“It’s my fault,” Gracie admitted to him. This time Cal cast a flickering glance in her direction.
“What did you say to her?”
He knew her too well.
“Long version or short?” Gracie asked.
“Short is fine.”
“I told her that if she wanted to know why I was driving your truck, she needed to take it up with you. She passed me when I was coming here. I guess she was headed to David’s?” Gracie shrugged, well aware that she was babbling a little bit. “She chased me down the road, and when I finally did have to pull over, she demanded to know where you were. I didn’t know what to tell her. I mean, I couldn’t exactly tell her...”
“Yeah, no. You can’t tell her that I’m off helping David get rid of a car he stole. She’d call the cops in a heartbeat.”
“Last thing we need right now.”
“Agreed. I’ll deal with her when we get back to town.” Cal sighed as he sped the truck up a little bit. “Look Gracie, we need to talk.”
“I know,” Gracie took a deep breath and blinked back tears. “About last night. David. You need to know-”
“How well do you think you know David?” Cal countered, cutting her off mid-sentence.
“What?” Gracie blinked at him, surprised.
“David. I asked you how well you think you know David. Because I know David too damn well.” Cal scowled at her across the cab of the truck.
“It’s David...” Gracie really had no idea where he was going with this. Cal had never been anything but David’s biggest advocate. Cal was the one who defended David against anyone who had the nerve to say a bad word. “He’s your best friend. Addison’s friend. I’ve known him as long as I’ve known you. What are you asking?”
Cal shook his head for a minute, his shaggy dark hair falling across his eyes and getting pushed back with a ball cap that he picked up off the dashboard. “I don’t know,” he admitted with a gruff sigh.
“I guess I’m asking if you’re really okay with this?” He gestured back towards the wrecker.
“This?” Gracie chewed on the inside of her lip nervously, wondering what story David had told Cal about the BMW if he hadn’t told him the truth.
“Yeah. This. Or did you miss that your boyfriend and I,” Cal nearly choked on the words as they came out of his mouth, “just dumped a stolen car? Not the first stolen car either. Not by a long shot.”
Gracie frowned at him. “I know David’s Dad ran a chop shop, Cal. That’s old news.”
“David’s running a chop shop. I thought he’d quit with the stolen cars, but I guess he lied to me when he told me he’d gone completely legal,” Cal said flatly. “Chopping up stolen property is illegal as hell. He gets caught, he’s going to prison. Prison. You might want to think about that before you throw your lot in with his.”
Gracie opened her mouth in surprise and then blinked at him and closed it again. “You’ve thrown your lot in with him,” she pointed out. “You’ve helped him get rid of the cars on more than one occasion. I know you have. Don’t tell me today is a fluke. You and Addison are both in on it. Y’all have been doing this for years.”
“Okay. Fine. I don’t deny it,” Cal wasn’t making excuses for his behavior. He never did. Even when he was guilty as hell and an excuse would have appropriate. “Just wanting to make sure you’re on the same page as we are.”
“I’ve always been on the same page as you,” Gracie narrowed her eyes at him, stung and feeling more than slightly insulted. A very familiar irritation was burning its way up through her veins, despite the trauma of the last 24 hours.
“No,” Cal shook his head. “No, you haven’t. You’ve never gotten your hands dirty. I always made sure you weren’t on the front line of any of the stupid shit we’ve done.”
“And your point would be?” Gracie crossed her arms over her chest.
“David’s in too deep and I’m not sure you realize what you’re getting into. You’ve always had a habit of jumping in with both feet without bothering to see how deep the water is.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“It means that David is my best friend, but I’m not going to be able to protect you if you get in too deep with him, Gracie. David’s not just bending the laws. He’s breaking them into a million pieces. He goes down and you’re with him, then you’re going to go down too, and there won’t be anything Addison or I can do about it.”
“David hasn’t done anything wrong. Not by me, anyway.” An image of Austin’s corpse lying on the back seat of the BMW kept flashing against the backs of Gracie’s eyelids. She shuddered without meaning to and Cal took the gesture personally.
