“Jetta!” my best friend Carla answers the phone almost gleefully. “What are you doing calling me in the middle of the day?”
“Hey, girl!” I reply. “I just needed to hear a friendly voice. I’m taking a break over here at the park and wanted to see when we can get together.”
“It’s got to be soon!” Carla exclaims. “I want to hear more about your hot night with Rob Lawrence! I’m still so excited you got to hang out with him. I bet he’s ruined every other guy for you. Speaking of which, how is that going? You meet anybody yet working at that park? Dressing in that suit you showed me every day is bound to turn some heads.”
“Yeah, it’s getting attention, but not the kind I want,” I sigh. “Rob Lawrence was fucking amazing, but to tell you the truth, I would rather see that guy, Devlin. Now, I sort of wish I had thought to get his number.”
“Well, nobody can blame you for being a little dazed and confused after the night you had,” Carla sympathizes. “Look, you know my motto, ‘If it’s meant to be, it will be.’ Who knows, he might even be a fan of waterparks and come shooting down your slide one day!”
“Shooting down my slide?” I snort and giggle at the double entendre.
“Girl, yes, you know what I’m talking about,” Carla laughs back. “Now, look, I’m in traffic and I got to pay attention to this road for a bit. Let me call you tonight, and we’ll try to make a plan to get together soon.”
“Sounds good. Talk to you later,” I reply.
“Love you, girl,” Carla adds before she hangs up.
“If it’s meant to be….” I trail off with a sigh. She’s right, though. The only thing certain for the next few days is boredom and sunburn, both of which I’m going to have in spades.
Chapter Nine
Devlin
“No!” Fiasco groans. “If I have to listen to that fucking “Love in the Fast Lane” song again, I’m going to lose my goddamn mind!” He reaches for the truck’s volume and turns it all the way off.
“Fine. I’ll find something else to play after this next stop,” I promise him. I have to let that damn song go, along with the girl who I’m never going to see again.
“How many more house visits this week?” he asks.
“Three down, seventeen more to go,” I mutter as I look down at Malcolm’s spreadsheet on my phone. It’s constantly being updated to show who owes the Dirty Aces money and exactly how much.
Fiasco and I have been at this for three weeks now in our free time, which is usually in the late afternoons after we work our asses off doing roofing jobs under the broiling July sun. It’s not the best way to spend the summer nights. I would much rather be lounging by a pool or in bed with a certain purple-haired girl, but duty calls and Jetta is long gone from my life. It’s time to focus on work and MC business instead of wasting time daydreaming.
And who would’ve thought that Fiasco would have had the brilliant idea of us starting each week with those individuals who owe the most to the Aces and working our way down to the smaller debts.
“Make a left here and then turn right into the apartment complex,” I say, since I’m in charge of providing turn-by-turn directions to each address. Fiasco is driving us around in his bright yellow 1973 Volkswagen Thing, which looks like the result of a Jeep Wrangler banging a Hummer — a big, ugly ass baby.
And what does the genius do after I tell him to turn right? He turns left into a housing development.
“Jesus, man! Are we going to have to tattoo left and right on your knuckles to help you remember your directions? This is left! We were supposed to go right where there are apartments!”
“Oops. My bad,” Fiasco says with a chuckle before he pulls into a driveway to turn around.
“I should’ve been the one to drive,” I mutter.
“Oh, calm your tits. We’re here,” Fiasco says. “It only took, like, one more minute. Are you really in that big of a hurry to threaten more of these poor, unfortunate souls?” he asks me, his voice thick with mock sympathy.
“These are not innocent people,” I remind him. “Mr. James here kept on running up his gambling debts knowing it had to be paid back eventually. These people can’t just expect us to write their shit off. We have a business to run!”
“Right. We gotta do what we gotta do,” Fiasco mutters. “Which apartment again?” he asks, and I have to check the document with names, addresses and amounts owed because I can’t remember. All of these enforcement confrontations are running together into one big blur of stealing shit and punching assholes who give us lip or don’t give us cash.
“It’s apartment 2D, over on the left,” I say, pointing out the direction with my finger so he doesn’t go the wrong way again.
“Oh, yeah. Now I remember,” Fiasco says. “James still owes us four grand.”
I consult my notes and see that Sean, last name James, does in fact owe four thousand dollars, down from forty-five hundred after we took his giant flat screen last week and pawned it for five hundred in cash. “Yeah, rain man. How did you remember that?”
“Because I really wanted to hit this asshole last week but couldn’t because it was a possession only day.”
Chuckling, I shake my head and ask, “Why did you want to hit him last week?”
“He lied to us and said he got hurt at work and that’s why he didn’t have the money, so we had to take his television.”
“How do you know he was lying?” I ask.
“Because he’s a painter and he smelled like fresh paint. There was white paint on his forehead too, so even if he got hurt at work, he was still working earlier that day.”
“Jesus. Watch out, MacGyver,” I mutter, surprised he noticed all of that when I clearly missed it.
“Mac who?” Fiasco asks.
“Nobody. Come on, let’s go see what his excuse is today,” I say when he kills the engine and we climb out of the car. I only take two steps toward the apartment stairs before I have an idea. “You go to the door and I’ll go to the back in case he tries to run.”
“Good thinking,” Fiasco agrees as I slip around to the back of the building. Sure, James’ apartment is on the second floor, but it’s not that far down. From the backyard, I can hear Fiasco knocking hard on the door since the stairs and hallways are open, only partially enclosed with an awning.
“Open up, James! We know you’re home. Your truck is in the parking lot,” I hear Fiasco say. I have no idea if that’s true, I didn’t even think to look for his vehicle.
About that time, one of the back windows lifts up and then one leg is hanging out, followed by the other before he finally drops down to the dirt. He sprawls out almost at my feet, landing gracelessly on his hands and knees.
“Hello, Mr. James,” I say as he staggers to his feet.
“Fuck,” he mutters when he finally snaps his head around in my direction and sees me.
“Looks like that worker’s comp injury you lied about is suddenly all healed up.”
“What do you want?” he asks.