Skid Row Kings Complete Series

by Winter Travers

I chuckled under my breath and ran my hand over my head. “Do you have time to talk?”

  “Yeah, um… Levi and I were just taking a… six-hour nap.” Holy fuck I heard her whisper.

  “I’m sure traveling in a car for a couple of days was exhausting. You both needed to catch up on your sleep.” She didn’t say anything, but I could hear she was moving around, and then I heard running water. “So, about your car.”

  “Is it fixed?”

  “Well, no.”

  “Shit. How long until you’ll have it running?”

  “Never,” I cringed.

  I heard her sigh deep, and I felt like an asshole. There really wasn’t any hope for her car, but I felt like shit for telling her that. “I can see how much I could get for scrap out of the car. That would give you some money towards a new car.”

  “What does that mean? I thought you said it was done. Caput. How are you going to get money for it?”

  “I’d sell it to the scrap yard who would crush it and then they would cut you a check for what the market value is for scrap salvage.” Luke generally dealt with the crushers, but I knew what he was doing. This wasn’t the first time someone had brought us a car that wasn’t worth the hassle of fixing. “They pay by the ton.”

  “How much a ton?”

  “About fifty bucks.”

  “How much does my car weigh?”

  “About three tons.”

  “One fifty. I’m going to get one hundred fifty dollars.” Her voice dropped, and I felt like an even bigger piece of shit.

  “I’ll talk to the scrap yard on Monday and make sure I get the most I can for your car.”

  “No, no. Just get me what you normally do and we’ll call it good. You’ve helped me enough. You don’t need to waste your time trying to squeeze every penny out of my car.”

  “But, I think I-”

  “Just send the check when you get it.” She rattled off her address although I already knew where she lived and then she was gone.

  “Son of a bitch.” That wasn’t how I wanted that damn phone call to go. I mean, I didn’t really know how it was supposed to go but knew I didn’t want her hanging the phone up on me.

  “Everything OK?”

  I looked over my shoulder and saw Luke standing in the doorway.

  “Nope, not unless you can tell me the price of scrap is ten times the price than it really is.”

  “The price of scrap has got you acting like the end of the world?”

  “Not for me, it’s for Sc- uh… for someone else.”

  Luke walked into the garage and looked over Scarlett’s car. “I’m assuming this pile is what’s got you all riled? The owner pissed we can’t give them more for it?”

  “How the hell did the price of scrap get so fucking low?”

  Luke shrugged his shoulders and leaned against the car. “It’s been going down every year. You should be glad we’re not in the salvage business. We’d be up shit creek without a paddle right now.”

  “Yeah, that’s the only good news I’ve heard all day.”

  “What the fuck is up?”

  I slammed the hood down on the car and crossed my arms over my chest. “This chick rolled into the shop, her face beat to hell, a kid in the car and looking like she’s running from a monster.”

  “Holy fuck.”

  “Yeah. Then, all I’ve got to tell her is her car is shit and have a nice day.” I closed my eyes and tilted my head back. “To top it all off, you wanna know where she’s living?”

  “Where?”

  “Same fucking place we grew up. Remember Renker’s place?”

  “Please tell me she isn’t living there,” Luke cringed.

  “Sure is. My God damn skin crawled when I walked through the door.”

  “Jesus.” Luke ran his hand over his head, and I knew he was thinking the same thing I was. “She must be pretty bad off to be living there.”

  “All she had was a couple bags of clothes and an air mattress. I felt like an ass leaving her there, but I knew she didn’t want help.”

  Luke shook his head. “If I know you, I know you aren’t going to be able to leave it the way it is.”

  “There’s gotta be something I can do. I know she won’t take anything outright, but maybe I could convince her if she thought that she was somehow paying for it.”

  “You can’t save everyone, Mitch.”

  “Yeah, well. This girl isn’t everyone.”

  Luke pushed off the car and headed to the door. “I hope you know what you’re doing, I know Violet wouldn’t like what you’re thinking of doing.”

