I laid a hand on his shoulder. “He’ll pay for what he did to Mason.”
“Not enough,” Dare seethed.
“Why don’t we cut the rest of school?” I suggested. “My mom’s going to be at the station for the rest of the day. We could go to my house and chill.”
“I’d like to see Boots,” Dare said, and I wasn’t even that surprised. Boots was good company. I glanced out the glass door to see Hartsfield loading Coach Gundry in the back of a police cruiser, guiding his head with his hand in an almost holy gesture.
I was glad GPD caught their man, and if the evidence supported it, then this investigation was officially over.
“They’ll find out if he did it,” I assured Dare, but Dare didn’t seem worried about it in the least.
“Of course he did it.”
Dare already considered Coach Gundry to be guilty.
I wasn’t so sure.
Chapter 14
WITH COACH Gundry in custody, Dare’s parents had taken off for the night to a nearby spa and golf resort so they could de-stress. I thought it pretty selfish of them to leave Dare all alone in that big, empty house with all those memories of Mason, but Dare made it seem like that type of behavior was the norm. I took Dare back to my house, where Boots promptly set to worshipping him. Then the two of them lounged together on the couch in their now regular positions—Dare stretched out with his long legs up, and Boots sidled up next to him with his head on his chest. If it weren’t so weird, I’d take a picture of their easy bliss. I liked seeing Dare draped over my furniture.
“I like your house, Charlie. It’s so cozy.” Boots snuffled and licked his chin. “I like you too, buddy. Obviously.”
“Thanks, Dare.”
A lot of kids our age wanted material things—fancy cars, trendy clothes, beach homes… but I liked what we had. My mom was good to me, and we had stimulating conversations. My dog was awesome, and even though our house was small, it felt like home. My life was pretty simple, but I had a place to belong. I wanted that for Dare too.
We watched another episode of the Vietnam War documentary—I’d kind of gotten into it since the first one—and then we took Boots for a walk in the woods behind my house. I’d always known Dare to be exciting in a crowd, but as it turned out, I also liked him in our quiet moments. He asked me where I wanted to go to college and I told him.
“Are you applying anywhere else?” he asked.
“Nope.”
“Wow. You sound so certain. What a relief that must be.”
I thought about his observation. “I don’t know if it’s certainty or fear of taking a risk.”
“You think things through, don’t you?” he asked and I nodded.
“I don’t just think things through. I go over every possible outcome. I treat life like a logic puzzle.”
“I’ve never been very good at that,” Dare admitted.
“That’s not necessarily a bad thing. I can get obsessive about it, which isn’t good. I probably need to work on letting things go. Do you have plans for after graduation?”
He shook his head. “Mason and I were going to take a year off. Bum around Europe and spend down our trust funds. Live it up like rock stars….” Dare gazed off into the trees as if remembering. “But now… I have no idea. My grades are decent, but nothing special. I don’t know if I’m good enough to get into a theater program.”
“You are,” I assured him.
“Seems like acting is something you learn by doing, you know? I don’t know if college is for me, especially now that I’m alone.”
I squeezed his hand. “You’re not alone.”
He nodded and dragged his arm across his eyes. We fell into a comfortable silence, just listening to the sounds of our footfalls on the forest floor. When we got back to my house, I suggested we go downtown and get something to eat.
“Let’s go clubbing tonight,” Dare said.
“Like, dancing in bars with all the sweaty college kids?”
“Yeah, I need to blow off some steam, and dancing is my release.”
Dancing was not my anything. Other than being forced to dance at weddings and bar and bat mitzvahs, I didn’t do much of it at all. “Maybe you should go out with some of your drama friends.”
“No, Charlie, I want to go with you.” He gave me the pouty lips and sad, crinkled eyes. His hound-dog face was better than Boots’s.
“Okay. Sure.” I’d never denied Dare before. Why start now?
“Awesome. Let me message the squad. They’re the best dancers, and the bouncers always let them in.”
