ROMANCE: PARANORMAL ROMANCE: Coveted by the Werewolves (Paranormal MMF Bisexual Menage Romance) (New Adult Shifter Romance Short Stories) (67 page)

              “You know why she hasn't hit you up since middle school?” Bill said. “Because she didn't want to. You know why me and you kept in contact? Because we're actually close. Ariel was nice and all but I'm telling you, and you gotta listen, that it's not the same for super rich people. For people with that much money the whole world is just a sort of magical place where they can always get knew friends to trout out to have a good time with. And I bet you that's just what she did to the guy before you and the guy after you. Just led him on enough that he was always at her side, but kept him far enough away at arm's length that he never was able to make a move. I mean, doesn't it make sense now that you think about it if you take what I just said into consideration along with the fact that a girl that rich and that hot had absolutely no fucking business hanging out with two regular guys like us.”

              Jeff sat listening as he sharpened a knife. Upon examining their booth both men had quickly realized that the knives they were supposed to proffer up to people as instruments of balloon popping weren't sharp enough to do anything except bounce off the balloon. So they'd gone to work sharpening all of the knives. Jeff was working on the last one, and when it was finished, all of the knives would be super sharp, the kind of sharp you didn't play around with because if you dropped it on your foot it would sink in all the way to the hilt. After he'd finished the last knife and thrown it at the first balloon they'd put up Jeff realized they'd mad ea rather large error. What the fair had anticipated was that it was actually really hard to hit the balloon with the edge of the knife, and if you missed and hit it with the knife's broadside it bounced off at a crazy angle. So when Jeff threw the knife at the balloon and it bounced off to stick in one of the booths boards with a
twang
by Bill's head they both knew they were in trouble. The whole point, they realized quickly, of having dull blades was that it meant the person throwing the knife had to hit the balloon with the tip of the instrument or nothing happened. Nothing happened as in the knife bounced off and thudded against the booth since it wasn't sharp enough to do any damage anyway. But now all the knives were sharpened tot he point of being super sharp, and the park had just opened up. People were flooding through the main street that ran through the fair grounds. The booth Jeff and Bill manned was right in the middle of the long avenue.

              “Step right up, step right up,” Bill was shouting.

              They'd actually been told pretty explicitly not to shout like Bill was doing and to just let people come to them, but Bill wasn't having any of that. He wanted it to be like he imagined the old days were, with the people manning the booth using their voices to coax people over and give it a try.

              “You there! Yes you sir! Come here and tries this! You don't know what it is? Well, sir, let me explain . . .”

              Bill was having fun with it, but Jeff couldn't say the same. There was something about trying to dodge the errant knives that kept sticking into the booths heavy wooden panels that made his heart sink. Eventually one of these super sharp knives was going to embed itself into him in a place where he really didn't want a knife embedded. Then what was he going to do? It wasn't like he had any insurance at all, and it wasn't like his parents would be able to pick up the bill at the drop of a hat. And what was he making an hour to do this, anyway? Something like minimum wage? Hopefully. From the look of some of the fair workers he shuddered to think that some of them might be working for food or drugs instead of money. But maybe for them it wasn't worth it otherwise.

              “Hey,” Bill said. “Hey, come fucking look at this! Come over here!”

              Bill kept motioning him over until Jeff finally made his way to the front of the booth to stand by his friend and look out over the crowd.

              “Oh my God,” Jeff said.

              It was her. She was over by the pretzels with her family. They looked like they were about to head up to look at the giant pig they heard they had locked up in some reenforced cage.

              “Holy shit,” Jeff said, dropping down to sit his ass on the ground and lean his back against the wall of the booth. “I can't believe she's really here. What should I do? I mean, what if she comes over here? What if she wants to throw a knife at a balloon?”

              “Well I don't know,” Bill said. “I guess we'll just have to tell her no and send her on her way.”

              Jeff didn't know what to think of Ariel's sudden appearance. It had literally not occurred to him at all that this might happen. Did he expect to maybe see a few of his high school friends? Sure. But it had never crossed his mind that his old heart throb might be here at the fair.

              “They're coming this way,” Bill said, then, “Hey! You! Yes you! Come here!”

              Jeff went into a near panic. What was he supposed to say? How was any of this supposed to go. He didn't have any time to think before she was at the booth.

              “Jeff? Bill?” she said. “You guys! I haven't seen either of you in forever! I tried to write both of you but I never heard anything back?”
              Jeff couldn't believe the beautiful young woman was standing in front of him, her hazel eyes ticking back and forth between them, her dirty blonde hair twirling in the wind behind her, caught by the breeze. How was she here, right now? There just couldn't be anyway. Maybe it was some kind of hallucination. But the chances of that diminished greatly as she and Bill struck up a conversation about how much she had missed the both of them.

              “No, I'm really serious,” Ariel said. “I was super depressed when I had to go through high school without both of you there. I mean, you'd become such a big part of my life, and when that bad shit happened and all my parents had to do was write off a tax deduction in check form to make it all go away while both of you got hammered over it, I mean, I just lost a lot of faith in humanity. Here I was, some young girl in high school who honestly thought that people always made an effort to be at least decent. But then I found out that that just wasn't the case. That the world was full of people waiting with their hands out, and if you could fill their hands with money, then they would be happy and leave you alone.”

              “Don't worry about it,” Bill said. “Although I will say that Jeff over there didn't take it so well that he never heard from you again. But he'll probably kill me later for saying so.”

              “Really?” Ariel's face lit up. “Is that true Jeff? Did you miss me?”

