Chapter Sixty-Two
“Thank fuck this is the last time we need to help you with one of these essays because they’re boring as shit,” Chelsea complains, and not for the first time tonight.
“I know they’re boring, but I need to do it, and like you said earlier, it’s faster if you guys help me,” I say, using her earlier words against her while batting my lashes.
She places a plate of toasted bread and veggie crudités with a whipped feta and truffle dip drizzled in truffle-infused honey and topped with crushed pistachios on the arm of the sofa beside me before setting two more plates around us and plopping down on the rug at my feet.
“You need brain fuel,” she says before shoving a piece of cucumber with the dip in her mouth.
“Clearly,” Adhira says, leaning over to grab one of the plates from the coffee table.
As much shit as she talks about Chelsea leaving a mess in the kitchen, she’s usually the first one to eat whatever she’s made, so long as it’s vegetarian.
Though recently she’s been eating less and less, and it’s starting to worry me.
“Alright, let’s finish this shi—ahhhhh! Oh, fuck no!” Letty screeches, jumping up and onto the back of the couch, plate in hand as she continues pointing and shrieking.
“What?!” I yell at her and watch in horror as Chelsea’s eyes land on the thing causing Letty’s outburst.
Chelsea’s massive blue eyes are the size of saucers as she stares down at a spider so fucking big, I swear to god it’s making eye contact with me.
“Oh, hell,” I say, pulling Chelsea up and into my lap.
Adhira shakes her head, rolls over the back of the couch, and sprints up the steps with her plate of food. “You lot can deal with that mess yourselves,” she deadpans.
“Oh, great! Just leave us down here to be eaten alive!” Letty hollers at her, but her words are met with the sound of Adhira’s bedroom door slamming shut.
I take a deep, calming breath before pushing Chelsea’s bony ass, scooting her onto the centre cushion. “It’s fine,” I say, but I’m pretty sure my lip is wobbling as I do. I’m trying to put on a brave face.
“It’s big, but it’s not like, you know, cat-sized or anything, right?” I ask, trying to reason through this.
“We’re going to die here, Elise. That thing is moving in, and we’re going to pay its rent in exchange for our safe departure. That is what’s happening here,” Letty says, shaking her head at me.
“We’re not. I’m gonna kill it,” I tell her, climbing off of the sofa. It turns to face me, jolting forward a couple of inches as if it’s a full-grown human man ready to compare the sizes of our dicks. Newsflash but this spider has a bigger prick than I do, even on my most courageous day.
I sprint around the coffee table, swinging the pantry door open and grabbing the broom before slowly approaching the spider.
I raise the broom but before I can smack it over the spider, Chelsea shouts at me, putting a frantic hand out to stop me.
“Wait! The fucking thing has babies on its back,” she yells on a full-blown sob.
“What the fuck do you mean?!” I ask, shouting as I tiptoe backward and climb onto a barstool.
“If you hit the fucking thing, it’ll explode with babies everywhere, and she’ll have an army to do her bidding against us in her honour!”
“Oh, Jesus Christ. New plan.” I wiggle up onto the kitchen island and pull out my phone, dialling Rafael’s number.
He answers on the first ring. “Hey, baby. Want me to come over?”
“God, yes!” I shout. “Get here fast.”
“Everything okay?” he asks, his voice deepening with concern, any hint of flirtation now gone.
“Just hurry!” I say before hanging up to stare our assailant down.
A few short minutes later, a timeframe that should be entirely impossible given the distance from Rafael’s place to mine, he’s banging on the door, shouting for me to open up.
I hop down from the counter, bringing the broom with me for safety, and unlock the door, pulling it open.
Rafael’s eyes are wild as he inspects my face. “Sunshine, what’s wrong?” he asks.
I hear gasps from behind me. “I fucking knew ‘sunshine’ and ‘Sunny D’ were code names!” Letty yells at us, pointing a manicured finger in our direction.
Chelsea swats her hand down. “Doesn’t matter anymore. He’s here, and he’s our saviour!”
“Saviour? What’s going on in here?” he asks, taking a tentative step into the living room.
He looks down to where we all point, and he physically jumps. It looks like his soul just left his body, and I’m suddenly realising that he may not be the saviour we’d hoped he’d be.
“Excuse me, are you afraid of spiders?” I ask, sounding incredulous.
His dark eyes swing to mine. “Uh-uh. Don’t do that,” he says, shaking his head. “Don’t make me feel like an idiot when you called me here because you’re afraid of those creepy little bastards too!”
At precisely that moment, the spider lunges at him, sprinting directly toward his feet. Rafael jumps over it and crawls his massive bulk onto our kitchen island, which looks so much smaller with his giant frame lying overtop of it.
“I’ll give you a blowy to kill the damn thing! Let that give you strength,” I urge him, thrusting the broom into his hands, but he shakes his head adamantly, letting the broom clatter to the ground.
“You would’ve given me a blowy anyway!” he yells back at me. “ That ”—he points to the spider—“is not a spider, Elise! It’s a small dog with rabies. You’re better off burning the bloody house down!”
I stare down at the furry, wide-eyed spider. It looks like it’s ready to chest bump me to show me it’s the bigger woman here, so I do the only acceptable thing, catapulting off of the counter and running like hell out of the fucking house, slamming the door behind me.
I make it to the porch, letting out a relieved sigh as I take a seat on the bench and peer inside through the small window beside the door.
Each time the spider moves, Rafael, Chelsea, and Letty scream their heads off, and I can’t help the laughter that spills out of me at the sight. Who would’ve known watching a big man like Rafa yell like that would be so damn funny?
I hear the stomping before I see her.
Adhira’s back in her fluffy green robe with an empty plate and a look that could kill.
She swings it around the room as she approaches the kitchen, setting the dish in the sink before bending down.
When she pops back up, she’s holding a can in one hand, grabbing the discarded broom I’d left with the other.
She glares at each one of us, including me, through the window before she leans over the spider and sprays a stream of something at it for several long seconds.
I hold my breath as I watch with wide eyes, waiting for the thing to attack her, and when it doesn’t, she slams the broom over it as we all shriek in unison, Rafa included.
She sets the items on the ground, leaving the spider to her very timely demise and grabs the plate of dip and vegetables from Chelsea’s hand before climbing back up the steps without a single word.
Rafael takes a tentative step off of the counter, his big toe touching the ground before he waits another beat just to be sure the spider really is dead, and then makes his descent down.
He picks up the broom and spray can, and announces, “It’s all clear. It’s definitely not coming back from that.”
After he’s cleaned up the mess, I head inside and spend the rest of the night working on the essay, this time, with Rafael’s help speeding things along, and I do give him that blowy, even if he didn’t deserve it.