Blending In

by RJ Blain

  “Miriah.”

  “What?”

  “On average, it costs less than a hundred thousand for four years at a good university. For three hundred, you could send him to the best school in the world for eight years and have money left over.”

  I stared at him, and my mouth dropped open. “What?”

  “We need to have a long talk about the definition of reasonable penny pinching, Miriah. In good news, should there be a second child, you won’t have to do much to the college fund. If you don’t mind me asking, most came from the child support check?”

  “Divines are asked to pay a lot per month because they might disappear at any time. I was warned most divines only pay for a few months before they lose track of time. I’ve been told Gavin’s an exception. So I started saving as much as possible expecting him to vanish, but he never did.”

  “There’s nothing wrong with planning ahead, and there’s nothing wrong with living within the means you know you can afford if the child support dries up. However, that said, you’ll enjoy a raise when you’re working for my company, I pay bonuses, and while there are days I’m sure you’ll want to quit because I annoy you, I’m your lifeline to your fried chicken supply, so you’ll put up with me on the bad days.”

  I gave credit where credit was due: Chase locked onto my weaknesses and took advantage of it. “What other benefits do I get for working for you?”

  “I’ll make you tea in the morning because I can’t function without tea. I can even be talked into contaminating the house with coffee.”

  “Do you pick up wayward children from school?”

  “I can as needed. No one is dumb enough to tell the CEO he can’t leave work to pick up wayward children from school, although you might have to do it if I have a critical meeting. And if we can’t, I come prepackaged with a two almost responsible parents capable of picking up any number of children from school. It’s part of the grandparent spoiling package I keep hearing about. And if it isn’t a part of the package, it is now.”

  “Two week vacation?”

  “That’s default for those in their first year for the company. I’ll give you three weeks because I’m spoiled and don’t want my wife working while I’m on vacation. That said, work tends to follow me around, but the company tries to only bump the critical stuff my way.”

  “I can work with that, but I get mad if my boss slacks off at work.”

  “Would you like a whip to keep with you at work?”

  “Do I get to hit you with it if I catch you goofing off?”

  Chase thought about it for a while, his eyes narrowing while he drove. The signs for the hospital directed us to the ER lot, and we had to circle the lot twice before finding a spot. The cops parked near the entry and waited for us.

  “Those cops are cheaters,” I muttered, waiting until he killed the engine to unbuckle my seatbelt.

  “That they are. To answer your question, yes, you may, but I will expect you to kiss it and make it better after work.”

  “I accept your terms.”

  Chapter Sixteen

  We wasted five hours in the hospital, and it would’ve been a lot longer without the police tapping their feet and otherwise encouraging the hospital staff to tend to me sooner than later. The ER nurse took one look at me, called for a doctor, and began the tedious process of poking and prodding to determine how severe my reaction was.

  The speed of my reaction put me in the ‘not good’ category, but the nature of my reaction reassured me—and the ER doctor—I wasn’t going to keel over dead. I could breathe and would continue to do so unless something unexpected happened. Unfortunately for me but fortunately for the police’s case, the doctor believed I’d develop allergic contact dermatitis by morning, and to mitigate the risk of scarring, they gave me a list of three prescriptions and a shampoo to spare my scalp from lasting damage. One of the prescriptions would reduce me to a mostly comatose state until Sunday morning, one would ensure I felt no pain if I needed it, and the third, a dainty bottle of cream, would require a second pair of hands to make sure it got everywhere required.

  I nominated Chase to handle any applications, and I’d refuse to take the first prescription until he finished his sacred duty as cream applicator.

  He’d find out about his nomination after we returned to his house. If his parents were there after running errands, I’d be forced to kick them out. Taking over Chase’s home as a base of my operations might earn me points for my coal mine, too.

  The thought helped me get through the annoying process of filling out insurance forms, giving yet another statement to the police, and filling my prescriptions.

