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“Let’s ride,” Kate announces with a disdainful look she grazes over the swamp. “Before this pathetic excuse for a bridge collapses.”
Not wrong. Most of the Southside’s sticks are standing on this bridge, weighing down the bowing planks, all crammed in too tightly.
Not made for this many folk.
Billie trudges behind them as, one-by-one, they fall into a narrow line behind Kate and Trevor. They trek the way down the packed-dirt path that comes after the bridge’s end. Then they head through the drier end of the woods before they reach the main road, cars and trucks all parked at odd angles along the sides.
“T,” Billie calls out. “I rode in with you.”
Left her truck back at the Joint.
Tonya just waves her over without looking back. She only falters when she spots her twin heading towards her own car. “Gigi, you not coming with us?”
“I’ll meet you at Grace’s,” Gigi says with a dismissive wave. “Need to get some stuff from home. You need anything?”
“Why not come with us now?” Carmine folds her frail arms over her bony chest, a frown knitting her brow together—a frown that, even through the cloud of moonshine, Billie recognizes all too well. She’s scared shitless. Guess the message in Cletus’s blood changes things.
“Better idea!” Trevor claps his hands together, a Cheshire-cat grin spread across his face. “Let’s all get loaded at the Joint.” His gaze flickers to Billie who all-but sways on the spot. “I’ll invite Preston—God knows that guy needs a drink.”
Billie’s smile is all snark. “I’m already loaded, but thanks.”
Trevor scoffs, his grin faltering, darkening. “What’s new, BeeGee?”
Kate’s hand shoots out and whacks him on the chest, hard enough that Billie hopes he gets a fucking welt from it.
“Don’t be a dick,” Kate hisses under her breath. Then, louder, and not without a false smile, announces, “Trevor and Preston will go get loaded.” Her side-eye to her boyfriend doesn’t go unnoticed. “And I’ll drive Grace and Carmine in. Billie goes with Tonya. And Gigi, don’t take too long, ok?”
Gigi nods with a swift smile, one that leaves her face as quickly as it appeared. She yanks open the door to her creaky Ford Escort and pauses. “Need anything, T?”
“Smokes,” is all Tonya says as she climbs into her car.
Billie is quick to get comfortable in the passenger seat, nursing her bottle in her hands. She leans over the side of Tonya to look out the window and Gigi: “Oi! Get us some green from your dad’s stash.”
Gigi throws an ‘ok’ sign out her own car window.
And just like that, cars choke to life—and two purr (Trevor’s, of course, and the BMW he gifted to Kate). One by one, they turn to take the road to the better part of town, except Gigi’s, and she pulls down the darker side deeper into Southside.
Billie hits open the dash drawer. “Oh hey there,” she croons with a grin and swipes the joint off the car’s manual. “How old is this thing?”
Tonya only glances at her, then turns her gaze back on the road, following Kate’s taillights to the edge of town. “Maybe a month or so. It’ll be fine. Don’t—” She hits out at Billie’s extended arm as she reaches for the car’s lighter. “Not in the car. Wait.”
Billie’s mouth curls with a sneer before she silently mimics, “Wait.”
Still, she waits.
Tucks the joint into her bag dropped at her feet, and fiddles with the lid of the bottle. Her head falls back and turns, so she faces out the window as town starts to speed by.
The Joint is the first they pass, and she spots her truck there in the car park. Beside it, Preston’s sleek classic car is parked. Guess he came back—probably to meet with Trevor for drinks, maybe in hopes of her being there. Which means Trevor already invited him, told Preston to meet him there. If Billie agreed to go to the Joint, she would’ve been blindsided.
She just doesn’t like that guy much. Trevor. Never has.
Where Preston is polished, Trevor’s a frat boy.
They’re not the same.
Trevor’s…untrustworthy. Just always felt a bit off to her.
Preston, though…
