by Cora Brent
Curtis crossed his arms and studied me. I tensed, ready for a sharp rebuke but he merely sounded sad when he said, “You don’t know the first thing about me.”
Our standoff only lasted a minute. Curtis sank down into a chair, set his elbows on the table and held his head in his hands. He was obviously upset about something and I doubted it had anything to do with me.
I kept an eye on him as he sat there quietly while I brewed the coffee. I removed a mug from the cabinet above the sink and filled it nearly to the brim. This guy could obviously use the maximum amount of caffeine.
There were voices coming from the lobby now, the other staff arriving. Most showed up at noon but there were a few who had morning hours. Scratch was one of the few tattoo parlors around that opened early.
Curtis didn’t look up when I quietly set the coffee cup in front of him. I wasn’t expecting gratitude. I didn’t need it. Sometimes it just felt good to do something small for someone else without expecting anything in return.
“Thank you, Cassie,” Curtis said and there was a different tone in his voice. A deep weariness. It was almost enough to tempt me to reach out and touch his shoulder as a gesture of comfort but I stopped myself and instead returned to my desk.
I’d barely sat down when my father walked in. He smiled, obviously happy to find me at my desk and ready to work already.
He held up a small paper bag. “Your mom insisted that I bring you a muffin. It’s her worst fear that you left the house this morning without eating breakfast.”
I accepted the bag gratefully. “Thanks. Hey, I thought she’d be here, shadowing you all week as research for her book or something.”
“Maybe tomorrow. Today she’s hard at work putting together the perfect care package to send to Cadence. Apparently the camp washing machine ate most of your sister’s socks. So your mother took that as an invitation to fill a giant carton with approximately seventy five pairs of socks and she’s also driving to north Scottsdale as we speak to get Cadence a box of cookies from her favorite bakery.”
I smiled. “Mom misses her baby.”
“All three of you are her babies forever.” He started walking away. “You’d better eat that muffin. I’ll get blamed if you don’t.”
I was still smiling when I turned the phone off voicemail. It rang almost immediately, one of Zach’s customers who needed to get his dragon chest tattoo finished. I kept glancing over in the direction of the break room to see if Curtis would emerge. He must have made his exit at some point without me noticing because the next time I saw him he was in the company of my dad and they were discussing the upcoming Scratch merchandise line. Most businesses would outsource the production but my dad was determined to keep it in house using local materials.
I listened quietly while my father told Curtis he needed him to go downtown and visit a warehouse to check out the product samples.
“Bring back the best ones and we’ll make a decision about what will work,” he said. “We want good quality.”
Curtis nodded. “Will do.”
“And then later today we can work on getting the supply closet outfitted as a work space now that all the shelving has been removed. Deck will be here this afternoon so he can help us sort that out.”
“Sounds good,” Curtis said.
My dad had already started the walk back to his office so there was nothing keeping Curtis standing there, just three feet away from my desk. Yet he lingered for a moment, staring down at the set of keys in his hand. There were two customers waiting in the lobby so it was not a good time for us to have another round of verbal sparring but I got the impression he was earnestly trying to think of something to say.
I changed my mind a second later when he hurried through the door and out to the parking lot without uttering another word. He probably had more serious things on his mind than making conversation with the receptionist.
With a shrug I returned to answering Scratch’s social media comments. Yet as the hours passed I found that I was unable to dismiss the image of Curtis’s broad shoulders.
I was in the middle of discussing pricing with a nervous customer when he returned. He was carrying a big cardboard box and he went straight to my dad’s office. They were still in there when five o’clock rolled around. Scratch was open until nine tonight and Marian arrived right on time to claim her post.
“How’s it going, Cassie?” she asked in her throaty voice. She was missing her front two lower teeth but that never stopped her from smiling. Marian was a nurse’s aide during the day and only took these evening shifts at Scratch because she loved being part of things here.
“Pretty good,” I said, zipping my school backpack closed. I’d started the day meaning to take a look at the statistics curriculum whenever there was a lull in work. Unfortunately, that had never happened because I’d been too distracted with watching for Curtis. I still kept thinking about the way he had lowered his head to his hands this morning, as if he had the weight of world in there. Maybe I should have said something nice to him, let him know that I was willing to listen if he wanted to talk.
After a quick drive thru taco dinner I went straight to school. I hadn’t forgotten about Parker Neely, yet I was still a little startled to see him walk in and select a seat by the door. He scanned the room and met my eye. When I didn’t look away immediately he smiled and offered this odd little salute. I nodded but didn’t smile back.
If there was anything duller than enduring a three hour lecture on statistics then I sure hadn’t heard of it. After half an hour I was desperately wishing I’d sucked back a liter or two of caffeine before sitting down because every ninety seconds I was stifling a full blown yawn. It was a relief when the instructor ended the class fifteen minutes early. Parker had exited swiftly and was already long gone by the time I reached the door. I was glad he was keeping up his end of the bargain by not expecting an awkward conversation to happen every time we ran into each other.
As I walked to my car I felt good. There was a sweet hint of rain in the air and although the temperature was still hot the darkness had at least muzzled the brutal desert sun.
