by Max Walker
“Do you know if he told anyone specifically. Someone maybe he shouldn’t have?”
Kristen chewed her lip in thought. I took a sip of the water, ice clinking together as I set the plastic cup back down onto the table. The fluorescent lights inside this crummy diner weren’t doing anyone any favors, highlighting the forehead wrinkles that multiplied as Kristen continued to think.
Finally, she said, “No.”
“And why didn’t he ever get the money?”
“Him and his parents got in a huge fight. I’m pretty sure it had to do with that scumbag Nick that he keeps hanging out with. Once he joined the picture, me and Julie started seeing changes. We stopped hanging out with them about a month ago. It was just too much.”
“How so?”
“Nick was a terrible influence. Jesse got into drugs, and then started selling them. Not to mention, that guy was a huge homophobe. He would openly talk shit about Julie and me. Jesse stood up for us at first, but soon even that stopped. It made the both of us pretty pissed off. How could Jesse just turn his back on us like that? It was bullshit.”
“Along those lines, did Jesse have anyone that didn’t like him? Did he make any enemies that you knew of?”
Back to the lip chewing. This time I didn’t have to wait long for an answer. “Yeah, I mean, he wasn’t the nicest of guys all the time. I saw him snap back at a couple of annoying patrons when we were at Blizzards. He didn’t have the shortest fuse, but I do think he got on some people’s nerves.”
“Any names?”
Another “No.”
Fucking hell, is this a dead end?
“Did he ever snap at you?”
“Never. We were good friends. I understood him more than other people. We had similar pasts. Dysfunctional families and backstabbing friends. It was hard to trust people, but with Jesse, it was easy… until it wasn’t.”
A group of drunken college kids stumbled in through the rotating door, shouting loudly about the girls they wanted to bang. I tuned them out and asked, “What would he say about his family?”
“A lot. How his dad was an alcoholic who hit him for no reason as a kid, and his mom was more interested in finding guys to cheat on his father with than raise him, or defend him. His little sister was a bright spot for a while, but that went sour. She started hanging out with the wrong crowd and ended up turning against him. They’d fight constantly. I think Nick convinced him not to even talk to his family. He cut them off, and then they won the lotto. Jesse tried fixing it real quick, but the damage was done.”
I had been wanting to talk to Nick, but this conversation made my interest spike.
“Do you know where I can find Nick?”
She shook her head, her frown deepening. “He’s deleted all his social media accounts, or at least he’s blocked me from seeing them. I think I heard him talking about how he worked at a circus, or maybe that he had a gig for the fair that was coming up… I can’t really remember.”
“That’s fine,” I said. “Did Jesse have any relationships I should know about? Girlfriends, boyfriends?”
Kristen gave an empty laugh. “Boyfriends. Nah, he should have come out of the closet, but he never did. He dated a few girls, but none of them ever lasted.”
“So you think he was closeted?”
She shrugged. “I guess I’ll never know for sure, but the thought crossed my mind a few times.” She went back to eating. The waitress came around to ask if we needed anything. I was still digesting all the information Kristen had given me while Kristen was digesting her questionably cooked steak, the sad plops of mashed potato looking a little crusty from where I sat.
I talked with Kristen for another hour, trying to find any little kernel of information I could use to hunt down Jesse’s killer. The interview ended as the diner was becoming full with the late-night crowd. She didn’t reveal any bombshells, but I still felt good about the meeting.
I didn’t have the answers I wanted, but at least I had a thread or two to follow. I wanted to investigate Jesse’s family a little further, and I wanted to hunt down Nick and ask him a few questions. One of those avenues would lead to something, I could feel it.
And if they didn’t, then I was just going to keep on digging. For Hazel.
For Sam.
15
Sam Clark
One Week Later
My parents chattered on about politics while I blocked them out as I sat on the couch. The cheap wooden table I was playing my game on shook every time things got intense and I had to do some button mashing.
“Icey, come on! Don’t let the aggro build up,” I said into the mic. “Or I’m going to get spanked. And not in the good way.” I winked at the camera. On the side of the screen, I got a notice that someone else had subscribed to my channel.
“Thanks so much!” I said, returning my focus to the game.
Focus. That was a funny word, considering I barely had any of it over the past week. My mind had dropped into a paper shredder and scattered into the wind, flying off in a thousand different directions. One second I’d be thinking about Hazel and helping exonerate her, and the next I’d be thinking about Rocky and the star-shattering kiss we had shared in his pool
My first kiss, and it was with a man who could light me on fire with a single look.
