A Twisted Love Story
Ace Gray
Copyright © 2017 Ace Gray
Except the original material written by the author, all songs, song lyrics, and song titles contained in this book are the property of the respective songwriters and copyright holders. The author concedes to the trademarked status and trademark owners of the products mentioned in this fiction novel and recognizes that they have been used without permission. The use and publication of these trademarks is not authorized, associated with, or sponsored by the trademark owners.
No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without permission in writing from the author. The only exception is by a reviewer, who may quote short excerpts in a review.
This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead or events is entirely coincidental.
The sidekick never gets to tell their whole story. They blip in and out, rescuing the heroes and heroines from danger, and sometimes from themselves. But who are they? What mask do they hide behind? Why would they sacrifice everything for the superheroes?
Horse said it best, “It’s only the people we’d die for that can truly kill us.”
This is his story…
Part One
Origin Story
I cocked back my arm and, with all my might, chucked the tennis shoes toward the telephone line. The scream that left my lungs was too girly and I tried to suck it back in. The knot in the laces kept the shoes from bouncing across the empty pavement when they barely made it half way then dropped back to the street in front of me.
Shame sagged my shoulders and I looked down to kick the rocks hanging out on the street beneath my shoes.
“You’re not doing it right.” A new voice beside made me jump.
I turned to find a blonde kid about my age wearing torn jeans and a ratty t-shirt. An unlit cigarette hung from his big lips and danced toward haunted green eyes. It was those eyes that stopped me from puffing up my chest for a fight. I recognized something inside them, something dark like me.
“Can I?” the kid asked as he jerked his head toward the limp shoes.
“Sure,” I said as I shoved my hands into my pockets and shrugged.
He was scrawny but he walked with a swagger of one of the neighborhood guys. I could already picture him older, driving one of the sick vintage cars, muscled up, wreaking havoc. Every bone in his body was built for it.
He toed the sneakers I’d stolen from my dad with his shiny Chuck Taylors then bent down to grab one of the Nikes by the heel. He turned and studied the telephone line and adjusted his stance, aimlessly swinging the shoes at his side. Those bright green eyes narrowed in on his target and there was a ruthless spark in them as he smirked, hollowing out a dimple just to the side of his wobbly cigarette.
With a cat-like ease he swung them up, sending the shoes tumbling one over the other, until they wrapped around the line with a perfect ease and snapped into place.
“Whoa, first try?” I stepped closer, studying the shoes where they swayed a little from the line.
“Not even remotely.” The kid laughed and his whole face changed. He didn’t seem dark and ruthless anymore. “What else is a kid supposed to do while their folks are checked out?” He nodded down the street at a few more hanging pairs and I couldn’t help but smile.
“Got me.” I shrugged. “Don’t even know what to do now that that pair is gone.”
“Hold up.” He turned and trotted away, disappearing into a dark ally between the beaten up brick townhouses.
As soon as he was gone, the sadness that was my reality was back, the loneliness filled up first the street then my chest. But then footsteps broke the silence of my dying corner of the universe.
“Throw these.” The kid was back and held out a well-worn version of his sparkly new hightops.
“Where’d you get them?” I asked as I reached out for them, a half smile spreading across my face.
“They’re my old ones. Least I can do after throwing yours up there.” His smile split on either side of the cigarette still trapped between his teeth.
“Those were my dad’s. I stole them.”
“Shit.” His eyes bugged. “I like a fellow criminal.”
“What did you steal?” I asked as I started knotting up the laces on his old shoes.
“My new ones.” He angled his Chucks to show them off. “I mean, if life isn’t gonna give me a hand, I’ll just reach out and take one.”
I smiled and shook my head, not at his words but at how deeply they resonated with me. “I like the way you think,” I said as I dropped one of the shoes and held them the way the kid had shown me.
“Like I’m gonna be the next Al Capone? Or Scarface?”
“Fuck yeah.” I nodded at him as I recalled sneaking into a three dollar movie theater to watch Scarface after my Dad had shoved me out of the house when it was on TV.
I started swinging the shoes at my side and used the rhythm the help me focus on the telephone wire. The kid behind me stilled and I felt his eyes shift between me and the wire. I blew out a deep breath then flung the same way he had. As if by magic, they floated up, whirling just like his, until they caught the wire and started wrapping.
“Hell yeah!” The kid shouted then clapped me on the shoulder.
“Shit! I’ve never done it before.” I turned and held my hand out for a high five.
He answered me immediately, his hand snapping against mine.
“You’re stronger than you look.” He arched his eyebrow.
“I wish that was the reason my parents named me Horse.” I laughed as I rolled my eyes.
“Your name is Horse?” He arched his eyebrow, that mischievous smirk still parted his lips on either side of the cigarette.
“My mom likes meth and playing the ponies.” I got quiet.
“Brother from another mother.” The kid’s voice was so steady and sure, no judgement at all. It was the single best sentence I’d ever heard. “Let’s go steal some more shoes. Maybe some cigarettes.” He clapped me on the shoulder and for the first time in a really long time, I felt like someone gave a damn. There was somewhere I belonged.
“So, brother from another mother, what’s your name?” I asked as we started walking toward the dark alley he’d disappeared into earlier.
“Me?” He stopped and reached his hand out for a shake. I took it and thought about how he’d talked about life not giving out a hand. It was really fucking reassuring to have one offered. “I’m Cole.”
*****
“So you got a girl?” Cole quirked his eyebrow up as we walked down the ally, each of us dodging trash and puddles as we went.
“A girl? Nah…” I kicked an empty can and shoved my hands into my back pockets.
“Why the hell not?” he asked beside me.
“Uhhhh…” I couldn’t think of an answer. I mean, there was nowhere for me to take a girl, even less to offer her, so I really didn’t look, but those weren’t the easiest thoughts to form into sentences.
“Dude, you need a girl,” Cole said so completely serious. “Have you ever touched boobs? Or below the belt?”
“No way. Gross.” I couldn’t help it. Kissing was one thing, but digging in?
“Gross? What are you? Gay?” He stopped and studied me hard, the hint of brutality back in his eyes.
“No,” I snapped back. “But…touching…I mean…” I shook my head trying to clear my jumbled hormonal thoughts. “Do you have a girl?”
“Well…I don’t. No king of the streets can have just one.” He shoved his hands in his pockets and his brow furrowed as we turned from the alley to the next neighborhood street. “But I’ve touched boobs and pussy before. You’ve gotta do it, man.”
