AllFreeNovel
Share Us
Clearly, she didn’t grow up here.
“Oh, good. You’ve met.” Some uptight business lady in a pantsuit that looked worse than Karen’s granny dress walked in the front door. “Hi, I’m Ariel. The caseworker. You must be Nate or Devon, since I met Xavi outside.” She held out her tiny, manicured hand.
I shook it, trying not to get it dirty. “Uh, Nate. What?”Caseworker?
“Community service,” Xavi whispered. “Apparently, the guy who owned it before us signed up for this program because it gave him a government rebate, and now we’re, like, set up to guide delinquents. Karen is our first one! I feel so grown up.”
I shifted my eyes to Karen, who did not look the least bit like a delinquent despite my former accusations. She looked like she spent time in the library and cooked rice pudding on Saturday nights. Probably had a Siamese fighting fish named Bob, too. No matter how adult Xavi felt, we weren’t qualified for this.
“So, babysitting?” I asked.
“No.” Ariel laughed like I was joking. “It’s an outreach program. Karen gets work experience that counts towards her high school education credits, and you guys get to write it off as a tax deductible. It’s essentially a co-op program for youth who are reintegrating into society after being at a facility for some time. She’ll be here a few hours every day, and you guys get to show her the ropes.” Ariel looked at me. “I sent the forms. Did you not get them?”
“Yeah. They were all up in my face,” I told her. “Just forgot when it started.”
Karen giggled like a fucking loser at my lie, but I kind of liked it because I was a loser, too. “Today!”
Why was she so happy? Happiest criminal I’d ever met. “So, you come pick her up when she’s done slaving for the day?”
“There’s a bus back to Redding she can take. You’re expected back at your house by 6 PM, Karen.”
Karen breathed in through her nose, exhaled something like frustration, and slapped the smile back on her face. “I’ll be there.”
Then Ariel left. Straight up left us alone with a teen girl. Hadn’t she ever seen a goddamn movie? Sketchy, lowlife poor guys didn’t get left alone with teenage girls. My god. I stared at Karen and she stared back. Xavi looked like he wanted to hug her, but he refrained. I had no idea what to do with a girl. But we stared for so long that Devon walked in the front door with his forgotten lunch. I was about to tell him not to freak out, but he just held out a fist for Karen. She bumped it and gave him a smile.
“I’ll show ya around while these two find their balls.”
“Excellent,” she said, following him.
Guess he read the damn paper. Since when was he more responsible than me? I didn’t like it.
Xavi stared after them. “Her gap-teeth,” he said.
“Cute as fuck,” I agreed.
“Her smile.”
“Creepy as shit. Demonic, really. Who smiles that much?”
“We do,” Xavi said, laughing. “Nate,” he whispered, staring at the door Devon led her through. “I get to be a role model.”
A swell of something warm filled my chest. His wishy-washy dreams were coming true, and Karen, that little muumuu-wearing devil, was the luckiest person alive to have Xavi in her life.
“You’ll nail it, Xav.” I wrapped my arm around him. “How hard can it be? We raised our brothers.”
* * *
Turnedout it was really fucking hard. By the time we dropped Karen off at home because Xavi wanted to drive her to Redding, she missed her curfew, and we got in shit for it. Xavi tried explaining the temperamental truck, but the bitchy lady with saggy tits and a pinched face figured we were bullshitting her. Until she stood there for another twenty minutes, watching us try to get the truck started.How do you like them apples, Pinchy?
Most of the world lived by the ‘if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it’ mantra, but I’d always liked to play the ‘if it works more than half the time, don’t fuck with it’ game. This old girl was close to dropping below those odds, but like fuck I had the money to get a new truck. I had a fridge to save up for. Plus, I had a pair of rollerblades in storage somewhere, so if things went to shit, I’d bust them out to get around.
“Alright!” I clapped my hands together on our way home, trying to get Xavi out of his bad mood after he realized Karen lived in a group home that was falling apart. But only for three more months until her time was up and she got to go home to her mom. “Option one, we hit the Garron Park BBQ for free hotdogs.”
“Pass. Last time they were chicken dogs and tasted like shit.” Xavi shivered in remembrance. “Beaks and brains and shit.”
“Fair. Option two, we hit up Old Man Hank for another bottle of moonshine and those beans n’ weens he’s been slow cooking in his shed all day.”
“Don’t feel like getting a shotgun shell in the ass tonight. We could mooch off my parents.”
