Bare Trees

Chapter 11

Aria Day

I'd tutored a bit this week, including Riley, and now the weekend was coming up again. Yes, Riley and I actually studied, we met at the library and I worked on math and English with him.

I did enjoy the time I had with him regardless.

I laid in my bed, leaning back while on the phone with Riley. He and his Dad had gotten close, and while he didn't tell his father it was me, he did tell him he was talking to a girl.

"Riley, I thought I asked you to wash the dishes?" His Dad asked him.

"My bad, I forgot. Imma get to it." I heard laughter from his dad.

"That's cuz you over there mooching on the phone with that girl. I hope she know you don't clean your ass." He smacked his lips, groaning as I laughed.

"That's the bad thing about airpods." He mumbled. "I do clean my ass by the way."

"Hmm, I don't know, last time you came I did smell something."

"Whatever. Next time I'll sleep on the couch since my ass stinks."

"If that's what you want. Better for my nose that way." We both laughed.

"You should bring her by one day, I'd love to meet her." I barely heard his Dad say.

"I don't think it's serious enough for that yet... We're just friends." He told him.

"Friends my ass. I'll leave you alone for now, finish them dishes. I'm going conduct business." I laughed a little to myself.

"So that's where you get the conduct business from?" He laughed too.

"Yup." He said, popping the P.

"What does it mean mean?" He laughed.

"Lots of things. Counting money, keeping track of shipments, making sure everyone's paying when they're supposed to, making sure the people under you are working correctly, like I said, a lot." I understood.

"So what kind of business do you conduct?"

"Well... you know I have to collect money and when someone's late I have to beat their ass so they're not late again. Threaten them a little..." He paused, waiting for me to say something. "Of course you know, I deal every now and then. Dad wants me to be one of his higher ups one of these days though so less dealing, more business. When I do deal, it's higher end clients."

"Do you make money from this?" He hummed.

"We all do. Dad owns a couple of clubs and bars, in this way he's able to make legit money. But, yeah you do pretty well. I'll be good for life. Well, as long as I'm not arrested." It's not a good life to live, I don't see how he was okay with it.

"Your Dad's making you do this?" I wondered. It didn't seem like a good parent to make their child get into this kind of life.

"No... he's actually giving me the choice to get out and have a life. I'm still thinking about what I'm gonna do." I stopped breathing. What if he just came with me once he graduated? I didn't want to ask him now, but if this got serious enough, I'd hope that he would leave all of this for me.

I didn't know when I would have to leave. I didn't know if he and I would work out now, with our differences and so forth.

But I sure would try.

"Hey, do you think I could come over this weekend?" He asked, apprehensively. I wanted to tease him about his apprehensiveness but I didn't know if he'd want to come over or not since Josh is coming.