Chasing McCree

by J. C. Isabella

  “Yeah,” I pointed behind us. “Past the playground behind the t-shirt shop.”

  “They deal?”

  At first I was thinking cards, but then I realized he was still talking about drugs. “I have no idea.”

  Chase smiled. “Maybe you should ask them like you asked us.”

  The mans face brightened and he headed in the direction I pointed. “Hey, I will, thanks.”

  Chase’s hand pressed firmer on my back and we darted for the crosswalk. The traffic stopped and we entered the parking garage.

  I let out a breath. “Is it just me, or was he crazy?”

  Chase shook his head. “It wasn’t just you, trust me.”

  There were two elevators packed with people, so we took the stairs, not wanting to wait around for more potential druggies.

  “What are you doing?” I asked after we’d made it up one flight.

  Chase stayed a couple steps ahead of me, close to the wall. He’d make it to a landing, swing wide, and peer up the next flight before motioning me to follow. “I’m making sure it’s safe.”

  I shook my head, fighting a smile. “This place isn’t exactly a hotbed of criminal activity.”

  “Yeah, but things change when you’ve got a pretty girl with you.” He stopped on the landing near the entrance to the fourth level and opened the door.

  I faltered, looking out his outstretched hand, then back up at his dark eyes and reassuring smile. He was just so genuine and honest. “Thanks.”

  “You’re welcome.”

  I took the last three stairs, my heart slamming with excitement, and reached out to slip my hand into his. I wanted to sigh with relief. His fingers were rough and his palm swallowed mine, but our hands fit perfectly together.

  We walked hand in hand to his truck, and drove hand in hand the whole way to my house. He walked me to my door, still not letting go.

  “I had a great time,” I said, opening the door and catching the fancy smell of my mom’s candles. They were from France and handmade by nuns or something. “See you at school Monday?”

  He nodded, giving my hand a gentle squeeze. “I’m looking forward to it.”

  I backed into the doorway, reluctantly letting go. “Well, good night.”

  “Night, princess.”

  “Briar!” my mother’s voice bounced off the marble floors, her anger reverberated in my ears. “What the hell did you do to Alex?”

  I glanced over my shoulder and saw her storming down the staircase with her cell phone pressed against her ear. If she hadn’t seen me, I would have run back to the truck and asked Chase to take me to Grandmas house.

  “Alex is a jerk.” I said, turning to face her.

  “You are going to march your little…” she stopped, teetering in her red heels. Her eyes went round as she took in my dress. “What in the world are you wearing?”

  I swished the skirt. “Do you like it?”

  “It’s hideous.” She snapped. “What happened to the one I bought you?”

  “I didn’t like it…”

  “Come again?” she closed her phone. “You didn’t like it? Well, I’m sorry I can’t cater to your needs better. Dress aside, I told you to fix this. And you screw it up even more!”

  I backed up a step, my fingers seeking Chase’s. When I felt his warm grip, I inwardly sighed and felt a renewed courage shoot through me. “Alex and I are history. I’m not apologizing. In fact, I’m leaving.”

  “Briar Elizabeth Thompson,” I ignored my mother’s shouting and tugged Chase’s arm, pulling him with me down the sidewalk to his truck.

  “Where to?” he asked once we were inside.

  “Some place safe.” I held tight to his hand and didn’t look back as we drove away from my house.

  He chuckled. “Grandmas it is.”

  Chapter 7

  Chase

  Monday morning came. I went to school like every day before, trying not to step on anybody’s toes and staying out of the way. I wasn’t one of those social butterflies, but it’d be nice to have a friend or two. I hoped when Briar saw me at school she didn’t high tail it in the other direction. Would she ignore me so as not to endure any glares or snide remarks from her friends? Or would she ignore me because I witnessed what happened between her and her crazy mother? I didn’t think so.

  Peer pressure was a bitch. This was my first time in a real school setting. The only thing I’d known about city high schools was what I’d seen in the movies, and that didn’t seem all that accurate. Over the past few weeks I’d learned it wasn’t an over exaggeration.

