Page 59 of Dirty Roulette

Chapter forty-two

Payton

I painted out the different tales inside my brain about how this might go. I want a clean slate without all the dents, but that thought is heavier than the emptiness clinging onto my shoulders. Noah’s demo blasts on the stereo and I lean out the open window. The air is crisp.

I inhale another hit, holding in the smoke until my lungs incinerate within me. I pull down the visor and look into the tiny mirror. My makeup is caking, and my mascara is smeared from sweating.

Mr. Clorox is right on time, his rolls wiggle out of his car. He wobbles to the front door, stumbling in. I grant him a couple of minutes, seeing him through the tinted windows licking his fingers and counting money.

When cars clear out, I make a break for it. I’m not the hot chick flashing him tonight – instead I’m the bad bitch who’s going to jump over that counter and ring his neck.

When the bell dings over my head, and the air conditioner blasts my face, I choke up.

I’m met with a rancid cat piss smell, his greasy hair, and the biggest white-head in existence staring from the dead center of his forehead ready to explode like a volcano.

We meet each other’s gaze. His tongue runs over his upper lip like he’s expecting my tits to plop out of my shirt.

My lungs clog up, and I mosey down the aisles, looking at all the overpriced snacks and random gadgets people need at the last minute. Then I stop at the condom section staring at the boxes of the damn rubbers and all the crazy selections to choose from.

After spending ten minutes reading all the weird things about condoms being ultra-thin and made of latex, I snatch a box. The voice in my head telling me I’ll need it.

I get in a long ass line of people grabbing late-night booze and snacks to quench the hunger of their bad addictions. An old lady spent the entire dinosaur age counting out five dollars’ worth of crusty pennies from her purse and after 165 million years, the line finally moves forward one step.

I look like an idiotic shoplifter trying to cover the condom box with my sleeve.

I’m not even trying to rob the store. But there’s no good way to hide the rubbers of the devil.

Fuck it, I’m guilty. It feels unnatural to hold the golden box, knowing exactly what I’m buying them for.

I pin the front of the box to my chest, trying to figure out what side of the box to hide, either the name Trojan Ultra Ribbed or the diagram of the condom on the back.

The store is practically empty, except for an old man in front of me struggling to enter his pin on the credit card machine.

He mouths his thanks, and Mr. Clorox hands him his shopping bags and receipt.

I stand at the register, numb to the core.

I’m seconds away from a panic attack riddled with hyperventilating.

The box plops out of my fingers and onto the counter. It dawns on me that it’s my only item.

Mr. Clorox seems uninterested as he scans the box of condoms, but I swear my skin melts right off my bones. He doesn’t remember my face, and it’s evident.

“That will be nine fifty-nine.” He rubs his right eye and stares at me like I’m the worst person on this planet for entering the store. I take one last glance around, ensuring a little privacy, before slipping him some money.When he hands me the receipt and bag, it finally slips out of my mouth.

“What the hell does Brody have on you?”

He shakes his head and cocks a brow. A fire sizzles in his eyes as if I should have severed my tongue off.

“Who are you?” he asks.

“My friend Charlie is missing.” I paw my cell out of my back pocket, unlock it and find the most recent picture I have saved before thrusting the screen into his face.

“Oh, I remember now...” His tongue pokes into his cheeks. “Some guy came in here pissed off that y'all stole some booze.” He leans his fat fingers on the counter.

“She’s missing...”

“I’m not sure how I can help you.” He turns around, grabbing a brown box filled with a different assortment of chips. I follow him as he walks down one of the aisles to restock.

“You let girls flash you for booze. Why the hell do you let us do that? We play the game and it ruins us.”

“You sound like that fucker who came in here trying to beat the shit out of me!”

“Then answer the question!” I fist the bag in my hand with the feral urge to bash the box of condoms on top of his head.

“That’s none of your business!”

“It is my business! My friend is missing. That guy who came in here is her brother and he’s a mess! Brody ruined our lives! So, what the hell kinda dirt does he have on you?”

Mr. Clorox huffs and wobbles back to the front counter. “I’m gonna call the cops if you don’t leave.” He grabs the corded phone on the wall with his fat fingers hovering over the numbers.

“No!” I cross the yellow tape on the floor, snatch the phone from his hands, and slam it back on the receiver. “He raped her and got away with it. Now tell me!”

“I’m not about to rot in a jail cell. I’m sorry for your friend!”

“What does he have on you that’s so bad that you’re going to rot in jail?” I ask, knowing I’m spitting in his face with my words.

“Fine, you want to know?” he asks.

“Yeah, I want to ruin him.”

“He pretended to be a seventeen-year-old hottie online. Sending me nudes. I wanted to fuck the shit out of her. Happy now? I’m a disgusting piece of shit, as you can see.

He saved the entire conversation. I was drunk that night and a dumbass.

I didn’t want him to release it to the public, so now Brody tells girls to flash me and steal the booze to remind me I like underaged girls. And I let them.”

A lump forms deep in my throat. “Oh shit...”

“He fucked me over good and I was a pretty damn good hacker... the whole secret clearance, save-the-world kinda of hacker.”

“Wait, what?” I take a step back, questioning if he’s being honest, or if he is just a creeper who tries to hook up with ladies on Craigslist. “If you’re a hacker, why didn’t you just go and find shit on him and expose him?”

“I’m sure he put the conversations on a flash drive or a CD.

I can’t wipe that shit unless I get hold of it.

I quit working my government job. Brody forced me to work at a gas station so he could get free booze.

If this shit got out, I’d be in a body bag and tossed off a boat. .. I’m sure you’ve heard of Epstein.”

