Reckless At Raleigh High (Raleigh Rebels Book 3)

by Callie Hart

  For a second, I think it’s Zander, come to drag me to the funeral at Greenwood, but then—

  “Heard you were living here in Raleigh. Guess I didn’t really believe it. Not ’til now.”

  Being tased is a unique experience. Hard to describe. Your body locks up, screaming in pain, jaw clenched, hands clenched, asshole clenched, fucking everything clenched, and your mind is screaming at you to MOVE! Get. A. Way. From. The. Pain. But you can’t. You’re frozen in place, lungs seized, and all you can do is lay there and take it. I’ve never felt anything like it before. Until this moment right now.

  If the best memories of my childhood are of my mother, then the worst, without a shadow of a doubt, are of my father. Even when she was manic and hysterical, making wild, outlandish threats, he was still worse…because he was indifferent, and then he was fucking gone. Over the years, I’ve tried to erase the stain of him from my head, but Giacomo Moretti has always been paradoxically indelible.

  And now, it seems as though he’s standing right behind me.

  I don’t turn around.

  I hear him—the scuff of old, worn boot soles against the stone floor. The huff that comes out of him as he sinks down onto the pew behind mine. I smell him, too. Cold winter air, and snow, engine grease and clove cigarettes.

  “You’re bigger than I thought you’d be.” He says it casually, like he’s commenting on unexpectedly good weather to a stranger. “You were a scrawny mite when you were little. Way shorter than the other kids at school.”

  Alex…

  Do not…

  …turn around…

  Giacomo—Jack—is quiet for a moment, as if he has every right to waltz in here and destroy my peace, and he isn’t planning on losing any sleep over it. Meanwhile, my synapses are firing so rapidly and randomly that I can’t formulate a single thought beyond ‘KILL HIM.’

  A tapping sound breaks the silence—the toe of his boot, knocking against the underside of my pew, directly beneath me. “I came because…well, you know why I came. I came because of Benny.”

  My first words to my father in over ten years are this: “I’m surprised you even remembered his name.”

  The stranger behind me sucks on his teeth disapprovingly. “C’mon now, A. That’s not very fair. Of course I remember his name. He was my son.”

  “No.”

  Somewhere outside, a car horn keens.

  Ten seconds later, a young woman enters through a door at the head of the church and dips to her knees before the life-sized depiction of Christ on the cross. She prays, quickly crosses herself, and then hurries down the aisle toward the exit. The sound of the heavy door closing after her echoes for what feels like an eternity.

  Giacomo’s had plenty of time to stew on his response. “I’m sorry? What do you mean, no?”

  “You weren’t his father. You were the guy…who lived with our mother for a couple of years…knocked her up twice…cost her the national debt of a small country in lost fucking bail money...sold our television…then fucking disappeared off the face of the planet.” I don’t mean to keep taking breaks before each statement. I just can’t speak properly. I never thought an emotion would be able to eclipse the grief I’ve been experiencing the past few days, but I was wrong. The fury hurtling along my nerve endings and forging fires within my bones is like white lightning.

  Giacomo laughs under his breath. “Alessandro. You have no idea what you’re talking about. I didn’t just up and disappear. No, she made me leave. You were too young to remember the fights. The screaming. I wasn’t perfect, son, but your mother was fucking cra—”

  I could give two shits about being in a house of God. I twist, spinning around, hurling myself at the back of the pew, practically throwing myself over it. Suddenly, I have a handful of t-shirt material in my left fist, and my right is raised high above my head, ready to come crashing down into the miserable fucker’s face, which is…

  …so much like my own.

  He doesn’t blink. Doesn’t even react to the fact that I’ve grabbed hold of him and I’m about to knock his front fucking teeth out. His eyes, dark as midnight in the gloom of the church, pierce through me in an unsettling way that seems all too familiar. There are lines on his face, bracketing his mouth, across his forehead and at the corners of his eyes, but his hair is still jet-black, not a grey hair in sight. He looks fit, too. Like he’s kept himself in shape. He always was a vain bastard.

