Right now, I have a million and one questions, and I’m sure he does, too. It’s something worth hashing out, but fuck, it feels so heavy. Talking about my dad, about how I’ve basically lost him over merely getting a kiss on the cheek from a black man, felt like throwing a toaster in the bathtub.
If the roles were reversed, and Linc told me his dad—who has shot at a fucking teenager no less—said he’d kill me the next time he saw us together, I’d fake my death and move to Canada.
I’m afraid I’ll lose whatever is blooming here. I’m not ready to give up on him yet. So I’ll keep that to myself.
Our waitress—or, previous waitress, before a round embodiment of sunshine named Mariah took over our table—stomps past us and gives me another dirty look. There’s a question I want to ask him, as if he should be able to answer for other people any better than I can. Real woman. Who was that girl anyway? Why was she so angry at me for just being at the same booth with Lincoln? What was this, 1945? We weren’t doing anything wrong, yet she was beyond offended. I thought the world was past this shit.
Dad had said something about black guys dating white girls to piss off black girls they really wanted...what if—
Jesus, Riley, get a clue. I can’t take anything my dad has said about people of color seriously—no time at all with Lincoln has proven that, hasn't it?
I need a swift kick in the teeth. She was just a bitch. End of story.
Lincoln squeezes my hand. Looking up at him, caught somewhere between the home he offers in his energy and hearing the echo of all the horrible things that have been said in my own home, I realize we haven’t made as much progress in acceptance as we would all like to believe. My dad isn’t in the minority, I’ve just been willfully blind to it all these years because it never had any effect on me.
Keeping quiet really has done nothing to prevent me from being stupid.
“You’re thinking way too hard over there,” Linc teases. “I’m pretty sure your hair is about to start smoking if you keep it up.”
Absently I pat my hair down, giggling in spite of myself. “That would be a sight. Bet you’ve never had that on a first date before.”
“Ah, so you admit this is a date,” he says with a smirk. “Finally. I was beginning to think you were just in it ‘cause I’m a good kisser.”
“I never said I wasn’t,” I say, but he knows I’m full of shit. He’s got me wrapped around his finger. I’m doomed, and willingly walking into the fire. “I can come to terms with using you for your mouth.”
He smirks at me. “And what are you gonna use my mouth for?”
“It talks a lot of shit,” I joke. “So maybe a laugh or two.”
He looks for a moment as if he wants to say something, continue down his attempt to turn me on, but he can’t choke back the laugh I elicit. “What’re you doing later?”
I shrug. Most likely calling Carly and telling her all the things my dad said, trying to convince her we should move out together without including Cheyenne in the deal. Three people make for more affordable living, but I think I’d rather live in one of the abandoned houses on Colfax. “I don’t have plans.” I grin. “Why, what are you up to?”
He opens his mouth, but the animation fades from his eyes before he even gets the words out. “Well...”
I kick my foot out under the table, running the tip of my shoe down the inside of his calf. He looks up at me, flushing and shaking his head, but he’s smiling, relaxed again, so I win. “Tell me,” I urge.
He sighs. “It’s for the kid your dad shot,” he says carefully. “My roommate kind of rallied the city to do a get together for him and his family. See, Rhett—he’ll never admit this—he paid for the funeral ‘cause the family couldn’t. And the dad is just wrecked, he can barely work, so it’s all on his mom right now. So this community Rhett’s involved in—the church, the school, y’know—we’re doing this wake. To celebrate his life and protest police brutality.”
Tears clog the back of my throat, my heart swelling and breaking at the exact same time. It’s so beautiful they’re all coming together for his family—but they never should’ve had to.
My reaction should be negative, I know that. I should be all Thin-Blue-Line and spouting off about my dad and his partners in arms being good people. But the truth is...I’ve never liked cops. My dad was different, so I thought. I believe that, somewhere deep in his heart, he wants to improve the world and keep people safe.
