Amateur

Mr. Zunt hadn't thought to add a mirror to his shitbag motel, but I didn't need it the next morning to know I looked like ass warmed over. I could barely breathe through my nose. It throbbed with every pulse, and when I blinked, my eyes told me to shut the fuck up.

You know what else I didn't have? Fucking paid sick days. Mugged trying to be a good god-damned person, and here I was, about to stock shelves at Foodsave like the good little corporate cog I was.

Alas, and yes, this moment did warrant an 'alas,' I was ten minutes late. I tried to sneak through the side door and work out a 온라인카지노게임 where I 'forgot to punch in,' but no sooner had I slipped on my 'Foodsave – Every Smile is Free!' apron than Mikey appeared at the staffroom doorway. Fucking Mikey.

"You're late, Mackenzie." He'd swapped his short-sleeved baby blue snugger for a super sexy lime-green short-sleeved snugger. Was it the same one? How did he already have pit stains? What had he been up to since the store opened ten minutes ago? "You do know that you're late, right?"

No shit.

"Sorry, Mr. Mikey." Mr. Mikey? Should I put a 'Fire Me Now' hat directly on my head? "Sorry. Mr. Vance. I meant Mr. Vance. Not Mr. Mikey."

"You're only burying yourself deeper, Mackenzie. Why were you late?"

I could only imagine what my face looked like. "I had a weird night."

"A weird night?" Mikey reached into his back pocket and pulled out a crisply folded piece of paper. "You think a 'weird night' is going to make you Foodsave-worthy?"

No clue, but if painfully tight shirts that show off my nipples from every angle make me Foodsave-worthy, I'm good.

"Sorry, Mr. Vance, but it was a really weird night. On my way home, I heard this guy screaming, so I went to see what was happening, and I tried to help, but –"

Mikey held up a hand, and I trailed off. Leaping in, keys at the ready, to help someone else without thinking twice was something I had no problem with. Standing up for myself, even in the face of someone as fundamentally ridiculous as Mikey Vance – I had nothing. I might as well have been telling him I'd somehow done tequila shooters out of my own belly button last night for how much he was listening to me.

"It's no excuse, Mackenzie. Your first priority is work. Your last priority is work. Anything you do in between is your business, as long as you never forget it's about work. That's it. If anything comes between you and work again, we're going to have a problem."

He handed me the piece of paper. I didn't even need to look at it to know what it was – a Foodsave 'shitty employee' write-up. Mikey had given me one a month ago for 'uniform violation.'

If I had anywhere else to go, Foodsave could kiss my ass. I had no skills, no family, and ate more ramen than medical professionals recommended. Foodsave was my only option, so I had to keep putting up with Mikey's bullshit. I took his piece of paper, I nodded, and I apologized. Again.

"Be here on time, every time, from now on. That's your second Foodsave Grocery Reminder in less than a month, Mackenzie. One more of those, and I won't have a choice."

He gave me one more bullshit little nod and finally fucked off. If there's one thing I hate more than anything else, it's euphemisms for shitty things. 'Gentle reminder' for a bill? Fuck off. I know I'm late. How could I not know? It's one step from gentle reminder to threatening to get the mob involved. 'Grocery Reminder?' Who came up with this shit? I get it. I'm a shitty employee. I don't wear that badge with pride, but I'm certainly aware that I own one and might as well have it tattooed on my face.

Were the looks of concern over my shift worth it? Did anybody stop to ask what the fuck happened to my otherwise perfect face? Nobody. Not even a mum looking for arrowroot cookies. Did I need their sympathy? No. Did it boost my faith in humanity? HARD no.

By the time my shift was over, I'd had three nosebleeds and was almost sure I'd gotten a concussion last night. I punched out and made a beeline for the only place I knew I was welcome in the entire world.

Del's Games.

I went to high school with Del, who was my best friend. He's my only friend, but even if I had a buffet of friends to choose from, Del would still be the best one. He doesn't try to be anything but what he is, which fills my heart with J.O.Y. His parents cacked it and left him the house. He sold it and started his own little business. A sweet-ass games store – video and board, tabletop, anything you can call a game, he had it. It was the best store in the world.

Del's Games was in a rundown mall just behind my grocery store, one of those old malls from the 80s that used to be jumping but now only had three stores and an Orange Julius. Once civilization finally realizes humans suck, the next species will think we worshipped foamy smoothie gods by the sheer number of Orange Julii we have floating around.

"Del!" I squeezed past the dice sets and barely avoided knocking over the retro console box tower. Dude had everything from a Magnavox Odyssey to a Dreamcast in there – nothing from the current millennium – all locked away safely in various airtight, moisture-proof boxes all over the city. I'd never asked him how much money his parents left him, but he had to be doing pretty well for this outstanding collection. Still, that wasn't why I hung out with him.

