Chapter 43
FORTY-THREE
HE REALLY HAD IT COMING
“Holy shit! My eyes!”
Denny yelps at Pecan’s distressed cry and struggles to cover up with a throw blanket on the couch in the den at her mom’s house. A move I back because I don’t want him perving on her.
I, on the other hand, don’t bother.
If he didn’t want to see my cock, he shouldn’t have barged in!
“What the fuck are you doing in here?”
“Zach,” Denny shrieks. “Cover your… your…”
“My dick?” Smirking, I grab her hand. “You can cover it.”
With Denny back to shrieking, Pecan shields his eyes with his arm. “Jesus, you two. I figured I’d be okay to walk into the den when the house was full for the holidays!”
“What do you even want?” Denny mutters, swiping the back of her other hand over her sweaty face before hurling one of her man-sized Magic 8 Ball cushions at his head.
I’m so not surprised that she hits her target—she’s had years of practice with this particular weapon, one that was too large for her to bring to our place in Poughkeepsie.
“Do you know how close I was to coming, Peter? Do you?”
“I’m sorry to disturb you, missy.” He knuckles the corner of his eye like he’s crying. “But Callan was trying to call you.”
“What’s the actual point of friends when they’re literal cockblockers?!” she sputters.
“I heard that!”
The tinny voice sounds from the cell in Pecan’s hand.
He lifts it to his face. “Won’t turn it around yet, Callan. The view’s X-rated.”
“What do you think I am? Fourteen?” Callan scoffs.
“Put some clothes on,” Denny snipes at me.
I loom over her just to watch her blush. “You’re pissy when you don’t get yours.”
“No. I’ve been trained to expect orgasms. Like Pavlov’s dog!”
I pinch her chin between thumb and forefinger. “You sure have.”
A simple peck to her lips and I’m ready to obey her orders. I drag on my briefs, refusing to cover up much more than that when I’m with friends, then smirk when I watch her enshroud herself in the throw blanket like she’s rolling up a leftover sandwich in Saran Wrap.
As for Pecan, he’s grumbling, “Don’t act like I haven’t seen it all before.”
“I don’t want to know.” Denny, from her throw blanket burrito, glowers at us before shuffling to the connecting restroom and washing her hands.
As I join her in washing up, Callan inquires, “They’re decent?”
“Yup, Callan. As decent as these two ingrates can be.”
“Considering how many times I’ve seen your ass,” Denny growls, “I resent that.”
“CHILDREN,” Callan barks. “We don’t have time for this.”
Denny accepts the bottle of water I pass to her from the den’s mini fridge. “What’s going on?”
“So, you know our aim is to doxx Dyers?”
“You don’t say,” I gripe. “It was supposed to be done by now. I thought you said he was good at computer science, Pecan.”
“Firstly, a computer scientist does not a hacker make.” Callan sniffs, flips up the middle finger, then raises his pointer. “Secondly, my work is pristine and if you’re complaining about it now, I can provide examples firsthand!”
“Boys!” Denny shuffles the blanket under her arms so she can slap the cushions on either side of her thighs.
“Enough. Callan, I know it’s TMI, especially as I’m so grateful you’re an evil genius, but I would like to get back to my orgasm at some point before my mom returns from the store. So can we move this along?”
“Sure thing, Denny. Send the text.” As she nods, he continues, “So, our initial struggle was locating an address when he doesn’t technically live anywhere.
“Even at Oakwood, he has a room in his frat house. It’s not much of a punishment if the entire fraternity gets handed the same deal.”
“Says you. They’re enablers. They deserve the backlash too,” Denny reasons.
“Yeah, yeah. Greek life’s always under scrutiny. We want personal revenge.”
Pecan whistles. “Remind me to never get in your bad books.”
“I’m assuming you have an update?” I grouse.
Callan pulls a face at me. “You and Denny suit each other with how bossy you both are. In fact, I demand praise.”
“He’s good at that, Callan.” She tugs on my hand. “Go on. He’s right, Mr. Grouch!”
“Oh, Callan, our overlord and savior.” I raise my hands into the prayer pose. “What would we ever do without you to ruin our enemies?”
He nods. “Praise accepted.
“Now, thanks to Shay and Victoria, who I love so dearly, we found out which address his social security number and driver’s license are attached to.”
Pecan, cautiously, asks, “Isn’t that, like… a federal crime?”
“Not in Callan’s country,” D is quick to answer.
“With President Devere being a douche, my government might reward me!”
Despite the update being new to Pecan and me, it obviously isn’t news to D. Doesn’t stop her from bouncing in her seat. “Ready for what’s about to show up at his front door? No? You’re not? Well, tough shit! The puck’s about to drop, guys!!”
Her grin twists as Pecan mumbles, “How the fuck do you find that kind of info, anyway?”