“Yeah?” I asked as we aimlessly wandered down the sidewalk.
“Yeah.” A thick excitement hummed beneath his voice. “I mean boobs are this handful of fun. I can’t even explain how they feel, the way you can squeeze on them. And when you pull on a nipple just right, you can make a girl moan with two fingers. Two fingers.” He made a small pinch with his thumb and pointer finger then turned it into a big okay sign.
“And a pussy?” I asked, my curiosity piqued, a completely unstoppable wave of want doing right along.
“You can control that shit with one.” He made a wild hook with his finger.
“What?” I cocked my head back.
“Yeah, man.” He shoved his hands through his hair. “Or at least that’s what it seems like.”
“So you haven’t had one?” I asked with a cocked eyebrow.
“Well not like officially or anything, it was a touch, but I mean…Shut up, dude.” He shoved at my shoulder.
I couldn’t help but laugh. Partially because he was bent out of shape about it. Even here, even now, I got the feeling he was overreacting. The same way I could tell Cole was built for something bad, I could tell girls would fall at his feet. In some weird way, I already had.
He sulked beside me, his shoulders curved and brooding heaving on his bottom lip where it hung in a pout. The need to console him was an automatic reaction, instant and instinctual.
“I watched this porno of my dad’s and damn the things they do to that girl…” I whistled as we kept walking. Cole straightened just at the mention, his eyes lit up.
“Yeah?” Cole twisted and kept pace walking sideways, his gaze locked on me.
“Yeah, like seven of them. Do you think girls really like it when guys shove it in their ass?” His green eyes danced.
“Would it be in so many videos if they didn’t?”
“Would gay guys be into it?”
We both laughed.
“I did touch that one.” His voice ticked up, making him sound just as girly as I had when I threw the sneakers. He cleared his throat and searched the sidewalk for a second.
“Don’t leave me hanging. What was it like?” I asked, despite the fact that I shouldn’t. My body was already riding a wave of testosterone that seemed to pool and tent my pants.
“Wet.” He twisted back toward me and his eyes twinkled. “Slippery, wet. And warm.”
“What?” I scrunched my eyebrows up.
“I was kissing this girl and she let me put my hands anywhere. And she loved it when I kissed with my whole body, when I dry humped her, when my hands moved everywhere. I mean I spent a lot of time on her tits. I love the way they feel…”
The way he made it sound was so tempting. The boy beside me wanted nothing more than to hand meet forbidden fruit. But my hands were already flexing on the imaginary flesh of the one girl I knew with breasts big enough to fill my bear-paw sized hands. They were always on display beneath a V-neck and jiggled a little bit against each other in that deep valley she called cleavage.
Blood and lust roared in my ears.
“Anyway, I go from her boobs to her waistband and she purrs like a little kitten.” Cole’s words were dull sounds behind the wild rush of want as his hands started to act out, squeezing high then slithering low. “That purr was an invite as far as I’m concerned, so I shoved down.” He purred this time, and it was just as toe curling as the conversation itself. “Her hair down there was all warm and wet and curly, but between her legs, was her pussy. It’s a slit. Velvet, slick and so small. So sensitive.” His long fingers diddled back and forth in mid-air.
I thought about my ma’s velvet couch. When my dad wasn’t around, I’d sprawl out and rub my fingers over the fabric. It was so soft, almost ticklish, but it always feel good. Like home.
“Damn that sounds nice.” I cleared my throat.
“Yeah,” he drew out the word. “Maybe we should go find chicks instead of cigarettes.”
The throb between my thighs wanted one specific thing. Well, two if I was being honest—one for each hand. I didn’t need flame, so much inside me was already on fire.
“Chicks,” I managed from a mangled throat. “We should find chicks. If you need ‘em my dad has smokes.”
His wicked smirk curled up again, his dimple hollowed out too. “Your house first. The rest of the afternoon…” He meowed then lifted his fingers to a V on either side of his mouth and flicked his tongue in and out.
I turned us around with a husky chuckle and a crotch readjust then started down the street. We talked about random stuff—basketball and cars and sneaking beers—and we both kicked at random objects in the street until we reached my cracked stoop. Deep fissures split the concrete stairs up to the mint green door that was barely hanging onto both hinges.
“Ma? Ma?” I called as I shoved open the door, the creaks almost drowning out my voice. “Mom?”
“Shut your fucking trap,” my dad bellowed from the living room.
I almost swallowed my tongue. My breathing ticked up and my shoulders started to heave. Wild moans were the only sounds beside my shallow breaths and I knew exactly what kind of shitstorm I’d walked in on.
“Run.” I twisted toward Cole and my eyes bugged.
Cole just stared, his eyes crinkled and his smile turned into flat, thin line.
“Dude, go!”
He stood his ground.
“What the fuck are you mongrels interrupting my programs for?” My dad’s booming voice was louder, closer, like fireworks that have a too short fuse and rattle bones.
“You mean your porn?” Cole mouthed off a heartbeat before big tromping footsteps crashed through the living room.
“Run,” I pled one more time, but Cole just crossed his arms.
And when my Sasquatch of a father came barreling into the kitchen, I did the same. My dad’s dark eyes were bloodshot and droplets of beer hung on his beard. His blue robe hung open on either side of his beer belly and framed his flannel boxers. He only stood for a split second, the world suspended solely by the tension in that room, then he swung.
I read the drunken line of his fist like a book, and darted in front of Cole. My hands shot up but it wasn’t enough. My dad’s matching massive bear paw swatted at me, landing with a crunch against my face. Just like always, my jaw rattled, unhinged almost, but I kept it together. I even found fire in my belly to fight back when I thought about that blow hitting my new friend.
“Holy fuck,” Cole murmured behind me as I bent down and shoved my shoulder into my dad’s protruding belly.
For a second my he was stumbling backwards, a mess of swear words and sputtering beer, but then he was back upright and swinging again. I’d succeed in drawing his attention from a mouthy Cole and now it was laser focused on me.
A fist crashed into my stomach and I folded in on it. A moment later an elbow followed to the exposed small of my back. I gritted my teeth, only grunting before I lunged at him again. We crashed into some chairs and wood clattered as they bounced against the cheap laminate floor.
My dad stumbled over the disarray and I used the opportunity to take my kill shot. As fast and as hard as I could muster, I drove my knee into his crotch. A gargled howl broke loose as he reached for his jewels and crumbled onto the pile of chairs behind him. One broke under his weight and the jagged edge of wood cut into his calf.