              “Well of course I missed you. We were such close friends. How much of our lives did we share with each other? I bet I know things about you that no one else knows! And I know you know things about me that no one else knows.”

              Ariel nodded and paid a few dollars to throw a knife. She raised her arm back to hurl it at a balloon then noticed how both of the men cringed and seemed ready to jump out of the way.

              “Are you two going to get hurt if I miss?” she asked.

              “Only if the knife bounces off and into one of us,” Bill said. “They knives used to be dull until we sharpened them. It seemed like a good idea at the time.”

              Ariel lifted the knife back into throwing position and readied herself. Jeff could tell by the glint in her eye that she meant to pop a balloon and take a prize home. Her first throw landed the knife with the tip to the wood, so that it stuck fast and quivered in the air. The next knife popped one of the balloons. The third bounced off and into Jeff's leg.

              “Oh my fucking God!” Jeff screamed. “Holy shit! My leg! My fucking leg!”

              Ariel stepped into the booth and used a towel the boys had been using to wipe the sweat off their faces to staunch the bleeding, then tied it over the wound to keep pressure on it.

              “That looks pretty deep, Jeff,” she said. “Maybe we should take you to some kind of medical person.”

              “It looks like you did a pretty good job!” Bill said admiring her work.

              “Yeah, until he gets infected with whatever was on that knife. Who knows what could have been on it? This is, after all, the Iowa State Fair. Maybe if we leave it his leg will turn green and fall off.”

              Bill leaned in.

              “Do you really think so?” he said.

              Ariel tried not to laugh.

              “Oh yeah, very funny,” Jeff said. “I get a fucking knife in my leg any everyone gets a big old laugh about it. 'Haha! Look at Jeff with a knife in his leg! Who cares how it got there or how much it might hurt him, let's all just laugh!'”

              Bill rolled his eyes while maneuvering himself so that Jeff could put his arm around him for support, preparing to help his friend hobble to the nearest aid station. Neither Jeff nor Bill knew exactly where such an aid station would be, but they also knew that with so many people coming to the fair each day there was absolutely no way that there wasn't an aid station somewhere close.

              “Do you have any idea where we should take him?” Bill asked.

              “No, but I'll help,” Ariel said. “After all, I kind of did help make this mess.”

              Jeff had to bite his tongue when he heard her last comment about “kind of” helping make the mess. It just reminded him a lot of some of the things she'd said when they'd all got caught raiding the school. Even though it had been all her idea, and even her plan—as shitty of a plan as it turned out being—she never copped to any of it. Whenever the police had asked her any questions she'd just broken down in sobs. The police quickly tired of this and focused their questions solely on the boys. Neither of the boys had known what Ariel had told the cops or withheld. Thinking that surely she had told them something they each begrudgingly gave up enough information that they thought the police would be placated but really all they did was end up incriminating themselves.

              “Oh my God it hurts,” Jeff said as he hobbled around with one arm around Bill and the other around Ariel. If he hadn't been so hurt he'd have reflected at how good it felt to have his arm around her again.

              “This way! This way!” Bill said.

              Up ahead was one of the places EMTs were rendering aid, although at the State Fair that pretty much amounted to giving people water and telling them to stop drinking. But they were about to get a surprise of a lifetime. Jeff could tell that the cut was bad and would require some stitches, and he didn't think that the people at the fair would be able to sow him up right there. That meant that he would have to go to the emergency room, and that would be expensive. Jeff didn't have the money to pay for something like that, and knew that if they went to the EMTs that then he would be forced to go.

              “I can't see the EMTs,” Jeff said. “I can't afford to get stitches.”

              This halted the group in its tracks.

              “Well, I can stitch you up,” Ariel said. “I may not be very good though, so the stitches will be big and most likely leave a scar.”

              “Sure, that sounds great,” Jeff said through gritted teeth.

              He wasn't sure he had any other options at that point. What else could he do? He couldn't not get his leg stitched up with as big as the gash in it had been, and he couldn't afford to be told he had to go to the hospital. Ariel and Bill helped him over to a tent that had EMT in red letters over the door. When they made it inside they found themselves alone. Bill and Ariel quickly went about setting to work on his leg. Bill cleaned the wound with water and then with rubbing alcohol to sanitize it while Ariel found a needle and surgical string.

              “All right,” Ariel said. “I know that you are probably already aware of this, but this is really going to hurt.”

              “Wait! Wait a second!” Jeff gasped. “Is there anyway you guys could find some kind of pain medicine so that I don't pass out or scream or anything?”
              Both Bill and Ariel looked around the small tent for something they could use to numb the pain but the closest they came was a fifth of vodka that looked like it might have been stowed away by the EMTs to help kill the boredom of long shifts, or maybe to celebrate the end of the fair when it finally wound down.

              “You'll have to drink some of this and hope that it kills the pain enough that you don't go into shock or anything. But I really doubt that you go into shock. But it is a possibility that will happen,” Bill said. “So if you start to feel super fucked up and get the shakes then we have something to worry about.”

              With that Bill hoisted Jeff's leg up onto a table and got ready to hold it down while Ariel worked.

              “Can't I die from shock if it goes untreated?” Jeff said. “Is there anything else we could do besides this? What if we found some super glue and glued the wound shut? I hear that's what they always used to do in the World Wars when someone got split open.”

              Bill nodded.

              “Yeah, when someone knocked their head open on a doorway or something like that. Not when someone got their leg gashed open like you just did. There is no way that we can't not stitch that up. Hell, I think that if we wanted to do it proper we'd probably need to do some internal stitches as well.”