He studies my face. “You said you were going to Autumn’s for the night.”
“I got jumped, Sean.”
He narrows his eyes for a second but then gives me a curious look as if he’s confused. “I’m just going to venture a guess and say you lied about going to see Autumn and went over to the Andersons’ instead. Bet Lona busted your face with the butt end of a shotgun.”
“After what Ed said to me earlier, I’m considering going over there. But that’s not what—”
“How can you go there when you don’t have a key?”
“I’ll kick in their front door, put a gun to Lona’s head, and make her give me Heather’s note.”
“Dylan.” He rubs his cheeks. “Stop doing this.”
“Seriously, Sean. I don’t care if I’m arrested. I’m fine with it.”
He fills the beer mugs, looking at me like I’ve lost my mind. “Tell me what happened.”
“Get this.” I lean in. “Ed knew the nickname Heather had for Jake.”
He stops pouring. “Twig?”
“Yeah.” I nod nervously. “She must’ve mentioned him in her note. How else would Ed know about it?” My speech is rapid like I’m on speed instead of Vicodin. “On top of that, the guy I killed in the alley stole the mayor’s wife’s car. He was after Autumn because she got it back for them. And one of his friends nearly killed me last night, trying to even the score.” I throw my hands in the air. “Now he’s dead, too.”
“Who?”
“The guy from last night who tried to kill me. He’s dead. The cops took him away, and he ended up dumped in Ed’s district.”
He gestures to slow down. “Wait, what are you talking about?”
“And Ed said Autumn’s the mayor’s whore.”
“Whoa. Crazy.”
“Totally crazy.” I chug the beer down and slam the empty mug on the table. “I’m going to the Andersons’ tonight to end this. I’ll get the note and live peacefully in prison.”
“Peacefully? Being someone’s bitch isn’t stress-free living.” He takes a sip a beer, giving me time to think about that.
“Okay, you’re right. But—”
“Besides, what if you go to the Andersons’ and don’t get the note? Then you end up in prison without knowing what it said. Bad idea, man.”
“I said, you’re right.”
“Well, I’m glad you called me to come out. It means you want someone to stop you from doing something stupid.”
“No, Sean. It means I need your help. Do you have your gun?”
His eyes widen. He touches his hip, and I see a bulge under his sweater where he keeps it. “You’re not … we’re not going to the Andersons’. You just said I was right. Let’s hang out here and drink and talk this out. Why do you think Heather mentioned Jake?”
I run a finger around the rim of the mug. “No clue.”
“Are you sure you can’t think of anything?”
“Nothing. I don’t get it.” I spy Ed standing at the bar. As always, he’s loading up on free beers.
“Why is Ed here on your dad’s night off?” Sean asks, drumming his fingers on the table. “And why aren’t you working?”
I wave a hand across my bruised face and hold up my bandaged hand. “Why do you think?”
He laughs. “You got fired for getting in another fight?”
“Yep. I’m just glad he doesn’t know I got stabbed in the back.”
“Stabbed?” He shakes his head. “How are you even sitting here?”
“It’s not deep. Four stitches. The guy was trying to scare me into telling him where I put the body.” I take a swig of beer, watching Ed head toward the office. “My dad said I should take some time to think about my life. I can come back when I’m ready to act like an adult, or stay away and spend my nights drunk on the streets.” I twist my mouth, mulling over the fact that he thinks I enjoy getting into fights. “The guy last night attacked me. It’s not like I go out looking for trouble.”
“Well …”
“Well, what?” I take out my cell and tap Autumn’s number.
“Who you calling?” He tries to see the screen.
I pull away from him. “Autumn.”
“And you’re not looking for trouble? I told you last week that girl ain’t right.”
“I need to ask her.”
“If she’s the mayor’s whore?”
“Yeah … Pick up, Autumn. Pick up.”
He grabs the cell and ends the call. “Dummy.” He smacks my forehead.
“What?”