Blood start to drip from the gash and my eyes bugged. My smile pulled on the corner of my lips too. The bastard deserved every single second of searing pain. Each wild cry, each low and filthy curse that shot from his lips was like a mini pat on the back.
“Let’s go,” I said to Cole.
His mouth was open wide but that dimple he’d showed off before was tugging at his cheek again. “You can fight, man.” His voice was the slightest bit awed.
“And steal cigarettes,” I added as I grabbed the pack sitting discarded on the counter and darted out the door, Cole fast on my heels.
A second later, my dad bust out in pursuit, screaming more colorful obscenities at me and describing in detail how this was my last day on earth. Cole and I looked at each other and in that moment I knew he and I were in. All in. We both smiled wildly, hinting at the crazy lying not far beneath our matching skins, then took off running. We were a mess of long gangly limbs, just beginning to show muscles, and laughter. Raucous, reckless laughter, as we ran like the devil himself was chasing us down the street not hidden inside.
*****
We leaned side by side against the wall of the bodega, our sweat soaked shirts stuck to the dingy gray cinderblocks as we blew out matching puffs of smoke. We hadn’t really spoken since my dad had made a spectacle of himself but it wasn’t an awkward silence. More contemplative. I got the sense that it wasn’t the first demon that had chased Cole.
“Wanna snake some magazines, some pizzas and come to my place?” He was first to break the silence.
“From the bodega?” I looked at him, the question crinkled on my forehead.
“Nah, Sal’s too nice.” Cole jerked his head toward the front door. “He’d let us hang out here all night if we needed and a lot of times he’ll switch the Pac-Man machine to free when I’ve had a rough one. Safeway’s down the street.”
I nodded, my eyes fixed on the video game I could see through the barred windows beside us. His gaze shifted too and there was a warmth there that hadn't seen before. And not just on him. On any human. It drew me in deep and made the mischief from earlier seem like a fringe benefit of being his friend. Like there was something else, something so much more.
We waited until the cigarettes between our fingers burnt down to nubs before we flicked them. I took the liberty of grinding Cole’s out first so he didn’t have to fuck up his shoes. He clapped me on the shoulder as we started down the street again.
“Where did you learn to fight?” he asked, shoving his hands into back pockets position.
“Where do you think?” I cocked my eyebrow up.
“Kill or be killed?” His tone said he knew the answer.
“Eh, those fuckers can’t kill me. You gotta feel something massive to kill. Whether it’s love or hate.” I blew out a deep breath, “And my folks can’t feel anything any more. Sometimes I wonder if they ever could.”
“You can crash at my place any time, ya know? Couldn’t even tell you where my mom is half the time. She’s always with these Irish dudes when she is home, and they’re, well…they’re fucking busy.”
“Busy fucking?” I asked as I pulled out another cigarette and handed it to Cole. When I offered him a light, he brushed it off, instead choosing to roll it side to side along his lips like he’d done when I first met him in the street.
“I don’t wanna talk about it,” he answered, making the cigarette dance.
I shrugged knowing damn well most things were better left unsaid and shoved in the dark.
“Well, thanks for the offer. I’m gonna have to take you up on that one.” Without a place to crash I would have been sleeping on the roof tonight, creeping up long after everyone had drank enough to pass out.
*****
Stealing was too easy. I shopped for pizza, added a few candy bars and a warm forty that I could snatch without grabbing attention and buried them in a basket beneath some paper towels. Cole stole a paper bag from the self checkout and lifted a Playboy then snatched a receipt out of the trash. Hidden in an aisle by Band-aides, we loaded up the bag, threw condoms in like we may actually need them, and Cole, complete with trash receipt in hand, walked out with the loot like we owned it and the goddamned grocery store itself.
No one stopped us. No one even looked at us.
I had to keep the shock and awe from being written so plain across my face. It shouldn’t have worked.
“I can’t fucking believe it. How the fuck did we get away with that?” I asked when we’d rounded the backside of the building.
“Confidence.” His devious smile was back, his dimple showing too. “If you tell yourself you’re not gonna get caught, act like you’re not gonna get caught, you won’t. Simple as that. Don’t draw attention to yourself by being guilty or innocent.” His full smile spread and the wicked I’d seen inside, the bit of him that spoke to my demons, peered out again. “Everyone’s got a little devil inside them.”
“You have to teach me.” I tried to play it cool, but that stupid girly squeak that popped out every once in a while blew my cover. Embarrassment flared heat across my cheeks.
“Only if you teach me how to fight,” Cole answered every bit as excited.
“Deal.” I reached over to shake his hand. His fit perfectly in mine even though mine usually dwarfed anything I touched. His shake was just as firm. But then he slid it back and as naturally as if we’d choreographed something complex over the years. We pounded then knocked our fists up and down.
“Middle fingers out,” he commanded and I complied. He hooked his into mine and shook our hands cementing a secret handshake. I couldn’t help by smile. Cole dropped his hold and full-on flipped me off. I repeated the gesture before breaking into manic, puberty laced laughter.
He did the same, even clapping his knee, but when he could breathe again, he simply said, “I think this is the start of a fucking awesome friendship.”
Part Two
Discovering Powers
I’d become Cole’s shadow over the past two years. Anywhere he was, I wasn’t far behind and anywhere he lead, I was down to follow. It was that swagger, that confidence.
That swagger and confidence that somehow always got us in trouble.
Thank God Cole had learned how to fight. I’d never tell him but he was better than me, more strategic and downright smart. And me? I’d been growing into my name by leaps and bounds, filling into the body that didn’t make my Hulk hands and flipper feet seem so awkward. I’d started lifting weights to help even the lanky out.
Cole had started because of the girls.
They had started sneaking into the weight room to watch us during basketball practice. When they got caught and had to run laps, Cole and I returned the favor.
“I love the way their tits bounce.” Cole made his familiar squeezy hand gestures from where he was reclined back along the bleachers.
“So you’ve said.” I rolled my eyes.
“Fuck off, Horse. Not all of us were lucky enough to have Mallory to trip and fall onto our dick.” He shot me the same bitter look each time losing my virginity first came up.
“She fell hard.” I couldn’t help but throw my head back and laugh.
“I hate you,” Cole snarled as he shot away from me on the bleachers, eyes still fixed on all the bouncing in front of us.
