The Way We Are

by Shandi Boyes

  When I hand the ratchet to Savannah, a commotion behind my shoulder gains my attention. Douchebag No. 1 and a handful of his minions have stumbled onto the sidewalk, interrupting the heavy flow of foot traffic that hammer the sidewalks of Ravenshoe every Friday night.

  “Come on, Savannah, we’re ready to head out,” Axel sneers like he’s scolding the owner of a dog whose shit he stepped in.

  “Just a minute, Axel,” Savannah replies, her voice nowhere near as rude as the man scolding her. “I’ve almost got it.”

  Her usually velvety smooth voice comes out with a grunt, enhancing the tightness in my crotch. It reminds me of the throaty moans she released while eating Hershey’s Kisses by the dozen when we were younger.

  “Now, Savannah! We stayed at this dump thirty minutes longer than necessary waiting for your ass to arrive. I’m not waiting a minute longer.”

  My blood boils when Axel steps up to my truck to clutch Savannah’s arm. His hold is so firm, her pasty white skin turns pink in an instant. I don’t know what angers me more: the fact he has his hands on Savannah, or that she didn't flinch when grabbed so abruptly. Is his manhandling a regular occurrence for them? If so, fuck my job. I've kept quiet about abuse in my family for years. I'm not going to do that to Savannah—no fucking chance in hell.

  “You’ve got five seconds to get your hands off her before I—”

  “Before you what?” Axel interrupts, stepping closer to me until our chests touch.

  Because he hasn't released Savannah from his grasp, he drags her along with him. With her tiny frame no match for a man his size, her foot slips off the front bumper of my truck, sending her hurtling toward the asphalt. Ice slides through my veins. Axel’s red-hot glare is so focused on me, he doesn’t attempt to break her fall. He’d rather watch her tumble then give up belittling me in front of his friends, who are watching our exchange with humor slashed across their features.

  “Let Savannah go,” I demand, locking my slit gaze with his hand still clutching her arm for dear life. “Then I’ll show you exactly what I think about you putting your hands on her.”

  “Ryan, it’s fine,” Savannah assures, peering at me from behind Axel’s shoulder as she tugs him away from me.

  Happy with the three inches her effort lodged between Axel and me, she glances into my eyes, attempting to subdue the anger tearing through my veins with a grateful stare. Under different circumstances, her tactic would have worked, but not today—not while Axel’s chubby fingers are still notching into her tiny arm.

  “No, Savannah. This is not okay. This is far from okay.” My first two sentences are for Savannah, but my last one belongs to Axel. “People only treat you one way... the way you allow them to treat you.”

  My teeth grit. I didn’t mean for my words to come out so violent. I’m not angry at Savannah. I’m fucking furious men like my dad make this shit acceptable. Saying you love someone doesn’t give you the right to treat them poorly.

  When I step closer to Axel, planning to show him how real men show affection to the women they love, Savannah places herself between us, stopping my steps midstride. Her tiny body is shaking so much that even without any part of us touching, I can feel her shudders.

  Peering into my eyes, she hands me a rusty cylinder-looking thing I didn’t notice she was grasping until now. “Your spark plugs are corroded. Go to Chris’s and ask him to replace them. Once you screw the new ones in, you’ll be good to go.”

  Although she's talking mechanics, her eyes relay an entirely different set of words: I’m fine. I’m fine. I’m fine.

  “You don’t have to put up with this, Savannah. Let me help you,” I implore, not the least bit intimidated by the death glare Axel is giving me.

  He should be grateful Savannah is standing between us, because if she weren’t, my fists would ensure his ugly insides match his outsides.

  “Come with me to Chris’s—”

  “I can’t,” Savannah replies before I can finish. “We have somewhere important we need to be. I have to go, Ryan. I don’t have a choice.” She whispers her last sentence so weakly, I barely hear it over my pulse thumping in my ears.

  After a final silent plea, she reverts her focus to Axel. Smiling sweetly, she gently tugs on his arm, wordlessly coercing him to leave with her. “Come on. Your uncle is waiting for us,” she purrs, her voice one I’ve never heard her use before. “We can’t be late. We barely survived his wrath last month from our tardiness.”