“You don’t need the mayor’s slut.” He scans the room. “There’re at least five women in here you can hook up with, two staring straight at us.” He raises his beer at one.
“I don’t even know if what Ed said is true.” I finger-comb my hair forward. “Besides … I’m not interested in anyone else.”
“You’re not married or in love with this chick. I don’t see a ring on your finger.”
“I’m good. I got some today.”
He smiles. “You got some? From Autumn?”
“No, a hooker. Who do you think? And even if I hadn’t, I don’t need anyone else.”
He looks down at his beer, wiping the condensation off the mug. “I thought it would help.” He takes a few drinks, quieting down. The expression on his face pained.
“I know you wanna help, Sean. I appreciate it.”
“It’s not just that. You can’t cross this line with Autumn and the mayor.” His mouth sets in a hard line, the way it does when he’s troubled. “You get involved with her, and you’ll end up with a bullet in your head.”
“You sound like Ed.”
“Maybe Eddie’s right for once. Think about it for a while. And pull out from that invite to the mayor’s party Friday night. You’re a poor man from the West Side. You don’t fit in with those people.” He tips his chair back and folds his arms.
“I’m going. I’m walking in that mansion holding Autumn’s hand.”
The chair legs hit the floor in a hard thud. “Screw you. I didn’t sleep the first month after Heather and Jake died. Can’t you step back this one time so you don’t get hurt? You can’t go through that again.”
What he’s saying is he can’t go through that again. He doesn’t want Autumn to mess me up any more than I already am, and he can’t go through it on his own if she does. He’s also not exaggerating about not sleeping after Jake and Heather died. He lived outside my bedroom, his ear pressed to the door, listening to make sure I was still breathing. He didn’t think I was going to survive the loss. Everyone was worried, but Sean was the one who was with me. He sat with me every second I wept, each time I vomited, and the long nights when I tried to drink myself dead. He kept me alive and grieved right alongside me.
During the second and third months, I was a walking zombie, going to work and home to bed. Nowhere else. Bar and bed. Bar and bed. By the fourth month, he was bringing home women, two at a time, one for him, one for me.
“You need to feel something other than pain,” he’d say. “Sex will help with that.”
Then it became the norm. I’d screw whoever approached me at the bar, sex more numbing than beer. My mind went blank after I came, no thoughts of Jake or Heather. But with Autumn it happens when I see her. When we talk, or when I think of her. It’s her, as a whole. Not sex. Just her.
“I don’t think about Jake and Heather when I’m with Autumn,” I whisper, unsure I want him to know that. “She’s good for me,” I say, louder this time. “And she’s cool because she’s not a doormat.”
He sighs. “I suppose it’s a bonus that she’s gorgeous.”
“And she can shoot a gun better than us.”
Deep creases form in his forehead. “Bullshit.”
“Okay, better than me.”
He relaxes a little. “So what is this then? Are you two a couple?”
“Maybe. I walked in on her taking a bubble b
ath today. She … she’s amazing.” I blush. “She went down on me, and I didn’t even have to ask.”
“Hmm.” He puts his arm over the back of the chair and looks up at the television, gesturing that the hockey game’s about to start. “You’re right.” He takes a slug of beer.
“About what?”
“Autumn’s on your mind instead of Heather mentioning Twig. That is different.”
A muscle in my jaw twitches when he says that. I check my cell for new messages before flipping to Heather’s photo. Her blue eyes are accentuated with thick eyeliner. Her blonde hair is tucked behind her little ears. I take multiple swigs of beer leaving the photo open, watching the start of the game before I respond to his remark.
“That’s not entirely true. Jake and Heather fade from my mind when I’m around Autumn on a normal day. This isn’t one of those days. The stuff about Twig is new, so even if Autumn were sitting next to me right now, I’d still be thinking about Heather.”
He points to a girl in a burgundy coat walking past the front window. “We’ll see if that’s the case.”
Autumn takes hulking steps through the front door, miffed about something. She throws her head forward, shaking the snowflakes out of her hair, then tosses her head back, hair puffed out, cheeks rosy red.
