Chapter Text
Adam had placed the ad out of sheer perverse humor, absolutely certain that no one would bother to call him on it. For a short while, he achieved some internet fame as people passed it around on social media, obviously getting a kick out of the idea. He’d joked around with the girls at the bar and tattoo parlor he worked at, saying his Thanksgiving plans were all wrapped up and this was the way he’d be swimming in pussy by the end of the month.
Obviously, the whole thing was meant as a fucking joke. So, when he got the email from a Charlotte Morningstar, he’d been tempted to send her back something rude about her reading comprehension. Like, was it not clear that this was comedy? The fuck.
He showed it to Lute, who was in the middle of sketching out something for a client: a lion, holding a dagger in its mouth. Her skilled fingers easily traced out the minute details of the animal’s mane, her mouth set into a frown in concentration. The frown slipped into a wicked smirk as she read the email, her eyes lighting up slightly.
“What’s the problem?” she asked, setting her pencil down and giving him an expression that attempted innocent curiosity. Lute’s face wasn’t made for that, and her sharp amusement made her look like a cat waiting on a mouse to walk into a trap. “I thought this was your big holiday plan. I thought you were looking forward to all the ladies with daddy issues and the ‘fuck you dad’ sex.”
Going to Lute for sympathy for his bad decisions never turned out right, but for some reason he kept trying it. He just grumbled and put the phone back in his pocket.
“Anyway, why not do it?” Lute asked, turning back to her sketch. “It’s free dinner. Your ass doesn’t have family to go to on Thanksgiving. I’m too busy this year to do our usual ‘neither of us can cook’ dinner. You’re extremely good at being an annoying asshole, why not turn it into a fun way to get free turkey?”
Adam folded his arms and tried to be more insulted about that accusation, but the wheels in his head were already turning. Unfortunately. It wasn’t even as though this would be the worst decision he’d made on a holiday, really. That would have been the time one of his biker friends convinced him to dress like the grinch and steal their ex-girlfriend’s Christmas tree.
The night had ended in mayhem, with the tree sparking a minor electrical fire and Adam ending up tossing it into the outdoor pool. And then ripping off chunks of flaming grinch suit, screaming, as his accomplice hosed him down.
Apparently, the ex-girlfriend’s kid still had nightmares from watching it out his bedroom window.
Compared to that shitshow, this would only be a minor sort of shenanigan. Probably something he wouldn’t walk away with a property damage felony with. It wasn’t technically illegal to pick fights by antagonizing someone’s probably elderly, decrepit dad. Unless he, like, actually punched him. And Adam had some amount of self control as long as he didn’t dip into the recreational beverages.
“Well? Figured out what you’re doing yet?” Lute asked, looking up at him from her spread out stack of sketches. Someone seemed to have ordered one of a goth bear holding a chainsaw. The holidays always brought out the weird shit.
He shrugged, mulling it over. The girl had a whole screed laid out, with a father who was being a dick about her attempts to house and reform former criminals. She’d gone on some rant about the program itself and he zoned out every time he tried to read it, the whole thing seemed like she was some kind of charity ball debutante getting pissy about her dad giving her some hard truths.
Not like it mattered either way to him, in the end, as long as he got a dinner. Adam would be lying if he said it didn’t sound like fun to fuck with someone and get rewarded for it.
And so it came to pass that Adam decided to agree to be the fake dinner date of this do-gooder princess for Thanksgiving, with about the same amount of logical thought that went into his usual decision making. Which was to say, absolutely none.
That was how he found himself standing outside what looked like an actual palace, lodged in a neighborhood of similar McMansion atrocities, painted in cream and gold and trimmed with fancy scarlet accents. There had even been a stone wall around the property outfitted with a gate: an elaborate confection of gold-painted iron.
This made him slightly reconsider the choices he’d made up to this point. Adam had definitely watched all those movies where people were invited to a huge mansion and ended up getting hunted down and eaten. Like many people, he didn’t think he’d be that white girl in the horror movies ready to sign up to be a victim.
And yet, here he was at the door. Staring down an elaborate door knocker shaped like a snake.
Adam figured that at this point, he’d committed. He was already there, he’d cleared his (dismally empty) schedule, he was wearing his most edgy clothes and hadn’t bothered shaving. The time had come to troll the fuck out of someone’s dad, a role he was practically made for. Hopefully they didn’t have any personal bodyguards or, god forbid, a random sniper in residence.
He thwacked at the door knocker a few times, trying to be as loud and rude as possible. Might as well make a horrible first impression as part of this bit. When no one answered after that, he walloped the door with his fist instead.
Three ‘knocks’ in, the door swung wide open and he had to pull back on his next assault on the thing in order to keep from hitting the girl in the doorway.
She was exactly what he’d expected upon reading her entire, perky, heart emoji- dotted email. Taller than he’d thought, but still slim and blonde, her hair braided loosely down her back, her eyes sparkling brought. The girl practically bounced in place, clapping her pale hands together.
