Total pages in book: 50
Estimated words: 48601 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 243(@200wpm)___ 194(@250wpm)___ 162(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 48601 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 243(@200wpm)___ 194(@250wpm)___ 162(@300wpm)
“Wait,” I growl at Melissa. “You told her you were coming over?”
Melissa pauses at the door and glances back at me. “Yeah, so?”
She reaches for the door handle, and my eyes glance back at the bucket on the work bench, and the open airbag box, and suddenly, I realize exactly what’s in that bucket.
Paint.
…Oh fuck.
“Wait, Melissa—!”
But she’s already lifting the handle and swinging the door open, and suddenly, it’s like a fucking bomb goes off.
The sound is enormous—this booming, thunderous explosion, and purple paint goes everywhere. It hits me like a bag of sand to the face, half spinning me and knocking the wind out of me. Melissa screams, the full force of it blasting over her and covering her from head to toe in thick purple paint. She screams as she falls over backwards, sputtering and scrabbling at her face, letting loose a string of curses as she shrieks and paws at the paint dripping down her face.
I turn, my eyes locking on Ramona, who’s white and looks absolutely terrified.
“Oh my God,” she whispers breathlessly, a horrified look on her face as her hands cover her mouth.
“What the fuck!” I growl, my eyes burning into her before I glance back at the Mustang.
Shit.
The car is fucked. Both back windows and the back windshield are totally blown out, and the front windshield is spider-webbed with cracks. Oh, and course, there’s purple paint fucking everywhere inside. I look back at Ramona, and fuck if it doesn’t look like she’s about to cry.
“I—it wasn’t supposed to… I…” She starts talking faster and faster, her words stumbling into each other as she looks at the scene in absolutely terrified horror.
“I didn’t know…”
She looks at me, her face crumples, and suddenly, she’s turning and fleeing the garage.
I blow the air out through my lips, and finally, I’m aware that Melissa is still shrieking on the ground.
“Are you hurt?”
“What the fuck was that?!”
“Are you hurt.”
“Was that fucking Ramona?! Is she fucking serious?!” Melissa spits. “She could have fucking killed me! And I swear to fucking God, if she fucked up my nose, she’s going to be hearing from my plastic surgeon and my lawyers!”
I roll my eyes. “Does your nose hurt?”
Melissa scowls. “Well, no, but I’m probably just in shock!”
She might be, but I know she’s not hurt, which, to be frank, is a miracle. I’m pretty damn sure what happened just now, and I’m not sure if I’m more pissed or impressed that Ramona pulled it off.
Basically, what she’s hooked up is a pressure paint bomb, where opening the door actually triggered the packaged airbag to go off, splattering the fucking paint everywhere. I’ve seen posts about it on car forums, and dumb mechanic prank videos online. But people set them off like fifty feet away from anything living, not a foot from someone opening a fucking door. Basically, you pour paint into the hollow of an undeployed airbag, so when it goes off, it blows paint all the fuck over the place.
Melissa is still shrieking and ranting and raving about lawyering up as I grab a towel and help at least clean her face off, which is a mistake, because now she just looks like this purple clown-thing with an angry little scowl on her face, which is very hard not to laugh at.
I get her as cleaned up and as calm as I can, and I even lay some towels and plastic wrap down all over the inside of her Porsche, so she doesn’t get it all fucking purple when she drives home. I watch her roar off down the driveway, taking a deep sigh before I glance back at my Mustang and growl.
I turn and I storm inside, right up the stairs, and right down the hall to Ramona’s room. I’m not mad, necessary. Actually, if anything, I’m a little impressed. A pressure paint bomb isn’t that hard to set up, but it does take some skills. Rigging it to a door handle took even more skill. But again, I’m getting the feeling that Ramona had no freaking idea how big or hard it was going to go off.
I knock on her door, and I hear the sound of her sniffing away tears inside.
“Moaner, open the door.”
There’s silence, and I knock again.
“Ramona, I’m not mad, just open the door.”
There’s another moment of silence before slowly, the lock draws, and the knob twists. And slowly, the door opens. She’s teary-eyed and still terrified looking, and I frown. I might like teasing Ramona, but I’ve never liked to see her cry. Even if she does look oddly gorgeous right now with her hair down and wild and her big blue eyes with their naturally dark, thick lashes so wide and piercing.
“I’m so sorry, J,” she whispers quietly.
“Ramona—”
“I’ll pay for it! I’m so fucking sorry! I just—”