First Look: Chapter One of Unlucky Like Us (Patreon)

And so it is finally here! The very first chapter of Unlucky Like Us. It is a pretty sizable chapter, and we hope you all enjoy the very start of this romantic, heart-aching, angsty, cosmic adventure with Luna & Donnelly! Happy Reading!! 👽💜💘✨⌛️🌟

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IF I COULD STAY on the shingled roof for another lightyear, I would. I’d never unplant my butt from this very spot. I’d just wait here until my dad changes his mind and gives Donnelly permission to date me.

I think I have a better chance of rotting away on the roof.

Donnelly has disappeared into the dark of my parents’ backyard. After fighting to see the last outline of his body, he’s just…gone. Instead of glancing up at the twinkling stars, I gaze down at the sketch he just drew for me.

Black pen bleeds into the ripped paper: him and me kissing among whirling planets and stars, all fancifully drawn in one continuous line. Like we’re forever connected to the galaxy of our dreams. I clutch the sketch protectively. It’s the embodiment of us. Of what we could be.

Of what I hope we will be.

I hate that it still feels so out of reach. Like this happily ever after version of us lives in another timeline. But I know what Donnelly would say. I can practically feel the warmth of him beside me, murmuring the loving words against the pit of my ear.

“Believe with me.”

I whisper in the night, “I want to.” Oh, how I want to. The cynical pieces of me struggle to cling on to that light. Reality is darker. Sadder. Bleaker.

I try to take a breath. The savory smell of meatloaf wafts through my open window. Joining a family dinner is the last thing I feel like doing. An ache has blossomed in my chest, and I don’t know how to temper the pain other than to transplant it with anger.

We didn’t need my dad’s permission to date. Not really.

Donnelly and I are both adults. We’re not stuck in some medieval romance where he has to beg the king to wed the princess. It’s not like that at all. Though, here on this planet, I am considered an American princess. Fame and media are usually the bigger considerations when dating anyone.

How much privacy will they lose?

How much media attention will I gain dating so-and-so?

Will the public hate them or love them?

We haven’t even breached that stage of deliberation. We’re trapped in the beginning.

I do understand that Donnelly wants this to be easier for both of us, and that means having my dad on our side. It’s a rational plan. A good plan.

Especially if my dad’s hatred of Donnelly somehow becomes a headline: Loren Hale Disapproves of Daughter’s New Boyfriend! I could see the press eating up the rivalry like it’s a seven-course meal.

I just hate this shitty outcome where my dad told Donnelly to live in purgatory until his family is no longer a threat. Tears prick my eyes. Because I know, deep down, that Donnelly’s family might always be a threat. And what then?

We’ll never be together.

“Luna?!” my sister calls out. “Mom told me to come get you for dinner!”

With the sketch in my fingers, I hug my knees to my chest and blink repeatedly to keep the waterworks at bay. My throat swells too much to talk.

“Luna?!” Kinney’s voice grows louder. I imagine she’s walking deeper into my room. “Are you on the roof? You’re not trying to get beamed up again, are you?” There’s a sharpness to her voice like she thinks the idea is completely absurd.

Some of my very first trips to my roof were in pursuit of being taken away by extraterrestrial life. By you, unearthly reader. Not only to see a new planet. New galaxy. But I felt like the only way to escape my problems was to leave this planet. The idea of being kidnapped and swept away somewhere better had this dark allure.

I guess it doesn’t seem as cool now.

Donnelly probably wouldn’t be beamed up with me, and I don’t really want to live on a planet where he’s not there.

“Luna, did you hear me?” Kinney steps closer to my window and sticks half her body outside.

I turn my head a fraction, and her narrowed green eyes fix on mine. Dyed black hair is chopped at her collarbones, bangs shading her brows.

“The aliens aren’t coming for you,” she deadpans. “But if you fall off the roof, you will turn into a ghost.”

She sounds so much like our dad. It just enlarges a rock in my esophagus. Words are lodged.

“I’ll be down in a sec,” I say so quietly. I’m unsure if she hears.

Her black-painted lips draw into a thin line, and her vexed expression is riddled with blistering concern. Kinney wears worry like a dress made of razor blades. Unapproachable, untouchable. It’s as hard for me to near her as it’d be for any enemy.

