Chapter 32

thirty-two

HENDRIX

Lola's guy—Sweet Willy—was an old redneck in overalls and a camo ball cap with a tattoo of Betty Boop on his flabby arm. And he paid like shit.

I snatched the cash from his outstretched hand and then told him to go fuck himself before I stormed past the stacks of beat-up cars littering his mosquito-infested yard.

Three hundred and fifty bucks. For grand theft auto!

I almost got back into the stupid car, thinking I'd get more satisfaction from sinking it in a lake than letting him bend me over the barrel.

"Three-fifty is a hundred bucks more than I usually get…" Lola's voice came from behind me, breaking the chirp of crickets.

And that was the last turd in my boiling bucket of shit.

I spun around so fast my head spun. "You've been stealing cars—" I jutted my chin toward the crazy man's compound hidden in the dark. "And bringing them to Willy van Ripoff for two-hundred and fifty bucks?"

She shrugged a shoulder. "I guess it's scrap?"

She had been stealing cars for scrap money? I grabbed my hair and pulled it to keep myself from losing my shit. She'd spent her entire life around Zepp and me. How in the hell did she think that was okay? Or worth it?

Shaking my head, I followed the dimly lit, deserted road in the direction of town.

"I got five hundred for a Chevy one time," she said. Like that made it any better.

Stealing anything would get a person in trouble, but cars—that was a felony. A felony she had been committing for God knows how long for two-hundred and fifty bucks a pop! Oh, excuse me. Once for half a grand.

I stopped midstride, turned around, and grabbed her by both shoulders, then lowered my face until I was eye-level with her. "Zepp just spent almost a year in prison for stealing cars. He got out early…"

Since we were kids, I'd protected her. And like hell I'd ever let her help Zepp and me when we had started stealing cars.

Jail time was my risk to take, not hers. Some men provided by paying the bills; others did it by keeping their girl out of prison.She was no longer my girl, but I'd still keep her out of prison.

Closing my eyes, I let out a heavy breath. "Grand theft auto, Lola…for two hundred and fifty bucks."

"What else am I going to do?" she whispered.

And that was the shittiest part about it. What else was any of us going to do? We were one stolen car away from dirt poor. A few bags of weed away from not having food. Survival could get ugly and desperate. Life could get ugly and desperate.

"We'll figure something out," I said, then started down the dark road again.

"We?" The buzz of insects silenced in the tall grass when her footsteps fell in step beside me.

" We need money, right?" I glanced down at her short silhouette. "Zepp's ass isn't going to be any help."

"Oh, so now we're working together?" She crossed her arms on a huff. "Last time I checked, Sid hasn't miraculously risen from the dead, so..."

Severing Sid's head hit her harder than I had thought.

That was a lie. I had known exactly how bad it would hurt her. I just didn't want to admit that I could be that big of an asshole. At least not to her.

"Hate me all you want," I said. "It won't fix Sid, and it won't fix the roof. And stealing scrap cars for Willy-van-Rip-Off won't, either."

"What else do you suggest? Your weed empire?"

My weed empire… Selling dime bags to Dayton and Barrington kids was hardly an empire. Which is why I'd been racking my brain for some other way to pay the bills. And I could definitely use someone's help. "I've been thinking about a raffle," I said.

She stopped, the gravel on the shoulder crunching beneath her feet. "A raffle?" And that was an uncertain look if I ever saw one. "Like, win a year's worth of Frank's Famous Chicken?"

"How am I going to get a year's worth of Frank's stupid chicken?"

She threw her hands up. "I don't know! How are you going to get anything , Hendrix?"

"I'm not sure yet. I've got to go to Bullseye and see what I can steal." I hadn't exactly thought it through. It was still brewing baby batter, just waiting to be shot out when the idea had matured enough. "Do you want the roof fixed or what?"

"Fine. Whatever. I'll help you." She started walking again. "Doesn't mean I'll forgive you for murdering Sid. Ever."

When we got home, Lola headed upstairs. All huffy-puffy and shit.

I went into the living room, taking a seat beside Zepp. He had some wrestling match on the TV. I hated that crap, but I'd give him a break. Once. The camera panned out across a packed arena.

"Talked to Wolf's dad while you were out," Zepp said. "He knows a guy who could do the roof for four grand."

That was still a shit ton of money. "Better than what we were thinking." I stared at the TV, watching the guy in the bright-red tights slam another greased-up man onto the ring floor.

"Yeah." Zepp grabbed a pack of cigarettes from the coffee table and lit one. "He also said he may know a guy hiring over at Jiffy Lube. But I wouldn't start until after Thanksgiving." A cloud of smoke drifted past my face. "The roof will rot by then."

"Don't stress. I'm working on it." I dug the cash from Rip van Willy out of my pocket and chucked it at my brother. "There's a start."

Fingering the small stack of bills, Zepp flicked the ash of his cigarette to a Coke can. "Do I wanna know?"

"You wouldn't care. Your probation officer would."

I watched the rest of the wrestling match with him, then grabbed the vacuum from the hall closet and headed upstairs to my room. My gaze drifted from the tarp Zepp and I had nailed up earlier to the dust and plaster everywhere. And that damn bird's nest.

It took me over an hour to get up all the debris, and when I went to make one last sweep over the floor, something caught in the vacuum brush. It rattled and whirled. I pulled the vacuum out from under the foot of my bed, the machine attempting to suck up Sid's sad, headless body.

I cut the motor, wrangled him out, then sat on my stripped-down mattress. Sid had been Lola's ride-or-die ever since I'd won him for her. And I, as she had so eloquently put it earlier, had murdered him.

My gaze drifted to the guitar by the nightstand. She knew how much that thing meant to me and had saved it even after I'd called her a whore. After I'd spat hate at her that I still felt sick over. And still, I had cut off Sid's head like a heartless bastard.

We'd both betrayed each other's trust. Hadn't we…