  But I was a cowboy. I herded and took the lead. Every one of them halfwits could follow each other right into the slaughterhouse.

  After the first half of my day passed without incident, I went to my usual spot by the band room and sat under a tree in the grass. The air was warm, but it smelled kind of sour and musty like the classrooms. I was opening the lunch I’d packed, when a pair of black shoes stopped in front of me. They had lacy pink bows on the toes.

  Shading my eyes, I looked up, and was slightly shocked to find Briar smiling down at me. “Hi,”

  I nodded, “Hey.”

  She shifted her books, glancing around. “Uh, mind if I join you?”

  Seriously? I nodded and she sat on her knees next to me. “How’s your day so far?”

  She shrugged and took a sip of the diet drink she pulled out of her purse. “Well, no one is giving me a hard time.”

  “What about your parents?”

  “We’re not speaking to each other…”

  “Really?” I thought they’d be all over her.

  “Because they are pretending like I don’t exist, just like everyone in school.” She laughed, shaking her head. “The people I used to hang out with won’t even look at me.”

  “Assholes,” I said. It was probably best no one could really see us here. We were blocked by a low wall and walkway. Last thing either of us needed was to be hassled. “Only two hours left.”

  “Thank god,” she sighed. “So what was your high school like back home?”

  “I was home schooled.” I opened the paper bag and pulled out a sandwich and a bag of trail mix.

  “Sounds nice.” She smiled.

  It was. I missed it. “Did you bring a lunch?”

  “No, I don’t normally eat.”

  I raised my eyebrows, thinking that I’d heard everything now. “You had a burger and fries the other night…”

  “No, I mean. I don’t eat in front of people at school.” She looked a little embarrassed and nervously sipped her drink.

  “Why?”

  “Well, since I joined the cheer squad, Rachel decided we should diet.”

  “You’re kidding.” I didn’t mean to stare, but Briar looked good to me, maybe even a little thin. So what was the point of being on a diet when she clearly could use a sundae and a slice of pizza?

  “We need to fit in our uniforms.” She set her drink down, crossed her arms and glared at nothing particular. “And then a few weeks ago Alex said my butt looked big in my jeans.”

  I wasn’t going to even touch that.

  “What do you think?”

  Oh, hell. “It looks normal to me.”

  “That’s what I said!”

  I held out half of my sandwich, “Hungry?”

  She wrinkled her nose. “I’m good.”

  “Okay, more for me.” I watched her mouth twist into a shy smile and she scooted closer. I temped her a little. “It’s got all the bad stuff on it.”

  “How bad?”

  “Cheese, mayonnaise, sweet pickles, bologna…”

  She held out her hand, “I hate pickles, but I can’t pass up anything that bad.”

  The rest of the week Briar and I had lunch together. She’d pack something, I’d pack something, and we’d have a picnic of sorts by the band room. We started to see each other after school too.

  I began to think it was fate I found her in the park. She was unlike anyone I’d eve
r met. She was sweet, but she had sass too. She’d make a bold statement, then reel herself back in, a little embarrassed.

  Briar Elizabeth Thompson was a firecracker waiting to go off.

  I could see it in her bright green eyes. She’d be a hell of a handful once she let go, but it was better than her acting like she was reserved and timid. She always tried to say the right thing and be the good girl her mother expected.

  I knew the second Briar’s fuse was lit there’d be no stopping her. She’d take the world by storm and have a hell of a lot of fun doing it.

  She was still naive, and way too sheltered. The night we went to the beach, she never realized the man asking for drugs had had a gun on him. The small automatic had been shoved in the waistband of his pants and covered by his shirt.

  Where I came from, everyone had a gun. If you didn’t, then people thought something was wrong with you. Here it was different. Something was wrong if you had a gun hidden in your pants on a beach at night. Way wrong.

  Second I saw that gun, I couldn’t get us out of there fast enough.

  And the stairwell…shit. I felt as if five years had been shaved off my life by the time we got to the truck.

