Gooey.
Goodness…
“So what does your brother do?” he asks, glancing over at me.
“Jack? He’s a lawyer,” I say, rolling my eyes. “He was the golden child. You know, the overachiever who went straight from college to law school, never once did anything remotely rebellious like toilet paper someone’s house.” I pause. “You said your sister had two kids—what does she do?”
“Stella is a graphic designer for a PR firm. She works long hours and kind of wants to quit to find something remote.”
I cringe. “Ohhh they make her go into an office?”
He nods. “Yeah. She would rather work from home.”
“Makes sense.” I take a sip from the brown sugar oat milk espresso I’ve been neglecting. “I’d want to work from home too. No fluorescent lights making you look like a corpse. And you can eat as much peanut butter straight from the jar as you want without anyone judging you.”
Turner’s lips quirk. “Peanut butter?”
“Love it.” I put it on everything…
We pull into the parking lot of the giant warehouse store, and it’s exactly as expected—huge, loud, and completely chaotic. The lot is packed with cars, shopping carts scattered everywhere like a toddler threw a tantrum.
Turner cuts the engine and looks over at me. “Ready to do this?”
“Always.”
Inside, it’s a circus. Kids are screaming, their tiny voices echoing off the steel walls because some person in a whimsical looking bear costume is growling near the registers for absolutely no reason.
Jeez.
“Okay,” Turner says, hands on his hips as he surveys the chaos. “Where do we start?”
“With her.” I point to a nearby employee; a teenage girl with blue hair and a nose ring. “Excuse me—do you know if you have a giant Monster Smash cut-out?”
I put on a begging face.
The girl blows a bubble with her gum, pops it, and shakes her head. “Sold out.”
“Fuck,” Turner mutters under his breath. “Just my luck.”
“But.” The girl jerks her thumb over her shoulder. “We have a sale on the princess piñatas—they’re sixty percent off. And a discount on the LEGO pinata at twenty-five.”
Turner groans. “That doesn’t help me.”
“He’s desperate,” I joke, wanting to wrap my arms around his waist and make all his troubles go away. Poor baby, can’t get his hands on a lizard…
Back in the truck, Turner grips the steering wheel and runs a hand through his messy hair. “That was a waste of time.”
“Order it online.” Easy peasy. “Pay a little extra and it’ll be here by Wednesday.”
“You think so?”
“You know—the internet? The onlines? Ever heard of it? You can literally get anything on there—including but not limited to, video game lizard piñatas for kids.”
“Ha ha—you’re funny.”
To prove my point and to be extra helpful, I begin scrolling my phone, googling Monster Smash Lizard.
“Here, see?” I turn my screen toward him even though he’s driving and isn’t looking at me. “Multiple options and all of them the same. We got ‘Glowing Lizard King,’ ‘Super Smash Lizard King,’ and my personal favorite—‘Lizard King with Real Fire Breath Action—which is literally just orange and red streamers.”
