Deconstructed(18)

Griff came around to the front, stopping beside us. He crossed his steely arms. “I want to reiterate that it’s dangerous not to have a spare. Still, in this case it wouldn’t matter because the rim is damaged. What did you hit?”

Cricket narrowed her eyes. After her rough night, I worried that she might freak out on my cousin. She seemed to be teetering on the edge of sanity. She had snuck into someone’s backyard, dressed like a ninja, to get proof of her husband’s infidelity.

“I’m the one who was driving, and it was a huge pothole. I didn’t see it,” I said. Normally, I would have, but Cricket had made that anal-beads comment, and that had fried me. I had never expected to hear those two words coming from her mouth in a million years.

Griff gave me his stern-daddy look just as Cricket held up a hand. “It’s fine, Ruby. Let’s just let your very judgmental cousin get on back to his not-so-comfortable house, and we’ll call Triple A.”

“They would just call me back out here. Look, I’ll get the car on the roll back. You have someplace you want me to tow it?” Griff studied Cricket, his eyes intense.

Cricket blinked a few times and then sort of deflated. It took me a few seconds to realize why. How was she going to explain this to Scott when he thought she was home eating a late dinner and waiting up for him? I shouldered my way in front of her, looking up at my cousin. “We could just take it to the yard, maybe?”

Griff shrugged.

“What’s the yard?” Cricket asked.

“Griff has a locked yard to keep vehicles overnight. It will be safe there.” I shot her a purposeful look, one that tried to relay that this would buy her some time. Once Griff took the car, we could figure out how to get her home before Scott found out she wasn’t there. Or at least come up with a story to cover for the fact she was tooling around Shreveport late at night in a convertible.

“That’s fine. I can also recommend a place where you can get a tire for this model. Won’t cost you an arm and a leg like”—his eyes flickered over to Cricket—“other places south of town.”

I rolled my eyes and inhaled the cooling Louisiana air, hoping Cricket wouldn’t notice the dig at her side of town.

She did.

“That’s okay. I can find my own garage. On my own side of town.”

He glanced away, but I saw the irritation. “Might take a while to get a setup for a car like this. You can call me tomorrow and let me know what garage is going to charge you double to fix it, and I’ll get my guys to take it there.”

“Perfect, and perhaps you could give us a ride to a place where we might call an Uber safely?” Cricket managed a smile that was as tight as a bowstring.

Griff made a face. “I’m not a taxi, blondie.”

Coming to the rescue, I zeroed a stern gaze on my older cousin. “I know Gran would appreciate you making sure me and my boss have a safe location to get an Uber.”

Griff may have blanched . . . if a guy with tan skin and scruff on his jaw could grow pale. I knew he wouldn’t want me tattling to Gran. And I would if I had to, because he was being a total ass.

“Fine.” He turned, walked back to his tow truck, grabbed a pair of gloves, and started flipping some switches. The hydraulic lift began dropping the hook-and-chain thing he’d use to tow Cricket’s not-so-nondescript spy car.

“Thanks!” I hollered, turning back to Cricket. “Grab your stuff . . . Austin Powers.”

Cricket snorted and then opened the car door to start gathering the empty cup, the crumpled protein-bar package, and the tools of snoopery she’d employed, tossing everything into a monogrammed bag. She moved to the curb and sank down on her haunches, no longer perturbed but more resigned to how effed up our night had gotten.

I grabbed my backpack, realizing that tonight would be a long one because I still had an assignment due before class the next day and needed to study for a quiz. Across the street, a man wearing a faded T-shirt poked his head out his front door. I waved, giving a what-can-you-do shrug. He held up a hand before disappearing inside, closing the scarred door.

Neighborhood watch.

A few kids hung out in a nearby park, and I could hear catcalling, whooping, and the sound of the basketball bouncing on the court. A few cars rolled down Line Avenue, one slowing to investigate the wounded car but zipping off when they realized a tow truck was on the scene.

Griffin moved gracefully for such a hulk, and within a few minutes, the car moved toward his tow truck, a magnet to a pole, pulled steadily onto the platform he’d lowered. I moved to sit beside Cricket, who sat biting her lower lip, deep in thought.

“You know, his moon is all wrong,” Cricket finally said.

“What?”

“On the side of his truck. That’s a crescent moon, and everyone knows that a blue moon is a full moon. Of course, if he used a full moon, it would look like a circle and not as effective marketing-wise. Still, it’s sort of misleading.”

I looked at the writing on the side of my cousin’s cab under the crescent moon. BLUE MOON TOWING. “I don’t know if anyone really knows or cares. I mean, maybe it’s ironic.”

“Is it?” Cricket asked, looking lost in the space she occupied. I realized this could be a delayed-shock sort of thing. She had just caught her husband with another woman.

Really, this whole misadventure from start to finish had been a mistake, and I had gone along with it because for one thing, she was my boss and I owed her some kind of loyalty. But it was mostly because I felt bad for her. I knew how she felt—used up, tossed aside like a stiff tissue found in the bottom of a forgotten purse. My uncle Ed Earl had done that to me—tricking me into participating in his meth distribution without my knowing. I mean, now I feel stupid for not having seen that his “Do me a favor when you go into town” was a way to send his product to his “guys.” Yeah, I got busted for being a mule and didn’t know the packages of wild game I was taking to donate for “Hunters for the Hungry” were feeding their drug habits. Since it was a third strike and my lawyer was an idiot, I did time for it. The betrayal cut deep, which was why I wasn’t talking to my family. Except for Gran. And now Griff, I guess.