by J. L. White
“He sneaks in here without any of your family knowing, and I’m not supposed to be suspicious?”
“Well maybe we didn’t want to tell anyone because of the way you’ve been acting.”
“Uh, uh. I know what this guy is doing.”
I remember what Connor said. “No,” I say earnestly, “I reached out to him, not the other way around.”
But he’s not listening. “No, Corrine. I’m not letting you get caught in the middle of this.”
I’ve seen this side of Rayce before. I’m practically having flashbacks. I’m trying to keep my cool, but when I speak my voice trembles slightly. “There’s no this for me to be caught in the middle of. It’s not like that.”
“We don’t know anything about this guy.”
“You don’t know anything about him.”
“I’m not going to let him hurt you.”
“He’s not going to hurt me! Rayce, you can’t protect me from everything!”
He flinches and stops cold, eyes locked on mine. This isn’t the first time I’ve said these words to him. Because whether he likes it or not, some things are inevitable. Doctor Lansky was pretty understanding when Rayce started taking things out on him, insisting there must be better treatments elsewhere and that he’d damn well find them. But it wasn’t the doctor’s fault. Or Rayce’s either. As I had to remind him.
I step closer and put my hands on his arms. “Rayce, please. Please. Just give him a chance. That’s all I’m asking.”
Brows drawn down, he exhales and looks away.
“He really is a good guy,” I say, softer.
He looks back to me, still concerned, I can see, but relenting. “Doesn’t it make you feel bad? Don’t you think about it when you talk to him?”
I drop my hands and look at him. He’s not one for a lot of emotion, but his pain over what his father did—and the fact that it was all hidden from them—has been pretty clear all along. I shake my head. “I used to, but not anymore. Now it’s just Mason.”
His eyes soften, and his gaze drifts to the window. I watch him, wishing someone I love so much didn’t have to hurt over something that’s otherwise so good in my life.
“I understand why it might be different for you,” I say. “You don’t have to be friends with him, just... will you please give him a chance? Doesn’t the fact that he’s willing to overlook things and interact with our family show what strength of character he has?”
“I suppose,” he says quietly, his eyes coming back to me.
I smile. “So you’ll give him a chance?”
He sighs, bringing me in against his chest and resting his chin on the top of my head. He hugs me and I hug him back. “You remember our deal right?”
“I remember.”
“You promised me.” He pulls back and looks me in the eye, holding me at arm’s length. “If he does anything to hurt you, or anything seems off at all, you’ll go to someone for help. Me or your dad or Connor or Lizzy or somebody. Right?”
I smile. Rayce has been saying this to me since the first time I went on a date in high school. He’s always been the big brother I wished I had. “I love you, cousin.”
His face softens. He releases me, but brushes his finger on the tip of my nose, teasing me.
“You still think of me as a little kid,” I say in response.
“That’s okay. You still think of me as your big cousin.”
I smile. “That’s true.”
“Get out of here. Let me get back to work and worry about you in peace.”
“Okay. Thanks for talking to me, and... well, just thanks.”
He narrows his eyes at me. “And he’s treating you right?”
I nod, smiling. He’s treating me more than right. He’s fucking knocking me off my feet. “He is.”
“Fine, then.” He goes around to his chair.
“So the next time you see him, you’ll be okay?”
“Lord,” he says, sitting down. “One thing at a time.”
“Okay, sorry.” But I smile.
He checks his watch. “Is it too early for a drink?”
I laugh. “By about six hours.”
Chapter 17
Mason
It’s been four days since I saw Corrine. Fourteen to go. I haven’t talked to my mom yet, and Corrine’s been good about letting me take my time. I keep chewing over how I should go about it. In the meantime, Corrine and I are talking and texting even more than we were before, which I didn’t know possible until we started doing it.
I come into the break room after washing the grease from a 2003 Ford Acura off my hands. I grab a couple frozen burritos from the freezer and throw them in the microwave. I’m ready for a break. It’s not that I don’t know how to handle the water pump I’m replacing, it’s just... not what I really want to spend my time doing. The Impala I’m restoring is in the last car bay, covered in cloth and waiting for the small amount of time I have to actually work on it.
Now that’s exciting. That’s something I could do all damn day long and not care about breaks. I keep thinking about that job offer in California, as if it’s still there waiting for me. Two months later. Not that it matters. I need to just put it out of my head.
I send Corrine a text while I’m waiting: On break.
By the time I’m sitting down to eat, she calls.
“Hey beautiful,” I answer.
“Hey,” she says, sounding like sunshine. God, I miss her. “Perfect timing. I just got out of the interview.”
One of the local magazines there in Rosebrook, the town where her college is located, is doing a story about cancer survivors, and some administrator at the school gave the reporter Corrine’s name. “Tell me about it while I eat. Sorry if I chew in your ear.”
“It’s fine. It was so cool. After she interviewed me, I kind of interviewed her. I wanted to know how she got to be a magazine reporter, you know, and she let me ask all these questions. I felt kind of bad for taking up her time, but she said it was okay. And it was so interesting!”