I made us both sandwiches, and Dare helped himself to my closet, sifting through racks of clothing. I didn’t throw much away, so I’d built up quite a collection over the years. For me he pulled out a fitted blue short-sleeved shirt. “I want to see you in this,” Dare said and pushed it at me.
I smiled at his insistence. “And for you?”
“You pick.”
I surveyed my clothing as I hadn’t in a while. Everything seemed so utterly tame compared to Dare’s style and personality, but there was one article of clothing I’d saved of my dad’s that I was never brave enough to wear. An authentic muscle shirt from the eighties with a black mesh that was silky and formfitting. I’d never seen my dad wear it, but I thought it was cool, so I’d saved it. Perhaps I’d been saving it for Dare.
“What do you think?” I presented it to him.
“I love it.” Dare shed his shirt easily, and I couldn’t help but admire his lean, athletic build. Even though he didn’t play sports, he had the grace of an athlete, with surprisingly toned muscle definition.
“You work out?” I asked as he slipped the shirt over his head.
Dare chuckled. “It’s a ‘Move Your Body’ web workout with the choreographers for Beyoncé’s videos.”
“It’s working for you,” I told him with admiration.
His eyes centered on me with intent, and a sudden heat flamed my cheeks. Warm lust pooled in my stomach and channeled its way south. I felt that familiar tug at my crotch that I’d savored during many nights alone in my bed, thinking about Dare and what it might be like to touch him. It was just the two of us in my bedroom in an empty house. My mom wouldn’t be back for hours. Of course I wanted to make out with him, but it seemed wrong on multiple levels.
“I’d better get changed,” I stuttered, backing slowly out of the room.
Once dressed, Dare went through my mom’s collection of hair products and found something to slick back his hair. Instead of taming my curls, he teased them up a bit so they were even wilder. Dare rimmed his eyes with liner and offered to do mine. I declined. “I’m not a good enough dancer to own that just yet.”
Dare shook his head. “You’re too modest, Charlie.” With his eyeliner, muscle shirt, and androgynous starlet appeal, he looked like every gay man’s erotic fantasy, and I suddenly felt unworthy. Dare could have anyone he wanted. There was no way he’d ever settle for me.
“What is it?” he asked, concern threaded through his voice.
“Nothing,” I said, making my face blank. “I’m more of a backstage person, you know?”
“Well, tonight you’re with me. Center stage, baby.” He made jazz hands. I laughed.
Dare drove us downtown where we met Daniela, Tameka, and three other girls from the squad. With all the hair product and polyester, we were a flammable group indeed. Dare knew a place where we could all get in, even though technically we were supposed to be eighteen. The name of the place was Hickey’s, this campy nightclub that was something out of a Grease musical number where the male bartenders wore tight jeans, white shirts, and slicked-back hair, and the female staff had tattoos and pink T-shirts that said Pink Ladies. Other than the costumes, the décor was pretty standard for a nightclub—two rows of long bars, a tiered balcony surrounding the dance floor, a slightly elevated stage where the DJ was mixing, and a patio outside where smokers went to get their fix. The night was cool, but the crowd provided enou
gh body heat to keep it from being too chilly.
We hung out at a high top for a little while, just checking out the scenery. It was hard for me to keep my eyes off Dare. I wasn’t alone in that regard. Several of the club’s patrons threw a sly eye in his direction. I tried to shrug it off. Dare didn’t belong to me, and I wasn’t there as his boyfriend. At one point he caught me looking, gave a small smile, and bit down on his lower lip as if to tempt me. Tempt me it did.
A Beyoncé remix came on, and Dare’s eyes lit up. “I think they’re playing our song,” he crowed, and the girls all flocked around him like backup dancers onto the floor.
“Charlie, you coming?” he asked when he saw me hesitating.
“I’m still getting my bearings. I’ll be out there in a minute.”
It didn’t take long for the rhythm to move them. Dare and Daniela formed the nucleus, their lithe bodies writhing in time to the beat. The squad fanned out around them and attracted more dancers to their huddle. Dare and Daniela brought the party, and I was content to simply watch him move in the flickering lights of the strobe. Now you see him, now you don’t. An ill feeling overcame me, and I had to look away. It must be all the blinking lights.
