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I want that more than anything.
Lily continues, “I can’t wait for her to meet the baby. I told her what you did to Jeff’s bike, and she laughed, like really laughed. She never liked him, either.”
I stand and clear off the table.
“Nobody does. He’s an idiot.”
Laughing, she says, “Speaking of, I heard from the lawyer today. The child support will start coming out of his paycheck next month.”
“It’s about fucking time.”
“And Jeff wants it in writing that he doesn’t want any visitation or any contact with the baby.”
Anger flares my nostrils. “What a fucking douchebag. But ya know what? Brian’s better off without him.”
“I agree. I’d be a wreck leaving the baby in his care. He’s way too immature to take care of a tiny human. He can barely take care of himself.”
After what I went through, I’d never want a parent separated from their child, but if Jeff doesn’t want to be in Brian’s life, then he shouldn’t be. It’s that fucking simple.
Glancing at her phone, Lily says, “By the way, you reached half a million followers today.”
I groan. “Fucking Kelley. Remind me to kick his ass.”
“You’re gonna have to make another video, hot garbage man,” she teases, waving her phone at me. “Your fans are literally begging.”
A month ago, Kelley was visiting for a few days while I was in the middle of a commissioned project. The client wanted something raw and different, made from his childhood toy collection. He told me he had a bad life growing up. I could totally relate. I got the bright idea to set the sculpture on fire with my blowtorch and let it burn just long enough to char it. Kelley thought it would be fun to film it, mostly because he was convinced I was going to set my hair on fire. I didn’t, but he uploaded it to his social media page, which has close to two million followers since he’s famous now.
Apparently, millions of people like watching a sweaty, shirtless guy with one eye and long hair light something on fire while listening to the latest Seven Shot song. The video went viral. It earned me my own little social media page as the #hotgarbageman and two thousand followers; it blew up overnight.
Since then, I’ve been inundated with new commissions but also flooded with messages from women. They comment on all my art posts. Most are nice, but some step way over the line with their eggplant and fire emojis. I let Lily respond and delete now. She thinks it’s funny.
But later that night, when I’m lying in bed checking my emails from my phone, a notification comes through for a new comment on my social media app. I tap the little alert message, and it brings me to the comment.
It’s just a wilted rose emoji. Curious, I click to view their profile. It’s empty. No profile picture, no bio, and no followers. They’re only following one account—mine. At first, I think it’s a scam account.
A slow smile spreads across my lips when I see the username, LittleDarlinStalker.
She hasn’t forgotten me.
Chapter 41
PENNY
I bought a teddy bear hamster and named her Lint.
I’ve never had a pet of my very own. Even though I learned from working at a veterinarian’s office that impulse buying a pet is never a good idea, and it’s equally bad to buy from a pet store, I couldn’t help myself. I was at the pharmacy picking something up and then wandered into the pet shop next door.
That’s where I saw the very tiny and very fuzzy, apricot-colored hamster. She was in a small wire cage, running on a dirty plastic wheel. Just running and running and running. Running her little heart out but going absolutely nowhere. Every few minutes, she’d jump off the wheel and run around in a circle in the middle of the cage, then jump right back on the wheel. No matter what she did, she was still going nowhere.
Never have I ever related so much to another living thing in my life.
Two hours later, I was setting up an epic hamster village in a seventy-five-gallon aquarium in my bedroom. I added a tiny sandbox, a wooden bridge, four ceramic mushroom-shaped houses, hills, underground hideouts, a hollow log, chew sticks, tunnels, and a wheel. What I really needed was to see Lint get off that wheel and stop going in circles. I wanted to see her enjoy this little world I built for her.
I needed her to inspire me to do the same.
“Oh God, tell me you didn’t buy a rat,” my mother says from my doorway.
“I didn’t buy a rat,” I reply, still kneeling on the floor in front of the hamster enclosure. My head swims with vertigo.
I can feel her eyes drilling into my back. “It’s not a tarantula, is it? Because I’ll faint if I see it.”
