Dr. Pendelton chuckled. “He asked for a snake. I said no. His mother said yes. He got a snake. He asked to homeschool. I said no, his mother said yes. He now homeschools. He asks to go to parties with his friends, I say no, his mother says no. He sneaks out. I swear I’m getting gray hairs by the second.”
“Sounds frustrating,” I admitted.
“You should take his car away. That’s what Mommy does with me. It always works.” Wendy added her two cents.
I laughed. “Yeah, Dr. Pendelton. Just start taking away his stuff. Eventually he’ll cave.”
He shuddered. “I already had to rehome his dog. He was angry. But we found out that his mother was allergic to it. Hence the snake. We tried to make it up to him, but now he just uses it to terrify his mother. He thinks it’s funny.”
I shuddered too.
“One day it’ll be better, and you’ll look back at these days and smile.” I paused. “At least that’s what my mother always says when she catches me having a bad parenting day.”
Dr. Pendelton groaned. “I sure hope so.”
One
Never push a crazy person past the point where they’re afraid of their actions.
—Life lesson
Odin
What were the fuckin’ odds that a dead man would be required to serve jury duty?
Honestly, it was quite fucking comical, truth be told.
I mean, what were the odds that a convicted felon in his old life, locked up for life, who then escaped from prison, faked his death, who then moved to Nowhere, Montana, to join a motorcycle club and get facial reconstructive surgery to hide his face would then get invited to jury duty?
Even worse, I wasn’t able to get out of it, either.
I studied my face in the mirror like I did every morning, wondering if I would ever get used to looking back at a different man.
A year ago, when I’d been broken out of prison by a man named Apollo, he’d given me the option of a life as a recluse—because there was no fuckin’ way to hide a man that killed a governor on live television—or get reconstructive surgery to change my face.
I’d gone with surgery.
And dyed my hair like a fuckin’ woman.
No longer did I have brown hair and blue eyes.
Now I had blonde hair that I bleached on a regular basis then toned so it wasn’t poison bleach yellow, and green eyes thanks to a more permanent tattoo to my cornea called keratopigmentation.
My cheekbones were slightly more pronounced, as well as my jaw being more square.
Oh, and I’d had dimpleplasty.
I also couldn’t grow my beard out, either, because I’d always worn a beard.
Now I was a smooth, baby face with dimples and a square jaw that women loved.
Only, this face wasn’t my own.
I was living a lie.
And I still didn’t know what to think about it.
I was still just as fuckin’ angry at the world as I was when I first shot Man Wise in the face.
