by Cora Brent
The possibility had never occurred to me. Then I felt supremely stupid because it had never occurred to me.
“Damn,” I whispered, because I was so surprised I couldn’t say anything else.
Creed thought I was upset and he quickly sat beside me on the couch.
“I’m not talking about leaving you out, man. There’ll be a place for you wherever I’m at.” He patted me awkwardly on the shoulder. “You know that.”
“I’m not your responsibility,” I said, a little too sharply. “I can do just fine on my own.”
I figured Creed would issue some kind of harsh retort to the contrary but he didn’t. He kept his eyes on me and nodded eagerly. “I know you can. You can do anything, Chase, anything you set your mind to.”
If someone other than Creed said that it could have been blown off as artificial, perfunctory. But when Creedence Gentry said he believed in you then it was a powerful feeling.
“Thanks, Creed,” I said softly. I sighed and walked into the kitchen to get a glass of water. I hoped there might be some food in the fridge, however there was nothing but a gigantic dead bird.
“What’s with our new pet?”
Creed chuckled. “Truly is hell bent on cooking a massive Thanksgiving banquet next week.”
I poked at the thing. It was massive and frozen solid. I hoped it would look better on Thanksgiving.
“I’m ordering pizza,” I announced, closing the fridge.
Creed started carrying his guitar back to his room. “I’ll chip in and take some of that,” he said.
“That’s okay, I got it.” I’d taken out my wallet and was counting the cash. Since it still contained the eight hundred dollars I’d won from Al there was a lot to count. I should have waited until Creed left the room to do it though.
“Where’d you get all that?” His voice was low and suspicious and he looked warily from me to the cash in my hand.
I quickly shoved it back into my wallet. “Cracked the piggy bank, that’s all.”
He didn’t believe me. “Quite a pile since you’ve only worked about what, three days in the last month?”
“If you kept better tabs on me you’d realize I worked a lofty five days in the last month.” Between being occupied with Stephanie and already flush with gambling funds, I’d been turning down security work lately.
My brother wouldn’t look away. I waited for him to say something else but he just stared. In fact we stood there silently in the middle of the kitchen and stared at each other for a good long time.
CHAPTER TWENTY ONE
Stephanie
I was in my favorite place. I was wrapped in Chase’s arms. It didn’t matter that we were in the middle of a club surrounded by a boisterous crowd. When I closed my eyes, all I knew was the warmth of his body and the incomparable joy of being close to him.
Truly turned to me, her face shining, as Creed paused between songs. “Isn’t he great?”
I nodded and then closed my eyes again. Creed launched into a soulful version of Bon Jovi’s I’ll Be There For You and I turned around so that I could press my cheek to Chase’s strong chest. He ran his hands up and down my back, then scooted back through the crowd, pulling me with him into the shadows where it was a little quieter.
Chase circled his arms around my waist and pressed his forehead to mine as we swayed lightly to the music. When Creed crashed into the chorus Chase suddenly moved his mouth to my neck and lifted me, crushing my body against his. He was sucking at my neck and it would leave a mark but I knew I could cover it with my hair and it was making me too crazy to put a stop to it. When Chase pushed his leg between mine I could feel my dress riding up a little and that too was fine. I was straining against him, trying to get more, because nothing was ever enough with Chase.
Somewhere in the vague part of my conscious mind I realized Creed was still singing and there were people everywhere but I didn’t want to know anything about any of them. I only wanted to know Chase.
“Come on, baby,” Chase muttered, trying to get me to grind my body against his. We were in such a dark area and people were drunk or involved with their own shit. No one should have been particularly interested in the two of us, unless they saw a reason to notice.
But someone did notice. And the sight of his leering face made my blood run cold.
