“You would rather I watch?” Preppy said with a wink. “Cause we can make that happen, although I’m under strict orders—and I quote—’not to fucking touch you’.” He punctuated each of his words while making air quotes with his fingers.

“No, I’m just confused is all. About Nikki. About King. About you. About everything.” I bit my lip.

“Me, too, kid. Me, too, but I’m just following boss-man’s orders,” Preppy said. “But let’s just fucking roll with it, and maybe, we can have some fun in the meantime—the boring PG kind—that is, when King isn’t around to be the fun police. Now, hurry the fuck up!”

Preppy left the room without closing the door, whistling as he walked down the hall. The whistle faded, along with his footsteps, as he got further and further away, disappearing altogether when he turned and bounced down the stairs.

The clothes Preppy had given me were simple. A pair of jeans, a black tank top, and flat black sandals. The sandals fit like they were made for me. The clothes were all two sizes too big, but soft and comfortable. He’d also left me a new toothbrush and a pair of bright red lace panties with the tag still on it. I spent four out of the five minutes it took me to get dressed on just brushing my teeth.

I’d gone to bed with my hair wet from the bath, so it was a bit crinkly, I did the best I could taming it with a brush I’d found in the bathroom.

I was wearing real clothes and real shoes.

It was heavenly.

The bath had done wonders for my wounds. I found what I needed in the bathroom and changed the bandages on my ear and foot. Then I applied aloe onto my sun burnt skin, which looked a lot less red than it had the day before.

When I found my way downstairs and to the kitchen, I stopped dead in my tracks. In the middle of a small yellow kitchen with avocado green appliances was an old, faded table completely covered from top to legs with carvings and little drawings. People’s names, pictures of penises, quotes, and a lot of INSERT NAME was here’s. But that wasn’t what caught my attention. It was what was in the center of the table that had me drooling.

Pancakes.

Stacks upon stacks of mouthwatering, buttery, perfectly round pancakes.

Preppy stood at the stove with a spatula in hand, flipping pancakes on a griddle pan. He wore a lacy red apron over his red short-sleeved dress shirt and faded jeans. His yellow checkered bow tie peeked over the top. His white sneakers were scuff-free and matched his white suspenders.

But pancakes.

Before he was done telling me to help myself, I’d already shoved two so far in my throat I might choke, but I didn’t care. They could be fucking poison, I didn’t care. If I died with a mouthful of pancakes while the poison ate out my insides, it would be a fate I’d surrender to willingly.

Because pancakes.

Preppy turned the burner off and flopped another stack down on the plate in the center of the table.

“Slow. Remember?” he reminded me. He poured me some orange juice into a red plastic cup, and I managed to swallow down the pancake that was threatening my life. After that, I made a half-assed attempt to take smaller bites and chew slower.

“So, what exactly are we doing today?” I asked.

“Errands,” Preppy answered vaguely. “Business.”

“Why can’t I just stay here?”

“Oh you can, but I would have to cuff you to the bed again. I’ll be a while. So eating, peeing, or anything other than laying there is kind of off the table.”

I rolled my shoulder, which was still sore from being tethered to the bed. “Business it is then. What kind of business?”

As with most of my words lately, as soon as they were out, I wished I could suck them back in.

Something you probably shouldn’t be asking about, you idiot.

Preppy didn’t seem to mind my stupid question, but he didn’t answer. “Shut up and finish your food, so we can get out the door this fucking century.”

Preppy had a way of talking that was different than anyone else. His demeanor was light, but his words and language were crude.

But then I shut up, and I did what I was told.

Because pancakes.

*     *     *

I followed Preppy out to a large garage on the back corner of the property. I moved slow and still limped. Although my feet were much better than they were the previous day, each step was still more painful than the next.

I’d never really seen King and Preppy’s house during the daytime. Now, I took a good long look around.

It sat directly on the back bay. The house itself was huge, and so was the property, at least an acre. Parts of it looked like it had been under renovation at one point, but whoever was doing it had given up. Rusted scaffolding lined one entire side of the house. Blue siding sat under plastic at the bottom, covered in dirt. Weeds had grown around it on all sides. Rusted buckets of paint and miscellaneous tools lay, strewn around in the grass. The back of the house was partially painted a dove gray. THE KING OF THE CAUSEWAY was written in graffiti onto a high peak of the house with black spray paint. It looked as if someone had tried to paint over it at some point, but the bold lettering was still clearly visible through the thin attempt.

“Are you my babysitter now?” I asked as we rounded the house.

“I guess I am.” Preppy said. “I’ve done a lot of shit for King, but this is kind of new for me. I’ve never taken anyone on a run before. But he’s also never taken in a stray either.”

“Stray?”

“Well, you’re kind of like a stray dog, without the mange. Cute, but too skinny, and kind of scraggly.”

“Okay, I guess, but I wasn’t taken in. I’m here against my will,” I corrected.

“When King saved you from that bum the other night, was that against your will?”

“No, that guy was going to kill me.”

“Okay. So here is another question: you got somewhere else to be?”

I shook my head.

“See? He took you in. Just like a stray.”

That was the first time I considered being there as anything other than a violation of my free will, and Preppy made me see that.

“I mean, yeah, he saved me,” I conceded. “But on the other hand, he also expects me to pay off a debt that isn’t mine by bending to his psychotic will.”

“There are two sides to every argument. Two ways to be wrong. Two ways to be right,” he sang as we passed the fire pit in the back yard. It wasn’t just a hole in the ground as I’d previously thought, but a large brick circle built a few feet off the ground. Beyond the pit, at the end of the huge yard, was a wooden dock with mangroves threatening to swallow it on either side. From the dock was the mirror calm waters of the bay surrounded by nothing but nature.

No other houses. No other docks.

A bird took off from a nearby tree, shaking the branches. It hovered just inches above the glassy water. A small black snake dangled from its beak.

This place was as confusing as King. Hard edges, unfinished and unrefined, yet mysterious and beautiful in it’s own way.

A tattered frat house in some ways and a complete paradise in others.

“Who else lives here?” I asked as we entered a side door to the detached garage. Tarps at different stages of fading covered rows of what I assumed were cars and bikes. They hung thick with dust motes, like everything was wrapped a dirty fog. Specs of debris came alive in the one ray of sun that invaded the otherwise dark garage, through the corner of a broken window.

“It’s just the two of us in the main house,” Preppy said, lifting the tarp off of a shiny black sedan that looked like something right out of a movie from the fifties. “But Bear keeps an apartment here in the garage. He crashes here when he doesn’t feel like being at the clubhouse, which is a lot lately.” He gestured to the door at the far end of the wall that was covered from top to bottom with random bumper stickers.