  The arrogance in Axel’s eyes detonates when his hand drops from Savannah’s arm to the curve her micro shorts are barely containing. “How many times do I have to tell you, babe? This comes before anything.” His egotistical statement is accompanied by a squeeze of Savannah’s ass, his grab on her backside as firm as the one he had on her arm. “If we’re late because you can’t wait a second longer, we’re late. I’m never going to say no to you and your insatiable needs.”

  Savannah slaps his chest, feigning playfulness from his tease. She's a terrible actor. Savannah isn’t like normal girls. Goosebumps don’t pop up on her skin when she's excited; only when she is freaked out do bumps appear. And although the street lighting is poor, I can’t miss the hundreds of tiny dots lining her arms and nape.

  She isn’t excited by Axel’s tease; she's as disgusted as I am.

  When Axel spins around to high five two of his friends who are fueling his arrogance with inappropriate catcalls, the worry lining Savannah’s face clears away. Assuming she has calmed the beast, she exhales a raspy breath before pivoting on her heels and heading to her car parked three spots down from my truck.

  It's a pity she doesn’t remember me as I well as I remember her.

  I’m shocked she's so forgetful. Kenny Truman still flinches every time I pass him in the hall of our school. He learned the hard way how much I hate it when males use their size to intimidate the female population. Kenny may have only been in the eighth grade at the time, but he hasn’t cornered another girl in the school cafeteria since the day I discovered him holding Savannah and her best friend Justine hostage.

  Brax thought I overreacted to his demand for a kiss, but he didn’t see the fear in Savannah’s eyes. Kenny should be lucky it was me who found them. If it were one of Justine’s four older brothers, it would have been much worse.

  Shrugging off old memories with a quick work of my jaw, I step into Savannah’s path. The spark I felt two months ago rockets through my chest when she flattens her palm on my torso and lifts her downcast head.

  “You need to let me go, Ryan,” she faintly whispers as her glistening eyes dart to Axel, who is hanging out on the sidewalk with his scumbag minions.

  Confident Axel isn’t paying us any attention, Savannah locks her eyes with mine. “Please drop this,” she begs, her words so soft they are practically mouthed. “It isn’t what you're thinking. He’s just showing off.”

  I slant my head to the side, shocked she gave the first excuse every woman gives when defending her abusive partner. “Savannah—”

  “Please, Ryan,” she interrupts, begging.

  The rawness in her tone makes it seem as if I am hurting her more than Axel’s grip on her arm. That kills me. The idea of me hurting her in any way utterly guts me. So much so, I take a step back, incapable of hurting her for a second longer than I already have.

  “Thank you,” Savannah praises, her breaths crackling with emotions. After a final run of her hand down my arm, she saunters to her car, her steps as slow as my heart rate.

  Noticing I’m frozen halfway between Bob’s and Savannah, a ruthless smirk etches onto Axel’s face. “Wait up, Savannah. I’ll ride with you.”

  He says goodbye to his friends with a knuckle bust before heading my way. The smugness on his face grows when he swaggers past me. I want to smash his face in. I want the mark his grip caused to Savannah’s arm to morph onto every inch of his body. But since proving to Savannah not all men are as worthless as him, I remain on the sidewalk looking like a coward, whil
e the girl of my dreams waits in her car for her abusive boyfriend.

  It’s a fucking hard feat.

  3

  Ryan

  “Can you fight?”

  A man I’d guess to be a couple of years older than my eighteen years, wearing a pair of black pants and a button-up shirt, steps into my peripheral vision.

  I wait for Savannah’s taillights to merge into a sea of hundreds before my eyes drift to the stranger approaching me. His stare isn’t intimidating, more intrigued.

  “You’ve got the stance, the build, and the determination, but do you have the talent?” he asks as a gleam sparks in his uniquely colored eyes.

  “You don’t need talent to fight. Anyone can take a hit; it's just how you accept it that proves your worth,” I reply, quoting my dad. Unbelievably, he always said it when I placed myself between my mother and his fists.