  No way I’d get used to city living. They were all bat shit crazy.

  But Briar wasn’t like the rest of them. I saw something different in her. She and I would make a good team. We got each other. Sometimes I didn’t have to say anything and she’d smile at me, as if she knew exactly what I was thinking

  We spent the weekend stuck inside because of rain, but at her Grandma’s house there was plenty of fun to be had making waffles, virgin daiquiris, and watching old movies. It was also funny to watch Grandma get sloshed and fall asleep to the sounds of Grandpa’s TV and war shows.

  When the week before summer break rolled around, I was up at five as usual. Throwing the pillow over my head didn’t do anything, sleeping in wasn’t something I was used to.

  I slipped out the backdoor and walked across the yard for the small paddock Ash kept to. He was up and ready to start the day. Had we been back home I’d have taken him out for a brisk run through the pastures to the lake. It was our morning ritual. Down here I could only take him for a trot around the backyard.

  My mom knew how attached to Ash I’d become over the years. He’d been my father’s horse. Had been born a few years after me. I couldn’t leave him behind. Luckily enough, my mom lived in the part of town where horses were allowed, and arranged an area for him in the backyard. I drove down from Montana with him hitched up in a trailer on my truck.

  I had to admit, keeping a horse in this area was strange, taking him out for a walk like he was a pet or something. There was nowhere for him to really run. I’d regretted bringing him with me the instant I saw where he’d be living.

  Not bothering with a saddle, I swung up onto him bare back and he galloped in a circle. Pounding his hooves harder than usual. He was frustrated. Going from miles of open land to a pen in a backyard wasn’t something either of us liked.

  When it was getting close to the time I would be late for school, I left Ash and went into the kitchen to grab something to eat. My mom was at the breakfast table alone. Todd and my sister had already left for preschool and work.

  “You’re up early.” She said, smiling.

  Since when had I ever slept late? “I get up at five every morning.”

  She laughed. “Still on ranch time after a month and a half.”

  I didn’t consider it ranch time. It was what I’d done my whole life. Everyone got up early to start the day. We’d feed all the animals, and Aunt Millie would call us in for breakfast.

  “Mom, I want to talk to you.” I said, not really hungry. I grabbed an apple and sat at the table across from her. “There’s something I want to tell you, but I don’t know how.”

  She took a sip of her coffee and eyed me over the rim of the mug. “You won’t hurt my feelings, Chase. I know what you’re going to say.”

  I sat back, “Really?

  “Really.”

  “It’s not that I don’t love you, or that I don’t like Todd. He’s awesome,” I rolled the apple between my hands on the table. “But I…I just don’t belong here. I miss my ranch.”

  “I can see you do.” She set the mug down and laid her hands over mine. “I never thought you would come to live with me and Todd. I feel like I forced you into it.”

  “I didn’t feel forced.” I felt like I at least needed to spend some time with her. I just wish it had been easier than picking up and moving across the country. I hadn’t picked the right time, coming in at the end of a school year. But it had been now or never, what with my future coming down the pike at an alarming, and an exciting rate.

  “Honey, I’ve felt guilty”. She shrugged. “I wanted us to be a family. You, Todd, Amy, and me. I thought you deserved to experience something other than ranch life. But if this is what you really want Chase, all that responsibility…go for it. I know you can run that place just as good, if not better than your father. You are so like him it’s scary sometimes,” she blinked back tears. “Then I see bits of me come out, you have my logical side that your father never had. He was an action man. But you’ve got the best of both worlds. I know you’ll do great.”

  I pushed out of my seat and hugged her. “I love you, Mom. Thank you.”

  She squeezed me tight. “Oh, I love you too. And I want you to know…I knew what I was doing when I left you. I knew you were going to grow up a carbon copy of your father. Deep down, I knew, but I never was able to admit I left you where you were supposed to be.”

  “Will you come visit? You, Todd and Amy?”

  “We’d love to.” She kissed my cheek and wiped her eyes. “Now get to school.”

