Bully King - J.A. Huss Page 0,91

happen today at three PM.

Cadee was pissed about that too, because she wanted me to wait until five when she could leave the rush, and come with me to see if her cottage was OK because one of the other servers told her this morning that Victor was living there. So even though I am perfectly capable of checking in on her cottage myself, she’s mad at me because I won’t wait.

I can’t wait because Laurie was only stopping in for a day to handle some things for my father and she needs to leave campus by three-thirty so she can catch a plane to wherever the fuck she’s spending the rest of the summer.

I wish that were it, but it’s not.

Lars is definitely pissed at me about something. What this something is, I’m not quite sure, because he won’t talk to me. But it’s probably about Cadee.

I sigh. Because I’m being killed slowly by a thousand papercuts and this fucking summer is only half over.

But it’s two-thirty now and I need to leave to make the appointment with Laurie, so I force myself to get up and wander over to Ax. “Please,” I say to him. “Please do not let anything else happen today while I’m gone. Can you do that for me?”

“Sure.” He doesn’t even look up at me. He’s playing cards with Elexa and Ivan, who, to everyone’s surprise, seem to have hit it off because they show up every morning wearing smiles declaring themselves to be the happiest couple alive.

What the hell is happening? is now my new favorite phrase.

I would like to kiss Cadee goodbye before I take off and tell her I’ll see her at home tonight, but she’s currently crawling over to Dante’s feet, getting ready to massage them, and even dumbfuck me knows how to read a room every once in a while.

So I just leave.

Thirty-seven minutes later—the boat ran out of gas seventy feet from the High Court Marina and I had to coast in. I’m probably being written a ticket right now by security for illegally parking my boat. I’m also wet, didn’t quite make it to the dock—I almost run Laurie over as she’s leaving the admin building.

I flash back to three weeks ago—how the fuck has it only been three weeks?—when this very same scenario played out with Mona and Cadee, and then say, “Where are you going?”

“Walk with me, Cooper. I can’t be late. I’m not missing my vacation. My mother had surgery two weeks ago and I had to spend my entire summer so far listening to her tell me how worthless I am. I need this vacation.”

I put my hands up in surrender. “I’m cool walking and talking.”

“So I got a phone call this morning. Apparently, they’ve been calling for two weeks but no one has been answering. Do they not understand this is a school and we have lives in the summer, Cooper? Lives that involve vacation?”

“Who?” Jesus Christ. I don’t think I can do people today.

“Some self-storage place out on Highway 54 near Poplar Creek.”

“OK. Is this supposed to mean something to me?”

“Yes, it is. Because they were looking for your father.”

“Can you get to the point, please?”

“They’re calling because he paid in full for one year’s worth of storage, but the facility has been sold, someone’s going to turn it into a 7-11, and they need everyone to clear their crap out by next week.”

I sigh. I don’t think I can do life today. “So what? I’m supposed to clear this shit out?”

“I guess so. They need you to come up there today to sign some papers.”

“That’s like an hour and a half away. Does it have to be today?”

“Today.”

“This doesn’t make sense.”

We’re in the staff parking lot now and Laurie is busy click-click-clicking her key fob to unlock her car. “Well, Cooper, I just wanted to let you know.” She pauses. And it’s only now that I realize she’s carrying a box of stuff because she’s hiking it up on her hip to pull the car door open.

A box of stuff like… “Did you quit?”

She takes in a long breath, lets it out, and smiles at me. She sets her box down in the back seat, and then extends her hand. “Goodbye, Cooper. I always did like you. But…” She shakes her head. “I think I’ve overstayed my welcome. Here’s the key to the storage unit. And just in case you decide that self-storage unit can wait and my excuse to