Chewing my burrito, I smile at her enthusiasm.
“She doesn’t work for the magazine. She freelances, and writes articles for people all over the country. She sends these query letters out with ideas for articles. Sometimes they’re rejected, but enough are accepted that she makes a good living at it. But some editors know her and will sometimes write her asking for her to do an article for them. Isn’t that cool?”
“Mm-hmm,” I say, not having a chance to say much else, but not minding.
“She has a Bachelor’s in communications and then she did this online certificate in copyediting from the University of California down San Diego. So, you know, she has all the qualifications. It was cool talking to her. She even had this little pad where she was writing all her notes. Like a real reporter!”
I laugh. “Lois Lane, huh?”
“Ha! Right. I think that would be so fun.”
“Better than counseling, huh?”
She groans. She lost enthusiasm for her declared major some time ago, but has had so many delays to her schooling, she didn’t want to delay things further by changing her major.
“So are you thinking you’d like to do that? You’d be the sexiest reporter ever, babe.”
She laughs. “Oh, I don’t know. Hey, how’s work going today?”
I’m starting to pick up on a pattern with Corrine. She almost never talks about what she wants to do after college. She changes the subject, just like this, every time it comes up. Maybe it’s just the typical indecisiveness a lot of college kids have. Not that she’s your typical college kid. Or a kid. She actually seems like the kind of person to have it all figured out, but for some reason she doesn’t.
This is the first I’ve heard her get excited about something though, so I decide to press her on it. “Work’s fine. Did this lady say you have to have a degree to do that?”
“To do what?”
“Be a reporter.”
“Um. I don’t kn
ow.”
“Maybe you could find out.”
“Why?”
“If that’s something you’d be interested in. Why not?”
There’s a pause. A rather long pause, actually. She laughs nervously. “Look, let me graduate first, okay? Hey, did you see the picture I posted on your page?”
I sigh. Maybe I shouldn’t push her. If she’s not interested enough to look into it more, maybe it’s not really her thing anyway.
“You mean the dog at the pound?” She follows her local pound’s Facebook page and drools over all the animals there. That girl needs a dog in the worst way. “What was it? A black lab or something?”
“Bo Duke. Wasn’t he sooooo cute! His sweet face!”
I laugh. “Instead of stalking all these dogs like a creeper, why don’t you just get one already?”
But she doesn’t answer. Instead she steers the conversation in the direction of the egg salad sandwiches she got at the Gizmo for lunch. “There’s a good reason people avoid those things. They were disgusting!”
The next day I’m in the empty garage, elbow deep in the engine of my beloved ’65 Impala. It’s the best way to spend a Saturday afternoon, aside from being with Corrine, of course. But since she’s in California and I’m here in Illinois, this will have to do.
I’m not complaining though. I’m in the zone, enjoying the cool breeze from the open, rear door. It’s unseasonably warm for January, mid-fifties. After the frigid temperatures we had a few weeks ago, it practically feels like spring.
I hear footsteps crunching on the gravel outside, then my mother’s voice. “You hiding out in here?”
“Come on in,” I holler, tightening the clamp on a hose.
“Have you eaten yet?”
Setting down the screwdriver, I spot her hot-pink sneakers crossing the room and heading for the little metal table.
“No.”
“I didn’t think so.”
I shimmy out from underneath the engine and get to my feet. She gives me a smile and plops two fast-food bags on the table. The sight of the Charley’s logo and the scent of warm cheesesteak that’s starting to permeate the room gets my stomach growling. I glance at the clock high on the grey, brick wall. One o’clock. No wonder I’m starving. Sometimes I get lost in an old engine and forget to eat.
“Barbeque Cheddar?” I ask hopefully.
“And cheese fries,” she says, dropping her massive purse on the table with a thud. Growing up, I thought that purse was magical, like Mary Poppins’ carpet bag. It seemed like anything that was ever needed could be found in Mom’s purse.
I go to the wash tub to scrub up, and she lays out napkins, the sandwiches, and fries. She retrieves a couple cans of soda from the fridge in the corner, and I grab the towel from the rack, drying off and getting hungrier by the second.
“How did Grandma’s physical therapy go?” My grandmother hurt her back again, and has been going to physical therapy twice a week. I take her on Tuesdays and Mom takes her on Saturdays.
“He decided to give her a couple more weeks,” she says, tucking into her seat. “She’s not quite there yet.”
I pull out a chair, the metal legs scraping across the concrete, and sit heavily. As much as I love being under a car, I always feel it later. I unwrap the sandwich, and take a bite, the grilled onions, cheese and bacon blending perfectly with the cheesesteak.
“How’s she coming?” Mom asks, nodding to the car.
“The radiator is being difficult,” I say with a grin, “but I’m showing her who’s boss.”
“I’m sure you are. You always have had a natural talent for that. I’m glad you’re able to do more on it now.”
She’s said this to me before. I think it’s her way of saying something good that came out of the inheritance is me being able to work on my car more. She knows how much I love it. I haven’t told her my intention of getting a Corvette to restore next, now that I have plenty of money to use. I’ve wanted to do another Vette for ages, but probably a different year than the one I did for her.
