by Brent, Cora
“Tristan, I’m falling in love with you.”
The best and worst sentence I’d ever heard.
She said she wouldn’t allow me to walk away. At some point last night I suffered the cold realization I might not give her a choice even though I knew I wouldn’t get over her, wouldn’t recover, and wouldn’t ever find another reason to plant both feet in the legitimate world and keep them there.
My twenty-two years of life unfurled behind me as I navigated the streets of my hometown and paused at the intersection of Main and Horner. I’d never felt so fucking old.
Whatever I had set in motion with Tim Stoker was already a chain around my neck that I couldn’t easily unlock. I didn’t know if he was looking for me and I didn’t know what would happen when we inevitably came face to face again.
The only certainty my miserable brain could count on was that I would lie down in traffic to protect Cadence Gentry. I wouldn’t even hesitate.
And so I had to begin thinking in a new direction. Or, more accurately, an old direction. At the moment no one had my back. But there were still bad dudes around who wouldn’t mind having me join their crew even if they weren’t operating under the gang rules of old times. Raf Rivera for example. I couldn’t stand the guy but if hooking up with him and his boys kept Stoker and his groupies far away from Cadence then so be it.
On my street the row of squat little houses, all of them in need of significant repair, looked slightly less ugly in the soft early light. I pulled up to the curb behind Dover’s flashy Nissan.
A moment later I’d barely stepped through the front door when Dover pounced on me. “Dude, where the fuck you been?”
“Sleeping on a street corner,” I grumbled.
My roommate scratched his messy hair. “Huh?” He looked at me more closely. “Is that a black eye?”
“No. My mascara smeared.” I slid into a kitchen chair.
“Why didn’t you answer your damn phone?”
“My battery died. Why are you up at the crack of dawn anyway? You’re not working today.”
“Only got home about half an hour ago. Ran into a buddy from work at the Cactus and after they closed we drove down to Grande for food. We were on our way back when we saw all the cop cars.”
I eyed my roommate. He was amped up, jittery, practically bouncing on his toes. He wasn’t high. Dover didn’t get high.
“What the hell’s going on?” I asked.
He was eager to spill the news. “You know that crazy redheaded guy Tim Stoker who likes to get in everyone’s way and shoot his limp dick mouth off?”
I kept a straight face. “I may have run into him here and there. Why?”
“Because he’s fucking dead, that’s why.”
My stunned silence had the intended effect. Dover yanked a chair free and plopped down to explain.
“He was parked over behind the gas station smoking out when another car pulled up and fired. Those twitchy Rojas brothers were with them. One of them was also shot in the shoulder but he’s going to live. Tim wasn’t so lucky. Shot in the throat.”
I tried to process the news. “And the shooter?”
“They caught him. Apparently this was a piece of good old fashioned payback. Remember when Raf Rivera got shot in the leg after the game on Friday? He and his buddies were exchanging shit talk with Stoker earlier in the evening so when a bullet came flying through the windshield later on they assumed it was Stoker’s doing.”
“Was it?”
Dover shrugged. “Who knows. Stoker’s dead and Raf and his boys are sitting in a holding cell on Main Street for now.”
“Shit.” I wouldn’t shed any tears over Stoker but I was fucking tired of this, all of it. How many times had I seen similar situations play out among guys I knew, guys I’d grown up with? Shot, stabbed, arrested, addicted or just plain brain damaged like Pike. The outcomes were varied but the story was grim and all too familiar. Eventually it catches up to you. Your careless risks, your rotten choices. Ultimately everyone’s hourglass runs out of sand. Someday mine would too.
“Yeah,” Dover said miserably and I knew he was thinking the same thing I was thinking. He might have been relieved too. After all Dover was far from perfect but he’d proved to be wiser than I was, donning a uniform, joining the rat race and keeping his nose clean.
My roommate and I stared at each other in the faded kitchen.
