Something crashed on his side of the line, followed by a series of whoops. “Then drag her out. She’s what, five GPs shorter than you and a hundred pounds wet?”
This was another reason I hated being a big guy. Everybody assumed you were comfortable throwing your weight around.
“Look, I won’t be sued for some shit if she gets hurt by staying there unchaperoned,” Benny Jr. said. “I don’t know what she’s trying to pull, but get her out by any means. Then I can press charges.”
“Against Bee Perkins?”
I imagined Bee in her colorful tights, patterned dresses, and sweaters, rolling around the cat café, giggling with a pile of kittens in her long brown hair that flowed down her back. Or at least it had. She didn’t scream criminal.
“I think she?—”
“You aren’t paid to think, Soupman. For fuck’s sake. You are paid to use those meat cleaver hands to get shit done.”
My throat grew tight. I wouldn’t scare her or hurt her. I didn’t care what he said. “I won’t —”
“If you end that sentence with anything other than ‘let you down,’ I swear to God. If you want to have any sort of job in this town, you better just do what you’re told.”
He ended the call.
I could get her out. If it was for her own safety, it was better for me to do it than the police. On the other side of the door, Bee hummed a tune. This was going to suck.
Chapter 5
Bee
So,the bangs situation got out of hand quickly.
The intention had been long, wispy bangs to frame my face. But every time I checked my progress, they were uneven. Then, with each adjustment, I was forced to go shorter and shorter. Then I started pulling hair from the top and sides to try to even it out.
Everything happened so quickly.
Now I had half a bowl cut and half long—a blender-made mullet. I could fix this. I had to fix this. I continued to cut at the stubborn mass sticking out of my head, tongue peeking out of my mouth in concentration. There was a soft knock on the bathroom door.
And there was stillthatwhole complication. I thought he would have forgotten about me by now.
He knocked again.
“Who is it?” I yelled.
There was a brief pause. “Still me.” Then another pause. “Owen.”
I frowned at my reflection. “Boo. I thought you left.”
Of course, theone timesomebody actually seemed to notice me …
“Nope. Still here,” he said.
“I wasn’t talking to you.”
“Well, I heard you. I have to bring you down. Benny Jr. says so,” he added, like a sibling telling their mom.
I sawed at my hair with the scissors I found in my mom’s travel souvenir room, aka my former bedroom. They were rather frail decorative things with “Tijeras, New Mexico” on the side. They weren’t ideal for cutting through my thick brown locks, but needs must and all that.
I didn’t respond to Owen. Maybe if I stopped talking, he would give up. Another chunk fell into the sink. This was going from bad to worse. At least half a GP more needed to be cut. I wasn’t sure when I decided to just chop it all short, but that was the new plan. I knew I had a ton of hair. It was a whole thing every few days to wash and deep condition it—a routine I’d been doing for years. The silver lining in my accidental hack job was that I’d have less hair to maintain, which would free up so much time for activities.
“Bee. We need to go.” It was cute how he tried to put authority behind his voice.
Owen wasn’t the big, tough guy the town thought him to be. He scared me less than Slippery Slopes’s resident guinea pig gangs that loitered in town and chattered when you got too close.
