#insufferable characters

Chapter 5

“What is there to like about her, anyway?” Mac grumbled.

“Lots of things, and I don’t need to tell you that. If I wasn’t happily married, I might give you a run for your money on that one.”

Yeah yeah, everybody likes her and she's amazing and she once saved my dog from a burning building and she once punched me in the face (and it was awesome).

Zade is just fucking insufferable and the narration constantly wanking off about how AMAZING that she is makes it even worse.

I just continued to sing.

Acting steady

Always ready to defend your fears

What’s the matter with the truth,

Did I offend your ears

By suggesting that a change might

Be a thing to try

Like it would kill you just to try

And be a nicer guy

It’s not like you would lose some

Critical piece

If somehow you moved Point A to

Point B

Maintaining there is no point

Changing ’cause

That’s just what you are

That’s just what you . . . are . . .

For some unholy reason, the narration decided that we needed this entire goddamned song.

“When I got the job out here I bought myself a present. The Triumph Dakota is too heavy for me so I got myself a Ducati Streetfighter.”

Like yes, she does have a job, but IDK how she could have gotten a paycheck in the... like week that she's been there, filling out paperwork. I don't even think that they've had a show with Zade yet.

“Zade is short for my full name—Scheherazade Holder.”

Holy fucking shit, and I thought that Zade was bad.

What kind of a monster does that to a kid?

“It comes from a story my mom used to read to me as a kid. It’s about a princess who marries this king who executes his bride each night so he can get a new one the next day. Well, Scheherazade ends up his bride. To stay alive, she tells him a story every night, always stopping at dawn with a cliffhanger, so he will leave her

alive for another day. After 1,001 nights he was madly in love with her and decided to keep her. And they lived happily ever after.”

Thank you for (wo)mansplaining 1001 nights.

“Wait. Your parents named you ‘Clark Kent’? As in Superman, Clark Kent?”

WHAT.

THE.

FUCK.

“She’ll never recover. Permanently damaged.”

I nearly dropped the guitar. “What?”

Jackson grinned. “Her ego.” I stared blankly. “Oh, you meant physically?”

That isn't fucking funny. What the fuck dude. You don't joke about shit like that.

Jackson grinned before adding, “You really are.”

Chapter 5 summary: We open the chapter with Mac's POV. For some reason, the author felt the need to show us the argument Mac and Tad had. It can be summed up as Mac refusing to admit that he has a boner for Zade, and Tad giving him a hard time about the entire thing.

Following the incident, Zade grabbed Jackson's guitar (which he had previously told her she could use whenever she wanted), and goes out onto the loading dock to play. At the same time she starts up singing, Mac comes out for a smoke break. After she finishes, they talk about the song she played, the singer, and their love for some movie. And it's all really awkward pop culture references that people would only care about if they themselves were into the same thing as well.

Mac then swallows his pride and apologizes to Zade for having brushed her off earlier. That following an actual incident happening, that he should have listened to her.

They lapse into awkward silence for a moment before they start talking about motorbikes. After a while, Zade confesses that her actual name is  Scheherazade. Mac says that his legal name is Clark Kent, because his father had zero common sense. But the “Mac” comes from people calling him “MacGyver”, which eventually got shortened down.