Total pages in book: 84
Estimated words: 80471 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 402(@200wpm)___ 322(@250wpm)___ 268(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 80471 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 402(@200wpm)___ 322(@250wpm)___ 268(@300wpm)
“Think I maybe saw him with Lip once. Givin’ the poor guy a hard time.”
“Lip?” I repeated, brows scrunched.
“Guy out front of the sushi place over a block or so,” Joe said, waving in the general direction.
“Guy out front?” I repeated. “You mean homeless?” I clarified.
“Think the PC term is Person experiencing homelessness,” Joe said with an eye roll. “But yeah. Think that fucker in the picture might be the guy I chased off a while back when he’d been harassing the kid.”
“Okay,” I agreed. “Thanks. Maybe you’ll get your wife back,” I said.
“Nah. She’s fucking some stock broker now,” he told me.
She was trading up, it seemed.
Good for her.
I moved back outside, heading down the street to duck into a sub place, grabbing one for myself and this Lip guy before I went in search of him.
He was exactly where Joe had directed me, down a block, sitting in front of a sushi place that boasted a C rating from the health inspector on the window.
Lip was sitting on a piece of cardboard, his long legs pulled up to his chest to protect him from the cold whipping down the narrow street. A black hoodie was pulled up over his head under a large puffer jacket that had been ripped in several places.
“Want some lunch?” I asked, passing him the sub without waiting for an answer, then a bottle of water as well.
“Thanks,” he said, and I could feel his gaze on me as I unwrapped my sub. “You don’t have to sit with me,” he added, his words piercing me a bit. I mean, I’d lived in Brooklyn my whole life. Homelessness was a harsh reality of everyday life. I never wanted to be unaware of it, but it became just… part of life. As awful as that was. So I didn’t always feel that twinge, no matter how many times I brought someone a coat or socks or some food. “I probably don’t smell great.”
“I got a kid crashing on my couch at my apartment who smells worse than you do,” I told him. “You’re Lip?” I asked, finally looking over at him.
He couldn’t have been much older than Joel. Maybe sixteen, seventeen max.
It was another hard truth in big cities that unhoused kids weren’t exactly a rarity. Of all ages. But especially teens. Runaways. Foster kids who opted for the streets instead of going to another home or group facility.
That fact didn’t make it any easier.
Lip was a lot like Joel in that long, gangly way many teen boys were. Like their arms and legs grew faster than the rest of them. Though Lip’s living situation was likely more to blame for his thinness than just a killer metabolism.
He had skin stretched gaunt over what would likely become strong, masculine features if he got some weight on him. A square jaw, stern brow, low cheekbones. His nose had the slightest bend from being broken at some point. And his dark brown eyes looked sunken.
I couldn’t see what color his hair was under his hood, but I imagined dark.
“Yeah.”
“I gotta ask. What the fuck kind of name is Lip?”
“My name is Philip. It’s my old man’s name, though. Didn’t want to use it.”
“Solid reason. I like the sound of Lip better anyway,” I decided, taking a bite out of my sub.
“You’re not sitting here just to be nice,” he accused as he took a much bigger bite of his food, making me wish I’d picked up some chips or desserts too.
“No one who’s met me has accused me of being nice,” I agreed. “I actually just have a question about someone who was harassing you.”
To that, Lip let out a humorless laugh. “Which one? Which one on which day?” he asked.
“People are assholes,” I agreed, reaching for my phone to show him the picture.
“Oh, that guy,” he said, plowing through the second half of his sub.
“Was he just being a dick, or did he say anything specific?”
“He was rambling about how his boss was going to get bums like me off of the street.”
“This street?” I asked, looking up and down it.
If you were being technical, all of Brooklyn was Renzo’s turf. But a lot of the neighborhoods were broken up by other, smaller crews who kicked up money to our family that allowed them to continue to operate in the area without interference.
I was blanking on who this crew was here. Or how I might be connected to them.
“Did he say anything else?” I asked, watching as he balled up his wrapper, sucking in a deep, satisfied breath, his stomach likely fuller than it had been in weeks. “What is it?” I asked.
“Something I probably shouldn’t repeat,” he said.
“I’m a big girl,” I told him, wrapping up the other half of my sub and leaving it on the sidewalk as I moved to stand. “I can take it.”