Page 63 of No Romeo
I answered the door to a scrawny guy in khakis and a dress shirt. He thrust a pink flyer in my face. “Our church is having a revival this week. Free pizza and root beer.”
I glanced down at the crinkled paper while he rambled about the merits of his church—
Come one, come all, to the revival at Parkway Pentecostal Church. Be touched by the Holy Spirit and know the Lord.
Thursday, Friday, and Saturday. 8 pm.
He started in on how his preacher could save my soul. I couldn’t get a word in edgewise. No doubt he was well versed in dodging the non-believers. I debated shutting the door in his face, but just as I glanced up from the pink paper, Wolf’s truck rumbled into the drive.
Hendrix’s head popped over the roof when he got out of the passenger side, then slammed the door. Glaring, he rounded the front bumper with a wooden baseball bat clutched in his grip.
I looked from him to Church Boy, remembering the text he’d sent moments ago about a corpse, a baseball bat, and a skull.Oh, shit.
Hendrix marched through the yard, swinging the bat like a psycho. As much as I secretly liked riding the crazy train, Church Boy was not going to be all aboard.
“Um,” I said, interrupting his speech on the End Days. “You should go.”
But he kept talking, obviously not one to be dissuaded by heathens trying to kick him the hell off their property.
Hendrix’s footsteps clomped up the porch steps. He gave the guy’s pressed slacks a very judgmental once over. “Shit. Your dick has never seen the light of day, has it?”
The guy turned round, slowly tilting his head back to take in Hendrix’s muscular frame towering over him.
Hendrix snatched one of the flyers, skimming over it on snort. “Parkway. That’s that cult church, isn’t it? Don’t you guys speak in tongues and have snakes and shit?”
The guy audibly swallowed. “Wh-why would we have snakes?”
“Why wouldn’t you?” Hendrix glanced from the flyer to me, readjusting his grip on the bat. “Is this the soon-to-be corpse?”
Church Boy dropped his stack of papers and took off down the steps and across the lawn, tripping over himself several times before he made it to the street. Hendrix watched him go, baseball bat propped on his shoulder.
When the guy finally disappeared around a bush, Hendrix turned back to me. “Going for good boys now?”
“Uh, no. Give me some credit.”
“A corpse is a corpse, of course, of course. And no one can talk to a corpse, of course, unless it…” His slight smile dropped when he slung the baseball bat over his shoulder. “Has a dick. Then it gets no credit when it comes to you.” He chucked the bat to the corner of the porch, his blue stare aimed right at me.
What was wrong with me that I liked this crap so much? I always had, since the first day of kindergarten, when he caught a garden snake and put it in the teacher’s desk because she had separated us for talking and put me in time out.
I half rolled my eyes, trying not to smile. We were friends. Friends. Friends. Friends. “He was wearing khakis, Hendrix.”
“Did he have a dick in those khakis?” He shouldered past me through the door, dropping the baseball bat to the floor by the stairs.
I scooped up the stack of flyers and took them inside, dumping them into the trash. The robotic voice of a woman saying, “PlayStation,” cut through the speakers just as I stepped back into the living room.
Hendrix grabbed the spare controller and tossed it to the tattered couch cushion beside him. “Wanna play?”
Friends hung out and played video games, right? “Sure.” I took a seat beside him and picked up the controller.
Simpson’s Road Ragecame on the screen, and I smiled. We used to play this with Gracie and Bellamy’s little brother, Arlo. They could barely steer their cars, but Zepp and Hendrix would always let them win. The Big Bad Bully with a soft heart had always made it impossible not to love him.
I won the first game, and during the second, Hendrix ran my car off the road.
“You’re such a sore loser,” I said, ignoring that, over the course of the game, he’d moved a little closer on the couch. “You know what else you’re a loser at? Hiding things. I found your stash.”
“My stash of what?”
“Pop-Tarts, obviously.” I leaned to the right, my shoulder bumping his as I attempted to steer my avatar’s car around a mud-filled hole in the road. “I don’t give a crap about your weed.”
