by B. B. Hamel
“This is Hartley.”
“Nice to meet you, little lady.”
Hartley smiled at him. “Same to you.”
“Listen, Toad, we came to talk to you.”
“All right, Travis, all right. Come on. Come in here.”
We followed him back into the garage. Inside it was a mess of tools and old car parts, and it looked like Toad was working on an ancient Mustang. Half the car was taken apart, but the other half looked like it was lovingly restored.
“This is my baby,” he said. “Been working on her for years. I’ll have her finished one day.”
“She’s real nice,” Hartley said.
I grinned at her and she smiled back, playing the role of the polite southern girl perfectly. It almost made me fucking hard knowing that there was a spitfire lurking underneath that pretty blond exterior.
“What’d you need, Travis?” Toad asked me.
“Well, I came hoping for some information.”
“Not sure I got much of that,” he said, smiling. “I can try, though.”
“Toad, what do you know about the Caldwells?”
His face fell instantly. It was like the mention of that name was an immediate trigger. He went from happy to see me to suspicious without a second thought.
“Why you askin’ me that question?”
I held my hands up. “Come on, Toad, you know me. I don’t mean anything bad by this.”
“I can’t talk about them. It’s real dumb to talk about the Caldwells.”
“I’m new back in town, Toad. Me and this girl, we’re looking to get involved with that family, maybe do a few jobs for them. But I need to know about them before I go ahead and take the plunge, if you understand.”
“I hear you, Travis, but you know I like to keep out of it.”
Toad was a small-time criminal, into petty shit. He sold a little weed on the side and stole cars from time to time, if I remembered right, but he was never the type to get involved with the big outfits. It seemed like that hadn’t changed since I last saw him.
“Just information, Toad. Whatever you can tell us.”
“Please, Toad,” Hartley asked sweetly. “It’d mean a lot to me.”
He sighed and leaned up against the car, eyeing Hartley. “Caldwells are bad news,” he said finally. “I always thought the Dixie was bad, but the Caldwells are worse. They’re smaller than the Dixie, got less men and such, but they’re nasty. Just last month they cut a man’s eyes out for betraying them. Can you believe that? Cut a man’s eyes out!”
I shook my head. “Nasty.”
“Real nasty, Travis. I got lots of stories like that about them, but I won’t tell them. Truth is, the Caldwells are not people to mess with.”
Well that was pretty bad news. I didn’t know what I had expected, but stories about plucking eyeballs out wasn’t exactly it.
“Who’s running them right now?” I asked.
“You wouldn’t believe me if I said it,” he answered, shaking his head.
“Try me.”
“Really, you won’t.”
“Toad.”
“Janey. Little Janey Caldwell is running the whole show.”
I blinked at him, surprised. “Ray’s old girl?”
“Yeah. That’s her, except she changed a lot after that accident.”
“I left pretty soon after that,” I said.
“You missed it then. Janey went from a sweet girl to cold as ice. Her family started getting into some intense shit, apparently because she was pushing her brothers into it. Well, years later, Janey is the one running it all.”
“What about her parents?”
“Her mom is too drunk to care, and her pop don’t care who makes the calls so long as he gets paid.”
I shook my head in disbelief. “That’s hard to swallow, Toad.”
“Would I lie to you, Travis? Would I?”
“No. I know you wouldn’t.”
Jane Caldwell, leader of the Caldwell family gang. Sweet Jane the prom queen, my brother’s old girl, now a violent gangster.
Time really fucking changed things. Though I shouldn’t be too surprised. I went from a petty criminal to a highly trained and lethal Navy SEAL. Was it so hard to imagine that Jane could go through a transformation like that?
“Okay, Toad. You’ve been helpful,” I said.
“Don’t do it. Don’t get involved, whatever you do.”
“We won’t,” Hartley said. “I’m already scared off.”
I glanced at her and then back to Toad. “You heard the girl.” I shook his hand. “Thanks again.”
We turned and quickly left before Toad could launch into more stories, which he no doubt wanted to.
As we put some distance between us and Toad, Hartley looked at me. “You know this girl?” she asked.
I nodded slowly. “Yeah. I guess I do.”
She chewed her lip as we stopped next to the car. “Seems like you know everyone.”
“Knoxville isn’t so big,” I said, “and my brother was pretty popular.”
“Sounds like it. What were you like back then?”
I laughed, shaking my head. “I was like everyone else here: stupid as fuck and trying desperately to get out.”
“And you did.”
“Guess so.”
“What’s this girl like?”
“I really don’t know, not anymore at least. After the accident, after Ray died, I enlisted almost right away. I never saw what she was like after.”
“Still, you knew her before.”
“She was a nice girl,” I said, trying to remember. “She was always nice to me. Not all of Ray’s friends were, back then. I didn’t play football, and so a lot of the guys didn’t think I was worth talking to. Not Janey. Everyone liked her.”
“Cheerleader?”
I laughed again. “How’d you know?”
“They always are.”
“It’s such a cliché, I know.”
