21. Tink #2
“I can still hear you, you know,” Zusanna puts in. “And I am lesbian.” She pauses. “Besides, your hair.” She gestures at Pan. “It is stupid.”
Pan scowls, but gets up, setting his helmet back on his bike. Blue, though, has gone still.
Thoughtful.
“Money,” he says, tilting his head at Zusanna. “You said you didn’t need his money.”
“Yes?” She looks around distractedly. “No. Yes, I did, no I didn’t. Who has my phone? I—”
“But you said you took a loan from him,” Blue goes on.
I dart a glance at Pan and wiggle Zusanna’s phone—should I?
Pan widens his eyes and backs away in a kind of please, proceed bow. Like he doesn’t want to get beat up again, which—fair. I hold out the phone to Zusanna.
“Thank you,” she says, and flashes me what might be the first smile from her all morning.
Which fades as soon as she snaps back to Blue.
“Different money,” she says, thumbing her phone unlocked.
“His kind of money, I don’t need. And God, now I bet he is happy about this!
” She groans as she starts to type furiously at her phone.
“Baba did not want me opening here,” she goes on, still glued to her screen.
“Said he’d find me better space somewhere else, somewhere ‘safe’”—she draws one-handed air quotes—“but nowhere in whole stupid Valley is any good but Marina! He think I can set up high-price, luxury kickboxing gym next to smoke shop and tattoo parlor? Maybe if I want stupid clientele—”
“Hey,” Pan interjects, but I silence him with a glance.
“—but I am offering top-tier experience, you know? And still he says, ‘Zuzu, bad neighborhood is better than bad neighbors.’ Lecture me like I am still some little girl.”
All of a sudden, I feel…on.
Maybe it’s the three cans of caffeine jittering in my system. Maybe it’s being in the Marina at all, but I feel…too much. Too active.
Krye’s words from the other night echo in my mind.
Lay low, like normal boy Tink.
I’m trying, I think. But sometimes I just can’t.
Not when I’m around the Lost Boys.
“What…what’d he mean by that?” I ask, softly. “Bad neighbors?”
“Hm?” Zusanna looks up from her phone, shrugs. “Oh, you know. Big casino, dog track, all that. Territorial, want piece of pie. But like I say, I’m not here for that business anyway, so—”
“Protection money,” Blue cuts in.
Zusanna looks up again. But this time, doesn’t go right back to her phone. Just looks at Blue.
“For you,” he goes on. “That they didn’t get.”
Zusanna tenses her shoulders. “I tell you, again, Mr. Bike, I don’t do that. I don’t play their games or pay their money—”
“I said for you, not from you,” Blue cuts in, striding toward Pan.
Oh, shit. My stomach drops.
“Pan,” I mutter. “Did you ever make the drop for Krye?”
“Did I…” Pan scratches the side of his head. “He never called!”
“He did call,” I say, thinking of the stupid burner phone back at the shop. “Like, a thousand times. You just lost track of the phone.”
“You were gonna help me remember—”
“Hey, idiots,” Blue barks, pushing a hand into each of our chests. “Shut the fuck up. The girl’s shop is wrecked, okay? Too late.”
I jump back, away from his touch. Pan glowers and folds his arms.
“Well,” he says at last. “My bad, I suppose. But—”
“No.” Zusanna nods, eyes gleaming. “No, is good. I don’t want any part of that. I don’t participate.”
“Bold choice,” Kit says under his breath. Zusanna snorts.
“I am big girl. I fight on my own terms.”
A beat of silence, just the rustling of palm trees and the distant whine of traffic. Pan chews his cheek.
“Well, now what?” he says at last.
“Now what what?” Zusanna repeats, looking back at her ruined gym. “Now I order new fucking windows, is what. You are window-glass technicians?”
Fox, who happens to be nearest to her accusing finger, shakes his head and backs off.
“C’mon, Zuzu.” Pan wanders forward. “You know what I—I’m supposed to help you. I’m gonna look like a dumbass in front of your old man unless there’s something we can do here.”
Zusanna snorts. “Again, sounds like you problem.” Then she considers. “I tell you what. You give me the money, eh? I buy new windows and my father’s business insurance stays clean as whistle.”
Fox frowns. “But what if they come back? To, you know…” His eyes drift to the few shards of glass still dangling in the frames.
“First? If I catch them here, then I pound them into kofte.” Zusanna grinds a fist into a palm. “And if they want money, I tell them to find whoever he is”—she gestures above her head in the air—“clown-haired boy on bike.”
Pan narrows his eyes and chest-passes her the bundle.
Zusanna catches it one handed. “Sounds like you are the ones needing protection now, eh?” She laughs. “Maybe next time you need help you call me, not my father, now you know who has muscle.” She gives the bundle a smack against her chest and bows. “Goodbye, Lost Boys.”
“Waste of fucking time,” Pan mutters. “Just like I thought.”
“Uh, did you?” Kit’s voice crackles in. “Didn’t you call this a rescue mission before? Sounds like you’re just cranky you didn’t get to do the white knight thing.”
“Yep,” Fox agrees. “Probably.”
“Or mad that Zuzu said his hair was stupid,” I add.
“Fuck all of you,” Pan growls back. “I’m charging that Armenian bastard—”
“Albanian,” Kit and I say at the same time.
“Whatever! Jesus.” There’s a mighty engine rev and Pan shoots ahead of us.
“Idiot,” mutters Blue, and accelerates after him. “Wait the fuck up.”
They rocket ahead across the heat of the freeway, weaving farther and farther until they’re all but out of sight.
“Guess they need space,” Fox jokes. Just to me, not on mic. Yelling over the road noise.
I force a laugh. “Guess so,” I yell back.
We ride a bit longer in silence, save the rushing of the wind, the air swiping over cars as we pass them.
“Kit used to get them too,” he says quietly.
I hold myself still. “Get what?”
“Uh. Panic attacks, I guess?” I can hear the expression on his face as he searches for the right words.
“I dunno. Not like he ever saw a shrink about it, maybe it’s something else.
All I mean was…uh. I get it, I guess. So you don’t have to, you know, pretend in front of me.
If that helps. Like, I know it’s better to just kind of ride it out than try to squash it down, you know? ”
Suddenly the press of my binder against my skin and flesh feels like it’s squeezing through to my lungs. But I manage a nod.
“I mean, easy for me to say, I guess,” Fox goes on. “Just relax. I know he hates that, but—”
You both have jackets on, idiot I think. And the thing’s padded besides. The odds that my boobs—especially my boobs, A-minus cups on a good day—would register to him are…
I can’t help it.
I do relax. A little. Against Fox.
And it’s…nice.