Crossroads

by Sasha Goldie

  Moving to the desktop, I stared at the screen for several minutes before I double-clicked on the database to bring up background checks with a rock in my gut. Grinding my teeth, I slowly typed in Corey’s name. Before I hit enter, I picked up the phone on my desk and dialed my house number. It rang eight times before I hung up. Maybe he was showering or outside. I tried his cell, which he’d turned back on since John couldn’t try to call him anymore.

  The state police already had John, and we’d warned them to monitor his calls. No way I wanted him to reach out and freak Corey out.

  Well, he'd probably see the missed call and call me back. Staring at the screen for a few more minutes, I finally hit enter.

  Damn it! I couldn't make myself actually look at the screen.

  After pushing my chair back almost violently, I walked over to Martha's desk. "I need advice."

  "What is it?" She stopped typing at her typewriter and gave me her full attention.

  With a sigh, I sat beside her. "Corey has a past."

  "Don't we all? What of it?"

  "I'm okay with it." As I said the words, I knew they were true. "You know what? I really am okay with it."

  She looked confused. "What advice do you need?"

  "I don't. Martha, you're the best." Popping a quick kiss on her cheek, I hurried back to my desk.

  I really, truly, honestly was okay with it. I'd been trying to convince myself all morning that I wanted to be with Corey enough to withstand whatever his arrest warrant was for, but I didn't need to convince myself, because it was true. No matter what it said, I had his back.

  With a stiff, firm stroke, I hit the enter key. I hit it with finality and surety.

  And the whole computer shut down.

  "Are you kidding me?" Our computers were ancient, slow and prone to randomly shutting down. Three Lakes didn't have an IT department, either. We had a neighborhood kid that was really good with computers, but we had to be careful because he wasn't legally allowed to see half the stuff on the computer.

  My nerves jittered as I waited for the computer to boot back up. Captain stuck his head out his office door again. "You see it yet?"

  "No, the computer crashed. Can you just tell—" He slammed his door. Okay, then.

  Thrumming my fingers on the table, I looked up at the screen to find it on the desktop. "Finally!"

  Opening the program again, I typed in Corey's name and hit enter before I lost my nerve. When his results came up, the leading file opened to closed cases. I skimmed them, not wanting to violate his privacy, but also too curious to be able to move past them without looking at all. Mostly possession charges, but one was for solicitation. Damn. He hadn't specifically mentioned that, but he'd hinted. I moved on.

  The pending tab called to me, so I stopped scrolling through his rather lengthy arrest record and clicked the word that would change our lives, "Report from Curry County, OR."

  As I skimmed the report, my jaw dropped. Holy shit. I had to find Corey, pronto. Printing out my findings, I shut down the computer and called the house again. No answer. Damn it. I'm supposed to be on desk duty, but the captain is back. Throwing open his door, I ran in, nearly panicked.

  "I see you read it," he said with a chuckle.

  "Can you let me go early?" If he said no, I'd have to leave anyway. No way this could wait.

  "Of course. Go. You've got to deal with this. I would've told you sooner, but I just saw the report on my desk from last night when I got in from patrol."

  "It's okay, I'll go deal with it now. Thanks, Captain." I ran out of his office and out the front door, waving to Martha. "Bye!"

  "What happened?" she called, but I didn't have time to answer. I had to find Corey.

  Swinging in the diner, I poked my head in the door. "Is Corey here?"

  "No, darlin'." Daisy waved at me as I closed the door and ran back to the truck and headed home. Once there, I ran all over the house and out to the cottage. He wasn't there. Where could he have gone?

  I realized as I looked around that I hadn't seen the El Camino. Corey's shirt was thrown across the bed, and he had his hair products all over the island. He'd not officially moved into my bedroom yet and still got ready in the cottage sometimes.

  My heart swelled. He wasn't around, but he hadn't left. He would've taken his belongings.

  But where would he have gone? He'd told me he didn't know how to drive. He'd left home before learning more than the basics.