A new song by Taylor Swift came on the speakers, and Tameka exited the floor.
“Me and Taylor don’t get down,” she said by way of explanation. “What’s up with you, Dick? You look like you’re chewing on some gristle over here.”
I shook my head, trying to rid myself of the eerie feeling creeping up my spine along with my own thoughts of inadequacy. “I’m still thinking about the case,” I admitted to her. “Whoever killed Mason must have had a lot of pent-up rage inside them. Mason’s murder was brutal and physical. Coach is a hardass, but he never seemed dangerous or mean-spirited to me. Seems like a big leap for him with no escalation.”
“Maybe because he didn’t do it,” she said.
“They found Mason’s phone in his classroom.”
“Have you ever taken Coach Gundry’s class?”
“Yeah, I had him sophomore year.”
“Then you know he takes your cell phone if he hears it ringing. Someone probably just dropped it into that drawer where he keeps all the phones.”
Cell phone cemetery, where devices go to die. I’d completely forgotten about that. And it would be so easy to accomplish, because Coach was always going back and forth between his classroom and the wrestling room to get props and equipment for his class. Tameka was absolutely right. I told her so.
“Mason had keys to the classroom too,” Tameka said. “Sometimes he was the first one to practice, and he’d unlock the door before Coach was back from break.”
“Anyone could have taken that key off his ring if they knew which one it was.”
Tameka nodded. “So, I wouldn’t get too cozy with your man piece just yet.” She eyed Dare with purpose.
“Dare didn’t do it,” I reminded her.
She only gave me her classic mmm-hmmm response. I was about to argue further when a Cardi B song came on and Tameka pointed to the air. “Now that’s my jam.”
Out on the floor, Dare and Daniela had by now attracted quite a crowd. The air in the club had grown hotter and moister, the collective breath of more than a hundred revelers. A thin sheen of sweat covered Dare’s arms and face, giving him a glossy glow. Club angel. Or demon. I supposed it was a matter of lighting and perspective.
“Hey there, what’s your name?”
I glanced up to find a college-aged guy had joined me at my high-top island. He was blond and tanned, with a few streaks of color in his hair in a rainbow pattern.
“Charlie Schiffer,” I said, offering my hand to shake.
“I’m Nathan,” he said with smile. “You must not come downtown very often. I’ve never seen you here before.”
“No, actually, I’m not much of a dancer.” I pointed to his hair. “How’d you do that?”
He smiled and combed one hand through it as if to adjust it. “My mom owns a beauty parlor in Gretna. I’ve been doing color since I was in middle school.”
“I like it. Very colorful.”
“I could do yours sometime. You have great hair.” He reached over and tugged at one of my curls.
“It’s probably a little too wild for me as it is.” I reached up to tame it down a bit.
“No, that style looks great on you.” He smiled again, this time with dimples. He was actually pretty cute, and not too much older than me.
“Hi, Charlie.” Dare was beside me with his hand on my shoulder. “Who’s your friend?” Dare gave Nathan a tight smile that seemed a bit competitive. The Phantom wasn’t used to having to share the spotlight.
“I’m Nathan,” he said, as pleasant as could be, but I sensed there was tension between them. “Are you two together?”
I glanced over at Dare with a questioning look and was relieved when he answered, “We’re together for the night. Come on, Charlie, let’s get you out on the dance floor.”
Dare threaded his arm around mine and led me gently to the dance floor. I waved a weak goodbye to Nathan, who watched us leaving with disappointment. Only when Dare and I were standing across from each other with his forearms slung over my shoulders possessively did I realize Nathan had been flirting with me, and Dare didn’t like it.
“What are you smiling about?” Dare asked with a teasing grin.
“Nothing.” I shook my head. “I don’t know where to put my hands.” I felt awkward and stiff. Thankfully the club was dark and loud enough that we were more an anonymous mass of bodies than anything else.
“Put them wherever you want,” Dare said in a sultry rumble.
