by Malone, M.
“Zack! Get out here.”
He yells over his shoulder, his deep voice barely carrying over the racket coming from the back of the shop. The noise doesn’t stop.
“Give me a second.”
He disappears behind the wall and a few minutes later the noise stops. I wonder what he’s saying to the other one.
Zachary.
This whole situation is so backwards. I wish briefly that I’d brought Finn with me. Then I realize that I can bring them with me later to meet him. Ambush him at the apartment since he seems so determined not to leave.
Gabe comes back out and another man follows. He looks slightly younger and the sides of his hair are shaved completely bald. There are tattoos running down each side of his skull. He stares back at me, taking in my height and worn T-shirt.
“That had to hurt like a bitch.” I jerk my chin toward the tattoos on his head.
He looks surprised and then shrugs. “Life hurts.”
A full grin takes over my face and I can tell he’s not sure what to make of it. But with that one statement, I know I’ve made the right decision.
“You’re definitely my brother.”
He grunts but the tension bleeds out of his shoulders so he doesn’t look like he’s primed for a wrestling match anymore.
“Is there somewhere we can talk?”
Gabe jerks his head toward the back. “Yeah, in the shop. No customers back here.”
I follow him behind the counter. He’s dressed preppy in slacks and a white collared shirt. Zack is the exact opposite in faded jeans and stained T-shirt.
The back of the shop is much cleaner than I was expecting. There’s a car up on rails and a bike in some stage of being dismantled across from where Zack slumps in a metal chair.
“Are you working on this one?” I nod my head at the disassembled bike.
He nods but doesn’t volunteer any additional information. I take a seat in the metal folding chair next to him.
“I’m not here to disrupt your lives or anything. I didn’t even know you existed. Shit, I’m not even sure why I came. But I wanted to see you.”
Gabe crosses his arms. “Interesting. You felt more for us than our own father did.”
“He didn’t raise you? I thought—”
“You thought he left your mom for ours?” Gabe guesses. “No. Our moms were best friends and he almost broke up their friendship by sleeping with both of them. Neither of them knew what he was up to. He had them both convinced they were his girlfriend and that the other was just jealous. Luckily, they figured it out and they both kicked him to the curb. Not before realizing they were both pregnant though.”
“Wow. That’s pretty fucked up.”
Zack snorts. “Tell me about it.”
When he doesn’t look inclined to add anything else to the conversation, I look back to Gabe.
“So, you guys didn’t grow up knowing each other then?”
“No, we did. Once he was out of their lives, our moms renewed their friendship and they raised us together. They still joke that raising kids with your best girlfriend is a much better bet than raising them with a man. I honestly can’t disagree. Zack’s mom is like my second mother.”
“This is all so crazy. I don’t understand what he was doing. He ditched my mom when I was eight and Finn was five. Then he only came back briefly once. But now I realize, he must have come back after he’d already been with your moms. He was just a regular P.I.M.P. apparently.”
They snicker and look at each other before turning back to me.
“So, what do you really think old Max is up to?”
* * *
An hour later I park my bike in a space at the boardwalk. After spending time with my brothers, I’m in a good mood.
There aren’t too many people that I can talk to about my current fucked up situation. However, I’m determined to put it all out of my mind. It’s a beautiful day, cool and crisp. The weather is unseasonably warm and I realize how close to spring we are.
The boardwalk isn’t my favorite place, usually because it’s chock full of tourists, but when Emma texted and asked to meet up, I wasn’t going to say no. I’ve asked her out for weeks so if she’s willing to give me a chance, I’ll go wherever she wants.
Emma stands a few spaces over peering into the trunk of an older sedan. When she straightens and sees me walking toward her, she waves.
“Hey. I thought we could take a walk on the beach. I packed lunch for us.”
She points to the small red and white cooler in the trunk of her car. I lift it easily. It doesn’t feel like there’s much in the cooler and definitely not enough to feed two people.
“Did you pack anything for me?”
She blushes. “Probably not enough.”
Her head disappears into the front seat of the car and when she emerges, she’s holding a thick multicolored beach towel. “I’m prepared.”
She’s so cute I don’t have the heart to tell her half my body will likely be hanging off that towel.
We walk down and find a spot on the sand. There are only a few people out here. It will be a completely different scene once summer comes. She spreads the towel and I set the cooler on one end to hold it down.
Emma sits on the other end facing me. “Are you hungry?”
I squint up at the seagulls diving above us. They remind me of my conversation with Finn a few days ago. At least I could tell my brother I finally made it to the beach.
“I could eat. That’s true pretty much all the time.”
“Yeah, I’ll bet. Well, if you’re good, I even have desserts in here.” She pulls out sandwiches, small snack bags of chips and a plastic container of red velvet cake.
“You know, I’ve never been on a date where the girl planned everything. Will I get my balls back after this is all over?”
She laughs softly. “Is it that threatening?”
“No, I’m just joking. Badly, obviously.”
