Watch out here-I-come! (sing it!)

I handed my phone to the girl while I tried to figure out how I’d explain the corpse in the trunk, the busted door, the shattered window, and… well, the 'watermelon splatter' that had sprayed across the seat upholstery.
The upholstery—old, worn out, and honestly way past its prime—reminded me of something.
You know what? The damn sheets in that motel.
Yeah, real fucking great… me out here cleaning up this mess, figuratively speaking—I only wiped off the obvious bits—while she was in there rolling around with the bartender.What if I was getting carried away?

Maybe there wasn’t a bartender, or even a bar…
What if it was just some random dude staying there? And now that I think about it, she never said it’d be one guy.
Was she in a threesome? An orgy? Was she hooking up with a bunch of dudes starting today?

“Gaaaah… fuck all their dead asses!” I said, kicking the car door. “I’m gonna waste every last one of them and screw it all,” I muttered, pressing my forehead against the car’s roof.

“Hey, hey,” Aya said, smacking my cheek with my phone. “Done. I transferred the money.”

“Oh… yeah, yeah… thanks…” I replied, taking the phone without even checking, just shoving it in my pocket. “By the way… uh…”

“Aya.”

“Yeah, that. Aya.” I glanced sideways at the motel. “Got a minute?”

Her eyes traced from mine to the grimy motel in one slow sweep.“S-Seriously…?”

“Yeah, I need a hand.”

“What!?” She instinctively grabbed the car door—kinda pointless without the keys, but I got it, sort of. “You extort me and now you want me to sleep with you? You’re a fucking creep… though…”

“No, no, I just need you as bait for something,” I said, grabbing the revolver from the dashboard. “Besides… don’t come at me with that cheap act, alright?”

“Sure, now it’s my fault—”

“Nah. I mean your whole ‘damsel in distress’ routine… I’m not buying it. Sure, shitty situation, but don’t pretend you were scared.” I turned my head slightly to size her up. “You could’ve killed him yourself. How many chances did you have?”

“No clue what you’re talking about, but if going with you to that shithole shuts you up, let’s go…” she said, trying to fix her torn clothes and hair.

“Shut up, my ass… Nobody acts like that after a messed-up situation, much less asks for a front-row seat to watch someone’s head get turned into Lego bricks.” I leaned closer to her. “And it sure as hell wouldn’t help me stuff a body in the trunk… Should I keep going, or you dropping the mask already?”

“Alright… fine…” she said, finishing up with her hair as best she could. “But that wasn’t the first thing you noticed, was it?”

“Nah… first thing was your tits.”

“What the fuck!?” she said, reflexively looking down at herself.

“Didn’t mean it in a bad way… they suit the rest of you…” I said, framing her figure with my fingers like I was holding a camera. “It was that tattoo. It doesn’t just mean you’ve got money—it means your crew’s got a near monopoly on guns in this city… which works out fucking great for me.”

“Hm…” She brushed past me and started walking toward the motel on her own. “I like those observations. You know your stuff, but… you checked out my chest without asking my age? How old do you think I am, ‘hero’?”

“First, name’s Hiro.
Second, if I had a lawyer here, they’d tell me not to answer that.
Third, I can tell you’re over eighteen, or this story ain’t moving forward, and someone who’s not me is gonna be in deep shit.”

“Huh? Didn’t understand a word of that…” she said, glancing back at me as she walked ahead. “I’m 27.”

“Uh-huh, knew it.” I watched her a bit more as we walked, and she knew I was, so I didn’t bother pretending. “Why didn’t you kill him? I set him up for you.”

“Hah… I’m not that kinda girl…” she said, inspecting her nails. The polish was chipped in places, probably from trying to break free—clearly, she cared a lot about her appearance. “I like using my hands for other things…”

“Other things, huh…”

“Yup. Sometimes I get completely covered, you know? It’s fun, so I don’t mind…” She clapped once. “Last time, I got some on my face and got curious enough to taste it… never again, I hate the flavor.”

“Okay, hold up, what?” I stopped dead in my tracks.

“What’s what?”

“All of that…”

“Oh, sometimes when you squeeze too hard, it splatters on your face…” she said with a laugh, not slowing her pace.

“No, no, I mean, what the hell are you talking about?” I hurried to catch up.

“Duh… I’ve got a little hobby… painting model kits. What the hell did you think I meant?” She paused mid-step. “Oh! You fucking perv, you took it all the wrong way!”

“No way! Who talks that cryptically? How was I not supposed to misread that?”

“You fucking perv,” she said, pointing an accusing finger. “I like you.”

Standing outside the motel, I peeked through the window into the bar area.
Of course there had to be a bar. Of course there was that old jukebox you see everywhere.
Heard of “You Spin Me Right Round (Like a Record)” by Dead or Alive? Weird choice for a bar soundtrack, but damn, I love that song.

Back to the point: There was Cher, surrounded by a slightly excessive number of drinks, clearly plastered, chatting up two guys.
Yeah, yeah, I thought about just shooting through the window, but I’d had enough for one day. And remember what I said about using a .45 in a place like this? That was a problem too.

“She’s cute, huh…” Aya said, looking through the other side of the window.

“Yeah no shi—Hey, shut up,” I said, glaring at her sideways.

“So… what’s the plan? ‘Cause if we were just grabbing a drink, we wouldn’t be standing here like two idiots staring through a window.”

“Don’t worry, nobody’s looking out.”

“How do you know?”

“I just do.” I headed for the door, did a couple of quick hops to psych myself up.

“Okay, okay… time for action. Aya… how’s your improv game?”

“That question offends me…” she said, unbuttoning her shirt a bit. “Trying to make your girlfriend jealous?”

“She’s not my girlfriend.”

“So that’s the issue… Well, don’t worry, this looks fun, so…” She shoved the door open and took the first step. “For now, you’ve got yourself one.”