In the Pines

by Laura Lascarso

  I shook my head slowly. “Give me the gun, Dare.”

  “Charlie?” he pleaded. “Please? I need to do this. I wasn’t there for Mason when he needed me, but I’m here now. I can end this.”

  “This won’t end anything, Dare, only cause you more pain.” I spoke slowly and with purpose. Dare was good at getting what he wanted from me, but I wouldn’t allow him to do this. “Mason wouldn’t want you to ruin your life for an asshole like Peter Orr. Mason loved you, and he’d hate himself if you did this. And he’d be pissed at me too. I never told you this, but he came to me that afternoon after the pep rally. He got into my car and he made me swear that I’d never hurt you. And I never will.”

  “He did?” Dare asked, wanting to believe me but skeptical still.

  “I swear to you he did. You’ve got to trust me on this, Dare. I’ve never lied to you before.” I placed my hand gently over Dare’s grip on the gun. His eyes shifted up to meet mine. “You’re sad and angry, but you’re not a killer, Dare. You’re not.”

  “Charlie….” Dare’s shoulders slumped. Finally, after one last torn look, he relented his pressure on the gun. It dropped into my hands and felt like it weighted about fifty pounds. I unloaded the magazine and shoved it in my pocket. Peter scrambled up and sprinted for the door, fleeing the scene like the cowardly piece of shit he was. Dare looked like he was about to chase after him. I grabbed the inside of his elbow.

  “Don’t worry, they’ll catch him.” I stuck the gun in the waistband of my jeans and hugged him to me with my good arm. Dare leaned against me, and I gave him what remained of my strength.

  Then I crossed the room to the telephone on Coach Gundry’s desk and dialed 911.

  Chapter 19

  THE PARAMEDICS cleaned my wound and bandaged me up properly. I was right in that it wasn’t anything more than a surface wound, which made me one lucky bastard. They gave me a shot to numb the pain and another to ward off infection. The gunshot was a painful inconvenience, but it meant more evidence with which to charge Peter Orr when GPD caught up with him. And they would.

  Since I’d given her the situation in the wrestling room, Mom was back on the case and in pursuit of Peter Orr with Lieutenant Hartsfield and the rest of the force. I didn’t think Peter had the resources, mental or material, to outfox them.

  Tameka, who’d called 911 when she heard the gunshot, offered me a ride home, but Dare insisted his parents bring me back with them to their house, so we sat side by side on the sectional sofa in their grandiose living room and waited for updates on GPD’s manhunt. Daniela and Joey stopped by for a spell with hugs, tears, and well-wishes, but after a short visit, the Chalmerses ushered them out. Their lawyer was on his way and wanted to hear the story of our encounter with Peter. I let Dare do all the talking, holding his hand and offering comment when it was requested. Dare didn’t hold back in his retelling, and I was proud of him for having the strength to relive it. I offered to leave after that, but Dare insisted I stay until they heard from GPD. Mrs. Chalmers wasn’t entirely on board with that plan but grudgingly agreed, right after Dare told her I was a “goddamned hero.”

  I also didn’t turn down the pot roast and potatoes their housekeeper had left warming in the oven, though I did feel a little bad for Dare, who could only pick at his dinner despite the fact he hadn’t had much in the way of food or water all day.

  After interviewing us, their lawyer set up camp in the adjoining study to discuss matters with Mr. Chalmers. I assumed it was in regard to what the punishment for Peter Orr would be, and whether they might also bring a civil suit against either him, the school, or GPD. With grieving, angry parents, it was hard to tell their target. I only hoped my mother survived the Chalmerses’s wrath with her position at GPD intact.

  Around two in the morning we received a call from Hartsfield, saying GPD had apprehended Peter just this side of the Florida-Georgia line. A gas station attendant called him in for stealing gas. GPD set up checkpoints with undercover cars and caught up with him in a Walmart parking lot.

  The Chalmerses seemed relieved that Peter was in custody, but Dare only stared off into the abyss. He’d been mulling over something ever since I took the gun from him back at the high school, and because we were never alone, I couldn’t ask him about it.

