by Cora Brent
My mother had endured her own high school horror story when a boy she liked took her virginity on a dare and the whole town found out. The boy had grown up to be my father.
My parents were honest about their story so I knew about it. Not every single detail. There were things I would never know and that was fine. But I knew that Cord Gentry had suffered a tough journey in order to become the man who would someday be worthy of the girl he’d once wronged. There was a time when an outcome like that wouldn’t have seemed improbable to me. I wouldn’t have thought there was anything unusual about a callous small town jerk with a sketchy past making amends and turning his life around.
However, I was no longer an idealistic little girl. And I no longer trusted that the world was full of men like Cord Gentry.
I didn’t trust that idea at all.
CHAPTER EIGHT
Just when I thought things were getting better, Tristan didn’t come home all night.
There was nothing for me to do about it but sit there and wait. I had no way to contact him since he had no phone. Hell, I could barely keep up the payments on my own phone. And we’d been here such a short time I didn’t have any contact info for the new friends he’d been hanging out with. I didn’t even know their names.
“Curtis?” My youngest brother’s voice was small and sleepy. “Are you still awake?”
“Go to sleep, Breck,” I said from the musty armchair as I rubbed my eyes in the hopes it would help them stay open so I could give Tristan some shit when he finally rolled through the door. I was getting damn sick of spending my nights sitting up. On Saturday I planned to start apartment hunting now that I had a reference for full time employment instead of just temp work.
I checked my phone, cupping my palm over it so the light wouldn’t bother Brecken. There were no new calls or messages. Even though Tristan didn’t have his own phone, chances were he was hanging around with someone who did. He should know I’d be waiting up and worrying. With a sigh I placed my phone face down on my knee.
These past six months I could swear I’d aged fifteen years. I’d never yearned to be a father but here I was trying to parent two boys, one of whom resisted authority every step of the way. And fuck, it was exhausting. The worry, the anxiety, the sheer weight of responsibility. I wondered if parents felt like this every day. Then I wondered why anyone would volunteer for such an obligation that never ever fucking ended.
Speaking of parents, I had received another silent phone call as I pulled out of the Scratch parking lot today. At the time I was busy checking out Cassie Gentry in the rearview mirror when the call came in. I thought about not answering it but ultimately I picked it up
“Say something or stop fucking calling,” I said after a moment of silence. Then I hung up.
“Shit,” I muttered because everything about the situation really was shit. Then I realized I needed to make a plan for dinner. I wished I’d thought to grab that hot dog out of the fridge before I left. Brecken loved those stupid things.
That thought led immediately to Cassie. I was trying to be polite when I followed her out to give her the car keys she’d left behind. It didn’t come across that way though. I guess I was just hopelessly out of practice when it came to being polite. Or maybe I’d really never been in the habit in the first place.
My long lawless stretch began when I was only about a year older than Brecken. Me and a few other guys started a gambling ring and raked in the bucks from the high school crowd. After that I graduated to a deal with a local salvage yard that involved hiking a few miles away to the gated retirement community and stealing catalytic converters and small electronics from the cars of its sleeping residents. I got busted one night by the security guard who’d been hired by the homeowner’s association. Unfortunately he found a pile of stolen GPS units in my backpack. I ended up serving a short stint in the county juvenile facility where I spent my time working out, sleeping through class and hanging around with a fellow delinquent named Abram who thought I’d be a good fit for the Rioters.
The Emblem Rioters were known as a gang but it was more like a loose collection of assholes who were up to no good. You didn’t have to do much to get in except take one good beating and get the letters ER inked on your neck. Their biggest business came from dealing, mostly painkillers. It was easy money and McMurphy, the unofficial leader, had some pharmacy ties that made it easy to obtain large supplies. While I wasn’t part of the drug trade inner circle I was neck deep in a number of other sidelines that weren’t legitimate. That came with some pitfalls. I’d washed blood off my hands too many times and I always hated it. The idea was already in the back of my mind to search for a way out when the tenuous world of the Emblem Rioters collapsed.
The Feds descended as part of some massive nationwide enforcement circus and a lot of Rioters got nabbed. McMurphy himself put a gun in his mouth and swallowed a bullet rather than get arrested. With all the big shots in lockup or dead the whole enterprise fell apart. I was out of town in Vegas and got a tip that it would be a good idea not to come back for a little while. I needed a cheap place to lie low and that’s how I ended up in Nedry. After a year in Nedry I learned all the fuss had died down. Since I was a low man on the totem pole and the politicians had already gotten their hyped crime crackdown, no one was looking for me. But since there wasn’t anything waiting for me in Emblem I stayed in Nedry. My family would have been a good reason to go back but before I left my mother had made it clear she didn’t want me hanging around my younger brothers as long as I was running around with criminals. I didn’t blame her for that. I knew how the boys looked up to me. Anyway I wanted better for them than a destiny as a high school dropout with a record and proof of gang affiliation inked on their skin. I missed them, thought about them often. And yet I didn’t believe I deserved a place in their lives. I thought they were better off without me.
Then right after Christmas came that phone call from my mother and everything changed.
“Come home, Curtis. Please. The boys need you.”
