Dear Daddy, Please Spank Me - Chara Croft Page 0,5

to me, waving his hands around a lot, and I reached up to fuck with one of my earrings, feeling like dirt while he got it off his chest.

Yeah, I’d seen the piece of paper there yesterday, but how was I supposed to have known it was meant for me? Or that it was about something important?

If I had to guess, the delivery I’d missed was probably some of that immigration paperwork he’d been waiting on, which I already knew had been stressing him out. And now, fuck. What? Did he get kicked out of the country? Just because I didn’t read his damn note? No wonder the dude hated me.

“Sorry,” I said, which I meant, even though I also knew it did fuck-all to help and he probably thought was just me brushing him off. “Uh, what now? Won’t they redeliver?”

“I need it today, Jordan,” he gritted out from between clenched teeth, his face tight and pinched-looking. “Which means I now need to call in to work for time off to drive over and pick it up in person, and—”

“I can go get it for you,” I interrupted, seeing the chance for some redemption here. I mean, yeah, Dev would be pissed if I blew off filming with him, but since Paulo actually made sure shit like our rent getting paid on time happened, I figured it was probably the lesser of two evils. Plus, like, I had fucked up. As usual. This was on me.

But Paulo just shook his head, slashing a hand in front of his chest. “Não, I do not trust you with something this important.”

Fair, I guess, but it still stung. Gotta admit I was kinda relieved when he turned and stormed out, though. Sure, I’d like to make shit right if I could, but since I generally couldn’t and we both seemed to get that, I was just going to call it a win that this hadn’t been the inevitable straw that broke the camel’s back.

Eventually, Paolo would get tired of putting up with how craptastic letting me live here made his life and how many details of basic adulting I “forgot,” and I’d have to find yet another new place to live, but since that day apparently wasn’t today, I compartmentalized the fuck out of the sick feeling that lingered in my stomach, shoved it down with all its brothers and sisters, and slammed the door on it.

Luckily, I had plenty of practice at never letting that kind of shit show on my face, because Dev showed up just as Paulo slammed out of the apartment, which meant it was time to put my one and only asset to use and make some money. Thank fuck for YouTube. I certainly didn’t have much else to be grateful to my parents for, but at least they’d made me pretty… and since I wasn’t good for much else, it was a good thing the internet gave me a way to make “pretty” pay the bills.

“Looking good, Jay,” Dev said with a calculating smile when I let him in. Not hitting on me, just making a mental tally of how it would film, no doubt.

“Yep,” I said, clapping him on the shoulder. “Let’s go get you some more subscribers, dude.”

He’d just started his own YouTube channel, and even if he wasn’t my favorite person in the world, I’d agreed to do some holiday videos with him on mine to boost his visibility, since, as he'd reminded me, I owed him for letting me crash on his couch a few years ago.

“What’s this?” he asked, scooping up some mail I’d tossed on the shitty futon I slept on when I took him back to my room. I wasn’t a huge fan of having him in my personal space, but since I’d set up the other half of my bedroom to film in, it was inevitable.

“Mail,” I said, stating the obvious as I snatched the envelopes back from him. Bills? Junk? A long lost grandfather trying to get in touch and tell me I actually had a family member who cared about me? Who the fuck knew?

“Yeah, but what?” Dev asked, eyeing them hungrily. “More product sponsorship offers, do you think?”

Probably not, since that shit generally came in online. Dev seriously had a lot to learn if he wanted to monetize his channel, but it was like everything I’d tried to show him other than actual dollar figures went in one ear and out the other. Whatever, though.