  I received a text from my mother a little while later. On my way to come get you and bring you home. No arguments.

  This was my chance to have a word with Dare.

  “Mr. and Mrs. Chalmers, my mother’s on her way to pick me up. Would you mind if I talked to Dare privately for a moment?”

  “What would you need to say to Darren that we couldn’t hear?” his mother asked, still suspicious of my intentions.

  His father laid a hand on her arm. “Come along, Darla. Nick needs us in the other room, anyhow.”

  Mr. Chalmers led his wife away. Dare turned toward me but seemed to have trouble focusing.

  “How you doing, Dare?”

  He shook his head. “I failed him.”

  He could only mean Mason. I couldn’t argue him out of his feelings; I could only try to understand. “In what way?”

  “If Peter doesn’t take a plea bargain, then it goes to trial. You and I are going to have to give a statement, maybe even testify. There are a million ways this thing can go wrong and Pete can get off. I pointed a gun at him, Charlie. That isn’t going to be good for our case against him.”

  Dare was also abducted and kept in a storage locker for most of the day. I’d been shot, likely with a firearm that wasn’t registered to Peter. He was in a mess of trouble. Regardless, there was nothing we could do about any of it now. At least Dare made the right decision and gave up the gun.

  “We can’t worry about the things that are out of our control,” I told him, wishing I could follow my own sage advice. “I’m here for you, Dare. We’re in this together. Whatever I can do for you to make it better, just let me know.”

  He grabbed my hand and brought it to his lips. He didn’t kiss me, only rested his mouth against my knuckles. “Thank you for agreeing to help me on this, Charlie. You saved me back there at the high school. I might be dead right now if it weren’t for you. Or a murderer.”

  I took another deep breath. We could both be dead right now. At that moment our lives seemed as arbitrary as that Price Is Right game, Plinko. You drop your disc in the top slot, and there’s no telling where it will come out. I was utterly depleted of anything profound, so I relied on a rather trite expression that still held a lot of meaning for me, especially after my six months of exile. “That’s what friends are for.”

  He glanced over at me, his eyes wide and a little wounded. “Friends?”

  A blush rose in my cheeks. “At the very least.”

  He nodded but still looked troubled. “I thought I’d feel better after Mason’s murderer was caught,” he said softly. “But I still feel like shit. And Mason is still gone. He’s not coming back, is he, Charlie?”

  “No, he isn’t.” I didn’t want to tell him the truth, that it would take a lot of time and therapy for his misery to fade, if it ever did. I put my good arm around him and drew him to me, kissing the top of his head.

  “We’ll get through this,” I said and hugged him to my chest. I’d do whatever I could to help him for as long as he’d allow it.

  THE RIDE home with my mom was a series of apologies and admitting I was wrong and stupid, beginning with getting involved in this case and ending with tracking down Peter Orr by myself.

  “I wasn’t looking for Peter, though,” I clarified. “I was looking for Dare.”

  While keeping both her hands at ten and two, my mother shot me a brutal look that said my caveats were weak and not getting me out of anything.

  “I told you from the beginning you were not to get involved in this case, and despite my warnings, you persisted. I grounded you and you went behind my back and put yourself and Dare in danger. You went and got shot like an idiot, so don’t you go making excuses now, Charles
Scott Schiffer. You knew exactly what you were doing. Any number of terrible things could have happened to you. I could be visiting you at the morgue right now instead of driving you home.” She sniffed ferociously, which meant she was sucking back tears. I felt like a total asshole.

  “I also stole some money from your purse,” I added, figuring it better to confess it all at once.

  “Yeah, I noticed.”

  “I’m really sorry, Mom. I shouldn’t have done what I did. I let my worry over Dare totally make me lose my mind.”

  Her tone didn’t soften in the least. “If you think for a minute this means you’re not grounded, you are wrong, son.”

  “Whatever you want. Until I’m eighteen. Or until I move out. I’m sorry, I really am.”