  “Scarlett isn’t Violet.”

  Luke shook his head and raised his arm over his head. “Good luck, brother. You’re gonna need it,” he laughed. The door slammed shut behind him, and I tossed the rag that was in my hand at the car.

  I had no idea what the hell I was going to do. Right now, Scarlett was living in the same damn apartment building I had grown up in and had no car. There had to be a little something that I could do to try and make things easier for her.

  Fixing her car was out of the question but she needed a car.

  I pulled my phone out of my pocket and pulled up Craigslist. I had a good size nest egg tucked away for a rainy day or more parts for the race car. It looked like that rainy day had come, and that new intake I had wanted for the ‘Vette was going to have to wait.

  _____________

  Chapter 6

  Scarlett

  “Mama, I don’t want to go to work with you today.”

  I didn’t want to go either, but if we wanted to eat, I didn’t have a choice. “I know, baby. How about we bring the DVD player today? I only have a four-hour shift, and I promise after we’ll get some yummy junk food and just veg out tonight.” It had been a week and a half since Levi and I had been living in our apartment and to say things were going smoothly was a bit of an exaggeration.

  Every night Levi had nightmares that would keep him awake for hours leaving me exhausted. He managed to sleep in the back room of the gas station I had got a job at and the owner, Mrs. Smith, was kind enough to let him stay with me while I worked. Thankfully, the gas station was only a mile away from the apartment so Levi and I walked there every day. I hadn’t had a day off since I had started and tomorrow was going to be our first day off. “Can’t we just stay home?”

  “Not if you like eating, big man,” I laughed. “Run and grab your bag. We need to get walking.” Levi trudged down the hallway, and all I could do was shake my head. Things were going to get better, we just had to make it through the next few months.

  I finished packing Levi’s lunch and a couple of snacks when there was a loud knock on the front door. I wiped my hands on my jeans and hesitated to open the door. Three nights ago, three drunk men had gone up and down the hallway knocking on doors, trying to get into people’s apartments. I had to believe that they weren’t back at it at ten in the morning.

  I stood on my tiptoes and peeked through the peephole. “Holy shit.” Mitch was standing on the other side of the door, his hands in the pockets of his ripped jeans and the white shirt that he had cut the sleeves off on was pulled tight across his chest. Holy shit, Mitch was ripped. I had noticed at the shop that he was a good looking guy, but I didn’t really look him over. Plus, he had pulled a sweatshirt on, so there really wasn’t much for me to check out before.

  He was looking straight forward almost as if he could see me through the peephole even though I knew that wasn’t possible. “What is he doing here?” I whispered. He looked annoyed with his light blue eyes trained on the door and his chiseled chin set with his lips clenched together.

  “I can hear you breathing, Scarlett.”

  I jumped away from the door and held my breath. How in the hell did he hear me breathing? I looked around the apartment trying to find an escape. Just as I was about to dash to Levi’s room, he pounded on the door again. “I just want to talk to you for five minutes, Scarlett. It’s about your car.”
r />   “There’s nothing to say about my car. It’s dead.”

  “I found a solution to your problem. Can you just open the door?”

  “Mama! Is that Mitch?” Levi hollered as he ran out of his bedroom, straight to the door. Just as he twisted the handle open, I slammed my hand on the door, holding it shut. Levi yanked on the door and looked up at me. “Mama, it’s Mitch!”

  Double shit. Levi had been talking about Mitch non-stop for the past week, and I had tried everything in the book to distract him. Mitch at my door threw all of the distracting I’d done all week out the window. “Levi, tell your mama to open the door.”

  “Please, Mama. I wanna show Mitch all of my Transformers,” he pleaded clasping his hands together.

  “Fine, but we have to leave in five minutes, Levi. I have to be at work in half an hour.” He yanked open the door and flung himself into Mitch’s arms. He knocked Mitch back, but he managed to recover by taking two steps back and hoisted Levi up into his arms.

  “Hey, bud. Miss me?” Mitch laughed.

