by Raathi Chota
“Hi, I’d like to talk to the Sheriff, plea—”
“Sorry dear, he—oh, Lana! It’s you! Hello dear, how are you?”
“I’m good, Ms. Jackson.”
“Long time no see. Where have you been?”
“School, I guess.” I shrugged, then tilted my head down the hall to my dad’s office. “Can I talk to my dad, please?”
“I don’t know. He’s kind of busy, and I don’t—”
“I’ll be quick,” I cut her off then walked around her desk.
“Good luck!” she yelled before I turned the corner.
“Hey, Paul,” I said to the Deputy.
“Afternoon, Lana. What brings you here?” he asked while he scribbled on papers.
“Just here to talk to my dad.”
“He’s actually busy. We finally got those miscreants.” He huffed, then looked over his shoulder. I followed his gaze, only to be met by the interrogation room. A glass separated us, and I squinted to get a better look. Dad stood while the guys sat opposite him. They looked guilty while my dad shouted at them. I felt sorry for Ethan, because he was my father’s favorite, and Dad never thought Ethan Baxter would do such a thing.
“I’ll be quick,” I begged the deputy. He rolled his eyes and motioned me to go inside. As I pushed the door open, I managed to force a smile. It was a square room with four chairs on one side, where the guys sat, and one chair on the opposite side, with a table that separated us. “Hey, Daddy how ar—” I cut myself off as I looked at the guys. “What are they doing here?”
They each had a different expression on their face. Ethan frowned, Aidan grinned, Carter looked surprised, and Blake smirked.
“Lana, they were—”
“Daddy, do you know Carter helped me get an A in History, and Ethan helped me with this boring assignment we had? Without them, I wouldn’t understand,” I sighed as I tried to avoid eye contact. I didn’t want him to say those words. I wouldn’t believe it.
“That’s…very kind of them,” Dad mumbled, then walked to the door. “Lana, can I talk to you…alone?”
I eagerly nodded as I skipped out the room with my dad. He closed the door. I noticed Deputy Paul was gone, and we were the only two in the hall.
“Lana, we got a call from an unknown number saying that four teenagers that I’ve been trying to get for the past few weeks were spotted. We traced the call to a cottage where we found some drugs; they were outside, looking as if they were going to leave. Thankfully, we got there in time,” Dad said, then sighed heavily.
“You don’t think…” I trailed off. That’s why the guy was on his phone and why he nodded to one of his men. Probably to put parcels back on purpose because they didn’t finish the job. My mind told me not to do it, to go home and let them suffer alone, or maybe even go to juvie since they had so much. Yet my heart said to do the right thing. They’d been there for me and showed me the fun side of life instead of putting my face in books all the time. If they were gone, my life would return to normal, and I didn’t want it to.
“We’ve done some tests, so we’re waiting on the results. Other than that, they not saying anything.” Dad sighed then turned to the glass.
“Can I talk to them?” I asked. They stared at us but immediately looked somewhere else when I caught them.
“Lana, I don’t think that’s a good idea.”
“Please, Dad, they’re my friends, and I don’t think they’d do something like this. There must be a logical reason.”
I’d known Carter, Aidan, and Ethan for more than five years, and even though they’re cocky and annoying, I couldn’t picture them doing stuff like that. As I got to know Blake, I noticed there’s more to him other than the narcissistic bad boy attitude he’s known for.
“Okay, but remember, I know and see everything.” He motioned to the computer by his desk. It had a monitor of all the rooms in this section of the building. I saw Deputy Paul flirt with Officer Jackson as she stared at him in amusement.
“Yeah, Dad,” I said as I grabbed the box of doughnuts from the desk. Before I walked inside, I took a deep breath. I closed the door as I kept my face down, not daring to make eye contact with them. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw their stares as they watched me. I placed the box of doughnuts on the table and slid it across. Surprisingly, it stopped before it fell, yet they didn’t move. I thought food would get them to talk. I sat down on the other end of the table and stared at them.
“What was that?” I whispered. They avoided eye contact. I waited as I saw Aidan move his arm to reach out for a doughnut.