Dustin O’Shea had been booking in the Tempe area since before I arrived. When Xavier first made me part of his ring, Dustin O’Shea had licked his yellow teeth and offered to show me a few things. He backed off when I made it clear he did not possess anything I wished to see. Dustin held a grudge though. The grudge grew when his clients began abandoning him after he started getting a reputation for dishonesty; changing the terms after the games didn’t fall in his favor. I had no part in that. I didn’t steal his clients, but Dustin was always looking for someone else to blame for his crappy actions.
Dustin was front and center the night I was told there was only one option in settling my imaginary debt to Xavier. He was the one who suggested an alternative if I failed to cooperate; I could either get naked and stay untouched or I could get naked and get touched by a number of people, including him. In my book, Dustin was as big a gutter rat as Xavier.
He was standing less than ten feet away with a nasty smirk on his ugly face. He held up his phone as if he was taking a picture, or a video. Or else maybe he was watching one. He’d filmed the entire fucking thing with one hand and held his shriveled dick in the other while he yelled along with the crowd.
“Oh yeah, that’s the shit. Now kneel down and touch your pussy. Spread, baby, ‘cause we all want to see. That’s it. Look at you smiling and lovin’ it.”
“Stephanie.”
That wasn’t a voice from my nightmares. That was the voice of the man who loved me, the man I could trust completely. Chase ran his hands up and down my arms and stared into my face. My expression must have been disturbing because he looked troubled. I wrapped my arms around his neck and leaned into him, only then aware that Creed had finished singing. Over Chase’s shoulder I could still see Dustin. He lowered his phone and stopped smiling. There was something quite hideous about the way he looked at me. If I had more courage I would have stalked right up to him and shoved that phone down his throat. But it would raise questions and I still couldn’t bring myself to tell Chase what had happened. I couldn’t tell anyone. I was operating on borrowed time, praying that the fallout never found me.
“Can we go?” I whispered in Chase’s ear.
Creed and Truly caught up to us just then. I tried to smile and be enthusiastic but I really just wanted to jump out of my skin. Meanwhile, Dustin had retreated, maybe figuring it was unwise to provoke a pair of men who looked like Chase and Creed.
Chase yelled something in Creed’s ear and Creed glanced at me and shrugged, looking away. He took Truly’s hand and started to lead her out of the club as we followed. I was relieved to be leaving, though the night felt rather tainted. I just wanted to bury myself under some thick blankets and hug my knees to my chest until I felt less disgusting.
Chase caught me when I stumbled just outside the door. I felt dizzy and out of it, similar to the way I felt once, immediately before I came down with the stomach flu. It was an awful sense that things weren’t right and they were about to get worse.
“You been drinkin’, Steph?” Truly winked as Creed kept one hand around her waist and the other around his guitar.
“No!” I yelled as I held on to Chase.
We’d reached the alley on the far side of Club Devil. It was a shortcut to the parking lot.
Suddenly Creedence stopped walking. He dropped his arm from Truly’s waist and gave me a hard look I could see quite clearly even in the darkness.
“You been doing anything else?” he sneered with sharp sarcasm.
“Huh?” I didn’t know what he was talking about. I wanted to go sit down.
Creed let out a snort of humorless laughter. “With everything you’re into, you probabl
y have access to a lot of shit.”
Chase started to step in front of me to confront his brother but I went around him and stared Creedence Gentry in the eye. He didn’t scare me a bit. “I’m not playing this fucking game with you. If you want to accuse me of something you go right ahead.”
He glared down at me. “Fine. You don’t fool me, little girl. You’re nothing but bad news.”
“Creed!” Truly shouted in a shocked voice but that didn’t stop him.
He stood right in front of me so I couldn’t avoid him. “So little miss crime queen, what the hell have you got my brother doing? Using? Dealing? Both?”
“You’re one crazy bastard,” I spat and tried to shove past him.
It looked like Creed was going to make a grab for my arm but Chase got in front of him, shoving Creed hard against the wall of the building.
“What the hell’s gotten into you?” Chase yelled.