  “Did you come to see all of my Transformers? I’ve got them all lined up in my room.”

  “I’d love to see them, but I also came to talk to your mom for a second.”

  Levi squirmed out of Mitch’s arms and ran back to his room. “You talk to mama and then come to my room. I’ll get them ready!”

  “I bet he’s a handful.”

  “That would be an understatement. He’s my handful, though.” I crossed my arms over my chest and stood in the doorway. “You said something about my car?” I was hoping to talk to Mitch and get him out of here before Levi came out of his room.

  “Well, it’s still a pile of junk,” he smirked. “But I did come up with something. You think you could come down to the parking lot?”

  “There’s a parking lot here?” Levi and I had walked around the building countless times playing and running, and all I had ever seen was an overgrown field in the back.

  “Well, I mean down to the curb.” He smiled wide, his perfectly white teeth shining and a small dimple popping out. Wow, talk about handsome,

  “I can’t leave Levi up here by himself.”

  “Bring him with. This is for him as much as it is for you.”

  “I thought you were just going to get whatever you could for the car and just send me a check. Did you leave the check in your car?”

  “No. And I don’t have my car today. I’m driving the car hauler.” Mitch stepped around me and hollered into the apartment. “Levi! Come see the surprise I have for you and your mama.”

  Levi came barreling out of the room and ran straight into Mitch’s arms again. Mitch picked him up and headed down the hallway and looked over his shoulder at me. “You coming?”

  I didn’t really have a choice. A man I had only met once before was carrying the one thing in this world I loved down the stairs. I grabbed my purse off the counter, double checking to make sure my keys were in my pocket and slammed the door shut behind me. I sprinted down the stairs catching up to them just as Mitch opened the door.

  Levi was babbling on and on about the latest episode of the Transformers he had seen and Mitch nodded his head and gave the occasional one-word answer in between all the talking. “Wow! Did you drive that big truck here?”

  We were standing in front of a large car hauler that had a huge flatbed, and a car was on it. Mitch must have been on his way to drop off a car when he came here to give me the check. “I have to be to work, soon, Mitch.”

  “This will only take a second.” Mitch set down Levi and opened the door to the truck. He reached in and turned around to look at Levi and I. Levi was bouncing back and forth on the balls of his feet with excitement, and I was doing everything in my power to not demand Mitch give me the check and get out of my life so I could get back to my pathetic life.

  “You wanna help me?” Mitch asked Levi. Mitch walked to the side of the truck where four handles operated the bed of the truck.

  “Mitch, I really need to get to work.”

  “I know, Sparky. Just give me five minutes to get this unloaded.”

  “You’re going to have to give me a ride to work.” I crossed my arms over my chest and tapped my foot.

  “Fine.” He turned his back to me and started telling Levi which levers to push and pull. He walked around to the back of the truck, unhooking straps and told Levi to push levers at certain times. The two big hooks that were holding the car in place loosened as Levi pulled on a lever and he oh'd and ah’d as Mitch hooked them to the bed of the truck and walked back over to Levi.

  “Now, pull this one hard.” Levi pulled the red lever, and the bed of the truck started moving. I grabbed Levi, pulling him away from the truck and wrapped my arms around him.

  “What the hell do you think you are doing?”

  “Um, unloading a car?” Mitch looked at me like I had lost my mind and I had to agree with him. I had no idea what was going on right now, and I felt like I was in the twilight zone.

  “I see that. I meant why are you having my four-year-old son unload a car? He’s four.” I think I might have already said that but at this point I was happy to still say coherent sentences. For the most part.

  “Because I thought it would be neat for Levi to unload his new car.”

  “What!” Levi screamed and lunged out of my arms. He jumped up and down like a jackrabbit in front of Mitch and threw his arms up in the air. “Mama, we got a new car!”

  I felt the earth move from under me, and I stumbled to the curb. My legs gave out from underneath me, and I landed in a mess of confusion on my ass. I vaguely heard Mitch tell Levi to climb into the cab of the truck and see if he could find the lights. They both headed off to the truck, but only Mitch came back and sat down on the curb next to me.

