by me.
“Later, gator,” he called out.
“After a while, crocodile,” I said as he shut the door.
I worked my way to the kitchen and my mother popped her head around from the fridge.
“Is he gone?” she whispered to me.
“Yeah,” I said. “He’s probably getting his diaper changed before he skateboards home to play video games and watched cartoons…”
My mother waved a middle finger at me.
She stepped into the kitchen wearing nothing but a pink lace robe.
It was a size too small for her, leaving nothing to the imagination.
“Really?” I asked.
“I know what I like,” she said. “But that one… fuck… he was a clinger. I think he was trying to breastfeed off me.”
“Stop!” I yelled. I shut my eyes and told myself don’t picture it… too late… “Just stop.”
“There’s nothing wrong with it,” my mother said.
“I didn’t say there was,” I said. “I just don’t want to know about it. Maybe let me know next time. Because if I walk in here and find my mother getting railed by some twenty-something-year-old…”
“Aw, you’re just jealous,” she said. “So, how was your day? Did you make those asshole boys cry yet?”
“Not yet,” I said. “Still feeling it out.”
“The longer you wait, the more you’re going to talk yourself out of it.”
“It’s hard to take advice from you when you’re dressed like that,” I said.
“This is a preview of what you’re going to look like, Winter.”
“Oh, I’m pretty sure I will wear clothes that fit me,” I said.
“You say that now, but just wait until that one morning comes and you roll over and realize your tits have dropped a little. And then you catch sight of your ass in the mirror and it has that slight look of grated cheese.”
“Please. Just. Stop.”
My mother laughed. “I’m not cooking anything. I’m going to go take a shower and a nap. Once I got him to stop sucking my tits like they had milk, he was fucking wild. He did this thing where he lifted my right leg and-”
I put my fingers to my ears. “La, la, la, la, la…”
When she stopped talking, I stopped la-la-ing.
Then it got serious.
My mother tapped her pointer finger on the counter. “Tonight.”
“What?”
“Make a move, Winter. Tonight.”
“I had already planned on it.”
“Good.”
She left the kitchen and I walked to the door and stared at the ocean.
First up… getting over my fear of driving again.
I waited until dark and climbed behind the wheel of Tank Two.
It started up just fine.
But me driving…
My heart raced and my arms shook.
There was a moment when I considered calling Gia.
I could confess everything to her and have her help me.
Or at the very least, just drive me around.
No.
This was my thing.
This was my revenge to get.
I put the SUV into drive and started to move.
Getting out of the driveway was hard to do. Weird enough, once I got onto the main road, I felt better. I tested the brakes fifteen times. I tested the steering so much that if a cop saw me, he’d pull me over, thinking I was drunk.
But I was doing it.
I was making it work.
“But where am I going?” I asked myself.
I swallowed hard and thought about it.
I could go to Xavier’s shop.
That’s where he usually hung out, along with the others.
That seemed too forward and risky though.
If they weren’t together…
Xavier would be at the shop no matter what.
Easton liked the adventurous crap.
Surfing at night. Riding dirt bikes down the beach when it wasn’t allowed. Or just finding places to take something with an engine so he could get into trouble.
Or he was fucking someone.
Which was probably the case.
That left Noah…
I gasped.
I had an idea of where Noah could be.
If they were all separated, there was only one place Noah would be.
At the gym.
And not just any gym.
This was a private gym.
A black building with black windows and no logo or anything. This gym was by invite only and there were rumors that famous people came up there to train at it for movies.
I always called bullshit on that, but whatever.
So my plans were finally set.
Check the gym.
Check the beach.
Check the shop.
Lucky enough for me, when I pulled into the parking lot of the gym, there weren’t too many vehicles there.
Even if there had been, it was easy to spot Noah’s car.
Not by the color or how customized it was.
It was because Noah was the douchebag that parked away from all the other cars. And he parked sideways, taking up a bunch of spots.
I hit the brakes on Tank Two and the