  The thing I didn’t tell my mom was that if I could do it all over again, I wouldn’t change a thing, because Dare was safe and Mason’s murderer was in custody. Mom was right, though. One or all of us could be dead right now.

  It was nearing 4:00 a.m., and we were both exhausted. I thought she was finished, but she started up again, only without the edge of anger. “Even though I’m very angry and upset at you, I want you to know I’m proud you did all that to help a friend. I only wish you would let us do our job, so none of this nastiness had to happen.”

  “We were idiots. But thanks, Mom.”

  She pulled into our carport. I could see Boots’s shadow in the front window and hear him barking wildly from inside the house. “He must really have to pee,” I said.

  “He loves you, Charlie,” Mom said forcefully. “He was worried about you.”

  I reached over and squeezed her hand. “I love you too, Mom.”

  Chapter 20

  IN THE weeks after Peter Orr’s arrest and leading up to winter break, I hung around Dare and his friends at school, mostly to keep an eye on him, but it felt a bit like a theater production where the cast was all overacting. Dare was forcing himself to be normal, and his friends were playing along with it. It was like they all took part in this charade of the happy high schoolers, and only on occasion would one of them break character and mention Mason. It wasn’t like it was taboo; it just seemed they were all wary of bringing each other down or wounding Dare all over again.

  I kept my thoughts on the matter to myself.

  This first time Dare appeared at my bedroom window in the middle of the night, it startled me, even more so because Boots didn’t warn me with his usual guard dog growl and three-bark warning. Instead, I found Boots standing by the window with his tail wagging. On the other side of the glass pane, Dare looked uncertain. And lost. I quickly lifted the window and let him inside. He said he was having nightmares and couldn’t sleep at his house, so I invited him into my bed, where we were content to share each other’s warmth and a few hours of shut-eye.

  It became a thing between us. I was still grounded for the foreseeable future, and both of us had a lot of schoolwork to catch up on, which limited our time together during daylight hours. Dare’s first Christmas without Mason was approaching, and he was dreading the extra time with nothing to do but think.

  I began leaving my window unbolted so Dare could lift it and climb in without waking me. Most nights I’d stir in the middle of the night to find Dare in my bed. My arms always went around him instinctively to comfort him. Sometimes we talked about our day or how the case against Peter Orr was proceeding, which was painfully slow. Dare talked a lot about Mason too. In the darkness of my room in the early hours of the morning, he could tell me everything that was too painful for him to deal with in the daytime. He was always gone by the time my alarm went off, so some mornings I had to wonder if I’d only dreamed him.

  About two weeks into this ritual, Dare came in one night restless. The moon was full, which probably didn’t help, and it was this day only a month ago that Mason had been murdered. Dare was likely feeling the weight of the anniversary.

  Boots, having been disturbed by Dare’s tossing and turning one too many times, opted to make camp on a pile of my dirty clothes. I kissed the back of Dare’s neck and whispered so my mom wouldn’t hear us, “What is it, Dare? What do you need?”

  He stilled for a moment, then rolled over so he was facing me. “I need you, Charlie.”

  The look on his face was one I recognized, the same as when we’d returned from dancing the night before he went missing—desire with a desperate, wild-eyed edge to it. He needed a sexual release or a bodily connection, or maybe it was only a momentary distraction from the pain. Whatever it took to silence his thoughts, even temporarily.

  We kissed until my lips were raw. Our touching was on the gentle side of mauling. Dare left scratches on my back and bruises on my arms. It seemed he wanted me to restrain him, as if he was testing the boundaries to have me pull him back. I was reminded of Daniela’s observation that I was his anchor, and I believed in that moment without me to tether him, Dare would be in a free fall.

  When at last he calmed down, he became as pliable as sculptor’s clay. I explored him with my hands, fingers, and tongue, taking my time with him, savoring the taste of his skin. In the dark I no longer felt shy or awkward, and Dare’s quiet moaning urged me on. Our bodies just synced up together. We tried to keep the noise to a minimum, but I wasn’t too worried because my door had a lock, and my mother slept like the dead.

