Page 120 of The Prodigal

“And it’s comments like this that get you fucked into a coma.”

He grins. “I can’t think of a better way I’d want to go.”

I think I made myself clear before that he’s never dying. He needs to get over that shit. He’s stuck here with me and his family.

“And Gerald?” he asks. “Did you talk to the district attorney? Did they reach a plea deal?”

I nod. “Yeah. They did. We won’t see him for many years because of the drugs they found in his house and in my mother’s cell.”

I was so inspired by Ramsey and her justice against Albrecht, that I decided my days of hiding from my mother and Gerald were over. If Ramsey was brave enough to go up against a high-ranking politician, I could certainly be brave enough to go after pieces of shit like my mother and Gerald.

So, I asked the Potter women if they would go with me to the police station.

They did, and now we have another picture to add to the refrigerator. But this time, it isn’t security footage of three women serving justice. It’s a selfie of four women becoming a family.

“Good,” Remington says, pushing his sucker between his lips.

He has to have something to occupy his hands since he quit smoking. Apparently, a sucker isn’t as good as pussy or a cigarette, but at least it’s healthier and more discreet when he’s out in his chair, decompressing after a full day of classes.

He’s made the Dean’s List several times, but we’re all banned from celebrating it. The only thing he’ll agree to is going to his parents’ lake house for a weekend. It’s not the Mississippi River, but it makes him happy since, apparently, it doesn’t smell like bad tuna.

“Sit with me,” he says, patting his lap.

I drop my bag on the ground and start to climb onto his lap like I have a million times.

“Wait!” He holds up one finger and then digs his wallet out of his pocket and hands it to me.

“What am I supposed to do with this?”

“Open it.”

I narrow my eyes at the mischief in his gaze.

“It’s not expired mints and tampons,” he adds. “But I hope it’s enough.”

“Enough of what?”

He rolls his eyes like I’m already annoying the fuck out of him, and I’ve only been home five minutes. “For fuck’s sake. Just open the wallet.”

I don’t know what he’s up to, but he seems very excited about it.

Carefully, I unfold his weathered wallet and pass over several dollar bills before I get to the surprise.

“You told me you didn’t know where these pictures were!” I pull out the two Polaroid pictures we took on our road trip.

“I lied.” He shrugs. “I do that sometimes.”

“I searched everywhere for these!” He’s such a bastard. “I thought we had left them in the motel in our haste to get you to the hospital.”

He shrugs like it’s no big deal. “They were always in my wallet.”

Because his ass stole them from me like the romantic he is.

“You could have at least told me.”

“I could have,” he confesses, his shoulders rising and falling lazily, “but then, where would the fun be in that? I recall comforting you for several nights after you gave up looking.”

Again, he’s such a bastard.

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