Total pages in book: 80
Estimated words: 76065 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 380(@200wpm)___ 304(@250wpm)___ 254(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 76065 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 380(@200wpm)___ 304(@250wpm)___ 254(@300wpm)
“That’s why I need to find Jake.”
“Wait. No. Jake didn’t do that,” he said, shaking his head, ready to go to bat for his friend. Even if his belief in Jake’s goodness was wholly misplaced.
“Jake stood by and let it happen. Which is just as bad. So where the fuck can I find him?”
“I don’t believe that,” Bobby said, setting his spoon on the top of his noodles to keep the seal over it so the noodles would soften up.
“This isn’t religion, Bobby. You can’t choose not to believe a fact. He was there. He let this happen to me,” I told him, waving at my face.
“He must have had a good reason,” he insisted, shaking his head, refusing to believe his only real-life friend in the world could be the shithead he actually was.
“A good reason,” I scoffed. “Do you seriously think there is ever a good reason for a guy to stand by and let a woman’s face get fucked up?”
“I dunno. Maybe if he stepped in, he woulda gotten shot or something.”
“Wow. Just… wow,” I said, closing my eyes and taking a deep breath.
“It’s possible.”
“Don’t go putting Jake on a pedestal, Bobby. He doesn’t deserve it. Would any of the guys in your comics or movies stand by and let a girl get beat up?” I asked, knowing that the only ‘people’ he looked up more to than Jake were the fictional ones that had pretty much raised him.
“But they have superpowers.”
“You don’t think that Jake’s size and strength was more of a superpower than what I have going on?” I asked, waving down at myself.
To his credit, he did give that some thought for a moment.
Ultimately, though, his loyalty to his friend was stronger than his own moral code.
“Jake wouldn’t have let it happen if he didn’t have a good reason.”
He did.
He fucking did.
But arguing with Bobby on this was like screaming into a void.
I didn’t need Bobby to believe me. Even if, in a small way, it did hurt that he didn’t. That he wouldn’t side with me. After all the shit he’d seen me put up with when it came to Jake.
Especially after everything I’d done for Bobby.
Including once agreeing to go in cosplay with him to one of his comic conventions just so he could show off to his friends that he could get a girl to go out with him. And that outfit had consisted of little more than a bra, a skirt that would show everyone my Playstation if I bent over, and eyelashes so big that it was hard to keep my lids open.
Oh, well.
I wasn’t really losing something if I never had it in the first place. Bobby would always side with Jake. No matter how wrong he was.
“You know what, whatever. I don’t care if you agree with me or not,” I said, and I got a small bit of satisfaction from him looking a little wounded by that. “I just need to know where he is. Fuck knows he doesn’t have a real job. So where is he right now?”
“I don’t know. Really!” he said when I advanced on him in a way that no one else in the world would probably find threatening, considering I was half his size. But he actually backed up against the counter and held out his hands. “He hasn’t been here in a while. That’s the truth,” he added with a frantic nod.
“How long is a while?” I asked, brows furrowing. Where the hell else would he go? He was paying rent to live here. And, lord knows, he never had much money to spare.
“Couple weeks, I guess.”
“A couple weeks?” I asked, spine straightening.
“Yeah.”
“What about rent? Bills?”
To that, Bobby shrugged.
“You’re covering for him?” I asked, shaking my head. That was a new low. I mean, Bobby did okay. He worked a nighttime job doing IT over the phone. Still. It was asking a lot to make him carry all the bills. “He hasn’t been back at all? To get clothes? Nothing?”
“No.”
“What happened the last time you saw him?”
“Nothing really. I was in the middle of a video call D&D game. So, I wasn’t really paying too close of attention,” he admitted. “But he came in—“
“Alone?”
“Yeah, alone. He came in. Then he went into his room. Maybe he came out with his backpack. I don’t really remember. But he said he’d see me in a bit. Then he left.”
“Have you called him? Texted?”
“No. Didn’t have a reason to.”
Save for the rent being due. But Bobby was, by nature, a pushover. Which was what his old man raised him to be. It was sad, though. Especially because guys like Jake didn’t hesitate to take advantage of that kind of character flaw in someone.
Look at what I’d put up with from him.
No.
Nope.
I wasn’t going to go back there.