  Returning to the kitchen, disappointed that I'd have to wait, I spotted a piece of paper on the stovetop. A note! Excellent.

  "Sold car to Max. He gave me a ride to the brewery. Come pick me up? Call me there if you can't come, I can call a cab or something. Love you. Corey."

  The brewery. At least I had a destination. Running upstairs, I changed clothes at lightning speed and headed back out. Not long now.

  24

  Corey

  Daisy had lined up another cook for the day, giving me some time off. She said I'd worked too many days in a row, and she didn't want to burn me out. On my way out, I'd run into Max, the guy renting Ian's apartment.

  "Hey, Corey," he said brightly.

  "Max, hey!" I might as well take care of the car right away. "I hear you're looking for a car?"

  "I am, you got one to sell?"

  "Yes, sir." We worked out a deal. I didn't charge him much for the vehicle, I just wanted it gone. "As soon as I get the title, I'll bring it to you and sign it over, ok?"

  "Perfect. I'll stop by tomorrow with the money." He walked me back to Brady's house to get the car. We didn't talk much. I had so much on my mind, and he really seemed like he did, as well. I did notice he had a slight limp.

  "Hurt your leg?" I asked casually, too curious to keep my mouth shut.

  "Lost it in Iraq." He didn't seem angry that I'd asked, but I didn't press it.

  "Never would've guessed by your walk. I figured you just had a twisted ankle."

  He laughed. "Yeah, they do great things with prosthetics now."

  At the house, he followed me in to get the key. The phone rang as soon as we walked in the door. "One sec, Max," I said, running over to the phone.

  "Hello?"

  "Hey, Corey, this is Carson, at the brewery."

  "What can I do for you?" I asked politely.

  "I'm thinking about expanding the brewery. Do you think you could come by here and give me some advice? Word about town is that you're a kitchen man."

  Wow. Nobody had ever called me for my advice before. I was totally shocked. Why would he want my advice? I was just a junkie.

  "Corey? You there?"

  I jumped and nearly dropped the phone. "Oh, yeah, sure, I can come. Hang on." Putting my hand over the receiver, I turned to Max. "Hey, you think you could give me a ride to the brewery?"

  "Sure," he said. "I want to drive the car anyway."

  "Carson," I said into the phone. "Be right there."

  "She drives great," Max said as we pulled onto Main Street. I wondered if we'd pass Brady.

  "I guess," I said. "I never learned how."

  "You never learned how to drive?" He said incredulously. "How's that even possible?"

  "It's a long story, but the years I would've spent learning, I lived in the city. We used public transportation, mostly."

  "Sorry, didn't mean to sound like you were weird. I just assumed you were from a small town, too." Max turned off of Main Street toward the brewery, which was about a ten-minute drive back into the mountains.

  "Well, technically, I am, though not as small as Three Lakes." This light conversation was dangerously close to diving into private territory. "So, are you from Three Lakes?"

  "I am. Lived here until I joined the Army fresh outta high school."

  "That how you lost your leg?"

  He nodded, clamming up. I suspected I'd taken him too close to his private territory. "I'm new to the area, but I'm really thinking I'm going to stay."

  "You should," he said. "It's a nice town un
less you're going to high school here."

  "I think that's pretty common at any small-town high school in America," I said with a laugh. "Maybe not in parts of California."

  "What do you mean?" he asked, looking at me out of the corner of his eye.

  "For people like us."

  "Like us," he repeated flatly.

  Oh, come on. Was he playing this game with me?

  "I can spot gay a mile away," I said bluntly. "No shame. Be proud of yourself. If you're not ready to admit it to me, it's okay, but I'm here if you ever need to talk about it." He still didn't respond. "Don't be afraid to be who you are. You'll be happiest then."

  My words echoed strongly in my own mind. Who was I? How would I be happiest?

  Normalcy. That's what I really wanted. I wanted life to be steady. Never worrying about whether or not I might go to jail, never worrying if someone suspected I was stealing from them. I wanted an open, honest life.

