by JA Huss
She’s facing me. I’m shirtless. Pants unbuttoned. Stone faced. Stoic. Unblinking. With tears rolling down my cheeks and getting lost in my beard.
“...And so, y’know... He did. He stopped. His lungs collapsed right at almost that very moment, and he flat-lined, and I stood in the corner while they rushed in and tried to revive him, and failed, and called the time of death, and that was it.”
She pulls the back of her hair from inside the collar of her jacket and flops it out so that it spills over her shoulders, and drops her hands to her sides.
“That’s how Scotty died.”
She says it with a shrug in her voice, its casual nonchalance a punch to my chest. And the look on my face must say everything because she follows up with…
“You asked.”
MADDIE
I now know what it looks like to rip Tyler Morgan’s world out from under him.
A couple weeks ago I was planning this moment—I mean, if he was gonna stick around making my life hell, make me think about those last few days I spent in the hospital with my brother every time I looked at his handsome, bearded face, then I was gonna make him re-live it with me.
But now, after getting it all out, and not in any of the overly dramatic ways I’d planned—like punching him in the teeth when I had to say the part where they dragged Scotty out of that forest alive, or kicking him in the stomach when I had to say the part about Scotty being in the hospital—and I even left out the fact that he looked… well, there’s no word to describe what Scotty looked like in the end. Not a word that’s supposed to describe a human, anyway. So now, after getting it all out in the most calm, unaffected, unemotional way possible, it occurs to me that this might’ve been worse.
I think I just kicked Tyler in the balls and stomped on his face as I walked away.
No, my angel says. Stomped on his heart.
“I’m sorry,” I say.
Tyler shakes his head, his face wet with tears, then swallows hard and says, “Why?”
“I’m… I should’ve been more careful in my delivery. I know you didn’t know. And it’s not something that should be said so casually, but—”
“No, why didn’t you tell me this in the letters?” His eyes are searching mine. Like there’s some elusive answer inside me that will explain everything.
Would it have made a difference? I almost say. But I don’t.
I shrug.
He’s still searching for that answer in my eyes.
It’s not there.
So I sigh and consider his question. Because he probably deserves an answer. And maybe I should stop trying to punish him. I mean, I’m not over the fact that he just bailed out when I needed him. But is staying angry about it helping?
It’s not helping me, that’s for damn sure.
“Well,” I say, stalling for time so I can pull my thoughts together. “I didn’t want you to come home…” Shit.
Tyler raises an eyebrow.
“I mean, I did want you to come home. But I didn’t want to you to come home for…”
The other eyebrow goes up. “Maddie, just say it already.”
I let out a long breath and the truth comes with it. “I didn’t want you to come home just for Scotty. OK?” I stare at him. Hard. Then soften. Swallow. “I wanted you to come home for me.”
“Oh,” he says.
“And maybe I felt a little selfish for that?” I shrug. “For wanting you, when Scotty was the one who was dying. And… well—”
Tyler has me wrapped up in his arms before I can even finish that sentence. He hugs me tight, his chest warm and hard. His embrace is everything I wanted seven years ago when I was standing in the corner of Scotty’s hospital room watching him die.
And then I’m there. In that spot. Stuck in the corner. Just watching the whole thing play out. The beeping of the machines, and the shouting, and my parents…
Stuck.
Then it’s gone. As fast as it came, it fades. The beeping stops. The chaotic voices wither away with the passing seconds and I’m right where I am. Wrapped up in Tyler’s arms, just the way I wished I was on that day.
Does it matter that it’s seven years late?
Does it really matter?
I decide no. It doesn’t. Because he’s here now. And late is always better than never.
“I’m sorry,” he says.
I wipe the tears off my face. Look up, then wipe his tears away too. Our eyes lock and this time I think he finds the answers he was looking for. I know I do.
“You know, sometimes things just happen.” I shrug. “You stayed away because you needed to at the time—”
“It was a mistake,” he says.
But I put up a hand. “No. No. Maybe it wasn’t. Maybe this turned out exactly the way it was supposed to.”
“You stripping and me crazy?” He laughs that off because… yeah. Truth.
I huff out a breath of air, kinda loving this—hating the topic, but loving this all the same. Because at least it’s real. At least we’re being honest. At least I’m not angry anymore.
I don’t know why I suddenly seem so Zen about things, but there it is.
Relief.
“I’m not angry at you,” I say. Because I feel the need to say this out loud. “I’m not angry at anyone. Anymore,” I clarify. Because clearly anger was my problem. Even Other Guy Ricky called that one. “I guess… I guess it’s just over now.”
“I get it.” He sighs. There’s a lot of hidden meaning in those three words. Things he’s done, regretted, gotten past somehow. And now it’s my turn.
I lean up on my tiptoes to kiss him. Enjoy the way he slips his tongue into my mouth. The little twisting motion he makes. The way our lips fit together.
It’s a soft kiss.
A touching kiss.
A forgiving kiss.
And when we break apart, we are more together than ever.
Outside the night air is cool. And there’s a little bit of wind, which makes the drone weave and dip.
