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“There was a call about a man with a hangnail today, too,” Royal said. “He said his thumb had been throbbing for going on a week. He said it got to the point where he couldn’t roll his blunts today and could we please call an ambulance to take him to the hospital.”
There was a long moment of silence before I burst out laughing.
“Let me guess,” I said, amusement lacing my voice. “They called the cops instead.”
“Tanika suggested we call the closest one, which happened to be Baby Lock’s dad.” She pointed at Lock in the seat in front of her.
“Why must everyone call me that?” Lock groaned.
“Because that’s what everyone calls you?” She shrugged. “Apparently your father had to do some creative talking with them. He really did have a hangnail, too. But the guy’s spending some time at the jail because he was caught smoking a joint outside when your father pulled up.”
Lock groaned.
I started to laugh.
“People are so stupid,” I said, flipping my blinker on to pull into the gas station that had the beer my dad wanted.
When I was the only one to get out, I gestured with my head for them both to follow.
“Need y’all’s help,” I said. “Please.”
They were confused at first, but quickly became unconfused when I loaded them all up with beer. Even Royal had to carry two cases.
“This is a lot of beer,” she said, staring at the four cases that Lock had and the four that I had.
I sat it all onto the counter, then said, “I need about eight more cases.”
The clerk didn’t even blink.
“Okay,” he said, sizing me up. “I guess I can do that. I’m only supposed to be selling a max of six, though.”
I left and came back with four more cases.
Lock left and did the same while the clerk rang up the beer.
When I paid and started loading the cases into the truck, I didn’t miss the conversation between Royal and the clerk.
“He’s a big guy,” the clerk said.
“He’s big, but a softy,” she agreed.
“He a cop?” the guy asked.
I loaded up the other four cases that Lock brought out just as I heard Royal say, “No. He’s a mechanic and a thug. I met him when he was soliciting a prostitute.”
I rolled my eyes when the clerk, an obviously gay man who was highly attracted to ‘bad boys,’ gasped. “He did not!”
“He allowed a handicapped man to get beat up, too,” she continued. “Saved his motorized wheelchair from being stolen, though.”
That time I could hear the anger in her voice.
Apparently, she was still pretty pissed about that.
I turned around and stared at her to find her glaring at me.
That was when the clerk paled. “He can hear you.”
Royal crossed her arms.
“I know.”
I loaded the last case of beer into the bed of my truck just as Lock said, “You’re in trouble.”
I snorted. “I know.”
Royal waved goodbye at the clerk and got into the back seat once again.
It wasn’t until we were about twenty minutes into the drive when I said, “I didn’t leave your brother out there to get beat up. I called the cops. And I called out Marcus, reminding him of where he was. He stopped.”
Royal’s shoulders slumped. “My brother’s called me fifty-seven times since I told my father that I wouldn’t talk to him anymore.”
I felt a wave of sadness roll off of her.
“Marcus won’t be around much longer,” I promised. “He’ll slip up, then you can go back to your normal life.”
She was already shaking her head. “My father wasn’t kidding about buying out Stratton’s business. It’ll be gone before I get back, no matter how long it takes to get Marcus out of the picture.”
“Then open your own business,” I suggested. “You don’t need to work for someone.”
“I can,” she agreed. “It just takes a lot of money. Money that I don’t really have on hand. I mean, I do have a trust fund, but I’d rather slit my own wrists than tap into that.”
“Why?” Lock asked. “It’s yours.”
My sentiments exactly.
“When my mom died, my dad turned into an asshole,” she admitted. “I was sent to boarding school in New Hampshire as soon as I was old enough. My father had married Marta by then, but she wasn’t assertive enough to insist that I stay with them. I didn’t come home even for holidays until Marta finally demanded that I stay with the family after my brother was born and she realized how much she was missing in my life. My dad’s and my relationship didn’t get much better over the years. In fact, the older I got, the more he hated me. I’m still not sure what I did to deserve the hate, but whatever.” she sighed. “Every time that I ask him to do something, he makes a big deal of it. One time when I was in high school, I asked him to buy me a car in order to drive my brother around. At the time, I had a two-seater hatchback that I bought off of a man for five hundred bucks. My brother couldn’t fit into it. My dad did, but then he made sure to tell me, multiple times a week, that I was indebted to him.”