“I’ve always tried my damnedest to protect you, Gracie. You know I’ve always done everything in my power to keep you safe and happy.” Cal took a deep breath and tightened his grip on the steering wheel until the plastic made a cracking sound under his palms. “And you’ve thrown it all back in my face.”
“What?” Gracie stared at him in shock, stung by his words. She wondered if David had told him about Austin. It was the only thing she could think of that would explain his anger.
“You said you wanted something more than Shiner’s Bayou, Gracie. I could understand that, I guess. I hate it, but I understand wanting to go to college, getting a degree and going somewhere more exciting than here. Want to take a guess at what I don’t understand?” Cal glared at her angrily as he gunned the accelerator, making the wrecker lurch up to a less than breathtaking 30 miles an hour as they turned off the lease and onto the highway heading back towards David’s trailer.
“I thought maybe you’d understand,” she whispered. It was all she could do to keep from bursting in tears.
“Understand?” Cal practically spit the word at her. “You’re getting a cheap thrill out of sleeping with my best friend and you expect me to understand?”
“What?” Gracie jerked her head up in surprise and stared at him. She’d thought he’d been talking about Austin. About David hiding Austin’s body and getting rid of the car. Not about sex. He was still talking about the damned sex she wasn’t having with David. “I am not!”
“Then what the hell are you doing, Gracie?” Cal glared at her. “You told me you wanted a change. You told me you needed some excitement in your life that you just couldn’t seem to get here in Shiner’s Bayou. And then you left for college, and I made myself fucking deal with losing you. Hell, I tried to be nice about it. Until last night when I discovered that you weren’t really looking for a change of scenery. Just a change of boyfriends.”
“You’re being ridiculous,” Gracie snapped at him, unable to stop the anger she felt from bleeding into her words. Cal could be a real asshole when he wanted to be.
He was in fine form today.
“You could have saved us all a lot of hassle. You could have just told me you’d rather be with David than me. You didn’t have to leave town and then sneak back to be with him.”
“I am not sneaking around with David.”
“What are you doing?”
“Why do you even care?” Gracie countered. “It’s obvious you’ve come to your own conclusions and made your own decisions without bothering to stop and ask for my input. As usual.”
“I’m not the one who was caught without their clothes on last night.”
“It’s none of your business who I sleep with!” Gracie practically shouted at him.
“Damn right it’s not. Not anymore.”
“No. Not since you broke up with me,” Gracie was so angry she barely took the time to register the surprised expression on Cal’s face as he turned the Chevy into David’s driveway and had to hit the brakes to avoid driving straight into the tailgate of Addison’s gray Ford.
Gracie jerked open the passenger’s side door of the Chevy and jumped out as soon as the truck stopped moving. A fresh batch of tears threatened to spill down her cheeks as she came face to face with her big brother and flung herself into his arms.
/>
“Okay, which one of you assholes hurt my baby sister and made her cry?” Addison wrapped his arms tightly around Gracie, pulling her into his muscular chest as he glared at Cal.
“Don’t look at me like that,” Cal shook his head at Addy. “She’s made her own damned mess this time. I’m out of it. I’m done. Done. What she and David want to do is their own business. I’ve said my peace.”
“What she and David do?” Addison blinked in confusion and loosened his grip on Gracie so he could look her in the eye. “Did I miss something here?” He sounded irritated and Gracie frowned at him, noticing that his blonde hair was damp and his shirt was almost completely soaked in sweat. “Because I must have missed something. Like where the hell y’all have been and what the fuck are y’all up to?”
Addison released Gracie completely as he gestured at the mud that was coating David, Cal and both trucks.
“Practicing our mud wrestling,” David’s tone was deceptively casual as he walked around the front of the wrecker with the tow rope he had just disconnected in his right hand. “I blew the radiator hauling off some parts I needed to get rid of. Ended up getting stuck in the mud. Cal had to come pull me out,” David stared Addy straight in the eyes as if he were daring him to question the excuse.