I’m watching Tyler control it. My head tilts left with the drone when he barely misses the dirt hill surrounding the parking lot, then bobs right as he skims past a light pole.
“Tyler!” I say.
“I got it,” he says, thumbs busy pressing on the touchscreen. But then the drone does some move out of a World War II dogfight where they aim straight for the ground. Maybe I made that up. That cannot be a real move because—
“Jesus!” I say, grabbing my hair. My twelve-thousand-dollar drone is gonna—
“It’s cool,” Tyler says. The drone pulls out of the nosedive and resumes flying, very low to the ground. But now it’s all wobbly and shit. Off balance or—
He pulls it up just before it smashes into the concrete barrier in the empty parking lot.
“I thought you said you know how to fly this thing!”
He says nothing. Like he’s concentrating really hard on flying. It goes high—very high. “There we go,” he says. “Let’s start the cameras—”
But then Tyler’s whole body weaves right, like he’s the drone, which also dipped right, because it barely missed one of those huge towers electrical plants tend to have scattered all over the place.
“OK, I think we have enough,” I say, biting my nails. “Let’s bring it home.”
He sucks at drone flying. Which kinda makes me feel, you know. Proud.
Tyler’s chewing on his lip. Which is goddamned adorable. Most of the time. Just not now, because it means he’s trying really hard not to crash.
I ease my hands over his, my thumbs finding the controls on the touchscreen. “Here,” I say. “I got this.”
I expect a fight, but he just lets me have it.
“You’re really good at drone flying,” I say.
“Fuck you.” He laughs.
“Seriously. That dogfight you were having out there with the wind was impressive.” I wink at him as I steady the drone and bring it in for a landing in the middle of the parking lot
then drive it over to us and make it stop a few feet away.
“Showoff,” he says. “But it’s sexy as fuck, Mads. Makes me hard when you do cool, kick-ass shit.”
I swell a little with that compliment. “It’s nice to know that I can do something better than you.”
“Hell,” he says, pulling me in to his chest. He’s been like that ever since we came up from the tunnels. All touchy-feely. I love it. Makes me think we’re like… a couple. “I’d put my money on you versus me every day of the fuckin’ year.”
He kisses me on the head, then breaks away to walk over to the drone.
Yeah, I think I love him.
Wait. Did I just—
Yup. Fuck it. “Tyler Hudson Morgan…” I say. “I think you might be that one special guy a girl meets and wants to keep forever.”
He’s bending down to pick up the drone when that comes out. He stands up, his back to me. Pauses. Takes a deep breath.
For a second I feel like that person who wrecks a new relationship by saying the L-word too soon.
He lets that breath out and turns to face me, looks at his feet and shakes his head.
My heart beats fast. Like it knows I really just fucked this all up.
“Madison Clayton… I… it… we…” He walks over to me, puts each of his hands on my cheeks, holds my gaze for what seems like forever, and says, “There’s no one else it could’ve been.”
Chapter Nineteen - Tyler
“Shit,” says Maddie, looking through her purse.
“What’s up?”
“Can’t find my house keys. Diane and Caroline are gonna be about done with me, I think. We already had to change the locks once after all my shit got taken with my car.” She looks at me pointedly.
“I—What? It’s not my fault!”
“You picked me up and left my car there.”
“I did. Got it. OK. Sorry that your free will was malfunctioning that night.”
She smirks and says, “Suck a dick.”
“Is that what you’re into?” I smile at her and bounce my eyebrows.
“Dork,” she says.
Holy shit, this is great! I feel so… Normal. I can’t believe it. I mean, if I step back and try to look at everything, I can’t believe all that’s happening.
Mostly because it feels…good. I’ve been pretty much on the run for the last dozen years, trying to find I dunno what. This. This feeling. And then, suddenly, here it is. I found it back where I started.
Shit. That’s so hilariously cliché that it’s cliché to even point out that it’s so cliché. But fuck it. It is what’s happening. And I don’t feel like running now. So I’m just gonna sit back, enjoy it, and not examine it too closely. In my hard-learned experience, when things aren’t all FUBAR, it’s best not to think about them too much and just let ’em be.
I’m shit at doing that, of course. Letting things be. But I’m going to try. Because right now everything is… nice. Which is a word I’ve never used to describe anything ever before.
Which is also nice.
Fingers snap in my face.
“Where’d you go there, buddy?” Maddie asks. I must’ve been rambling. But I can tell I’m smiling, so I don’t care.
“Nowhere. Sorry. What’s up?”
“The club. We have to swing by Pete’s. I need to see if I left them there.”
“You wanna just come stay at my place and we’ll find ’em later?”
“You mean stay at Evan and Robert’s place?”
“You say tomato, I say my place.”
She smiles. “Nah, I should go home. But you go out and get your own place and I will be there every night. I’m sure it’ll be nicer than where I live.”
“Well, that is very much incentivizing me to buy sooner than later. Damn, girl. You ARE really good at real estate shit!”
She shakes her head and rolls her eyes.
I’m an absolute scamp.
Everybody says so.
At this hour of the morning and at the speed I’m driving, it only takes about twenty-five minutes to get back to Vegas, but Maddie’s already dozing off next to me. Of course she’s exhausted.
