REBEL, a New Adult Romance Novel (The Rebel Series) (11 page)

“What happened in here?
 
Crime scene cleanup?”

I look over at the teenager standing in my doorway.
 
His pants are belted at his upper thighs and his baseball hat is on crooked.
 
He looks like someone I should probably avoid, but his tone is nice enough.

“No. Not as far as I know, anyway.”
 
I stare at the hole in my wall.
 
“You know how to do drywall repair, by any chance?”

“Yeah.”
 
He walks inside the room and stops about five feet away, inspecting my problem.
 
“That’s an easy one.”

“So you say.”
 
I hold up the little container.
 
“Is this the right stuff?”

“Yeah, but you need some drywall to patch in there.
 
That hole’s too big to just mud over.”

“Mud over?”

He lifts his chin in the direction of my spackle.
 
“That’s what you’re holding in your hand.
 
Mud.”

I look at the label.
 
“I thought it was spackle.”

“Same diff.
 
You got a knife?”

“What are you going to do with a knife?”
 
I hope it’s not for stabbing me.
 
I’ll be really mad if he has come in here pretending to be a construction guy just so he can take me out with my one butter knife.
 
It’s not even sharp, so it’ll be a particularly painful death.

“You need something to spread the mud with.”

I walk over to the corner of the room and pick up the butter knife from my meager selection of utensils.
 
“Here’s one.”

He laughs.
 
“Not that kinda knife.
 
A putty knife.
 
Just stay here.
 
I’ll be right back.”

I’m still staring at the hole that needs mud and a knife when he returns.
 
He comes in and stops next to me, giving me a better look at him.
 
He’s probably about sixteen or seventeen, skinny as hell, with a light smattering of pimples on his cheeks.
 
I’m not sure he needs a razor yet, but I can see he’s used one.

“This is a putty knife.
 
And here’s a hunk of drywall you can use to patch the hole.”

“You have this stuff lying around in your apartment?”
 
I take the two items from him, inspecting them on all sides.

“My dad does construction.
 
We always have junk lying around.”

Walking up to the hole with the drywall chunk in front of me, I try and figure out how I’m going to get it to stay put.
 
“So I just lay this thing in here and mud the shit out of it, and that’ll fix it?”

He speaks with the speed of a teenager.
 
“No. Make the hole a square, then cut out a square about two or three inches bigger on all four sides, then make a cut the same two or three inches in and pull the back paper and plaster off those outside strips, then lay the patch into the hole with the extra inches of paper all around the hole, and mud over it.”

“Ass sphincter says what?”

“What?”

I about die when he falls for it.
 
He stares at me with a bemused expression as I grip my stomach, trying to control my laughter.
 
It’s possible I’ve blown a brain gasket and all the stress has caused me to lose my mind.

“I’m sorry … I’m sorry …” I gasp out.
 
“I just … I have no fucking idea what you just said.”

He grins, telling me he’s a good sport.
 
I already like him a ton.

“Give me that.”
 
He takes the drywall hunk out of my hand along with the knife.
 
“Get me a ruler and a pencil and a beer.”

“You’re not old enough for a beer,” I say as I dig through my backpack.
 
I threw all my office supply stuff inside it, so if there’s a ruler in this house, that’s where it’ll be.
 
I still have my five boxes to unpack, but until the residue is gone, I don’t want any of my things touching any surfaces in this place.

“If I’m old enough to fix your wall for free, I’m old enough for a beer.”

“Good point.
 
But I don’t have any beer.”
 
I look around my kitchenette.
 
“Shit, I don’t even have a fridge.”
 
How could I not notice before that I don’t have a fridge?

“I’ll take a raincheck.
 
Ruler?”

“I don’t think I have one.”

“Okay, then we’ll just fudge it.”
 
He goes about using a pocket knife he pulls out of his pocket to turn my fist-shaped hole in the wall into a square hole in the wall.
 
He chats with me while he does his magic.

“So, what’s your name? Where you from?
 
How old are you?
 
Are you married?
 
Got any kids?
 
Ever been to jail?”

I laugh.
 
“You want the whole resumé, huh?”

“Yeah.”

“Well, my name is Teagan.
 
I’m from Silicon Valley but I go to school here in LA.
 
I’m almost twenty-two, single, no kids, and I’ve never been to jail.
 
Now that I think about it, I guess I’m kind of boring.”

“Nobody who lives at the Golden Legacy is boring.”

“So, what’s your deal?”

“Well, my name is Rat, I’m from around here, I’m sixteen, not married, no girl but definitely looking for one, and I got arrested once but never went to jail.”
 
He holds the hunk of drywall he brought over for me and eyes the dimensions to try and make it a couple inches bigger all the way around the square hole he made.
 
He uses the pocket knife to saw away the extra.

“Brother’s or sisters?” I ask, picking up a rag and spraying ten squirts of Windex onto the grimy front window.

“I got a sister.
 
She’s not around here, though. She’s older.
 
I was the bonus baby.”
 
He looks over and grins, and a gold tooth winks out at me.
 
His grin drops away when he catches me grimacing.
 
“What’s wrong?”

“Sorry.
 
Your gold threw me off.”

He frowns until he figures out what I’m talking about.
 
“Oh, the grill.”

“The golden tooth.
 
What’s up with that, anyway?”
 
Now’s my chance to get into the head of a person who finds that kind of thing attractive.

He shrugs as he puts the patch up to the wall to test the size.
 
He scrapes some of one of the edges off, all his attention on the drywall and not me.
 
“Dunno.
 
Guess I thought it was cool.
 
Cost some money too.”
 
He looks up.
 
“You don’t like it?”

I’m afraid to answer him honestly.
 
He’s being so nice to me, the last thing I want to do is insult him.
 