“That’s almost believable,” Addison frowned at them. “Except Jo Beth already blew that cover story when she cornered me at the Gas N Go and told me all about how Gracie was driving around in the Chevy all by herself this morning and neither you or Cal were anywhere to be found.”
“Oh. Nice,” David shook his head and turned to Cal. “Have I mentioned lately how much I don’t like your girlfriend?”
“I don’t think it’s going to be a long term issue,” Cal snapped back. “Pretty sure I’m probably single by now.”
“That’s an improvement,” David replied as he stripped his muddy shirt off and tossed it straight onto the hood of Cal’s truck. “Maybe now you’ll have enough spare time to hook a winch to your head and pull it out of your ass, since you’re not going to be spending all your time kissing Jo Beth’s butt cheeks.”
“Holy shit,” Addison actually took a step backwards and did a double take at the two of them. “What the hell has gotten into y’all? Who broke your nose?” Addison had zeroed in on David’s broken nose and two black eyes.
David jerked his chin in Cal’s direction as he turned on the hose and began rinsing the mud off his legs. “Who do you think?” he asked.
“My first guess would be Jo Beth. But I know that’s wrong, because she just spent thirty minutes chewing me out because she couldn’t find Cal to chew him out.” Addison crossed his arms over his chest and shook his head at them, waiting on someone to talk. “A little explanation would be really nice here, people. The Cliff Notes version, because I’m on duty and my radio hasn’t been quiet for more than 20 minutes in the last 7 hours.”
“Gracie’s sleeping with David,” Cal announced. “How’s that for a Cliff Notes version?”
Gracie cringed at the snarly tone of Cal’s voice. Addison’s jaw hit the ground.
“What?” Addy snapped. All signs of joking around and good humor were gone in an instant.
“It’s not-.” Gracie started to protest but Cal cut her off.
“Guess they didn’t bother telling you either?” Cal asked Addison. “I’ll go ahead and make a really long story really short: I walked in on them half naked and all over one another in the middle of the living room last night.”
“You’ve got to be kidding me.” Addison looked from Cal to Gracie to David and then back to Cal again. “That’s why you broke his nose.” It wasn’t a question.
Cal shook his head as he pulled the hose out of David’s grasp and turned it on his own mud-caked skin. “No. I broke his nose when he tried to stop me from walking back out.”
For a moment Addison was visibly stunned speechless. He turned to face David, clearly hoping David was going to choose this moment to explain exactly why Cal had gotten it all wrong. It didn’t happen. In fact, David had a strange, defiant smile on his face that Addison knew better than to trust.
“Please tell me you are not sleeping with my kid sister,” Addy said to David.
David said nothing. Gracie stood between them like a deer caught in the headlights of an eighteen-wheeler. She opened her mouth to respond to Addison’s ridiculous accusations and set them all straight on exactly what her relationship with David was but David silenced her with a glance and a shake of his head. She frowned at him. She was more than ready to tell the people she loved and trusted the most the truth and get the horrible burden of Austin’s death off of her chest.
“Why is it so hard for y’all to believe that Gracie and I are happy together?” David glared at Addison as he stepped forward and wrapped one arm around Gracie’s shoulders, pulling her against him.
Addison and Cal both stared at him in mute disbelief.
Gracie was about to jab her elbow into his side and ask him what the hell he was saying, but he pinched her sharply on the back of her neck. A definite warning to shut her mouth and just go along with it.
“Y’all really think I can’t get a girlfriend?” David asked as he turned the tables on them. “I don’t see why y’all are so fucking shocked? I’m starting to wonder if the two of you think I’m Sasquatch or something.”
He grinned at them. It wasn’t a pleasant expression. Gracie was stunned but the argument continued without her input.
“As far as I know, you haven’t even been on a date in five years,” Addison said finally. “By choice.”
