At twenty-seven, YouTube sensation Ben Leonards is married to his work. If he's not whipping up lasagna with a side of science experiments, he's running statistical analysis of bitcoin during explosive behavior periods.
When a friend asks him to org...
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"Put me down." Linda fights in my grasp."I'm going to break that fucking phone of hers and sue her and her bullshit sorry, excuse of a paper for all they have." Once we are inside of the apartment with a door separating us from the reporter, I let go of her.
"What's going on here?" Mr. Baxter is the first to join us in the grand foyer. He stops at the threshold, his eyes shift between Linda, me and the door.
"Has someone hurt you?" Melissa is right behind him. She walks forward, but Mr. Baxter blocks her with his arm. After one attempt to push past her husband, she gives up and joins him in drawing a triangle with her eyes between Linda, me and the door.
"Are you OK?" Philip rushes in next, and Brenda floats in behind him, her hand on his shoulder.
"Where's that bastard, Cory—" Linda gets louder "—and why did he bring the snake in with him?"
The rest of the guests are filtering in and I have no idea what Cory looks like. Linda walks over to a lanky pimply youth I don't recollect having seen and jabs him with a finger in the chest so hard he staggers.
"Why did you—" another finger punch sends him backward "—bring Ronda with you?"
Cory takes a step to the side, before Linda's third jab lands and looks at her, then Philip and back. Linda catches the direction of his glare.
"You?" She storms over to her ex. "You are behind all of this?"
"Behind what?"
"The tabloids?" Linda unlocks her phone and shoves it inches in front of Philip's eyes.
He leans back and starts reading. Brenda's fingernails dig into Philip's suit. His already pale face gets a greenish tint. "I have nothing to do with this," he tells Linda, and faces Brenda, whose smile is calm and camera-ready. "You slept with her boyfriend too?"
"This time she failed." Spit flies out of Linda's mouth in Brenda's direction when she emphasizes the 'f' in failed. "Seducing you was her crowning achievement."
Brenda's smile quivers for a second, and her hand slides off Philip's shoulder. She's by Linda. The sound of a slap and a pink spot blooming on Linda's cheek proves I'm not dreaming. People do things like this in real life? Adults slapping each other seems like an overkill, but my fight with Xavier in the parking lot years ago was not a good example of self-control either. Maybe I shouldn't be too surprised.
"You..." Linda pushes her sister. Brenda pushes back. The scene reminds me of many shoving matches between me and the bully at my middle school. But we were twelve. These women aren't in school anymore. I step in between them, my back to Linda, because I trust her a little more and extend my arms in front of me to warn Brenda to stay away.
"Hiring an imbecile to pretend to be your boyfriend is beneath even you, Linda." Brenda directs her words at her sister but she points her eyes at me. "Even he won't love you. No one loves you." I recognize no outward expression of anger or emotion. She's as poised as she's been the whole day. A couple of punches from Linda land on me as I separate them.
