King punched me in the arm and I rubbed it, pretending like he’d actually hurt me. Although in reality, it stung like a motherfucker, but I’d never let him know that.
“You know what I fucking mean, Prep,” King said. “I don’t want you to think you can’t be here. You know, ‘cause Ray wants you here.”
“Oh, RAY wants me here. Is that it?” I teased. “No one else.”
“Yup. Just her. I think you should get the fuck off my driveway,” King said, throwing me a side-glance, his shoulders shook as he silently laughed at his own joke.
I sighed. “It’s not like I’m on the other side of the moon. I’m only a few blocks away. I tell you what, when you get sad and lonely and need your Preppy fix you can come cuddle with me if you get tired of cuddling that fine ass woman of yours,” I said.
“I don’t see that happening,” King said with the kind of grin plastered on his face he didn’t even own before Ray showed up.
“Yeah, I didn’t think so,” I agreed.
King sighed. “Well, if you insist on leaving then I have something for you. Two things actually.” He shoved two paper sized yellow envelopes into my hands.
“What the fuck is this?” I asked, turning it over to inspect it. “Anthrax?”
“Yeah, Prep. Your moving out gifts are envelopes full of deadly poison,” King said flatly. “Just fucking open them.”
“Hey, you always gotta ask,” I said, opening the top and peering inside. “What the fuck is all this?” I pulled out one of the baseball sized rolls of cash among about a dozen other thick stacks of hundreds.
“I told you,” King said. “It’s always been our house. We bought it together. Put the same money, sweat, and elbow grease into the place.” He pointed to the cash. “You’re moving on, so that’s your half of what the place is worth.”
“I think you’re way over estimating the value,” I argued. “There’s way too much in here.”
Although to me it would always be priceless.
King pushed his hands in his back pockets. “That’s because it’s also your split of everything, from when you were gone. Besides, you’re about to be a dad again. You’re gonna need it.”
“Boss-Man,” I started. “You don’t have to.” I held out the envelope for him to take it. “I never expected you to do this. I don’t need you to give me any fucking money. I still got a shit ton of guilt money left anyway. And you’re right, this place has always been ours. Whichever of us lives in it doesn’t even matter to me. This...this never even crossed my fuckin’ mind.”
“I know it didn’t,” King said, refusing to take it back. “But it’s yours anyway. I ain’t taking it back.”
“Thanks, Boss-Man,” I said shoving the cash back in the envelope and tucking it under the crook of my arm.
“So what’s this one?” I asked, shaking the second envelope and listening for any tell tale signs of its contents shaking around.
“Anthrax,” King deadpanned.
“You’re getting funny in your old age.”
King glanced down at his phone. “I gotta go get the kids. Open that when you get home.” He held out his hand, but instead of bro hugging him like he was expecting, I pulled him in for the real deal. We stood there for a moment, below the steps of the house we bought together the second we could scrape up the cash, with neither one of us in a rush to let the other go.
When we pulled back we didn’t make eye contact, and it was totally because of the pollen in the air that was triggering my allergies making my eyes water. King must have had the exact same allergies, which was the reason why he was sniffling. “Thanks,” I said again, not knowing what else I could say to him. He’d already given me so much. More than he could ever know.
He defended me when no one else would.
He protected me when I couldn’t protect myself.
He became family when I didn’t have one.
King shrugged and cleared his throat. “You would have done the same for me,” he said, casually.
I smiled and finally met my friend’s watery gaze. “No. No, I fucking wouldn’t have.” We both burst out in an uncontrollable fit of laughter.
It was totally our laughter that triggered the allergy induced tears to stream down our faces as we hugged it out again before I finally turned and got in the car without looking back. And it was totally the laughter again that was the reason why I had to pull over on the side of the road less than a block away to spend ten minutes wiping my stupid leaking face so I could see well enough to drive the rest of the way home.
Fucking allergies.
Fucking laughter.
When I finally pulled back onto the road I glanced up into the rearview mirror and watched the house on stilts, the one King and I dreamed about owning as kids, the first real home I’d ever had, grow smaller and smaller behind me. I sniffled and wiped my nose with the back of my hand.
I was still in my car, idling in the driveway at the house I now called home, when I opened the second envelope from King. I pulled out a picture frame. The actual frame wasn’t anything special, but what was inside of it WAS. It was the drawing King and I had drawn together in my notebook on the day we met on the playground as two kids who didn’t know shit about life except that it could be cold and cruel. I ran my fingertips over stick figure King and Preppy, then the Star Wars stilt home. I laughed at the blood spattered on the page from my broken nose and made a mental note that Tyler, the bully responsible for that bloody nose, was long overdue for a house egging. I read over our notes in misspelled block lettering. HOBBIES was in bold letters with King: art shit and Preppy: bitches written underneath. Next to HOBBIES was GOALS. Underneath we’d written: Own the town. Be our own bosses. Kill anyone who gets in our way.
That day changed everything.
It changed ME.
King and I entered that playground as kids with no futures. We left with one we’d created.
Scribbled on the bottom of the frame, in bold black marker, in King’s shitty handwriting, was a single sentence.
We did it all, and more.
“Yes, yes we motherfucking did,” I said out loud, blinking back fresh tears and smiling like a crazed idiot.
Fucking best friends.
THE MOTHERFUCKING END
AUTHOR’S NOTE
Dear Amazing Readers,
Writing the King Series has been one wild and crazy ride. Thank you for going on it with me. Thanks for embracing the characters and their stories. King, Bear, Preppy, Ray, Thia, and Dre thank you for your love.
When I released my first book, The Dark Light of Day, I never thought a single person would ever read a word I wrote. It was a dream of mine just to release a book and that was enough for me.
But then there was you.
Readers.
MY readers.
You demanded more of me. It took me a while but I gave you all I had and then some with King.
I’ve grown a lot throughout these last NINE books and you’ve been right there with me every step of the way. You’ve supported me. You’ve laughed with me. You’ve cried with me.
YOU have made my dreams come true.
I’m crying now as I type this to you. This may be the end of the main King series, but I have some spin-off’s planned. I’ll never say that I’m absolutely not going to ever revisit these characters again, because that’s too final and I don’t know what stories they may try to tell me in the future.
This is by NO MEANS the end of T.M. Frazier though. I PROMISE that if you continue to stick with me, I’ll continue to stick with you and pour everything I’ve got into my stories.
Thank you for demanding more.
Humbly Yours,
T.M. Frazier
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