“Can’t be helped. Some clichés happen to be true.”
“I don’t know how she went from pretty, popular cheerleader to leader of a drug gang in only a few years. I really don’t.”
Hartley nodded slowly. “I guess we’ll find out.” She opened the door to the passenger side and climbed in.
I smiled to myself. Hartley was perceptive, surprisingly perceptive. I hadn’t much thought about how she was going to work into this thing we had going, but maybe she could hold her own. I basically was figuring that she’d be a liability for most of it and I’d be spending half my time keeping her alive.
But maybe I was wrong. So far she’d known when it was time to turn on the charm and when it was time to hang back. She knew when to step up and drink the damn drink and when to smile.
And so far, she’d set my damn veins on fire every time she so much as spoke. The girl was more and more attractive to me with every second we spent together. I was practically rock hard every second of the day, waiting for the moment I could get her alone.
That was dangerous though, really dangerous. We were playing a high-stakes game here. The Dixie Mafia was no fucking joke, and one wrong step could bring them down on both our heads. Maybe I could survive that, but not Hartley. If we got involved with each other, who knew what would happen. I was sure I couldn’t afford the distraction, though, as much as I wanted it.
Regardless, we still had to figure out how we were going to get this shipment back for the Mafia. I knew Janey, but I didn’t know her well enough just to walk up and ask her. Maybe her connection with my brother was going to be enough to get us in the door, but we needed a plan from there.
Not much we could do today about it, though. I started the engine and pulled back out, away from Toad’s place. I got one last look at the junk-strewn lawn and couldn’t help but feel something, deep down.
I’d never really left Knoxville. No matter what I did as a SEAL, some part of me would always be that poor kid from the wrong side of town. I’d always be that idiot teenag
er who wanted to steal cars and only dreamed about joining up with the mafia. I’d worked my whole life to get away from Knoxville, but now that I was back, I could feel it all coming back to me.
Toad’s place, Markus’s place, they were just like the house I grew up in. I had never pictured myself staying in town for more than a day or two, but it was starting to look like I was back for a lot longer than that. I was going to need to embrace my roots again if we were ever going to get out of this alive.
That was the last thing I wanted to do. Hartley was a good southern girl, but she had no clue what it meant to live around Knoxville. She was a farm girl, probably knew what hard work meant, but she didn’t know serious poverty like I did. She didn’t know these people, the way they thought, the way they fought and loved and fucked. I knew it all, even if I didn’t want to.
I was going to have to teach her if we were going to get through this. I was going to have to show Hartley what it meant to live this way, whether I wanted to or not.
9
Hartley
We headed back toward my apartment. Travis was quiet during the car ride, but that was fine. I didn’t need to push him for more information.
Besides, I had my own worries. Travis was much more connected than I could have realized, and who knew what he was thinking about this Janey girl. He clearly had some unresolved issues with his brother and this town, and I was worried about how he’d react when he saw his brother’s old girlfriend.
Not to mention she was the girl who survived the accident. It must have been pretty hard for him to hear about this girl who walked away from the accident that took his brother’s life. From what I could tell, that accident really changed things for Travis. He went from just another criminal getting by in Knoxville’s underworld to the man I knew today, the intense and handsome SEAL.
I couldn’t begin to guess what that transformation meant. I couldn’t imagine how you went from just another poor boy living in the hills of Georgia to a Navy SEAL, respected and well trained.
I was having a hard time picturing Travis as anyone other than the ripped and cocky asshole sitting next to me. But he clearly had a past, and a deep one at that. He may have been a cocky jerk, but he’d earned his way through the world. He clearly came from nothing, but now he was definitely something.
At first, it was just his body that attracted me to him. I only saw a muscular and dangerous man all covered in tattoos. But now I was beginning to see much more of Travis, past the cocky attitude and into his past, into the man he once was. To really understand a person, you needed to understand where they came from.
The car ride felt short, and soon enough we were pulling up outside my apartment. Travis parked and we got out, heading inside. The dry cleaner downstairs was in full swing, which meant the building smelled like chemicals. Travis made a face as we walked up the steps.
“It’s always like this?” he asked.
I shrugged. “It’s not so bad. I got used to it.”
“Not sure I will.”
I paused outside my door. “What’s that now?”
“I thought we talked about this.”
“You’re really going to sleep on my couch?”
He laughed, shaking his head. “I wasn’t kidding. When I say I’m going to do something, I do it.”
I sighed and unlocked the door. “Okay then. Welcome home.”
He laughed as he followed me inside. “Aside from the smell, it’s pretty cozy.” He sat down at the kitchen table. “Though not exactly personalized.”
I shrugged and poured myself a glass of water. “I didn’t think I’d be staying here long.”
“Still. There’s nothing on the walls, no pictures or anything. It’s like a serial killer lives here.”
“It’s functional.”
“It’s creepy.”
I couldn’t help but crack a smile. “Not all of us carry around our high school yearbook.”
“You don’t need that, but maybe hang a picture or something, make this feel like less of a prison.”