“Nuh-uh…speak. Or should I introduce you to your prison cells?” I tilted my head, then grabbed a doughnut. The guys exchanged looks, and Ethan sighed.
“It all started in sophomore year,” he said. I put the box down as Aidan grabbed the glazed doughnut and devoured it. “Blake always came to Illinois for the summer because we were close when growing up. One day we walked in the city, and this guy came out of nowhere and shoved a bag in my hands. He yelled out, ‘I don’t want to do this anymore,’ and ‘please,’ then ran off. We looked at it and found the same parcels in the bag with a small note attached to one of them. It had the address to where the parcels needed to go,” Ethan said, then turned to Carter.
“We went to the address and found two guys by the door. We showed them the bag, and they immediately let us in. We were confused by it all and didn’t know it was drugs. The one guy led us to a room where we waited for over an hour until the man in the suit walked in. He asked where we got the bag and if we knew what’s in it. We told him, and he didn’t take the bag. Instead, he said to keep it safe and that there’s cocaine in it,” Carter said as he played with his fingers. Blake continued, but this time he stared at me as if he were waiting for a reaction.
“He threatened us if we didn’t do as he said. We went back to Ethan’s place and talked about it. The guy didn’t ask our name, and we didn’t ask his name. The next day, we went back to the address, but there was nobody there, not a soul in sight. When we got back to Ethan’s place, there was a box that was delivered. No address and no name on it, so we opened it and saw more cocaine. We freaked out on how he found us and knew where we lived, so we did what he asked. It was too risky to have it at Ethan’s house or move it all to Carter and Aidan’s houses because we got more parcels every second day. We decided to go on a road trip in the middle of summer to my state, where we hid it all,” Blake said. I don’t think he blinked once while he said that, but I continued to look at him to see if there was any sort of hesitation. Nothing. They told the truth.
“We stayed for a week, and surprise, surprise, more arrived. The weird thing was they didn’t even know that Blake lived in Minnesota. We drove back to Illinois, and when summer break ended, we thought it would too, but it didn’t. Blake got a guy who came once a month to check up on the cocaine. Thankfully he didn’t do anything, so we carried on with our lives until Blake had to move here,” Aidan said as he chewed the doughnut. I glanced at Blake, who kept his head down while everyone else ate doughnuts. We waited for him to continue as I took the box that had two doughnuts left.
“Again, they drove up to help with the moving of some of my stuff and the drugs. By then, Ethan’s dad told us we could have the cottage and make it into our man cave, so we put it to actual use and stored all the cocaine there. We didn’t see the men for six months, and we didn’t hear from them until last week. He told us in two simple words, it’s time, and we knew what it meant,” Blake said.
“So, for the past two years, you guys have been dealing with drug dealers who you don’t know, but they know everything about you guys, and now suddenly, they want the cocaine,” I said as I tried to digest all the information they had told me. They nodded in unison as I tapped my chin. “And it’s all because this one guy who worked for them had enough and decided to just shove the bag to you?”
“Yeah. Could’ve just stayed indoors that day,” Ethan said as he rolled his eyes. I was about
to ask another question but froze when my dad entered the room. He stared at me, then the guys.
“The tests came back,” he said, then placed his hands on his hips. “You won’t be allowed at the cottage anymore. It’s under investigation until further notice. Deputy Paul and I shall take you guys home. We’ve called your parents, and we have negotiated on something.”
A small smile formed on my lips because I knew my dad heard the whole thing, and he’s not an easy one to crack, so there must’ve been something that made him click. I wonder what they had negotiated on, since they won’t get away that easily, maybe a fine. The guys got up, but we kept our distance as they walked out the door. I stopped Blake and looked him in the eye as I shoved his keys into his hands. He mouthed, “Thank you,” then left the room.