  When the unnamed man scrapes his hand along his jaw, an expansive pair of cufflinks captures my attention. “You better be careful rolling over to this side of town. It’s not safe for men like you,” I warn, mindful it is nearly midnight.

  “Men like me?” the stranger replies, following me to my truck.

  I roll the picnic blanket from the front quarter panel of my truck around my arm before lowering the hood. After dumping it into the bed, I shift my focus to the man accosting me. Amusement enhances his youthful features when my eyes lower to absorb his fancy watch, sparkling gold buckle, and shoes that look like they belong on the President’s feet.

  “Yeah. Men like you.”

  The dark-haired man laughs, somewhat amused by my concern. He shouldn’t be so cocky. This side of Ravenshoe isn’t known for its affluence. That’s why I was stunned to see Axel here tonight. If I didn’t know any better, I’d swear he rocked up here on purpose. There's no better way to rub salt into a guy’s wounds than showing up to his place of employment on the day he should be out celebrating his ex’s birthday.

  Savannah turned eighteen today, making it exactly five years to the day we last spoke. If she were my girl, she wouldn’t be eating stone-cold fries and sloppy burgers. I’d work sun up to sundown to give her the world. She would want for nothing if she were mine.

  “This is the last time I’m going to ask you this,” the unnamed man says, reminding me he's still there. “Can you fight?”

  “Yeah. I can fight.” The adrenaline racing through my veins makes my statement extra confident. Although I’ve never been an overly violent person, I feel like I could crush bricks with my bare hands right now.

  “Good.” The sparkle in the man’s distinct gray eyes grows before he asks, “How much capital do you have?”

  Now it’s my turn to laugh. Capital? I knew he didn’t belong on this side of the tracks.

  Failing to see the humor in our situation, the stranger bows his brow, then glares at me. I lean my hip on my truck, then cross my arms in front of my chest. “Do you see where we’re standing? Would I be here if I had capital?”

  I bang my hip against my truck. “This is my truck.” My eyes flash to Bob’s Burgers, which is surprisingly still bustling. “That’s my place of employment.” Pretending I can’t feel my heart racing a million miles an hour, I gesture toward where Savannah was moments before, “And that used to be my girl. That’s all the capital I’ve got.”

  “Used to be your girl?” the man quotes, his tone mocking. “All that was over a used-to-be girl. That didn’t look like a used-to-be exchange to me.”

  Rolling my eyes at him, I snag my duffle bag from the bed of my truck before pushing off my feet. Chris’s house is four miles from here, so I may as well get a head start.

  “Enjoy your stay in Ravenshoe; just remember this side of town isn’t what it used to be,” I mumble to the unnamed man eyeing me with amusement.

  I’ve been walking for nearly two miles when a sleek black town car pulls up to my side. I don’t need to peer into the driver’s seat to know who is propositioning me. The arrogance beaming out of the flashy vehicle in invisible waves tells me everything I need to know.

  “Get in,” demands a deep voice from inside.

  I continue walking, ignoring the stranger’s commanding tone. For a man only two to three years older than me, his authoritativeness mimics one of a man much older.

  Gravel crunching under tires nearly drowns out the man’s next statement. “If you want your girl to stop being a used-to-be girl, get in.”

  That stops my strides... and my heart.

  After sucking in a deep breath to clear the nerves from my voice, I shift my eyes to the dark-haired man with a hundred-dollar haircut and ask, “How is getting in your car gonna get me Savannah back?”

  The stranger’s lips quirk. “It won’t,” he replies, his tone as honest as his eyes.

  Grumbling a curse word under my breath, I start walking again. I’ve got enough shit to deal with; I don’t need an arrogant banker adding more crap to my overflowing plate.

  “But it will explain why she left with him when she wanted to stay with you,” the stranger shouts, revealing he was watching my exchange with Savannah longer than first suspected.

  Deciding my night can’t possibly get any worse, I jog around to the passenger side of his car then slide inside. He doesn’t speak a word the entire trip. Not even when the blond-haired man sitting in the backseat states an address for an industrial estate for a town neighboring Ravenshoe.