My mind went to Mallory. Cole had dared me to touch her tits and when she caught me staring, she all but shoved them in my hands. I watched her with a detached smirk on my face as I petted and pulled on her nipple the way Cole had told me to. She really had been a wild little mess beneath me.
I hadn’t moved to do anything beside twist, pull and palm her tits. Only later did she tell me how crazy that drove her, how she felt like a toy to me, and how she liked it. It certainly explained why she forced her lips to mine, her hands down my pants and then all but sat on my dick in the alley behind Cole’s house. Her screams echoed off the bricks and she really hadn’t been able to walk right when she slunk out of the dark and back to the stoop where Cole was waiting.
“Mr. Ryan, please put your shirt back on.” I recognized Coach’s voice as he yelled at Cole and pulled me back to the gym.
His six pack was starting to appear and with the bright fluorescents overhead, he glistened the slightest bit. More than one pair of shoes skittered and tripped on the basketball court.
“Mr. Ryan, I will not ask again.”
I rolled my eyes and stood up, walking on the bench seat over to him. “Come on.”
“Fuck off,” he spat the words at me.
“Cole, I don’t want detention.” I grabbed his shoulder.
“Coach isn’t yelling at you.” He crossed his arms across his chest and every single muscle of his chest puffed up. For some reason I found myself staring.
“You know that doesn’t matter,” I finally managed. “Come on, let’s get you laid.”
He shot me a look but he slowly sat up and shrugged back into his shirt. I blew out a deep breath. I wasn’t sure if it was because we weren’t getting detention or something else entirely.
“So you’re just gonna get me laid? Snap your fingers and…” He moaned once loudly then stood and stepped up to the bench behind him to look down on me the slightest bit. “Are you going to do it or something?”
The muscles below my bellybutton clenched and I couldn’t explain why. I brushed the feeling and his quip aside.
“It’s all about confidence, fucker. I have a plan.” I playfully jabbed at his stomach and he flinched bad enough that he wobbled on the stair.
“You hit too hard these days, Horse,” he said as he caught himself and rubbed at his stomach.
Cole changed into his signature jeans, white t-shirt and Chuck Taylors while I just threw on my hoodie and shouldered my gym bag before we headed out into the drizzly early summer night.
“You’ve touched way more than me, ya know? What don’t you just take them?” I asked as the rain pitter-pattered onto my hood.
“Pussies?” Cole asked, the rain making his white shirt cling to his broadening shoulders. “I don’t want to just take them. I like them too much.”
“You’ve got a thing for Chuck Taylors too and you don’t seem to mind taking those whenever you damn well please.” I looked down at another new pair. He’d taken to stealing them any time an old pair got dirty. “You’re the one that said if life won’t give you a hand, reach out and take what you want.”
“But these are girls. Women. They’re people.” He reached for a cigarette and started rolling it between his lips.
I didn’t offer him a light anymore, realizing somewhere along the line that he liked the look and the way his lips went a little numb against the tobacco more than actually smoking.
“Take them. Take what you want from them. You’d do it to anyone else.” He was the one who’d taught me. “With how wet it Mallory gets when I do what I want, I honestly don’t think they mind.”
“People aren’t possessions, Horse,” Cole scolded in a low voice, still clamped around the cigarette.
A really big part of me wanted to call bullshit. I wanted to remind him how I belonged to him but it just sounded too gay to say out loud.
*****
“Hey, Sal,” Cole and I greeted him in unison where he stood behind the bodega counter.
“Boys, get into any trouble today?” He eyed us over his Spanish newspaper.
“Nah,” Cole playfully drug out the word as we walked up, both high-fiving Sal as our smiles went wide.
Over the past two years, I had realized why Cole looked at the bodega reverentially that first day. Sal was the only person in the whole neighborhood that gave a damn. He asked us about our days, he made sure we’d eaten at least once and on more than one occasion, he’d let us stay in the stock room overnight so we weren’t sleeping on rooftops in the rain or snow. He scolded us when we got into trouble but he never once called the cops or the Irish enforcers. He felt more like family than any worthless person that shared my blood.
“Are you still taking Spanish?” he asked, leveling his gaze over top of the paper at each of us.
“Yeah,” Cole nodded then translated the headline from the front page.
“And Horse?” He always tripped over the S in my name and it made me smile.
“Tryin’,” I admitted. “Doesn’t come as easy to me.” My cheeks turned red beneath their tan.
“Practice makes perfect.” He smiled warmly. “My niece Esmeralda is playing Ms. Pac-Man, as long as you two are nice to her, I’ll let your keep your money.” We both nodded wildly. “And there are burritos in the back. Rosita made them.”
Cole shoved me as he darted through the narrow aisles determined to beat me to Rosita’s burritos. I didn’t blame him one bit, already tasting the delicious carnitas melt in my mouth. I immediately tried to grab him and shove him back to sprint ahead.
“Hey, hey, hey,” Sal yelled from the counter, laughter heavy in his voice.
We were both wrestling, tumbling toward the break room, when dark jeans painted onto a tight little ass, stopped us both short. Long wavy chocolate hair covered her shoulders and hung down like a curtain to cover her face and tits. As if she knew we’d arrived, she flipped her hair, to reveal a rare Spanish beauty with dark eyes and full grown curves.
“Shit,” Cole swore under his breath.
I looked over at him, studying the way his body seemed to throb in response to her. I’d told him that I’d get him laid and apparently the universe had listened.
I leaned in close enough that she wouldn’t hear. “Cole, take what you want.”
He shot me a death stare but then I made his signature grabby hands back at him and shoved his shoulder. He stumbled toward her, and I couldn’t tell if it was on purpose or not when he bumped into her hip. Cole started his charming apologies, punctuated with his devilish smirk as she gasped an utterly seductive sound. My dick twitched in response but I simply smiled and turned toward the burritos.
“Hi, I’m Cole.” Seduction and swagger dripped from each of his words and I crossed my fingers that he’d be every bit the savage I knew he could be.
“I’m Essie.” Their voices carried as I poured hot sauce over top of a tortilla crown and tore in.
They proceeded to flirt over top of the most famous chick that swallowed in the history of the world. I tore at the burrito with a stupid smile on my face as I listened to Cole worm his way around her, showing her tricks to playing the arcade game. Then he called her beautiful. She giggled and it only coaxed more sweet compliments from his silver tongue. In exactly one burrito the conversation died out and Essie’s sweet little mewls replaced it.
“Asshole is fingering her at the Ms. Pac-Man screen,” I said to know one in particular, laughing as I tore into burrito number two.
