Give It All

by Cara McKenna

  But why?

  Did he really miss it all that much? All that grasping at perfection, clutching at a sense of control but never feeling truly possessed of it for more than the odd moment. All that artifice and isolation. He’d shed those things this past week, given up so much control, and to what end? He’d caught only whispers from his compulsions, and not a Klonopin had been swallowed in days. He was drinking less. He was sleeping far better, and having the best sex of his life. Sex like a sizzling, oversize slab of prime rib after years of rice cakes. And he doubted Raina would have taken his perfect self to bed. It had taken his dismantling to earn that invitation.

  But it was hard to simply turn his back on twenty years’ effort. As ambivalent as he might feel about returning to Sunnyside, neither did he much relish waking up next year with a license to practice bottom-feeder law in Nevada, his face plastered on billboards up and down I-80, bleaching in the sun. WORKPLACE INJURY? GAMBLING DEBTS? MEDICAL MALPRACTICE? CALL WELCH AND ASSOCIATES—THEY DUN-CAN GET YOU THE SETTLEMENT YOU DESERVE!

  Shudder. He’d sooner go all in on his urges to fund the bar’s improvements, and offer to buy the place outright. Fix it up and run it to Raina’s and her father’s specifications, free her up to pursue the work that matched her talents, fed her passion. Sure, Duncan had no business running a bar. But he also had no business on this bike, and his adolescent self had had no business thinking he was bound for university . . .

  No. Silly, idle thoughts.

  And the future could wait. Bones aside, all he’d truly cared about of late was getting invited into Raina’s bed, and waking up there come dawn. Sitting across the bar from her. Cooking her dinner in the evening and drinking the tea she made him each morning. Watching her pet his cat. Watching his hands moving over her naked body.

  Goddamn treacherous infatuation. But it was more than that, wasn’t it? He’d never been in love before, but he’d imagined if he ever found himself capable of it, it would’ve looked far more dignified than all this. More civilized, and elegant.

  Not so much. Elegant, no. Fraught and a touch frenzied? Absolutely.

  And was that really so surprising? This clinging, addictive persuasion of lust-love had waited thirty-eight years to manifest, after all. Figured the strain that finally laid him low would prove both rare and incurable.

  Before long, they turned off the sleepy paved route and onto a dirt road, heading north. The sun warmed Duncan’s back through the leather, and Casey sped up to ride alongside him—the only way, given how much dust the bikes kicked up.

  Like Raina, the landscape had been growing on Duncan, sneakily, steadily. He couldn’t say precisely when it had gone from depressing and stark to raw and wild . . . Since he’d begun getting taken to bed by a raw and wild woman? Or since he’d quit caring what that dust might do to his car and shoes? All those changes, converging as one.

  Perhaps it’s none of those external things, Duncan realized. Perhaps it’s me.

  They rode for two hours or more, picking their own slow paths through the brush and boulders. Duncan was scanning, always scanning, but Casey rode more like a kid on a dirt bike, flirting with spills simply for the fun of it. Duncan tipped over on a sharp turn himself once, but so did Casey, so he didn’t feel too badly about his overall performance. With the sun still high and punishing, Casey slowed to a stop and signaled for Duncan to do the same.

  “I need gas,” he said, and a glance at his own gauge told Duncan he did as well. They made their way to the Sinclair station on Railroad Ave, parking at adjacent pumps. Casey went inside to pay cash while Duncan swiped his card.

  “Couldn’t help but notice,” Casey said a minute later, eyes on his pump’s meter, “you haven’t asked me about what happened. When I fell.”

  Duncan shrugged. “Your brother gave me the distinct impression it was none of my business. Though if you’ve got a medical condition I ought to know about, I’m all ears, Mr. Grossier.”

  “Call me Casey, asshat.”

  “Casey, then. So, do you know what made you fall? Did you get an MRI?”

  “No, I was fine. Just the heat, probably, on top of a hangover.”

