Page 57 of Wait For Me

“What about Bagger?” My uncle asked.

“What about him?”

“Well, he just spent the last night.”

I laughed. “Seriously? We didn’t run off to Vegas and get hitched. We haven’t even had sex.”

“La, la, la, la” my uncle cried out childishly while covering his ears. Too bad his stupid grin gave him away.

“What about the restaurant?” Aunt Viv asked. “I thought you were going to invest and be a partner in that?”

“Silent partner. I don’t need to be here to run the restaurant. Listen, I’m not saying that buying a house means I’ll be here year-long, all day-every day. I’m also not saying that it means I’ll just pop in for holidays and special events. I don’t have it all figured out yet. We’ll see how things go.”

“Sounds wise.” I rolled my eyes at my uncle. Of all the men in my life, he was the one most apt to trust me to make decisions in life, but even he still seemed stunned that I had a brain in my head. “So, what are you looking at?”

I turned my phone to show him the most promising house I’d found. His answering grin bloomed ever wider until Aunt Viv noticed and leaned in to take a closer look. “Hey, that’s over near…”

“A great neighborhood,” Uncle Mack cut her off before she could get out whatever she’d been about to say.

“Yeah, good schools too, in case you ever want to settle down and start a family.” She winked at me and then took her coffee back toward the bedrooms. “Come on, old man, I have something to show you back here. I think there’s a crack.”

“Oh, there’s gonna be a crack all right. Gonna crack that ass!” I laughed as my uncle’s voice faded off into the distance where he chased after his woman. As disturbing as it was to hear my family’s sexy-time talk, it was also inspirational in a weird way. Those two were the prime example of an ideal relationship. Sure, they fought from time to time, but they loved that much harder.

21

Bagger

“What did you expect when you ghosted out of her bed in the morning without a word?”

I glared at Breakneck. “Fuck man, I was trying to get out of there before Mack woke up.”

Breakneck shrugged his shoulders. “What does he care who his niece is doing?”

“It’s his fucking house, man. You don’t know how protective they are of that girl.”

“Woman,” he corrects.

“What?”

“She’s a woman, not a girl. That’s the difference. Besides, since when are you a coward?”

“Not a fucking coward. It’s called being respectful.”

“Respectful is when I lube a bitch’s ass before going in. Trying to dip out of a sleepover with a woman because her uncle is home is just pussy ass shit. Hell, man I didn’t even do that in high school. I’d walk out and stare their dads in the eye as I did.”

“Yeah, well you’re an asshole. How many of those girls took beatings, punishments, or whatever for you playing macho man?”

Breakneck looked thoughtful for a minute. “That might explain some things.”

“Fucking dick.”

He shrugged his shoulders again. “Still, your situation is different, and Mack was already up when you left anyway. Shoulda just crawled your ass back in her bed and woke her up in a way she wouldn’t be able to forget.”

The fucker wasn’t wrong. I hadn’t seen Star since that night when we fell asleep talking about everything that happened since she had been gone. For her. For me. We talked about the fact that I waited for her to come home for a long time. I don’t think she believed my period spent being called “monk” so much that it almost became a permanent road name change. Fuck, I honestly regretted not letting that happen. At least then she’d have the satisfaction of knowing my name was all for her, rather than it being about every other bitch out there that I plowed through at one time or other.

“Maggie!” Breakneck called out. “I was just talking to Bagger about anal, you down?”

I turned to see one of the club girls standing there with a deer in the headlights expression, but just behind her was Tripp and Mack. Fuck my life.

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