  “If you’re gonna hit me, get on and do it, A. We’ve got a lot to talk about, an’ I don’t see any point in wasting time posturing.”

  “Posturing?” Laughter bubbles up the back of my throat. That’s what he thinks this is? Some sort of pissing contest between a hormonal teenager and his hard-done-by old man? He was about to call my mother crazy but he’s the one with the fucking screw loose. I let him go, shoving him roughly as I get to my feet. “You shouldn’t have come back here. You’re not wanted. You’re not fucking welcome.”

  I walk away before I can do something stupid. I’ve dreamed of this moment so many times over the years—how I was going to take great pleasure in beating the ever-loving shit out of him for everything he did to us—but now that the opportunity has presented itself, I see it for the bad idea that it is. If I give myself permission to hit the sack of shit today, in this state of mind, I’m not going to be able to stop myself. I’ll fucking kill him, and where will that leave me? Rotting in a jail cell for the rest of my life, unable to hold Silver in my arms again? Yeah, fuck that. He isn’t fucking worth it.

  I’m halfway to the church exit when it dawns on me that he’s following me. “Don’t you wanna know how I knew you were here?” he asks.

  “No.”

  “The bike out front. The Scout. It’s just like the old Indian I used to have. First motorcycle you ever rode on, Alessandro. Who else would have a bike like that around here? And who’d be dumb enough to actually ride it in this kind of weather?”

  “What, you think it’s some kind of homage? Some kind of sign?” I slam through the doors, out into the sheet rain that’s started to fall while I was inside. “I barely remember you being at the house. Why the fuck would I remember what kind of bike you had?”

  “You’re full of shit, kid. You remember just fine.” He grabs me by the shoulder, attempting to spin me round, but I knock his hand away. I’m genuinely surprised that he’d even try and touch me.

  “Don’t. Don’t do that. Don’t call me kid. Son. A. None of it.”

  He rubs at his bottom lip, grinning broad as you like. He’s soaked from head to toe already, the shoulders of his leather jacket turned dark with the rain, the front of his t-shirt plastered to his chest. “What you want me to call you, then? Fucking Sparkles?”

  Hah. So funny. He’s actually fucking enjoying this. I lunge forward, getting up in his shit. I tower over him, four inches taller than he is. I’m bigger than him, too. Much, much bigger. He’s forty-five years old, and he hasn’t been in a fight in a very long time. At least not a proper fight, with someone who truly hates his stinking guts. I could tear him limb from limb and I am this fucking close to doing it.

  Giacomo shakes his head, feigning disappointment. Can’t tell what he’s disappointed about, and I don’t really care. All I know is that I need to get away from the piece of shit before I lose all sense of reason and logic. “In case you forgot, they’re burying Ben today,” I grit out between my teeth. “Over at Greenwood. How about you do me and him both a favor and you stay the fuck away, yeah? There’s too little too late, old man. And then there’s this.”

  He doesn’t follow after me again. He stands in the church parking lot, hands in his pockets, his eyes following me as I storm over to my bike, jam my helmet on my head, start the engine, and I tear away through the rain.

  It isn’t until I’m halfway to the cemetery that I process the fact that my father’s leather jacket bore a Dreadnaughts M.C. patch on its sleeve.

  6

  SILVER

  I’m doubl
ed over with worry, heartsick and miserable as the priest begins the service. It’s so wrong that I am the only person here. Ben had lots of friends at school in Bellingham. A few of their parents reached out, asking if it would be okay if they brought their kids along to say goodbye, but Alex shut them down. He made the excuse that funerals were no place for eleven-year-old kids, and he was right, but many of Ben’s teachers had wanted to come, too. He’d flatly refused to have any of them at the church or at the cemetery. I’d had to fight tooth and nail to be able to come myself, and now…this? An empty church, and a dour, tufty-haired old coot mumbling distractedly over Ben’s coffin, doing his best…but not doing good enough? Ben deserves so much more than this.

