Steel & Ice by Emily Eck Read Free Book Online Page A

mention Penny is 4’9” and I felt like
the giant white girl.”
    “ High five,” Chris dead
panned, raising her hand. “Giants rock.”
    “ What the fuck, Elle?!”
Aaron yelled.
    “ Oh yeah, the bowl is
cashed, Aaron.”
    “ Fuck you. For that you’re
packing out of your sack.”
    I tossed Aaron a couple nuggs from my
plastic baggie of marijuana and asked if I could continue my
monologue. I didn’t wait for permission. I was on a roll.
    “ Like this one girl,
Genesis. She’s been helping me with dinner the past few weeks, but
we haven’t talked about much. Not like I can tell her much about
me. ‘Oh hey I sell weed here and there to supplement my income and
smoke it all the time. I fucked a married man when I was sixteen,
and had a crack head point a gun at my head once.’ Like, what the
fuck am I supposed to talk to her about? And then out of nowhere
last week she starts telling me her boyfriend, who’s twenty-four
while she’s fifteen, and ole boy is pressuring her to have sex.
Suddenly, I’m counseling her about making smart decisions, and that
no one should make her do anything she doesn’t want to. I even told
her that I regretted some guys I slept with when I was her age, and
how I have to live with that shit. I push it to the back of my
mind, but it’s never gone. How the fuck am I, a stoner to the core,
giving advice to a fifteen year old? But dude! It felt good. She
hugged me and thanked me for keeping it real with her. Like, what
other way can I keep it? Real is all I know. Real, raw, and
un-fucking-censored. OK, I censored. She’s fifteen. It’s like, I
like being there with the teens. I’m building relationships with
them, and it trips me the fuck out.”
    “ It’s just you and me. Chris
is out,” Aaron said, passing me the pipe. “I think it’s cool what
you’re doing. Don’t think too hard about it. You over analyze shit
to death. Just roll with it, chica. It sounds like you’re diggin’
it.”
    “ Yeah, I guess I am,” I
said, lapsing into thought.
    “ Oh no, pass that shit back
before you get lost in your head again,” Aaron said with his hand
out stretched.
    “ I love you, Aaron
Brown.”
    “ I love you too, Eleanor
Skye. So long as you stop passing me cashed bowls,” Aaron added.
Totally not stoner
etiquette to pass a cashed bowl. “You’re one of a kind, you
know.”
    “ Oh dude, don’t get all
weird on me. I’m getting that shit from Larry enough,” I exclaimed,
hitting him in the arm.
    “ Larry?”
    “ Dude, he’s been saying shit
sometimes. Like about what a catch I am and shit. It’s fucking
weird. I trust Larry the most out of all the guys in the kitchen.
But ew, Larry. He might charm the ladies at Checks with those eyes
of his, but he will always be the Larry I first met in a Metallica
T and ripped up jeans. It’s a miracle he doesn’t have a mullet. I’d
love to see his high school year book.”
    That sent Aaron into fits of giggles, which
sent me into giggles, and the next thing you know we had tears
coming down our eyes.
    “ Whew. Damn,” Aaron said,
catching his breath. “You are a catch. We’ve all watched you grow from sixteen
to almost twenty-three. You look good, bitch. Take the compliment.
And Larry isn’t that bad looking. You just can’t see anyone who
isn’t seven feet tall.”
    “ But Larry? I’d fuck you
before I’d fuck Larry.”
    “ Oh honey that’s so sweet.
I’m touched,” Aaron said, putting his hand over his heart. “But I
steer clear of the pussy. No offense.”
    I started to laugh, afraid the giggles would
suck me in again. “No sweat. I’m strictly dickly too. Fuck pussy.”
I could barely get the last works out before we were both lost in
giggles clutching each other so as to not fall off the sectional.
It wasn’t really all that funny, but we were floating by that
point. Chris was down for the count, passed out and missing
giggle-fest.

Chapter 4
     
    It was Black Friday. In the restaurant
business there