Total pages in book: 137
Estimated words: 135696 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 678(@200wpm)___ 543(@250wpm)___ 452(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 135696 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 678(@200wpm)___ 543(@250wpm)___ 452(@300wpm)
“Bubbles, I’m not your brother. Not anymore,” Riggs declared to Bubbles’s head lurching with anguish. “And since that’s the case, I’ll point out…again…you don’t have me anymore. And last, we all got our own damage we gotta navigate. You know mine, and still, you throw that shit in my face. I didn’t earn mine, Bubbles. But the same can’t be said for you.”
Bubbles swung his torso back and threw up his arm to indicate himself. “Look at me, man. I’m a joke. All you gotta do is walk down the street, and every woman who sees you creams their panties.”
“I hate to break this to you, but we’re not fourteen anymore. I don’t think my manhood centers around how many women I can dip my wick in, and you shouldn’t either. Grow the fuck up,” Riggs replied.
“Of course you don’t get it,” Bubbles muttered. “You’ll never get it.”
“Oh yeah, man, I get it,” Riggs returned. “I get you haven’t heard a fuckin’ thing I’ve said because everything is all about you. But I got that when you showed here, and I knew you went to my place, and you were so determined to get what you needed outta this, you tracked me down at Nadia’s and then ignored the fact I didn’t come to the goddamned door. I get somehow you absorbed all the shit the mean kids flung at you instead of rising above it, and seeing you weren’t the asshole, they were. And the last thing I get is that you did me seriously fuckin’ dirty, and you still got your head so far up your ass, you don’t understand how totally fuckin’ out of line it is for you to be standing right where you are. It doesn’t matter I got something great out of what you did to me. What matters between you and me is that you did me dirty in a way you can’t walk back. Never, Bubbles. Hear me. You can never walk that back.”
Bubbles opened his mouth.
But Riggs wasn’t finished.
“Now, last thing I’ll do for you is give you the heads up you’re probably gonna be subpoenaed, the both of you.” He included Lucille in that. “Storm is pissed right the fuck off, and he’s gonna take action. I’m not going to the lengths he is, but I’m pissed too. Now, you can lie under oath and risk whatever they nail you with for perjury, or you can make that minimal effort to right a huge fuckin’ wrong. That’s on you.”
“I’ll tell a judge what I’ve done,” Bubbles said.
“Terrific,” Riggs bit off.
Bubbles didn’t move.
Riggs didn’t either.
Lucille elbowed Bubbles.
“Shit,” he mumbled.
“Serious to Christ,” Riggs said with a low rumble of extreme impatience.
It was a warning.
I pressed closer to him.
“And I’m gonna talk to Harry about the wine,” Bubbles said like each word was dragged forcibly out of him.
“Like you’re doing me a solid when the damage is already done?” Riggs asked. “You assured me that bottle was safe to give to Nadia, when it obviously was not.”
“That’s going to swing my ass way out there, Doc,” Bubbles declared.
“You are missing the fact that I do not care,” Riggs retorted. “Don’t mistake that as a favor for me, Bubbles, you doing the right thing for once. You can’t use a friend to shield you from a bullet then retreat to the high ground and throw a rock at the bad guy from behind the walls of a fortress, shouting to your friend, ‘I got you.’ It doesn’t fuckin’ work that way.”
His metaphor was kind of funny, but no one was laughing.
Bubbles’s attention came to me, and he mumbled, “Of course, she’s a knockout.”
To that, Riggs stopped being subtle and issued an unmistakable warning. “Do not make me call the sheriff to deal with you. Partially due to you and the people you deal with, he’s fuckin’ busy.”
Bubbles looked hard at Riggs.
And then, if I didn’t dislike him intensely, I would have felt sorry for him at the expression that came over his face.
“Gonna leave you with this. I love you, man,” he said.
“And I’ll leave you with this. I used to love you too,” Riggs shot back.
I thought for a second Bubbles might cry, if his brutalized face beginning to collapse was any indication.
Maybe he didn’t want Riggs to see that, or maybe I was wrong.
But with a minor hitch in his step, he limped, what looked painfully, out of sight.
“We shouldn’t have bothered you,” Lucille said on a whisper.
Riggs didn’t confirm or say words to make her feel better. He was silent.
I was too.
She followed Bubbles.
He turned to me then, and since I was behind him, I hadn’t been able to see his face.
But witnessing the ravaged expression on it?
Well…
That was when I lost it.
So I darted past him, jumped off the porch and heard him call, “Nadia!” as I zigzagged through the pine trees on my bare feet.