His friends and partners and coworkers, on the other hand...not so much. The department was corrupt, and everyone knew it. They parade around with a godlike superiority complex, like they’re better than everyone else and victimized as much as the people they’re supposed to be helping.
But still. That’s my dad, and therefore, my family. So belting out how much I support a protest of their brutality probably isn’t my best bet.
I bite my lip. “Intense.”
He nods. He sees the ache plain as day on my face, even as I try to hide with a mask of loyalty, and reaches out to squeeze both of my hands in his. “You should come with me.”
“Seriously?”
“Why not?” he asks simply.
“There’s a million reasons why not,” I say, sad that it’s true. “You can’t walk me in the wake of a kid who’d still be alive if it weren’t for my dad. I might as well take a dump on his tombstone.”
“Or,” he says, “you could look at it in a more positive light. In a way...you’re saying you don’t agree with what he did.”
I lower my head, because the depths of his midnight eyes could talk me into anything. Part of me wants to go, to pay my respects and apologize on my father’s behalf. No amount of sorry’s could ever replace what was stolen from them, but it had to feel better than chilly indifference.
And another part knows I never could be that disrespectful. Let alone that brave.
“Hey,” he says. “Don’t do that.”
I peer up at him through my lashes, trying to hide my wince. “Don’t do what?”
“Panic,” he chuckles. “Come with me to the next one. Hopefully it won’t feel so...personal.”
“The next one?” I ask quietly. “Why do you assume there will be a next one?”
He looks sad at the question, and my splintered cracks like shattering glass. “There’s always a next one.”
We sit in the diner, trying to come back from our detour down tragedy lane for nearly three hours, before he has to go get ready for the protest. He pissed his roommate off before coming to see me and had to make amends first, too, but it couldn’t have been that bad as said roommate, Rhett, still agreed to pick him up.
Rhett pulls his gigantic truck up at the front of the diner to pick Linc up. He’s the pretty boy from the party with the big hair and the charming smile. Today, he’s sporting a curled lip and narrowed eyes when he looks at me.
Ah. He must know who my dad is, too. Linc wouldn’t tell me what caused the fight, but judging from the look on his friend’s face, I can only assume it to be one thing: me.
Linc must see it too, because he grabs me around the waist and pulls me flush against his chest. “You gonna text me, Trouble?” he asks, his nose brushing against mine.
My breath catches in my throat as I melt into his touch. A smile splits my face as I tease, “Probably not.”
He groans like I hurt him, and I giggle. “Well, fuck,” he sighs. “I better do this now, then.”
His big hand cups the back of my neck and pulls my mouth to his, kissing me like it truly is the last time he’ll get the chance to. I snake my arms around his neck and hang on to him, letting the hurt of our talk and the tension around us fade to a muted buzz while he completely entangles my senses.
The moment is broken by a heavy thwack of metal hitting glass, drowned out by the sound of whooping boys. Linc jolts and hauls me closer to him, puffing his shoulders out defensively as he seeks out the source of the noise. Two grown ass men bounce around a car in the parking lot, tossing a c
rowbar between each other. Their sons—both dressed in high school baseball uniforms—stand on the sidelines, cheering them on while they bust up the car.
My car.
“Not again,” I groan. This is nothing new. Someone literally stalked me home from school and found out what car I drive months ago and posted it on the internet. Red Focus, sunflower plate holders, and an American flag bumper sticker in black and white with the blue line down the middle.
Since then, I’ve had my tires slashed, windows broken, and someone even covered it in sticky notes before wrapping it in saran wrap. That was the least expensive to fix, but by far the most annoying. Ever tried to peel wet sticky notes off metal? One by one? In the rain?
I do not recommend it.
I duck out from Lincoln’s protective embrace and storm over to the men. “Get the hell away from my car!”
The kids both scramble back, which only makes their parents angrier. “And you get the hell out of my neighborhood.”
“Where’s your daddy?” asks the other, swinging the crowbar in a circle at his side like he may actually strike me with it. “Gonna come shoot up my boys? I think the fuck not.”