David shrugged and gave them a toothy smile. “Not everything requires a date, Addy. You ought to know that by now.”
Addison choked on his own saliva. “Don’t you even...”
David shifted slightly, ready for a fight. Gracie could feel his muscles tensing beside her as he silently dared Addison to do something about it.
“What? You can do whatever you want with whoever you want, but I can’t?” Gracie asked, hoping to stop David before he baited Addison into swinging on him. She was tired of being talked about like she wasn’t standing right there. She was also more than mildly offended by her man-whore older brother’s sudden Puritan nature.
“Gracie, you have to consider your choices,” Addison stuttered helplessly.
“My choices?” she blinked at him. “The guy who’s slept with half the girls in the county wants me to consider my choices?” She crossed her arms and leaned into David, trying to ignore the hurt, angry expression in Cal’s eyes and focus on fighting with Addison.
“How long has this been going on?” Addison snapped at David.
David hesitated, and Gracie knew instinctively that he hadn’t put that much thought into fine tuning the details of the deception he was weaving. She doubted he remembered precisely how long ago it had been when she and Cal had split up. She knew how long she’d been single right down to the day, but David wouldn’t. “Six months,” she filled in the blank calmly, even though she had no idea why she was going along with David’s lies. She trusted that he wouldn’t chose to fight with his best friends without a damn good reason.
She couldn’t bear to see the look in Cal’s eyes, so she pressed her cheek against David’s shoulder and glared at Addison.
“Six months?” Addison repeated with disbelief.
“We’ve been real careful about making sure no one found out. We didn’t figure either one of you would take it too well,” David didn’t sound remotely apologetic. “If Cal hadn’t walked in on us last night, y’all still wouldn’t know.”
Addison opened his mouth and closed it again.
“Why didn’t y’all tell us?” Cal asked softly. There was no mistaking the hurt in his voice as he leaned tiredly against the hood of his truck.
It hurt Gracie horribly to lie to him, but she held her chin up and tried to appear believable. “I didn’t think people would approve,” Gracie said. It wasn’t exactly a lie. “I mean, I know Dad
would shit a brick, and I just didn’t want to deal with it. David was okay with it, so we just kept everything a secret between us.”
“Shit a brick doesn’t even begin to cover it,” Addison grumbled, glaring at David. “I know what you’ve done to girls,” he said with a glare in his best friend’s direction.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” David played innocent. Addison seemed tempted to bring something up, but then swallowed it and scowled.
“How did you even get down here?” he asked Gracie. “I looked all over for your damn car and didn’t find it.”
“It’s still at school,” Gracie said.
“Along with your clothes?” Addison gestured at Gracie’s less than fashionable ensemble.
“I wasn’t planning on coming down here this weekend,” she said.
“Yeah, I just decided to show up and surprise her,” David smirked. “I drove up to State right after you left last night, and then we drove right back down. We’d just gotten back when Cal showed up.”
Addison stayed silent for several minutes, then turned to Cal. “You believe this shit?” he asked and gestured at Gracie and David.
“I wouldn’t have if you’d suggested it yesterday. When I got here last night they were looking hot, heavy. She was damned near naked in the living room, so yeah, I guess they’re telling the truth.” The anger in his voice was unmistakable. He wouldn’t look at Gracie or David in the eyes as he squared his shoulders, set his jaw in a tight line, and hosed the mud off his clothes.
Addison clucked his tongue and seemed about to say something else when the police issue radio in his truck crackled and Katie Cluster’s voice echoed through the radio. She was saying something about an alligator loose on Main Street that he needed to go deal with.
“Jesus Christ,” Addison muttered for what seemed like the millionth time that day. “I’ve got to go but,” he looked at David, “we aren’t done here. You hurt her, I’ll kill you, chop you up into a million little pieces and feed you to the gators.”
For some reason, that comment made David smile as Addy got in his truck and headed back towards town with his light bar flashing.
Feeding Gators: Book 1 in the Shiner's Bayou Series Page 15