It’s been a long life for her so far.
I so much love looking at her sweet face with her eyes closed like that that I have to be careful not to drive us off the damn road.
“Mads.” I reach over and nudge her. She stirs and opens her eyes.
“Shit, I fell asleep,” she says.
“Wakey, wakey, eggs and bakey,” I chime. Which makes me realize I’m hungry. I’m gonna get some eggs, I think. Possibly also bakey. We’ll see.
“Wow.” She yawns, looking at the sky through the windshield. “The sunrise is amazing.”
“Yeah?” I ask. I hadn’t noticed. I glance ahead to see what she’s seeing.
Except I don’t.
I don’t see the sunrise.
What I see is early morning sky beginning to lighten from darkness, rousing itself from sleep, but the orange hue being cast onto the canvas of dawn isn’t coming from an emerging sun. It’s coming from something else. Something familiar.
“We’re headed west,” I mumble to myself.
“What?”
“We’re headed west,” I say louder. “That’s not the sunrise.”
“Whatayou—?” She doesn’t get out the word ‘mean’ because she can now see clearly what I’m talking about.
It’s Pete’s. Pete’s Strip Club. Pete’s Strip Club in Las Vegas, Nevada. The place that brought me and Maddie together and back into each other’s lives. Pete’s Strip Club, owned and operated by one Pete Flanagan.
Pete’s Strip Club that is, at present, being swallowed whole by what looks like a raging tornado of flame.
Oh, my God.
The inferno ahead that’s gobbling up the building belches fire and smoke into the air. It is not the dawn, but the way the fire colors the dissipating blackness of the night in a surreal red haze offers a beautiful, ghastly imitation of it.
“What the fuck?” she whispers.
I don’t say anything, just press down on the accelerator and propel us faster in the direction of the roaring conflagration.
As we approach, the swirling lights of fire engines come into view. There are four of them. All have their hoses out and aimed at the searing structure that just a few hours ago was a place called Pete’s. But not anymore.
We pull up as close as we can get before the cops also in attendance stop us. Maddie throws open the passenger door, jumps out while the car is still rolling to a stop, and is past the police and skittering by the camera crews from the local news stations before anyone can even attempt to stop her.
I throw the Defender in park, jump out, and have to push my way past a policeman who tries to hold me back. I hope he doesn’t think he’s gonna shoot me or arrest me or anything. That would totally suck. The night’s been going so well. Well, until now.
I don’t recognize the firemen I see. Looks like they’re from a different engine company than Evan’s. But then, from behind, I spy a guy in full turnout gear who apart from wearing fifty pounds of shit and walking towards death itself otherwise looks like he’s out for a stroll in the park. Not like he doesn’t care—everything he’s doing has an urgency and efficiency to it—but there’s no panic or anxiety coming off him at all. His composed stillness in the midst of the roiling mayhem all around makes him stand out like a blue marble in red sand.
“Dean!” I yell in his direction. He turns in time to see Maddie streaking toward the blaze. (What she thinks she’s going to do when she gets there, I have no idea.)
Dean steps to intercept her and stops her before she can melt her face off.
She’s shouting almost incomprehensibly.
I can’t hear what he’s saying to her from where I am, but in my mind it’s something like, “Hey, now. Relax, baby. Dean’s got it. Everything’s gonna be allllll right.” (Apparently, in my mind, Dean has become Barry White.)
As I lan
d where they’re standing, I see that New-Guy Brandon and Baby-Face Jeff are also here. The guys at their station rotate shifts, so the fellas with them are unfamiliar to me. Faces I’ve maybe seen, but names I don’t know.
“What the fuck, man?” I ask of Dean over the cacophony going on around us all.
Maddie’s incomprehensible shouting continues.
“Dunno,” he says. “Call came in. The cleaning crew showed up to do their thing and I guess shit was already burning when they got here.”
“Thank God,” I say. “At least nobody’s inside.”
And that’s when it finally becomes clear what Maddie’s been trying to sound out. “Pete!” she screams.
Her shout draws the attention of Jeff, who trots over to hear what’s up.
“What?” asks Dean.
“Pete,” I say. “He’s the owner.” I turn back to Maddie. “What about him?” I ask her.
“He basically lives here! I know he supervises what the cleaning crew does! Where is he?”
Oh, shit.
“Fuck,” I mutter. “Did you clear it?” I ask Dean.
He shakes his head. “Nah, man. When we got here there was another crew on the scene. They said the cleaners told ’em the place was closed and that they didn’t know if anyone was in there but they didn’t think so.”
“And they didn’t fucking check?” I ask in astonishment.
“Shit was already lit up when they got here, man. They just got right to trying to contain it.”
Maddie’s still yelling and waving her arms. It’s hard to make out the words, but not at all hard to understand what she’s saying.
And then…
All of the sudden—and fuck, you can goddamn see it fucking coming…
“I got it!” shouts Jeff.
He slaps his visor down and goes tearing inside, through the wall of fire.
Doesn’t put on his tank, doesn’t even consider the best way to breach, just goes racing inside. I guess because, in his mind, he has to.
“Yo!” Dean calls after him.
And then…