  At the end of the day, and right through until Sunday morning, life served me an important reminder about the nature of plans. While I got to evict Chase’s parents, Chase insisted I take the cursed allergy medicine before he’d even think about helping apply cream anywhere. Exactly as warned, the little pill packed a big punch, and within ten minutes, I couldn’t remember my own name let alone enjoy Chase’s help preventing my skin from filing its pink slip and turning into a blistered mess.

  I missed most of Saturday, and when Sunday morning rolled around, I staggered around Chase’s house in search of coffee to revive me from the dreary lethargy induced by the stupid little pill the doctor insisted would stop the reaction in its tracks. While I no longer itched, my skin remained redder than I liked, but I couldn’t spot a single blister.

  A plate with a piece of fried chicken hovered in front of my face. I blinked, staring at it while trying to figure out where it’d come from and why it was floating in front of me.

  “Take your chicken, sit down, and eat it before you melt all over the kitchen floor,” Chase ordered, pointing at this dining room table. “Mom brought over a coffee maker, and I’m pleased to inform you she even showed me how to use it. I didn’t know it took so long to brew coffee, however. Eat while I get it finished. What do you want in it?”

  I took the plate, changed directions, and sat down, answering him with a grunt.

  “If you don’t tell me how you like it, I’m going to experiment with it,” he warned.

  I lifted my chicken, stuffed as much of it in my mouth as I could, and grunted again.

  “If I kill your taste buds, I’m not responsible. I’m going to make three cups for you. One will be black, one will be white with hints of coffee flavor and loaded with sugar, and the other one will be somewhere between the two. I will observe your reactions and use this as a guideline for how I make your coffee in the future.”

  Three coffees sounded better than one coffee, so I turned my attention to my chicken.

  Someone knocked at the door, and Chase strolled over to answer it. Within moments, Tiana bounced into the room. “Good morning!”

  I grunted at her, too, since I wasn’t quite ready to tell her she could shove her good morning right up her ass.

  “She seems to be suffering from medicine-induced lethargy this morning. I’ve been told she should perk up after I give her some coffee.”

  “Why are you pouring three cups of coffee?”

  “When I asked her how she wanted it, she grunted at me. I’m improvising.”

  Tiana laughed and sat beside me. Goliath jumped onto the table, and I stared at the three-legged cat, wondering how he’d gotten up there with a missing hind leg. I didn’t bother with a grunt; it hadn’t been effective on Chase or Tiana, so I saved my breath.

  Chase ferried over the coffee, and I redirected my attention to the closest one, snatching it and pouring it down my throat as fast as I could without choking. It was like a sugar factory exploded next to a creamery with a faint hint of something that someone might consider coffee in a dire emergency.

  Had I been paying more attention to the cat than the beverage thinly disguised as coffee, I wouldn’t have lost my chicken to him. He stole the piece right out of my hand, turned tail, and ran off with it.

  Empty coffee mug in hand and bereft of my chicken, I alter
nated between staring at where the cat had fled and my plate, which no longer held any chicken.

  The second piece was going on an adventure into Tiana’s stomach.

  Resigned to my fate, I grabbed my second cup of coffee, which proved to have no sugar or cream to smooth out the brew’s bite. If I drank it fast enough, I wouldn’t have to taste it, so I went to work, puzzling how I’d get more chicken without violating Gavin’s new curse conditions.

  “If she asks for chicken, she’ll turn into the karma chameleon,” Chase announced.

  “That’s harsh,” my friend replied, and because she loved tormenting me, she gnawed on her freshly stolen piece with a few lip smacks added for good measure. “So terribly harsh. Man, that chicken is good though, isn’t it?”

  “It sure is.” Chase chuckled and went around the table. “Goliath certainly thinks so.”

  Man and cat waged a brief but fierce war over my stolen piece of chicken, and once Chase took it from the cat, he shredded the meat off the bones and offered it to the thieving feline.

  Revenge would be sweet, and I’d need to spend some quality time coming up with something appropriate. Chase and Tiana would face the brunt of my revenge. I would need to do some serious thinking on if it was possible to obtain revenge on a cat for the theft of my breakfast.