I take another bite, watching her and trying to decide if now’s the time to talk to her about some things.
I swallow, take a sip of my root beer, then say, “I don’t think I told you, but when I was in California in November, I stopped in at a restoration shop.”
“Oh yeah?” she says, taking another bite and not looking at all leery after the mention of California. I take that as an encouraging sign.
“Yeah. They had these beautiful old cars. A ’59 Cadillac Eldorado and a ’57 Pontiac Bonneville. That’s one of the most sought-after classics from the fifties. They only ran 630 of them.”
“Wow.”
“He got it wrecked, but it was fully restored. It was gorgeous. You should’ve seen the bumper on this thing. And the shine on that chrome.”
I whistle, then think about Corrine calling it car porn and smile.
“I bet you loved that.” She dabs her mouth with the paper napkin, then holds it in a ball in her hand as she takes another bite.
“I ended up meeting the owner and we talked about cars for a while. I told him about that Coupe that placed in the show.”
She smiles and nods, blotting her mouth again.
“It was funny. He actually, um, offered me a job.”
She pauses momentarily in her chewing and raises her brows. “Really? That was a nice compliment.”
“I thought so, too. It’s too bad he wasn’t here, huh? I’d love to be able to do that full-time. Replacing the tranny in a 10 year old van just doesn’t have the same appeal.”
She laughs, bringing her sandwich up for another bite.
I decide to spit it all out. “I really thought about it, for a minute there. Taking the job, I mean.”
She sets her sandwich down, giving me a serious expression. “Would you want to move to California?”
I shrug. “It’s pretty there.”
She nods, watching me with those knowing mom eyes. “It is.”
“The job was tempting, but obviously I can’t move.”
She tilts her head at me. “Why obviously?”
I look at her for a moment, not sure if she’s being serious or what. “I can’t leave. You guys need me.”
I grab three fries and take a bite that cuts them in half.
She furrows her brow, still giving me the mom look. “You know, Mason. Obviously I’d rather you stay here, but if you’re staying out of a sense of obligation, I’m not sure you need to feel that way.”
My hand drops, the half-eaten fries still pinched between my fingers. “But... you guys need me.”
“Honey,” she says, reaching across the table and squeezing my arm. “I love having you close. And you’ve always been such a helpful kid. It does mean a lot knowing I can count on you. But... if there was something you really wanted to do that took you somewhere else, I sure wouldn’t try to stop you.”
“But...” It’s always just been a given for me that I was needed here. I went to the community college here. I found work here. In a town where the kids get out as soon as they can, I never seriously considered leaving until I went to California. She would really be okay if I left? I’m not sure I believe her. Is she just saying this or does she really mean it?
“What if I moved and the pipes backed up again? What if Grandma needed a ride somewhere when you were at work? What if your computer got a virus again?”
“Mason honey, like I said, we love having you here. I’m certainly not trying to get rid of you. But, this is your life. If there was something you wanted somewhere else, it’s okay. We would figure things out here.”
I’m still just sitting here, my fries in hand.
She smiles and pats my arm. “You always have had an overdeveloped sense of responsibility. I suppose that’s my fault. You were always so eager to be helpful, and I let you take care of things, if you were able.”
She leans back in her chair. “I thought it was good for you, and I think it has been. I�
��m really proud of how you’ve grown up. And I think your father would be proud of you, too.”
An unexpected lump blooms in my throat, and I swallow it down hard.
“But you aren’t the parent here, I am. I assure you, I can take care of myself.”
“Huh.” I slowly bring my fries to my mouth, chewing them thoughtfully.
She laughs and takes a fry of her own. “My little man. Not so little anymore.”
A slow smile spreads on my face. “I’ve been bigger than you since I was fourteen.”
She laughs and nods, going back to her sandwich.
There’s this lightening inside my chest, like something heavy I didn’t know I was carrying around has been taken from me. I could do it. I could move there if I wanted to.
Although, looking at her, I realize I’m not sure that I do. Maybe she would be able to manage without me, but I would miss her. I would miss a lot of people here. I guess I haven’t really thought the whole idea through, since my thought process was always stopped so early by my sense of obligation to stay.
Now I’m not sure if I really do want to pick up my entire life and put it down in a foreign place.
A place that feels like home, I think. And Corrine’s there, too, though it’s too soon to know what might become of the two of us.
I think about California, though. That ocean. That job. And yeah, even though it’s early, Corrine. The whole idea is fucking enticing.
But still. It’d be a lot to give up.
We eat in silence another few minutes, and I realize the moment has come for me to tell her about Corrine. Maybe she’ll surprise me about that, too. Maybe it won’t be as bad as I’m afraid it could be.
“So, I have something else I wanted to talk to you about.”
“All right,” she says, grabbing a fry and leaning back. “What?” She pops the fry in her mouth.
“Do you remember me telling you about Corrine Rivers?”
The pleasant expression on her face slowly morphs into a knowing look of dread. She swallows, presses her lips together, and waits in silence.
“I told you we were talking.”