Page 13 of Wicked Me
Six weeks she could spend with me. The possibilities were endless.
I needed to get the hell out of here.
“Sorry, sugar,” I said to almost-Paige. “I gotta go.”
See, that was my let-them-down-easy style, unlike Riley.
She stepped back and pouted, but within seconds had wrapped her arms around some other poor schmuck’s neck and was dry-humping him.
I scanned the room for anyone who might have a Slim nametag on. What would Slim look like? Skinny? Or fat in an obvious, ironic twist?
In the corner of the living room, a woman straddled a man who was projectile vomiting over the side of his recliner. I turned away quickly and spotted Tony next to a doorway nearby. He jerked his chin for me to follow. I gladly did, leaving the heat and growing stink behind me for a well-ventilated kitchen.
In case shit got weird, a side door opened out into a backyard where fewer people partied. Just what Tony and I always looked for at parties—an emergency exit. Ever since high school and our obsession that the zombie apocalypse was going to happentoday, we’d been planning our survival down to the last detail. Old habits never died. Good thing, too, since all I cared about was getting out of here.
Tony leaned his back against a countertop. “Whose house is this?”
I shrugged. “Some guy named Slim.”
“Seriously?” He cut his gaze to me. “That’s a prison name.”
“You remember where we are, right? Half the people here have probably been in prison.” I leaned against the stove, chewing my lower lip, wishing like mad I’d brought the tequila in with me. I’d been to jail, but I still felt out of place here. Parties like this weren’t my scene. Selling drugs to repay my sister’s debt to Hill wasn’t my life goal. Shocking, I know.
“Slim’s housekeeper is going to fart a hammer when she sees this shit,” Tony said, eyeing the empty bottles all over the kitchen. “I would quit. Or ask for a raise. Maybe both.”
I closed my eyes at both Tony’s messed up logic and timing. I tell him we’re at a prison party, and he chose to talk about housekeeping? But it was Tony. Instead of judging me about why I had dragged him here in the first place, he was humoring me. Distracting me from everything. This was why he was more of a brother than Riley.
“Sexist,” I said. “How do you know the housekeeper’s a—?”
A loud crack from the backyard made us both jump. We glanced at each other with likely the same thoughts—gunshot or zombie apocalypse?—then, without a word, we sprang to either side of the back door.
A shadowy guy kneeled on a square of concrete surrounded by dying grass with a flickering lighter.
Crack.
We both jumped again, even though I knew to expect it. The sound ricocheted off a solid metal fence surrounding the yard to bounce into the open kitchen and magnify itself over the thudding bass music.
Crack. Pop.
“Fourth of July came early,” a voice behind us said with a thick Texas accent.
I turned to see a very overweight white guy flanked by two black men. The guy had about seventeen chins drooping down his blue and white checkered shirt, dark hair slicked to the side. Beady eyes that never focused on one thing for more than a second bounced around the room hummingbird-style. He and his bodyguards took up the length of the kitchen, effectively blocking the living room exit.
“Slim,” I guessed.
“I know you?” the big dude asked.
So his name was an obvious, ironic twist. No nametag needed. “I know Hill.”
“I know Hill, too, the seedy punk. He wants my territory.” His accent stretched the words into several extra syllables. “Show me this peace offering of his that he mentioned.”
I fingered the broken snap inside the sleeve of my jacket and swallowed. This was the first time Hill had ever made me do a delivery. I was usually the money guy in the week I’d been trying to pay off Rose’s one million dollar debt to Hill. What if somehow he was playing with me by sending me here?
“Out back,” I demanded. I could hop a fence faster if I was next to one.
The two black guys shifted closer, pressing me in, faces blank.
Crack.
