Chapter 11
She was undoubtedly awake and unfortunately bleary with snot running down her face when Elijah turned up.
Nearly everything she’d eaten the night before, starting with the ice cream cake and going in reverse from there, had come back up, and she’d spent her morning with her face in the tiny toilet of the RV.
It was okay, because she remembered those blissful five minutes when she’d gotten to sit on Monty’s shoulders and feel her hands holding her legs while they’d played chicken in the pool.
“Jeez, you look awful.” Elijah, to his credit, came with a blue Gatorade in hand and a breakfast sandwich for her.
Chicot took them eagerly, peeling back the greasy McDonald’s branded paper to bite into the biscuit.
It was lukewarm, but it immediately settled her stomach for whatever reason.
Soaking up the alcohol or something like that.
“I’ll be fine,” Chicot said.
“How’d you even get back here?” Elijah was pulling a can of cat food from the cabinet for Duchess.
In Chicot’s hungover state, she had not thought to feed Duchess her wet food.
She had dry, of course, but this was still a grave mistake.
Duchess loved her wet food. This immediately made Chicot feel guilty, but Duchess had also been hiding under the bed all morning while Chicot had puked her guts out and didn’t come out even after Elijah put her food down, so she would probably wait until things were quieter anyway.
“Monty … I think?” Chicot rubbed her head.
“You think?” Elijah frowned. Chicot hummed around a bite of her sandwich.
“No, it was her,” Chicot said. “I just don’t really remember anything past being in her car.”
“How much did you have?” Elijah narrowed his eyes, crossing his arms as Chicot thought.
“More than ten.” Chicot shrugged. “I stopped counting.”
“Ah, okay, so you did this to yourself.” Elijah snorted, turning to get himself a bottle of water. “Well, c’mon, get dressed. We have to be at the gym soon.”
“Fuck off.” Chicot took another bite of her sandwich. “Shit, the gym.”
“Shit, the gym, yes.” Elijah agreed. “Now get going.”
Chicot groaned, setting down her breakfast and walking to her side of the closet to dig through a basket at the bottom for something she could work out in.
She settled on a pair of tight, thick shorts that were part of an old dance costume and a long-sleeved leotard that she’d used to use for cheerleading.
The leotard was worn, and she didn’t bother wearing a bra in it because it was tight enough to basically bind her chest. She needed new clothes.
“We should go to the thrift store.” She pulled at the leotard, making sure it was sitting in the right places. Elijah hummed and tapped the jar they kept Chicot’s phone fund in.
“Probably not until after this,” Elijah said.
Chicot groaned again, her headache making this so much worse.
There was a lot more money in the jar after just a few weeks of the faire being open and Chicot filling in for Lyza.
They were making good money. It just probably still wasn’t enough after bills and other things, especially since they’d had to buy Elijah a few new costume pieces after the first day of the faire.
It had been clear that his long, billowy bard sleeves wouldn’t work long-term.
“Have you counted it recently?” Chicot asked. Elijah shook his head, nursing his water bottle, a sign that he was more hungover than he was letting on. There were a lot of singles. If they weren’t actively living in an RV on faire grounds, someone would probably assume they were strippers.
Chicot checked the time and then poured the jar out onto the bed. It didn’t take her long to count what was there, separating things into stacks of ten so she could total it up at the end.
“How are we doing?” Elijah stood next to her, his lips pressed together. Chicot took a deep breath.
“Better than I thought.” Chicot’s stomach fluttered as she bundled up the cash. “But I don’t want to get too eager.”
“How much is there?” Elijah asked. Chicot hesitated, frowning. It wasn’t like this would actually do anything, but it felt like saying they had any amount out loud would lead to them losing it all somehow. Maybe that was just because it had been the pattern since they’d started the jar.
“Just under four hundred,” Chicot informed him. “Maybe we should just get a flip phone for me.”
“You wouldn’t have internet access,” Elijah said. “And you can’t put your old sim card in it so you won’t be able to recover your contacts.”
Chicot deflated, her arms going around her middle as she looked at the jar of their hard work on the bed. “It wouldn’t be that big of a deal.”
She trailed off. Elijah frowned at her.
“For you to completely lose your siblings’ numbers?” he asked.
Chicot sighed. “Okay, you’re right. It is a big deal. But Juni is ten. She’ll have social media soon.”