He crossed his arms. “You gonna tell me who worked you over?”
I shrugged. Dover didn’t need to hear the story and anyway those details didn’t matter now. “It’s nothing. Got mugged on Main Street.”
“Mugged?”
“Right out of the blue. Never saw the guy.”
“Mugged.” Dover snorted. “Right. Fucking mugged.”
“It’s the truth.”
Dover coughed, a ‘you’re full of shit’ kind of cough. “In other news, I saw Jedson yesterday.”
“Huh. So he really is in the clear?”
Dover shrugged. “Wouldn’t have come back if he wasn’t.”
“So what happened?”
“Hell if I know. He was kind of tight lipped.”
“Six years is a long time to be running for your life because of something you didn’t do.”
He nodded. “Yup. Anyway, you think you can extricate yourself from the girlfriend for one evening this week and have a few beers with us at the Cactus?”
“Maybe,” I said, although I couldn’t think about hanging out at a bar right now. But I remembered something. “Hey Dover, do me a favor and don’t take Jedson to the Cactus.”
“Why the hell not?”
Because I clearly recalled Leah’s horrified face when Jedson’s name was mentioned. Whatever her reason, she was afraid of him. Maybe she just believed all the gossip and didn’t know Jedson that well after all.
Or maybe she knew him better than the rest of us.
“I have a feeling there might be a problem waiting for him there,” I told Dover, being deliberately vague.
He was thoughtful. “You might be right. Old man Brandeis hated Jeson’s guts and he’s still the owner of the place. We’ll drive down to Grande instead.” He cracked a wide yawn and stretched. “I haven’t been to bed yet so excuse me while I go jerk off and get some shuteye.”
“Later.”
Once Dover had shuffled down the hall and closed the door to his bedroom I stuck my phone on the charger and sank into the musty sofa. I couldn’t be happy about Stoker’s death and I couldn’t be sorry either. At least I didn’t need to be looking over my shoulder or staking out my girlfriend’s place. For now.
My plan wasn’t to fall asleep sitting up on the sofa but that’s exactly what I did. And while I slept I dreamed. I was spinning around the desert in my dad’s old truck with my brothers at my side. They were laughing when I hit the brakes and suddenly the driver’s side door was opened by Cadence and she was wearing that purple dress she’d worn the night of the thunderstorm. “There you are,” she said with a laugh and I didn’t know how she’d magically appeared twenty miles from nowhere and looking beautifully pristine but that didn’t matter. I pulled her into my lap and we took the wheel together, her hands under my hands as we zoomed around, kicking up dust clouds again. I never wanted the time to end, never wanted to let her go because the second she’d appeared I knew I loved her. But Curtis was tapping me on the shoulder and saying, “It’s late, Tristan.” Brecken agreed, craning his neck around Curtis so he could look at me. “It’s getting really late, Tristan.” I stared at them, wondering why their faces were fading and why I couldn’t feel Cadence’s hands anymore. When I looked out the windshield again the sky was dark and no one was in my lap or at my side. I was totally alone in an empty truck somewhere in the desert in the middle of the night.
“Tristan.”
Dover’s voice pierced through the dream sequence and I opened my eyes.
“Fuck, man, you’re right here,” he complained.
Dover’s grumbli
ng voice wasn’t the only thing making noise. The doorbell was ringing and I got the impression it had been ringing repeatedly. My roommate glared at me and stalked over to the door in his underwear.
“You better not be selling shit-. Oh, hell. Sorry, Cadence.”
Dover retreated from the door, snapped his fingers at me and jerked his thumb. “Next time answer the door when your girl shows up.” He disappeared back into his cave.
Cadence stepped inside and she wasn’t wearing her purple dress. She was wearing a red t-shirt with her dad’s tattoo parlor logo scrawled on the front, her hair in a ponytail and a pair of cutoffs that showed off her legs. She looked incredible. And a little bit pissed off.