We sat in the cop car in silence. My dad drove, me in the passenger seat, while Aidan and Carter sat behind us. Blake and Ethan drove with Deputy Paul even though Blake’s motorcycle was in the parking lot. He didn’t want to make a scene, so he said he’d come back for it in the morning. The car was silent as I looked out the window. We were in a modern neighborhood and stopped at a two-story home. It looked cozy and hospitable as my dad got out and took the cuffs off Aidan. I watched the two walk up the driveway. My dad knocked on the door as Aidan turned around to us and gave a thumbs up. My dad flicked his head, and he straightened. I laughed as I shook my head; even though he almost got thrown in jail for cocaine, he still managed to lighten the mood.
“Thank you,” Carter said. I got a fright, as I’d forgotten he was in the car. I looked at him through the rearview mirror and raised a brow.
“For what?”
“For coming back…for saving us,” he mumbled as he looked out the window.
“I couldn’t just leave you guys there. You guys showed me to not be so serious about life and take risks. It’s something I haven’t done in a while.”
“Do you think it’s safe to tell your dad that I slept with his daughter and watched her shower?”
“If you wanna die in this real cop car, then go ahead.”
Before Carter answered, Dad got back in the car. We drove for another ten minutes, then arrived at an average house that was like Blake’s, but a bit bigger. Dad got out of the car first, then Carter. He still had the guts to say, “Goodnight, beautiful,” and walk off with cuffs on. I watched as Carter stood tall by the door while my dad spoke to his mother, who glared at him. My father took the cuffs off Carter’s wrists. Dad got in the car, and we drove home in silence.
“How did you know they would be there?” Dad asked as we pulled up our driveway. It was only then that I noticed Carter lived five minutes away from me.
“I didn’t. I was just out with Miranda, and I told her to drop me off at the station,” I lied again. If he knew I was there, I might as well cuff myself to the car while my dad lectured me.
“I don’t want you hanging out with them so much anymore.”
“What? Why? You heard them! They didn’t—”
“I don’t care! I just don’t want anything to happen again.”
“Dad, that was just…”
“A mistake? Ha, just listen to me, Lana. I’m only doing this because I am worried about you. You should be focusing on your last year of school and getting into university. We don’t want—”
“Is that what you think of me? That I’ll go off doing that again since I’m hanging out with the opposite sex? They are my friends, Dad.”
“Just please, when the Radcliffs come, be what it used to be seven years ago.”
I didn’t give him enough time to talk again as I got out of the car and slammed the door shut. I walked in the house and didn’t bother to close the door because I knew he’d be right on my tail.
***
“So? Where were you?” Miranda asked as we walked through the hallways. Last night when we got home, Dad told Mom we had father-daughter time, which my mother bought since I was quiet for the rest of dinner. This morning I decided to walk and think about things clearly as I took in the breeze of fall.
“Err…just out with the guys,” I mumbled as we walked into the cafeteria. We took a seat at our regular table to see Marcus already there.
“Hey, babe,” he said as Miranda sat next to him. I sat opposite them as they kissed. I scrunched my nose up as they shared saliva.
“So you two are together now?” I asked after they pulled apart.
“Yeah, and I couldn’t be happier.” Marcus grinned as he winked at Miranda. I playfully rolled my eyes as I saw Miranda’s cheeks redden. I took my pasta out and ate it immediately as Miranda and Marcus got into their conversation. My thoughts went back to this morning when I had a talk with my dad. Apparently, the guys gave a description of that guy, and turned out it matched with a case that was opened two years ago when this guy came to confess to my dad that he worked with a drug dealer yet didn’t know his name. It was the same guy who stuffed the bag into Ethan’s hands after he confessed to the cops; two days later, he was reported dead. No doubt by that scary man. Each of the guys had to pay a fine or spend a long time in the juvenile detention center since they held cocaine for the past two years. They weren’t going to get away that easily. Hopefully, they’d take the wiser option and pay the goddamn fine.
“Right, Lana?” Miranda snapped me out of my thoughts, and I glanced up.
“What?”
“They gonna get us at your house tomorrow night, yeah?” she asked with a look of concern.
“For?”
“Tomorrow night is Homecoming,” Marcus said.
“Oh. Sorry, I forgot,” I mumbled.
