A Bad Day for Sunshine (Sunshine Vicram #1)(62)

“I wish I could do something.”

“You can. Go home so I don’t have to worry about finding a Sunshine Popsicle on my next pass.”

“Okay, but I’m leaving under duress and against my better judgment.”

“Yeah, well, your judgment was never that great.”

What was that supposed to mean? “What’s that supposed to mean?”

If perfection manifested into human form, it would look exactly like the man sitting in her passenger’s seat. The one with the annoyed look on his face. “What it means, Vicram, is go home.” He said her name like it was something he would spit out if he were starving.

Before she could argue the point again—and take up more of his precious time—he climbed down from her cruiser and slammed the door. Then he pointed, telling her to lock it.

She obeyed almost faster than his cousin had. There was something about the way he gave an order. She felt that ignoring it would be risky.

But he hadn’t replaced his face mask and goggles. She waited and watched as he trod back to his truck, his hair whipping about his head, until he was safely inside. Then she released the breath she’d been holding.

Yet not five seconds after he got inside, he opened the door again, reached over his windshield, and pulled off her stupid note, the one that the storm had surely melted the lettering off. Humiliation burned through her.

He looked at it, the wind almost ripping it out of his hands. Then he looked back at her and let it go, the blizzard carrying it into oblivion before climbing back into his truck.

She rolled down her window and shouted, “That’s a five-hundred-dollar fine, mister!”

A backhoe drove past then. Levi turned the truck around to head back to his house, but he waited for her to do the same, for her to follow the backhoe. She did, and when they arrived back at 63, Sun and the backhoe went one direction while Levi and his cousin went the other.

Just like she and Levi always seemed to do.


Auri couldn’t sleep. She knew it would be an issue the next day, what with her coloring and the fact that dark blue circles just didn’t look good under her hazel eyes. But it didn’t matter.

Cruz’s dad had taken her home just as the winds picked up and the sky started dumping snow like it was a Christmas in Denver.

She enjoyed talking to Cruz’s dad—with Cruz interpreting, of course—on the short drive home. He was a nice guy and made a killer hot chocolate. The real stuff. Not the powdered stuff in a can.

Cruz walked Auri to the door when they got to her grandparents’ house.

“Do you like it?” he asked, gesturing toward their apartment in back.

“Are you kidding? I love it. Which part did you work on?”

“See that wall closest to the alley?”

She grinned. “Yes.”

“I built that. Among other things.”

“That’s my favorite wall.”

“Really?”

“And my bedroom.”

“Oh.”

He kept his gaze steady until she asked, “Hey, why did you work construction when your dad’s a mechanic?”

“I work for my grandfather in the summer. On my mom’s side.”

“Oh. I didn’t know that.” The wind had picked up so that even in the covered porch, Auri’s hair was being flung about. “Thanks for working on this with me.”

“Of course. We’re partners.”

The smile that spread across her face couldn’t have been stopped if Moses himself had commanded it. Jesus, maybe, but Moses didn’t have quite enough clout to dampen her joy.

“Guess I should go before my dad freezes to death.”

“That would suck.”

“Yeah, it would.”

He turned to walk away, and she’d thought of him almost nonstop all night. And Sybil. And the students at Del Sol High she was going to have to face today.

She took one last glance in the mirror and considered her options. Not about her coloring. Nothing to be done about that. But about the students at Del Sol. The mean ones, anyway.

The way she saw it, she had three. Options, that is. She could face the students at school and be mocked and ridiculed for being a narc once again. She could beg her mom to let her help with the search. Or she could run away, change her name, and become a Vegas showgirl like her grandmother had been.

Decisions, decisions.

She grabbed her backpack and walked out to steal a gulp of her mom’s coffee.

“Hey, bug bite. How’d you sleep?”

“Great. Kind of. I don’t know. I kept waking up.” She noticed the patient smile on her mom’s face and grew wary. “What?”

“Who was the boy?”

“What boy?” The delicate arch of a single brow convinced Auri not to try to scam her mom. She plopped her backpack on a chair with a huff and dropped into the chair beside it. “I think I’m in love.”

Was that it? Was it her feelings for Cruz that had her so hesitant to face the day at Del Sol High? She’d never liked anyone so much she was afraid of losing them. Well, besides her mom.

That very woman had been taking a sip of coffee when Auri had professed her love, and she sipped and gasped at the same time. Then she spent the next ten minutes hacking up a lung. It would have been hilarious if Auri’s insides weren’t being eviscerated by shards of glass.