“What are you doing here?” I ask.
She sniffs and wrinkles her nose from the weather, unbuttoning her coat. I notice when she drapes it over the chair next to me that she stitched the gunshot hole in the pocket.
She leans in for a kiss. Her tongue slides alongside mine, ending with a punctuated lip smack.
“Hot,” Sean says.
“I called Dorazio.” Her warm breath fans my lips. “He told me he was here.”
“He’s in the back office.” I point toward the hallway.
She looks back that way. “Can I go in there? I promise to leave my gun with you. It’s in my coat.”
“What’s the problem?” I ask.
“The problem is”—she examines the room to see who’s here—“Dorazio treats me like a four-year-old. Can I go back there, or not?”
“I’ll take you.”
She puts her hand on my shoulder before I can stand. Ed’s coming out on his own, straightening his leather cap that barely fits his oversized head. He sets an empty beer bottle on the bar and walks over to us.
“You’re an ass, Dorazio.” She blows a stray hair away from her eye with a wild breath.
“What’s wrong, Autumn?” He smirks. “Crossing districts again?”
“You know why I’m here.” She prods his chest with her finger.
He acts smug, putting his hands on his hips and spreading his legs in his usual superior manner. “I went out on my front stoop at four to get the morning paper,” he says. “You know what I saw dumped in my driveway?” He lowers his voice and moves closer to her side. “No other place to put a body these days? You trying to send me a message?”
“I had nothing to do with that.” She steps back.
“Sure you didn’t. But I have a hunch your sugar daddy did.”
Her jaw drops. “Nick’s not my …” She trails off and turns to see my reaction, to see if I know about the mayor.
I look away, seeing Heather’s photo still open. I close the screen in a hurry and put my cell away.
Somehow, Autumn manages to stay cool. She takes another glance around the room—a handful of customers watching—and quickly changes her body language. Her hands relax, shoulders lower, and everything about her turns calm. She opens the door, signaling to Ed that she wants to move the conversation outside.
“We need to talk, but I’m not going to disrupt my boyfriend’s business.”
“Boyfriend?” Sean mouths.
I bite my bottom lip to hold in a smile. “I’ll be right back. Stay here.”
“No.” He grabs my arm. “She can handle whatever’s going on. Besides, your dad’s watching. The last thing you need is for him to see you arguing with Eddie outside the bar.”
I take a quick look at my dad standing behind the bar. He picks up Ed’s empty beer bottle, eyeing the argument through the front window. He elbows Tim to see if he knows what’s going on. Tim shakes his head that he doesn’t.
I listen over the noise of the hockey game, catching snippets of their conversation through the glass.
“You have no right to tell my dad about my life!” Autumn screams. “Cops are driving back and forth in front of my loft because you called him about the guy in the parking lot.”
“I didn’t tell him,” Ed claims.
“Yeah, right. They’ve been stalking me for hours. I have no privacy whatsoever. I don’t need babysitters, Dorazio.”
“She’s furious,” Sean says, craning his neck to see over the windowsill.
“Nick won’t protect you forever. You’d better watch your mouth around me, Autumn.”
“Nick and I are friends. We’re not intimate, okay? I’m not having sex with the mayor.”
“You mean he’s not fucking you anymore.”
She takes five steps back then stomps forward and tries to slap him. He catches her wrist and pulls her to his side. Her arm shakes as he whispers something in her ear.
I get up to help, but Sean holds me back. “Wait, give them a second longer.”
Autumn snaps away from his grip and looks at me through the iced window, overcome with sadness. I sink into the chair, tormented. “I think Ed told her. He told her about Heather.” I should’ve prepared for this, should’ve expected it.
“Who cares? She would’ve found out eventually.”
I grip the table and stand back up. “The last thing I want is her pity.”
Ed slips away. I catch a glimpse of him a minute later, materializing under the corner streetlight. A snow gust circles him, his body obscured amid the weather and the darkness of night, lost in black and white.
