There was nowhere to go. Not with a half dozen cop cars closing ranks around us.
The sirens had serenaded you to your climax.
“Worth it,” you laughed, quickly fixing your pants before we were surrounded by shouting men in uniform, their guns pointed at you.
“STEP OUT OF THE CAR! HANDS ABOVE YOUR HEAD!”
“This is not going to go well. I’m way too brown to resist; we’d better comply,” You chuckled, your hand squeezing my wheel one last time in reassurance before you stepped out of me.
The emptiness was startling and stark. I felt like I couldn’t breathe, desperate to have your warmth back against my leather.
Once your hands were up in the air, the cops slammed you into the ground.
I watched, dread settling in, but you didn’t look afraid. In fact, you winked at me like you had a plan.
I trusted you.
“Be a good boy,” you breathed from the tarmac.
ChapterNine
Al
I pressed my aching cheek against the cold bars and let out a slow breath through my nose. The arrest didn’t need to be that dramatic. I hadn’t fought the cops, I hadn’t run, hadn’t swung, hadn’t done anything that justified being slammed face-first into asphalt like I was some kind of cartel hitman. But hey, I didn’t get shot, which is a win for a Latino man in Texas. The cops here often like to take on extra roles as judges and executioners, even though they’re underqualified to de-escalate schoolyard brawls.
I was surprised at how quickly I got to see a judge, but it was just to lay charges and set bail. Took all of five minutes. Made sense, really. It was Friday; they wanted to get as many out of the holding cells as they could before the weekend sinners filled them back up.
The judge wasn’t exactly lenient, though. My joyride with Fox was definitely a felony—no way around that one. Evading the cops alone would’ve done it. Add in the speed, the chase… Yeah, definitely a felony.
At least no one but me got hurt. That would have made thesituation a Hell of a lot worse.
My jaw throbbed where it had met the road, a dull pulse that matched the ache spreading through the rest of my body. My ribs were sore, my shoulders tight, my wrists still burning from where the cuffs had bitten in too deeply.
I shifted slightly on the bench, the metal cold even through my clothes, and watched as one of the officers waddled past the cell.
“Don’t I get a phone call?” I asked.
He paused, blinking as I’d just reminded him of something mildly inconvenient. “Oh. Yeah. I guess.”
I rolled my eyes—professionalism at its finest.
A few minutes later, I was being hauled back to my feet, cuffs slapped on again like they were afraid I’d suddenly make a break for it, and I was walked down the hall toward a payphone. An honest-to-God payphone.
Gods, I hadn’t seen one of those in years. For a second, I stared at it, half-expecting it to vanish like a hallucination. But no, it was real, with its scratched plastic, greasy receiver, old gum stains all over, and the faint smell of decaying metal.
Ancient technology, and no sign of a phonebook anywhere.
Thankfully, there was one number I still knew by heart.
I dialed Lai, this time with little hope. Lai wasn’t the type to answer unknown numbers, not unless he was expecting trouble.
Okay, actually, that might work in my favor. To my relief, he picked up, his laughter clear over the pre-recorded messages from the county jail that played out. I looked up at the clock as he snickered; almost midnight, again? The cops had taken their sweet time processing me.
“Hey,” I said, bracing for the usual answer.
“Am I rescuing you or–?”
“Bailing me out,” I sighed, holding the phone between myshoulder and my ear; it wasn’t easy with handcuffs on.
