Chapter 4
Baker snaps a rubber band off a wad of bills and slaps it into my palm like he’s doing me a favor instead of screwing me over.
“Tell your landlord he’ll get the money next week,” he grunts. “This is all Fisher told me to give you.”
The cash is warm and grimy, like he’s been storing it in his boot or his underwear. Two hundred bucks. Not five.
I stare at it a beat too long, then I smile, slow and flat.
“Cute. Where’s the part where you stop fucking with me?”
“Crew needs supplies for Easter,” he says, like that explains everything. “You’ll get the rest when it blows over.”
I peel my fingers off the cash as the familiar anger in my chest pulls at my ribs.
“Right,” I say. “And in the meantime, I’m supposed to pay rent with good intentions and the spirit of the holiday?”
Baker doesn’t even blink. I flick the cash back at him, and he just lets it hit the floor.
“This isn’t the crew’s flop house,” I say mildly. “My landlord doesn’t let off the hook like that.”
Baker shrugs, looking around the loft again like he’s appraising it for scrap. I can practically hear the judgment. The cannery this, the cannery that. They all love pretending that living with the crew is better than paying a little bit more cash and getting the comfort for it.
“You could’ve moved into the cannery months ago,” he says. “Don’t act like you’re better than the rest of us.”
“Oh, absolutely,” I nod. “Who wouldn’t want to live in a fish mausoleum with free tetanus and a side of pneumonia.”
His lip curls.
“Roof’s still freer than yours. But sure, keep pretending that promise to some old woman is worth sleeping with one foot out the door every month. Your grandmother’s dead, Talon. Nobody cares about your silly little promise.”
My smile stays exactly where it is. My jaw doesn’t.
He doesn’t get it, that’s the thing. Guys like Baker think loyalty can exist only for those who are still there to threaten you with a bullet. Nobody ever gave him a reason to believe otherwise.
I’ve got a different story.
One day, my grandma just… acquired a child.
As in: my addict mother dropped me on her porch during a rainstorm, wrapped in a literal trash bag because that’s all she had clean, and left me there.
And instead of dumping me off at some state home like anyone else would’ve, Gran brought me inside, cleaned me up, and put me in her bed.
She didn’t have much, but she made me promise one thing before she died. Don’t end up like that bitch. Get a flat. Own a car. Learn which pills to keep in the medicine cabinet and which ones rot your brain. Keep your shit clean. Keep yourself clean.
I’ve kept that promise, mostly. The loft isn’t much, but it’s mine. The rent’s late sometimes, but the walls don’t smell like dead fish, and the mattress isn’t soaked through with saltwater and mold. And when I wake up, I don’t hear rats fighting over garbage. That’s worth something.
Of course, the one thing Gran never planned for was that I’d end up funding all this ‘clean living’ with money from a crew that couldn’t keep a glove compartment organized if their lives depended on it. Christ, they barely know what day of the week it is, let alone rent day.
But I don’t say any of that. Because Baker’s petty with a capital ‘P’, and for someone I’d love to hit with a chair, I want his favor.
You offend him once and he’ll make sport out of ruining you.
Man shot a guy because someone laughed at one of his tattoos.
And honestly, they should’ve laughed harder.
That girl on his arm looks like she’s permanently taking a shit on his skin.
I squat to gather the scattered cash.
“Why wasn’t this prepped earlier?” I ask. “It’s Easter. You’d think nobody could fuck up remembering a national calendar event.”
Baker comes over to my beat-up couch and throws himself so hard on it, I swear he wants to break it. He puts his boots up on my coffee table and the heel of one scuffed sneaker digs into a stack of car mags I’ve been meaning to sell.
“Legs. Off.” I shove until his heel thuds to the floor.
He gives me a lazy smirk. “So proper.”
“Fuck yeah. They called and said I'm a long lost prince. Didn’t you know?”
He laughs. It’s the kind of laugh that collapses halfway into a cough from too much weed, and then he has to wipe his nose with his thumb. When it passes, he exhales like the room suddenly got heavy.
“What do you want me to say?” He tilts his head back, eyes half-lidded. “Couple of our guys have been ghosting supply duty. Got rolled on a traffic stop, sat in county for two goddamn weeks. Walked out Friday.”
“Fascinating,” I mutter. “Incredible how this is brand new information even though it concerns me.”
“Relax.” Baker flicks his wrist like he’s brushing crumbs off a table. “Fisher’s already on it. And we’re not exactly broadcasting intel these days. Word spreads too fast. Especially through you.”
My jaw works. “Through me.”