“Oh my god! You look perfect,” she squeaked at him before pulling him into the house. Charlotte Morningstar, who seemed too pleased for words by his ratty appearance, gave him a full once over before flashing a bright smile. “Perfect! Okay, so I know I covered the details in the email, but let’s go over it again real quick?”
Adam caught a glimpse of himself in a huge, gilded mirror near the door and brushed some hair out of his face. Between the stubble and his outfit, carefully selected to be as edgelord as possible, he looked like any dad’s worst nightmare. “Yeah, sure, babe. You want me to be the shitty bad boy boyfriend to piss off your dad, not a hard act to play.”
“Ohhh,” she said, clasping her hands together as her grin went a little fixed. “Did you not read the whole thing?”
Adam didn’t really want to confess at that moment that he’d skimmed through the paragraphs babbling about saving the poor criminals and integrating felons into society. He figured she wanted exactly what he’d advertised and had dressed accordingly.
The faintest concern that he’d spend the night outrunning some hounds flickered through his mind before he cleared his throat awkwardly. “I might have forgot some stuff? Am I not here to be your fake date?”
“Oh, no,” Charlotte— wait, she’d mentioned she went by Charlie in the email, waved a well-manicured hand at the notion. “I’ve got a girlfriend and he knows that. You’re here because I want you to be as awful as possible as like…an example of someone newly released from prison. Just really lean into all the stuff you wrote in your ad. And then I can bring out one of the people I’ve been working with and my dad can see how well the program works!”
Adam leaned against the door, letting that sink in for a second. “So you want me to just do all the other toxic asshole shit? Act progressively more trashed, make insensitive comments, break things? Hit on guests?”
Charlie pursed her lips. “Maaayyybe don’t hit on me. Or my girlfriend. All the other stuff, yes. I included a list of things that are okay to break, but I’m guessing you only barely read it?”
If she’d really wanted him to read that, she shouldn’t have buried it in a long line of kumbaya camp circle bullshit. Adam did not say that, however, opting instead to give her his best blank stare and shrugging.
She huffed a sigh, but bounced back quickly. “It’s fine! Just don’t touch any of the art. And maybe not the furniture. Um. And if you pick a fight do it with my girlfriend, she’s really excited about being able to hit someone on Thanksgiving.”
“Lady after my own heart. Still, I’m gonna charge extra for any damages incurred,” Adam said flatly. He was almost certain this would be the best Thanksgiving meal he’d ever had, but a trip to the hospital wasn’t anything to sneeze at.
Charlie giggled in a very innocent way for someone trying to rain down hell on one of the big family holidays to prove a point. “She wouldn’t do anything that extreme!” Her smile dimmed a bit as she appeared to mull it over. “Well…I don’t think she would. Um. Actually, yeah, it might depend on what you say to her?”
That intrigued him despite himself, but before he could weigh the pros and cons of getting into a fist fight with a lesbian at someone’s fancy family dinner, a man called out from somewhere in the bowels of the richly appointed home: “Charlie, honey! Everything’s ready, just bring your guest in!”
Charlie called out a cheery “Coming!” before turning back to him. “Okay! So, I’ve asked for my other friend to come by about an hour after we finish dinner, so that’s the time you get to be your most awful self! Did you look at the scripts I attached to the email?”
My god, she’d been detailed about this. He hadn’t even noticed there was an attachment. Adam tried to put on a very affected theater kid air. “I like to approach my work in an unscripted, avant-garde way. It’s…I have a fuckin method, okay?”
She held up her hands and laughed nervously. “Okay, just maybe try to hint at a tragic backstory? Something I can help you with in maybe a five month recovery program?”
This was definitely turning into something way weirder than he’d signed up for, but he gave an indifferent kind of nod before allowing himself to be herded off to the dining room. The path there was littered with various baby pictures, some family portraiture, and a wall of various awards and plaques that he didn’t bother to read. Probably for gymnastics or equestrian shit, Charlie seemed like a former horse girl.
The dining room looked like something out of a movie or home decorating magazine: all golden walls and arching ceilings, an enormous window set with stained glass panels and trimmed with red curtains. More portraits sat in prominent view along with a few artworks of landscapes and one ocean view.
At the table were two people: a slim young woman with long hair, an eyepatch, and an expression that threatened not only violence but something more slow and painful than the usual affair. The girlfriend ready to feast in his blood, clearly. Adam immediately decided to poke that bear at least once tonight.
The second person was a short, slight blonde man around middle age. Crystal blue eyes, flyaway hair, fair skin, and an expression of utter shock and maybe a bit of disgust. Fun. This was clearly the dad he’d been contracted to torment.
The man continued to stare at him as he purposefully swaggered to the table as insolently as possible before spinning the chair around and slumping down into it backwards. Adam folded his arms and leaned over the back of the chair with a toothy grin at his host and soon to be target for harassment.
To his surprise, the fucking twink stared at him before coloring slightly and moving his attention to his daughter.
Interesting.
Well, his horribly suicidal brain whispered to him, she never said her dad was off limits to hit on. Maybe this would be more fun than he’d expected.