“I really do have to go. My followers are dying to know about my breakfast.”
“Lyssa, wait?—”
This time I didn’t listen. I shut the lid and left Mike where he belonged, as pixels on a screen. His soft shirt and comical pets and bulldozer personality were whole oceans away, and nothing to do with me.
I wasn’t taking Mike’s invitation to come to New Zealand seriously. I was a New Yorker and had been since I was eighteen. I was going to brazen this whole thing out in the city, where I belonged. Besides, New Zealand was too far away.
I stayed in my apartment for a week, wearing unfashionable sweats and eating delivered bagels, reading all the comments and private messages.
My resolve to stay in New York held as I read nothing but vitriol for seven days. It held when I managed to sleep for a few hours only to wake up to messages from faceless accounts saying I should unalive myself. It even held when I saw Bossi colleagues I had thought were my friends liking mean comments.
But it was tested when people started making videos with “receipts” that I had always been a terrible person—one video used screenshots of comments I’d made on a now-dead platform when I was fourteen. (Ironically, people were calling me these words a lot this week, proving once again people were inconsistent as hell when it came to accountability.)
It was an awful seven days, but I was surviving.
Just as I began to feel the light at the end of the tunnel was close, a Hollywood celebrity was accused of what I’d accused Paul of, and people started acting like I was responsible for this too. Like I had that much power? After that, I was dragged into internet columnists’ think pieces and name-dropped on morning shows. The person who delivered my bagels recognized me and snapped a picture, which trolls gleefully used as proof I wasn’t hot enough to be telling the truth. Neither of these men—the celeb nor Paul—had technically done anything illegal, which left me to the court of public opinion, a.k.a., hell.
I told myself it would blow over, these things had a short shelf life, but I was earnestly scared about what might happen before it did. The constant barrage of abuse made me feel like I was a dinghy at sea in a thunderstorm.
When the doxxing began, New Zealand started to feel like it might just be the right distance away.
I called the cat sitter who looked after Root Beer for me sometimes and got her to come and take him to her apartment. She thought I was overreacting, but I didn’t care. I thought about trying to lay low at Caroline’s, but if trolls could find me in the West Village, they could find me in Chelsea.
They’d never find me in New Zealand.
By the time I started getting death threats in my DMs, I’d booked my flights.
CHAPTER 2
WOODVILLE, AOTEAROA NEW ZEALAND
MIKE
Kids’ parties were tough, but I was awesome at them.
Mini Mike was saddled up outside and ready to take kids on slow, safe walks around the courtyard; the face painter was ready to roll; the hired princess was doing vocal warm-ups; and the snack table was overflowing and sectioned by dietary requirements, without a nut in sight. The beats were popping too—I had some playlists I’d made especially for kids’ parties, so there was no risk of WAP coming through autoplay, like had happened once when I’d let a parent plug in their own playlist. (Let’s just say it was a good thing I knew that song by the first few beats and could leap the front counter in one move when I had to.) I’d even gamified recycling, so the kid who collected the most empty juice boxes got to wear a crown made out of them.
All of that stuff was easy.
What made these parties hard were the parents.
Levitate kids’ parties were strictly no drop-off, meaning everyone had to come with an accountable adult. We’d relaxed this rule once, and the bill for damages ended up higher than the rental fee. That was the party where Monica Shailor-Chapman’s daughter tried to light one of the ducks on fire, and her son smashed his birthday cake into Mini M’s face.
You weren’t supposed to say that kids were assholes, but after that, I pulled Monica aside and told her that her kids were assholes.
For my sanity (and the wellbeing of my ducks), I upheld the parent/guardian rule without exception. It just annoyed me how some of the mums hovered. They assumed that because I was a guy, I wouldn’t know where to find the first aid kit, or how to handle a sensory meltdown, or get a disruptor to be part of the team. Basically they assumed I was as useless as their husbands—yeah, I said it. Shots fired.
When I was a teenager working at Levitate, I worked kids’ parties grudgingly, because my dad was the owner and he made me. But when I got older and he let me bring my animals, I started to really get into it.
When kids interacted with animals, you could actually see their empathy developing. For some neurodiverse kids, it was the only time they were able to relax without the pressure of social interaction eating up all their energy. My dad said it helped some kids with cognitive development too. I wouldn’t know about that, though, since not all of my own cogs were rotating, according to my sister.
“Morena, Mike!” Tanya Watson-Glenn greeted, towing her eldest kid into Levitate.
“Morena, Tanz! Hey there, Aggie. Here’s your party kit.” I passed her a paper bag and her face split into a gap-toothed grin. “Everyone else is out back. Elsa is welcoming the kids to Arendelle.”
Aggie ran off to join the other kids who were sitting cross-legged in front of the party princess. She was warming up for her very long set. I happened to know Lizzie had excellent stamina, which she proved when she came home with me after a party one time and we went at it all night. We’d agreed it was a one-time thing, but she still sometimes gave me A Look when it was just her and I at Levitate at the end of the night.
I made a mental note to skip out of tonight’s party early and finish the cleanup first thing tomorrow. I didn’t have time to bounce princesses on my dick these days—I was going to be a Serious Business Boy™. NEW MIKE.
