Page 26 of Rough Rider (Bad Boy High)
“This is probably the last time you’ll ever see that.”
Clark and I stare at each other for an uncomfortable amount of time until he nods. At least my sincerity seems to be getting through.
“No one cares that you did it. It would’ve been nice to have had a heads-up. I could’ve sent someone to help you. You didn’t even bring Bam?”
“It was spur of the moment.”
He nods slowly. “Are you interested in doing more expansion work?”
“Not particularly.”
I seem to have satisfied his curiosity because he returns to his position behind the desk and stretches out a folded piece of paper for me to take. “Then there are a couple collections you and Bam should make.”
I commit the addresses to memory by reading them out loud twice. Once I feel like I can remember them well enough to share with Bam, I put the paper inside the shredder and start out. Clark stops me at the door.
“Don’t forget your pay.”
I glance over to Emile’s table and spot a stack of bills on the side, more than I usually make. I can’t hide my confusion.
Clark laughs. “Expansion pays well. Maybe you want to reconsider.”
I hesitate, just for a moment, but everyone in the room sees it. I shove the wad of cash in my pocket and repeat my earlier denial. “Still not interested.”
This time everyone in the room knows I’m lying.
I hurry over to walk Andy to school. She’s blushes most of the way, but it’s fucking adorable.
After, I give Bam a call, and he meets me at the corner of Thirty-fourth and Templeton, just down the road from the rich kids’ high school.
“I heard you did some acquisition work,” Bam announces when he arrives. The Riders gossip more than old ladies getting their weekly blue rinses at the hair salon.
“Didn’t mean to,” I admit.
“That girl, then?”
I can’t answer because if I do and Bam is ever questioned, he won’t have any plausible deniability.
He takes my silence as a response, though, and asks, “Did you like the expansion work?”
“Wasn’t any harder than what we’re doing now.”
“The pay is better.”
My eyes slide to meet his.
“You didn’t know?”
I shake my head.
“They’ve got some formula based on the size of the property and the income it brings, but residential places like Sunshine really aren’t worth a lot. It’s the retail shops because their security fee is a percentage of their gross. I heard that Fingertip earned six figures bringing on board a strip mall with about fifteen businesses.”
“Was that when he killed the kid?” A year ago, a kid a year younger than us used someone’s family as leverage. He didn’t know the ten-year-old had a peanut allergy and fed him a peanut butter sandwich while he was holding the kid hostage.
“Yeah, but it was a mistake.”
Not a mistake I’d be okay making. “Do you ever think of life outside of this?”
“Like what?”