Creed righted himself, passed off his guitar to Truly and went toe to toe with his brother. “I’m not hittin’ back, Chase, no matter what you do.”
Chase wouldn’t budge. “Creed. You shut your mouth and stay the fuck away from her.”
“I will when she stays the fuck away from you.”
Chase was incredulous. “Who do you think you are, my father?”
“No, your father wouldn’t give a shit about why you stopped going to recovery meetings or why you’re rolling in piles of cash with no explanation.”
“Fuck you, Creed.” Chase grabbed my hand and started dragging me down the block.
He stopped when I yanked my arm out of his grip.
“What piles of cash?” I asked quietly. Once or twice it had occurred to me to wonder how he could afford a night at a luxury resort with no expense spared, or how he could manage to take me out several nights a week and never accept a dime for any of it. His security job seemed sporadic and was far from lucrative. Yes, I should have known something was up. But Chase wasn’t dishonest. I trusted him completely. Maybe that had been a mistake.
“What piles of cash?” I repeated as Creed and Truly caught up with us.
Chase gave me a look that chilled me. It wasn’t a look of anger or cruelty. It was a look of guilt. It was the look my father used to give my mother.
“Steph, I should have told you I was betting.”
“Betting?” I was confused, but only for a second. “Goddamn it to hell, you’ve been gambling on sports?”
Chase coughed. He looked at the ground and sighed. Then he slowly raised his head, perhaps realizing there was no getting around this. “Yes.”
“That’s how you knew Alonzo,” I whispered. I looked him straight in the eye. “You lied to me.”
He looked so sad but I couldn’t help him with that right now. “I know it seems that way,” he muttered.
“It seems that way because it is that way, Chase!”
Chase took a step and held my face in his hands. He wanted me to understand and I really wanted to understand. “I never lied to you about anything important.”
I backed away from him. “Well I guess we just have different ideas about what’s important.”
“Steph!”
“Don’t follow me! I’m done talking about this right now. I don’t even want to tell you what’s going through my head.”
Chase started to come after me anyway but Truly stopped him. I heard her begging him to back off, just for now.
“Give her time to cool off,” was the last thing I heard her say before the click of fast-moving heels gained speed at my back.
“Stephanie! Steph, come on, I’m wearing three inch heels!”
I stopped and allowed her to catch up. “I said I was done talking about it for now.”
“I know,” she said and took my arm in a sweet, friendly way. “So let’s go home, eat gallons of ice cream and watch people behave badly on reality television.”
I stopped myself from glancing back to where Chase and Creed were. I sighed. “Doesn’t your boyfriend need you?”
She smiled gently. “I think you need me more right now. Besides, the Gentry boys will sort things out among themselves. They always do.”
CHAPTER TWENTY TWO
Chase
“Fuck,” I muttered, staring after Stephanie as Truly followed her. I wanted to ram my fist into something. When I saw Creed standing there, looking like the stubborn dick he was, I considered how nice it would feel to crash a good hit into the side of his face.
“You happy now?” I asked him.
He didn’t answer but to his credit he looked slightly remorseful.
“You’re my brother,” I told him, struggling to control my fury, “and I love you, but holy shit you can be a pain in the ass sometimes.”
I was just going to leave him there in the alley with his guitar and his regret but he called my name.
“I’m not using,” I answered and turned around to look him straight in the eye so there could be no confusion. “I’m sure as hell not dealing. I was gambling. It was a shitty idea and I know it, but it might have just cost me my girl so could you please lay the fuck off?”
He coughed once and slowly walked toward me. “Look I’m sorry about all that. I just can’t stand to see you get dragged down.”
“Goddammit Creedence, she isn’t dragging me down!” I shouted. A couple was passing by, strolling down the sidewalk in cozy affection. They looked up, startled by my shout and then moved on quickly. “She isn’t,” I said softly.
“All right,” he said but I could tell he wasn’t convinced. Actually he looked kind of miserable standing there awkwardly with his guitar.
