Page 6 of I Stop Somewhere Waiting For You

“Damn, Mav. You wanna stop at the flower shop on the way home and buy some roses while you at it?”

“Bentley, I swear to fucking Christ I will shoot you!”

“Chill out, Bishop. I’m just fucking around.” He rolls his eyes, passing the blunt back to me. “No, she’s not his side piece either.”

“Well?!” I gesture in annoyance, prompting him to continue.

He pulls up to a red light, relaxing back in his seat as his head turns toward me with a sigh. “She’s Nicky C.’s baby sister.”

I whip back. I don’t know what I was expecting to hear but it wasn’t that. I didn’t even know Nicky had a sister. How the fuck’s he been hiding a whole sibling that looks like that? There’s no way I’ve seen her before. That dipshit and I have been dancing around each other for years and I would most definitely remember if a chick that looked like her was hanging off him.

“Mav,” Bentley speaks, regaining my attention. My eyes snap up to his. “She is Nicky C.’s seventeen-year-old baby sister. Not to mention, his pride and fucking joy.”

Fuck me.

“She’s seventeen?” I ask in disbelief.

“Shit, Mav,” Bentley breathes out, scrubbing his hand over his face and shaking his head in frustration.

“What?” I ask defensively, taking a final hit off the blunt and passing it back to him.

“Bishop, we have been friends since we popped out the womb. I know what you look like when you’re angry. I know what you look like when you’re guilty. I know what you look like when you want something.” His eyebrow arches high toward his hair line. “And I know what you look like when you’re weighing out the pros and the cons of a situation.”

“What’s your point, Bent?” I huff in annoyance.

“My point is, Mav, that I just sat here and watched a whole lot of want flash through your eyes when I told you that chick isn’t getting dicked down by your enemy. But when I pointed out she’s his underage teenage sister, you didn’t so much as bat an eye. Save me the headache and tell me now, is this something I need to worry about?”

I settle back into the soft leather of my seat. The effects of the THC enveloping my body in warmth. “Pretty sure seventeen is legal in New York State.” I feel the corners of my mouth turn up.

“Fuck. This is something I need to worry about,” he spits, flicking the roach from the window as the light turns green and his foot hits the floor.

CHAPTER 4

JONSIE

Ding dong.

“Nicky!” I yell from my bedroom, my voice carrying down the stairs into the foyer. “Get the door! It’s Daph!” I run around my room in my light-wash jean shorts and white sports bra, searching frantically for my white Vans.

“Tell that bitch Imma start charging her ass rent!” he shouts back, though I hear him making his way across the marble tile of the foyer, followed by the opening of the front door.

“Oh please, bitch.” I hear my best friend’s voice travel up from below. “You know you love my tight little ass.”

I snort at their banter. Quickly pulling my hair up into a high ponytail, I throw on one of my old hole-ridden sweatshirts. It’s got an image of Biggie on the front wearing a crown, and on the back it says, “To all the ladies in the place with style and grace.” I’m a pretty firm T-shirt-hoodie-sneaker chick, and over the years I’ve acquired a decent collection that I’m quite proud of. Nicky always jokes that I look homeless, whereas I tell him he dresses like Elton John. Okay, maybe not that outlandish, but, at the very least, Machine Gun Kelly. Though I don’t know how that’s really even an insult. Nicky’s fashion is on fucking point. Boy can pull anything off.

Even right now on a lazy Sunday I descend the stairs to find him engaged in a battle of wits with my smart-mouthed best friend, wearing a pair of black leather pants and white tee with an image of The Clash on the front, but the name of the band is completely decked out in rhinestones. He rocks the whole thing effortlessly and makes it look badass.

Nicky is tall, comparable to Maverick Bishop. However, where Maverick is more bulk, Nicky is lean muscle—standard for most motocross riders. His shaggy blonde hair spikes out in all different directions, though he doesn’t look disheveled. Each piece looks as though it was meticulously styled to form the chaotic freshly-fucked bedhead look he’s rocking.

Nicky’s skin is flawless, free of any marks or blemishes aside from the only ink he sports on his right forearm. Two crowns—one feminine, one masculine, interlocking with a J in the middle. It’s an exact replica to the one I have on my ribs, only mine has an N in the middle. We got them together almost two years ago, much to Mom and Mitch’s dismay when they saw mine considering I was barely sixteen at the time.

Nicky’s organization doesn’t brand their members for the sheer fact that it’s fucking stupid. When you’re trying to fly under the radar, the last thing you should be doing is flaunting your criminal organization. My brother is brilliant and doesn’t do anything without purpose. It’s why he’s so successful but, more importantly, it’s why he doesn’t get caught.

“Yo!” Daph howls out as I descend the stairs. “Tell your brother we are going out for your birthday on Halloween. It’s not everyday Baby J turns eighteen.”

“Not fucking happening,” Nicky snaps, shooting a look between the two of us.

“Come on, Nicky,” Daphne whines, shimmying her shoulders playfully up against him as he rolls his eyes. “How you gonna deny Jones the opportunity to celebrate her arrival to adulthood? Pretty sure your birthday celebrations last days. Didn’t you guys lose JP in Mexico City last year during the festivities?”

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