Jackson Stiles, Road to Redemption (Road to Redemption #1)(34)
“I like subs,” he tells me, excited and bouncy like a fifteen-year-old girl about to get her first kiss.
Yay me.
THERE ONCE WAS A STREET PUNK NAMED THOMAS
“I THOUGHT WE WERE getting subs.”
The kid, otherwise most recently known as the royal pain in my proverbial ass, is apparently very observant.
“Side stop.”
“Where?”
I ignore him. If I tell him I’m going to check out a hunch I have regarding multiple murders that may or may not be linked to his brother’s, he might freak the f*ck out. The last thing I need right now is a panicked teenager.
This way, all I get is emo, which I’m willing to overlook. I’m not, however, willing to ignore the fact that his feet are about to scuff up my dash after I just cleaned this bitch.
“I don’t f*cking think so.” I push his leg off and eyeball him, hard. To which he gives me a standard issue annoyed teenage glance as his feet move to the floorboard. After a few more minutes, he reaches for my stereo, and I nix him again.
“Driver picks the channel.”
“Tunes.”
“What?” Was that not implied?
“It’s driver picks the… never mind. There’s nothing playing, anyway.” He thinks he’s smart, pointing out the obvious like that. He should hang out with Nick sometime.
“Exactly.” I need silence. If I’m gonna visit one of the worst parts of the city, I have to think it through.
A blind reach across my chest finds my shirt pocket. I nab the cig inside that I slipped back into its home when I stopped at the apartment earlier. When Stix sees it, his face scrunches up like he’s never seen a f*cking cigarette before.
“What?”
“You know those things’ll kill you, right?”
Seriously? “That’s rich, coming from the kid whose brother used to be a gang member and most recently was dealing with the highly illegal activity known as street racing.”
“You were racing, too.”
“For my job.”
“You still did it.”
“For the love of…” Ya know what? Not important. I slip the damn thing back into my pocket and call it a draw.
The kid blows out a long, slobbery raspberry in my direction. A few minutes later, he throws out one last “Hail Mary” in an attempt to make this ride enjoyable. For him, anyway.
“Can I at least drive?” He lifts an eyebrow, expectantly. Mine’s bigger though. Plus, really? He’s barely old enough to make his own decisions much less get behind the wheel of a machine like this.
“Fine.” He drops the game of twenty f*cking questions and instead finds a stray thread on his shoe to play with for the remainder of the ride. When we pull up to our destination, about half an hour later, he instinctively sinks down into his seat.
“Get in the back.” He does as he’s told without hesitation, and I’m grateful for the lack of wise-assery.
I’m also wondering if this case is doomed.
“What the mother of hell is she doing here?”
“Who?” He strains to see before I answer.
“Nobody.” I watch Green carefully because, seriously, what in the hell is she doing here?
“That your girlfriend?” He’s pissing me off with this shit.
“She’s most definitely not my girlfriend. Now get down and lie low.”
It looks to me like Green’s interviewing a gang member. He’s all up in her personal space. But that’s not the odd thing about this whole situation. The really disturbing thing is, the guy is smiling at her.
Fucking smiling.
What the f*ck is it with all these guys being nice to this woman?
The way she throws her hair over her shoulder and tucks some of it away behind her ear reminds me of the other day when she teased Nick with that flirtatious grin of hers.
Fake.
Clearly, she’s trying to get some information out of this one. The way she clicks her pen, like she’s going for a world record for speed, tells me she’s nervous.
Not fake. She most likely can’t wait to get back into the safety of her car and get the hell outta here. Not that I blame her.
While I’m busy spying on Green, someone else is spying on me, apparently, and very aggressively approaches the car. I reach behind me and throw a blanket I have back there over the kid as one of Flint’s people taps on the window. Before I make any sudden moves, I confirm I can feel my Smith & Wesson against my hip.
Check.
As I roll the window down, he raises his gun. Not pointed at me, exactly. He simply wants me to know it’s there.
I give him a half-nod.
“How’s it goin’?”
“What you doin’ here, hoss?”
Seriously?
“That the cool word going around these days? Hoss?”
He cocks his gun.
I raise my hands in pacification. “No offense.”
“You should leave.” His warning isn’t taken lightly. I know this part of town. Been there. Done that. Not interested in revisiting that chapter again. But this is kinda, sorta f*cking important.
“I need a word with Thomas.” He gives me a good inspection up and down.
“You don’t look like the kinda guy who’d know Thomas.” His even stare tells me he doesn’t necessarily want to shoot me right here in the street, but he will.