  And I wanted it with Brady.

  We pulled into the brewery, and I held out my hand to the still-silent Max. "Thanks for the ride. Enjoy the car."

  "Do you need a ride home?" he asked.

  "No, I should be okay." I opened the car door and put one leg out before looking back at Max. "Seriously, man. I'm here if you need to talk."

  He stared at me for a tick then smiled, but his smile didn't reach his sad eyes. "Thanks."

  Geez, who hurt him?

  I walked into the brewery, my eyes adjusting to the light as I made my way over to the office behind the counter. The door was already open, so I walked in. Carson sat at his big desk in the back of the room.

  "Corey," he said enthusiastically. "Thanks for coming."

  "Sure. What can I do for you?" I sat in the big chair across from his desk, curious what in the world he could want with me. Brady trusted him, so I did, for the most part. Maybe he wanted me to help him with something for Brady, like a birthday party. I blinked as I realized I didn't know when Brady's birthday was. Damn, that was something I needed to figure out.

  "The owner of the food truck is retiring. He started it, made a great profit, and now he wants to buy an RV and travel." Carson sighed, sitting back in his chair. "That puts me in a pickle. I could convince him to sell the truck, probably, but I don't think that's in my best interest."

  "I can see how that wouldn't be." How could he really be making any money off the food truck, anyway? It made no sense.

  "He pays me rent to be out there, but I think there is a large portion of my business I'm throwing away. When I initially got the loan to build this place, the bank wouldn't approve enough to add on a full kitchen big enough to handle restaurant business. Thus, the brewery became just a brewery. Not a grill."

  He grinned and leaned forward. "Not anymore. I've gotten approval to add onto the building, but the problem is, I have nobody qualified to run a kitchen."

  A tingle of hope started in my gut, but I squashed it. He probably wanted me to help him find someone, not actually run it.

  "You think you might be interested?" he asked, a hopeful expression on his face.

  "Me?" This must be Brady's doing.

  "Well, yeah, why do you think I brought you all the way out here?" He laughed and slid a paper across the desk toward me. I hadn't even seen it lying there until he moved it. "This shows what I can offer for your starting salary, and how your bonus would grow based on kitchen sales growth. You wouldn't be a partner, but you would have a stake in the overall food sales, which would encourage you to do your all to grow the business."

  The initial number on the form was significant. Damn, he must've been making a killing if he could offer me more money than I ever dreamed I could make, and that was just to start. For every thousand dollars gross profit the kitchen made over the expected base sales, I got twenty percent of the net profit.

  "This is a generous offer," I said, reading the parts about benefits, 401k—which I barely understood—and vacation. "I'm shook, honestly."

  "You've got the experience, don't you?" he asked.

  "Well, yes and no. I've never started one from the ground up. But I'm willing to learn and work really hard."

  "It's important to me that you know that I'm not offering this job because of Brady. If not for him, I wouldn't have known that you were such a whiz in the kitchen, but honestly, the recommendation came from Daisy."

  Nearly gasping, I sat back. I knew I'd done a good job for her, but for her to lose an employee to a competitor, and be kind enough to give the recommendation, knowing how much more money it would be for me.

  "Now I'm really shook," I whispered. "She's so kind."

  "She really, really is," he said. "She and I are friendly competition. Our clientele is the same, but people get habits, and we both do very well. No sense in trying to hurt one another's business when there's plenty of room in Three Lakes for both of us. When I mentioned to her that I need a kitchen manager, you were the first name from her lips."

  My heart froze, remembering the warrant. I had no problems passing a drug test, but if he was as legit of an employer as he seemed, he'd run a background check.

  I didn't mention that as he started showing me plans, though. Maybe it wouldn't show on his check, or I could get it taken care of before he ran it.

  Maybe pigs would fly right into the oven so I wouldn't have to prep them, too.

  Brady was the first name that came to mind. He would help me figure it out. If I didn't end up in jail, then I'd have an amazing job, giving me all the independence I'd ever need.

