Total pages in book: 188
Estimated words: 185811 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 929(@200wpm)___ 743(@250wpm)___ 619(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 185811 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 929(@200wpm)___ 743(@250wpm)___ 619(@300wpm)
Lottie was upstairs, horsing around with her sugared-up nephews.
The entirety of the “Hot Bunch” and “Rock Chicks,” including Blanca, Eddie and Hector’s mother, and two gay dudes named Tod and Stevie, had arrived, and they were having what could only be described as a party.
It wasn’t a rip-roarin’ one, loud and obnoxious.
But Lottie had given them the cue that they needed to be business as usual, so Mo was guessing this was that.
He was also guessing, since the more of them who came over, the more business as usual they acted, the more herself she seemed, this was exactly what she needed.
What was loud and obnoxious was the TV he could hear from the neighbors’ place.
If Lottie was out there, trying to have a moment of quiet to find some peace, it couldn’t happen because her neighbors seemed to want to hear their TV not only from any corner of their yard, but any corner of any of their neighbors’ yards.
“Yo.”
He turned his head and saw Eddie step out on the porch with him.
“Yo,” he replied.
Eddie came to stand next to him and it took a millisecond for his brows to draw together and his head to turn toward the neighbors’ yard.
“So this is gonna be you, not Tex?” Mo asked.
Eddie’s attention came to Mo.
“Learn now, that man is a woman’s man,” Eddie shared. “After she lost it earlier, Tex is strugglin’ with bein’ five feet from her. Any other time, he’d be out here. This time, no fuckin’ way.”
Mo nodded.
He’d gotten that impression from Tex.
Though anyone who’d heard anything about Tex MacMillan knew that was the way already.
“She’s deep for you,” Eddie pointed out.
“Good to know, since I’m there too,” he muttered.
“Noticed that,” Eddie replied in a mutter.
Mo didn’t mind he did since he wasn’t hiding it.
Eddie continued.
“I probably don’t need to tell you we’ll put the hurt on you, you do that to her.”
That message had already been made clear.
“Nope,” Mo stated, hearing the channel change next door, now it was some baseball game, then he could swear he heard a door close.
“And—”
“Hang on,” Mo said, turned, walked across the porch, into the house, through the people in the house, out the front door, across the lawn, to the neighbors’ front door.
He knocked just as he felt Eddie come up behind him.
“Mo—” Eddie started.
The door opened and the woman who opened it took one look at him, her head tipped back, then she stepped back, and her face got white.
“Hey,” he said.
“Uh, hey,” she replied, her eyes darting to Eddie and back to Mo.
“Honey, who is it?” a man’s voice came from in the house.
“Um, come here a sec, would you?” she called, not taking her eyes off Mo.
“You watchin’ the game?” Mo asked.
“Sorry?” she asked back, and her gaze went beyond him again just as Mo felt more bodies at his back.
“You watchin’ the game?” he repeated as a man appeared from behind her.
He got a load of what was at his front door, his eyes got big and it took him a second to decide whether to join his wife or yank her away and shut the door.
He joined his wife.
At least that said something about him.
“Can I help you?” he asked.
“Are you watching the game?” Mo repeated.
“Erm…what?”
Jesus Christ.
“The game,” Mo bit off. “Are you watching the game?”
“I have it on out back,” the man said.
“I know. I can hear it. But are you watching it?”
“Well, uh…”
“He’s listening to it. I don’t like sports on in the house,” the wife said.
Like he suspected. This was why it was so loud. So it could be heard in the house.
“He got a radio?” Mo asked.
“I…I guess not really but he likes to pop out and look in on it when he can,” she explained.
“While he’s blasting it, but not even there to watch it, it’s disturbing his neighbors,” Mo pointed out.
“It’s a weeknight. No one’s outside,” the man said.
“I was outside.”
“You…do you live here?” the man asked, openly unhappy about the idea of Mo being a neighbor.
“No, but my woman does, right there.” He tipped his head toward Lottie’s house. “And today, she had a really tough day. Bad as you can imagine. She has her folks around her, but they’ll leave and then she’ll need peace and quiet. Not have to listen to the game. So can you shut it off or turn it down?”
“I wanna hear it,” the man replied.
“I don’t,” Mo returned.
“Right, I’ll go out and turn it down,” the man allowed.
“Awesome. Thanks. But have a mind. My woman says it happens a lot. I don’t wanna be comin’ over here all the time asking you to have a mind.”
The man glanced behind Mo, decided to save face and puffed up his chest. “I can do what I want in my own house.”
Mo nodded. “Yeah, you absolutely can. You can even decide to be an asshole and not give a shit about your neighbors in your own house, all because you wanna hear a baseball game. And I’m free to come to the door and ask you not to be an asshole. Somethin’ I don’t mind doin’ if it bothers my woman. I also don’t mind callin’ the cops and makin’ a complaint. Now, you can deal with that hassle, or you can decide not to be an asshole. Your choice.”