  “You were shaking, and talking complete bollocks—”

  “I’m not crazy, man. Lay off.”

  Duncan blinked, taken aback. “I didn’t say you were.”

  “You’re the one out here looking for those fucking bones. If anybody’s crazy, it’s you.”

  “Apologies.”

  Casey’s chest rose and fell with a deep sigh—perhaps annoyance, perhaps uncertainty. Duncan didn’t relish further offending his only platonic human friend, so he offered, “I’m half-crazy, you know. So I don’t take it too personally.”

  Those red eyebrows rose. “Oh yeah? How so? Whatever you take those meds for?”

  “I’ve struggled with compulsions and control issues for twenty years or more.” Ever since he’d papered over his old identity with his new one, and had grown so obsessively attached to the precarious perfection of the latter. So much of that grasping desperation had left him of late, though. His mental breakdown had offered a peace of mind he’d never gotten from a prescription.

  “Compulsions and shit,” Casey said. “Like what?”

  “I become rather obsessive when I don’t have enough work to keep me occupied,” Duncan said. “I can clean my bathroom for three hours at a time. Daily. And I need my possessions arranged in a certain way, or else I find it nearly impossible to leave the house. Or I did until a few days ago. Until I swapped all that for a new preoccupation.” He nodded demonstrably down at his bike.

  “Huh. That stuff doesn’t sound too bad, though. At least there’s meds for it. You met my mom yet?”

  Duncan shook his head.

  “She’s off her rocker—so far off she landed in the next county. She . . . she talks some real spooky bullshit, when she’s lucid.”

  Duncan’s body cooled. “Oh? Did Miah tell you what you said, after you fell?”

  Casey nodded. “And I remembered some of it, eventually.”

  “Have you done that before? Had that sort of . . . episode?”

  The reply was barely more than a mumble. “Couple times, yeah.”

  “Oh dear.”

  Casey snorted. “Yeah. Oh fucking dear. My mom went crazy in her forties, so if it’s genetic, I got maybe ten years before I’m wandering around in my bathrobe full-time, muttering like a nutcase.”

  “Has she been screened for anything? Dementia?”

  “I think so, but Vince hates talking about that shit. I never asked what her official diagnosis is, if she’s got one.”

  “If it’s hereditary, the two of you could have your DNA mapped. Find out if you share the same indicators.”

  “Maybe . . .” Casey trailed off, looking thoughtful.

  “What?”

  “Nothing. I better call it a day out here—I’m opening the bar so Raina can get her shit together for tonight’s photo shoot thing.”

  Duncan nodded, disappointed. He’d rather enjoyed having such a personal conversation. As actual friends might do. “You aren’t taking part, are you?” Casey had at least one tattoo—he’d noticed the edges of it on his upper arm, when he wore short sleeves.

  “Raina didn’t do any of my work, but I’m gonna tell her to get some shots of the bar, too. Benji’s’ll need a Web page for when the tourists descend.”

  If there is a Benji’s still, Duncan thought grimly, resolving to have a little talk with Raina, regarding his wish to help on that front.

  “Nobody just wanders into places anymore,” Casey went on. “Not without photos and reviews and crap. And I’d totally pose for that shit. I qualify as a hot bartender, right?”

  “I can’t say you’re my type, personally.”

  He frowned. “Yeah, maybe Raina’d look better. But I could be a patron. �
�Still Life with Beard and Bourbon,’”Casey said, framing the imaginary portrait with his hands.

  “Arguably more inviting than having your brother play the part.” Though Vince would surely be there—the crow’s wing on his neck was Raina’s work. Duncan wondered which she thought back on more fondly—ex-lovers or former clients. Then he wondered if she’d ever slept with Vince, and his guts flipped inside out. He told his brain to shut the fuck up. He might not be sure of where he and Raina stood, but Vince and Kim had a palpable current strung between their bodies, a confident, mutual magnetism that was at once easy and electric. If there’d ever been anything between Vince and Raina, it was well and truly over.