His husky voice and her stifled little moans were barely audible so I rolled Sal’s office chair closer to the door. Hints of wet and sloppy sounds accented their hot and heavy voices. I could picture Cole wrapped around her, I’d found him that way too many times. I could hear her breathy, girly voice in contrast to his harder one. This was usually the point when they’d put the breaks on. Not yet or not with him here even just please. Cole always folded, he always gave them their space.
“Take what you want, Cole,” I said it soft enough that he couldn’t hear but I hoped he got the message all the same.
They carried on long enough, wild and free enough for me to get a semi. The silk of my gym shorts tickled. I thought about stroking myself when her little whimpers crescendoed.
“Mother fucker’s going to make her come.” Something I didn’t think I could actually claim I’d done.
“Damn right I am.” Cole stood in the doorway, his eyes wild and his chest rising and falling a little too fast. “Cover for me?”
I nodded before adding, “I’m eating your burrito.” I held up the one in my hand and smiled.
“With any luck, that’s what she’ll say.” He started laughing as he darted out of the office, grabbed Essie by the hand and shot out the back exit.
****
The old pair of shoes had to go. They were my dad’s favorite of late so they needed nothing more than to be wrapped up on a telephone wire in front of the house. I chuckled to myself as I tied the laces together and started to swing. With one easy move, the shoes floated up to the wire and spun.
I laughed and rubbed on my newly scruffed chin then looked to my side. For the first time in a long time, no one was there to echo me. Something twisted up inside me, then disappeared all together. I wasn’t sure but it seemed part of me was always tied to Cole.
For a moment I started back toward the bodega, remembering the wild songs I’d heard from the alley as I’d slipped out. But I’d crept behind a trash can to watch them for minute and only caught a glimpse of Essie licking her lips as she zipped up Cole’s fly. They’d run toward his house after that. And I couldn’t follow. Or stay at the bodega without rousing Sal’s suspicion.
My only other option was…
Cole’s whooping laughter cut down the street. I spun toward the sound to find someone infinitely older and wiser walking toward me. Someone disjointed too, moving with an ease I’d never seen before.
“Horse!” he bellowed, no hint of his warbling voice. “I’ve been looking everywhere for you.” He walked up and threw is arms around me. He squeezed and it took every ounce of strength I’d built not to cling on to him. “Man,” he started as he stepped back, “it was everything I wanted and more. Why the fuck didn’t you tell me?”
“I mean…” My voice trailed off. The answer was simple. Sex was good but Mallory didn’t make the shitstorm fall away. “I’m just not good with words, I guess.”
“True story.” Cole rolled his eyes and slapped me on the shoulder. “But come back with me. Essie’s asleep but we can all, I dunno, chill, when she wakes up.”
The way he said chill stood more than just my neck hair on end. A switch had flipped inside Cole and he oozed something even more intoxicating than before. I found myself nodding and following behind like a puppy.
We trotted down the street and took the stairs into his townhouse two at a time. His mom’s alley cat was missing new tufts of hair as she circled our ankles in the foyer. Essie purred similarly from the living room.
“Cole?” Her voice was gritty and it sounded like she was sharpening her nails on the well-worn couch.
I quirked my eyebrow up and watched as even the alley cat strode toward the bewitching voice. I followed behind her swishing tail and Cole’s new-found confidence into the room then hung back. Essie was naked, barely draped in the sheep blanket I recognized from Cole’s couch.
“You brought Horse?” she screeched and gathered the blanket up around her chest.
“Course.” Cole sat down next to her hip and wrapped his hand around her. “I told you that’s where I was going.” He pressed his lips to her bare shoulder. “I thought you’d be dressed but I’m not mad that you aren’t.” His lips found the sensitive spot beneath her ear. Her eyes stayed focused on me but she rolled her head to wrap into Cole’s kiss.
“I can give you a moment,” I said softly, already searching for that damn cat to fill my attention when it so obviously wanted fill up on Essie.
“No.” Cole didn’t stop kissing her. “You can kiss him right?” He drug his bottom teeth along her jaw.
“B-b-both of you?” Her voice trembled.
“Yeah.” He reached his hand beneath the blanket. “What do you think?”
I shoved my hands into my pockets and started searching for the alley cat again. Only when Essie stayed silent did I dare to look up at her from under my eyelashes. She studied me in the doorway as Cole’s hand seemed to roam decidedly lower.
“I…I don’t know.” Her voice was soft and muffled as she hid lower behind her blanket.
“I just want to see you kiss him. I want to see what your lips look like when you kiss, Essie. Your too damn good for me to keep my eyes open.” The blanket started to dance at the fold of her hip, displaying the rhythm of his hand.
“Come over, Horse.” Cole’s green eyes glinted with his new and dangerous twinkle. I couldn’t deny that tractor beam pull. Pheromones leaked into the room and latched onto me. I followed without a single thought and settled down right next to Cole.
Essie moaned beside me and my eyes took a moment to rove over her curvaceous body. Cole’s hand hadn't stopped moving beneath the blanket and I couldn’t help but tent my shorts. I mean he was knuckle deep right next to me.
The blanket shifted and and one of her perky boobs popped out. She barely noticed until Cole used his other hand to pull on dark rose, peaked nipple.
“Cole,” she gasped and reached for the blanket.
“Don’t, Ess,” he murmured and bent to kiss her shoulder again. “You’re too gorgeous to hide.” His voice dripped of honey and temptation. I couldn't resist him and he wasn’t even talking to me.
“Y-you think I’m gorgeous?” Her words were getting stronger, more supple.
“I don’t think,” he drug his teeth over the curve of her shoulder. “I know. And so does Horse.”
“Yeah,” I barely managed. “Yeah, I definitely do.”
I mean she was all dark caramel, soft and unblemished skin framed by tousled dark waves that danced on her teardrop breasts. She shook the slightest bit but the longer I watched the more I realized it was in time with Cole’s hand rather than fear of any kind.
“Kiss her, Horse,” Cole coaxed.
I bit my lip as I leaned in toward her. My tongue rubbed the inside of my lip, desperate to do the same to hers.
“Come on.” He moved away from her and came closer to me, his breath smelled like salty french fries that I wanted to nibble, his eyes danced with something hypnotic. “Kiss her,” he said the words slowly and I watched as they formed each singular shape. “Do it.” He jerked his chin. “She wants it.”