“But you could just hack his shit and expose him.”

“To who? His dad owns the police station, he has the biggest firm in the county.”

“Do you still try to hook up with underage girls?”

“You wouldn’t believe me if I told you no, and it was a one-time thing... a stupid thing.” His lips go into a rigid line.

“I’ll expose him if you help me.”

***

The sun breaks over the horizon after five hours of being stuck at the gas station.

The cat piss smell subsided after spraying Mr. Clorox down with Febreze and stuffing my nose in a bag of mints.

He seemed a bit more human than just a creep living in the basement with a million forty-two-ounce plastic cups growing mold in them.

The amount of data we uncovered from Brody’s cloud was riddled with homemade porn.

Hundreds of videos and photos of different girls.

He had videos of beating the shit out of random guys I’ve never seen before.

Don’t get me started on the videos he has of his dad sleeping with men.

I spent half of my time scrolling through conversations destroying countless girls and their reputations.

Even videos and conversations of Ryder continuously defending Brittni, me, and Charlie.

Every girl Brody slept with had some type of sex tape with him.

The psycho filmed himself with at least fifty women.

My mind boggled with his thought process.

“You’ll need to find that flash drive of his.” Mr. Clorox places everything from Brody’s phone in the palm of my hand. The holy grail is on my fingertips in this tiny gadget I snagged from the impulse buy row.

“I have an idea... we’ll see how it goes,” I say.

“What’s your plan?”

“Either I convince a friend of mine to seduce him, or I do it.” I shrug and hold up the bag of condoms.

“Well, be careful. Wouldn’t want you to go missing too.” He smiles with his rotting teeth blinding my eyes.

“I don’t plan on it.”

I stumbled out of the gas station. Mr. Clorox decided to do me a favor and set up a virus that encrypts everything Brody does on his cell phone. All of it will download into a random email Mr. Clorox set up for me.

I crawl into the Jeep, and the door is heavy as I slam it shut.

The engine revs to life and I can barely hear my own thoughts.

I pull out of the gas station and follow other cars, leading me onto the main road and then the highway.

My palms sweat the second I speed up too rapidly, and I brace against the seat when I slam on the brakes.

I keep up with everyone’s speed, ensuring I stay close enough to read license plates and glue the tires to the white dotted lines.

A pothole I hit sloshes me around like a defrosted slushy. By the time I step out of the Jeep, Ryder’s house stares at my face.

I storm up the steps, whipping open the screen, and bang on the door until the deadbolt clicks. It’s Scottie P with his fat puckered lips and the annoyed look on his face.

“Girl, can’t you let a damn man sleep in at least once.”

“Let me in...”

“If you piss him off, I’m gonna throw you outside myself.” He lets me weasel in. When I reach Ryder’s bedroom, I crash in like a raging, angry girlfriend about to blow her top to set the man straight. The door hits the twangy doorstop.

The bang doesn’t disturb him – he doesn’t budge. He’s dead asleep, lying flat on the bed in his briefs. I smack the plastic bag and the box of condoms on his back.

Groggy eyes open, and he groans. “Fuck...” He grumbles, turning over in the bed, and covering his eyes with his forearm.

“No, we aren’t going back to sleep!” I smack him again with the bag.

“Quit it!” He swats a hand at the plastic bag, attempting to grab it.

“No, get up!” I hit him again. He manages to snatch and rip the bag in half. The box of condoms acts like a slinky and tumbles down his chest to the mattress.

He curses under his breath and uses an elbow to sit up. Running two fingers across his eye sockets, he grumbles, “What is this?” The box finds its way into his hands. “Ultra ribbed?” He groans, glaring at the golden box. “I have condoms...”

“We should make a tape... get Brody’s trust again.”

The curl of his nose and annoyed huff rips my heart out. “Payton... no. We don’t have to...” He places the box on his nightstand. “You’re a virgin. I can’t do this to you. It’s not right...”

“Did you mean it?” I swallow the lump in my throat.

“Mean what?” He ruffles a hand through his disheveled hair, then searches his floor littered with dirty clothes for a water bottle. The top twists off and he chugs, the plastic crinkling until nothing is left.

“When you said you loved me?” I ask.

“Drunk thoughts are always the truth. I’ve loved you for the longest time, but I’ve never seen you so upset before, always crying, and about me, and how you feel about me. I’ll love you forever, but I can’t be with you if I’m making you cry all the time.”

“But I love you too...”

“I know you do. I see it in your eyes all the time, but I also see you hating me too.”

“I don’t think I could ever hate you. I felt like I was competing with Brittni, and the only reason why any of this happened was because you came into that room at the right time.

I look at it now and I felt like I was being used, and just some girl everyone wanted to sleep with. .. it was all you wanted.”

“You have no competition with me. I’m yours. That’s why I tried to let you make the choice...”

I think I might bubble up into tears again, and finally not the bad kind.

“I get that you’re wrapped up in Charlie missing, but I don’t want to be strangers anymore. I want to be by your side through it, so no matter what the outcome is, we have each other. I love you, and you said I wouldn’t lose you unless I chose it. I don’t want to lose you.”

“Trouvez-moi,” I say. Ryder dips his head to the side.

“Will you let me find you again? Because if you really want me I will always find you. You’re not going to lose me, but going forward you are one-hundred percent honest and transparent with me. Can you do that for me?”

“Yes. I won’t keep any more secrets.” I paw out the flash drive from my jeans pockets and hold it between two fingers. “And I talked with Mr. Clorox last night and I have everything I need to destroy Brody Thomas, the worst quarterback this generation has ever seen. I want to deflate his balls.”