  “You gonna be there?” Casey asked.

  “I said I’d stop by.”

  “I’m sure you’d rather be amputated than tattooed, but it’ll be fun to watch. Anyhow, see you later. And don’t tell anybody what I said about my going crazy, you got it?”

  “Crystal clear.”

  “Later, Welch.”

  Duncan nodded. “Grossier.” He watched until Casey disappeared around the corner onto Station Street, then looked to the foothills to the west, to the brush and the dry red earth, the mountains beyond.

  Follow your hunger. Easier said than done, with the urgency of that first ride bled away, all those eerie words reduced to empty echoes. Starless night. Hunger. Coyote. John Dancer fit the bill for the latter, but to what end? To this advice he was finding it harder and harder to follow. His so-called hunger was running dry. Perhaps he needed a rifle leveled at his chest again—that might jump-start his stalled instincts.

  “To the coyote himself,” Duncan muttered, and aimed himself south.

  Chapter 22

  AWAY ON BUSINESS, read the poster board nailed to a twisted tree beside the river, yards from where John Dancer’s van had been parked on Monday. Duncan slumped. “Shit.”

  There went his coyote—the last little scrap of his shapeless excuse for a plan. He gave the town one final, long lap, all the way east and along one of Three C’s private access roads. All that awaited him there on the open range were scattered cattle, the odd antelope, and a thick assembly of crows gathered on the headstones of an old family cemetery, looking like a bad cliché. Some poor animal must have died amid the stones, to have garnered such an audience, its remains an oasis of blood and flesh. Stark and strange, the way death and life seemed to feed each other out here.

  He studied the weathered iron fence that framed the little graveyard. The fence was barely two feet high, with CHURCH worked into its lattice design on one side. Plenty of bones here, he thought. Just not the ones he was looking for. He slumped, officially defeated.

  Perhaps this was for the best. He had to make good on his promise and show his face at Raina’s gathering, after all, much as he’d prefer not to. Feeling tired, and sunburned, and grumpy, and not at all in the mood for mingling with tattoo enthusiasts, Duncan headed downtown.

  Though the sun was only just beginning to flirt with the point of Lights Out, the bar’s lot was nearly maxed. There were normally half a dozen motorcycles lined up out front, but tonight he counted twenty or more. Duncan added his to the line and took off his helmet, making a half-assed attempt to smooth his hair as he walked to the entrance.

  The front room was as noisy as he’d ever known it, music and chatter elbowing each other for dominance. Everywhere Duncan glanced—tattoos. It was like a mini convention, with everyone dressed to show off their trophies, men and woman alike. He couldn’t even take in the designs, too overwhelmed by the . . . realness of it. Of her clients. They were all ages and sizes, all ranges of attractiveness. It took him a long moment to even spot Raina in the crush.

  She was way across the room, talking intently with Kim and a ropy woman with a rainbow’s worth of color splashed from her wrists to her jaw. Duncan didn’t relish intruding. Or if he was being honest with himself, he didn’t relish walking over and discovering precisely how Raina might greet him. Would she be pleased to see him? Would she kiss him, in front of these witnesses, introduce him to people with whom she shared personal histories? Or would she toss him a passing glance of acknowledgment and then turn back to more pressing matters? Would he discover she was proud to be linked with him in front of this crowd, or not? After such a long, fruitless, discouraging day, he wasn’t sure he had it in him to find out. He eyed the bar, thinking he’d nurse a drink and let her discover him there herself. Coward.

  Could he really not bear to walk up to his lover, of all people? He wasn’t a child, and these weren’t the popular kids, poised to mock him. He summoned his nerve and crossed the room.

  Kim spotted him first. Her hands were busy with her camera and a shade, so she smiled her greeting while Raina talked with the colorful woman and a couple of other such specimens. Duncan did his best imitation of blasé patience, but as the moments wore on, he felt his anxiety rising.

