Total pages in book: 9
Estimated words: 7742 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 39(@200wpm)___ 31(@250wpm)___ 26(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 7742 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 39(@200wpm)___ 31(@250wpm)___ 26(@300wpm)
Beastly the Fourth, another one-eyed cat with a tattered ear from street fighting in his younger days, hisses and turns to glare at me like I’m personally responsible for his diminished hearing on one side. Floof Loaf, my big, fat, fluffy Calico protector growls low in his throat in response, a warning to Beastly and any other felines who might think of approaching the couch that only he is allowed to get this close to me and my bag of deliciousness.
Maybe he’s assigned himself my protector because he remembers I was there when Kirby found him stuck in a nest of wet leaves against a chain-link fence and I carried him home in my coat.
Maybe it’s just the fact that I’ve been feeding him tiny bites of cheese from my burger patty before I feed the meat to the other cats.
Either way, I’m grateful for the heavy weight of Floof Loaf on my socked feet as I toss chunks of meat and pray the other cats will be so sated by the time I’m done that they’ll let me dash upstairs to the guest bedroom without ripping my leggings and the pale skin beneath to shreds.
At that moment, Beastly and another fluffy white cat who’s new since the last time I visited Aunt Kirby, charge the couch. I squeal and cringe higher on the back cushions until Floof Loaf scares them away with his gravel-in-a-lawnmower meow and a bop on the nose for each of them with his claws.
Heart racing from the narrow escape, I again consider calling for help.
My cell phone is in the pocket of my old peacoat, and I know Panic and the rest of the guys in the band are right across town, housesitting at our Uncle Shep’s place.
Shep and his wife, Bridget—Kirby’s little sister—still have teenagers at home and for some reason they decided having a bunch of twenty-something rock stars watch over their two youngest kids while they were out of town was a smart idea. And yes, Eric and Leo, their older kids are fairly responsible rock stars, but they’re still rock stars and Panic is straight up trouble.
The man’s a bad influence and always has been, even when we were kids.
As if to flip his parents the middle finger for giving him a name like “Panic,” he’s almost obnoxiously laid back, the kind of chill, cool guy who’s too charming, too sarcastic, and too gorgeous for his own good.
My eyes drift back to the family portrait of Kirby and Colin sitting on the front porch outside with Panic and his younger brother, Zen, leaning on the columns behind them. They’re both teenagers in the picture, captured in skinny jeans and vintage blazers on the cusp of manhood and the fame that would come for them just a few years later.
Being descended from musical royalty, it’s not all that shocking that Colin and Kirby’s sons, Cutter and Theodora’s daughter, and Shep and Bridget’s kids all ended up in a band together. Or that Hello Gorgeous landed a record deal just days after their first indie album dropped while I was in college.
What’s surprising—and disappointing—is that I was born without an ounce of musical talent. I’m tone deaf like my maternal grandmother and my attempts at shaking my thing on the dancefloor have been mistaken for the beginnings of seizure more than once. My mom finds my complete lack of rhythm adorable, and my dad treats me like a princess. Neither of them has ever done anything to make me think they wish I were one of the “band kids,” too.
But my dad is a double superstar. He had a killer stretch with Lips on Fire and then went on to have an insanely successful solo career, mostly writing excessively embarrassing love songs about my mom. Music is number two for him, right behind taking care of our family, and always has been. It’s so important to him that I can’t help but wonder…
And worry…
And feel like I’ve disappointed him and Mom by getting my undergraduate degree in English Lit with a Poetry minor.
Maybe things would be different if I’d gotten into any of the poetry master’s programs that I applied to, but…I didn’t. One by one, every school turned me down, snuffing out the lights on my dreams. The last rejection came through last summer, just a few weeks after I started working at Chippy’s, a local dive bar our parents used to go to when they were young.
Apparently, it was even crustier back then. At least the bathroom works these days. Most of the time. And the tips are good.
So, I stayed on as second bartender after the summer rush, working for rapidly reducing tips as the beachgoers, then the leaf peepers left, and tourist season wound down for another year. I’ve slipped into a rut and, if I’m honest, a little bout of depression.