As if on cue, Essie moaned. Her eyes had slammed shut and her body bucked against the couch. The blanket fell further and she didn’t even flinch. The way she moved was different than my girlfriend. It was sex and wanton and womanly. I wanted a taste. And if the way a blush of goosebumps rose across her chest was any indication, she wasn’t going to mind one bit.
So I leaned in, and kissed her.
My lips crashed into hers, wet and slick where they tumbled against each other. Her tongue played with mine and our noses bumped into each other. Soft whimpers fed a whole new hunger inside of me.
But it was Cole’s hands that worked her. Mine stayed rooted to the couch, gripping the upholstery harder the longer our mouths were on each other. When I finally pulled back, my scruffy kisses had rubbed her cheeks raw and had her lips bee stung swollen.
“That was fucking amazing,” Cole said, his thick voice choked on awe. Our eyes locked on each other and his were the mirror of his voice. Something passed between us but I didn’t understand what. Just that each of us smirked the same wicked curl. “Now, how about an amazing fuck, Ess?” Cole looked away and the spell was broken.
“Yes,” she moaned, his fingers still diddling her beneath the blanket.
“You mean, fuck yes, right?” he snarled as he laid her back along the couch, shoving on my hip as he went.
I stood, my eyes still on them. Cole was fumbling in his pocket for something. When he couldn’t find what he was looking for he sat back. As if remembering I was there, he scowled then jerked his chin toward the front door. I followed Cole’s unspoken command the same as all the others and slowly backed toward the front door, watching their bodies bumble against each as he dove back down to Essie, condom in hand.
The moment I was outside, I sucked in a deep breath hoping to clear the sex from my lungs, my head, but all I got was thick humidity. It clung to my skin with no reprieve. What I’d just done was a second layer and I couldn’t decide if it was going to crack me open and let me breathe or smother me completely.
Fucking Cole. I rolled my eyes at him—at his quick take to sex, his stupid commands, and how hot it all was—as I slipped into the dark alley to jerk off.
*****
A rough and ragged crow rang through the neighborhood an hour or so later. I recognized Cole’s voice, his new and dark, deepening voice shattering everyone’s peace. I rolled my eyes at him again, then went back to staring up at the sky. The city lights outshone the stars but I searched for them anyway. It was that or watch how clouds and pollution swirled together in the faint pink of the city when I laid out on the roof.
“Fuck yeah!” Cole wasn’t too far away on the streets below, apparently pretty pleased with the fact he wasn’t a big virgin tool any more.
The whole neighborhood was gonna figure out he was trumped up trouble riding hormonal waves if he didn’t shut his face. I simply adjusted my hands behind my head and changed which leg crossed which where I reclined in relative silence.
A few trashcans rattled in the alley just behind my house and I knew without peering over the edge of the roof that Cole was kicking random shit in the alley. He grunted one or twice, a truly savage sound, then glass shattered and he crowed again.
“Fucking cats, Cole,” I murmured up to the sky.
Another glass bottle shattered in the alley, sending a tinkling shower of glass down the rutted pavement. Then there was another. And another. Two more trashcans bounced into the brick of our house then rattled the drainpipe that snaked up toward my head.
I rolled my eyes, this time so exaggerated that it hurt my brain, then pushed up and crawled over to the edge.
“Are you fucking finished?” I asked, as I watched his suddenly wider shoulders heave in the faint street light.
“Finished fucking?” He looked up, the new glint in his eyes apparent even from up here. “No. Never.” He crowed again then let a huge smile split his face. “I feel invincible.”
“I’m happy to test the theory. Shooting you may shut your ass up.” I quirked my eyebrows.
“How do you ever have time to hang out with me? Why aren’t you up in Mallory all day? I mean jizzing on magazine pussy is nice but it’s nothing compared to being inside them.”
“True.” I shrugged my shoulders.
And honestly I couldn’t answer him. Sex was good, nice even, but it didn’t make me want to run through the streets like a feral animal. Something was still missing for me, some deeper layer that I’d always yarned for.
“Get down here.” Cole jerked his head and kicked the trashcan for emphasis. “Ride this high with me.”
“Yeah, fine. Whatever.” I sighed and I pushed up, easily swinging myself over the edge of the roof and landing beside him with almost no noise. “What did you have in mind.”
“I wanna steal something. Something big.” Satan slithered and fiddled on his words. “Let’s steal a fucking car.”
*****
“Do you know what you’re doing?” I watched Cole as he jimmied his metal tool down into the car door.
“I’ve been watching the Irish guys,” he answered as if that was enough of an explanation.
“What? Why?”
“Because as far as I know, I’m not allowed to watch you with Mallory.” He turned back toward me, and that ruthless look he sometimes wore contorted his face. I couldn’t help but match it. “You might wanna let me. It’s fucking hot.” The car door popped as if it was the punctuation to his sentence.
Cole grabbed the handle and opened the Cadillac door but it felt like he was opening up a door to another universe. It was relatively clean on the inside but there was sticky change in one of the center cup holders and a Big Gulp sat in the other. A few fast food bags were crumpled in the back seat.
“Get in.” His eyes lit up and he started to nod his head a little bit.
I hesitated. Not because I had any issues with stealing the car but this moment felt heavier than that. We weren’t just upgrading from misdemeanor to felony, it was something more. And I followed him down that path all the same.
The leather was smooth beneath my fingertips, and as I slid into the passenger seat, it’s buttery warm scent mingled with the stale french fries. There were no nicks or gouges in the car and everything looked fresh, I couldn’t help but run my hands over it.
“Cool,” I said softly, realizing I was in a new car for the first time in my life.
“Right?” Cole answered, his eyes still glowing with a reckless green. “Now let’s find the keys.”
“Wait? You don’t have them? Or know how to hot-wire it?” The panic in my voice made it tick up a little too high.
“No, but I saw these guys leave their keys in here. They just locked it with the keypad on the outside.” He started patting around, my hands automatically copied. “You trust me right?”
“More than I should,” I grumped under my breath as I started searching the car.
My hand hit something metal beneath my seat and it moved. I reached further and wrapped my hands around the cool steel and pulled it out hoping I’d found them and we could get the hell out of here.
I glanced down into my hand and my heart pummeled my chest. My shallow breaths beat against my eardrums. Sure enough, I’d found something but it wasn’t going to help us get out of here, it was just a signal that we should have never gotten in.
“Did you find them” Cole plopped back down into the driver’s seat and stared over at me.
“We shouldn’t be in here.” My voice cracked as I studied the gun in my hand.
