by Cora Brent
“She in there?” he asked.
“Yeah,” I said.
Brayden nodded and took two steps in my direction. It surprised me when he threw a punch. It was a crappy effort that barely grazed my chin but I didn’t retaliate. He stood there, glaring at me and breathing heavily. Then he pushed me hard against the wall.
“Fucking Gentrys,” he spat and followed his cousin into the bathroom.
Well, after that upsetting turn of events I gave myself the rest of the day off. I headed for an abandoned shed about a half mile from the derelict hole I called home. The boys and I hung out there a lot even though the rusted tin roof was one tough wind away from blowing clean off and the place was hot as hell’s armpit most of the year. We headed there when being in the same room with Benton got to be too much and it was where we hid things we didn’t want him to find, like the stash of good stuff our cousin Deck gave us last time he was on leave from the Marines.
I got stoned off my ass and laid down in the dirt. I didn’t want college. I just wanted to grab my boys and get the hell out of this shithole. I would have been gone tomorrow but Cord said we needed to finish high school first. We had less than two years left. Just two more miserable years.
I was still halfway baked when Cordero tore off the tin door and went at me in a rage. He dragged me outside and shoved my face in the nearest creosote bush as he started pounding on me.
For a moment I didn’t remember why. Cord didn’t usually go ape shit like that but I figured he was pissed because I’d used up the rest of the stash. “Jesus, we’ll get more!” I yelled and tried to push him off my chest. He responded with a right hook to my jaw. It was nothing like Brayden’s weak punch. I saw stars, a whole galaxy of them. Then I realized Creedence was there too and he was trying to pull Cord away.
Cord rolled off me. He sat in the dirt and ran a hand through his hair before looking off into the distance. “She ran out of school early,” he said in a pained voice.
Now I remembered. “Saylor.”
“Yeah,” he said with a sarcastic sneer. “Saylor. Why the hell did you have to go tell everyone, Chase?”
I picked up a desiccated prickly pear leaf and threw it at him. “Hey, you’re the one who fucked her, remember?”
“And I wish I hadn’t,” he said quietly. “She ain’t that type. What we did was fucked up.”
I rolled over and got to my knees. My jaw was starting to hurt and my ribs felt a bit bruised. I’d been punched before, in more ways and in more places than I cared to recall. But it hurt more coming from Cord.
Creedence got down on the ground between us. He wasn’t used to being the peacemaker and I could tell he didn’t like doing it. “Cut the shit, both of you,” he said tersely. “We’ve never let any goddamn pussy come between us before and we’re not starting now.” He looked at each of us carefully. “Chase, what you did sucked. Cord, you don’t give a shit about that girl anyway or you wouldn’t have fucked her and laughed about it. There. That’s the truth. Now you guys need to fucking hug or something.”
Cord and I glanced at each other and cracked up with laughter, partly because it was such a rarity to hear Creed say so much at once and partly because it was amusing as shit listening to him ordering us to hug.
“I’m not hugging you, freak,” Cord told me, but he did offer me a hand up out of the dirt.
The three of us hung around just shooting the shit until it started to get dark. My stomach was growling. “What are we gonna do about dinner?” It was a running question. It had been for sixteen years.
I could see Cord’s grin in the dusk. “I bet Mom’s making a casserole.”
Creed scratched his head. “I’m not even sure what the hell a casserole is.”
I answered him. “It’s something only people on television eat.”
We headed for home in a tight pack, joking and shoving each other. When we were about a hundred yards out we came to a collective stop, like animals that had sensed the presence of a predator. We stared at the dilapidated monstrosity before us. It was the only home we’d ever known.
“He in there?” I asked. The question didn’t bring quite as much stomach-flipping terror as it once did. Now that we were older and stronger our father had learned it was unwise to fuck with us. That didn’t mean we were ever in the mood to see him though.
“I don’t think so,” Cord said, frowning. He started walking toward the double-wide first. Creed and I followed.