She wouldn’t have called me if she had other options. My father was dead. My grandparents were all dead. The only family worth mentioning was an uncle in Reno but he had some weird ideas, thinking the government spied on him through the microwave and kept watch on his house via a flock of trained pigeons.
I didn’t hesitate. I was needed and so I stepped up. The boys didn’t have anyone else and maybe it really wasn’t too late for me to make a sharp right turn and head down a different path.
I just never expected to be waiting up in a shitty motel room, trying not to nod off in a fucking chair while worry gnawed at my guts.
I fell asleep sometime after one am and when I opened my eyes again the soft morning light was filtering through the thin motel curtains. Across the room, Brecken stirred in his bed. The bed beside him remained empty.
“Dammit,” I muttered and shut my eyes for a second. When I opened them my brother had not magically appeared.
My joints creaked as I rose from the chair. A peek out the window told me nothing except that the world of the Empire Motel looked worse in the daylight than in the darkness. I replaced the window curtain, checked to see if Brecken was still asleep, and dug around in my duffel bag for the last set of clean clothes I had while making a mental note to visit the laundromat tonight.
The shower never really got hot enough to suit me but the water still felt good on my skin. When I shut off the water and pushed the flimsy shower curtain aside I heard voices from the next room and relief flooded through me as I recognized my wayward brother’s cranky tone.
“But where were you all night?” Brecken asked.
“None of your damn business,” Tristan growled. “Go brush your teeth or something.”
“Curtis is in the bathroom.”
“Now Curtis is out of the bathroom,” I said, emerging in a towel. I didn’t want to take the time to throw on clothes and risk Tristan running off before I had a chance to give him hell.
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“I’m first!” shouted Brecken, leaping off the bed and darting into the tiny bathroom that was still choked with steam.
I waited until he had closed the door before I confronted Tristan. “So I guess you think it’s not any of my damn business either where you were all night?”
Tristan pulled his shoes off and yawned. “It’s nothing to get excited about. I lost track of the time.”
“Bullshit.”
“Nope, no bullshit.”
“What the hell were you doing, Tristan?”
A smug smile crawled across his face. “Fucking.”
I took a deep breath, struggling to control my temper. I didn’t want to yell. “I’m not kidding around.”
“Neither am I, big brother. But I am pretty beat so if you don’t mind I’ll be taking a nap now.” He rolled over on his side and closed his eyes as if that was the end of the conversation.
I stalked right over there and yanked the pillow from under his head.
“Fucking hell!” he howled, bolting upright.
I tossed the pillow to the floor and sat down on Brecken’s bed, facing my brother. “I’ll ask you one more time where you were.”
Tristan looked bored. He hadn’t shaved in a few days. He reeked of cheap perfume and beer. “You’re getting bent out of shape over nothing. I hooked up with this blonde chick who was all over my ass. Her apartment’s only about a mile away from here. No big deal.”
“You couldn’t have found a way to call me?”
He waved me off. “Curt, you need to cut the apron strings a little and do something about your new vagina. You used to be cool.”
“And you used to be not such a self centered asshole so I guess some things change.”
His expression was stony. “Quit pretending like you’re the dad here.”
“No, I’m not the dad. He’s dead. And I’m not the mom either because she skipped out on bail, fled the country and left you and Breck with nothing. But she did do one thing worth a shred of parental responsibility. She made me your legal guardian.”
Tristan snorted with laughter. “Guardian. Yeah, you’re a real fucking role model. I’ll bet you deserve a prison cell a whole lot more than anyone else in the family.”
The words stung. They stung because they were probably true.
Tristan eyed me, waiting to see what I would do. And really what could I do? I couldn’t smack common sense into his head. I couldn’t turn back the clock and undo my history. And I couldn’t fix the fact that Tristan was nearly eighteen and very soon would be legally able to do as he pleased.
“As long as you’re living with us,” I told him quietly, “you’ll do as I say, Tristan.”
He looked around the sloppy room with obvious disgust. “Yeah, you’re doing a great job with this guardian thing.”
I stood up, if for no other reason than I wanted to get my point across by towering over him. “Well, little brother, I’m all you’ve got right now.”
His eyes narrowed as he peered up at me. He slowly stood up as well so that we were now only inches apart. He was an inch taller, but nowhere near as strong. I hoped he knew better than to take a swing.
“I know who you are, Curt,” he said ominously. “You’re not one to be handing out fucking lectures.”
The bathroom door opened and Brecken walked into the room. He stopped and stared at us with confusion, his eyes widening as he sensed the tension.
“What’s going on?” he asked in a nervous voice.
Tristan was still glaring at me. I didn’t miss the way his right hand had clenched into a fist. I understood. He was angry. Angry at our mother. Angry at me. Angry about the fact that he was living in a dump sixty miles away from his life back home. If he needed to take it out on me with his fists then I’d let him. But not with Brecken standing eight feet away. Hell no. Brecken wasn’t going to see that.
“Nothing’s going on,” I told my youngest brother. “Tristan’s just going to hang out here and get some sleep. You go get changed.”
“I’m out of clean clothes,” Brecken said.