We continue to lock eyes in a game of chicken, unmoving and unspeaking and waiting for the other to spew their thoughts. I’ve never been a great competitor at anything, but breaking contact first sounds as exhausting as spilling my heart.

So I just stare at my sister.

She’s sixteen now, but her gangly frame and youthful face shave years off her age. Like me and our mom, she could pass for several years younger, and even though she’s firmly a teenager, I still feel the five whole years that separate us like boulders we can’t push.

Years don’t always create caverns and mountains between siblings. Sulli and Winona are secret-handshake, hip-bump close, but for some reason, Kinney and I never reached that tip in the sister pyramid.

I think it’s because she’ll always be closer to Xander, the way that I’m closer to Moffy. Maybe she’s contemplating this too because she finally blurts out, “I’ll go get Moffy.”

“No,” I say hurriedly. “I’m fine. I promise.” I make a move towards the window to demonstrate just how fine I am. While I step through the threshold, my sneaker catches on the windowsill, and I awkwardly splat on my fuzzy rug in a belly flop.

Oof. Beached flounder has become me.

She blinks. “Super graceful.”

I burrito-roll onto my back. While I take a heavy breath, she’s extending a hand to me. I clasp her palm, and she helps me rise to my feet. The sketch is still in my possession. Carefully, I slip the paper underneath my bed pillow.

I remember Donnelly’s words as he called up to me. “That’s what I imagine in the end. You and me and our galaxy. And maybe I don’t want you to forget it.”

“I never will,” I told him.

I never will.

It’s this tiny, delicate ember of hope that I’m trying to cradle close.

Kinney watches me hide my sketch as if it’s a diary. “What’s that?”

“A drawing.” Just a future not yet written. But I hear Donnelly again, telling me it’s in the stars. It’s already written.

I’m trying to believe.

My ribs constrict, and gradually, I face my sister.

Kinney crosses her arms, her sheer black sleeves complementing the dress-overalls she wears. Dark shadowy makeup further boldens her green eyes. “I’m not a fool, you know. I saw Donnelly talking to Dad. Then he came up here, and next thing you know, he’s sliding down your drainpipe to leave.”

Red heat bathes my cheeks. “You were watching from a window?” How else did she get that visual?

“Xander and I were.” She examines me, up and down, as though she can exhume every buried secret. But even with all my secrets, I’m almost positive who knows what.

The “good head” experiment is only known by my penthouse roommates and Oscar (Donnelly’s best friend/Charlie’s bodyguard).

Most of those roommates see Donnelly and me as close friends with inside jokes and flirty inclinations. If they have their suspicions about a secret relationship, they haven’t shared them with me.

Only Farrow and Maximoff really suspect we’re more than we were since Halloween, a week ago. The night of our first kiss.

No one knows Donnelly is StaleBread89.

No one knows for sure that Donnelly and I had sex.

So Xander and Kinney are among the ones that have zero idea that I’ve had any romantic involvement with Donnelly. In their eyes, we’re just friends.

And now she’s starting to Nancy Drew this like it’s The Case of Her Big Sister’s Strange Love Life. I guess Donnelly visiting my bedroom is fishy—even if I could blame it on a friendly encounter.

“Okay,” I breathe, my eyes raw. My heart has already floated out of my body. I think I truly did give it to Donnelly before he left.

“Okay?” She sounds harsh, but her frown deepens. “Are you upset about him or are you upset about your leaked fics?”

The leaked fics happened at 2 a.m.—last night or this morning, depending on your viewpoint of 2 a.m.—and it feels as fresh as Donnelly just leaving my parents’ house. My Fictitious account is deactivated. Gone. My stories like Human Him, Cosmic Her are no longer on the web for people to disparage, but screenshots are forever.

The internet is forever.

I haven’t looked again to see what people are saying. I’m scared.

Really scared.

An overwhelming pressure tries to crush my chest, and I intake a tighter breath.

“I don’t know,” I mutter.

“You don’t know?” she snaps like that’s impossible.

How could I not know what’s troubling me? I do know. I know it’s everything. I know it’s easier to just shut down. To switch an off button.

Staring far away at the floorboards, I lift my hoodie’s hood over my head, and I imagine I’m disintegrating after a Thanos snap. I’m fluttering pieces of dust, drifting into the air. No one feels pain after they dust. They’re just gone.

Invisible.

Not present for the bad days, the awful months, and then they reemerge years later as time has passed without them. Without me.