  “Here.” He guided my hand to the bulge in his sweatpants. I stripped them off him, marveling aloud at the fact that he never wore underwear. “I’m the eternal optimist,” he said with a lazy smirk.

  I squirted some lotion on my hand and worked him over until the bedsprings shuddered and he gasped with pleasure. When he groaned in that deep melodic baritone, my heart skipped a beat and my whole body felt as though it was perched on the edge of a high dive, my toes curling over the very edge of it, my arms spread wide and ready to leap.

  Dare grabbed my forearm, interrupting my execution. “I want you inside me,” he said with urgency. He looked a little desperate, and I didn’t know if it was only his libido. “I want you to split me wide open and take out all the pain and emptiness and fill me with you.”

  And then he looked away as if he was trying to hide something from me. He bit down on his lower lip to keep it from trembling. I lifted his chin, and he stared up at me with so much vulnerability—and so much trust—as though he really believed I could do that for him.

  Without pulling away, I rearranged our bodies so he was secured in my arms again. I kissed him with all the ardor pumping through my veins. “I want you, Dare,” I whispered. “And I want to make you feel good, but I can’t take away your pain, and I’m afraid that if I try, you might feel even worse afterward. Like I’ve taken something from you.”

  He whimpered softly, like an animal in pain. His warm cheek pressed against my chest. “I don’t know who I am anymore. Without Mason, I just don’t know. I’m a ghost. I float through the days. I need you to tell me who I am.”

  Dare had to rediscover himself in Mason’s absence. A lonely solo in what had always been a duet. I knew from experience there were no shortcuts. I could help, but I couldn’t take over that job for him—he’d end up hating me for it. Instead I gripped him tighter, my heart breaking for him all the same. “You’ll find yourself again. There’s no deadline and no expectations. Just take it slow and know that we’re here for you. Me and Daniela and Joey, your parents… your therapist. We want you to heal in your own time.”

  I stroked his hair and placed a tender kiss on his temple. He nodded even though I could tell he was disheartened. He curled up against me but didn’t initiate anything sexual. My balls were aching something fierce, but I powered through. Boots jumped back on the bed and settled in the valley of blankets between us.

  “And Boots,” I added. “Boots loves you too.”

  “Well, I love him more.” Dare smiled, looking a little less tragic, and Boots, knowing his name had been mentioned, took the opportunity to lick Dare full on the face. After a few minutes Dare said, “
I do want that, Charlie.”

  “Me too. When you’re ready.” I kissed the tip of his nose. “I’m sorry if I killed the mood.”

  “One of these days, your sensibilities will be overwhelmed by my sexual magnetism.”

  I chuckled at that. He was absolutely right. “I look forward to that day.”

  He sighed softly as he relaxed against me, a crescent moon against my chest. Dare closed his eyes, and I thought from the regular rhythm of his breathing, he’d fallen asleep. I startled a little when he turned around and asked, “How’d you know it wasn’t me?”

  Even though neither of us had mentioned Mason’s murder specifically, it was always lurking in the shadows. It was the catalyst to our coming together, and in a way it defined our relationship, because Dare was different now than he was before it happened. We all were.

  “You’re not that good of an actor,” I said in response to his question.

  His gray eyes widened, and a scowl settled over his handsome features. “That’s a rude thing to say to an aspiring actor, Charlie-bo-barley.”

  If he was using my nickname, he must not be too mad at me. “You’re a better singer, in my humble opinion.”

  He nodded, mollified for the moment. “Well, that’s certainly true.” He rolled onto his back and stared up at the ceiling. “I miss him.”

  “I know you do.”

  “Will it ever stop hurting?”

  I’d sworn to never lie to him, and I wasn’t going to start now, but that didn’t mean I couldn’t still hope for the best. “I think it will, eventually, but these things can’t be rushed. There’s no fast pass to grieving. At least, there hasn’t been for me.” And some days you could go all day thinking you were happy when a memory suddenly stabbed at you like an ice pick to your heart and brought you to your knees. I didn’t say that, though. I wanted to keep it positive.

  “I thought when we found Mason’s killer, something would change. The universe would right itself again or something.”