I cross my arms across my chest, wondering why I didn’t just hop a lift here like I usually do. I ride share everywhere now, for this exact reason. Enough people hate my father after the shooting, and that makes me the perfect target for revenge hazing.
Dad keeps trying to make me trade it in, but I argued the trolls would figure it out all over again. Grown ass adults picking on a teenager, but they say high schoolers are the dramatic ones?
“I’m sick of this,” I snap. “Just leave me alone!”
“Or what?” the man snarls. “Bang bang?”
Linc’s hand settles on my waist and he tries to pull me back, to urge me behind him. I don’t allow myself to be moved but, in spite of myself, I’m glad he stands there. By my side, not in front of me. Ready to walk into battle hand in hand instead of leaving me behind.
I decide it right then—I’m keeping him always.
“You all need to leave,” he says calmly, as if he’s broken up fights like this a million times before.
“Son, don’t defend a racist bitch like this,” the crowbar-less man says. He shakes his head and frowns at Lincoln, so condescending it actually turns my stomach. “Just mind your business.”
“I’m not a racist,” I growl.
“You’re a rotten brat just like your pig father,” Bar boy says.
“This isn’t how you make a statement,” Lincoln says coolly before I can respond. “You’re just funneling more hate into the world. You’re not helping anyone this way.”
“I think I’m making a fine point,” says Crowbar boy. “I ain’t trying to help anyone. My statement to the world is that you can’t be killing our kids and expect to get away with it!”
“He was doing what any cop would’ve done,” I bark. I can sense the change in them, the vandalism shifting to violent rage as I spout off my usual defense. The words hold no venom, because I don’t and have never believed them, but it usually gets the job done. “This wasn’t an attack on race.”
“What any cop would’ve done?” he snarls. “So any cop would’ve shot a kid to death?”
Shit. Should’ve kept my mouth shut and let Lincoln handle it. But I’ve never been that kind of girl. “Under the right circumstances—”
“Okay,” he cuts me off. “So show me the dead white kids.”
“That’s enough,” Lincoln snaps. “This ends now.”
“Yes.” The other man steps forward and snatches the crowbar from his friend. “It does.”
He swings the crowbar down at me, aiming for my head and striking my forearm instead. My bone rattles with the impact, but Linc is on him before I can react, pinning him over the trunk of my car and wrestling him for the crowbar.
Lincoln pulls him up and slams him back down against the trunk, yanking at the bar until the man loses his grip. The man swears at him and knees him between the legs, and Linc stumbles forward enough to be pushed aside.
“Dad!”
I look over at the kids and freeze, even as Rhett plows past me and throws himself between Lincoln and the two men. One of the boys looks mostly surprised, eyes wide and mouth open, but the other, the one who cried out, looks like he’s ready to burst into tears.
The man Linc went to blows with hesitates on the other side of Rhett’s hand. He’s not done. He wants my head, he wants Linc’s head, and anyone who gets in his way be damned. He’s angry, and he has every right to be. But the reason he’s angry is because his son is scared—and right now, he’s causing it.
“You stay the hell away from my city!” he yells, pointing the accusatory finger at me. “Your pops comes anywhere near my family and you’re all dead. Trust me, white girl. You’ll all fucking regret it.”
For what it’s worth, Rhett doesn’t say a damn thing as he drives Riley and I to the hospital. Whether it’s his feeble attempt to be polite to her when he’d rather run as fast he can in the opposite direction of her presence, or because he knows I’m struggling not to have a panic attack.
Luckily, that guy hates cops. If he called them on me for jumping him, I probably would’ve blacked out.
Riley’s curled up against my ribs in the back of the truck, her bruised arm cradled against her chest. She hasn’t shed a tear or complained about the pain once, even as her snowy white skin purples and swells. I watch the veins pulsing aggressively and wonder if it feels like her heartbeat is in that wounded skin.