I look down the sand to where a few other couples sit on towels, similarly enjoying the unseasonably warm weather. The sky is a crystalline blue dotted with clouds that look like floating cotton balls. I close my eyes and let the breeze coming off the water flow over me. Above me, I can hear the cry and call of the seagulls.
“I’ve never really been a beach person.”
Emma stops fussing with the food. “Sorry. We can go if you’d rather do something else. I just thought it would be a quiet place we could talk.”
“No, this is nice. I find myself willing to make an exception for you. So, how long have you worked for Patrick?”
Her face falls slightly. “Just a few months. After my parents died, Mr. Stevens was the one who handled their estate. He’s an old family friend. I think he just feels sorry for me, really.”
“I’m so sorry. I didn’t realize.”
“No, it’s okay. I know you didn’t know.”
We sit in awkward silence for a minute before she asks, “So, what about you? What did you do before you worked as a bodyguard?”
“I was in the military. I’ve been working for Alexander Security ever since I got out.”
“What branch of the military?”
“Army.”
She looks at me expectantly when I don’t provide any additional details.
“Most of the missions I was on were classified so I can’t really talk about them.”
“Of course. I don’t need to know details. I was just wondering what you did, you know, in general?”
“Um, I was a sniper actually.”
“Oh. Really?” Her eyes go round and she takes a big bite of her sandwich.
I dig in the cooler looking for another sandwich. Anything to distract me from this painful silence.
What am I supposed to say, I used to kill people? I did scary stuff I hope you won’t ever have to know about? There’s nothing I can say to put her mind at ease. I’m reminded of my last girlfriend, Jenna’s, words.
You’re just too much sometimes,
Tank. Too damn much to deal with.
“Oh. Well. Okay then.” Her eyes roam over the sand, the waves crashing to the shore and then to the birds flying overhead.
She’s working as hard as I am to think of something to change the subject. Apparently she’s not having any more luck than I am.
Awkward.
“Don’t worry. That’s always a conversation killer. It’s not just you.”
Her eyes light up. “Good. I mean, not good that it’s a hard question to answer but good that … oh, never mind. So, tell me more about you. What’s your family like?”
A smile tugs at the corners of my lips. “That shouldn’t be a difficult question to answer either yet it is. I apologize, Emma. This is the least normal date you’ve probably ever been on. To answer your question, I grew up with my younger brother, Finn. He’s like a shorter, less attractive version of me.”
Her lips quirk up at the corners. “I’m sure. Sorry if it feels like I’m questioning you or something. I didn’t mean to pry.”
“You weren’t. You are asking perfectly normal questions. It’s just that my life is a little too reality show for a girl like you to understand.”
“What does that mean? A girl like me?” She raises her eyebrows.
“The kind of girl who grew up with two parents and a dog. The kind of girl who wears sweater sets and thinks hell is a bad word.”
Her mouth falls open. “I have absolutely no idea what to say to that.”
I lean over and tuck a strand of her sunny hair behind her ear. The stuff is always sticking up all over the place and for some reason, I love it. Anyone else would look like an electrocuted poodle but on her, the effect is charming.
“Don’t worry about it, buttercup. It’s not an insult. We’re just different, that’s all.”
She regards me from beneath lowered lashes, her gray eyes worried. Her teeth clamp down on her bottom lip.
“What about your dad?”
“Uh, my parents broke up when I was a kid. So what did you do before you worked for Patrick?”
Talking about my deadbeat dad is not the way to get this date back on track.
“I was in school. I was in my junior year when my parents died. Even though the school gave me a leave of absence to deal with everything, I couldn’t keep my focus even after I came back. My grades suffered. I had a partial scholarship but you have to maintain a certain GPA to keep it. So now I’m trying to earn enough money to go back and retake some of the classes I failed.”
“Makes sense. Is that why you started dancing at the Black Kitty?”
Her head snapped up. “Dancing? Oh god, you mean stripping? I’m not a stripper.”
The disdain in her voice is obvious. I know she doesn’t mean anything by it but after everything I’ve witnessed over the past twenty-four hours, it strikes me as incredibly ironic that she’d react this way.
A lot of the girls stripping at the Black Kitty are farther along in their college studies than she is. Most of them are dancing to pay their way through school. Or to support their kids.
“Are you okay?” Emma asks.
Part of me wants to write this whole thing off as a bust, grab my shit and go home. But I’m so disappointed. So damn disappointed because I thought she was different.
I contemplate not answering. She doesn’t get it and people like her never do. But something inside me wants her to understand.
“Those girls you look down on are just doing what they need to survive. Half of them are in college and will make more money than either of us when they finish.”
I shake my head but before I can say anything else my phone vibrates in my pocket. I pull it out.
Normally I wouldn’t take a phone call in the middle of a date, even one as spectacularly bad as this one. However, when I see my mom’s name on the screen, I answer immediately.
“Mom. Is everything okay?”
“Hi baby. Yes, I’m fine. I just can’t find my pills. I remember you setting them all out for me in that nifty little pill case. The one with the days of the week on it, right?”