My good feeling evaporated when I turned the ignition key and heard the engine sputter and then die. I tried again but it only died more quickly.
“Wonderful,” I grumbled. I popped the hood and stepped around to the front to take a look. I had little insight as to what I was looking at. I could identify the engine and the battery but all the other pieces were a mystery.
“Car trouble?” inquired a voice and I jumped, banging my head on the bottom of the hood.
Parker was standing nearby and watching me rub the rising bump on my head.
“Didn’t mean to startle you,” he said.
“It’s all right,” I grumbled. “But I do seem to be more accident prone when you’re around.” I pointed to the fading bruise visible on my knee just below the hemline of my skirt.
Parker nodded at the car. “Is it the battery?”
“I don’t know. It wouldn’t tell me.”
He grinned. “I’ve got a set of jumper cables right over there in my car. Let me pull around and I’ll try to give you a jump.”
I felt funny about accepting help from him. “You don’t have to. I could call my dad. Or one of my uncles. They own a garage.”
“I really don’t mind, Cassie.”
I shrugged. “In that case, go for it.”
Parker looked very serious as he went about the business of pulling his car beside mine and attempting to spark the battery back to life. For a few happy seconds I thought it would work when I turned the ignition and listened to the engine surge to life. But then it gasped and weakened and finally died once more.
I groaned and climbed out from behind the wheel. “Damn. Should have known it wouldn’t be that easy.”
Parker was frowning at the car’s guts. “Yeah, looks like the issue is beyond my limited mechanical abilities.”
“Thanks for trying,” I said. “I’
ll call for help.”
Parker waited while I quietly phoned my father. I wished I’d had the foresight to get a roadside assistance plan so I wouldn’t wind up calling my daddy to rescue me. I felt conspicuous with Parker’s eyes on me as I explained that my car wouldn’t start and yes, I was in a safe place and yes, I’d already attempted to jumpstart it. He told me to sit tight and he’d send for a tow truck.
“Thanks again for trying to help,” I said to Parker. “But I think I’ve got it covered now.”
Parker looked around. The last evening classes were ending and the parking lot was slowly emptying. “I don’t mind waiting with you,” he said.
I shook my head. “That’s not necessary.”
“Cassie, I don’t feel right leaving you out here by yourself in the dark.”
“I’m not an idiot, Parker. I’ll wait inside my car with the doors locked, okay?”
“Kind of hot to close yourself into a vehicle that’s not going to have any air conditioning.”
“I’ll manage.”
He glanced around the parking lot once more. “Okay. But just so you know, I’ll be hanging out over here in my car until I see you get safely picked up.”
“You do that.”
“Why don’t you join me in air conditioned comfort?”
Saying no would have been easy. Yet I honestly wasn’t too excited to hang out here in the creepy hot darkness waiting for the Gentry cavalry to arrive. Parker was just trying to be nice. And if he stopped being nice, I had a keychain canister of pepper spray in my handbag.
Parker cranked up the air conditioning once we were in his car and I had to admit the blast of cool air felt good. He talked a little bit about living in Nebraska, about the flat prairie and the lashing winds.
“Why’d you leave?” I asked him. “Sounds like you were happy there.”
He shrugged. “Eh, I don’t know. This is home I guess.”
“I guess it is.”
The conversation kind of stalled so I checked my email, just to have something to do. That only took about ten seconds so I decided to type the name Curtis Mulligan into the search bar to see what came up. There was only one Curtis Mulligan in the results and it wasn’t the one I was looking for. I wondered what he was up to tonight, if the troubles that made him look so exhausted this morning were any closer to being solved.
I turned the phone face down on my knee and looked out the window. Chances were high that even if Curtis confided in me about what was on his mind I’d wind up wishing he hadn’t. Plus if his issues were illegal or degenerate then I was better off not knowing.
“Cassie?” said Parker.
I was so busy dwelling on Curtis I’d half forgotten Parker was sitting right next to me.
“Sorry, did you ask me something?” I said, tossing the phone back into my handbag.
Parker shifted and tapped the steering wheel. “I asked if you might want to go to dinner sometime.”
“With who?” I asked stupidly. Then I said, “Oh,” because I realized Parker was actually asking me to go out on a date or something.
He talked quickly before I had a chance to turn him down flat. “Just dinner. You can even meet me at the restaurant if you don’t want me at your house.”
I looked at him and said the first thing that was on my mind. “Can’t you find another girl to go out with?”
He considered and nodded. “I’m sure I could. But you’re the one I keep thinking about.”
Those words, if said by the right guy, would be enough to make any girl blush. But in this case my reaction was not even lukewarm. When was the last time I was out on a date? I couldn’t even remember. It was true I’d been hibernating for far too long. I just wasn’t sold on the idea that Parker Neely was the guy worth emerging for.
Luckily I was saved by the lights.
The blinking lights atop the tow truck belonging to my Uncle Conway was just turning into the parking lot. I was delighted to see the Brothers Gentry logo on the side and practically leapt from Parker’s car.
“Thanks for hanging around,” I said. “I’m good now.”
Parker leaned over and put his hand in the way before I could shut the door.