“Luna,” Kinney says shakily.

I’m not looking at my sister. My life—it’s changed in ways I didn’t imagine. In ways I didn’t want. With my fics. With Donnelly.

We can’t be together.

Not yet.

Maybe never.

Pain flares again, and I try to go numb.

“Luna,” Kinney forces out my name.

“What do you want me to do?” I whisper.

“Something! Don’t just stand there looking dead!” It’s then that I hear her panic, and I avoid her gaze while I skim the bookshelves in my childhood bedroom and the star embroidered fabric tapestries billowing from the ceiling.

What would Kinney do if her heart was broken?

Destroy.

Everything.

Breath stuck in my throat, I bolt to my desk and sweep my arms across the surface. A metal lamp, Marvel comic books, and Funko Pops crash against the floor. I don’t stop to revel in the destruction. I just create more like a wild creature has body-snatched me. Blood pumping hot, I rip at the hanging fabrics. Dark blue tapestries tear from their thumbtacks in the ceiling.

“Oh…kay, okay…this is good,” Kinney says, more to herself. Louder, she tells me, “Let it out, Luna. Go for the pillows!”

I fling some bed pillows, my off-kilter pulse ringing in my ears.

“The bookcase!”

Quickly, I charge for the bookcase, I throw Star Wars novels on the ground. One by one, books I reread and reread, their spines lovingly worn—they meet the floorboards with a loud thump. Oxygen is hard to reach, caged inside me with an unfamiliar beast.

I chuck volumes of New Mutants my mom bought me when I was twelve, and they slam against the walls. Hot tears burn but don’t escape. A feral growl rumbles through my heaving body, and I hurl an armful of Dawn of X comics on the floor in a heavy heap.

“Keep going!” Kinney encourages.

I grip the dark brown bookcase and pull. I want the entire thing off its hinges, out of the wall. I want every single item on this shelf to meet a new distorted and battered position, to feel exactly how I feel.

I scream and rattle the bookcase, possessed with the rawest rage and pain. It hurts. It’s been hurting, and now it’s erupting outside of me.

With strength—strength I didn’t realize I have—the wide bookcase lets out a sudden creak and shifts forward. Collectibles and paperbacks begin to slide at me.

“Luna, not that!” Kinney shouts. “Push it back!”

I don’t.

I want this.

Comics pelt my head from the top shelves. A ceramic Spider-Man mug shatters at my bare feet.

“LUNA!” Kinney is standing further away, safe from the avalanche.

The bookcase weighs a million times more than I can brace, and as the entire wooden structure teeters forward, I want it to bury me. I want to live underneath the rubble of my childhood. Maybe it’ll be where you find me.

In this single solitary moment, I’m not scared of being crushed.

That should scare me, I think.

“LUNA!” Kinney shrieks in pure terror. Her voice jolts me. She’s watching. I try to push at the bookcase and support the weight for my sister. My arms tremble, tendons screaming in my forearms and shoulders.

It’s too heavy.

It’s coming down.

I am the creator of my own doom.

“Kin—” I start, but her name is torn out of my throat as someone barrels towards me.

Mom.

Her wide panicked eyes are on this impending demise, and quickly, she clutches the frame of the bookcase—the bookcase that’s at least three arm-spans wide. The bookcase that nearly swallows my entire wall. The bookcase that’s seconds from crushing me.

She tries to heave the thing upright.

“Go, Luna! Leave!” Mom yells at me. I’ve never heard her yell like that—with so much urgency and distress.

She can’t support the weight on her own either, so I stay and try to dig my feet in. Kinney is suddenly on my other side, using her back and shoulder blades to thrust the bookcase to its original position.

It’s at a fifty-degree angle.

It’s bearing on all three of us.

“We can’t,” I mutter, breath knotted inside me.

“We can,” our mom says through gritted teeth, trying her mightiest to upright what I’ve dislodged. Guilt nips at me. “On the count of three, we all push our hardest, okay? One, two, three.”

We push. My arms vibrate, and I hate the little voice in the back of my head, whispering that we can’t, telling me to just end it.

Give.

Up.

Luna.

I don’t want to. I don’t want to. I don’t ever want to be that person.

Tears burn my eyes. I hate how exhausted I already feel. I hate how I want to erase two nights in a row.

But then, I don’t.

I never want to erase Donnelly.

