When Darkness Ends (Moments in Boston #3) - Marni Mann Page 0,108
her. “I wouldn’t let those hookers touch me. Half of them don’t even have any teeth.”
“I hear that means they give better head, all gums and suction. Can you imagine?”
“Fuck no. I don’t want to imagine.”
I felt Kyle staring at me, but I kept looking at Billy. “How’d you do tonight?” I asked him.
“I couldn’t find nothing to pawn besides a CD player and some old drills. Cheap bastard at the pawnshop only gave me twelve bucks for it all ’cause the drills were so rusted. Fucking winter. People keep their shit locked up ’cause it’s so goddamn cold.”
“Twelve isn’t all that bad,” Kyle said.
Billy threw a wad of cash onto the floor, his grin telling me he wasn’t quite done. “Nah, but sixty-two is better. I got fifty bucks for the tires.”
“Tires?”
“You’re gonna lock your car up, so I can’t steal nothing. Then, I’m going to take your tires, so you can’t go nowhere.”
“Oh, man.” Kyle laughed.
I punched Billy’s shoulder. “That’s messed up. You know that, right? I’d beat your ass if you stole my tires.”
Billy would steal anything. It didn’t matter if it had sentimental value, if it was the cheapest thing you owned, or if it was the tires on your car. Family and friends were all he cared about. He had no fear.
None of us did in The Heart.
Except for Kyle.
“You mean, you’d beat my ass if I stole your ma’s tires since you ain’t even old enough to drive.”
“Neither are you,” I shot back. “Besides, Ma’s car got repo’d a long time ago, so she doesn’t have any tires you can steal.”
“You know I wouldn’t take nothing from either of you.” Billy looked at both of us. “But those fuckers I steal from, they can try to beat me all they want. They’ll never catch me. I’m too fast.”
“Garin!” Ma yelled from downstairs.
“What?” I shouted back.
“I’m going out. Make sure you get your ass to school in the morning. I’d better not get another call telling me you skipped again. You hear me?”
“Yeah, I hear you.”
I finally looked over at Kyle. She was smiling at me.
The last time I’d skipped school, we ditched together. We smoked a joint in my room and took a cab to Mario’s house, so we could go swimming in his indoor pool. That was after I’d taken her bathing suit shopping. The only suit she owned was a bikini with a giant hole in the bottom that showed her ass crack. She wasn’t comfortable wearing it, but God, I’d wanted her to, even if that meant holding my breath and going underwater and opening my eyes until they burned from the chlorine. I’d do that if it meant I could see more of her body. I didn’t tell Kyle that. Instead, I offered to buy her a new one. She couldn’t afford one, which meant she wouldn’t have gone swimming at all. And that meant she wouldn’t have gone to the beach that summer. I couldn’t let that happen. The beach was the best part about this hellhole town.
“How much did you make tonight?” I asked her.
Her hair had fallen into her face. As much as I wanted to tuck it behind her ear, I didn’t. Not now and especially not in front of Billy.
She held out her closed fist and slowly unfolded her fingers. There were a few crumpled up dollars in the middle of her palm. “It’s winter. There’s no beachgoers that I can sell bottles of water to and no tourists walking the boardwalk. And, when I try to panhandle outside the casinos, everyone has lost so much money in there, they won’t even give me their change. I’m not as good as you guys.”
“Then make ’em look at you, Kyle,” Billy said. “Stick out your tits, hike up your skirt, and make ’em want to open up their wallets.”
“Shut it, Billy!” The look I gave him told him I wasn’t messing around. Another word, and I’d rip his fucking face off. I didn’t care if he was my best friend. He would never give that kind of order to Kyle. “You want some dude to grab her off the street and rape her? Because that’s what’ll happen if she does that.”
“Damn, Garin, you’re right. I wasn’t even thinking. Course I don’t want nothing like that to happen to Kyle.”
Kyle dropped the cash onto her lap and buried her hands inside her jacket. “It’s okay. I know you didn’t mean it, Billy.”