Page 72 of Twist Me

I snorted, but I couldn’t help but feel my mouth water. The last time I’d eaten anything but mushy ass food from a damn plastic package or with Mary’s added flavors had been eight years ago.‘Exploding feet’ was an upgrade.

A frisbee fell on the ground in front of me, and I picked it up, the red disk shining in the sunlight. The teenager who tossed it ran up to me and reached his hand out.

“Thanks, bro. Love the tats! They look killer….”

Feeling myself smile, I spun it over to him, giving the upper-class nod I’d seen Micah do to a few people here.

“Here’s your foot bomb, Lith.”

I turned around to see Micah shoving an aluminum foil-wrapped hot dog in my direction.I couldn’t help the big smile that formed on my face as I accepted the shitty ass food and took a bite of that bitch so fast I nearly bit my thumb off.

“More like busted cow shit,” I said with a mouthful.

Micah laughed, and I had to remember the last time I’d heard that sound.

“So…you and Ezello?” he said.

I wasn’t sure exactly what the fuck we were, but hearing my name with her name felt pretty damn nice.

“She’s a pain in the fucking ass, I swear to god,” I said, shrugging.

Micah laughed again. “Yeah, but it looks like she’s your pain in the ass, Goliath.”

I thought about that. I certainly couldn’t imagine what it would be like without her getting into trouble every day and me having to save her dumbass. It could be anything from getting too close to a germaphobe or cleaning up the checkers on the ground from the pica patient. Ezello was always up someone’s ass.

“Yep. Guess you’re right about that.”

The detective nodded. “Never thought you’d settle down. Hell, when I met you, you had a girl for every hour of the day. Now, you wanna white-picket-fence it with a cop.”

I shrugged.

Micah got serious all of a sudden. His face lost the playful edge, and he started fussing with his dirty blond hair.

“Officer Lavita told me you’re innocent,” he started. “I mean officially. We have a copy of your records from the late doctor. You could be free, you know. Why stay?”

I looked at him and stared into those blue eyes. “I won’t betray my brothers, Quinn.”

He flinched at my words and looked down, picking at a string on his shirt.

“You don’t. They are lucky to have you. Pharoah is really happy you came to be with him.”

I looked over at my brother on the other side of the road, walking around, animated with his speaking now and his face beaming with his smile.

“Both my brothers were dealt a shit card by being connected to me,” I said, swallowing the last of the hotdog.

“I have to get them free—both of them. Pharaoh will finally get his life back, and Judas will, too. There’s just some more truth to uncover, and I know my girl will find it.”

I blinked at my words, saying them felt good. Ezello was my girl.

“You’re a good man, Lith. Do you think when you get out, you’ll come back to the force?—”

His words were cut off when a van squealed into the parking lot, and the horn blared like a fog horn.

I covered my ears. The loud ass noise wasn’t something I had heard in years, and it was a shock to the system. Clicking metal and the screeching patients back at the asylum were my comfort sounds, not all of…this.

Tiffany was looking about as bitchy as she sounded on the phone, pulling into a spot and turning off the car.

Pharaoh had already made his way over from across the street, and now the man was truly shaking. He must have gotten a cone while my bromance with Quinn was going down because he was standing there, the two yellow cones shaking. I half expected them to fall on the fucking ground.

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