REBEL, a New Adult Romance Novel (The Rebel Series) (10 page)

“Nice.
 
I’ll be there.”

Rebel doesn’t even say anything to me.
 
He just gets in his car and drives off.
 
I watch the rumbling black car disappear after a very illegal u-turn right in front of the cop.

“What’s up with that?” I ask, pointing to the space where the law was just broken.

“What’s up with what?” asks the cop, handing me my license.

I’m aghast.
 
“What’s up with
what?
 
How about what’s up with that illegal u-turn?”

“What illegal u-turn?” he asks, walking towards his car.
 
“Remember to keep your license with you!” he yells over his shoulder.
 
“The law requires it!”

I get into my car, grumbling.
 
“The law requires it.
 
The law requires it.
 
Mew mew mew mew mew.
 
The law requires you suck my lady-dick too, but I don’t see that happening.”

“What was that?” he asks at my window.

I scream and practically throw myself into the passenger seat.
 
When my heart stops trying to leap out of my chest, I lean back behind the wheel.
 
“Holy shit, you almost gave me a heart attack.”

“Here,” he says, handing me a yellow slip of paper.

I snatch it out of his hand.
 
“Did you give me a ticket?”
 
My voice is two octaves higher than normal.

“No.
 
It’s just a warning.
 
But next time, it’ll be a one hundred and twenty-five dollar ticket, so keep your …”

“Yeah, yeah, I heard you the first eight times,” I say, starting my bubbly engine.
 
“See you later, officer whatever.”

“It’s Officer Dickson.”

I start laughing uncontrollably.
 
“Of course it is.”
 
I can’t wait to get back to Perry’s apartment so I can tell Quin all about my awesome day.

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

IT’S BRIGHT AND EARLY SATURDAY morning and Quin is in the passenger seat next to me. Perry is behind us in his truck, and we’re all headed downtown to my new studio apartment.
 
Moving day!
 
Not yay!

“I can’t believe you’re going to sleep on that futon you got from Dave the Depraved,” she says.
 
“Can you imagine how much dried up total
ew-ness
must be on the mattress cover?”

“Thank you for that visual, Quin.
 
Now if you could just shut the hell up for the rest of the day, that would be awesome.”
 
Up until this moment I had been all proud of the fact that I’d scored some free furniture from students leaving town after graduation, but now I’m questioning how good my score actually was.
 
Can sperm come back to life after living in a futon cover?

“I’m sorry.
 
I’ll stop being negative.
 
Hey, you found an apartment, right?
 
And a kickass job, all in one day. You are the champion of all champions.
 
We’ll just put a really thick mattress pad on under your sheets.”

“Yes, as a matter of fact, I
am
the champion of all champions.”
 
I don’t smile as brightly as I normally would being this level of champion because I haven’t told Quin the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth.

I was kind of hoping I could do this move myself and never let her see my new Golden Legacy apartment, but she insisted on coming.
 
I’m not looking forward to seeing her reaction, but what’s done is done.
 
We’re almost there.

“I hope you didn’t get a place around here,” she says, laughing.
 
“This is like crack-whores-ville.”

“Actually, I did,” I say, feeling a little sick to my stomach.

She goes silent.

“It’s just temporary.”

As we pull up to the apartment building, I smile as hard as I can.
 
“See?
 
It’s the Golden Legacy.
 
It’s like … solid gold awesome.”

“More like solid gold dog shit,” she says, staring at the piles of trash in the bushes around the edges of the property.
 
“Ew, is that a used condom on the sidewalk?”

“No, don’t be silly.
 
It’s a deflated balloon animal.
 
Look!
 
Squirrel!”
 
I point to a tree on the other side of the driveway, knowing full well there isn’t any damn furry creature in it.
 
No self-respecting member of the animal kingdom would be caught dead near the Golden Legacy.
 
Only roaches and ants live up in this hood.

“You can’t be serious, Teag.
 
You have to move in with me.
 
I cannot allow this.”

“It’s already done.
 
I paid my security deposit, and the landlord’s letting me pay my first rent at the end of the month.
 
It’s all I can afford right now and you know I can’t be suffocated by your family like that.”

“But you can be suffocated by … crack whores?
 
Crack whores and pimps are okay but my family isn’t?”
 
She has tears in her eyes.

I reach over and push my hand down her face.
 
“Stop that.
 
No tears.
 
You know I don’t prefer crack whores to your family.
 
I’ll totally punch you if you cry.”

She slaps my hand away.
 
“I’m not crying.
 
I’m pissed.”

I pinch her cheek before she can hit me again.
 
“No, you’re not.
 
You’re excited. See? I have a new apartment and I’m going to let you decorate it!”

“You are?!”

I grin really big.
 
“No!
 
I’m not!”

She sticks her tongue out at me.
 
“You’re a poop.
 
You know I like to decorate.”

“I know you like to spend money neither of us has.
 
I have exactly three posters I got off Lindey that you can hang.”

“She has terrible taste.”

“Maybe in clothes, but not in posters.
 
Come on.”
 
I pull into a parking space and shut off the engine. Leaving her to deal with Perry, I jog into the office.
 
A post-dated check for the rent gets me a key and a couple puffs of smoke to the face.

“No parties,” the landlord says as I walk out the door.

“Righty-oh,” I say, running back to my car in an effort to get the smoke stench out of my hair.
 
It wants to cling to me like it’s made of adhesive.

“You stink,” Quin says, waving her hand in front of her face.

“I know.
 
She smokes like a fiend in there.”

“That’s illegal.”

“Tell that to Large Marge.
 
Come on.
 
Help me carry up some boxes.
 
We can check it out together.”