The place stunk to high heaven. There was a stack of mismatched dishes in the filthy sink. The rancid food clinging to them had already brought in more than a few flies. Cord cursed and carefully took them out of the sink. Then he began filling the sink with water so he could wash them. Creed picked up a bottle of tequila from the kitchen table. I knew it hadn’t been there that morning. Benton was either passed out in his closet of a room or he had wondered off in a drunken daze to find someone to hurt. Creed took a drink from the bottle and tried to pass it to me but I shook my head. I headed for the tiny bedroom the three of us shared. There wasn’t much in there. Three ancient mattresses on the floor and an old dresser that we shared. I sank into my bed and wished I was somewhere else, anywhere else.
“Someday,” I whispered, looking at the other two mattresses in the room and making a silent promise to my brothers. Someday we were leaving all this shit behind.
Then I heard a soft moan coming from the other bedroom. Creed was helping Cord clean up the kitchen. They didn’t hear it. I got up and went across the hall. I was nervous as I pushed the door gently open. If Benton was in there he would belt me first and ask questions later. My father wasn’t around though. My mother was alone.
I saw the dirty piece of rubber still tied around her arm and knew she was deep under the spell of whatever she’d shot into her veins. Her greasy hair lay in clumps over her face and her raggedy dress didn’t cover the bruises on her legs. If I could believe pictures then I could believe my mother had once been beautiful. But the way I remembered her was like this; ruined. Her eyelids fluttered and I knelt at her side. I put my finger against her neck, feeling her slow, erratic pulse.
“Mom?” I whispered, wanting her to shake it off and be a mother, wanting her to stumble down the hall and sit with us for a little while, wanting her to just fucking see me.
Her blue eyes focused on my face and a look of bleak sadness filled them. “Loved you,” she moaned before covering her head with the filthy blankets. “I swear I did, Benton.”
I was shaken to the core. I could barely stand up but I needed to get the hell out of there before she called me by my father’s name again. I couldn’t handle that.
My brothers shouted to me as I ran out the front door. I ran like the blazes for about a quarter of a mile and then stopped. I looked up at the sky and panted. After all, where the hell did I think I was going?
The boys caught up to me. The second I felt the heat of their bodies I felt better. It had always been that way. I wondered what would have happened if we’d been separated at birth and wandered the years alone. Would I have always felt like there were large pieces of myself missing? Would they?
“I’m sorry,” I told Cord and then he really did hug me, awkward as it was.
I shouldn’t have betrayed his trust and I was worse than garbage for hurting some innocent girl just because I could. Cord may have executed the deed but I was the architect of the plan. I was awful. I was a Gentry.
And yes, I was sorry.
“Steph,” I whispered in the darkness, pulling my head out of the past. I’d been lying there staring at the ceiling for hours while Stephanie slept beside me. I kissed her shoulder, then moved my lips over her breasts. We’d rocked the walls tonight, just like I said we would. It had driven me nuts all evening, watching her get sexed up in her red dress as I saw other guys glancing her way, and knowing she was mine all the while. Mine! Now I wanted her to wake up, to hold me and tell me the things I only wanted to hear from her. She grumbled in her sleep and
pushed me away.
With a sigh I got out of bed and yanked some boxers on, intending to head for the kitchen. I was suddenly hungry.
My brother’s wife was sitting quietly at the table, a glass of milk in front of her.
“What’s wrong?” I asked, taking a chair across from where she sat.
Saylor winced. “Heartburn. Can’t sleep. I was afraid all my irritable rolling around would keep Cordero awake.” Her green eyes surveyed me. “You okay, Chase?”
“Yeah. Just feeling a bit restless I guess.”
She squeezed my arm gently. “Because of your argument with Creed? Or is there another reason?”
I exhaled. “All kinds of reasons.”
“Well I can name one thing you’re sure about.” She smiled. “Stephanie. In fact I’ve never seen you so sure about anything.”
“You can tell me the truth, Say.”
“I always do, Chasyn.”
“You think it’s good between me and her?”
