Page 154 of Brazen Mistakes

He sniffs, his nose wrinkling. “Shit. Yeah. Let’s leave this one. If there’s mold, no amount of scrubbing will make this safe.”

“What about the basement?”

“Not a priority. We’ll get the plumber down there after we gut this bathroom.”

I bump against his shoulder. “Is there a calendar for this? A color-coded Gant chart with timelines?”

He glances down at me, and I immediately retreat, remembering we aren’t touching anymore, and instead trail him down the stairs, stepping over the busted one again.

“Yeah. Something like that,” he says as we gather up our stuff, turning the temperature back down.

We only take the ladder back home, the kitchen light now clean enough to show exactly how disgusting everything we haven’t touched is. Money laundering isn’t as glamorous as I thought it would be.

He points at the other house on the block with a sold sign in front of it as we pull out. “That one’s ours too.”

Ours. “Do they have code names?” I ask.

He rolls his eyes. “You’re having too much fun with this.”

“Why wouldn’t I? You have code names for things. Enjoy the absurdity of that, Trips. I’m going to. So?”

“Not yet.”

“You’ll have to show me where blue is sometime. How about green for the one we just cleaned, because of the mold. Is the other one as bad?”

“No. More holes in the walls, less gross.”

“Black for that one, then, for all the holes.”

He laughs. “Okay, Crash. You share that around. We’re going to run out of colors here at some point.”

“Hopefully we won’t need that many rendezvous points. Or any.”

“Better safe than fucked.”

I squeeze my fingers into my thigh. “How fucked are we right now, Trips?”

“We’ll find out after tomorrow.”

“Am I ready?”

“No one could be ready, Clara. Not for my fucking family.”

“So play sweet little rich girl and hope for the best?”

“Yup.”

“How much of an asshole is rich boy Trips? Do I need to prep for that, too?”

He pulls into the lot behind our house. “Clara, I’ll be the same amount of an asshole as always.”

I nod. “But more like you were when we first met, right? Not like now?”

His lips scrunch up, and he runs his hands through his hair. “Nothing’s changed, Clara. Nothing can change. It’s not safe.” He launches himself from the car, pulling out the ladder and rushing to the door, not once meeting my eyes.

It’s official: tomorrow is going to fucking suck.

Chapter 55

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