Eat Crow (Cheap Thrills 6)

Before I could ask him if he was okay, the moms came back out carrying the coffee, cups, milk, and sugar and placed them down on the table.

“Jesus, Lorena, what’s wrong? You look like you stuck your head in the oven.”

Glancing up at her, I noticed how flushed her face was. Hell, it’d spread down her chest, which only happened when she was stressed, really angry, or embarrassed.

“Nothing,” she answered quickly, pouring coffee into the cups. “Have you chosen a kitchen yet, Bex?”

Confused but also happy to talk about what I’d found, I started showing her the photos of what I’d chosen on my phone.

Charmaine got up with Will and disappeared during it, both of them coming back five minutes later, looking embarrassed and amused.

“Okay, will someone tell me what the hell is going on?” Dad snapped, throwing his arms up in the air. “First Lorena comes back looking like a porn star just flashed her, then you guys come back looking—” he stopped suddenly and scowled at them. “Y’all better not have been doing things in my baby’s house.”

Will threw his head back and burst out laughing hard enough to rock his chair while Charmaine fanned her face with her hand.

“I’ll have you know, Kenton Heath, that none of that went on. We were just looking at what our kids have been doing to the house, and then Will helped me with some dishes in the kitchen.”

Logan made a choking noise, and I caught on to what’d happened.

They’d seen the titty paint. Oh, sweet baby in a star spangled manger, they’d seen the boobies on the wall.

I was going to die.

To hell with a piece of literature talking satirically about a lock of hair getting cut off and society being scandalized by it. In years to come, there’d be a piece about a girl whose ta-ta’s left boobie prints on her wall while she was having sex and her parents were knocking on the door, that the parents then found, and she’d turned to stone in front of them.

It might sound dramatic, but there was no coming back from this. I should know because I was going to live out the rest of my life praying for someone to cast a spell and turn me into a statue.

Actually, let me be specific on that in case what Dad had said earlier about putting things out into the universe was true. I wanted to be a statue with no brain function whatsoever. I didn’t want to be stuck in place, being tormented by my mind for centuries.

“I—” I started, then stopped because I didn’t know what to say.

“Great shade of blue, isn’t it?” Logan asked, sounding like he was choking back laughter now.

How could he find this funny?

“Oh, yes. It’s unusual, like a light gray-blue,” Charmaine nodded, looking at Mom for confirmation.

“You should get some art for the walls,” Will suggested, crossing his arms over his chest as he looked between Logan and me. “Birds, maybe? There’s so much out there that’d brighten a room up, you know.”

He paused and then clicked his fingers together, making me jump. “I’ve got it. I follow this British artist on Facebook, and just last week he posted a photo of a detailed ceramic figurine he’d come across of a bird called a blue tit. I don’t know if we get those here…”

I was wrong before—now I wanted to die. I’d never been this embarrassed in my life. In fact, I was fairly certain now that nothing could make me feel worse than I did.

Then Dad got up from his chair, saying he was going to check out the rooms we’d worked on, and that’s when I realized that even if you didn’t need to say something out loud for it to be put out into the universe. All I had to do was think it.

If I survived this, I was definitely p

laying the lottery. Then I was buying an island in the middle of nowhere and leaving in the middle of the night to go and live on it. No one would know my name, I’d get a boat into shore to get food whenever I needed it, and I’d be a hermit forever.

Mom got up to follow him, hopefully to steer him clear of the front room, and I covered my face.

“Your mom won’t let him see it, honey,” Charmaine whispered in my ear. “You could always just say you were testing out paint effects if he does.”

Fudging hell.

“Bexley!” Dad roared, making me jump. I was done for. “There’s a mutant coming out of your cat’s ass.”

The moment the words hit me, I was up and running to where they were standing in front of Prince, who was walking around on his bed in circles, his stomach straining every couple of seconds. Doyle was whining next to him, looking like he wanted to run away.