Bobby arrived home as a shouting match ended between Amanda and Brenda. They weren’t as common as verbal spats with Brenda and himself, but it did happen sometimes and was always one sided. Amanda was never the aggressor.
“What are you staring at, creeper?” Brenda questioned as she slammed the fridge and violently shook a near-empty bottle of green juice. Her blonde, tufted bangs danced with the motion of her arm. “Are you burning yet? Do you need me to call the hospital for you?” Her lip curled upward, and she swept out of the room, pink yoga pants displaying her firm ass and thigh gap.
“Fuck you, fatty,” Bobby said and expected her to turn, but Brenda just waved her middle finger at him as she retreated.
Amanda was seated on a stool and leaning on her elbow, chin smushed into her palm. She rolled her eyes. “She’s late for yoga,” Amanda informed him.
Bobby took the seat next to her. “Is that why she was screeching at you?” he asked.
Amanda gave him a Cheshire grin. “No, she accused me of drinking her juice,” she said and slouched onto the counter, stretching out an arm and resting her head on her bicep.
Bobby chuckled. “Mom probably had some, or Jules, I caught her sneaking one of mom’s Jatorades once,” he said, smiling. “It was the middle of the night and when I said hi, Jules jumped like a spooked cat.”
Her grin grew crooked, and she said, “It wasn’t Jules.”
Bobby winced, twining his foot around the leg of the stool. “Why would you drink that green shit?” he asked, thinking about the rice he had eaten with Dubois.
“I didn’t,” Amanda said, “I poured it down the sink.”
He laughed, clutching his stomach and imagining Brenda’s disappointment when she found her precious elixir had gone missing. She was like Golheim and the string when it came to those juices. “No wonder she was so pissed,” Bobby said when his wheezing subsided. “What did she do to you to deserve that?”
Amanda rubbed her nose cutely, twitching her nostrils and moved the tickle inducing hair out of her face. “She stormed in when I was taking a shower and started brushing her teeth,” she said with a snarl only a bunny rabbit could match. “It felt like someone was dumping buckets of ice water on me.” She shivered. “When the shock wore off, I jumped out and slipped.” Sitting up, Amanda grabbed her left wrist and gingerly rocked her fist back and forth. “It still hurts, and my butt too. My tail bone is purple.”
Bobby took her delicate wrist in hand and gently slid her bracelets out of the way. Her skin was soft, freckled all over, and swollen. “What a fucking bitch,” he said and let go.
Nodding, Amanda said, “She didn’t even help me up. Just stood there making a disgusted face at me with steam puffing out of the faucet. She was using hot water so mine would go cold; when I noticed that she did it on purpose I started crying.” Her eyes went moist and she sniffled.
Shifting his stool closer, Bobby wrapped and arm around her and said, “Fuck Brenda.”
She clung to his waist, pressing her damp cheek against his chest. “I’m done with her, Bobby,” Amanda said into his shirt. “I don’t understand why she’s so mean to me. It keeps me up all night sometimes.” Her voice was soft and quivering.
Bobby’s chest tightened. She had never mentioned that before. “I know what you need,” he said, rubbing her arm gently. “Snack night.”
Lifting her head, Amanda wiped her nose with a finger. “Mom will be busy the rest of day, and she probably wouldn’t agree to it anyway,” she said, shaking her head.
Slipping off the stool and out of her reluctant grasp, Bobby pulled his phone out and sent a message to Alex, asking that he turn around and to be nice to the sister he was about to meet. “I have some money and a ride,” Bobby said, patting his back pocket.
She smiled, holding up a fist threateningly. “Did you get a job without telling me?” Amanda asked.
“Er, sort of,” he said. Lying to Amanda wasn’t something he made a habit of. If she had asked him about wiping his ass or jerking off, he would have probably told her and that was before she sucked his dick. They had discussed her first period, before and after it happened; she had been scared and then grossed out by the smell. “I do some stuff here and there, just don’t worry about it alright?”
Amanda screwed her face up, and Bobby winced. Telling Megan not to worry and joking about his money was not the same as trying it with Amanda. I should have known better, he thought as Amanda said, “Are you selling those baggies of marijuania that you smoke?”
He laughed. She knew how to pronounce it correctly, but she always said it like that because Bobby got a kick out of it. “No, not enough people buy the cheap stuff,” Bobby said, having considered and rejected the idea in the past. “I’m not doing anything illegal.”
Wrinkling her nose, she hopped off the stool. “It does stink like burning hot dogs and skunk,” Amanda grumbled under her breath. “Then why won’t you tell me?”
He grimaced and tried smothering his pained expression before she noticed. “It’s nothing bad, I swear,” Bobby said and failed to hold back another wince, Emma flashing through his mind.
