Page 7 of Not Like The Other Girls

Whatever helps offload the bleating, boring llamas.

Every smirks at her. “I didn’t come here for the stupid llamas, darling, I came here for something even more stupid—you.”

Lily-darling—more obtuse than furry llamas, according to her future spouse—winces at the corny pickup line he must have picked up from the trash. The two other girls also make faces.

Well, that isn’t nice.

Lily snorts like a girl-boss wannabe, rolling her eyes. “Cut to the chase, my man. What did you actually come here for?”

“I came here to bring you out on a date,” Every says, combing his fingers through his thickly gelled hair, the three-million-dollar heirloom watch on his wrist glinting in the animal shelter’s blinking lights.

“And why would you do that, my man?”

“Because you are special, Lily-girl; you just don’t know it yet.”

“Well, next time can you just ask nicely? There is this very nice thing called manners, but I suppose you probably have no idea what it is. Scaling the house at one in the morning and pulling up here in your fast car to bitch everyone up and ruin the vibe is just way over the fucking top.”

“But I don’t need to ask. People obey me.”

Lily rolls her big doe eyes. “Nah, bro, stop being delusional. Newsflash: you are in an animal shelter, not a BDSM club. You ain’t got no authority over here.

“Of course I do. I am the king. The king of the land of smirks and sighs,” he says dramatically.

Lily simply stares at him, her jaw dropped onto the ground, her eyes wide as saucers, stunned by his grace and authority and nobility. An air of royalty seems to radiate around him.

“Tell me your heart’s desire, your grace; I shall do as you command,” Lily says in a strangled voice.

“Girly, don’t tell me you actually believe that shit,” Yang-Yang, who was eavesdropping on them while combing out the curly, bleached-white fur of one of the llamas, pipes up.

“I do,” Lily answers her like someone who was just proposed to, still lost in a haze of awe and wonder.

Jing-Jing curses under her breath. “Li-Li, my friend, I love you. But sometimes, I really can’t understand the levels of your stupidity.”

“But look, sugartits, I’m your boyfriend now,” Every, the seven-foot-tall tree guy, says, “so as my girlfriend, feel free to talk to me normally.”

In hindsight, it is unbelievable that anyone would have the guts to call anyone that pet name.

Except for Every the Oblivious, of course.



Lily Llama Lamina then proceeds to show Every the Pompous Ass around the tiny, rundown shelter that he actually owns, just another emphasis on how broke and trashy the whole town is, thanks to none other than the big bad Every’s family’s market monopolization and corruption.

Corruption is overrated, man.

Anyway.

“...and as I was saying, this darling llama, codenamed 007 after the famous British guy, is a real sweetheart. You know, it has extraordinarily soft fur, a soft, silly head, and most likely soft meat too, eaten raw or medium rare. Not that I have tried, of course, or this baby would no longer be alive,” Lily Lyinga Lindala rambles on about a random llama she also has been hoping to offload quite for a while now.

And of course, she is just making all the information up.

Just a minute ago, she had no idea what that animal’s name was.

All her furry, four-legged friends have always just been ‘bro’.

Her CEO pouts, crinkling his nose like a snobby old lady whose weekly shopping spree is being interrupted by a loud teenager on a skateboard. “Nope, next.”

So they move on to their twenty-fifth llama, a grey one, this one a real mean bitch with a knack for spitting on annoying human beings. It also hasn’t eaten for a couple of days, and though Lily-girl and her pals have already called the vet, Dr.Vetabury, she bailed at the last minute to go to her sister’s friend’s relative’s baby shower.