“Sam, now you’re the one slacking!” Silk shouted as an ogre ran around me and smashed into her with a crippling blow, her character icon blinking red as she took on damage.
My phone vibrated next to me. I shot a glance down and almost started hyperventilating.
Rocky? What’s he texting me for?
“Sam!”
“Sorry, Angel, sorry.” I went back to clicking furiously on my laptop. The screen started to stutter as the internet connection began to slow, making the problems even worse. I groaned as it froze to a complete stop, just when we were getting the damn ogre down to its last healthpoints.
And then my phone buzzed again.
“Guys, sorry, this computer is having a stroke, and this internet is being run by hamsters. I can’t—”
The screen blinked into black as the laptop finally threw up its keys and pooped out. I sighed, wondering if my new subscriber was going to regret ever giving me three dollars. Or maybe they’d see how badly I needed it.
Another vibration.
Okay, what does he want? Did I leave something at his house, maybe?
I grabbed the phone before it slid between the scratched-up brown leather cushions. I unlocked the phone and read the text. Then I read it again, and then another time, just to make sure I wasn’t hallucinating anything.
ROCKY: Hey. Are you busy today? I’ve been thinking a lot about you.
Every neural network in my brain fried like a crispy chicken nugget. Rocky, the handsome and mysterious and devastatingly sexy detective, had been thinking a lot about me? The same way I’d been thinking about him? Or maybe he was just thinking about me in the way a young kid thinks about their new puppy back at home? Maybe he was just worried if I had enough food or water?
No. That definitely wasn’t it. He was thinking about me the same way I thought about him… I wondered if he had the same dreams I had, too.
“Sam, you okay?” It was my dad. He looked at me with a caterpillar eyebrow arched into the air.
“What? Yeah, why?”
“You’ve been staring at the wall for a good five minutes now.”
My mom chuckled before getting up to go to the kitchen. I heard the ancient coffee machine roar to life. It sounded like a jet plane was about to take off. Probably because it was about as old as me, but my parents couldn’t really afford a ton of new stuff on their salaries, so it was either the coffee machine or gas for the car.
Clearly, they had their priorities in order.
My dad went back to reading the paper after he was sure I didn’t just have a stroke. Meanwhile, I tried formulating a response to Rocky’s text that wasn’t just a string of random letters, numbers, and emojis.
&nbs
p; SAM: I’m free!
Nope. Too excited.
I deleted the text. Rewrote it.
SAM: Yeah, I’m free.
Ugh, too cold.
Deleted it again.
SAM: Yup, I’m free :)
Okay, that’s as good as it’s getting.
I hit Send. Before I could spiral down into a self-doubt pit of what-if text messages, I got up and went over to the small, cracked blue suitcase I had set next to the couch. I knew I’d have to go back to my place eventually, but the thought of sleeping inside the same four walls where a murder happened was… well, it wasn’t great.
I rummaged through the suitcase and grabbed a pair of khaki shorts and a clean gray T-shirt. It was wrinkled to all hell, but the iron at my parents’ house was more likely to set my clothes on fire than get rid of the wrinkles, so I laid it out on the couch and tried to hand-press the wrinkles out. It was a great way to work out my building anxiety, too, so win-win. My phone buzzed again, and my heart skipped a beat, but the name on the screen wasn’t Rocky’s.
HAZEL: Hey boo. How’s it going today?
SAM: Gooood! Just here in my parents, trying to stream a little. Rocky texted me like five minutes ago.
HAZEL: No way, saying what?
I chatted with Hazel while I waited for Rocky to text back. She was having a rough go of things, but Shonda was keeping her updated every step of the way, and things were looking better than they had the night when everything went down. She was able to prove that Hazel was out of the apartment at the time of death and that, even though her knife was missing, there was still more than enough reasonable doubt to keep her out of jail.
At least for now. Without the actual killer caught, Hazel still remained a suspect. I knew Jesse’s parents had also hired a five-star attorney and investigator, and I had a feeling they still had their targets set on Hazel. After everything that had happened, I understood things could change on a moment’s notice, and that scared me the most. I used to have a sense of surety, that things were good and they’d remain good. As if the train tracks my life were riding on had zero bumps or detours, just a straight line toward a happy ending.
How dumb I’d been.
The fear of the uncertainty was strong. It kept me up most nights, worried that I’d get a call saying Hazel was back behind bars. Even though I tried keeping positive, it was difficult, especially after seeing her wearing jailhouse jumpsuit.
