Pull

It’s a real self-esteem booster. I groaned into my hands.

“You’ll be fine, Demetri. I promise.”

“What am I going to do?” I whined.

Nat laughed. “Why don’t you work?”

“I work.”

“You’ve been sitting on your butt ever since the accident.

You haven’t even written one song — not even a jingle. Why don’t you get a job?”

Bob laughed from the corner.

I narrowed my eyes at him and pointed harshly before turning back to Nat. “Sorry, babe I don’t know the meaning of the word.”

“You put in hours, make money, pay bills.”

“Hmm, sounds an awful lot like prostitution, and I don’t want to give away the goods for free, if you get my meaning.”

Nat groaned and put her face in her hands.

I grinned, liking our little exchange. No way in hell was I getting a job.

“I’ve got it!” Nat jumped from her seat. “Follow me!”

She ran up the stairs.

I chose not to follow.

Hey, I almost died! Physical exertion? Not my thing. I was the type of guy that had the six-pack abs without even trying.

Pretty sure that was another reason I got hate mail.

Nat came back downstairs and breezed past me. “Close your eyes.”

I glared.

“Just do it!”

“Fine.” I closed my eyes and waited, while she fashioned something on my head.

“Okay, open!”

I opened my eyes and slowly walked to the kitchen mirror. I gazed at my reflection and swore. Nat was jumping wildly behind me. Bob was trying his best not to laugh.

“Hell. No.” I reached up for the visor on my head that said Seaside Taffy, but Nat swatted my hand away.

“It will be perfect! You’ll see!”

“No, I won’t, because I’m not doing it. No.” I shook my head and crossed my arms. “No. Never.”

Nat smiled and pulled out her phone. “We’ll see about that.”

“Who are you calling?” I tried to keep the panic from my voice.

“Your brother.”

“Why?”

“I’m going to tell him you tried to get me to give you a sponge bath tonight.”

I cursed. “You wouldn’t.”

“I would.” She held the phone up. “Take the job, Demetri.

Make friends. Get a life.”

“Sometimes I wish we weren’t friends.”

She threw back her head and laughed. “No, you don’t. You love me, and I love you.”

“That’s what got me in this stupid situation in the first place,” I grumbled, keeping the visor on and slumping into the nearest chair.”

“Just think,” Nat leaned over me whispering. “You can try all the taffy flavors! Bob over there is on number two hundred already.”

“Swell.” How sad that trying every taffy flavor was supposed to be a perk.

“Oh, and Demetri? Mr. Smith says an early riser is a happy worker!”

Chapter Two

Demetri

Add evil.

Malicious.

Manipulative.

And crazy to all of Nat’s attributes. Somehow she convinced her old boss that not only would it bring lots of business into Seaside Taffy, but having a legit rock star singing on the street would be almost like a tourist attraction.

Alec wasn’t any help at all. I begged. I pleaded. I called my agent and told him I would gain a hundred pounds, and he would find his money maker face down in a pile of taffy wrappers, dead from asphyxiation, or worse in a sugar coma.

But they all laughed. Yup, they laughed. And told me it was a good idea.

I was not amused.

And I am still not amused.

Not when I was driving to an actual job in a Mercedes that costs more than the building the taffy is sold in.

Nor when I got out of the car, grabbed my bucket — yes, there is an actual taffy bucket — and plopped myself on the corner of the street.

I’ve been at it for around five days now. Five days of pure hell with tourists dodging me and paparazzi grinning as they snapped my photo. The first day hadn’t been so bad — nobody had known it was me, thanks to the over-large taffy visor. I wasn’t really sure if it was something to be thankful for, considering satellites could pick up my beacon of bright fuchsia on the visor, but whatever.

The second day was by far the worst. Cameras went off like wildfire, and I’m pretty sure that a chick tried to stick taffy that I had touched down her shirt. I didn’t even want to know the reason behind that one.

People gathered around. They expected me to sing the jingle, like always. I wanted to kill myself. Why didn’t I die in that accident?

“Seaside Taffy,” I began, my voice cracked. It hadn’t cracked since I was twelve. Again, I wanted to die. “Loads of fun, in your tummy! Yum, yum, yum…” I swear I could feel Bob snickering from twenty feet away; it never got old. “Ice cream, taffy, treats galore! Don’t forget to stop at our store!” I gave a dramatic bow.

I expected applause, or at least some sort of acknowledgement that I had, in fact, just given the best performance of my life.

What did I get? One solitary clap. One person. I cringed, thinking of the pity clap. It’s the type of applause every performer dreads hearing. Swearing, I turned around. It was a girl. She looked about as old as a first grader.

“Want some taffy?”

I held out a piece of taffy, and the mom suddenly looked horrified, like I was planning on putting a taffy trail all the way to my car in order to abduct her child.