“I don’t know.”

“Sure you do.
 
Go ahead and say it.
 
You hate it.”

“Okay, fine.
 
I hate it.”

“So does my ma.
 
She whacked me on the head when she saw it.
 
Every time I smile she rolls her eyes.”

“Must make you want to stop smiling.”

“Kinda,” he says, putting the patch up to the wall a few times while marking it with a pencil.
 
“But whatever.
 
Parents never like what their kids do, right?”

I nod.
 
“You got that right.”

“What about your parents?
 
They like where you’re living?”

“They’re dead.”

He stops everything and turns to look at me.
 
“No shit?
 
Dude, I’m sorry.
 
That sucks.
 
How’d it happen?” He sits down on two of my stacked boxes, staring at me, the drywall forgotten.
 
He looks so cute, sitting there with his hat tilted crookedly and gold tooth shining from behind his lips.
 
I promptly and silently ask the universe to find him a cute girlfriend.

I shrug.
 
“My mom died of cancer when I was just born.
 
I guess she had it while she was pregnant.
 
Then my dad died just last week.
 
I don’t really know how.
 
Heart attack, I think.”
 
The call from his lawyer is just a blur in my memory right now, another thing to deal with that I want to just forget.

“My condolences.”

I turn back to my nasty window, pretending to be very interested in getting it sparkling clean. I can actually see sunlight coming through it now.
 
Apparently, it isn’t grime covering the glass; it’s paint.
 
Who the hell paints over a window in a tiny, airless studio apartment?
 
“Thanks,” I say without looking back.
 
I’ve done enough sharing for one day, so I say nothing more about my family.

Thankfully, he takes the hint and goes back to the repairs.
 
“Yeah, so we moved in here about a year ago.
 
It’s not that bad if you can ignore Stella in the front office.”

“She’s pretty hardcore about the no partying rule, huh?”

He snorts. “Yeah, right.
 
She wishes.
 
Like she can stop that around here.”

I look over my shoulder and see him shaking his head.

“This place is never quiet. Never. There’s always people shouting, and playing music too loud, and throwing things around.
 
I have to play static in my headphones just to study.”

“You study?”

He turns around.
 
“What?
 
I look like I don’t study?”

My face burns red.
 
“Maybe?”

“Whatever.”
 
He goes back to the drywall repair.

I feel like a total dick.
 
“I’m sorry.
 
That wasn’t fair.
 
I’m an asshole.”

He shrugs. “Don’t worry about it.
 
It’s easy to judge around here.
 
Trust me, I live with it every day.”

Abandoning my cleaning I walk over to stand next to him.
 
“Why do they call you Rat?”

He doesn’t answer me at first.
 
His jaw muscle tenses and I can tell he’s trying to decide whether to speak or not.

“It doesn’t sound like a very nice nickname, and I can’t believe your parents named you that.”

“Nah.
 
They named me Julio.”

“So why Rat?”

“Because.
 
When I see shit that’s not right, I tell.”
 
He turns to me, his face a mask of seriousness.
 
“I’m a rat, get it?”

“So as punishment you have to call yourself that?”

He shrugs.
 
“I guess. But it doesn’t bother me.
 
I’m proud of it.”

I nod.
 
“You should be.
 
Standing up for what’s right is a lot harder than following the crowd.
 
Your parents must be happy.”

“My parents don’t know shit, and I want it to stay that way.
 
My mom already hassles me too much.”

“I get it.
 
Well, your secret is safe with me, Julio.”

He grins at me so hard, I’m pretty sure I’m forgiven.
 
“So you said you don’t have a boyfriend, right?”

I laugh.
 
“No, but I’m not looking for one either, so keep it in your pants.”

“Damn, that’s harsh.”
 
He’s still smiling as he goes back to his repairs.
 
The patch is in place and he’s smoothing mud over the top of it.

“That looks fun,” I say.
 
“Like decorating a cake.”

“Here,” he says, handing me the knife and the container of spackle, “have at it.
 
I have to go anyway.”

“But …” I stare at his back as he’s leaving.
 
“What do I do next?”

“Build up the mud higher than the wall surface and let it dry.
 
We’ll sand it down and paint it tomorrow.”

“Thanks, Julio!” I yell out as he turns the corner outside my door.

“Don’t forget the beer!” he yells back.

I grin like a fool as I smear what looks like frosting all over my wall.
 
I have cool-as-shit neighbors.
 
How awesome is that?

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

MY NEIGHBORS ARE COMPLETE DICKS.
 
Julio was not kidding about the noise.

I spend both Saturday and Sunday night sleeping on the futon mattress which is carefully covered with a bunch of garbage bags that are supposed to be protecting me from being attacked by regenerated sperm.
 
All the bags do in reality is make me sweat my lady balls off and wake up way too early in the morning to the sound of the boom-boom-booming of someone’s rap music.

No partying my ass. The Golden Legacy is party central.
 
Saturday night I crack my front door open and see a group of guys standing in a circle as they take turns break-dancing on cardboard in the parking lot.
 
I didn’t even know people still did that.

The door remains locked for the rest of the weekend except for the one time Julio stops by to give me some sandpaper and more instructions for wall repair.
 
Luckily, he didn’t have time to chat since he has business offices to clean on Sundays as his part-time job.

By the time I wake up Monday morning for my first full week of work, I’m a total wreck.
 
I’ve been working up a sweat with all the cleaning I’ve been trying to do and the garbage bag mattress cover, yet my shower is still too disgusting to actually use.
 
I’m pretty sure I’ll get dirtier showering in it than I was going in, so I clean up as best I can using the tiny kitchen sink.
 
I’m hoping there will be a degreaser at work that will do the trick on the weird black stuff growing in and around the tub.
 
I’d like to be able to use it someday.