AllFreeNovel
Share Us
I felt my body start to convulse and my knees begin to buckle. I flopped onto the couch, clutching my side. “ISIS merch!” I repeated, suddenly imagining a six-year-old girl in a school uniform skipping to the bus stop with an “I Heart ISIS” lunchbox in her hand. Tears ran down my face as I struggled to breathe through my laughter.
When I finally came up for air, Ian was sitting on the couch again. His elbows were on his knees, his head was in his hands, and his entire body was shaking with laughter.
“Oh my God,” he said. “That was worse than when I thought you took stool samples from your customers.”
I took a few deep breaths, trying to get myself back to a normal heart rate. “You actually thought I was an ISIS supporter?”
“Yes,” he said, his laughter at last beginning to subside. He wiped a tear from his eye. “You were going on and on about the things you’ve done and the people you associate with and how you were dedicating your whole life to the cause. You sounded so serious. What was I supposed to think?”
Feeling much more lighthearted than before, I grabbed the T-shirt and unfolded it. “I was talking about this,” I said, holding it up for him to see in all its rectal glory. “Does it look familiar to you?”
He took the shirt from my hands and looked at it for a moment. “Yeah, I recognize it,” he said, tossing it back onto the couch. “What about it?”
It wasn’t the reaction I expected. Not even close.
“It doesn’t bother you?” I said.
“No,” he said, weirdly nonchalant. “Why would it?”
“Because it’s a picture of your father with the word ‘asshole’ above it?”
“Like I said, I’ve seen it before. You have one, too?”
“I have twenty,” I said.
“Got you beat,” he said. “I have a hundred. A hundred and ten, actually. For every ten you buy, you get one free.”
“That was you?” I said, shocked. “That was our single largest order.”
“Really?” Ian said, looking surprised. “No one else bought that many? Not even my grandmother?” He stopped as he at last seemed to grasp what I was telling him. “Wait a minute,” he said. “How do you know mine was the largest order?”
“I know because I’m a team leader at Eco-Justice,” I said. “We’re suing your father’s company for fifty million dollars. I’m the one who designed the shirt.”
For a moment, he just stared at me in shock. “You designed the shirt?” he said at last.
“Yes,” I said, starting to get nervous again. “It was just supposed to be a joke. Really. But then we started getting all these orders—”
Before I could finish, his arms were around me and he was rocking me side to side, showering my head and face with kisses. “Oh my God,” he was saying between kisses, “if you weren’t the girl of my dreams before.”
There in his arms, I felt myself beginning to smile. Then to outright laugh. “You mean you’re not mad about this?”
“Of course I’m not mad,” he said.
“But I told the whole world your father is an asshole.”
“The whole world already knows that,” he said, resuming his manic kissing. “You’re just the first person to put it on a shirt. Oh my God, you’re perfect. I’ve never been so happy in my whole life!”
CHAPTER 40
Ian
I couldn’t stop kissing her. “Thank you!” I said. “Thank you, thank you, thank you!”
She was giggling like a schoolgirl. “Thank you for what?”
“For passing out drunk in my car,” I said. “For selling your body on the street and working outside of your species. For peeing on a fire hydrant and raising money for terrorists.”
She pulled back. “Peeing on a fire hydrant?”