  I grinned, grabbing my backpack off the couch by the door. “Yes, Ma’am.”

  Chapter 8

  I stuck out like a chicken hawk in a hen house. I pulled into the parking lot, everywhere I looked a Mercedes or BMW shimmered in the morning sun. My truck was dented, faded, and lacked power anything. But the engine was in pristine condition, which was why I kept it.

  Briar liked my truck. She’d propped her feet on the dash and lounged back in the seat, beaming. Her acceptance shouldn’t have meant as much as it did, but out of every person here, her opinion was the only one I cared about. And the fact that she didn’t give a damn if I drove a sports car or a tin can with wheels, well, that went without saying. My truck was a classic Ford. I was going to invest the money to have it brought back to its original glory once I got back home.

  I went into the school, past the fancy gates, security cameras, and guards knowing there was no way I’d miss this place. It was like an institution, a prison or something. No one made eye contact with me or smiled as I went to my locker. It was just a little ridiculous. I’d heard about being teased and becoming a school outcast, except I never thought it was real. Thought it was all in the movies.

  In class it was the same, not one person looked my way, at least to be friendly. A few stared. I was still a freakish spectacle. It was my clothes, mostly. Back home I looked normal in faded jeans, boots, and a plaid shirt left unbuttoned over a T-shirt. I’d learned after my first couple days that I should leave my Stetson at home. They really looked at me cross-eyed in a cowboy hat. Was I trying to make a statement? Support farmers? No.

  And it wasn’t that I was the only guy in plaid, there were others, but their clothes were different. Uniforms weren’t required. So every one was covered in expensive clothes, with logos and embellishments.

  I didn’t have a clue about what it all meant. One girl asked me where I bought my boots. I told her I didn’t buy them. My uncle had them made out of deerskin from a hunting trip for my last birthday. She’d laughed like I was joking. But when I didn’t laugh with her, she told me she was a vegan, and didn’t believe in eating animals. It was inhumane.

  I could only stare at her.

  I ran a cattle ranch for Gods sake.

  Qui
ckly I learned to keep my mouth shut and head down. I wasn’t a coward, but I was outnumbered. It made me feel better to think that if anyone of them showed up on my ranch, they’d be just as out of place. Only I wouldn’t have treated them like they were diseased.

  I had lunch to look forward to now. Briar was waiting for me when I reached the band room, and we’d just finished eating when I heard her swift intake of breath. She was looking behind me.

  “Beth, uh, hi.” Briar stood and dusted off her jeans.

  I glanced over my shoulder to see a cheerleader, covered in glitter and a fake smile. “I had to see for myself.”

  Briar’s face fell and she fisted her hands at her sides. “There’s nothing to see.”

  “Oh, I see plenty. Like your social life swirling the drain.” Beth laughed, crossing her arms. “I never thought you’d dump Alex. Hey, whatever. It’s not a big deal now that he’s mine. But this? Briar Thompson slumming with trailer trash.”

  I pushed to my feet and stood next to Briar. “You don’t have a clue about my life, so why not stop making assumptions. One day you’ll be putting your foot in your mouth.”

  “Such big words,” she tisked, smoothing her hands down her cheerleading outfit. “And Briar, where is your uniform? We’re having a school spirit rally for the seniors. Don’t tell me you forgot?”

  Briar glanced down at her clothes and winced. “Well, it’s at the dry cleaners. The skirt is torn…”

  Beth opened her mouth, like she was going to say something nasty.

  The look on Briar’s face stopped her dead.

  “Wait…I don’t have to explain myself to you. In fact, I quit!”

  Beth’s eyes narrowed. “I’m sorry?”

  “You heard me. I quit being your friend. I quit the cheer squad. I am done with all of you shallow, mean, selfish people.” Briar shouted, making the cheerleader back up a few feet. “So you can get your scrawny ass out of my face and go find someone else to torment. I’m done.”

  I slung my arm around Briar and gave her a hug. We watched Beth run for the hallway. “You scared the shit out of her.”