“You got the keys?” I sighed.
He threw them to me. If I wanted to take the truck and leave him there he would have let me.
“I’m driving this time,” I said. “You can ride along if you need to.”
I was glad Truly had run after her roommate. Stephanie shouldn’t be alone right now. I kept hearing the way she told me not to follow her. She said I wouldn’t want to know what she was thinking just then. And the way she’d looked at me…anger mixed with a broken-hearted realization that I might not be exactly who she thought I was.
Believe in me, honey. I meant everything I ever said to you.
Stephanie wasn’t dragging me down. Creed had his head up his ass.
He sat in the passenger seat with his guitar between his legs. That first awful day in June when I was in the hospital, still delirious with fever and post-op agony, I’d opened my eyes and saw Creedence next to me, clumsily filling a hospital chair. He wasn’t doing anything, not reading a magazine or watching the mounted television screen. He was just waiting. I’ve heard it said that no matter how strong and invulnerable a man believes himself to be, when he’s feeling the cold fingers of death all he wants is his mother. In that moment five months ago, terrified and confused, I’d called for mine.
My brother had reached for my hand and through the haze of pain meds and fear I saw the little boy I remembered in the man who was trying to comfort me. “She’s not here, Chasyn. I’m here.”
I never asked Cord or Creed if they’d called our parents during that bleak time. I assumed the answer was no. I still wasn’t going to ask because if the answer was yes then it would confirm that both of those people were too lost in themselves to give a damn what happened to any of us. It didn’t require much soul searching to realize I already knew that.
“What are you doing?” Creed asked when I pulled into a drive thru.
“Using some of my ill-gotten gains to buy you a hamburger.”
That made him smile a little. “Everything on it. Bacon too.”
I ordered a mountain of food, just in case anyone was hungry at home. Creed dug through the bag and started inhaling his burger before I even pulled out of the drive thru.
“Pig.” I shoved him.
He tried to hand me one but I shook my head. I wasn’t hungry. I felt empty and sad. Stephanie had been wronged by men before. I’d figure
d that out from the beginning, although it wasn’t until the night she cried in my arms that I got the uneasy hint that whatever she wasn’t saying might be more tragic than I’d assumed. But I would never hurt her. Surely she knew that.
Saylor was lying across Cord’s lap when we got home. The television was turned low and Cord appeared to be watching a documentary about art restoration. His right hand was stroking his sleeping wife’s hair and his left was draped over the back of the couch. He waved casually, the light glinting off his wedding ring.
Creed held out the bag of hamburgers and the rustling noise awakened Saylor. She smiled when she saw us.
“How did it go?” she yawned. “Do I smell hamburgers?”
“He was magnificent, as always.” I tossed her a burger.
Saylor caught it and then looked around. “Where are the girls?”
I shot Creed a look, hoping he would recognize that I didn’t want to hash everything out again. “They’re having a slumber party. Pillow fighting, hair curling and other female rituals presumably to follow. We weren’t invited.”
Saylor seemed to accept my glib answer but Cord knew better. He looked at us closely in turn, then shrugged and bit into a hamburger.
I headed out to the back patio because I wasn’t in the mood to talk. I looked up at the sky. Tonight had been a blood moon, a real one triggered by a lunar eclipse. Earlier, before we headed to Club Devil, I’d brought Stephanie to the lake to show it to her.
“Look at the moon, Steph,” I’d scolded her when she didn’t seem to be paying attention.
She shook her head and kissed me. “I’d rather look at you.”
“You can do that any day.”
“I will.” She snuggled against me. “I’ll be doing it every day.”
I couldn’t lose her. The idea was intolerable.
After a while Saylor poked her head outside to say goodnight. I thought Cord would go with her but he opened the screen door and joined me in the darkness. Inside the apartment Creed tuned his guitar and likely thought dark, silent Creed thoughts.
