Page 53 of Same Difference
She nodded. “Fair enough. Thank you for your time.”
She moved to get out, but the new guy, Keagan, held his hands out. “Hold up. Let me at least try. Let me talk to my boss on some numbers while you take it out for a test drive. Like Toby probably told you, we haven’t even finished checking it in and cleaning it out. Cars don’t usually get picked up this fast. Let me catch up and see what I can do. Do you need the rig today? Or can you wait a couple of days for us to do everything we need to do to get it sale ready?”
“Today. You could save yourself the hassle and just offload a car. You could make an easy sale if you take my budget seriously.”
He narrowed his eyes. “Cash, huh?”
“Yep.”
“I like you,” he said, pointing as he backed away. “You are a no nonsense kind of person.”
“Tell your boss that. Tell him it’ll be an easy sale if he can keep us from the back and forth.”
God where had she got this boldness? She wasn’t even good at talking to people in general, and now she was telling these strangers what to do?
She gripped the wheel to hide the shaking in her hands.
Toby asked for her driver’s license, and then he handed her the keys and hopped in the passenger’s seat. She loved this rig. She knew she loved it the second she pushed the gas pedal down. It was louder than she’d envisioned, and it was fast. The hitch on the back said it had enough power to tow a trailer too, which was awesome. She would have no problem getting up hills in this thing. There was no creaking or squeaking. The heat worked well, the gears shifted easily as she accelerated, and it breezed up a hill to the first red light. Brakes were great. She took it around for fifteen minutes before she returned to the lot and parked it. That had been so freaking fun. It had been a while since she’d driven anything but Nathan’s truck, and even that was only on occasion.
Keagan came out to meet them with a piece of paper in his hand. His face did not look happy.
“Bad news?” she guessed, her heart sinking.
“Look, I talked to my boss and told him we need to come up with the best offer out the gate, and this is the number he won’t budge on. I like the idea of the car going to someone cool. My lady loved this rig and will be happy too. This number covers what we paid for the rig and the processing fees, and five hundred dollars for our cut. We have to make some money on it, you know?”
She looked at the number and tried not to smile. It was only fifteen hundred dollars over the budget she’d told them. No, it wasn’t a lower mileage, newer Ford Ranger, but she could buy this rig on her own, with no one’s help.
She blew out a long breath of air and then looked up at Keagan. “You’re sure you can’t do any better than this?”
“I mean, we can throw in a tank of gas. We can detail it for you before you drive it off, but if you can come up with the difference, you can literally take this 4Runner off the lot and take it home.”
Home. Home to Rogue Pack territory. This truck would have no problem getting to the cabin from here. The cabin had been step one to independence, and this was step two.
She looked up at Keagan and offered her hand for a shake. “Deal.”
Chapter Twelve
“Can I talk to you?”
“Fuck off, Dodger,” Nathan growled, refusing to take his eyes off the phone screen as he texted his brother.Grant is here. He’s in with him now. He thinks we can get Liam out of it because of the history of stalking and the attempted restraining order. Plus Liam got stabbed to begin with. He’s going for self-defense.Send.
“Nate,” Dodger gritted out.
“What?” Nathan asked, opening the text thread for Delta, like he had a dozen times since he’d come to the precinct. He’d thought she would update him on the interview. Maybe it had gone badly.
“Nate!”
“What?” he barked. “What, what, what, Dodger? What do you need?” Nathan stood and jammed a finger in his chest, pushing Dodger back. “I know Vic got you to go pick Delta up, and I know whatever you have to say is going to bait me into a fight, but I can’t fucking do it right now, Dodger. I’m handlingthis,” he barked, gesturing around the waiting room.
Nory had been crying and had her knees curled to her chest in a chair against the farthest wall. The rest of the Pack were sitting loosely around the room, none next to each other.
“I’m not baiting you,” Dodger said softly. “It’s about Delta.”
Nathan clenched his jaw and wanted to knock him out. Dodger had been poking at him since he’d been notified that his Arrangement had been voided.
“Seriously,” Dodger said quietly. “Not in front of these guys.”
Well, he had his curiosity piqued now.
