Speedy.”
My heart started racing. I much preferred when Dice’s attention was on Aeron and not me.
Chapter 8
D
ice’s idea of dealing with my feelings before I faced my father seemed to have no rhyme or reason. After Aeron left, he was hyper-focused on talking about Teletubbies and my feelings about the one time I saw the show. What that had to do with my father, I had no idea. I didn’t think Dice did either. I think the reason he made me so nervous was that he was completely random and unpredictable.
It seemed like he was going somewhere with the whole Teletubby thing, then he just dropped it. It was driving me a little mad.
“So, tell me about your first love.”
I narrowed my eyes at him. What the fuckity fuck did that have to do with any of this?
“I’m sorry, but what does that have to do with Isaiah or Teletubbies for that matter? You know a lot of my past is missing, right?”
“But you remembered the Teletubbies.”
