3. Slade

3

SLADE

I watch Quin walk away with his brothers. That boy is like sunshine with his cute little dimples that pop every time he smiles and the adorable way he shuffles back and forth when he’s nervous. He’s my exact brand of kryptonite—sweet, a little flirty, and so fucking wholesome his brothers guard his innocence like a pack of protective dogs. He even brings over bread while it’s still warm. There’s nothing in the world better than warm bread.

I need to remember that I’m only here for one more week. I can’t start something with the boy next door right before I leave.

Instead of taking the bus where Quin will inevitably try to sit by me again, I go back inside to grab the keys to Georgina’s old Buick. She’s in the kitchen in her pink fluffy robe, humming to a song on the radio while her eggs crackle on the grill. She smiles and waves at me as I walk in.

“Good morning, Sunshine,” she says.

I give her a kiss on the cheek. “Mornin’, Mom.”

That’s what she likes me to call her, even though I have two moms already. Not good moms, but they’re still mine. A few years in the foster care system doesn’t change that.

“Do you want some?” she asks.

“Nah. I ate breakfast a few hours ago. The car out front is fixed. It just needs a new set of tires, and it’s good to go.”

In addition to the checks Georgina gets from the government to feed and clothe me, she also needs me to fix her nephew’s cars to make ends meet. She pretends to not know they’re stolen, and I pretend with her.

Bills are bills. I live here, so I help pay them. It was the same with my real moms before they went to jail.

She winces. “Dalton didn’t say nothin’ about bringing tires around.”

In other words, he expects us to provide new ones.

“I’ll talk to Gary at the junkyard and see if he’s come across any tires that could do the trick,” I offer.

Gary won’t give me the tires for free, of course. I’ll have to do something for him. But that’s all right. After this week, I’ll be a hundred miles away from this place. No more fixing Dalton’s stolen cars or making shady deals with Gary. I have a real job at a legitimate repair shop in San Antonio. The owner is even letting me rent a room above the garage until I get on my feet. Once I do, I can apply to be my brother Jake’s legal guardian.

I just hope I can get him out of the group home before the cartel sinks their greedy talons into him.

“Well, thank you for taking care of that. Sit yourself down, and I’ll get you some ice-cold sweet tea. It’s hot as blazes out there.”

“I should get going to school,” I remind her.

She waves my concern away. “Nonsense. You should drink something before you go.”

I slump down onto a wooden chair at the dining room table. When Georgina wants to pour me some sweet tea, nothing short of an apocalypse will stop her. She rushes over to the fridge, her long acrylic nails clicking against the door as she opens it.

“I saw you talkin’ to Quin,” she says in a sing-song voice.

I roll my eyes. “It’s nothing. He was just saying hi.”

“It didn’t look like it was nothing to me. He’s a nice boy. That whole family is nice.”

Quin is a nice boy. That’s the problem. There’s nothing I like more than a guy who smells like fresh laundry and always says please. I love getting sucked into their orbit of curfews and homemade cookies.

But I don’t belong there. Their families always know that. Even if I wasn’t about to leave, Quin’s brothers would never let me be with him.

“I’m leaving in a week, remember?” I say.

She pours a tall glass of sweet tea from a pitcher in the fridge and walks it over to me. “I don’t see why you’re in such a rush. You could stay here for the rest of the summer. Save up some money.”

We both know I wouldn’t save any money staying here. There are no jobs this far away from San Antonio. If I stay, I’ll get roped into fixing more cars for Dalton, and Georgina is the one who profits from that, not me. She’s been good to me, so I’d stay a little longer to help her out if I could, but Jake needs me more than she does.

He’s about to turn fifteen. The cartel started coming for me at that age, and I didn’t have a drug habit to feed. He’ll be an easy mark for them.

I gulp down the sweet tea and stand up, handing the glass back to Georgina. “I’m sorry. That job I told you about needs me next week. Can I take the Buick to school? I’ll swing by the junkyard on my way home.”

She sighs. “Sure. But technically, you’re in foster care until the end of the month. Don’t forget that if the social worker calls.”

She’s mentioned this several times. I remind myself that I shouldn’t be annoyed. She’s just trying to pay the rent.

“I won’t forget,” I promise.

Compared to the group home where Jake’s living, this trailer is a palace. I should be grateful. Taking in a fucked up teenage boy from the foster care system is more than what most people are willing to do.

I head for the door without another word.