“Then change into whatever looks the least dirty. I’ll do the wash tonight.”
Brecken shrugged and started digging through the plastic bag where he kept his dirty laundry.
Tristan stretched out on the bed and rolled over, facing away. I didn’t say anything else to him before returning to the bathroom because I couldn’t show up for work wearing a white towel. When I got out of the bathroom Tristan was sound asleep.
“What’s for breakfast?” Brecken asked, stretching. His red t-shirt was wrinkled and there was a spot of what looked like dried hot sauce on his shorts but that was the best we could do today.
“Come on,” I told him. “I’ll buy you a couple of donuts.”
We ate our donuts in the car and then I dropped Brecken off at summer school. He didn’t hop out of the car immediately. Instead he frowned at the dashboard.
“What’s up?” I said.
He heaved an enormous sigh and looked at me. “Is Tristan going to leave?”
I swallowed. “I don’t know, buddy. I hope not. All we’ve got, the three of us, is each other now.” I tousled his hair even if he was too old for that and made sure he had some lunch money before he stepped out of the car.
As I pulled away from the middle school curb the engine belched and faltered. I thought the thing was about to stall but it groaned back to life. I hoped it stayed alive. I sure as shit didn’t have the resources to deal with car trouble right now. The hunk of junk was hanging in there so far though. I’d had a much nicer mode of transportation in Nedry but I sold it when I got to Emblem and my family’s situation careened downhill even faster. The house served as bail collateral but more money was needed for the lawyers. When my mother skipped out on bail that meant an automatic forfeit on the collateral so there went the house. And the lawyers had sucked up everything else with nothing to show for it. In the end I was lucky to get a deal on this clanking piece of shit. Bert Quacken from Quacken’s Used Car Lot had been a friend of my dad’s and handed over the title for next to nothing.
For some reason my stomach performed a tiny somersault when I saw Cassie Gentry’s compact Toyota was already in the parking lot. I didn’t even know Cassie and she had already managed stir a strange mix of things inside me.
I didn’t want to see her.
But I liked looking at her.
I’d fuck her in a heartbeat if I got the chance.
But under no circumstances did I want to actually get that chance.
When I walked through the doors she was sitting at the reception desk and staring at a computer screen. She didn’t look directly at me.
“Good morning, sunshine,” she said with obvious sarcasm.
“Hey, Cassie,” I answered in a voice that I hoped sounded polite.
“No burrito today?”
“No burrito.”
“I noticed you forgot to eat your hot dog.”
“I’ll get to it at some point.”
She looked at me then. A scowl twisted her pretty mouth.
I told myself to walk right on by but I stopped anyway. “What?” I demanded.
She shrugged. Her shoulders were delicate beneath a thin light blue v-neck shirt that complemented her eyes. The shirt wasn’t remotely revealing and yet it drove me a little crazy.
“You look a bit disheveled,” she said. “Wild night or something?”
I leaned against the reception counter, placing my palms on either side. I saw Cassie’s gaze move from my face over my arms, taking in the sight of all the ink and all the muscle up close. She sucked in her lower lip briefly and shifted in her chair. I felt a twinge of triumph.
“Or something,” I said in a low, deep voice.
She shifted in her chair again, tossing her golden hair over one shoulder like she was trying to flick away the sexual energy. It wasn’t so easy.
Oh, man. What I could do to this girl if the situation was different…
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br /> But it wasn’t different. Cassie was my boss’s prissy, uptight daughter and I was not tapping that no matter how much my dick demanded to be unleashed.
There was no time to contemplate my fantasies anyway because the doors opened behind me and Cord Gentry walked in.
Cassie smiled with a glint in her eye. “Oh hi, Dad. Curtis was just telling me he wouldn’t mind cleaning the bathrooms a few times a week.”
Cord stopped. He stared at me, then at Cassie, maybe trying to decide if his leg was being pulled.
“That’s right,” I said, choosing to play along. If this girl thought she could fluster me with junior high level games then she had another thing coming. “I was just telling Cassie all about how I’m always happy to pitch in where I’m needed around here. I know what it means not to have everything handed to me and I’m just grateful for the job.”
“I appreciate that, Curtis,” Cord said. He seemed content to take my statement at face value. “And I like your attitude.”
Cord asked me to follow him back to his office. I wondered if I might be in trouble for some reason but no, he just wanted to lend me some books he had on the art of piercing. We talked about Emblem for a little while and I noticed he’d grown much more at ease than he was the first time we met for my interview. Maybe he’d finally come to the conclusion that I was as sincere as I said I was.
Of course he might have changed his mind about me if he knew I’d popped a serious boner during a short conversation with his daughter.
After I left Cord’s office I went to go track down Zach because Cord said even if I wasn’t going to do ink myself he still wanted me to be familiar with the process. I had held up my heavily tattooed arms and said I was actually pretty familiar with it but I was glad to watch the experts.
Cassie was right where I’d left her. She didn’t acknowledge me when I walked by. I could admit she had a little bit of spice to her but she was still mostly vanilla, packaged in a brand that was completely off limits. And I only felt a little bit guilty that yesterday evening I took a shower just so I could beat off while thinking about her hot little body.