  “You three suck,” I announced, reaching for the third mug. To ensure Chase would have to invest more effort to figure out what kind of coffee I liked, I treated it like the first two, guzzling it as soon as it cooled enough so he’d be given no clues to my preference.

  “For the record, she just outplayed you in the coffee game, Chase. Good luck with that.”

  “So I see.” Chase sighed, retrieved an entire bucket of chicken from the fridge, and set it beside me. “Try to save her a few pieces, Tiana. Caring for a zombie is hard work, and despite her seemingly undead state, she does need food to get through our holiday shopping adventure.”

  “What’s our budget for the squirt today?” Tiana asked.

  I flipped my middle finger in her direction and grabbed a piece of chicken. To ensure no one stole it, I kept both hands on it at all times and wasted no time chewing and swallowing.

  “She might be upset; I reviewed part of her finances Friday night.”

  “Figured out she lives like she’s destitute but has a college fund for the squirt some might kill for?”

  “Yeah. You knew?”

  “The squirt knows, too. I’m pretty sure part of his charming issues with perfectionism come from the inherent understanding his mother obsessively saves for his college education. The two simply can’t handle the thought of disappointing each other. Whatever your intended budget for Caleb is, add two hundred to it, Miriah. Despite your conditioning to believe you can’t afford it, you totally can.”

  I took another bite of my chicken and glared at her. “We haven’t even left for the mall and you’re starting already?”

  “It’s my sacred duty as your best friend to start poking you early. He’s also old enough for you can get him the laptop he wants. He’s going to need it if you want your plans of him being the best educated brat on Earth to succeed. Your desktop is a piece of shit, plus you only have one of them.”

  “How does computer shopping sound to you?” Chase asked.

  “That’s a great idea. I’m so impressed you came up with it. Hey, Miriah? Did you already transfer a disgusting amount of the child support check for this month into your savings account? Also, you can withdraw at least four times each month from the account without penalty. Despite your belief, that account is not a black hole. View the computer as an advance to further your college plans for the ultra-organized demon you call your son.”

  I swallowed my chicken and muttered, “You went to my apartment and touched the tree, didn’t you?”

  “It was one ornament. I liked it better in its new spot. Ye holy gods, the temper tantrum. I didn’t measure it before placing it. How was I supposed to know a glass ball couldn’t be within four inches of another glass ball?”

  “Welcome to my life.” I devoured every scrap of meat I could from my piece of chicken and snatched another before the bucket wandered off. “How much are you expecting me to spend on this laptop?”

  “Coherency is returning!” Tiana reached over and grabbed another piece of chicken. “A grand should get him a good system. If you dump down two grand, you won’t need to replace it for a few years unless it breaks. If you go with a grand on the laptop and a grand on his own desktop, he’ll be set for a while. The desktops are bigger. But kids nowadays use laptops in school for their classwork.”

  “I’m getting him a puppy for Christmas, Tiana. We went over this.”

  “You’re getting him a laptop, too. It’s a good investment.”

  Why was I friends with Tiana? I sighed and stared at my chicken, wondering what I’d done in life to deserve this headache so early in the morning. “You’re pure evil.”

  “Nah, I’m only a little crooked. Someone with my hair can’t be evil. This hair? This hair is everything.”

  As she expected me to admire her curly hair, which she’d somehow contained to actually fall to her shoulders rather than stick up in a fro. “Hey, it’s not a fro today.”

  “This hair is magnificent. This hair also cost me several hundred dollars plus the sanity of my stylist.”

  “How long will it last?”

  “We estimate approximately forty-eight hours. I wanted to make myself pretty for you on our shopping day. I also didn’t want to disgust Chase too much. The fro might’ve been too much for his delicate sensibilities.”