  “These textile warehouses shut down years ago,” I advise the stranger and his friend when our car glides down the dusty track behind a group of industrial buildings. I’m more curious than I am nervous. “No one comes out to these parts anymore.”

  “That’s the point,” the dark-haired man replies, the gleam in his eyes growing as we travel down the dusty path.

  I’m proven to be a liar when the stranger parks his flashy sportscar at the end of a long row of cars. The opulence of the vehicles filling the parking lot is in direct contrast to the dilapidated warehouse shadowing them from thieving eyes. The value of the cars on display ranges between fifty thousand to nearly a million dollars, showcasing that money is no object to the men swarming toward the warehouse in droves. I drop my eyes to my Walmart shorts and holey shirt, feeling more out of place than ever.

  “The poorer you look, the more money you make,” advises the man seated next to me.

  My brow becomes lost in my hairline when clothes matching the ones I am wearing land in his lap.

  “Remember, Isaac, don’t put up anything you’re not willing to lose, and don’t speak to anyone unless directed by me,” the blond advises, handing tennis shoes to the man in the driver’s seat.

  Isaac’s breathy groan doesn’t match the agreeing nod of his head. I eye him curiously when he swaps his expensive threads for a pair of khaki shorts, a light-blue tee, and a pair of shoes. Even his flashy watch is exchanged for a cheaper version. In less than a minute, he’s gone from looking like a twenty-two-year-old stockbroker killing it on the financial market to... well...me.

  “Have we met before?” I ask curiously.

  Five minutes ago, while decked out in his designer threads, I would have testified we’ve never met before. But as he sits in front of me now, looking like a regular Joe-Blow Ravenshoe teen, he reminds me of a senior I went to school with last year who just happens to have the same first name.

  My shaggy hair falls in front of my eye when I slant my head to the side to study the stranger’s features. They can’t be the same guy. That Isaac was poor. Not as poor as me, but he didn’t have the means to buy the top-of-the-line watch this Isaac is sliding off his wrist, let alone the bundles of hundred dollar bills I see stashed in the glove compartment when he stores it inside.

  This Isaac should be glad my desire to leave my miserable existence in a cloud of dust isn’t stronger than my morals. If they were, me and his easy 10Gs would be halfway to LA by now.

  “Take what you want,” Isaac mutters, drawing my focus to him. “But just remember anything gained w
ithout hard work is like throwing away a diamond to pick up a rock. Failing with honor far exceeds succeeding by fraud.”

  Leaning over, he throws open the console, revealing more than three times the bundles in the glove box. After snagging two bank-imprinted stacks from the generous stockpile, he lifts his eyes to mine. His mouth is tight-lipped, but his eyes are nowhere near as firm. He glances at me as if he is silently offering me his money.

  I attempt to shake my head three times. It's only on the fourth shot does my body comply with the command my brain is screaming. I can understand my body’s objection. I’ve never seen so much money in my life, much less had the chance to earn it. I make five dollars an hour flipping burgers, so even if I put away every dollar I earn the next ten years, it will still take me years to amass that much money. However, Isaac has it sitting in the glove compartment of his fancy-schmancy sportscar like it’s chump change.

  God, what I wouldn’t do to have that much money at my disposal. I wouldn’t sit through mundane classes every week, or work at a crappy job. The possibilities would be endless. But since the logical, non-dreaming side of my brain agrees with Isaac’s statement on earning your own cred, I slam his glove compartment shut, blocking out temptation.

  Isaac smirks. It isn’t the same overbearingly confident one he’s been wearing all night. This is the smirk of a pleased man.

  “What did I tell you, Cormack?” he asks, peering at the blond man in the rearview mirror. “I know how to pick them.”

  Cormack rolls his eyes before clambering out of the car. When Isaac follows after him, so do I.

  The thick stench of wealth amplifies with every step we take toward the warehouse. It's so pungent, it reminds me of entering a bank seconds after the armored guard has finished his massive Monday morning shipment—it’s that potent.

  If I couldn’t already smell money lingering in the air, the security shadowing the two dozen or more suit-clad men is another indication to the affluence of the attendees. They are as many hired guns entering the warehouse as there are guests—if not double.