  The confidence that came with the knowledge that I'd be able to make my own money was awe-inspiring. Suddenly the future seemed brighter, more possible. I could be my own man, with Brady by my side or not. Preferably with, but either way, I had the means to succeed.

  Carson only covered the most basic of his ideas, then he had to run to do something behind the bar. Walking out into the customer area slowly with the paper and my new salary in my hands, I looked up and right at the face of my father, looking across the room. I followed his gaze to see my mother sitting at a table in the corner, her gaze on a menu. Neither of them had seen me come out of the office.

  How in the world were they here? Darting back behind the counter, I turned my face toward the back and ducked down behind the counter. I had to get the fuck out of there.

  One of Carson’s servers came around the counter, stopping short and jumping. I startled her. "I’m sorry," I mouthed. The music blaring through the overhead speakers made the room too loud for her to hear my whispers. "I’ve got to get out of here." I waved my hands and tried to mime leaving the building. She arched an eyebrow at me. I sighed. "I’ve got to get out of here!"

  Looking around, she dropped down beside me. "Why are you back here?"

  "There are people out there that cannot see me. Can you get me out of here?"

  "Yeah, go back into the office door and into the bathroom. That window is on the side of the building and easy to crawl out of."

  My shoulders sagged in relief. "You’re amazing. Listen, call the police station, non-emergency, and tell them to tell Brady that Corey needs him. Tell him to come to our date place. Got it?"

  "Brady, Corey, date place, got it."

  "Thank you so much." Turning toward the office door on my hands and knees, I looked back over my shoulder at the small woman, still crouched down. "One day, I’m going to want to know how you know that."

  I didn’t give her time to reply, just scuttled toward the office, reaching up and pulling at the doorknob and pushing the door open. As soon as I could, I crawled in, kicking the door shut with my foot and launching up. As fast as I could, I went into the bathroom. I would’ve gone straight to the window, but I had to take half a second to admire how huge and lush the bathroom was. Carson liked his restroom fanciness. Geez. The small window was positioned directly over the long counter, so climbing up was a breeze. The server, whatever her name was, had been absolutely correct. I’d have to learn her name if I took the j
ob.

  First, fly the coop. Confronting my parents was far more than I could handle at this point in my life. Their judgment wasn’t conducive to a healthy recovery.

  25

  Corey

  Fuck this shit. Of all the bullshit. What could they possibly be going in Three Lakes? Of all the towns I picked to get stranded in, I pick the one my parents are vacationing in. I stood beside the brewery, pressed against the wall for a solid minute, thinking rapidly about what my options were. I just had to wait for Brady to get here, and everything would be fine. He could get me the hell out of the area, and maybe get someone at the brewery to figure out why my parents were hanging out in my new home.

  Home. Wow. When confronted with the possibility of leaving, suddenly it became home. I was so undecided until my option was removed. If my parents were going to be vacationing in Three Lakes, I couldn't live here.

  Fuck.

  Peering around the corner, I realized Max was walking toward his car from the food truck. He must've stayed to get dinner. Quickly scanning the area, I figured my parents must've still been at the table inside, so I darted out, walking quickly but hopefully unobtrusively. Max spotted me as I neared the car at the same time he did. "Hey, Corey, need a ride back?"

  "Yes," I hissed as I slipped into the passenger seat.

  "What's wrong?" he asked.

  "There are some people in there I don't want to see. Brady is supposed to be coming here, but if you can get me out of here faster, this is so much better."

  "Sure, of course. Back to Brady's?"

  That would be best. I could hide out there until we figure out what to do now. "If you see Brady or pass him, will you flag him down?"

  "Yeah. You want to talk about it?" Max looked at me out of the corner of his eye.

  "No, thanks though. One of those things. I just want to escape." My panic receded as I turned and watched the brewery disappear in the back window. My heart sank the farther we traveled from it. My parents’ appearance sent my new job prospect totally into the toilet, no matter what happened with the background check.