Total pages in book: 78
Estimated words: 75474 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 377(@200wpm)___ 302(@250wpm)___ 252(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 75474 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 377(@200wpm)___ 302(@250wpm)___ 252(@300wpm)
In. No. Time.
He nods. Hesitating, he gives me a strange look. I have no clue what it means; this guy is full of long thousand-yard stares that make no sense to me. I’m a pretty straightforward person. Sad equals frown. Happy equals smile. And angry means you’re going to get an earful. Why hide your emotions when life is already complicated enough.
For a moment, I get the impression he’s about to speak again, but then he turns to leave, heading straight to the dark gray Audi Q8 with tinted windows parked at the curb. When he reaches the door, he takes a last look at me.
Depressed Bruce Wayne is one dramatic guy.
“Have a nice life Riley James Jr,” carries across the front lawn.
“Yeah…you too,” I offer in return. It’s a little late for goodbyes, however. By the time I get around to it, the Audi is pulling away from the curb and tearing down the street.
Chapter Four
Riley
“What are you doing here?”
In the alleyway outside the service entrance of the restaurant Tommy is waiting for me in his faded red 1990 Jeep Wrangler with the chipped tail light and the original tape deck player.
We haven’t spoken since we got in an argument three days ago, the day Jordan West showed up at my job site and offered me a…job. Yeah, that still sounds strange––even in my head. Anyway, Tommy insisted on knowing who the unexpected visitor was and I insisted that it was none of his business. And then he did the unforgivable––he left the job site without helping me and Fat Jesus clean up.
He’s lucky I didn’t have a nail gun handy or I would’ve driven one straight through his pretty head.
“’Sup, babe.” Smiling widely, he throws one well-muscled arm around the headrest of the passenger seat. The smile is forced though. I know him too well not to notice.
“Don’t call me that. You know I hate it.” He knows because I’ve told him no less than a million times. The same way I know he calls me that whenever he wants something.
“Again, why are you here?” I walk to the passenger side door and await an explanation that my female intuition tells me I won’t like.
There are only two reasons Tommy would ever drive into the city: a Tinder date or money. And God knows I’m no Tinder date.
There was a weird point in time, when I was sixteen, that Tommy fancied himself in love with me. Thankfully, it lasted only slightly longer than one of his naps. Throwing cold water on that was the best decisions I’ve ever made.
For years, I watched him burn through scores of girls. The potholes in Staten Island are literally filled with the broken hearts of the ones Tommy used and dumped, and I wasn’t about to be one of them. Besides, I didn’t want to lose him as a friend and inevitably I would have.
“Hop in. I’ll drive you home.”
With a growing knot in my stomach, I throw my messenger bag into the back seat and climb in. Tommy presses play on the tape deck and Bruce Springsteen’s voice filters into the warm night sky. The only thing Tommy cares about is music. He even has a halfway decent voice. Unfortunately, he lacks a more important part of the anatomy––the guts to see it through.
“…So you’re scared and you’re thinking that maybe we ain’t that young anymore. Show a little faith, there’s magic in the night. You ain’t a beauty, but hey, you’re al right…”
“Remember when we used to hang at the dock with Mike and Kelly and Jorge and we would blast this song and the people in the apartments across the street would scream at us,” he says, reminding me of when were teenagers.
It reminds me that while Jorge was lucky enough to join the military and get out of here, Mike died of an overdose and Kelly is still dealing.
We don’t speak for two blocks as the music takes me away to a place in my head where I’m not dreading what he’s going to say next. Then we hit a red light and he turns down the volume. Next to the Jeep, ribbons of steam rise out of the manhole covers. It reminds me of my Dad.
When I was seven, I overheard him talking to one of his friends about Puff the Magic Dragon. When I asked him what it was, he convinced me that it was the name of the dragon living under the streets of New York City with his dragon family. I fully believed it until my mother disabused me of that notion when I was nine.
“No, your father is not going to get better, Riley,” she lashed out one night when he was really sick. “He needs to stop filling your head with fantasies like the story about the dragons.”