AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“Uh huh,” Carlos says. “All feels a little dodgy to me, but okay.”
“Dodgy how?”
“I dunno, maybe something came up while I was being sussed…”
I frown. I hadn’t thought of the legitimate concerns on his end. I was too excited about being in a van with Mimi. “Nah, don’t worry. There's nothing.”
“I told Luca that I’d worked with the Bratva up north.”
Mimi’s eyes go wide and she looks at me like,what the fuck?I shrug. “Yeah, nothing to worry man. Just a slight change in details.”
“You sure?” he sounds worried.
“I’m sure for you,” Mimi says. “And Sophie is sure.”
I look at her like she’s crazy;why bring her up?
Carlos huffs at his sister. “Oh, great help, princess. Waving your wand to get your friend to do her bidding. Sophie?” he asks.
“She’s peeing,” I say. As Mimi says, “She’s filling up with water.”
We both exchange looks of horror.
But Carlos just laughs. “Ihopebecause of you bastards that it’s the same thing. Nothing like a bit of tangerine spiked water to get you going.”
We both laugh, and feeling like we just dodged a bullet, relief washes over me.
“Aight,” Carlos sighs, and I hear him downshifting. “I’m here. Keep us updated. Have a good trip. I hope you get bed bugs from a shady motel.”
“Oh, last thing, Carlos,” I say. “Make sure to wear gloves!” I hang up immediately after.
Mimi looks at me confused. I mime shoveling again. “The warehouse detail. What he’s doing is a bit, how should I put this, like hazing.”
Mimi’s eyes go wide now with recognition. “Oh, Carlos hates hazing.”
I nod and smile. “He’s gonna hate this more. See, there’s lots of checking details and learning the running of the delivery routes and vans and what not, but it’s also cleaning up the docks. The warehouse he’s going to, which I’m assuming is the one on Allen and Watts, gets a bit of traffic heading through. Fishermen, homeless people, drunks from the Pier Bar.
Mimi grimaces, she can tell what I’m going to say. “I bet it smells like a piss pot,” she says, almost retching.
“A piss pot would be nice,” I laugh. “There’s worse. There’s shit. There’s—
“Enough,” Mimi puts a hand to her chest. “That sounds horrible. I almost feel bad for him being swapped out.”
I grin for a few beats, and I let the moment linger on. Then I turn to her, smiling. She turns to me too, but she misses what she said. “Almost feel bad?” I add.
I smile, and it makes her smile too. Maybe it ain’t so bad?
We drive for a few hours like this, and now that we’ve recovered slightly, or maybe just returned to normal, we get on driving. The tarmac passes under us and the AC keeps us cool. Outside looks hot and muggy. There’s been a bit of rain again, and it’s forecast to rain tomorrow, so rolling grays cover the skies, and the heat trapped beneath is sticky.
We fill up on gas at lunch time instead of stopping, and eat on the road. Eventually, the radio stations change the further out of Miami we get and the closer to the border we crawl. Jacksonville is, well, Jacksonville. When we stop on the other side, I feel like we’ve taken a good chunk of the trip already.
But just as we pull away, barely twenty minutes after a late lunch, Mimi starts.
“You gotta pull over,” she says. “I gotta pee.”
“We just pulled over,” I look her in the eyes.We’re not stopping.
“No, but seriously, Ineedto pee.”