  I haven’t stopped crying since I sat down and the priest began to speak. My eyes feel clogged with grit, which is why I don’t notice the person sidling their way down the pew toward me until they’re almost on top of me. It’s Dad, of course. He smiles sadly as he sits down, wrapping an arm around my shoulders and pulling me into his side. “Didn’t feel right, sitting at home,” he whispers.

  I’m so relieved to see him, I could cry. I’m already crying, though, so I give in and cry a little harder. How many times did I tell him not to come? At least five times this morning, and double that last night. He’s my father, though. He didn’t listen, because it’s his job not to listen sometimes. He knew I’d need him, so he came even though I explicitly told him not to.

  The service is brief, and I float through it without having to think too much now that I have Dad by my side. The priest finds his stride eventually and says some really beautiful things about Ben, stories I never knew about him. How he liked to dance, of all things. That underneath his shy exterior, Ben loved to sing and play the piano for people once he got to know them a little better. He was good at math, and he was top of his class in English. He loved to write fantastical stories about pirates and wizards that made anyone who read them laugh.

  When the priest announces the end of the service, he tells us in his quiet, soothing voice that Ben’s coffin will be taken directly to the cemetery, where another, short bible reading will be read over the gravesite. I listen, nodding my head like a demented puppet, holding my breath to avoid sobbing out loud in the church. The word ‘gravesite’ nearly causes me to collapse into a heap on the floor at the priest’s feet.

  Every time my heart beats, it feels as though my sorrow is chipping away at me from the inside, a chisel and a hammer slowly whittling me down to nothing. It doesn’t matter how many funerals I’ve been to. I’ve never been to a child’s funeral before, and it’s just… it’s fucking harrowing. How any parent can lose a child and still draw breath is beyond me.

  Dad takes me by the arm, guiding me down the aisle toward the grim, rain-drenched winter morning that awaits us outside. When we reach the exit, we both come to a stop at the top of the slick stone steps. Halfway down, Alex is sitting there, alone, his shirt plastered to his broad back, his dark hair soaked, ignoring the rain that’s furiously pelting his shivering body.

  “Here.” Dad pops open the large, black umbrella he brought with him, passing me the handle. Immediately, the rain drums against the taut fabric, roaring like thunder. “I’m gonna go wait in the car,” he tells me. “If you need anything, give me a wave.”

  Once again, I’m reminded that Cameron Parisi is one of the good ones. Countless times, he could have looked at recent events and decided Alex wasn’t a good influence. He could have looked to the future, seen where my association with Alex might possibly lead me, and he could have pulled the plug on my entire relationship with him right there and then. The boy sitting on the steps in the rain has been broken so many times before. He keeps on getting broken, over and over, despite the fact that all he wants is to live his life and be happy. He’s angry, and he’s hurt. Right now, he isn’t the very best version of himself. There’s every chance he’s about to derail himself in a spectacular way and take half of Raleigh down with him, but that isn’t what my father sees when he looks at him. He sees a guy who’s lost so much and doesn’t need to lose one more thing.

  Alex’s head stays bowed when I sit down next to him on the steps. The seat of my dress is immediately drenched, but I don’t care. I hold the umbrella over the both of us, sheltering Alex from the rain, and a small, solemn smile tugs at the corner of his mouth. His eyes stay closed, but he knows I’m here. The loud rumble of the raindrops striking the umbrella is hard to miss.

  “Thought about coming inside. Wanted to. Couldn’t seem to make myself,” he murmurs. “I heard all of it, though. The guy did a good job.” A bead of water drips from the end of a wet strand of hair that’s hanging down into his face. I want to catch it, like it’s a part of him that needs saving. I want to catch all of him, to keep him safe and somehow carry him through this, the way he’s carried me before. I don’t know if I’m strong enough, though. I also don’t know if he’ll even let me. Since he found out about Ben, he’s become harder and harder to reach every single day.

  I lean my elbow on my thigh, resting my chin in my palm, turning to look out over the snow-capped mountain range in the distance. Such savage sentinels, looming over Raleigh. Sometimes they make me feel safe here. Protected. Sometimes, they make me feel trapped.

