Eat Crow (Cheap Thrills 6)

“Dibs, I don’t have to come and help out with that,” Tom Townsend yelled, holding his hand in the air.

Not missing a beat, Hurst clapped him on the shoulder. “So nice of you to offer. I’ll write your name down.”

Glaring at his grandpa, Tom stalked away to where his brothers were standing laughing.

Seeing DB, Garrett, Ellis, Alejandro, and Carter standing in a group, looking at something, I walked over to join them, squeezing in between two of them to see the screen of what turned out to be one of their phones.

“Pa-pa-pang pai,” Ava shouted, as the group behind her chanted, “Down in one, down in one.”

Squinting, I made out what looked like a restaurant with Ava and Bexley sitting at a table, surrounded by other patrons. On the table were plates with the remnants of what they’d eaten and numerous small ceramic shot glasses.

“What’s this?”

“Ava and Bex went to a Chinese restaurant last night and ended up doing Sake shooters. The video went viral on the internet because a news crew were visiting the building next door and heard the noise,” DB explained, bursting out laughing when Bex and Ava shot the contents of the little glasses down and fell backward off their chairs.

Only those two would go to a Chinese restaurant, get drunk on Japanese rice wine, and then get filmed by a news crew.

I was just about to call her dad over to join us when Ava squealed, “Totally! He’s right, Bex. We need to have a cigar to celebrate.”

That wasn’t what stopped me from showing him the video.

No, that was Bex shaking her head and saying, “I can’t. I’ve got the worst gag reflex. Even eating bananas triggers it, and if I stick a cigar in my mouth, I’ll probably puke. Just thinking ‘bout it makes me—” she broke off, gagging and cringing.

All of the guys looked at me sympathetically. “Sucks to be you, dude,” Cole Townsend murmured behind me, clapping me on the shoulder and shaking it gently. “That doesn’t bode well for you.”

“What doesn’t?” Kenton asked as he joined us. Hearing his daughter’s voice coming from the video, he frowned and squeezed between Ellis and Garrett to see the screen of the phone. “Is she… Wait, why does that have the logo for a news channel on it? Did Bexley get into trouble?”

None of us got to answer him because just then, the news anchor came onto the screen.

“When we went to Torus Trading to report on the organized crime and money laundering operation that was uncovered yesterday, we assumed we were finished with our story. As we left the building, we heard screaming and shouting from Pia’s Lotus, an establishment known for its cuisine and variety of Sakes, and assumed we were stumbling across something seedy and sinister related to the original story we were reporting on. What we saw here tonight was, in fact, the celebrations of two women that ended up bringing people together, people who were in shock at what had been going on in their city, under their noses, this whole time. If this isn’t proof that we can withstand anything, I don’t know what is.”

If it’d stopped there, it would have been okay for Kenton. Instead, just then, the crowd started roaring, “Gag reflex, gag reflex!” just as Bex tried to eat a banana in the background. We saw a brief glimpse of her gagging as she bit into the tip, then the video cut off.

“Damn,” Carter whispered next to me. “You’re screwed, man.”

Kenton straightened, his lips pinched tightly together, and then asked, “Whose phone is that?”

Normally DB was a take-charge kind of guy, the one who spoke clearly and confidently no matter what. However, at that moment, when he replied with, “It’s mine, sir,” he sounded more like a kid who’d been caught doing something wrong than the sheriff he was.

“Send it to me,” Kenton ordered, pulling his phone out and reeling off his number. In seconds his phone beeped, and we heard the video start again from the beginning.

We all could have moved away and at least pretended to be doing something, but for some unknown reason, we were rooted to the spot until he got to the end.

“I’m going to kick her ass,” Kenton muttered, putting his phone in his pocket. “No,” he glared at me, “you’re going to kick her ass.”

“More like kiss it,” Garrett snickered, getting a glare from me and a curious look from Bex’s dad.

“What’s that? They kissed?” When the guys from work all nodded, he looked expectantly at me. “Well, all right, then. It took you long enough! So, you kick her ass, and me and her mother will just lecture her about doing dumb shit on live television. Not that I expect her ever to go on live television again,” he added, more to himself than the rest of us.

Raising my hand slowly, I told him, “Uh, the kiss wasn’t exactly an intentional one.” I could feel my cheeks burning as the others smirked at me behind him, including Hurst. “It was an accident. I mean, not exactly an accident because I was aiming for her cheek, but then she tried to kiss my cheek, and we didn’t get the angles right.” I swear, it was like someone had erased all of the pauses speech patterns had to separate words because they all just mixed together.

For shit’s sake, I was telling her dad I’d kissed his daughter… The daughter who I’d humiliated seven years ago so badly that she pretty much ran away from home.

Just to add to my embarrassment, Grandpa walked up behind her dad, having disappeared to use the bathroom a couple of minutes before this atomic bomb had hit.

“Son, not sure you wanna tell a father that you kissed his daughter in public by mistake. See, she’s got a reputation to uphold, and you kissing her makes your intentions known, if you get my drift.”

Glaring at him, I snapped, “It’s not the eighteenth century anymore, Grandpa. Welcome to the modern ages where shit like that happens all the time.”