A long silence followed my question.
“Shit, Manson.” I leaned back on the couch, now fully invested as I picked up the phone. “What the hell are you doing?”
“Waiting with her for Ted to get here,” he said. Ted was also known as Mr. Teddy Tow, owner and operator of Wickeston’sresident towing business. Most of our clients arrived on the back of his truck. “We’ll haul her beamer back to the shop and…”
“Andwhat?”
I turned, looking toward the hall. Lucas was standing there, wiping his greasy hands on a towel. He was frowning so deep it looked permanently etched into his face.
“What the hell are you towing her back here for?” he said, talking loudly so Manson could hear him.
“Don’t give me shit for this,” Manson said. “You know you’d do the exact same thing if you were in my position.”
“I fucking would not,” Lucas said. “I’d laugh at some well-deserved justice and flip her off as I drove away. So why the hell aren’t you doing that?”
“I have to say I’m with Lucas on this one,” I said. “Not that I’d be the one working on her car, but…shit, man, after last night? I’m still hung up on revenge fantasies, not being her fucking white knight.”
“Who’s having a revenge fantasy?” Vincent shuffled into the room, looking exhausted as he edged past Lucas. He plopped down on the couch beside me, nudging Haribo out of the way, and dropped his head sleepily on my shoulder.
“Me,” I said. “But it won’t come true because apparently Manson thinks Jess is a damsel in distress. She broke down.”
Vincent snickered, saying to Manson, “Don’t worry, man, I get it. Jess breaks down, stranded on the side of the road, desperately needs help, you come to the rescue, bing, bang, boom, orgy. Sounds like a plan.”
Lucas groaned. “You’re all going to drive me to an early grave.”
“I think Jess will do that first,” Manson said, and he was probably right.
In my opinion, Jessica could fuck off. I’d given her half the spanking she deserved and seeing her again was only going to make me want to continue. Sure, I’d had a fucked-up crush onher since sophomore year and those feelings hadn’t dissipated, but they’d gotten a hell of a lot more complicated. How was it possible to detest someone and yet want them so damn badly?
Insurance was likely going to cover the damage to the vehicles, but it was still a pain in the ass. What was going to be far more difficult, if not impossible, was pressing any charges against the guys who had done it. Our cameras had captured only brief footage of Alex and the others before being disconnected, and considering one of the perpetrators was the son of a local officer, it was likely more trouble than it was worth to try to go after them.
But Lucas and I had already begun discussing our own methods of getting back at those fucks. If you wanted something done right, you had to do it yourself.
Maybe that was Manson’s thought process too. But whether he was more focused on fixing her car or fixingher, I couldn’t guess.
Something told me it was the latter.
“Look, just bear with me here, okay?” Manson said, and Lucas and I exchanged a look. “I don’t think she can afford this repair.”
“All the more reason to drive the fuck away,” Lucas said.
“I thought her parents were pretty loaded,” I said. “I don’t think she’s strapped for cash.”
“You know it’s not always that easy.” I could tell Manson was trying to keep his volume down, as if he didn’t want her to hear. “I don’t think she wants to ask her parents for the money.”
“Well, boo-fucking-hoo,” Lucas retorted. “Sounds like you play shitty games and win shitty prizes. Jess can deal with her shit prize alone.”
“Ahh, come on,” Vincent said, stretching comfortably. “I’m sure she can find a way to pay us.”
Something clicked in my head. An idea, a memory, something that rushed through me like adrenaline and sparked my energy.
“We’ll figure something out for her,” I said, and Lucas threw uphis hands.
“I fucking give up. You’re all hopeless. Fucking…horny-ass…desperate…” He kept grumbling all the way down the hall and up the stairs. A door slammed, and the old pipes groaned as the shower turned on.
Manson sighed. “He’s pissed off, isn’t he?”
“I mean…yeah. He’s pissed,” I said. “But if Jess needs a way to pay, I think I have an idea.”