“Duh, it’s called stealing for a reason.” His dorky laugh made the car seem less terrifying but only for a moment.
“No, dude, I think we picked the wrong car.” My voice had gotten darker without me even having to try.
“Why?” Almost as soon as he asked his hands were wrapped around the gun, yanking it from mine. “Cool.” He blew out a long, low whistle.
“Not cool, Cole. What if this belongs to one of the Maloney guys? What if we’re fucked?” I snarled at him, finding a deeper rumble in my changing voice then I had known before.
“We’re fine. Tonight, we’re invincible, remember?” Wild, reckless and ruthless all danced across his face.
That look should have made me run. From the very beginning actually. But it was what drew me to him. Cole oozed conviction and corruption, chaos even, and damn was it a heady drug. I couldn’t help but smile like I was high on cheap weed.
“Tonight we’re invincible,” I echoed.
His answering smile was enough to reinforce the words on my insides and, as if he knew, we both broke out in matching laughter. Cole even doubled over, almost careening into the steering wheel. Something jiggled and we both cut off, leaving silence in the car except for faint jingle of keys in the ignition still sounding.
Cole turned the keys where we finally found them and when the car purred to life beneath us, he looked over, that unholy glint of his cutting through the darkness once again.
“Invincible,” he repeated, his voice the mimic of what I always saw deep inside his eyes.
*****
We’d hid the car in the alley behind Cole’s house for a few days, using a dumpster and random cardboard boxes to hide it from prying eyes. Each night we took it for a joyride, letting street lamps wash away all our cares, all our sins. One night we picked up Mallory and Essie, cruised the highways until we found an empty stretch of Lake Michigan beach and made out, me in the front seat with Mallory and him in the back with Essie, until my lips went numb.
We were kings.
I smirked as I imagined straightening my crown when Cole honked in the alley below me. Mallory and I had the backseat tonight, and I was going to take advantage of every inch. I was going to take advantage of her. It made my dick twitch.
Each day it was easier to drop down from the roof of my folks house, the distance shrinking as I definitely did not.
“Do you have condoms or should we stop for some?” I asked as I slid into the passenger seat.
Cole smiled as he twisted toward the backseat, and started shoving jackets and discarded pairs of Chuck Taylors aside.
“Check the glovebox, will ya?” he asked, his voice slightly muffled by the back seat.
I bent forward and started digging too, only to come up empty. I snapped my the small door shut and sat up. My eyes automatically shot to the figures standing in the bright beams of the headlights.
They’d appeared from nowhere and though they were brightly lit, radiated darkness. Each of them had something small, circular and shiny pointed at us.
“I think we’re gonna have to stop. I’m definitely fucking Essie tonight. It’s been like, what? Two days? Two days is too long.” Cole rattled on.
I barely heard him, his words sounding more underwater than just behind me. He kept it up, talking about Essie’s sweet pussy and how he’d make her meow, but I could only hear the crunch of big, booted footsteps as they slunk toward the car. I raised my hands instinctually the way criminals did on cop shows. My breath was balled in my throat as I watched the barrel of guns a lot like the one still hidden beneath my seat creep closer.
“Cole,” I finally managed, my voice shaky as fuck.
“What?” He didn’t sit up, he didn’t look.
“Cole,” I repeated, sharper, my high voice creeping back in.
That caught his attention. He took one look at me before his head snapped toward the hood. I would have given anything to hear his thoughts as he took in the menacing men in front of us.
“Get out of the car,” one of them snarled.
“Like hell,” Cole shouted back, his fingers white knuckling on the steering wheel.
The men moved out from in front of the car, stepping closer and closer to the car doors. Cole’s look of grim determination set his lips into a thin line as he locked his door. I scrambled to do the same but too quick, my door flung open. Big, gnarled hands curled into my shirt at the same time Cole whomped on the gas pedal. The combination all but sent me flying from the Cadillac and onto the chest of Thing 1.
Tires screeched and the gross smell of burning rubber filled the alley. I knew Cole had bolted. Thing 2 grabbed at the back of my shirt and yanked me violently up to standing. I caught a quick glance down the alley, no red brake lights in sight, before a fist crunched into my face and my whole world spun.
He managed to hit me one more time, this time with the butt of the gun before my survival instinct kicked in. Never had I been so glad that my father beat the living fuck out of me. I lunged at the guy, flattening him to his back in a swift and easy movement. Beneath me I felt how muscular he was, but it didn’t stop me. I didn’t even hesitate.
I sent one fist into his kidney by my knee just before I squared another across his jaw. I cocked back ready for another round but an arm notched around my throat. Thing 2 flexed his arm around my throat and his bicep bulged enough that I couldn’t breathe. While my hands should have been pummeling away at the Thing beneath me, they had a mind of their own and decided to claw away at my airway instead.
My vision started to go spotty, the streetlights turning into hundreds of tiny bright lights. The ache in my chest was building, my lungs seemed like they might actually explode under the pressure. Blood crashed and beat in my head like massive waves.
“What makes you think you can take a Maloney car and live to tell the tale?” Thing 1 rose up from underneath me and sneered in my face.
I was going to die. I felt my life slipping through my numb fingertips.
Every sound was garbled but for a split second I swore I heard screeching tires on pavement again. The part of my brain still working decided it was nothing more than the wishful delusions of a dying man.
And didn’t I deserve to die? I was too young to have committed most of the deadly sins, yet I’d fought and fucked and stolen. I’d coveted and was basically made of impure thoughts. I’d been high. My parents couldn't love me and if Cole had abandoned me in the alley, maybe it was because I was the unloveable one.
Maybe a small amount of pity—and the fact that I hadn’t murdered—would keep Satan’s flame from scorching out my eyes in Hell.
“Get your hands off my best friend.” A frantic, furious scream pierced through my death haze just before three gun shots rang out.
I dropped to the pavement with barely enough strength to reach out and catch myself. Air rushed into my lungs and my ragged breaths shook my spine. The gravel digging into my palms was the only thing that kept me in the alley and from passing out all together. Another shot blasted down the alley, followed by a haunting bellow.
“I’ll teach you to fuck with my friend,” Cole shrieked again, his words the jumpstart to my barely beating heart.
One of the Things was still seething in pain while the grunts of two men tumbling, swearing and grunting echoed in the alley.
“We’re gonna kill you two,” Thing 2 snarled. “We’re gonna start with you.”
Cole actually growled but it was cut short. Thumps of flesh against flesh replaced his wild sounds. That was what finally got me up from the street.