"Mac!"

That was why. The way he greeted me. Open. Big grin on his face. Genuinely happy to see me. No one else saw me like that. If I could live in Del's little cave of a store all the time, I would.

"Why can't you hire me, Del?" I begged for the nine hundredth time. "Fucking Foodsave and Mikey are going to kill me!"

"What the hell happened to you?" Del asked, finally getting a good look at my face. "You look like shit!"

"So, no different than usual, yeah?" Del had a bag of Twizzlers open on the counter, so naturally, I reached in and helped myself. "And here I was, just about to ask you if you had anything to eat."

"Seriously, Mac, what happened?" Del crossed his arms over his chest, which I guess he thought made him look like he meant business. He's not the slightest of fellows, but underneath the pillowy soft fluffy layer, there's a solid foundation. I've seen him lift a bag of potatoes with one arm. By himself.

"Oh, SERIOUSLY, what happened?" I laughed. I couldn't tell him what really happened. Yeah, he was my best friend, but he had enough on his plate. I forgot to mention that not only did the cacking parents leave Del the house, but they also left him in charge of his little brother. Broseph was twelve and luckily hadn't hit his 'I hate everything, and I'm mad at the world for Mum and Dad being dead' phase yet, but it was only a matter of time. I couldn't tell Del I was wandering the streets getting mugged for being a good Samaritan. "Seriously, nothing. I slipped in the shower."

"Stop it, Mac," Del said.

"Stop what?" I grabbed another Twizzler and bit it in half like a crazed shark. Or toddler. Maybe a toddler shark. Toddler shark, doo doo doo doo doo doo...

"Shrugging it off! All this 'I don't care, it's funny' shit you always do! You can't come in here looking like a damn raccoon and expect me to laugh it off with you. Do you need anything? Ice? The rest of my Twizzlers? Shit, Mac, you gotta take better care of yourself!" Del looked like he was on the verge of tears, which would have been endearing if it didn't make me feel even worse about myself.

"I'm okay, Del, really," I said. "But I won't say no to the Twizzlers."

He handed me the bag without another word. "You will eat something else, right? You can't just take my Twizzlers and call it a day. Some real food might be a good idea, don't you think?"

"I've got some eggs," I said. "I think. I have at least one. Maybe. Don't get that look, Del!"

Del opened his mouth to tell me off again, but a customer cleared his throat behind me and slapped a murder-themed crib board on the counter. I took a step back.

Crib had never been my game. All that counting. 15-2, 15-4...the hell? I was more of a Go Fish kind of girl, maybe some 21 – even though I think all the cool kids called that Blackjack – but I was more of a D&D kid. Park me in front of a stack of paper and some hand-painted polyhedrons, and I was happier than a pig in shit. That's where Del and I first became best friends. We had a D&D club at school, and there was more than one occasion where we were the only ones there. It took off in senior year, and we had a full house. I liked those early years way better, though, when it was just us and maybe a couple of other die-hards that couldn't imagine wanting to do anything else.

"You coming over later?" Del asked. "Ben's got a new campaign he wants us to try."

Shit.

It's not that I had a problem with Ben. It was just that I didn't like him. Was that an exclusive to Ben kind of thing, or was it the human race in general. Del came up with a great term for me because I didn't want anyone to suffer or get hurt. I just don't want to deal with anybody else. Ever. He called me a misanthropic humanist. I said touché, and it stuck.

It wasn't even that I didn't like Ben. I was indifferent toward Ben's plight. Ben could come or go, as far as I cared. He just ruined the dynamic of just me and Del hanging out. I got how Del liked to play, and Del knew my favourite 온라인카지노게임lines. Ben would come in and throw that all for a serious loop.

"I think I'll just hang out tonight," I said. Of course, I wanted to go and play D&D with Del, and I didn't want to be 'that guy' saying, 'I'll go, but only if you tell Ben to fuck off.' Even I knew that was bad form. "Maybe watch something. Read. Not stay up until three in the morning."

"You're full of shit." Del laughed and slid me a copy of Tyrant Kings. It was technically my copy, but he borrowed it. "I'm giving this back to you. You won't go to sleep tonight."

"Damn you, Del," I said and tucked the game into my backpack. "Damn you."

"You love me," he said and turned to another customer.

"Yeah, so?" I said, but he was already focused on his next transaction.

Yeah, I loved the dude. What kind of love was it? How the fuck should I know? What the shit was love anyway? A bunch of chemical reactions encouraging me to swap DNA with someone to make disgusting little peeled chimpanzees that shit too much? Romantic love? Familial love? Comfort love? Who cared? I looked at that stubbly face, and I felt good.

He had a business to run. I had some tyrants to destroy. Or maybe I would play as a tyrant tonight. Twizzlers and tyrants. I was on a goddamned roll.