Fuck, the fury. Rage hasn’t boiled through me like that in years—not since my mom. Not in jail, not when faced with day to day bullshit racism, not even when those cops attacked Rhett, Duke, and I in the middle of the night.
Seeing that guy swing on Ri, it just... I could’ve killed him.
And that scares the hell out of me.
What she said to them—'it’s what any cop would’ve done.’ I almost believed her. For a minute, I was just as mad at her as those guys were. Maybe not volatile enough to hit her, but offended. Threatened. But the look on her face, the set in her shoulders when she crossed her arms. Those were taught words, well rehearsed in a mirror but not quite believed in her heart. It’s a part she’s been told to play her whole life and she doesn’t know how to break free.
I knew she was lying, after taking a good look at her eyes when she spoke. But Rhett keeps shooting her nasty looks, and I know he bought her performance.
“Don’t take too long, Sanders,” Rhett says. Still calling me by my last name. Still pissed off. Great. “We’ll be late.”
“I can go in alone,” Riley says.
“Don’t be stupid,” I say, already hopping out of the truck. She’s been trying to blow us off since the guys took their boys and left. Grown ass men attack some fucking kids and then go home to their family like nothing happened. “C’mon, Trouble. I got you.”
She looks down at me with soft eyes, scooting until her hips are in my hands and I help her down to the ground. Her eyes are on the ground and her hands shake as we walk into the ER and she rattles off her info to the attendant.
“You don’t have to call my dad, do you?” she asks.
The woman looks at her ID and frowns. “Sorry, sweetie. You’re not out of the minor woods yet.”
She sighs but nods and turns back to me, leading me to a seat. “Sit with me for a little bit?”
I wrap my arm around her shoulders and hug her close. I’ll come up with a lie to tell Rhett if he bitches. Which it’s Rhett—he’ll bitch about bitching. “How old are you?” I ask.
“Seventeen,” she says. She pokes me in the side. “Don’t tell anybody.”
Thank fuck for the Romeo and Juliet laws in this state. “You know I’m twenty-four, right?”
“And my friend’s twenty-five year old brother can screw a fifteen year old,” she says easily. “You’re fine, Gorgeous. I’ll be eighteen in a couple months anyway.”
“T
rouble, trouble,” I mutter in her dark hair, and she snickers. I’m not worried. I should be, I know my friends would be, my mom would puke. Hell, if Rhett brought home a teenager, I’d be worried. But to be fair, she’s right on the legality of it all, and I trust that her “couple months” really is exactly that.
Maybe it’s because she called me gorgeous again, and that melts my heart. I’d do anything for her when she talks like that, like I’m something special.
Like I’m her something special.
She turns her nose up and nuzzles the side of my neck and lets out a deep sigh. “You shouldn’t be here when my dad shows up,” she says, sounding sad.
My throat tightens at the implications, and I can’t help but put my nose where it doesn’t belong. “Would it really be that bad if he knew about us?”
She peeks up at me. “Us?”
“I want to be an ‘us’,” I admit. “If you do.”
“We barely know each other,” she says, but her lips are fighting her to curl into a little smile.
“You know more about me than anyone else,” I tell her. I brush my thumb across her cheek, her soft skin warming under my touch. “I know it’s fast and we haven’t known each other that long, but you’re special. You make me feel real. I’m willing to fight for this, if you are.”
She licks her lips as she looks at me, walls and resistances crumbling into the depths of her dark forest eyes. She opens her mouth to speak, but a grisly, “Riley!” snaps her mouth shut, and her body far away from me.
“Dad,” she startles.
Officer McLeon yanks her into a fierce embrace, his body shaking and his eyes wide with fear. He doesn’t look nearly as menacing as he does online and on TV—just a man with a lot of fear, and a lot of love for the girl in front of him.
“How’d you get here so fast?”
“I was patrolling in the area,” he says. He pulls back to look at her face, before checking her body over for injuries. His eyes settle on her arm and his eyes darken, and I am reminded of who I’m dealing with. The venom in his gaze could wither a war hardened soldier. “Who did this?”
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