Page 142 of The Winslow Brothers

But I didn’t have time to explain the crazy shit rolling around inside my head.

I pace the sidewalk while I wait for Tommy to get me a cab. The whole time, my back feels rigid with tension and my eyes can’t focus on anything.

I can’t believe I didn’t fucking see it.Rememberit.

But then again, who would really think that some wack job fortune-teller would even be able to predict my future? Certainly not me.

“Yo, Jude!” Tommy calls my name, and I look up from my boots to see him standing there, holding the back door of a cab open.

Thank fuck.

I’m offering Tommy a quick thanks and hopping into the damn thing in record time. And once I tell the driver an address in Manhattan, he puts his foot on the gas and gets us rolling.

Like always, though, traffic in New York on a Saturday night is a nightmare. Especially since spring is starting to make its debut, and people actually want to be outside doing shit.

Which means, we hit every red light. Get delayed by two fire trucks and another three ambulances that temporarily bring traffic to a halt. And I feel like I age a thousand years by the time the cabbie is pulling onto the street and coming to a stop in front of the address I gave him.

Neon lights of a strip club shine from the top of the building and reflect off the windshield of his taxi.

“All riiiight,” he says with a waggle of his brows in the rearview mirror. “Looks like you’re about to have a good night.”

I ignore his commentary and toss him two twenties beneath the plexiglass divider.

“Thanks,” I say, and I get out before he has time to say any weird shit about strippers or tits in my face or god knows what else.

And the instant he pulls away, I spot the Taco Bell my brothers and I dined at the infamous night of Rem’s bachelor party,right aftera stripper tore his boxers with her stilettos.

But when I move my eyes across the street, expecting to see theFortune Tellersign shining like a beacon, that’s not what I see at all.

A well-known sign with a little cartoon redhead in pigtails taunts me.

Wendy’s.

A Wendy’s?What the fuck?

I look around the street, my eyes pinging back and forth on everything I can make out, thinking it’s possible that my memory has me a little confused. But when I don’t see anything besides a convenience store and a parking garage, I know that what I’m seeing is real.

The fortune-teller is gone. And she’s been replaced by a goddamn fast-food restaurant.

Son of a bitch.

Both hands in my hair, I yank at the strands and try to figure out what in the hell I should do now.

All the while, Cleo, the apparently retired or out-of-business fortune-teller’s words repeat over and over again inside my head.“There will come a bet. One that will change the course of your life. One that will mold the shape of you as a man. Be careful, though, child. It won’t be a period of easy choices. But if you handle it right, it could lead to a great deal of happiness for you.”

I shouldn’t be able to remember all of that after thirteen years, but it’s like it got stored in the deep recesses of my head until my brain deemed it the perfect moment to torture me with it.

Obviously,nowis that absolute perfect moment.AfterI’ve fucked everything up.

And right on cue, the proverbial cherry on top of this shitty sundae, the sky chooses that exact moment to open up and let the rain come down. Literally. Giant drops of rain pelt me from above and drench my clothes until my white shirt is practically see-through.

Well, this is wonderful. Really wonderful.

And I stand there for the longest moment, just letting my misery and the rain soak me to my core.

Soon, though, my mind starts to clear, and there’s only one person in my life that I know could help me figure all this shit out.IfI can figure it out.

It’s not even a full second before I’m in motion.

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