Not needing to be told twice, I gripped his hips to get a feel for his rhythm. Dare stepped a bit closer, and my hands slid around to the base of his spine, where his tight shirt had ridden up and exposed his skin, now slick with sweat. He seemed to quiver in my hands.
“Just feel the beat,” he whispered into my ear. I didn’t know if I was feeling the beat, but I was definitely feeling the growing mass in my pants, which made it difficult to focus on anything but the insatiable desire to be naked and alone with him. Dare noticed when he brushed up against me. He smiled seductively.
“Can I kiss you again, Charlie?”
“Here?” I asked incredulously. He nodded.
I licked my lips as he reached for the back of my neck to draw me in closer. I probably stopped moving altogether when Dare’s mouth met mine. All around us the cheerleaders whoop-whooped at our kissing, but their presence faded away completely and all I could feel were Dare’s warm lips, his tongue sliding deliciously against my own, and the sound of my heartbeat drumming in my throat. For the moment I didn’t feel plain or forgettable. When Dare kissed me, I felt extraordinary.
“That was nice,” I told him when we broke apart at last. “I like that a lot.”
He smiled. “Me too.”
We danced a while longer, stopping to hydrate when the songs weren’t any good. I couldn’t tell the difference, but I gathered the good songs were fast and grinding and the bad songs were more poppy and sentimental. Dare excused himself to go to the bathroom, and I must have had a completely dazed expression on my face. Daniela was drinking a coke with about a dozen cherries in it—Dare’s specialty—and she offered a cherry to me. The sickly sweetness of the fruit tasted good on my sandpapery tongue.
“You like Dare?” she asked me.
Even though Daniela was a prime suspect just yesterday, I’d made my feelings for Dare pretty obvious on the dance floor, and confirming it to her shouldn’t jeopardize the investigation too much.
“Yeah, I do. I have for a while, actually.”
She nodded. “I could tell, even before that very hot kiss.”
Who did I think I was fooling? When Dare was around, my eyes gravitated toward him like metal shavings to a magnet. He made my crusty exterior fade away completely so that I was positively squishy.
“I don’t know what this is,”
I told her. “For him, I mean. He’s going through something, and I’m letting him take the lead. I hope you don’t think I’m taking advantage of the situation.”
She patted my shoulder reassuringly. “I don’t think that at all. You’re the only thing keeping him afloat right now. Even before Mason….” She drifted off and took a moment to collect herself before continuing. “Dare is flighty and easily discouraged. He doesn’t have the best self-esteem, thanks to their shitty-ass parents. He needs someone to anchor him.”
I knew she meant well, but I didn’t like thinking of myself as an anchor, and I wasn’t sure that was even what Dare needed. His enthusiasm and vivacity were what made him so special. To think I might dampen his spirit made me question what I was bringing to the table.
“Another go-round?” Dare asked, suddenly at my side again. He pulled a cherry out of Daniela’s glass and popped it into his mouth. His bright white teeth tore the fruit from its stem. I found myself staring at his lips and flushed face. Dare bumped me with his hip.
“Come on, Charlie,” he said. “I want to make you sweat.”
HOURS LATER, after we’d walked Daniela and the squad to their cars and were climbing into Dare’s Jag, he turned to me.
“You want to come home with me?” he asked. I glanced over at him, wide-eyed. That seemed the exact opposite of taking it slow. Perhaps because I didn’t answer right away, he added, “I don’t want to be alone tonight.”
To spend the night with Dare Chalmers was definitely the basis for being grounded, but the thought of Dare being all alone in that big house bothered me. Not to mention this was the opportunity of a lifetime and one more item to cross off my bucket list. Not that I was expecting anything. Anticipating but not expecting.
“Yeah, sure,” I said, trying to sound casual about it and not like it was a literal fantasy of mine come true.
I texted my mom to tell her I was staying the night at a friend’s. Hopefully she would be too occupied with nailing Coach Gundry’s ass to the wall to ask me questions, and if not, it was something to be dealt with tomorrow.
In the Pines Page 17