Read Charity For Nothing: The Virtues Book III for Free Online Page B

shoulder. I ached from head to toe and no wonder, after a however many day fucking bender.
    I stayed under the spray until the water started to run cold before I got out, and when I did, it was to tapping and banging out front and the rattle and clink of bottles and cans in my kitchen. I threw on some jeans and a faded tee shirt and stepped into the main living area, rubbing a towel over my hair.
    “Man, you didn’t fuckin’ drive like this did you?” Trike asked from my kitchen and I simply stopped and stared at him. He stared back at me until the light went off behind his eyes and he said, “Ah! Yeah, sorry man…”
    “Couldn’t fuckin’ drive anyways if I wanted to. Marlin has my fuckin’ car and my keys.”
    “Good thing, too. Still don’t know how the hell you got into the Captain’s house.”
    “What?” I asked, blinking at him blearily.
    “Charity said she woke up to your drunk ass fixing her picture frames, told her sister, Hope about it. We aren’t supposed to know, but Hope is more ‘n a little pissed about it.”
    “You serious?” I asked. I didn’t remember doing it.
    “When she heard I was heading over she said to give you this, she’s acting like nothin’s weird like she’s afraid we’d whoop your ass for being both a creep and a dumbass and she’s not wrong. If it wouldn’t get Hope busted we probably would go toe to toe. Man, what the fuck were you thinking!?” he held out a wad of bills to me and I frowned.
    “I wasn’t, I was drunk as fuck and don’t remember a fuckin’ thing about it; I swear it. What’s that for?” I asked jerking my chin in the direction of the bills in his hand and immediately regretting the decision to do so.
    “The bedding and the replacement frames, she insisted.”
    “Fuck that, I get the frames but how’d she know about the rest?” I looked at Trike, “I told you not to say shit, man!”
    “I didn’t!” he exclaimed and Marlin, who’d come in from outside, smirked.
    “You’re the only Dominic Shepard the fuckin’ club’s got. Next time, take the receipt with you. The girl’s smarter ‘n Hope. Captain’s already named her ‘Trouble.’” Marlin took the money from Trike and stuffed it in the front pocket on my tee shirt; I glowered at him.
    “I need fucking coffee for this shit,” I grumbled.
    “You need a hell of a lot more than that.”
    I scrubbed my face and groaned, “Okay fine, tell me, tell me what I need oh great one,” I bit sarcastically in his direction.
    “Well, since you asked oh so nice, for one, you need to admit Char’s struck a chord with you somehow.”
    “She hasn’t,” I denied.
    “Right, that’s why you’re fuckin’ putting away her crap and buying her things like a Grade A number one stalker head case.”
    “Dude, I was drunk as fuck, I don’t remember –“
    “Exactly my point,” he cut me off, “You know what they say about drunks and the truth.”
    I shut my damn mouth. Marlin sighed, “I think I’ve picked on you enough for one day, brother. Let’s get your house buttoned up, get your supplies, and get on over to Hossler’s next.”
    “She weathering the storm at her place?” I asked a little surprised.
    “Her power goes out, she says she bags up all them snakes and sleeps with ‘em to keep ‘em warm.”
    “Oh, fuck that shit! You serious?” Trike asked dropping an empty bottle into the garbage sack he was quickly filling, wandering around my kitchen.
    “You got a better incubator idea?” I asked.
    “That’s fucked up,” he said and looked a little green. He hefted a full garbage sack over his shoulder and went out the front door. The window above the kitchen sink went dark as a thick ass chunk of plywood went over it.
    “Today, Nothing… we want to get the houses kitted out as fast as possible, you know once it comes to the bigger boats coming out of the water it’s gonna be all hands on deck.”
    “Yeah, man, sorry, let me get my boots on…”
    We spent the better