A Little Dinged Up (gxg)

Chapter 14

Ava – Lylah, I have to say goodbye for now. I know this is going to hurt you, and I'm so sorry, but I need to protect myself too. It has become too painful spending all this time with you and falling harder for you every day. I'm flying to Nashville tonight to get used to the area for the movie, so don't try to find me. I know I need to wait until you talk to Trish to get an answer, but my heart can't wait. My heart wants to be with you now, and my head can't handle this. I need a break from you to get myself into the right frame of mind to shoot this movie. I know the kiss might have been a mistake, but I'll never regret it. I needed you to know what our kisses could be like before you make a final decision. I know you and Trish have history, but we could make our own too. I guess I just had to throw my hat into the ring to let you know what we could be. If you decide to give me a chance once you're done talking, Madison can get a hold of me for you. If you decide to be with Trish, or decide to take some time for yourself, then let me know that too. In the meantime, please take care. Do something crazy for me, you haven't been yourself lately, and I think everyone misses you. Live your life. I'll be waiting.

She wanted me to do something crazy for her. I liked the sound of that. If she wanted me to go crazy, then I could go crazy. Maybe it was time to get back to my roots and do something stupid. Like, really stupid.

I pulled my phone out and called Miki, just to see if she could help me out.

"Hello? Lylah?" she answered after only one ring.

"Hey Miki, think I could trade some favors?"

"Ha! Absolutely not, I still owe you favors!"

"Fine, but I want to do a few things, and you can tell me which ones you're up for. First, I need a pet sitter for Queen Nefertiti. Think you could pop over and check on her a few times a day for the next week or so?"

"Of course!" Damn, Miki is just too bubbly for words. "I'd do that for free!"

"Fine, but I'm still throwing other things out there. So, second thing, feel like being my plus one to the streamer awards in a few weeks? Or are you already going?" I asked. I didn't want to tell her that the original plan was to bring Ava and Titty with me and have her feel like a second choice. I just wanted a friendly face for company at this point.

"Oh my god yes! I didn't get an invite to this one, I'd love to go! Thank you, thank you thank you!" she squealed.

"Okay, and the last one. Since you're doing me those favors, I want to go with you the next time you review something you think is going to be fun. It will be a little collaboration. But then I get to use you in a collaboration back, but I'm still working on that one."

"I still think I'm getting the better end of the deal here," Miki pointed out. She might be right, but I had nobody else I could turn to unless I asked Georgia, and there was no way I was leaving Titty with my shrink. She'd start looking at me with raised kitty eyebrows or something once I got her back.

"Does that mean you'll do it?"

"Of course! I just need a key to your place, and I can handle it. My parents let me drive now that I just turned 18!"

"Wait, you did? How did I miss your birthday? Happy birthday then!" Shit, I needed to get her a present.

"It wasn't like you could have known. I didn't tell anyone. Don't sweat it, Besides, all of this is like the best present ever! Did I tell you that TMZ already reached out and wants to pay me if you and Ava give me another interview? I have almost five million subscribers now thanks to that video, and it keeps going up!" she gushed.

I couldn't help but smile, since I was one of those new subscribers. She made great videos, so I was glad that she was getting a bigger following now. The best part was that her videos and mine could easily collaborate too, since she could review anywhere that I went to do something crazy, and I would be happy to relax after doing something and hang with her for her shoot. Granted, it might not be too easy until I figured out my personal life. But now that she was 18, she could take her show on the road, and be anywhere in the world.

"It won't stop going up if you keep doing what you're doing. You're great on camera, and you could easily start doing tours of the country and looking into different things to do and review in the cities that you stop in," I pointed out.

"No chance. My parents would never let me do that alone!"

"Who said you'd be alone? You have till the end of the school year to assemble a team like I used to have, and then you go as a group. Maybe find someone who reviews similar things, like restaurants, and you could double team each city. I can even join you in some places and you could review one of my venues."

She was silent for a minute, before I heard a few sniffles. "Do you really mean all that?"

"Of course, I do!" I assured her. "I need to get back to what I used to be doing. I've been slacking off for the last few months, I needed motivation, and this might be it. Working with you would be a blast."

"Damn, I really need to go, I'm going to be blubbering soon!" She was really full on crying right now, and while I knew they were happy tears, I was still feeling bad about it. "Oh, and you should check out the TMZ site, you might get a little bit of a laugh at Max Cox."

"Okay, you go, I'll go check that out."

I ended the call, and immediately went to find out what Max was doing on TMZ. Was it too much to hope that he was arrested for something? It wasn't long before I was reading the story and watching the video of Max stealing the next item on my yearly to-do stunt list, though this one he fucked up.

It was supposed to be a helicopter snowboard trip in Colorado, where they drop you at the top of the mountain and you snowboard down. My original plan was to do it at night, which would be more dangerous and exciting, but he'd been true to his dickless form and changed it to a daylight drop. It sent a pang through my heart to see Trish with him in the copter again, all snuggled up like a couple. I guess she really did move on. I remember sitting like that with her, her body soft against mine and her happy giggles, and felt bile rising in my throat.

She gave him the standard good luck kiss on the cheek, he gave his 'thanks twinkie!' response, and out the copter he went. But Max evidently wasn't good at snowboarding, and when he hit the snow, his board shot out sideways and he ended up just tumbling down the slope. Part of me hoped he'd turn into one of those giant snowballs, like they do in cartoons, but instead he just petered out and stopped after a nice long slide into a big rock. But still, the broken ankle and torn ACL that he was reported to have suffered would keep him out of action for a while.

It couldn't have happened to a bigger dick.

I had the beginning of some good thoughts, and most of them were nice and stupid. I quickly texted Miki, arranging for her to come by in the morning to get the keys, and then started making my travel arrangements. I had just under two weeks to travel to three states and do three videos, including the original nighttime version of the one that the dickless wonder had fucked up.

I was back!