  “You can’t give me a car,” I mumbled.

  “I can and I did.”

  “People don’t give people they don’t know brand new cars.”

  “It’s not brand new. It’s over ten years old, but it runs good and has low mileage. It should last you awhile.”

  “OK, people don’t give people they barely know cars that are reliable and ten years old. That’s insanity. I don’t even want to know how much you spent on that car.”

  “Enough to where it’s reliable.”

  Mitch was insane. Crazy. Mad. A fruit loop. “You have to take it back. Or not unload it. I can’t repay you.”

  “I’m not wanting you to repay me. It’s something you need.”

  “I’ve been getting by just fine the past two weeks without it. I only work a mile away. Levi and I walk to and from work. I don’t need it.”

  “What about when you need groceries?”

  “I’ll get a cab, or my work has most things I need. I don’t need it.”

  “So you’re just going to stay in this one-mile bubble? What happens when Levi starts school?”

  “I hope to not be living here by the time Levi starts school.”

  “You have an answer for everything, don’t you, Sparky? How about this? What happens if God forbid, Levi gets hurt. How are you going to get him to the hospital?”

  “I’ll call an ambulance.”

  “Sure, if you’ve got an hour to spare. Ambulances and cops don’t come to this part of town. You’d be better off hitching it to the hospital. Take the car.” He dropped the keys in my lap and stood up.

  “How would you know how long it takes for an ambulance to get here?” Mitch did not look like the type of guy who had ever lived here. Sure, he looked a bit rough and menacing, but he had a polished way about him.

  “I’ve been around. Now, can I finish unloading the car?”

  “No.”

  “Come on, Scarlett.”

  “Why are you doing this? I know you said because you’re a decent human being, but why? What are you hoping to get out of this?” There had to be something. I knew absolutely nothing about cars, but I knew I could never afford this car. “What kind of car is this?”


  “Whoa, calm down.” Mitch held his hands up laughing and walked back over to the controls of the bed.

  “Mitch, do not put that car down without answering my questions first.” I sprung up from the curb and marched over to him.

  “I’m doing it because it’s the right thing to do and you need it. That’s it. I don’t want anything out of it other than knowing that you and Levi have a safe, reliable car to get you from point A to point B.”

  Well, I guess that was an OK answer, but I still knew that I couldn’t take this car from him. “I’ll pay you fifty dollars every week.” That would really tighten up my budget and delay Levi and I getting out of this hell hole, but I didn’t see any other way around it.

  “You don’t need to do that, Scarlett. This car is meant to help you get ahead, not get behind.”

  “That’s it. You agree to that, or you can take this car right back to where you got it from.” I propped my hands up on my hips and waited. I was dead serious. If Mitch didn’t agree with me paying him, I wouldn’t touch this car.

  “Fine. Pay me whatever you can whenever you can.”

  I held my hand out for him to shake. “Every Friday, fifty bucks.”

  He grabbed my hand and shook. “Fifty bucks, whenever you can pay it.”

  I rolled my eyes at him but agreed. “Fine. Now, I need to get to work.”

  “Let me unload your chariot, Sparky, and you can be on your way.” Mitch pulled a lever, and the bed started sliding backward and tilting down.

  “Mama! The truck is moving.” Levi jumped down from the cab of the truck and raced over to Mitch. “Can I do it?” he pleaded.

  Mitch looked at me, and I shrugged my shoulders. “As long as you guarantee he doesn’t get hurt.” A slow smile spread across Mitch’s lips, and he nodded his head. Levi jumped up and down, and Mitch showed him which levers to push and pull.

  Within five minutes Mitch had the car unloaded and the bed of the truck back in place. “What kind of car is it?” Levi asked as he climbed over the front seats and into the back.

  “2006 Toyota Avalon, bud.”

  “It’s like a spaceship,” he oh’d and ah'd as climbed back over the front seats and pretended to drive the car.