I sighed and drank down my water. “Done criticizing the place where you’re living rent-free?”
“For now.”
I shook my head and headed toward the bedroom. I went inside and shut the door behind me, leaning up against it as it closed.
I’d been trying not to think about Travis staying over. I didn’t know what I was going to do with him sleeping on my couch all night long, but there wasn’t much I could do about it. I wished he wouldn’t stay with me, but I also knew that I had no other choice. If he thought this was the best thing for us, then I couldn’t exactly disagree. He was doing so much for me already. I wasn’t going to risk looking like a total jerk by kicking him out now.
Still, he was such a distraction. I couldn’t stop looking at him every time we were around each other. I hated it, but I kept wondering what he’d feel like, his hard body pressed against mine, my legs wrapped around his hips.
As I took some deep breaths to steady myself, I felt my phone starting to ring in my pocket. I fumbled with it and pulled it out.
“Hello?”
“Hi, honey.” My mom’s voice, singsong as always.
“Hi, Mom,” I said, still flustered. “How are you?”
“I’m fine. Just checking in with my favorite child.”
I smiled to myself. She said that to me and to every one of my three older brothers.
“You don’t need to check in,” I said. “I’m doing fine.”
“I know I don’t need to. I just like to hear your voice.”
“Dad driving you crazy?”
She sighed. “You know how that man can be, dear. It’s rougher when he’s your husband.”
I smiled to myself. I loved my parents dearly and thought they were perfect people, but ever since the farm went into bankruptcy and we took that loan, dad was more and more ornery. He didn’t lose his temper or anything like that, but he was always sullen and sulking around the farm, trying to keep himself busy so he didn’t have to think about our problems.
Meanwhile, my mom just kept moving forward. That was the kind of person she was. She couldn’t stop moving for anything, or else risk drowning where she stood. I understood that about my parents and could see some of it in me. I liked to always be on the move, always trying to keep myself busy to combat anything unpleasant.
That was how my father was, and the whole money situation only made him worse. He felt like he was a failure somehow, because he couldn’t keep his farm going in horrible economic conditions. That just brought strain onto the whole family.
And that was why I left. I thought I could solve things, like if I worked hard enough everything would just magically right itself. Instead, the mafia wanted to sell me into sex slavery and I had been almost raped.
“I understand. But you’re doing good?”
“I’m great, honey. How are things over there? Good?”
“Things are great. I love my job, I love my friends. I’m out practically every day. I can barely keep it all straight.”
“That’s so good to hear.”
I hated lying to my mom, but what was my alternative? If I told her now, she’d just come out here and try to drag me home, probably making everything worse. She was just as stubborn as I was, and that wouldn’t help this situation at all.
“What about the gang of three?”
“The boys are good. Reggie just got a little promotion at work, but he’s still coming around on weekends. And the other two are helping your dad out for a while, ever since he hurt his back.”
“Great. Really great.”
I hated feeling this way. I hated lying to my mom, making stupid small talk when I knew that everything around me was falling apart. I knew that I couldn’t fix or help it, and I just felt so incredibly powerless to do anything about it.
The gang of three, my brothers, they were invincible. It seemed like no matter what happened, they always had a smile on their faces. Reggie was quick with a j
oke, and serious Jonny was always giving brotherly advice. The oldest, Reese, was always the first to stick up for me back in the day. It wasn’t easy having three older brothers, but they were amazing guys, and they were turning into even better men.
But it never seemed to touch them like it touched me. The pain of everything, the way Daddy struggled and Mom constantly picked up after him, the difficulty of it all never seemed to get to them. They were content living their lives, seeing how things turned out, but not me. I had to step up and do something, even if that meant putting myself in danger.
It was all so hopeless, and hearing my mom talk about home only made me feel that much worse. I didn’t want to lie to her anymore, and so I’d been trying to avoid her. I needed a familiar voice in that moment, but I also couldn’t stand to hear it.
In the end, maybe I was just a coward. Maybe I couldn’t step up when I needed to. I didn’t know what I was, but I quickly ended the conversation.
“Sorry, Mom,” I said. “I have to get going. A friend is calling on the other line.”
“Oh, okay. Well, call me back soon.”
“I will. Love you.”
“Love you too.”
I hung the phone up and tossed it over onto my bed. I stared at it for a second, wondering.
I believed that in Travis’s case, where he came from was so important, but I hadn’t really looked closely at myself, at where I came from. Maybe I needed to do a little more of that before I started judging him.
Maybe I was being a little harsh on myself and a little unfair to Travis. Feeling guilty, I pulled open my bedroom door and went back out into the living room.
Travis was sitting on the couch and glanced up as I walked in.
“There she is,” he said. “Who were you talking to in there?”
“You spying on me now?” I sat down at the other end of the couch. Travis was watching a baseball game, though he looked more like he was drinking some of my wine than watching anything.
“Couldn’t help it,” he said. “This place is fucking tiny.”
“I’m sure you tried real hard not to listen.”