“They don’t even know where you are.” Elijah rubbed his temple. “Listen, I respect that you don’t want to talk to your parents, but Juni and Charlie only had you most of the time.”
“I couldn’t stay there anymore. You know that.
” They’d had this conversation a few times.
It never devolved into a fight because Elijah respected that Chicot didn’t want to see her mom, and that meant not seeing her dad, Juni, or Charlie.
But he wanted her to try and maintain what relationships she could.
This didn’t really make Chicot angry because secretly, she had a feeling she would one day get a call from Juni and need to go get her immediately because their mother had kicked her out.
After all, that had been Chicot’s experience.
If she’d had the ability to leave and live with an older sibling, she probably would have taken it.
“You don’t remember their numbers. And what if there’s an emergency and they need you?” Elijah picked up the jar, showing Chicot the spot where they’d used painters’ tape to put Chicot’s old sim card into it for safe keeping. “We can’t just get you a flip phone. Saving is our only option.”
Chicot rubbed her forehead. It was so hard to be angry with him about this. She almost wished she could be, but it was hard when he loved her siblings as much as she did. Chicot didn’t want to lose them. She hadn’t wanted to lose her dad either, but he always folded to her mother.
“We shouldn’t have done this before we had to practice,” Chicot said. Elijah opened his mouth like he might protest, but then he looked down at his feet, pressing his lips together and causing his jaw to visibly flex.
“I’ll stop before you start talking about your siblings and mom next time,” he conceded. Chicot smiled, setting a hand on his shoulder and rubbing it.
“And I’ll try to stop myself before I start talking about them next time,” she said. “This isn’t just on you.”
Elijah flashed a brilliant smile, his coiled hair bouncing as a single unit as he nodded. “The bard and the jester, always a team.”
“The bard and the jester, always a team,” Chicot repeated, and they bumped their fists together.
Elijah then looked at his phone and rushed them out the door because they were late.
They ran across the dog park, managing to take a short cut between two RVs to get to the employee lot faster.
Chicot was thankful for the bit of tree cover that the path had, but it wasn’t much and it didn’t save them from the heat.
Lyza, Elvis, and Monty didn’t even seem to notice, the three of them waving as Chicot and Elijah approached Monty’s car, panting from their run.
Chicot’s eyes were on Monty, taking in the long, flowy skirt she wore with a tight tank top, and usually, she would then devolve into lingering on Monty’s muscles, but she currently found her eyes more interesting.
Mostly because they were on Chicot’s legs, her lips pressed together as she raked her eyes up to Chicot’s face.
Chicot grinned, relishing the flush that formed on Monty’s cheeks.
Monty didn’t look at her for the rest of the ride.
Even if Chicot glanced into the rearview mirror, Monty managed to keep focused on the road.
When they arrived at the gym, there were few cars parked near the entrance.
As they unloaded, Chicot offered to help carry the bags of blades they’d brought for juggling practice.
Monty stood next to her, picking up a gym bag that probably contained her workout clothes since she wasn’t wearing them.
“So.” Monty glanced at Chicot as Chicot hauled a bag of heavy juggling materials over one shoulder. “How much do you remember from last night?”
Chicot paused, her lips pressing into a wide line, puffing her cheeks up like a frog. Elijah called this her frog face whenever he saw it. It made Monty laugh, though, her round shoulders shaking.
“I’ll take the Kermit face to mean not much?” Monty asked. Chicot’s shoulders dropped, the bag slipping off and catching in her elbow.
“I remember a good amount!” Chicot laughed. “Just not how I got back to the dog park. I assume that was you though.”
Monty hummed quietly. “It was.”
Chicot blinked at her as Monty tapped her finger to her lips.
“Well, I guess I’ll spare you the embarrassing details then,” Monty said. Chicot’s jaw dropped, her eyes wide.
“What did I do?” Chicot asked. Monty laughed, closing the trunk of the car and walking toward the gym without answering.
Chicot ran after her. “Monty! Monty, tell me!”
This only made Monty laugh harder, and when they got inside, Lyza, Elvis, and Elijah were all crowded near the door.
Chicot couldn’t see past them, standing on her toes to try and sort out why they’d stopped.
She only realized when she heard the loud, exaggerated cackle coming from near the center of the spring floor.