Just Good Friends (Cheap Thrills 5)

Never, ever would I do that if one was near me, by the way, but for some reason it was pertinent to do it then.

I want to say I looked up after that, but I’d be lying. Badly. Try ten freaking minutes of doing it.

Finally, after a drop of water had landed on the top of my head, my brain decided to kick in, and I’d looked up, getting rewarded with a drip right in the eye from the massive orange and brown stain on my ceiling.

My initial thought had been, Jesus Christ, please don’t let that be from old man Albert’s toilet, but then common sense had hit, and I’d called the landlord to report a burst pipe.

Fortunately, it’d been a pipe attached to his cistern that was busted, not a sewage pipe, but I was now having to wait two weeks for my ceiling to dry out so it could be resealed and painted, leaving me with a Donnie Darko shaped stain above me when I went into the kitchen.

Now that shit woke you up when you saw it in the faint light as the sun rose. I swear to the gods of Hollywood, I thought I needed an exorcism in the apartment when I saw it the next morning, forgetting there’d been a leak.

From my landlords lack of fucks when I reported it, I was also fairly certain it wasn’t going to get fixed anytime soon. Two weeks he’d said, but I reckoned it was going to be at least two months.

So me thinking I’d had a stroke wasn’t exactly a rare occurrence. It also sadly wouldn’t be the last time I thought dumb shit like that, either.

My brain was like an old car, it took time to warm up so that it could run without scaring the shit out of the driver.

Picking up my phone, I looked at the screen and saw there was only saw a small crack on the corner of it. I could totally live with that.

Shoving it into the waistband of my shorts, I got up and shuffled through to the kitchen and started the coffee brewing while I considered what I could do about my piercing.

While I waited for the pot to fill, I unlocked my phone and started going through new labrets for it. I loved the daisy, but I loved the duvet and pillowcases more, so it’d have to go.

Through non-caffeinated eyes, I saw a cute little silver squiggle and ordered it, smiling when it confirmed it would be delivered tomorrow. I could hack one night where I was more careful about how I moved my head.

Well, if I was honest, I could hack a morning where I had to think wisely and remember that it wasn’t a stroke, just my ear attached to my pillow.

Two days later…

“Is that a sperm in your ear?” a deep voice asked beside me, making me grind my teeth.

It wasn’t the owner of the voice making me do it—lies, it actually kind of was, but just not as bad as I was doing it at that moment—but the fact that I’d been asked the same damn question repeatedly today.

Hell, my first patient had been the one to start it with, “Girl, why’d you got cum on your ear?” and then it’d just snowballed.

Granted, it’d taken me a moment to realize he meant one singular sperm and not a big wad of it—who’s to say what intoxicated patients get up to before you take their blood? It wouldn’t be the worst thing I’ve ever walked in on—and that it was my new earring, which looked like a swimming semen tadpole.

Pretty much everyone was pointing it out now.

Throwing a wrapper in the trash as I walked around Garrett, I mumbled, “It’s a snake.”

The title on the listing had clearly said that was what it was. Snake they said—cum said the rest of the world.

And it was c-u-m because people who didn’t want to ask the question crudely today had decided that spelling it out was more polite.

“I’m not entirely certain a snake looks like that, jewelry or not. Did you check the description?” Garrett asked, leaning around me to get a closer look at my ear.

Sighing, I pulled my phone out of my pocket, navigating to where my orders were and hitting on the spe… snake purchase.

“Sterling silver, snake labret earring for cartilage piercings,” I read, sounding as bored as I could.

Rolling his eyes, he gestured at my phone impatiently. “Flick down to the actual description.”

“Yada, yada, yada,” I mumbled, skimming over how excellent the quality of silver was, how cute the little serpent was, the fact it was hypoallergenic and whatever other shit they—

Oh, those lying, dirty little bastards.

Seeing I’d hit on what he’d expected, Garrett rocked back on his heels with a grin on his face. “Well?”