  “My delicate sensibilities can survive your fro, I assure you.” Chase deposited another piece of chicken onto my plate and returned the bucket to the fridge. “If you ladies would get ready, we can go on our quest to procure Christmas presents for the young child named Caleb. So far, we have to go to a computer store, a pet store for puppy supplies, and, may someone have mercy on our souls, a mall.”

  Tiana beamed. “This is going to be so much fun. I brought nerf swords with me in case we need to wage war to navigate the mall.”

  We were going to get arrested. Tiana armed with a nerf sword in a mall would somehow lead to our arrest. “We need to go to the shelter and find a puppy. I was supposed to spend a lot of time at the shelter working with the puppies to find the perfect puppy. I couldn’t go yesterday,” I complained. “And Chase adopted Pupperina.”

  He’d gone sometime while I’d been dozing off to finalize the paperwork for both the cat and the dog, making them officially his. If I wanted to visit them, I’d have to stage invasions.

  “And Goliath,” Chase announced proudly. “He’s such a good three-legged cat.”

  “He jumped on the table and stole my breakfast,” I wailed.

  “You should have defended it better. He’s a fierce hunter, and you lowered your guard.” Chase smirked. To make it clear I’d lost the war, he bent over and picked up Goliath. “Aren’t you a good little kitty?”

  “We need to go to a place that cuts keys,” I announced.

  Tiana blinked and stared at me. “But why?”

  “I’m stealing his keys, making a copy for myself, and invading whenever I want to visit my cat.”

  “She’s working very hard to earn herself a coal mine for Christmas. So far, she’s dipped her toes in through careful conning of my parents, she’s going to flay the flesh off the bones of the individual who hit her with a bag of almond flour, which she’ll use to sew herself a hat, and I’m sure she’s scheming some other things.”

  “Wow. How hard were you hit? That’s so not your style.”

  “What is my style, then?”

  “You blend in. That’s your gig. You’re a good little karma chameleon who blends in because you hate drawing attention to yourself. Or, you know, you’re worried you’ll get fired again because you have this transformation issue whenever you get anywhere near someone you like.”

  I sometimes hated
my frenemy while also loving her too much for my own good.

  “She wants an opal or a colored stone in her engagement and wedding band, my father has to pay a ridiculous amount of money if he induces any of her transformations, and he’s also paying for the wedding. I’m thinking I’ll lure her into a jewelry store and just buy the first ring she falls in love with. Is that a good plan, Tiana?”

  “I know just the place, but don’t let her get an opal. It’ll break. Get her a necklace with an opal so she can wear it to special occasions. As for the waiting until she falls in love with one idea? Smart move. She’ll be stuck with it for life, so you definitely want to make certain she likes it. And Miriah, if you’re going to marry him, just give Caleb Pupperina for Christmas along with a cool step-dad. He’ll love it.”

  Chase scowled. “But she’s my dog.”

  “She could be a family dog.”

  “But I’m getting Caleb a dog for Christmas,” I protested.

  “Then I guess you’re just going to have to adopt a second dog,” my best frenemy announced. “You best get enough puppy supplies for two dogs.”

  “But I already have supplies for Pupperina,” Chase protested.

  “She needs more supplies. She obviously does not have nearly enough dog toys. I didn’t step on a single one coming into the dining room. Go get dressed, Miriah, while I teach this dastardly fellow the errors of his ways.”

  Sometimes, I questioned what I’d done to deserve Tiana as a friend. The rest of the time, I wondered how I could possibly live without her.

  I should’ve known shopping on a Sunday right before Christmas would turn into a living hell. Tiana did her best to drive me up a wall, but the damned woman found ways to make me laugh despite wanting to wrap my hands around her throat and throttle her. Every time I contemplated doing it, she knew.

  She knew, and because she knew, she grinned and reminded me I’d miss her if I killed her.

  To add to the chaos of my day, Chase’s parents insisted on joining us, and I couldn’t help but feel guilty as Pupperina had whined when Chase had put her in her crate while we were gone. When we’d left, Goliath had been keeping her company, reaching towards her with his paw.