  Kim moved to stand next to him. “Do you feel like as big of a square as I do?”

  “Never more so in my entire life. How’s it going?”

  “It’s awesome, actually. The most fun I’ve ever had on a paid shoot. Beats the pants off engagement photos—that’s for sure.”

  Duncan replied without even taking in what he said—Raina’s eyes had met his. Only for a beat, and then she was back to chatting with her friends.

  He wished he had a drink, something to occupy his hands. Kim excused herself to get the next shot set up, leaving him to hover awkwardly at the edge of the crowd. Raina was too absorbed to take the slightest notice of him, and he couldn’t suffer this invisibility another moment. He headed for the bar, unable to recall the last time he’d felt so alienated.

  She had to know how he felt about her. Had to see it on his face when their bodies came together, feel it when they held each other. They weren’t a couple, weren’t anything official or explicit, but surely she felt this.

  To judge by that reception? He rubbed at his heart and throat, anxiety rising.

  But Raina wasn’t the kind to tolerate bullshit, nor to define the bounds of a relationship with unspoken words, vague signals. She was the least coy woman Duncan had ever met, so maybe he needed to spell it out. Not I love you, not just yet. Too soon. But a gift. A gift lavish enough to tell her, unmistakably, This means something to me. You and I mean something. And thankfully gifts were an arena Duncan excelled in.

  It was seven, and Duncan’s favorite jeweler back in San Diego would be closed. No matter, though—for the amount of money he intended to spend, he felt no qualms slipping outside and making use of the owner’s private number. He explained what he wanted, and she said she had just the thing.

  He felt a touch calmer as he went back inside, if not completely. He was out of place in Fortuity at the best of times, but tonight he’d felt downright discarded. It was the amorphousness of everything, just now. His professional issues were beyond his control, but at least he could put to rest any ambiguity regarding where he stood with Raina. Her gift would arrive by Friday morning, and he’d tell her how he felt. If not “I love you,” at least “This is real to me.” And he’d have her answer, whether it made his heart soar or sent it crashing to the ground in flames.

  He realized now why he’d never dated anyone he stood a chance at feeling deeply for—caring this much felt like a crushing amount of power to surrender to another person.

  He looked down to find his hands shaking, and felt the beginnings of an attack brewing. Could feel himself catching on invisible brambles, the edges of him fraying. His pills were upstairs, but he didn’t fancy having to pass right by Raina to go and get them. A drink would have to suffice.

  On his way to the bar, amid the sea of hard-bitten strangers, he spotted a familiar face—Vince. The man was sitting at the counter with a beer before him, chatting with Casey, who was pouring drinks. Casey skirted the bar with a pitcher in each fist, leaving Abilene
manning the register.

  Duncan neared, staring at Vince long and hard, all at once overcome. He saved her, was all he could think. He’d not laid eyes on the man since Raina told him what had nearly happened to her.

  Vince noticed Duncan and raised a wary eyebrow, seeming to misinterpret the scrutiny. “Welch.”

  Duncan stood by the empty stool at Vince’s side. “Evening.”

  “We got a problem I don’t know about?”

  “Not at all. I want to buy you a drink.”

  Now his entire brow furrowed. “Do you, then? How come?”

  “I had rather a long talk with Raina,” he said, taking out his wallet. “About certain events.”

  Vince looked puzzled for a breath, and then his expression went pitch-black with recognition.

  “What spirits do you drink? Bourbon?”

  Vince shook his head. “I’m not drinking to that night. Not ever.”

  “I’m not asking you to. It’s just a token—” He was cut off by Vince’s broad palm rising between their faces.

  “Don’t want it. Just treat her good and don’t ever fucking bring it up with me again.”

  Duncan sat, feeling more foolish than ever. Fuming. He might as well have been slapped by that hand for the way his face was blazing. “Fine.”

  What did it fucking take, to find oneself on par with these people?