“Is it moving?” Kinney questions.

“Yeah,” Mom nods profusely, sweat beading her forehead. “It’s almost there.”

It hasn’t budged.

“Again,” Mom decrees. “One, two, three.”

We heave. I start to lose my grip and my feet slide. No, no! “Mom!” I shout as the bookcase groans and tips forward on us. This is all my fault.

“Okay, we need reinforcements,” Mom realizes in a quick, panting breath. “Lo! Lo! LOREN HALE GET YOUR BUTT UP HERE!!” Her panicked words in a scream do the trick.

Footsteps pound harder than my heart, and more than just my dad appears.

“Jesus, Lily,” Dad says, fear encasing my mom’s name. He’s already racing into my bedroom, along with my brothers and Farrow.

They all ram the bookcase against the wall. Xander uses his shoulder like Kinney had been. The structure thunks against the plaster and then stays eerily motionless.

As the dust silently settles and I’m still here among broken mugs and thrown books—I’m not invisible; I haven’t dusted yet—their eyes veer around the destruction and onto me.

The source.

I’m…ashamed.

I’ve never shown my pain like Kinney, and it’s too loud and exposed.

“I’ll get a broom,” Mom says with a hearty nod, beelining for the door. “Everything’s going to be okay, Luna!” She shouts super quickly on her way into the hall. Moffy follows in a jog and says something about Ripley being in his highchair.

I blink repeatedly like I’ll finally inherit teleportation. My mom says it could’ve skipped several generations, and we truly don’t know whether Great Grandma Pearl had superpowers or not. She died before I was born, but Dad always disputed the idea and said the woman never left Palm Beach.

To which, Mom replied, that we know of.

I like my mom’s imaginative version of Great Grandma Pearl—a superpowered woman who explored the world without anyone ever suspecting. I picture happy wrinkles around her wide smile while she’s riding a moped in Florence with a hot Italian hunk. In the next hour, she’s sipping tea in London by her awesome self, then she’s exploring the Pyramids in Cairo with her sister Margot and ferrying along the Golden Horn in Istanbul.

Charlie said it’s one of his favorite ferry rides, and I’m still surprised he answered me when I asked him about the best ferries in the world.

So in this moment of my life, I am blinking and blinking and hoping Great Grandma Pearl’s teleportation existed and that it finally transfers to me.

Please.

I don’t know how to recover from destroying my childhood room. My parents could’ve turned this space into another office or gym. Instead, they preserved it for me.

That’s how good they are.

How kind.

And how dumb I am—to ruin it. Over what? Throwing my books isn’t going to bring him back!

“What the hell happened?” my dad asks, out of breath. The sharpness of his gaze cuts from me to my sister.

Kinney is waiting for me to explain. To share what I never shared with her: the details.

I bring the collar of my hoodie up to my eyes. My chest is being crushed with a weight heavier than the bookcase. Turning away from them, I go towards my bed and trip over the comics I’d thrown.

My knees hit the floor.

Farrow bends down, his arms around me while I crumple. A gnarled sound I’ve never heard myself make suddenly ruptures out of my lungs, and I choke on a scream.

The scream morphs into me crying into my hoodie.

I hate this feeling that claws at me. I hate it so much.

Knelt behind me, Farrow has a calming hand on my neck. He might be my brother’s husband, but he’s been a friend to me—and it’s nice…it is really nice having him here. Once he whispers for me to breathe deep breaths, my cries die like a wounded bird going motionless, and I try to take a lungful of air.

I rub at my splotchy, hot cheeks and fight the urge to hide in my hoodie.

“It has to be her fics, right?” Xander asks softly. “It’s going to be okay, Luna.”

My dad looks distraught seeing me in this much pain, but I’m avoiding his daggered eyes more than anyone. I just can’t…

It’s going to be okay, Luna.

I shake my head slowly.

“I know…” Xander stammers for the words. “I know it feels like it never will be.”

I lift my anguished gaze to my seventeen-year-old brother. Xander Hale isn’t a supernova in my sky. He’s not Eliot or Tom or even Moffy. He’s my little brother who was stuck inside a decrepit, often dusty and darkened castle, and if anyone knows the roadmap out of that awful place, it’d be him.

Chunky red headphones rest around his neck, and pieces of his shaggy brown hair touch the lashes of his expressive amber eyes. It’s hard to look away.