“Don’t worry.” Miranda waved off as she looked up. So did Marcus as I stared at them.
“Hey…can we sit?” someone asked from behind me. I looked over my shoulder to see Carter, Aidan, and Blake. Aidan had a tray full of food; Carter had a sandwich and a box of juice, while Blake had his hands shoved in his jeans.
“Sure,” Miranda said. Aidan and Carter sat on either side of me while Blake sat next to Miranda. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Marcus scoot closer to her protectively. We ate in silence as Aidan passed a slice of pizza to Blake, who ate it slowly as he stared at me. My eyes diverted to the empty spot beside him, and I wondered where the big jock was. I looked around the cafeteria and saw Ethan with Kelly and Jennifer. Ethan gripped his tray as Jennifer stroked his bicep, a look of annoyance spreading across his face as she talked. Kelly stood next to her and put on the best smile she could. Ethan raised a brow as his face shifted toward our table. He sighed heavily and nodded. The girls clapped as he rolled his eyes and walked toward our table.
“Hey, guys,” Ethan greeted.
“Hi,” I mumbled. His eyes were red, and he had rings under them; I noticed a short stubble formed as he stared into space. I glanced at Blake, who continued to eat the pizza. “Did you get your motorcycle?” I looked at the brown-eyed boy. Today he wore his usual attire, white muscle tee, black jeans, and combat boots. The muscle tee showed his beautiful tattoos as well as his biceps.
“Yeah, thank goodness that deputy and your dad weren’t there yet. I would’ve been screwed,” Blake said as he licked his bottom lip.
“Are you okay?”
“Never better, sweetheart,” Blake said as he winked at me. I rolled my eyes, thinking there’s the Blake Gunner I knew. I looked back at him to see Ethan talking to him. Blake let out a scoff as his jaw clenched. “No.”
“We have to. You know what he said,” Ethan mumbled as he looked at me from the corner of his eye. Blake looked at me then nodded.
“So what happened last night when you guys got home?” I asked, then turned to Miranda; she was in an in-depth conversation with Marcus, who had his lips glued to her ear. Although I didn’t think he was whispering to her.
“Ma yelled at me and told me I have to work to pay off the $2000. So for the next week, I’ll be working.” Aidan cheered.
“Why you happy?”
“Well fr
om the amount the guy paid us for keeping the coke, I’ll probably work for a few days…just to get experience or some shit.” He waved us off.
My brows rose, because I didn’t think they’d earn so much from cocaine.
“My mom took my truck away, so now Eth is my ride for the rest of the year.” Carter grinned as he looked at Ethan. He raised his eyebrows, then shook his head.
“Nuh-uh, get your own ride, dude,” Ethan scoffed.
“Okay then, lend me one of your fancy-looking cars,” Carter said. Ethan and Carter stared at each other for another two minutes until someone spoke.
“When you two are done with your staring contest, I’d like to explain my punishment.” Blake smiled sarcastically. Both glared at each other as we turned to Blake.
“You didn’t get yelled at?” Aidan asked as Blake grinned.
“Nope.”
“How come?” I asked. I knew Blake had a mother, so naturally, she would’ve shouted at him at least.
“Momma wasn’t home, so Deputy Do Da spoke to my bro, who couldn’t give two shits about me.” Blake grinned.
“What did Axel say?” Carter asked.
“He shook his head and promised not to tell Mom if I didn’t tell on him.” Blake shrugged like it was no deal.
“What did he do?” Aidan asked. We were suddenly interested now as the dark-haired boy looked at us.
“Things…some awful things.” He grunted as his fist clenched the can.
“Well, my dad grounded me, so you won’t be seeing me on the weekends for the next few weeks other than school,” Ethan said, then rolled his eyes. I felt sorry for them, except Blake; it seemed like he didn’t care, but I wondered what would happen if his mother was home.
“You in, Lana?” Aidan asked.
“What?” I asked.
“This girl has been spacing out the whole day,” Miranda said as everyone laughed. I rolled my eyes as I lightly kicked her under the table and earned a glare in return.