“Don’t ask and I won’t lie. All I’ll say is it was a beautiful day when we made friends with Victoria and Shay.
” He kisses his fingers. “Their connections are a delight, and your plan is so close to fruition, Denver, that it’s a shame you can’t use it as an example for your classes. You’d get top grades!”
His face disappears with a few taps and some kind of something replaces it. The image is distorted—goldfish bowl-style.
Pecan squints at the screen. “Is that a door cam?”
“Sure is.” Callan’s voiceover makes him sound like he’s narrating a documentary.
“The tickets, Callan?”
“Oh, yes. Exactly like you said. How did you even know about that?”
“Just did. Entitled assholes think the roads belong to them.”
“Shhh!” Pecan complains. “I’m concentrating.”
The picture is motionless aside from showing a front door stoop that makes me think the house is in New York City or Boston. Not many places with brownstones. The image shifts when a couple people amble along the sidewalk and a car cruises past—a Lambo.
Pecan clicks his tongue. “That’s a damn nice ride.”
The car suddenly reverses. A pedestrian cries out in fear when the moron behind the wheel drives onto the curb and brakes bare inches away from the woman’s foot.
Enthralled, Denny presses her hand to her mouth while the rest of us exclaim:
“Asshole!”
“Whoa!”
“Moron.”
“God, the timing is working out perfectly!” she cries.
A less-than-smooth three-point turn later, the car’s pulling into a space outside the building and parking.
“That Lambo’s wasted on him,” Callan jeers.
Pecan perks up. “And you’d know how?”
“My brother had one before he moved to NYC.”
“Isn’t that the perfect place for a sports car? They’re for showing off!”
“Nah, Denny, the traffic means the only people you’re showing off to are the ones on the sidewalk. Here, you can let the twelve-cylinder engine rip on the back roads.”
A couple more people walk past just as a familiar face opens the door.
“Bastard.” I jerk to my feet.
“Be patient,” Callan warns.
A crinkling sound comes from the corner of the sectional where Pecan’s broken into the snacky snacks. “Makes complete sense this jackass would have a car that drives him.”
“Hey, you brought snacks but none for us?” Denny sulks.
Pecan graces her with a shit-eating grin as he gnaws on some Cheetos. “We could have shared from the bag, but I refuse to sit in between you on the wet spot.”
“I wish it were wet,” I jibe.
I’m about to head off and find us something to eat when one of the people, minding their own business, steps into Dyers’s path.
The dick elbows him in the side. “Watch where you’re going, cretin.”
The guy staggers and ends up glancing off the Lambo. Wincing, he plants his hands on it to stabilize himself.
“Don’t touch my car, man. I just had it detailed!” The passerby frowns at him, but Dyers only sneers, “Though, that’s probably as close as you’ll get to a Lamborghini in your life.”
A split second later, the man, rubbing his hip, rights himself and is back on his way.
It’s such a run-of-the-mill interaction that I don’t even notice the deep line flowing over the side of the car. Not until Denny bounces on the couch and offers a round of applause. “Just look at that scratch, baby. That’ll need to be stripped down to the metal.”
“How did you even find him, Denny?”
“I have my ways, Callan,” she chortles.
“You paid someone to key that Lamborghini, D?” Pecan screeches.
“Someone wasn’t listening to the plan,” Callan chides.
“Hey, my heart was breaking!”
“It’s why he’s eating my mom out of house and home. I swear it’s a good thing Franklin’s rich as Croesus. He needs it for all the guys we have to feed under this roof! Now, stop interrupting. I want to watch!”
Dyers, completely unaware of what just happened under his nose, brushes off his jacket like the pedestrian’s touch was contagious and he strides toward the house.
The cocky asshole clicks the alarm over his shoulder and secures the sports car.
Seconds later, a tow truck pulls up.
As soon as the process begins, it takes me a few seconds to see that Pecan’s deigned to shuffle closer because Denny’s diving into the Cheetos and watching the show like it’s one of her reality TV programs.
I curl my arm around her shoulders and settle back too. Then I smile when she holds out a Cheeto for me to take.
Pecan kicks up his heels then complains, “I can’t believe I’m sitting on your sex couch.”
“You’ve fucked on every square inch of our apartment,” Denny says absentmindedly. “You’ll get over it. I did.”
“Shit. I should have brought snacks too. What flavor chips you guys eating?”
“Not chips, Callan. Cheetos. And the only flavor that counts: Flamin’ Hot.”
“Pecan, remind me to bring you some All-Dressed after the break.”
I whistle. “He has you there, Peeks. We both know All-Dressed are the superior chip.”
“Someone—cough, Zach—hasn’t been supplying me with them.”
“I haven’t been to Canada in months!”
“Never heard of ?!”