  “When Max first learned to read, he brought his book into my room every night to read it to me. It was cute at first, but I started getting annoyed by it after a while. He tripped over all the words, and he always wanted to read the same damn thing. The Hungry Caterpillar. After two weeks, I could recite the entire thing from cover to cover by memory. I wanted to stick that book in Dad’s document shredder.”

  Alex opens his eyes and looks at me. I’m so accustomed to his self-assuredness that the desolation I see in him now makes me feel like I’ve been knifed in the chest and I’m bleeding out.

  “I let myself be irritated and frustrated by Max ever since he was born. I used to hate having to run around after him all the time. I’ve loved him, but I’ve never really appreciated him the way I should. I know that now. Alex, I am so sorry. This isn’t right. None of it. If there was something I could do to…” Turn back time. Fix this. Fix Ben. Fix you. Make it all go away. It’s pointless even saying it. There’s nothing I can do and we both know it. Alex clears his throat, turning to face the mountain range in the distance, shadowed by the curtains of rain that are still falling.

  “Don’t say you’re sorry, Argento. Don’t say you wish things were different. This is the way things are. I have to learn to accept that.” Carefully, he reaches out and traces his fingertips down the side of my face, featherlight and gentle. I try to lean into him, but he drops his hand, huffing under his breath.

  In a broken voice, he whispers, “Careful, Argento. Everything I love turns to ashes. Everything I touch falls to pieces in the end.”

  Firmly, I shake my head. “That’s not true. What happened to Ben had nothing to do with you. None of this is your fault. You’re not cursed, Alex.”

  He drops his head again, smiling bitterly. “I am though, aren’t I. Come on. Let’s go say goodbye to Ben.”

  7

  ALEX

  The small boy standing on the stool in front of the kitchen counter is me.

  I’m aware of that. I’m also aware that this is a dream.

  Neither shard of awareness allows me to separate myself from the fact that the sun-soaked, warm bubble in which I find myself appears totally real. I exist both within my seventeen-year-old body and that of the much smaller six-year-old version of myself, who sings in soft, breathy melodies as he digs his hands into a fat ball of dough. He grins as he splays his fingers wide, grinning at the thick sticky mess that cakes his skin and shores up beneath his fingernails. I can feel it under my own nails, covering my own hands.

  The hands of a boy.

  The hands of a man.

  I see from two very different vantage points, through two different pairs of eyes. One pair observes the world as a place filled with wonder
and hope; the other can’t help but see the promise of hurt and pain in every direction as he casts his gaze.

  “Are you ready, mi amore? Have you made it just right?”

  I smell her first. The scent of lilies and fresh summer fields floods the cramped space, overriding the bright, saccharine tang of the icing sugar that floats on the air, and my stomach twists in both excitement and bitter pain. My mother enters the room in a whirlwind of music and energy. Her dark, thick curls are wild, reaching in all directions like vines reaching for the sun. Her warm, brown eyes are bright with an electric, contagious energy. The smile on her beautiful face lights up the entire room so brightly that I’m almost blinded by it.

  I’m completely in love with this woman. This is the type of unconditional love that sons bear their mothers before they discover she has flaws, and the illusion that she’s the most perfect creature to ever walk the earth is eventually shattered.

  Joy washes over me as she rushes up behind me, tickling her fingers into my sides, burying her face into the crook of my neck. I squeal as she pretends to gobble me up. “Who cares about pizza, passerotto? I think I’ll just eat you. Little boys taste the best, I think.”

  Six-year-old me gasps for breath, fighting to get his words out around his high-pitched laughter. “No, Mama! No, no, no, don’t eat me! Don’t eat me!”

  The older version of myself only rumbles out half of the sentence, his words thick with misery. “No, Mama. No, no, no.”

  The smell inside the kitchen evolves, the dream twisting, evolving around me like a shifting painting, and now we are sitting down at the kitchen table, all three of us, staring down at a pizza big enough to feed an army. My mother folds her arms in front of her, leaning toward my younger self across the worn grain of the wood, whispering conspiratorially. “What do you think, mi amore? Is it perfect? Should we eat and eat and eat until our bellies burst open and our guts spill out like little red snakes?”