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“No.”
More silence, though not as long this time.
“I bet you could find her number online,” he says. “Or herOnlyWordsaccount.I know she doesn’t have any social media under her new name, but—”
“People don’t hide if they want to be found,” I say, cutting him off.
“I don’t know, aren’t you supposed to run after girls when they leave in a huff?”
“She didn’t leave in a huff,” I grit out.
“I mean, she kinda did.”
“Have you contacted her?” I challenge.
He’s quiet a second. “She blocked our numbers,” he admits. “Baron says if he hacks in, it will spook her. He doesn’t want her to run again. Then he’d have to start all over.”
I think about the messages to Gloria sitting on my phone, undelivered. Maybe it’s the same. I should leave her alone, like Duke’s leaving my sister alone, probably doing the first good thing he’s ever done in his sorry life.
I sigh. “Mabel knows my number, Duke. If she wanted to talk to me, she would.”
“You owe me two favors,” he reminds me.
My stomach sinks. I shouldn’t have poked the beast while it was sleeping.
“You want me to call my sister for you?”
“No,” he says. “You know what I want.”
“Now?”
“Yeah, now.”
“You sober?”
“What do you care?”
“Because you’re not invincible,” I say. “You have limits, even if you don’t believe it.”
“Like you give a fuck.”
“I don’t,” I say. “Not about you. But I do care about myself, and I have enough guilt over other stupid shit I’ve done, so I try not to add to the load.”
He’s silent a second. “I’m sober,” he says at last. “I’ll pick you up.”
I laugh at that. “Like I’m willingly getting in a Dolce car. Come on. Dixie’s made me watch way too many true crime stories about shit like that. Even the most gung-ho prosecutor with their mind already made up won’t win that case.”
“I’m not going to kill you,” he says, sounding genuinely offended, which only makes it funnier. “I need your shit, you need mine. That’s how this works, remember? Symbiotic relationship.”
A bitter chuckle escapes me. There’s nothing symbiotic about this. I get the bare minimum, the basic necessities like being allowed to walk the halls at school without being murdered. He gets the kind of excess that only a spoiled prince who has everything he can possibly imagine could come up with.
“Sounds like a good reason to get rid of me,” I say. “I’m already in my truck. I’ll meet you there.”
I end the call before he can argue, then put the truck in reverse. I’ve got further to go than he does, and he doesn’t like waiting. He likes everything handed to him on a silver platter, like he’s had his whole life. He’ll probably get impatient and start getting fucked up before I get there.
I glance up at the house, my eyes drawn to the flickering light behind the curtain in my room. Hopefully Dixie falls asleep and doesn’t notice that I don’t come back. That way, I can slip in. I’ll have to pick up something pretty for her before I come back, in case she’s still up. She’ll be pissed.
Lately I’ve been spending all my time cleaning up my own messes and atoning for one mistake after another. I should have known better than to make deals with the devil, to let myself be in Duke’s debt. Because once you’re in debt, the cycle never ends. You’re just moving favors from one hand to the other, like taking out one loan to cover another, trying to stay ahead of the debt collectors for one more day. The other things I’ve taken from Duke—besides the privilege of living—are things I’ve taken to repay Dixie, like taking her to Homecoming.