As our squabble escalates, the tow truck triggers the car’s alarm system. Within moments, Dyers’s running out of the house.
“Can’t you read?!” he yells, hands flung wide and loose. “I have a permit!”
His volume draws the attention of a small crowd of pedestrians.
“Oh, my god, this is perfection,” D breathes. “Almost as good as an orgasm—”
“Hey!”
She ignores my grumble and just clutches at my hand. “My choreography is coming to life, Zach!”
“This isn’t about a permit, sir,” the NYPD officer drawls, ignoring Dyers as he goes about attaching the chains to the Lamborghini. “You owe over fourteen thousand dollars of unpaid parking tickets to the city of New York. This is the authorization to tow form and a receipt—”
“I don’t believe this,” Dyers growls. “This is insane. I don’t have any parking—”
Before he can even finish that sentence, Chicago’s “Cell Block Tango” blares on from out of nowhere and the small crowd of pedestrians suddenly start leaping around like loons.
Unimpressed, the officer continues his task as, circling him, a sudden surge of women dressed in tuxedos with plaid ties and cummerbunds and dudes wearing lilac skirt suits and white sun hats loft inflatable pitchforks in one hand.
A couple men are in golden speedos and white-blond wigs, while others wear fake French maid uniforms complete with hats, heavy black eyeliner, and dark red lips.
Some are dressed in fake scrubs dotted with pink triangles and others sport thigh-highs, sky-high heels, and corsets with massive “Mom” tattoos painted onto their skin.
They skip and hop around the elite ride like they’ve downed a bad batch of LSD.
Dyers watches on in disgusted bewilderment while Denny bursts out laughing when one of the Dr. Frank-N-Furters makes him jump by screaming “he had it coming” in his face.
Snorting, I almost miss one of the French maids spra—
“Look. There.” I gesture at the fender, having figured out what a sneak—read part-time criminal—my girlfriend is. “The redhead in the French maid costume! What are they doing?”
D’s evil cackle tells me I’ve picked out the whole purpose of this misdirection.
“Is that spray paint?” Pecan asks, squinting at the phone.
“Sure is,” my new best friend crows.
The song’s over almost as quickly as it began—unfortunately because Dyers looks set to burst an aneurysm—and the crowd of people, all laughing and jeering, fade out.
One second they’re there, and the next they’re running off but they’re still chanting, over and over and over: “He had it coming.”
By this point, even the cop’s watching them with a smirk. Never mind Dyers, who’s scowling at the rapidly disappearing flash mob. But neither manage to see what they left behind.
Glee laces Pecan’s words. “Oh, my god. I’m so glad you settled on The Rocky Horror Picture Show for the costumes!”
I know there was a massive argument between Callan, Wynter, and D over TRHPS and Jesus Christ Superstar.
I join in with a hoot while Denny fist-bumps the air.
The Lamborghini is a wreck. Key scratches all over the sides and, best of all, the word RAPIST tagged onto the hood.
The second Dyers notices, he loses his shit.
“This is your fault! Are you even a cop?! Why aren’t you going after them? They should be arrested for defacing private property!”
I gape when he runs into the street, gets in the officer’s face, and grabs him by the shirt then proceeds to shake the man.
“Oh, my god,” Denny repeats around a squeal. As much as she’s choreographed this, even she’s taken aback.
Before Dyers has the chance to say ‘NHL,’ he’s face first on his oh, so precious car, hands being cuffed as he’s placed under arrest.
“Please tell me the spray paint’s still wet,” Denny pleads to the gods.
We watch on in delight as a squad car pulls up and Dyers gets hauled into the back of the NYPD vehicle.
Part of the ‘S’ plastered onto his cheek.
Whooping, Denny high-fives both Peeks and me.
The cherry on the cake is when his less-than-swanky ride is towed.
None of us talk, we don’t even munch on snacks, as the car and tow truck drift out of the camera’s admittedly narrow range.
Then, and only then, into a blossoming silence, D rasps, “Callan, that was a masterpiece.”
“I was just the strings, D. You’re the composer!”
She giggles. “You guys ain’t seen nothing yet.”
And as much as the guy was growing on me, the smile he just put on my girl’s face?
He’s up there with Pecan now.
“Pecan, I need you to leave,” Denver warns.
“Why? Can’t we watch a movie—”
“No. We can’t,” she growls. “You have thirty seconds to get out of this room before you see more than you want to of me and Zach.”
“Hey, you just had se—”
“Twenty-nine.”
“I’m bored!”
“Twenty-seven!” she threatens, shifting onto my lap so she’s straddling me.
“FINE!” he snaps. “You’ll keep me company, won’t you, Callan?”
I don’t hear Callan’s reply. I’m too busy dealing with the aftermath of my girl’s adrenaline buzz…