“What do you mean, check it out?” she asks, taking a box I’m holding out.
 
“Haven’t you already seen it?”

“No.”

Her mouth drops open.
 
“What?
 
Are you
serious
?
 
You actually rented an apartment in Heroin Alley without even looking at it first?”

“What’s up?” asks Perry, walking over with two suitcases in hand.
 
I still have my Burberry luggage for some reason.
 
I probably should have sold it for the money, but I can’t bring myself to do it yet.
 
Maybe next month when I need more mac-n-cheese than I can afford on my salary I’ll put them on Craigslist.

Quin responds. “She hasn’t even seen the inside of the apartment yet.
 
She rented it sight unseen.”

“That’s brave,” he says.
 
“Or incredibly stupid.
 
What number is it?”

“Two-oh-four,” I say, holding up the key. It’s a very sad day when an asscar driver can legitimately call you incredibly stupid.
 
I hand my head in shame.

He takes it from me and heads for the stairs.
 
“Can’t wait to see this,” he says, walking faster than we can keep up with.

“You’re a complete nutbag, you know that?” Quin is mad.
 
“You’re probably going to catch a disease in there.
 
I’ll bet there’s shag carpet from nineteen seventy over rotten floors.”

“Maybe it’ll be new carpet,” I say, feeling really stupid. Having more money than I could spend in my past life has apparently shrunk my brain down to the size of a walnut.
 
I’m making turkeys look like brain surgeons at this point. Good thing my dad is gone.
 
He’d probably disown me over this; he always accused me of not thinking when I made decisions.
 
I guess he was right about me after all.
 
Fuck me with two boxes of fuck.

“Maybe it’ll have blood stains on it and gray matter chunks,” she says in a near-whisper.

“Stop,” I say, but a part of me is thinking she could be right.
 
This place looks like a good location for an anonymous murder.
 
I wish I had some of that glowy blue stuff in my moving boxes so I could look for body fluids before putting things down on the floor.

Perry’s laughter floats over the balcony.

“Oh, good,” I say.
 
“That’s what a girl wants to hear when people walk into her apartment.”

Perry comes out and looks over the railing.
 
“I hope you brought some Windex.”

As soon as I’m in the doorway standing next to Quin, I realize that the local grocery store won’t have the amount of Windex I’m going to need to make this place habitable.

“Holy Batman balls … that is … that is …”
 
Quin can’t finish her sentence, so I do it for her.

“Heinous.
 
Disgusting.
 
Toxic.
 
Worse than a murder scene.”

She looks at me with pity in her eyes.
 
“Not worse than a murder scene.
 
Right?”

I grimace as I look back at the room that is coated in bug killing powder residue.
 
Taking in the rest of its ambiance, my heart sinks lower and lower until I’m pretty sure I feel it in my ankles.

The wall has a hole punched in it, right in the center.
 
There’s a brown shag carpet that may actually be from the seventies but has since played host to about ten gallons of I-don’t-want-to-know-what that has been ground into its fibers.
 
A single cabinet and hand sink makes up the corner kitchenette, and a window so grimy and opaque it’s possible it’s not even made of glass - it might be just a hunk of wood in a window shape - sits in the middle of the far wall.
 
There’s one other mini-window with bent mini-blinds over it that looks out to the front entrance area.

“Nothing a little elbow grease won’t fix,” I say, my voice faint and weak.

Quin puts her arm around my shoulder.
 
“What posters did you say you have?”

“Rick Springfield, Donny Osmond, and Shawn Cassidy.”

Quin nods slowly.
 
“I’m feeling a definite seventies vibe in here.
 
We could make it work.”

I look at her sideways, not sure if she’s messing with me.
 
“Are you serious?”

She grins.
 
“Yeah.
 
Perry will help, won’t you, Perry?”

“No.
 
I have to go.”

Quin glares at him.
 
“You’re going to leave your former girlfriend in this shithole without fixing her drywall and cabinet?
 
What’s wrong with you?”

“We made out once and she yacked on me!” he yells.
 
“That doesn’t make her my ex-girlfriend!”

She continues to glare at him and he buckles.
 
“Fine.
 
Get me the stuff and I’ll do it.”

“Here.”
 
She hands him fifty bucks.
 
“Go get it and come back.
 
Maybe she’ll give you a blow job when you’re done.”

I turn around in disgust, just in time to see the hopeful look on his face.
 
I snatch the money out of his hand and slap him.
 
“No,
not
really, pig.
 
Go away.
 
I’ll fix it myself.”

“You want your futon?” he asks.

“Of course.”

“Well, come help me.
 
I can’t lift it myself.”

I glare at Quin on my way out the door.
 
“Do
not
pimp me out for wall repair ever again. Especially not to asscar drivers.”

She giggles as she walks out the door with me.
 
“I have a feeling BJs are the going rate around here.
 
I was just seeing how far you were going to assimilate into the Golden Legacy culture.”

“Not that far,” I say.
 
“Definitely not that far.”

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

I’M STANDING IN MY NEW living room staring at the hole in the wall as I hold a small plastic tub of spackle.
 
Up until thirty minutes ago, I didn’t even know a thing called spackle actually existed.
 
I thought it was a way to describe bad makeup application, but apparently, the whole thing started in the construction world and not with Cover Girl liquid foundation and pressed powder.

I leave my front door open to help air out all the cleaning fluid fumes that don’t to seem want to leave the room.
 
It could be because I poured them liberally onto the carpet, or it could be because I used about ten gallons of industrial strength stuff, but whatever; if the bugs don’t get me while I sleep, it’s very possible the chemicals will, but I’ve decided I’d rather go that way, so here I am.