He sighed, but he pushed himself from his chair at my side and went to the other side of the bar, pulling it out with far more force than necessary. He shot me a look that clearly was meant to say, “happy now?” and shook his head at me.
“Thank you. First things first. How much do you all know?”
“This,” Bambi yelled, sticking his middle finger up at me. A couple of the other men laughed, but I noticed the old ladies rolling their eyes.
“Har, har, har, the comedic genius knows the universal sign for fuck off. Now you can do exactly that.”
“What?” He said, still laughing.
“I mean it. Fuck off,” I snapped, pointing at the door. “If you’re going to treat this as a joke, you can get the fuck out.”
“No, I—” He was no longer laughing.
“Too late. Fuck off. I happen to think helping Bee learn to navigate her new voice is probably the most important thing right now, and no laughing matter. I can only assume you don’t think it’s important?”
“I do but—”
“But what? It was more important for you to act the class clown?”
“List—”
“No. I won’t listen. You had your warning, now fuck off!” I hissed, emphasising the last few words by gritting my teeth.
He looked at Dante for backup, and I saw him shrug out of the corner of my eye. He knew better than to argue.
“You heard the lady,” he said, and I heard the laugh in his tone, but he had the decency to hold it back.
Bambi got up and grumbled under his breath before he looked up and met my eyes. “Rachel, look… I’m sorry.”
“Good. You should be. And you can join next time. Or you can make the effort to learn by yourself. But you won’t be here today.”
I folded my arms and continued glaring at him until he walked out the doors, still muttering under his breath.
“Anyone else?” I asked pleasantly once the doors were firmly closed.
“I see nothing has changed. You’re still a bitch,” Greg muttered.
“Well,Malfoy,I’m the only one here to teach you. So unless you want to join our friend Bambi, you’ll shut up and put up. Now, I’ll ask again. What do we know?”
Closing in on nearly an hour later, and I was starting to realise this was going to be much harder than I realised.
“How can this be so fucking difficult? It’s how are you,” I repeated, putting the back of my fingers together and curling them, before pointing one finger at the crowd. “How. Are. You.” I repeated the gesture.
The old ladies had nailed it. They were in the corner, moving on to other phrases. Jenna had told me she had been practicing, and after showing me a few phrases, I gave her the go ahead to form her own group with the old ladies, and I’d tackle the men. She had dropped Trex in the back with Heather, who was ecstatic to have more babies, and had jumped in headfirst to teach them. I didn’t worry about the women in the slightest.
But these fucking idiot men were another matter.
I pinched the bridge of my nose, shaking my head when I saw Vienna shove Shark when Shark told him he was doing it wrong.
“Tell him, Rachel,” Vienna hissed, tugging on my sleeve to get my attention. “Tell Shark he’s wrong.”
“I would genuinely rather sweep the Sahara with a broomstick,” I muttered back, ripping my arm away from Vienna and walking to the other end of the bar to see what the others were up to.
I had paired them up, and each duo looked like they were on the edge of starting a brawl. Sunshine flipped Tools the bird. Ant told Doc to get his fingers out of his face before he snapped them. And the others weren’t faring much better.
“It’s like this, isn’t it, Rachel?” Riley said, making some weird fucking gesture with his hands that was nowhere near “how are you,” and more like the fucking worm with his fingers.
“Not quite,” I said as pleasantly as possible, though I was grinding my teeth, and my smile was tight. “Let’s break it down. Everyone! Watch me and Riley.”