He shrugs. “You know how you get with the circuit girls. We prefer not to threaten them afterward. Hard to get pussy later.”
I drop the bills on the table with a flat smack. “So you just cut me out.”
He leans across my couch like it’s his, smile lazy, eyes mean. “Listen, man, it’s either you or the pussy. Easy math.”
“Fuck off.”
Baker’s grin widens, just for a flicker, before he slouches deeper into the couch. “Not everybody’s got it easy with them, dude. The rest of us gotta do what we gotta do. Besides, you’re better as Fisher’s pretty face anyway. Prettiest face in the crew. That’s your lane.”
Pretty face.
I don’t react. I never do. They think it’s a dig, Baker especially because they don’t get it.
People talk around a pretty face. They hand over information without realizing.
And still, I’m much more than that. Fisher just wants to undermine my value so I don’t go driving the getaway car for anyone else.
I’m too fast to get caught.
I’m the best driver he’s got.
“Did you even work this week?” Baker asks after a beat.
“Uh-huh.” I keep my tone flat. “Got the flu. Coughing up blood. You should’ve seen it.”
He barks a laugh, but his eyes flicker, the way they always do when he’s trying to read me. He never can. I say things the same whether they’re true or not; makes everyone keep guessing. That’s the fun part.
I did work. Not for the crew, but for myself.
Did a few side gigs: trailed an old Camaro that’s got ‘easy take’ written all over it, moved a set of tires nobody asked questions about.
Crew cash covers the rent; side-hustle cash buys me nights when the crew decides their “Easter supply run” is more urgent than my roof.
“Guess I’ll see you Sunday, then,” Baker says, pushing off the couch. “Don’t be late. Those uppity rich kids pay good for a little holiday…spirit.”
“Wouldn’t dream of it.”
He doesn’t need to know I’d crawl there half-dead if I had to. Nothing moves cash faster than college brats who think snorting powder off a pastel plate is the height of rebellion.
“Wear something nice,” he adds, hand on my door. “Holiday and all.”
I flip him off lazily. Legend has it the man’s never met a shirt with sleeves. He wouldn’t recognize nice if it slapped him in the face.
He leaves, footsteps fading down the warped hallway.
Good. I’ve got bigger priorities than Baker’s attempt at cheer.
The Camaro.
Time to move.
Territory lines say Fisher’s ground stops one block before that garage, Rey’s boys claim the rest, but Rey’s ghosts don’t show their faces around there anymore. And the Camaro is parked behind our convenience store. Backyard law: if it’s in our yard, it’s practically mine already.
Still, no reason to take the scenic route past anyone who might get nosy. I cut through back alleys, keeping parallel to the street until I can slip around behind the store. Hop the fence. Land in a puddle. Cold water floods my sneakers.
Perfect.
I shake it off, put a hood up and walk the last bit.
And there she is.
Black. Low. Mean. She looks like she could break hearts and laws in the same breath.
Hell, she’s gorgeous.
It’s the kind of car that makes your heart skip a beat because you know the second you turn the key, it’ll roar like it’s alive.
My grandmother would’ve risen from the grave just to nod approvingly and then drop dead again from the awe. She taught me cars better than I learned my own alphabet. I surpassed her by eleven.
I circle it once, quick. The rear bumper’s dented, the front left tire’s bald, and the paint’s got enough swirl marks to tell me the owner doesn’t know jack about keeping a car this pretty. Shameful… but salvageable.
And she runs. I know, because she was parked three spots down last time I passed through.
I set my toolbox down and grab the socket set—
—and someone speaks behind me.
“You lost, pretty boy?”
I freeze.
Definitely a woman. Which is alarming only because the universe almost never hands me luck this nicely wrapped. A car like this and a girl?
I turn slowly, keeping my hand low on the wrench. My grandmother always said: You can tell everything you need to know about someone from their first three words.
This one just called me “pretty boy” with the vocal equivalent of a switchblade—flirt or mugging? Fifty-fifty. I can live with both.
She’s leaning against the collapsed garage frame like she owns the whole block, one boot propped up, arms tucked easy into a leather jacket that has absolutely seen hands, teeth, and god knows what else.
Her hair’s dark and chopped uneven, the kind of cut you give yourself in a gas station bathroom with a pair of stolen scissors.
There’s a knife clipped to her belt and a smirk on her mouth that makes it clear she knows how to use both.
She’s definitely… pretty. If I didn’t know any better, I’d say she’s the Camaro’s spirit or something.
“Depends who’s asking,” I say, sliding her my best grin.