“Will you think about it?” he asked. “Think about letting me take you out sometime? Even if you don’t want to go out with me, maybe we could be friends. Things haven’t been so great and I could really use a friend.”
I could see Uncle Conway behind the wheel. He wouldn’t recognize who Parker was unless I told him. My dad would have but thankfully he wasn’t with Conway.
“I’ll think about it,” I said.
Parker answered with a brilliant smile that was once my undoing and let me shut the door. He waited until Uncle Conway’s tow truck pulled up and then he drove away.
“I sure am glad to see you,” I told my father’s half brother.
Uncle Conway smiled. He was quite a bit younger than Cord, Creed and Chase, the product of an affair between his mother and my grandfather. His mother had been married to a different Gentry, a cousin who was led to believe Conway and Stone were his own sons. They were all adults by the time the real truth came out. As for Stone Gentry, he was actually the son of Chrome Gentry, Deck’s father. It was hard explaining the complex genealogy of the Gentrys and people tended to look at me funny if I tried so I usually didn’t try. We were all family. That’s what mattered.
Conway was a wizard with cars. After spending five minutes poking around inside the Toyota he determined the problem was probably the alternator. I wasn’t sure what that was but Conway said he could tow it to the garage tonight and have it all fixed up tomorrow morning so I was grateful.
“By the way,” said Uncle Conway as he hooked up the car to the tow truck, “who was that guy you were talking to?”
I glanced around to see if there was any hint of Parker Neely’s car. There wasn’t.
“Nobody,” I told my uncle. “Just a guy.”
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
I totally lost track of time and flinched when my phone rang. My heart starting beating overtime when I saw an unfamiliar local number.
“Tristan?” I said into the phone.
“Curtis,” a voice answered. “It’s me.”
I exhaled, trying not to feel disappointed. One of my brothers was waiting for a response on the other end. It just wasn’t the brother I was so worried about.
“What’s up, Brecken?” I asked, keeping my voice light as I held up one finger and exited Cord’s office. Cord glanced at me and then resumed talking to Deck.
“Uh, you’re half an hour late to pick me up. I had to borrow a phone from one of the counselors.”
“Shit,” I swore, checking my wrist and then swearing again when I remembered I’d left my watch beside the sink in our motel room. Ever since Tristan stormed out the other night I’d been badly distracted but I’d have to get it together for Brecken’s sake. I checked out the time on the wall clock and winced.
“I’m sorry, man,” I said. “Can you hang in there? I’ll be there as soon as I can.”
“Why don’t I just take the bus back to the hotel?”
“No,” I said firmly. Brecken looked really young and I didn’t want him alone at that place for five minutes. “Wait for me. I’ll be there soon.”
Cord and Deck stopped talking when I returned to the room.
“Hey, you guys mind if I take off now?” I said. “I’ve got to pick up my brother.”
The men glanced at each other.
Deck looked concerned when he asked, “Everything okay, Curtis? The boys doing well?”
I thought about telling him. About Tristan leaving. About how much I hated subjecting Brecken to even one more night at the motel. But the words wouldn’t come out.
“Sure, everything’s fine,” I said, surprising even myself with how cheerful I sounded. “We’re excited to move to the new apartment in a few weeks.”
“And where’d you say you were staying now?” Deck asked.
I’d never mentioned the Empire Motel at all. “Just a short term rental place. It’s not bad.”
Deck kept staring at me. I wasn’t sure what he was thinking. I stared back and tried to appear unconcerned, as if my biggest problem on earth was that I was late to pick up my little brother.
“It’s no problem if you need to go,” Cord said. “We’ve kept you past your quitting time anyway.”
Deck wasn’t willing to let me escape so fast. “Why don’t you bring the boys here for a visit one day?” he said. “Maybe they’d get a kick out of seeing the place. Shit, they were little kids the last time I saw them. Now Tristan’s nearly grown and Brecken must be hitting his teens.”
“Yeah, I’ll do that. Thanks.” I felt an almost painful urge to escape from their watchful eyes before they saw right through me. I’d never been a good liar and sooner or later I was bound to crack. Hell, I’d almost done it in the break room right in front of Cassie Gentry. I hadn’t had the urge to cry since I don’t even know when, yet I’d almost broken down when I sat in a chair at that flimsy table. All at once I felt like everything was catching up with me. I was no parent and I didn’t know what to do. If anything happened to Tristan I wasn’t sure how I could live with that.
When Cassie set that cup of coffee down on the table it shouldn’t have meant as much to me as it did. But in that moment, receiving a kind gesture from another human being was everything. I stammered out a thank you and wondered what she would think if she’d known what was going through my head. I didn’t get a chance to bring it up again because we didn’t see each other for the rest of the day. Not that it mattered. Even if we were working side by side all afternoon I knew damn well I wouldn’t have said one honest word about my problems.
She was gone when I walked through the lobby again. The other receptionist was there, Mary or Mercedes or whatever her name was. She was busy on the phone so I didn’t have to say hello. I had no grudge against the Mary person but I found myself wishing I’d gotten one more glimpse of Cassie today.