“I tried calling you this morning,” she said, crossing her arms. “After I woke up and saw that your truck was gone.”
Apparently she’d noticed that I’d spent the night staring at her house and lying in wait for something bad that never showed up.
“Sorry, I came home and fell asleep,” I said, rising to get a drink of water because my mouth tasted like the interior had been washed with dust.
She watched me while I gulped back an entire glass of water in a few quick swallows. Then I shared the news.
“Stoker’s dead. He was shot last night behind the gas station over by the highway. Allegedly by Rafael Rivera. I didn’t find out until I came home this morning.”
She was startled, probably a little shaken. She dropped down on the sofa. “I see.”
I set the empty glass in the sink. “So we don’t need to worry about him anymore, isn’t that great?”
She heard the sarcasm in my voice and tilted her head. “Are you okay?”
I wasn’t.
“Are you?” I asked.
She bit her lip. “I’d feel better if you’d come over here and sit next to me.”
I went. I sat.
Cadence took my hand. I let her but that’s the only luxury I would allow myself to have until I figured a few things out.
“I’m going to the valley tomorrow,” I told her. “I might be gone a few days.”
The flash in her eyes was fear. Fear over what kind of crap I was deciding to get involved in now. And it freaking killed me.
“Why?” she demanded. “What’s wrong? Did something else happen?”
“No.” I sighed. “I’m just going to see my brothers, spend some time with them.”
“You are?” Cadence instantly relaxed, even smiled. “That’s great. I’m really happy to hear it.”
“But don’t mention anything about me coming. Not even to your sister.”
“Why?”
“Because this is between me and the boys. There are some long overdue conversations that need to happen.”
Her face was puzzled. “If that’s what you want then I won’t say a word.”
Fuck, I wanted to touch her, to take her to my bed, get rid of all the inconvenient clothes, put my mouth everywhere, fall asleep on her tits, laugh with her over a stupid movie, cook her dinner, bury myself in her body and stare down into her eyes while saying over and over again the same words she’d said to me last night.
Instead I checked my watch. “I’ve got to be at work in an hour.”
She picked my hand up and kissed it just like I’d kissed hers last night. “And after that?”
I said the opposite of what I wanted to say. “I’ll get off late. You’ve got to be at school early tomorrow.”
The brushoff disappointed her. She stood up. “Right. So I guess I won’t see you tomorrow either?”
“No. I won’t be here.”
She took a step in the opposite direction, wrapping her arms around herself and hiding her face. The she abruptly spun around, planted her knee between my legs and braced her palms on either side of my head on the couch, looming over me with fierce eyes.
“You’d damn well better come back, Tristan Mulligan.”
She didn’t just mean back to Emblem.
She was begging me to come back to her, to us, to the possibility of a future together.
Cadence didn’t wait around to hear if I planned to argue. She spun away and escaped through the door. A moment later I heard her car engine start and then recede as she drove off.
“You know I will,” I said to the empty room, which at the moment was every bit as forsaken and desolate a place as the desert at the end of my dream.
Chapter Nineteen
Cadence
The bad news was conveyed in a special Monday morning announcement over the loudspeaker at the beginning of first period.
“Due to the number of recent disturbances both on and off campus all non athletic extra curricular activities will be cancelled until further notice to protect the safety of our students. This includes the upcoming homecoming dance.”
There was shock. A lot of anger. Some indifference. A few tears.
Emily Ortiz, one of the leaders of the homecoming committee, stopped by my desk on her way out of the classroom. “It’s not fair,” she said, swiping at her red eyes before lowering her head and trudging out.
“I know,” I sighed as I watched her go. I’d been hoping to corner Betram for a few minutes before he made any decisions but the front office insisted he had no time to see me today. Anyway, his mind was already made up.
Between the cancellation of the dance and the violence in town over the weekend, the kids were anxious and talkative. There’d been such an avalanche of rotten developments to deal with that I didn’t hear a word about Landon Gentry until someone in my third period classroom said the team would have an even worse time now that Landon was probably out for the season.