She was confused. “What the hell difference does it make what I think? It doesn’t. Look,” she said, leaning forward. “I wouldn’t have given a rat’s ass what anyone had to say about me and Cord. I knew I belonged with him.”
“I belong with her,” I said firmly. “I do.”
She gave me a stubborn look. “Then you damn well don’t let anyone tell you otherwise.”
My brother had married gold. Pure gold. I gave her a brilliant grin. “You’re awesome, Saylor Gentry. Now what are you thinking about naming those babies? I want right of refusal.”
We talked a little while longer and then Saylor started yawning. “I’m gonna give this sleep thing another try.” She poked at her stomach. “Now you guys cooperate or I’m telling Daddy.”
She started to shuffle to her room but I called her back. She looked at me questioningly. I had told her before, months earlier, that I was sorry about what I’d done to hurt her so long ago. I had the sudden urge to say it again. But I knew it would be more for me than for her. It would dredge up long finished pain just so I could scrub my conscience a little bit cleaner.
So all I said was, “’Night, sis.”
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
Stephanie
I had to tell him.
I couldn’t tell him.
Every day something happened to make me fall more in love with Chase. Often it was a tiny act, like the way he took my backpack from my shoulder and insisted in carrying it himself as we walked across campus. Chase never looked at other girls, no matter how doggedly they tried to get him to respond to them. We fought sometimes, but always about trivial things that seemed designed for us to clash over only so we could passionately reconcile almost immediately.
But then came the night when I scared him. I did something he’d never seen me do before. Chase figured out there had to be a big reason why.
I had already started my waitressing job at Cluck This. It sucked. I didn’t know how the hell Truly could pull it off so cheerfully; dealing with the chronic whining about the degree of crispiness of the goddamn chicken or the demands for a specific brand of Tabasco sauce that only exists in countries near the equator. A few hours of that would be enough to make anyone feel slightly violent.
After our shift ended I said good night to Truly and headed over to Chase’s place. We’d started spending almost every night there since things hadn’t really cooled off between him and Creed. It was quietly assumed that he and Truly would be at our apartment while Chase and I slept several blocks away in Chase’s bedroom.
“Miss you, Steph,” said Truly before I took off. “We should have a girls’ day soon; just you, me and Saylor.” She smiled. “No Gentry boys allowed.”
“It’s a date,” I told her and then I waved before climbing behind the wheel of my Buick. When my phone buzzed I assumed it was Chase. It wasn’t.
“Hey, Uncle Rocco,” I said into the phone. Rocco Colletti wasn’t really my uncle. He’d been my dad’s friend since they were both boys on the loose in a tough Queens neighborhood. He wasn’t just into gambling. He was into other stuff too. He’d been keeping tabs on me since my dad went away and I knew it was at Nick Bransky’s request.
“Sorry to be bugging you so late, Steffie.” His voice was hoarse from years of hard living and he used my childhood nickname.
I glanced at the time on the dashboard. “Jeez, it’s got to be one in the morning on your side.”
“It is,” he answered in a slow voice and I knew this wasn’t just a ‘How the hell are you?’ type of call. My stomach lurched.
“Something up with Pop?”
“Your dad’s fine. He’s taken up knitting. Did you know that?”
“No.” It was impossible to picture. My father was a barrel-chested man with hands like blunt meat hooks.
Rocco sighed. “You in trouble, Steffie?”
I hesitated. When the whole Xavier shit happened I’d thought about making some phone calls. Even though we never talked directly about how I was booking, I was sure Rocco knew about it. And his devotion to my father meant he would have happily dealt with anyone who’d wronged me. But my pride got in the way. If I made those calls then it would all come out and I still held out hope that it wouldn’t. Worst of all, it would prove definitively that I wasn’t one of them; I was just a girl.
“Not anymore,” I told him truthfully because it wouldn’t do to bullshit Uncle Rocco. If he asked you a question then he probably already knew the answer. Rocco had been the one who showed up at my house the day after my mother’s funeral. He was the one to tell me that Robbie was dead.
