Izzy
“Seriously, James, I have to pee,” I whined for the third time in ten minutes after he ignored me and told me to hold it. The man had the bladder of an elephant.
“We’re almost to civilization. Can’t you hold it a little longer?”
I gawked at him. Didn’t he understand the struggles of a woman after birthing numerous children and our inability to hold it? Lord help me if I had to sneeze; there’d be no stopping the floodgates from opening.
“How much longer?” I wiggled in my seat, moving back and forth, trying to seal up my girl bits and stop any leakage. “If you don’t stop soon, I’m going to ruin this pretty little car of yours.”
He floored the Challenger, putting every bit of the 707 horsepower to rocket us forward and closer to a bathroom quicker than if we’d had my Lexus RX. “Ten minutes. Tops.”
I figured my comment about ruining his precious car would get his ass in gear and us out of the goddamn Everglades faster. Anywhere else in Florida and I would’ve run into the woods and taken care of business. But in the Everglades, there was no way in hell I was getting out of the car. I’d lived in Florida long enough to know what was in the woods and lurking in the water, waiting for a tasty morsel like me to put my pants around my ankles and bend over, unable to run and an easy mark.
We pulled into a tiny gas station, and before the car had even stopped, I was out the door and running to grab the key that I knew would be attached to the dumbest piece of hillbilly trash the owner could find. Like anyone would want to steal the key to the bathroom in the middle of Where-The-Fuck-Am-I, Florida.
I squeezed my thighs together, walking like I did as a kid after holding it too long at school and trying to make it into the house before I peed my pants. James watched me from the car with a smug grin, and I glared at him, flipping him the middle finger before unlocking the rusted door on the side of the building.
I hovered over the toilet that looked like it hadn’t been cleaned in this decade and prayed that no tiny critters decided to make a surprise appearance. I hated being away from civilization and away from my slice of heaven that I called home. Being in the middle of Florida, where the alligators outnumbered the human population, creeped me out.
James owed me big for this. Not for spending time with his parents, but for sitting in a car for five hours listening to his music and having to pee for more hours than I cared to remember.
I didn’t even bother to try to wash my hands. The faucets were covered in a brown slime, and I couldn’t figure out if it was just dirt or… I didn’t even want to think about it. I grabbed a wad of toilet paper and turned the handle, throwing it on the bathroom floor on the way out since there was no trash can. I was sure it would still be there on our way back in a few days if I had to make another pit stop.
“All better?” he asked as I opened the car door.
“No,” I snarled. “Gimme a bottle of water and the sanitizer.”
He scrunched up his face, knowing my issue with filth, but he didn’t say another word as I poured the water over my hands and rubbed them together vigorously before dousing them in hand sanitizer and waving them around until they were moderately dry.
“Sorry about that.” He revved the engine as I folded my body into the seat that was about four inches too low for the heels I decided to wear.
“It’s fine. Are we almost to your parents’?”
“About thirty minutes away.”
“I’m sure they’re excited,” I told him because I knew the last time we left, his mother cried the entire morning and probably kept crying until she didn’t have another tear left to shed.
“My mom’s been cooking all day.”
The woman could give my mother a run for her money with the need to ply me with food. Her sole mission was to fatten me up and keep me healthy so I could raise her grandsons.
“I don’t know why they don’t move by us. The kids would love to have them around.”
I’d even love to have his parents around. I loved them from the moment I met them, when his mother wrapped me in an embrace and called me her daughter. I knew that meant something special to her since she’d lost her daughter so tragically.
“We’ll see. I think it would be good for them to be around the kids. I know they have to be lonely.”
I glanced out the window, watching the rows of pine trees give way to buildings and finally civilization. Well, it was the suburbs of Miami and total insanity. There wasn’t another soul for miles, and then…wham!Crazy-ass drivers and traffic out the ass.
“So why are we here?” I asked.
I’d been meaning to ask him since Friday night when he decided to torture me into submission. But it didn’t matter, I was going with him anyway. I knew it was work-related because I heard him on the phone with Thomas, but he hadn’t given me any details.
“Well.” He glanced at me out of the corner of his eye. “We’re here to get some leads.”
I turned my body in the seat, wanting to see his face when he answered. “And you needed me because…?”
In all the years he’d owned ALFA PI, not once had he asked me to come along on a case or help in any way. So, that left one of two things, either he needed a girl to get the answer, or it involved sex and he knew I’d castrate him if he even thought about taking someone else along for the ride.
