Free The Debt by Tyler King

shirt. As I came out of my room, Hadley passed by with two shopping bags in her hands.
    “Hey. Have fun?”
    “Yeah.” Her eyes paused on the new image on my rib cage. “It healed well. Looks good.”
    “You’re a good artist.”
    Hadley had drawn the sketch for everything inked into my skin.
    She kept walking to her room where she dropped the bags on the floor next to her bed. I followed her in and leaned against the dresser. Hadley tossed a look over her shoulder but didn’t kick me out while she slipped her shoes off and emptied her pockets on her nightstand.
    “What did you do today?” I asked.
    “You smell like the bar.” Hadley turned around. Her sassy eyebrow was up.
    “Just shot some pool with the guys for a couple hours. After I cleaned the house.”
    “You cleaned?”
    She picked up her bags and dumped them out. A couple of vintage band shirts fell out, along with more art supplies—she had some kind of fetish that wouldn’t be sated no matter how many times she fed it—and a couple of vinyl records. Those caught my attention.
    “I had a productive morning,” I told her, sitting on the other side of the bed to look over one of the records. Some band I’d never heard of, which was impressive. I wondered if this was Asha’s influence. “So I rewarded myself.”
    “I’m impressed.”
    “You’re mocking me.”
    “I am.”
    “Fine. So what kind of trouble did you girls get into all day?”
    “Pretty scandalous stuff.” Punky yanked the tags off the shirts and folded each to place them in her dresser. “We checked out the new work at the gallery, got lunch, looked around at few shops, bought some music...”
    She trailed off as she turned around to find me lying on my side while scanning the album jacket. I looked up, thinking that I’d given her the impression that I wasn’t listening. My brain could multitask.
    “Bought some music…”
    “And that’s it.” She came to sit on the edge of the bed and yanked the record from my fingers. “Nothing exciting, but it was fun. Asha’s cool.”
    Again her eyes raked over my bare abdomen. I didn’t mind her looking. If I had the sort of artistic talent that Hadley possessed, I’d probably stare at my work all day, too. One day, when her canvas was old and flabby, she’d be on my case for fucking up her designs.
    “Tell me about them.” I nodded at the album in her hand. It looked folksy.
    Punky ducked her eyes as she flipped the album over. “Never heard of them. I...uh...kinda picked these out because I liked the sleeves.”
    I sat up, snatching the record from her fingers. “Come on. Let’s see if they’re half as good as their cover art.”
    The only record player was in my room.
    “Now?”
    “You got better plans?”
    *  *  *
    I owed Asha a present, something loud, shiny, and expensive. I’d have that fucker wrapped with a big black bow and a marching band to deliver it at her front door.
    Despite how irritating and nosy that chick could be, Asha was my lucky charm. Whatever voodoo magic she’d worked on Hadley, it had definitely played in my favor. Punky came home in a good mood, which continued while we lay on my bed and listened to what had to be the world’s worst Kentucky bluegrass band to ever press vinyl. It was bad—really fucking painfully bad—but Hadley laughed all the way through the lyrics and even did imitations with a pretty poor country accent.
    “No!” She shot across the bed and grabbed my arm as I got up to change the record. “I want to listen to it again. I liked that last song.”
    I gave her a look, at which she collapsed back on the bed and laughed.
    “Okay, like is a strong word. But it was sort of catchy.”
    “Not a chance.” I pulled the record off the turntable and shoved it back in the sleeve. “This shit sucks. And you’re not allowed to do accents anymore. Stick to drawing pretty pictures.”
    Punky launched a pillow at me.
    “So violent. Give me the other one. We’ll try