Fat snowflakes land in Autumn’s hair and form a shawl on her shoulders. She comes to me, setting her palm against the glass, the warmth of her hands melting the ice over my face. A plow’s headlights transform her into a silhouette. Like a solar eclipse, her arms and legs merge with her body, and for a second, she vanishes from sight—a mere black speck in my vision.
“Don’t stop me this time,” I say to Sean, grabbing her coat and rushing outside. I brush the snow off her emerald-green sweater. The color like spring grass rising out of white mounds.
“Sorry,” she says. “That was selfish of me.”
“What was?” I help her into her coat.
“Everything. I should go.”
“No.” I grip her arm and pull her back, patting the snow off her hair. “Why would leave? You just got here. Did Ed say something about me?”
“Nothing he hasn’t told me before.”
I chuckle out of nervousness and fear. “Meaning what?”
She holds her collar tight to her neck, flashing the gold “A” ring on her pinky finger, and the black heart tattoo on the finger next to it. The way her hand is positioned under her chin, and reading her fingers from left to right, I understand the message. I don’t know if it’s intentional or not, but it’s right before my eyes.
The heart. The “A” ring.
LOVE AUTUMN.
“Come inside with me.” I nod toward the door. “I don’t care what you know about my past, or if you think I’m damaged, or what Ed said. I just want us to hang out.”
She places her ice-cold hand in mine. “Dylan.” She pauses. “He said your last girlfriend…”
I exhale and look down at my feet, swiping snow back and forth. “It’s been some time. It’s not like it was yesterday.”
“He said you’re in a bad mood today over her.”
“It’s his fault that I’m upset.” I raise my voice, turning away with regret.
“He seems to think you’re mentally ill.”
I turn back quickly. “Do you think I am?” I ask, my words p
ressing.
“No, not as much as people think I am.” She smiles, and I can’t help but smile back. “Tell me though—”
“It was over a year ago.”
“Yes, but—”
“I never saw it coming. There were no signs.”
“And if—”
“Any person with a heart would have a hard time getting over it.”
“Dylan. Tell me. Tell me if you had a second chance … if you met her today, knowing she’d kill herself, would you go through it all again?”
“Yeah. For sure.” I don’t hesitate to answer.
“Even if you knew she’d be gone?”
“I have no regrets about the time we spent together.”
“You loved her.”
I nod. “I did.”
She traces my jawline to my chin, gripping it hard. “You’re honest. I like that. Not having any regrets means you were good to her.”
“I’m not the type to hide from love. I really can’t anyway, not when it tackles me.”
She nods and looks around the empty streets. “Sorry I let Dorazio get to me.”
“I could say the same. What else did he say?”
“That’s about it.”
I know she’s lying because she looks away. “What else?” I tug her coat, needling her to tell me.
She pulls me toward the door. “Let’s go inside.”
I pull her right back. “What else?”
A Tahoe drives slowly by with two cops staring out the window at us. They put on a show, flashing the lights and discharging a short one-second-siren chirp.
“One beer,” she says, holding up a finger, her eyes following the cops. “I’ll stay for one drink, but people are watching.”
Rick’s crew, her dad, possibly even the mayor are keeping an eye on her, nervous about last night.
“What else did Ed say?” I urge her to answer. “I won’t waste my time with someone who keeps secrets from me. Don’t treat me like Ed and everyone else. Just say it.”
“Fine. Dorazio thinks you did something to your brother. That you may have killed him.”
Hearing that untruth a second time is as painful as the first. I start to sweat. A lump forms in my throat. I stare at her in panic for a good minute. She’s trying to read me, to figure out if I did something wrong, and if I could’ve killed him. And I’m pretending to be in control, but then it all goes to shit. I can’t act as if it doesn’t bother me. Now would be a good time to snatch the gun from her pocket, find Ed, and force it down his throat. Make him tell me why he said that about Jake, and why he would dare repeat it to Autumn.
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