“Yeah, I left it right on the kitchen island so you’ll see it every morning.”
“That’s what I thought but it’s not there.”
I sit up on my knees and start placing things back in the cooler. Emma watches me and then starts packing up the items she took out.
“I’ll come find it for you, Mom.”
“Don’t be silly. There’s no need for you to drive over here just for that. I’m sure it’ll turn up. Maybe I moved it while I was cleaning off the counter and just don’t remember where I set it down. You know I do that sometimes.”
Not for the first time, guilt hits me right in the chest. I should have known she wasn’t getting better even before she told me. The signs have been right in front of my face.
She’s forgetting things and doing things that don’t make sense. It’s been happening more and more lately.
What if she forgets she’s already taken her medicine and then takes it again? She could overdose herself without even realizing it.
“I’m in Virginia Beach anyway. I’ll be there in a minute.”
After I hang up with my mom, I turn to Emma.
“My mom can’t find her medication. She does this sometimes. Misplaces things. I need to get over there. I’m sorry to bail on you.”
She follows me, her legs working double time on the sand to keep up with my long strides.
“It’s no problem. I think it’s nice you’re so devoted to your mom.”
“Well, she did whatever she had to do to keep us all together when we were growing up. We didn’t have a lot of money but she never let us down. Now it’s our turn to take care of her.”
When we reach the parking lot, I wait while she fumbles with the keys on her chain to find the right one. She opens the trunk so I can place the cooler inside.
“Sorry I have to cut things short.”
Even though things weren’t going well, I still feel bad about running out on her. I’ve been hitting on her for weeks and now the first time she says yes, I ditch her after less than an hour.
“No, I understand completely. I hope your mom is okay.”
Emma closes the trunk and then unlocks the front door of the car. I wait while she slides behind the wheel.
“Thanks. I’m sure she’s fine. I just want to check on her.”
She turns the key and her engine strains to turn over. It sounds like it’s pleading for help.
“Ugh, I hate this stupid car.”
She tries it again and a cloud of smoke erupts from beneath the hood. Emma gets out of the car and waves her hand in front of her face.
“Maybe I shouldn’t have said that. Now I’ve pissed her off.”
I glance at my phone again. There’s no way I have time to get beneath the hood and figure out what’s wrong. But I also can’t just leave her here alone.
I could take her home and come back for her car later but that would be going completely out of the way. And my mom didn’t sound good.
“Come on.”
She leans in and grabs her bag from the passenger seat of her car. “I’m so sorry. You don’t have to stay. I’ll call Ivy. Or maybe Sasha can pick me up.”
“What if they can’t come right away?”
She places a hand over her eyes shielding them from the midday sun. “It’s a beautiful day. I’ll just hang out until they can get here.”
I don’t even have to think about it.
Every instinct I have revolts at the idea of leaving her somewhere alone without a guaranteed way to get home.
Normally I wouldn’t take a girl home to meet my mom this soon.
Or ever.
But in this case, it really doesn’t matter. We tried and it didn’t work out. I’m not the only one feeling the awkward vibes so there’s no way she wants to see me again either.
“Yeah, no. You’re coming with me buttercup.”
She wrinkles her nose at the nickna
me but follows me as I walk over to my bike.
“I really wish I hadn’t worn a skirt now.”
My lips curl up as I look at her slender legs peeking from beneath the billowy layers of her skirt.
“I don’t mind.”
Her annoyed response is drowned out by the roar of the engine as I start the bike.
* * *
Despite it being after lunchtime, the curtains in the front of my mom’s house are still drawn. We walk up the driveway and I hit the bell.
After several minutes, I glance back at Emma. She’s looking around curiously but doesn’t seem impatient.
“It takes a little longer for her to get to the door these days. The chemo hits her pretty hard.”
I’m not sure why I’m explaining anything to Emma. That date proved without a shadow of a doubt that my fascination with her is completely chemical. So I shouldn’t care at all what she thinks about anything and I definitely shouldn’t be sharing intimate details with her.
But despite her snide comments on the beach, there’s a part of me that’s still hanging on to the idea of her.
Men really do think with their dicks.
The door finally opens. Mom is wearing her oversized nightshirt and a pair of sweatpants. They hang off her. I make a mental note to buy her smaller sizes until she gains back some of the weight she’s lost.
“Tank. I told you not to come. But since you’re here, you can fix the television for me. Who is this?” Her eyes stop on Emma and she glances at me.
“This is my friend, Emma. Emma, this is my mom, Claire Marshall.”
“Sorry, I must look terrible.” Mom pats the bandanna tied over her thinning hair self-consciously.
I should have anticipated this but guys don’t think about this kind of stuff. We don’t worry about how our hair looks or what we’re wearing. But I would never do anything to embarrass my mom.
I should have just dropped Emma off, gas mileage be damned.
“Sorry for just dropping in on you with company. I wanted to make sure that you were okay.”
I don’t say it out loud but she hadn’t sounded too good on the phone. The lines around her eyes are more pronounced and she looks tired. Really tired.