“All right then,” he said slowly and wheezed a little, probably taking another drag on the cigarettes that were slowly smothering him. “I heard rumors that said otherwise but I know you’d call if there was any real trouble.”
“I would,” I promised him and he sighed again. Uneasily I wondered if my father’s best friend had somehow seen the video of me stripping in front of a crowd of men and desperately pretending I loved it.
“Mikey get in touch with you yet?”
I was startled by the mention of my brother. “I haven’t heard from Michael in over a year. Is he in your neighborhood?”
“No, Steffie. He’s in yours.”
“He’s here?” I looked out the car window into the darkness, as if my prodigal brother was apt to materialize right outside my window. “What in god’s name is Michael doing in the Phoenix area? It’s not exactly Vegas or Atlantic City.”
Rocco sounded annoyed. “Hell if I know what that kid’s up to. He doesn’t keep me in the loop. All I know is he landed in the desert a few weeks back and he’s gone temporarily off the radar.”
The news unsettled me. I imagined my mercurial big brother lurking in the shadows of Phoenix like an underworld wraith. Plus, I could admit to feeling a small stab of hurt. Michael knew exactly where I was. If he hadn’t contacted me it was because he didn’t want to.
“I’ll keep an eye out,” I told Rocco. “But I’m out of the game for now, maybe for good. I actually got a job as a waitress.”
Rocco let out a wheezing laugh. “Steffie Bransky a waitress. Ah, your old man will get a kick out of that.”
“Well, someone should I guess. You take care of yourself, Uncle Rocco.”
“Likewise, kid.”
I drove to Chase’s apartment feeling ill at ease. It used to be an everyday mood but since I’d exited the gambling world and fallen for Chase I’d felt better, calmer.
After turning sharply into a parking space I jumped out of the car. A wolf whistle in the darkness made me drop my backpack and curse.
“Hey,” Chase called and I realized the whistle had come from him. He was standing on his back patio in the dark. As I retrieved my backpack from the ground he jumped over the wall. I flung my arms around his neck as soon as he was close enough and he wrapped me in a strong hug.
“What is it?” he asked between feverish kisses.
“I missed you,” I breathed, running my
lips along his jaw, his neck. I wanted to get to every part of him.
Chase moved his hands to cup my face. “You missed me that much, Steph?” There was something so boyish and hopeful about the way he asked the question.
I wanted him to kiss me some more. I wanted to feel him on top of me, inside me. And then I wanted to doze off safely in his arms.
“I always miss you, Chase. Even when I’m with you I start missing you.” Then I hissed through my teeth. “Shit, that doesn’t make any sense, does it?”
Chase lifted me in his arms and started carrying me back to his apartment. I was half afraid he was going to trip over a curb or something and we’d both go tumbling to the concrete because he wasn’t watching where he was going. He was staring directly into my eyes. “Honey, I’ve never heard anything sweeter.”
I buried my face in his neck until we reached his bedroom. I didn’t know if anyone else was home. I didn’t care. Chase undressed me gently and spread me out on his bed. I shivered as he got naked and rolled a rubber on.
“Hard,” I begged him and he obeyed, thrusting in deep and going for a long time, long after I came and then came again.
After he was done shuddering to a conclusion, Chase rolled to the side and ran a hand over my bare hip. “What’s got you off tonight?”
I smiled. “You got me off. Did you forget?”
He chuckled. “We’re starting to sound alike.”
“Then you should start practicing your Long Island accent.”
“I saw talk you say tawk. I saw off, you say awf.”
“Never mind,” I giggled. “You can’t do it.”
Chase grunted and moved to his back, pulling me on top of him. “Sit up,” he ordered. “No, straddle me and sit.”
I did what he wanted although I was skeptical. “You can’t possibly be ready again.”
“Not quite. I just want to look at you. Let your hair fall over your tits like those paintings I showed you.”
Chase had enlightened me as to his often-repeated references to pre-Raphaelite art. He liked to tell me I resembled the ethereal beauties in those paintings. I very much doubted the likeness but cooperated with him anyway.
