Always Room for Cupcakes (Cupcakes 1)

“What? What Bob doesn’t know won’t hurt him.”

This caused all the women to start laughing like hyenas while I sat there thinking Cade was right. When I didn’t know who he was, I didn’t hear anything about him, but now that he was on my radar, it seemed like he was popping up all over the place.

How did everyone else in this town know who he was? Was I that oblivious to the world around me?

“All right, ladies, enough girl talk. I’ve got the stuff we’ve been talking about, and Hector is ready to move forward.”

I opened my compact mirror and looked behind me. Just as I’d thought, cokehead was the one who was talking, which made me wonder what kind of stuff she was talking about … coke? And was she selling it to them, or was something else going on?

I didn’t think she’d pull out a bag of cocaine in the middle of the Chinese restaurant, but I still pulled out my cellphone and pretended I was taking a selfie, getting a shot of their table instead.

“Will it be just coke?” someone asked quietly behind me, and I swear my eyes we

re bugging out of my head.

Are they seriously talking about that shit out loud in the middle of a restaurant? What kind of dumb fucks are they?

“We can get coke, meth, crank, crack, roofies, or even that Devil’s Breath…”

“Devil’s Breath, what the hell is that?”

I leaned closer on my stool. I wanted to know what the hell Devil’s Breath was myself.

“That’s that new zombie shit. You blow it in someone’s face, or have them smell it, and it fucks them up for like … hours.”

“Shit,” someone muttered, and I totally agreed.

“Yeah, well, anyway, Hector can get just about anything we need. I just need you girls to get buyers, then let me know what and how much, and I’ll get you the shit. We get a ten percent cut off the top.”

Holy shit, were these bitches going to be drug dealers? In our town?

I slipped off my stool and walked in the back, as if I were going to the bathroom, then slipped out the back door.

“Are you fucking kidding me?”

My head swung up and I noticed the Camaro first, then the sleazy guy, who must be Hector standing next to it.

I was having the shittiest luck with these two.

Before he could say anything else, I was gone. Off like a shot, I ran around the corner and down the alley, my eyes looking everywhere for a place to hide. When I saw what I thought looked like Cade’s bike, I dashed toward the sport’s bar and ducked inside, hoping like hell Hector hadn’t followed me.

I saw him, sitting in the corner by himself, eating a sandwich, his eyes on the TV.

When I slid into the booth across from him, he took one look at my face and asked, “What the fuck?”

“That guy,” I stuttered quickly, trying to get the words out. “The one from the day you picked me up, I just saw him again behind the Chinese place next door … And he saw me.”

“Wait here,” Cade said.

Then he was gone.

“Are you eating my fries?” Cade asked when he returned to his seat across from me.

I looked down at the fries in my fist and realized, yeah, I was, and I’d almost eaten them all.

“I need a cupcake,” was my reply.

“Eddie,” Cade called across the nearly empty room. “You have cupcakes?”