The Family Business 3 (The Family Business #3)(81)

Although Lou and I were around the same height, he outweighed me by about fifty pounds of muscle. That’s not even speaking of the fly threads and shoes he loved to sport, which I never could afford.

Lou had been gone a month this time, tending to whatever relationships he was trying to cultivate beyond Hillcroft. From his demeanor, I guessed he was successful.

“Still workin’ at the gas station, huh, college boy?” he joked, flashing that smile of his nestled beneath his full moustache and untouchable afro. His eyes scanned my oil-stained shop coveralls only briefly before moving on to survey the people around us. Lou could be here, but his mind always seemed to be operating somewhere else. This town made him restless, and he wasn’t afraid to let it show.

“Yep. It’s an honest job,” I replied, trying to cut my brother with words that I knew would merely bounce off his impervious ego. But they did bring his attention back to me as we waited for his luggage to be unloaded from storage beneath the bus. I had a good idea of what he brought back with him from his trip up north.

“I’m honest with my work too, boy. No preconceived notions about what I do,” he said, playfully slapping me across the back of my head. From inside the bus, a girl in the window was frantically waving to get his attention.

“A friend?” I asked as I looked at the girl with high cheekbones and long, straight hair like she had some Indian in her family. She looked to be younger than me.

“Yeah. You might say that,” he replied, offering up a mouthful of teeth and a disingenuous wave to appease her. “She on her way down to Tallahassee. Parents back in Philly can’t manage her no mo’. Goin’ to live with her grandma is what she said. I actually thought she was quite manageable. Especially when we stopped back ’round South Carolina. * so good it needs its own name—first, middle, and last.”

“Uh-huh. Watch you wind up in jail over something you can’t talk your way outta. That girl is what? Sixteen?” I said, shaking my head.

“Nah. She’s seventeen and a half, and a damn good half too. And I’ll leave jail to Larry. For somebody who lies so well to all these women he’s juggling, he sure hasn’t figured out how to use it with the law,” he said with a hearty laugh, referring to our brother, the middle one.

I joined in on that, knowing it was true. Larry was one unlucky motherf*cker, and quick to blame it on someone else when the world came crashing in like it always did.

The bus driver, following his list, pulled out a large, olive-green Army duffle bag and a Samsonite suitcase for which Lou produced his claim ticket. Knowing Lou, neither his bus ticket nor his ID was in his real name.

“Here. Let me get one of those,” I requested as I reached for my brother’s duffle bag.

“Nah. I got it, scrawny. You tryin’ to be as skinny as JJ on Good Times?” he clowned, stepping in front of me. “Take the Samsonite. Don’t want you catching a hernia, boy.”

Out in the open, I knew better than to question Lou about the contents of the duffle bag in front of the driver, especially since I wasn’t going to like the answer. Let’s just say that Lou preferred to take chances with his freedom and had no problem carrying drugs across state lines. I did, so I just took the Samsonite like he told me, and we walked to the van waiting across the street.

“Damn, LC. You need you some of your own wheels instead of fixin’ ’em all the f*ckin’ time,” Lou said, frowning at his transportation from the bus station. Whatever the van’s original color was, it was long gone. In its stead was a dulled coat of powder blue with rust fully showing on the back end of the old Ford. I used it to pick up parts from the auto supply store and, in exchange for keeping it running, Mr. Mixon let me use it from time to time. “You might like that job, but you ask me, it’s just another kind of indentured servitude.

“Don’t worry ’bout me, bro. When I graduate from college, I’ll have my own garage,” I said and made sure that I wasn’t in striking distance of Donna. This was one thing we disagreed on, but I felt certain she’d come around.

“That’s what I love about you, li’l bro. You got plans. Stay that way, because not everybody’s cut out to be a risk taker,” Lou remarked, absent any bullshit.

“Well, when I have my shop, Lou, you can work for me,” I stated, puffing out my chest with pride. I was going to be helping out my family and know it would make our parents up in Heaven proud.

“Me? Work for you?” my brother remarked, his nose crinkling as we stopped to the rear of the van to stow his luggage. “No offense, li’l bro, but that’ll be the day. In case you hadn’t noticed, I’m not the manual labor type.”

As I swung the rear doors open, light flooded the van’s bleak interior. Donna peered back at us from the front bench seat, her eyes adjusting.

“Oh. Hey, Donna,” Lou chimed in, shooting me a dirty look. He plastered on a fake smile, acknowledging my fiancée as he threw his duffle bag in back. I got why she didn’t like him, but I couldn’t quite figure out why my brother was not a fan of the woman I loved.

“Hey, Lou,” she replied like she had smelled something sour. Normally Lou had women falling all over him, even our female relatives, but that wasn’t the case with Donna. “Sweet Lou” is what they called him. Or maybe he started calling himself that. Hard to say, but it stuck.