“I know you don’t want to be here…” Xander tells me. “But you have to ignore that voice. Not forever. Just ignore it this minute, this shitty second.”

This minute.

This second.

I inhale slowly.

“Small hurdles, you know?” Xander says quietly. “You can do that. I know you can, sis. You’re way stronger than me.”

Hot tears fall in a blink because I don’t think I ever have been. I think sometimes I’m the weakest of the entire Hale family. Or maybe, I’m just the hardest on myself, but how can I even be certain that’s true?

“It’s Donnelly,” Kinney says with bite. “He hurt her.”

No.

The word is lost inside my swollen throat. I start to shake my head, and Farrow looks out at Kinney like she’s so wrong. Thank you!

“He’d never hurt Luna,” Farrow says like it’s unfathomable.

She humphs, arms still crossed.

His brows rise. “He’d sooner hurt himself, Kinney.”

She snaps, “You’re just saying that because he’s your friend.”

“No, I’m saying that because I know my friend.”

“But you don’t know what he did!” Kinney charges forward, and our dad puts a hand on her bony shoulder, stopping her in place. “He was in her room! And then he left, and she looked…she was…” She lets out a frustrated, upset huff. “We don’t know what he did, okay? He could’ve broken her heart or made some kind of unconsented move on her.”

“Whoa,” Farrow cuts in with arched brows. “Let’s take a giant step back here.”

“I’m not talking to you. You’re biased. Dad.” She rotates to our dad, who has been gazing out the ajar window like Donnelly might still be on the roof. It’d be too much to hope he’s wishing for Donnelly’s peaceful existence. It’s more likely he’s hoping he can drag him back inside and grill him.

“Luna and Donnelly are friends,” Xander pipes in before our dad can. “I’m with Farrow—he wouldn’t hurt her. This is probably about her fics.”

“You’re biased too.” Kinney turns on him. “Donnelly is your bodyguard. Dad is the only rational one here.”

Xander groans. “You’re always going to take Dad’s side.”

Kinney glares. “No, I’m taking Luna’s side. Our sister. I know a broken heart when I see one because mine has been pulverized. What has yours been? Fully intact. Never toyed with. No signs of scar tissue. Nothing.”

Xander stares deeper into Kinney. “So what?”

“So you would think this has to do with her fics because the media is your horror, but heartbreak is hell. And to quote one of your fictional favorites, ‘You. Know. Nothing.’”

Xander’s chest collapses.

The Game of Thrones reference lingers tensely in the air.

“Kinney,” Dad says a quiet reprimand, his hand still on her shoulder.

“What?” She twists her head to him. “It’s true, Dad. She has to be upset about Donnelly. I just know something happened, and we’re just going to do nothing?! Let’s hunt him down.” No. “Threaten his stupid mortal life and the lives of his future ugly children.” No. “That’s the least we could do—”

No! I splinter open. “He didn’t do anything except want to be with me!” I shout with everything inside my heart, my throat searing and scratched.

“What?” Kinney squeaks out, jaw unhinged.

Xander goes motionless, his hands on the headphones at his neck.

Mom with her broom and Maximoff with his son are in the doorway. Not sure how long they’ve been here, but Baby Ripley is perched on my brother’s waist. The one-year-old is totally quiet looking from Farrow to Moffy, as though his dads have the answer to the strangeness of tonight.

My cheeks feel warm again, and I imagine they’re beet-red and tear-splotched. But I pick myself off the ground, Farrow right behind me. All this time, I’ve felt protective over Donnelly. Over us. Over what we share together.

And I can’t let anyone in my family think the worst of him.

I just can’t.

I’d rather they know the painful truth. “He didn’t do anything except want to be with me,” I tell them more clearly.

“And you didn’t want to be with him?” Kinney asks with confusion. She glances to Dad. “We still might need to hunt him down.”

“What?” our mom’s eyes widen at our dad like the witch hunt was erected in her absence. And I guess it kinda was, but not by him. “There are no hunts of people. This isn’t The Hunger Games.”

“Thank you, Lily,” Farrow says.

“But it could be,” Kinney notes.

“Oh my God,” Farrow mutters and then looks at Moffy like, your sister, man.

Maximoff scrunches his brows. “Why would we hunt down Donnelly? He’s a good person.”

Kinney glowers at him. “You’ve been absent for half the conversation. So don’t come in here thinking you know what’s going on.”