Amanda stepped close, looked around before standing on her tip toes. Bobby leaned down, letting her speak into his ear. “Are you a male stripper or something?” she whispered.
Bobby recoiled. She may as well have slapped him. “Fuck no!” The source of this chapter is novelping.com.
She shrugged her shoulders high into the air, grinning. “What else am I supposed to think?” Amanda asked, voice full of innocent speculation. “Those Porkemon boxes aren’t cheap and…” she trailed off, furrowing her freckled brow. Her eyes sprung open a moment later, pale green and piercing. “You’re selling nudes on onlyMans aren’t you?”
He pursed his lips, crossing his arms. “I’d never do that, it’s gross,” Bobby said, offended.
Amanda was nodding, as if she had the right of it. “It’s either selling drugs, stripping, onlyMans, or Megan is your sugar mommy,” she said matter of factly.
He didn’t want to use the same lie he told Kate, because Amanda would want to see the fake page. “Do you want another snack night or not?” he asked.
She huffed, inflating her cheeks with air. “Fine, I’ll drop it,” she said.
*
Amanda sped past an elderly woman, making for the line of carts outside the grocery store. Grasping the black crossbar, she yanked one free and offered it to the gray-haired lady. The woman shook her head, smiling.
Automatic doors whooshing, Bobby followed Amanda inside, having to powerwalk to keep up with her. Amanda took a sharp left, aiming for the produce section. The cart she had chosen was pristine, brand new, and she maneuvered it like a well-tuned race car, dodging the geriatric and inattentive shoppers that were meandering around.
“Slow down, Mandy,” he said, as she rounded a stand with oranges and different sized limes. “Why are we here?”
“Kiwis,” she said, looking around and narrowly avoided crashing into someone holding a bag of onions. “Apologies, sir.”
Fucking kiwis, Bobby thought, shaking his head. He recalled their first experience with the furry fruit when they were seven years old; it was also his first memory of mom becoming truly angry at Amanda. Mom had placed a dish full of sliced kiwi on the dinner table one afternoon and when Amanda tried a piece, she promptly got up, snatched the plate and ran to her room, locking herself inside without saying a word. The mess had been otherworldly, but mom was more concerned about selfishness.
Bobby chuckled to himself and caught up to Amanda, where she was squeezing kiwis with a frown on her face. “What’s wrong?” he asked and studied a dragon fruit.
She grunted, stuffing some of the hairy fruit into a flimsy plastic bag. “None of them are ripe,” Amanda said and grabbed a twist tie. “I was hoping at least one would be edible.” Her face lit up a second later. “What are we going to snack on this time?”
Bobby shrugged, tossed the dragon fruit back. “I’ll eat whatever,” he said.
“Hm,” she pondered. “What’s the budget?”
He wanted to say infinite or unlimited just to see the look on her face but held himself in check. “I can do a hundred bucks or a little more,” Bobby told her.
Amanda’s lips turned white as she pursed them in thought, twitching them left and right, the tip of her nose dancing side to side in tandem with her lips. “Hm,” she muttered, putting her kiwis in the cart. “Some whip cream canisters for sure. I love just squirting it in my mouth, it’s really good like that. Definitely some sours too. A box of chocolates. Some Reeze’s, the thicky’s.”
*
Bobby tossed his pants on the floor, stripping down to his balls and wrapped a towel around his waist. As he turned, heading for the shower, he got a text message. Bending over his jeans, he pulled the jPhone out of his pocket and read, “Hello, Bobby, this is Patricia Anderson. Can you come in twenty minutes before school starts and write the first batch of notes before class?”
As he finished reading, three pulsing dots appeared beneath the message. She was typing again, so he sat down on his bed, next to all the candy Amanda had selected, and waited for Mrs. Anderson’s next text. The dots disappeared. Then started up once more a few seconds later. Stopped again. What the fuck is taking so long? he thought.
His phone finally pinged. “I can pick you up if you need a ride,” Mrs. Anderson texted.
The message vanished, and Bobby’s face fell, watching for the dots to pick up again. Nothing. “Yeah, I’ll be there early,” he texted, deciding not to just send his address. If she wanted to unsend things, then he wouldn’t mention it. “Did Aiko ask to be your aide yet?”
“Sounds good,” Mrs. Anderson texted. “No, she never stopped by to talk to me after school.”
Bobby pushed aside a bag of sour pitch that was digging into his leg. “She probably had cheer practice. Don’t worry, you’ll have another suck up in no time,” he sent.
Mrs. Anderson didn’t respond, so Bobby sat his phone down and left to take a shower.
When he got back, Amanda was sitting on his bed with her arms crossed and wearing another of her night dresses. Yellow this time. “Can you come back in a few minutes?” Bobby asked, gesturing at his towel.
