Cadillac Payback: Rising Tide by AJ Elmore (the false prince .TXT) 📕

I can hear Spanky jawing at the engine in an appreciative tone, and I smirk as I approach. Josh is watching Spanky's backside with a look of confusion, which he turns on me, like I can somehow explain.

I say, “She's a damsel, eh, Spanky?”

“Daaaaayum straight,” he answers, with a drawn out “Wooooooeeeeee” as punctuation.

He straightens and gives me a half-cocked grin. The grease on his cheeks makes what's left of his teeth seem almost white. Somehow I think under that layer of muck, his skin is pale as a newborn, and he never sees the sun without a solid mask of grit.

He points at a large dirty cooler full of ice and clear beer bottles, and says, “Youawnt'un?”

I shake my head and hand over a rolled-up fast food bag, which contains a few flat, oozing burgers and his weed. His eyes light up when he sees it. As much as he'd love to stay and drool over Josh's toy, he'd just as rather go get high and down some disgusting food. He nods to us, and disappears into the bowels of the garage.

“What the fuck?” Josh mutters under his breath as he snags a beer for himself.

He eyes the label, Miller High Life, and his expression turns down in distaste. It's so haughty that I almost give him shit for being such a picky bitch. He pops the top anyway and takes a swig.

I've been riding for a while, so there's already a layer of road dirt on my face. It was the best way to find the space to breathe after everything clicked just out of place at the Garden District house. That moment has been carefully boarded up and stored for later inspection.

There's a strange ease in knowing the secrets are out, at least as far as our inner crew is concerned. The mandate has been passed, all applicable parties have been notified. Effective immediately. Except not really. Tonight I'm a free agent, floating too far from the ground to control my landing.

My eyes scan over the sharp and imposing lines of the Challenger. The car is such a beefcake, such an answer of muscle to the class of the Cadillac. A '71 hardtop V8 that stopped me in my tracks the first time I saw it.

He never would admit where he got the connections for such a thing, a little fact that still pisses me off. All he said was it was part of a bayou job he pulled on the side. All I know is the car showed up after his stint with that righteously stuck-up southern broad who wasn't around long.

Hell, if I thought I'd get a classic piece like this out of it, I might have paid more attention to her friend. What was her name? How could I forget? She went by Charlie. Those two were the kind of smokin’ hot that makes men nervous, but they had the same gleam in their eyes as Abuela, like a snake waiting. Charlotte and Ella Jane. They were the kind of trouble I’ll never need.

Josh is already lighting up a J, and the smell of the smoke mixed with the garage stink pushes me easily into my element. Working under the hood with Josh is eerily reminiscent of late nights with Charlie.

Sometimes he doesn't say much. He just rolls the weed, drinks beer, and hands me tools. Sometimes we discuss business, or I explain to him what's going on with the car. We generally skirt the personal topics, and fill in the blank spaces with moderate shit talking.

A stereo nearby is playing a shitty '90s soft rock ballad. It'd be funny if there weren't an elephant trying to squeeze under the car with me. I wonder how long we can both ignore it.

Josh passes the joint, and I oblige. We've made it routine to smoke first and interact after. My personality is too catalytic, and his too volatile for us to exist for any amount of time, in the same space, sober. This evening, his silence could be wariness of the rage he saw earlier. It could be, but I won't presume. There are too many angles at play.

I pass the joint back, and stare at the space under the hood as the weed takes hold. The sharps and curves here are more beautiful than any paint on canvas could ever be. They're almost more gorgeous than a finely made firearm, or a brazen woman handling said firearm.

Still, thoughts of guns, women, and this car aren't enough to fully distract me from the first question I always ask. He takes a few tokes, and through the smoke, he says, “She's at home. She went quiet after the meeting. Like she did in Biloxi.”

He's staring at his car, too, so I doubt he catches the calculating glance I flick his way. Where's Maria? That's the question I haven't had time to address. It's not even my place to ask now, a fact that burns in my chest with the remnants of the smoke. My jaw clenches. I catch Josh reading me these days. He catches little holes in my armor, and that pisses me off, too.

He sighs and passes. I accept, take a healthy rip that burns unevenly. We both know well enough that Maria's silence is more often than not destructive. We both know that once the fuse is lit, there's little to do to stop the bomb.

She's the same girl, and she's not. The fuse is longer now, and the clicks on the countdown are harder to catch. Hell, this time, there's more than one fuse.

The weed keeps my irritation at bay. It has no place here anyway. This whole fucking mess is so far out of either of our hands, and for once, I think Josh gets it. He understands the magnitude of what's happening, and he's ready for the challenge. I know I have to hand the flag to him. What is it, then, that's really getting to me – beside the