“Jesus, Kinney. I’m just trying to understand.”

“And I’m just trying to protect Luna!” She throws up her hands. “What are you all doing?! Dad is with me at least. Dad.” She turns to him again.

“Shelve the pitchforks, Kinney,” he says gently and more quietly than softly, but then again, my dad’s voice is almost never soft.

“Not pitchforks. A sharpened knife.”

He squeezes her shoulder. “Shelve the knives, battleaxes, all weapons. We’re not pointing them at Paul Donnelly.”

It takes me aback. The certainty of his voice. Is he really not against Donnelly anymore?

Kinney frowns. She’s searching for an adversary of my broken heart. In the battle of good and evil, Kinney needs the villain of all villains to attack. “But Dad—”

“If you want to point a blade at someone, it’s going to be me—not him.”

Kinney jolts backwards like our dad electrocuted her. Her breathing heavies. “You didn’t do anything bad. You couldn’t…you wouldn’t?”

He wears a half-smile. “Me? Do something bad? I’d never.” His sarcasm and way of cheering up Kinney lands lifeless in the tense room.

“Dad,” she says, sounding scared. “What’d you do?”

He lets out a breath, glances at our mom for support, and then holds out a reassuring hand. “I meant that if you go after Paul, you’re going to have to go through me. I’m standing in front of him, and just so everyone in the room knows”—he spins around to lock eyes with each of us, staying on me for an extended beat—“I haven’t been easy on him. I might’ve even been hell for him.” He cringes into another dry smile. “So…it’s complicated.” He claps his hands together. “Class dismissed. Let’s clean this up. Help your sister—”

“Wait a minute,” Xander interjects. “That’s it? You’re leaving out like half the fucking story.”

“Yeah,” Kinney says. “This doesn’t make sense. Why are you protecting Donnelly? And from what? And what does that even have to do with Luna?”

Mom sweeps the shattered ceramic mug into a dust bin. It’s the only sound outside of our dogs whining behind the closed door.

Either my dad is struggling to unleash the full truth out of respect for me and Donnelly, or because he’s not sure how much Kinney and Xander should know.

I decide to just tell them. It’s better than lying, and they’re not accepting any vague picture anymore.

“Donnelly came here tonight to ask Dad for permission to date me,” I explain. “Of what Donnelly told me, Dad said, not yet.” I turn to him for confirmation.

He nods once, his neck taut and muscles flexed. “Yep. That happened.”

Maximoff and Farrow exchange an unreadable look.

“You like him?” Kinney asks with a deeper frown, and I wonder if she’s baffled on how she missed this rare, strange occurrence. Me falling for Xander’s bodyguard.

I just nod, words feeling too tender and fragile to share.

Xander stares at the floorboards, unblinking.

“Why not yet?” Kinney asks our dad. “If they both like each other, what’s the big deal?”

“His family,” Dad starts to say, just as Xander suddenly bolts out of the room.

“Summers!” Maximoff calls after our brother, but Xander is gone. He leaves, hopefully just for his bedroom. Our parents share a quick glance, and I think they’re deciding on who stays for me and who goes for him, but Maximoff makes things easy.

He passes Baby Ripley to Farrow and says, “I’ll go check on him.” Quickly, Moffy runs after our brother, his footsteps echoing down the hallway. “Xander!” I hear the slam of a bedroom door. The opening of it. The close of it again.

Xander’s not so great reaction to knowing I’m falling for his bodyguard—and that Donnelly has attempted to be with me—is sitting like curdled milk in my stomach.

“Why is he this upset?” my dad questions Farrow, his ass now in the hot seat.

My temples start pounding from the mental detours.

“You’re asking me?” Farrow adjusts his son on his hip.

“You do know Paul the best of everyone here.”

Ouch.

But I guess that’s probably true. Farrow knows Donnelly in ways that I might never learn or come to discover. That sucks—the idea that I can’t even voyage deeper into Donnelly’s mind, his heart. That the exploration has limitations and borders, and I’m standing at the No Entry sign.

Farrow tips his head. “That’s definitely debatable.”

“Debatable, okay.” Dad nods a lot and paces a short distance back and forth. “You know what? I have a serious problem with you right now and it’s not even funny.”

Oh no.

“Unlucky Like Us," Copyright © 2023 by K.B. Ritchie