The scene was almost too much to take in. Thing 1 had Cole in the same vise grip he’d had me, his arm crooked around his neck and squeezing. Thing 2 had deep red seeping through his t-shirt at his shoulder and oozing down his arm as he used the other one to sucker punch Cole in the stomach. Despite it all, evil laughter twinkled in Cole’s green eyes.
Fear and fury balled in my throat. He’d come back for me and now he was the one who’s world was tunneling around him. He wore his swagger like a badge of honor but I knew first hand how his world was fogging and drifting away. And dammit all to hell if I was going to let it.
I charged at the Thing punching Cole, throwing my full weight into the impact. I caught him off guard and we crashed into the ground, his body softening my fall. As soon as we landed, I hooked my thumb into his shoulder. His cry was the most desperate, guttural thing I’d ever heard. It made the corner of my lip twitch up into an evil smirk just before I clocked him as hard as I could in the temple. The body beneath me went limp.
My breathing had returned to normal, slow steady breaths as I rose up from the unconscious brute on the street. I turned toward the Thing holding Cole and simply quirked my eyebrows at him. Cole had the audacity to laugh though it came out as a breathy, strangled thing.
“Let go of my friend.” I enunciated each word in the most savage voice I could manage.
The Thing started to laugh. “I’m gonna kill your friend.”
Cole was beet red, his muscles taut and straining against the arm still choking off his airway, but his smile still hung on his face. Spit bubbled at the sides of his lips just before he managed to squeak out, “I still have the gun.”
He aimed down and pulled the trigger, blasting into the Thing’s toe. I swore I saw the leather explode, speckled in red, just before he dropped Cole and started to howl at the moon. Cole collapsed to the ground just as I had but I rushed over, grabbed him and slung his arm over my shoulder. As soon as I pulled him up, I started running.
The Thing’s pain and agony masked our footsteps as we broke from the alley onto the street. But they were waiting anyway. As if on cue, headlights splashed across us, bathing us in blinding light. I froze but just for a second. I readjusted Cole and was poised to run when an evil laugh started from behind the spotlight. My blood went cold and my feet could help but stay rooted. Cole pulled himself from my shoulder and stood strong and somber beside me.
“Well, well, well, what do we have here?” A thick Irish accent asked, still laced with husky chuckles.
The Thing Cole had shot in the foot limped into the light and reached for my throat.
“Hands off, Colin.” The Irish voice commanded and the Thing’s hands fell away without protest. “It appears two young lads had their way with two of my enforcers.”
Goosebumps spread across my skin.
“They…” Colin, the Thing, started but he was cut off with a hiss from behind the headlights.
“I know what they did. I know what they’ve been doing.” Footsteps fell against the pavement, each one bringing the Irish voice closer. “They stole from me, they beat what is mine, they wreaked havoc in my neighborhood,” he sneered.
“Who died and made you king?” Cole mouthed off beside me and my eyes went wide.
The bone-chilling laugh cut through the night again.
“Oh laddy,” he purred as he stepped to us, finally lit up in the headlights.
Immediately I started studying him, deciding if I could take the muscled man in front of me. He was built, his buzzed hair reminding me of a TV drill sergeant, and his glassy green eyes burned with a wicked black flame. But it was something else, something more, that seemed to radiate from the depths of his soul, that told me not to swing.
“No one had to die for me to be king, though many, many do.” He bent over Cole, coming almost nose to nose with him. “I’m Mickey Maloney, and I just fucking am the king.”
*****
Mickey. Fucking. Maloney. We all knew that name. You couldn’t live within a thirty block radius and not. And now we were being marched up the front steps of his house. Mickey’s back flexed and rolled beneath his t-shirt but it was still that something unspoken that radiated off him that was truly terrifying.
Well, that and his name.
His name was the haunted whisper in the dark alleys, and the specter that hung on every evil shadow. He was ruthless, wicked, and murdered for sport. And we willingly followed him into the nondescript ranch style house.
Though the wounded thugs behind us, and the extra enforcers behind them, made the decision that much easier.
I expected the inside to match the outside but instead it was morbid. Something straight out of a villain’s layer. Ornate furniture, candles and black—everywhere.
With a jerk of Mickey’s chin, weapons started clinking onto the long banquet table in the entryway, his thugs loosing every single piece. The way he silently commanded was an awesome and terrible thing.
“You too, lad.” Mickey zeroed in on Cole and waited to move, maybe even breathe, until Cole pried his fingers from the stolen gun.
As soon as Cole chucked it into the small arsenal, Mickey started moving deeper into the house. Like good little sheep we followed, snaking the small hallways until he opened a door, revealing stairs descending into the basement.
“Well, my boys, now we descend into hell.” He clapped each of us on the shoulder then shoved us down the stairs.
It really was a nosedive into the underworld, things becoming darker, more devious with each step. The wood carvings had more gargoyles and it may have been my imagination but blood dripped from sharp fanged, gaping mouths. The floor itself was covered in deep black shag.
I shuffled through the thick carpet still following Mickey and Cole. Well, mostly Cole, as I trotted into the cave of debauchery. My mouth dropped open when I paused and took in Satan’s lair.
Naked women danced on poles in the corners of the room. Both were fully bare and slid around the silver steel like it was part of there bodies. Tits, ass, and pussy wound and wove around my senses, all illuminated in nothing but flickering candlelight. My jaw dropped to my chin and I felt the telltale twitch in my pants.
Micky shuffled past us and slithered onto a throne in the middle of the room. He threw his leg over one of the armrests and stared out at the room with an unbearable scrutiny, equal parts amusements and disdain. His presence was plain overwhelming presence in the room.
There were pipes and pulleys bolted to the ceiling, both had rope trailing down toward my shoulders. The couches and chairs all looked comfortable where they were staged in a semi-circle, all facing Mickey and the open space where Cole and I stood. Tons of well built, muscle machines of men sat surrounding us.
I gulped audibly.
“Did you two really think you could get away with this?” Mickey’s question was still that mix of humor and hatred.
“We did get away with it. We had that car for almost a week,” Cole piped up, his chest puffing with each word. I took the liberty of elbowing him.
“He get mouthy from time to time?” Mickey asked, his glassy gaze falling directly on me.
“More like all the time.” I rolled my eyes and his hissing laugh echoed through the room.
“And you? What do you do?”
“I back him up.” I squared my shoulders and widened my stance, doing my best to live up to my name.