I’d been writing the homework assignment on the board but I turned around.
“What happened to Landon Gentry?” I asked, trying to figure out who the speaker had been.
Lisette O’Dell spoke up from the first row. “I heard he was in the hospital.”
Given the recent fights and shootings the news was disquieting. “Is he all right?”
“I don’t know,” the girl said. “Hey, are you like related to him or something?”
I’d asked my father that question weeks ago, if we had some connection to Landon Gentry. He certainly looked the part, the same big solid build, dark blonde hair and blue eyes inherited by most of the men in my family. My dad had never heard of the kid and then I’d forgotten to follow up. Landon wasn’t in any of my classes and the few times we’d run into each other since that memorable first day of school he showed no willingness to even return a simple greeting.
I could have asked Nesto Rivera. He was friendly with Landon since they were on the football team together but Nesto wasn’t in school today. Understandable, given the events of the weekend.
I had to wait until my free period to dart over to Aura’s classroom and see what she knew.
“Cadence.” She hurried over to the doorway when she saw me. “I’m so sorry about Saturday night,” she said in a quiet voice so that none of the students parading through the hallways would overhear.
Saturday night seemed like it had happened nine years ago.
“No, I’m sorry,” I said. “I should have called you to apologize.”
She was troubled. “How’s Tristan?”
I hadn’t spoken to Tristan since our awkward conversation at his house yesterday. He was preoccupied, like he couldn’t wait for me to leave. Supposedly he was driving up to the Phoenix area today to see Curtis and Brecken. He said he owed them a long overdue honest conversation. He owed me one too.
Aura was waiting for an answer to her question, which I sidestepped.
“I heard something about Landon Gentry being in the hospital,” I said. “Do you know anything about it?”
Aura frowned, either because of the curt change in subject or because of Landon Gentry’s circumstances.
“Not much,” she said slowly. “I heard something in passing but was still reeling from learning one of my former students was killed over the weekend and another one
was arrested for his murder.”
“Tim Stoker was a student of yours?”
She nodded. “So was Raf Rivera.” Her gaze wandered past me to the kids drifting by in the hallway. “All morning I kept thinking I saw their faces in my classroom. They’re not there of course. Only the kids who remind me of them. The ones I’m frightened for.” She focused on me again. “This might be a touchy suggestion but you might want to ask Rod Ward about Landon Gentry. Landon’s on the football team so if anyone around here knows anything it would be his coach.”
Inwardly I growled at the idea of even waving hello to Rod Ward. “Thanks for the idea,” I said to Aura. “I’ll go track him down.”
Aura tilted her head. “Maybe we could go out and have drinks some evening this week?”
“Sure,” I said even though socializing over drinks was the furthest thing from my mind.
As luck would have it Rod Ward was alone in his classroom. His head was bent over a stack of papers and he didn’t notice me until I cleared my throat.
“Cadence.” He pushed back in his chair, a phony smile cutting across his face. “I was hoping to run into you today. I wanted to apologize for my part in what happened Saturday night.”
He could take his fake apology and shove it straight up his Cross Fit-enhanced ass. I didn’t want to hear any apologies from him.
“I heard about Landon Gentry,” I said. “Any chance you know what happened?”
The smile fell away a notch when he realized I was paying him a visit only to inquire about a student.
He leaned back in his chair and linked his hands together like he was deep in thought. “Yeah, Landon Gentry. He had some kind of scuffle with his mother’s boyfriend on Saturday night.”
“Must have been more than a scuffle. It seems he’s in the hospital.”
Ward shrugged. “The kid has a pattern of picking fights. Not too bright and doesn’t know when to shut his mouth. Hell, he’ll likely wind up in prison himself. I would have kicked him off the team ages ago if not for the fact that he’s fast and knows how to take a hit.”