She said nothing, just narrowed her eyes at him. He chuckled, finding the look more cute than something to be afraid of. If she had whiskers, he would have walked over and booped her on the nose. “What’s the matter?” he asked, standing there awkwardly.
He furrowed his brow. “What money?” he asked.
She bulged her eyes at him. “The money,” Amanda replied, emphasizing the word ‘the’.
Palms up, he raised his arms and shook his head. “Why would I give you half of my money?” he questioned and went stiff in all places but one. Frozen, his eyes darted to his crumpled pants and to the bed, frantically searching for his phone. She knew his code, as he did hers—his password was all ones because he came out first—and that shower had been long, unlike his retreating cock. Plenty of time for her to peruse his apps.
Amanda jumped off the bed, holding her hands out to him in a placating gesture. “Bobby, are you okay?” she asked as he took a knee.
His ears were ringing. Amanda’s voice was muted and reverberating strangely, like she was speaking in subwoofer. Bobby’s chest constricted, and he couldn’t feel his toes or take a breath. Blackness appeared at the edges of his vision, and his head lolled a fraction. Some defensive mechanism kicked in, and a spike of adrenaline rushed into his body, and bobby shook his head violently, clearing away the terrifying darkness.
Belatedly, he realized that he had fallen onto his backside, and Amanda was kneeling beside him and cradling his head, babbling to herself. “Oh no, oh no, shouldn’t have said anything, dumb, oh no, oh no.”
Her fingers felt good in his wet hair. “I think I’m alright,” he groaned, and did a sit-up, his feet lifting into the air.
Amanda cupped his cheeks in both of her palms. “I’m so sorry, Bobby, I didn’t think you’d have a panic attack,” she whimpered, searching his face for any sign of harm with her moist gaze.
“Er,” he said, their noses were an inch apart. “Um, you saw it?”
Her lips flapped, slapping against her teeth at the vehemence with which she shook her head, and Bobby laughed. “No, no, what?” she asked, unconvincingly. “Saw what? Yeah, I saw you fall and tried to catch you, but I was too late.”
Slipping out of her grasp, Bobby stood and shuffled over to his dresser. Opened his underwear drawer. “Mandy, just tell me,” he said and hunched, stepping into a pair of briefs. Awkwardly yanking them upward, he shimmied his hips, the towel making things difficult.
Amanda sighed and peered at the cracked door. When her attention fell back onto him, she was beaming, all teeth and braces and shimmering eyes. “Uh huh,” she confirmed, voice low and jubilant.
Bobby’s brow twitched, and he dropped the towel and slid his closet door open, grabbing some old shorts. “So, you only want half?” he asked, shaking out the stale smelling shorts. “For what you did? Or half of everything?” He couldn’t tell if she was blackmailing him, but it didn’t feel sinister.
She wrinkled her nose in distaste and got to her feet. Closed the door quietly, and whispered, “I did not B L O you, but yes, can we split it?”
He let out a silent breath of relief, imagining how different the scenario would have been had Brenda clicked around on his phone. I need to change my passcode, he thought. “You can have it all, Mandy,” he said and chuckled. “You basically forced me into it anyway.”
She crossed her arms, but another smile washed over her face. “Thanks, I really need a new pc,” Amanda whispered and sat down, the bags of candy rustling at the disturbance her weight caused. “I cannot believe you’re having sex now.”
He smirked and threw on a shirt. “It was only twice, and it ended pretty quick both times,” Bobby said. “How come you trust the app’s word…” he paused, the answer coming to him.
Amanda giggled. “I didn’t,” she replied and snatched his phone. “At first, I thought it was an app Alessio coded for you as a joke but then I checked your bank account, and the numbers roughly add up. Around $70,000 dollars is missing though. Did you pay taxes?”
Bobby’s head recoiled. “Taxes?” he questioned, having never considered it. “No. I gave like sixty thousand to mom, it would have been more but that’s all I had at the time.”
She gasped, clamping a hand over her mouth with a smack. “Mom knows?”
“Fuck no,” he said, pushing candy bags aside and clearing a space for himself on the bed. “I bought old, gold coins and hid them in the basement for her to find.”
She moved, quick as a squirrel and hugged him. A bag of marshmallows fell to the carpet, and his phone buzzed against his ear, tickling him. Amanda was staring at the screen; one arm wrapped around his neck. “That’s so cool, and fast,” she marveled.
Snickering, he said, “I know.”
Amanda peeled herself off him and presented her left cheek, gaze remaining locked on his phone. “Smooch me,” she said, giggling.
He smirked and planted a kiss on her cheek. Took his phone back. “Are you ready to watch the show?” he asked.