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“You said you’re not helping me anyway,” he mutters, but he finally presses a button.
“There ya go,” I say. “Look at those moves!”
“This is fucking stupid,” Kade complains, but he keeps smacking on the buttons. He seems to be getting into it now. I try to tell him different move sets, but he seems to prefer to just hammer on one button and call it good.
“You guys want to play too?” I ask as I hold controllers out to the guards as well.
They stare at them like I’ve offered up rattlesnakes.
“Kade doesn’t care. Come on,” I urge.
“Take the damn controller and murder his smug ass or you’re fired,” Kade says since he seems to be in some deep struggle at the moment.
By the time the pizza arrives, I’ve gotten more to return and join in and as they watch Kade cusses profusely at the screen. I even manage to get a full party of eight playing. No one, absolutelyno onebut me attacks Kade’s character, but hey, it’s a start.
“You realize that if someone came in right now, we’d all die?” Kade asks.
“At least we’d die having fun and with our tummies full!” I say.
“This is stupid. You are ridiculous.”
I shove a breadstick in his mouth, positive that if he doesn’t have anything nice to say about how much fun he’s having, he shouldn’t be able to say anything.
“Why do you keep giving me the most useless-looking trash?” Kade asks once he’s free of the breadstick.
“He’s actually giving you some of the highest-tiered characters and giving himself lower ones,” a guy standing behind him says.
“Of course he is,” Kade grumbles.
I grin at him. “Some call me Saint Len.”
“I got shit to do,” he says as he finishes up the round and hands me the controller. I pass his and mine off to others who were watching and follow Kade as he wanders out into the casino. “So did you come here just to gloat? Or do you finally want to be hired?”
“Sorry, I already have a job tonight.”
“Of course you do,” he says as he moves through the thick crowd and over to a roulette table. He says something to the lady manning it as I notice a man who is gripping a woman’s wrist. He’s squeezing it tightly as she tries to lean away from him. He jerks her in close and whispers something in her ear that makes her pale considerably. She turns her bruised face away and the man promptly smacks her across the cheek.
I glance over at Kade to see that he notices but promptly looks away, like it’s none of his business, and I truly believe that he doesn’t think it is. Kade sees me looking at him but turns away and starts toward the back.
“You’re not going to do anything?” I ask, anger rearing its ugly head.
“What do you want me to do, Len? I’m not goddamn Robin Hood.”
“Your authority is fucking up here, Kade,” I say as I hold my hand above my head. “You don’t need a gun or anything to just… make people listen to you or to change the lives of people around you. You have so much power and don’t even need a weapon to use it. But you’re so stuck in your damn bubble that you don’t see that. You think that you don’t need to worry about anyone outside your bubble, but Kade, from the way I see it, you’re the only one in there. Doesn’t it get lonely? Don’t you get tired of pushing people out of it?”
Kade spins on his heel and gets up in my face before shoving me. “Why the hell do you think you can analyze everything I do? I want to hire you. I want to pay youmoneyto do ajobfor me. And instead, you scrutinize me and make it so everything seems like it’s some kind of… redemption bullshit? I don’t need it, Len. You’re not my goddamn therapist.”
I nod slowly, his attitude immediately making a bad feeling grow in the pit of my stomach that reminds me exactly why I don’t deal with men like him. “Okay… okay.” I put my hands up. “Fine. I knew from the moment I met you that I didn’t want to work with you. I have no fucking idea why I thought that maybe my first impression was wrong.”
I turn around and walk up to the man who’s still harassing the woman. “Let her go.”
“Who the fuck are you?” he asks.
I grab the wrist of the hand still wrapped around her arm. “I said let her go.”
“Fuck off, man.” He tries shoving me back, but I push his free hand to the side before squeezing the one I have until he lets go of her. Then I push her behind me and point to the door. “Get the fuck out of here.”
“Who the hell do you think you are?” he snaps, and I don’t even give a shit about handing him an answer. I just can’t stand people like him.
