“That’s amazing, baby. Did he contact you through your website? When’s it due?” Pride thickened my tone, and Nicole’s phone crackled loudly before a thump sounded.
“Christmas. So, I have eight months. He contacted me initially in February, saying he’d gotten a referral from someone that worked with him. We’ve been going back and forth since. Just now, we had a video meeting, and we signed some paperwork, and he sent me a deposit for supplies. But, you know what that means, right? I’m getting around by word of mouth! This is freaking huge! God, I could cry right now. I’m so humbled . . . I can’t believe someone would trust me this much.” She giggle-sobbed over the line, and I smiled broadly as the bink-bink-bink of keys in an ignition sounded faintly behind her. “Okay, I gotta go to work right now, but I just wanted to tell someone . . .”
Almost palpably, Nicole’s excitement muted, and I pursed my lips thinly
“First thing’s first, you shouldn’t be humbled by this baby, you’re an artist, and you have talent. Don’t shove yourself in a box you aren’t supposed to be in. You’re fuckin’ special, so act like it . . . on another note, are you still hiding from your parents and sister?” When Nicole said she was a non-confrontation people pleaser, I didn’t think she’d go to this extreme. She hadn’t spoken to them at all, which seems a bit excessive to me. Especially because she’d done nothing wrong, even if she thought differently, her silence was all I needed, and I sighed softly and shook my head. “Well, I’m really glad you got this opportunity, baby. How ‘bout I take you out to celebrate. Does Thursday work for you?”
“Yeah, I don’t work Thursday because I’m pulling doubles Friday and Saturday. Okay, I’ll come down to you. Text me wherever you wanna meet, okay? I gotta drive. Um, and also . . . just my sister. She’s coming back in a few days. I did talk to my dad the other day. He basically said we should talk face to face, anyway, so we’ll see. What’re you doin’ today?” Uh-huh. Right. You probably didn’t tell him you don’t wanna talk to her face to face, either. But I didn’t say anything. It wasn’t my place to critique Nicole’s relationship with her sister.
“Ah, I gotta knock some sense into my cousin. He’s been a mess since he got here. I figured it was time to get him out of bed.” The shower sounded, mutedly, from the lip of the hallway, and I ran my hand through my hair as Nicole hummed softly. “We’re takin’ him out for a ride. Hopefully, it’ll give him some time to realize . . . whatever it is he needs to realize.”
“Yeah. It’s really nice what you’re doing for him. So, I’ll see you on Thursday.” Grunting in acknowledgment, I let Nicole hang up and dropped my phone into my lap to sigh heavily.
“Yo.” Glancing up at Davey lounging in the kitchen, I sat back to rub my scalp roughly as he sauntered into the living room. “That’s what you wanted me for? To knock some sense into the kid?”
“Spyder’s gonna be there, too. He’s meeting us at the Fork. Where’s Parker?” Perching on the arm rest, Davey shrugged over a hard frown, and I rubbed my mouth with my palm. “I hope it doesn’t come to that, but Rook’s itching for a fight.”
“Take him to Vegas?” Grunting with a nod, I glanced at the time on my phone absently. We had plenty of time, and I suspected Rook was gonna use up all the hot water. He probably needed it. “I’ll go down with you. Spyder’s mom’s birthday’s comin’ up, and I haven’t gotten her a present yet.”
“She’s hard to shop for, yeah. Spyder gets her tickets to Comic-Con every year. I gave up and just usually get her a prepaid card.” That geeky broad always ignored every other present, anyway. Spyder’s mother was one of a kind, and once those tickets entered her field of vision, she never took her eyes off them. Every year, it was the same thing, and a fond smile crested my face. “I figure it’d get her a couple of figurines and some nice food, at least.”
“Speakin’ of food . . . when’d you get a girlfriend?” Davey wasn’t gonna bug me for answers, and I shrugged lightly. “That chick from the restaurant?”
“Yeah. I dunno. We’re just goin’ out every once and a while and fuckin’ occasionally. She lives up in Provo. Bit of a drive. Plus, I don’t exactly want her comin’ down here because of those dicks the Hellraisers.” The world seemed to gray at the mention, and I tapped my heel on the carpet as disgust coated my teeth. “They followed me around when I was getting clothes and shit for Rook. I’d like to pretend I could take them on, but . . .”
“Yeah. I heard from Spyder that the Reapers are lookin’ at them for some shit they stirred up in Montana.” That’s not good. Well, it could be good . . . for us. The Reapers lived up to their name, and that was why Spyder gave them a wide berth. Rightfully so. “Warpath benefits them, even if it’s minuscule in the grand scheme of things. You make enough enemies. Even if they’re small individually, it can be overwhelming. It’s makin’ the rounds that Saint George Hellraisers is turnin’ eyes to Vegas after their last burn.”
“The only thing Hellraisers have going for them is sheer brutality. That might fly here, and barely, but they’ll be obliterated in Vegas. Damon will make sure of that.” I shook my head at the turn this conversation had taken, and Davey sat