My phone buzzed, and this time Rocky’s name popped up on my screen.
ROCKY: I’ve got tickets to a standup show tonight. Want to come?
Do I want to come? Of course I want to come!
I was so excited, I opened up Hazel’s text message chain and typed in: Rocky wants me to go with him to a standup special. I should go, right?
As if I needed any more encouragement. I pulled my legs underneath me and sat back on the couch, feeling myself getting all kinds of excited by the prospect of another date with Rocky Hudson.
HAZEL: Are you kidding me?! Of course you should go! And then go home with him too.
SAM: Alright let’s not get too crazy.
HAZEL: Too crazy? Bitch, you need to get buckwild!
I laughed, not expecting any other advice from my best friend. My fingers flew across my phone as I typed out: Fine. I’ll go and drop my pants the second I see him. Maybe he’ll just take my virginity then and there. I won’t even wear a belt, easy access hahahaa.
I hit Send.
And that’s when I realized I was in the wrong text chain. Hazel’s name wasn’t at the top of my screen. Neither was my mom’s or my dad’s or Abraham Lincoln’s for that matter.
It was Rocky Hudson. I had just texted the man I was infatuated with about taking my virginity like some wild animal in rabid heat. My body suddenly felt like it was consumed by flames. I read his name over and over again, hoping I’d gotten that stroke my dad was talking about and was just mixing around the letters in my brain. Surely it didn’t say Rocky Hudson on my phone. It couldn’t have. No way in hell.
ROCKY: I’ll pick you up in an hour.
ROCKY: Don’t wear a belt.
I melted into my couch and considered buying a one-way ticket to Indonesia, or some other distant land I could disappear in and never be heard from again. Somewhere remote and cute, where Wi-Fi still worked but maybe cellular service was spotty.
SAM: That was totally a joke.
I texted back after what felt like sixty-seven years but was more than likely five minutes.
ROCKY: Lol
Great. Reaaaal fucking great.
“Uggggh,” I groaned out loud. My dad turned my way, but the look I shot him must have been all the answer he needed. He went back to reading the newspaper as my mom walked into the living room, taking her seat next to him, almost tripping on her green-and-blue silk nightgown.
“What’s wrong, Sammy?” she asked, sipping on her drink. Steam swirled up and clouded her glasses.
“Nothing. Just wondering if the earth can open up and eat me already.”
“Oh, stop being so dramatic. Is it boy problems?”
Pfft. If only you knew.
“Possibly,” I said, not wanting to dive into it. I got up and went to go change, every step I walked feeling like an anchor was tied to my feet. The embarrassment spread through me like a virus, replicating inside every single one of my cells, until I was sure my entire body was as red as a cherry tomato.
“Well, I’m sure it’s nothing you can’t get over,” my mom said in her reassuring mom-tone, which didn’t do anything to reassure me in that moment of life or death (mostly death).
“We’ll see about that.”
“Are you going out on a date?” my dad asked, throwing himself into the conversation.
“No,” I said. “I’m heading to my funeral.”
They both laughed as I left the room to get ready.
And, even though I was fatally embarrassed by that mistaken text message, I still left the belt inside my suitcase.
16
Rocky Hudson
Sam’s text message came as a surprise. It was clearly sent to me by accident, but that didn’t stop the flicker of heat from spreading through my veins. It was easy to imagine Sam arriving at my doorstep, his shorts already unbuttoned, a shy smirk on his dreamy face, his body ready to be ravaged by mine.
I was in my bathroom, just getting out of my tub, water dripping down onto the white-and-gray marble floor. I reached for a towel and started to dry off, but my thoughts kept swinging back to Sam, the same way my cock started swinging back and forth, growing harder and harder until it was something I couldn’t ignore.
I began to stroke myself, dropping the towel onto the floor. This needed to be taken care of, or I’d end up ripping off Sam’s pants with or without a belt on.
Evening sunlight filled the bathroom, coming in from the large window above the tub. I looked ahead at the wall-to-wall mirror above the dual sinks. My body still dripped with water, down my abs, droplets falling off my already tightening balls.
I stroked a little faster, picturing Sam with me, dropping to his knees at my command, his lips wrapping around the head of my leaking cock. I pictured his own dick, hard between his legs, but his attention focused solely on mine, both his hands wrapped around my length as I buried myself down his throat.
My grip tightened. My legs spread wider and my head fell back as the orgasm hit me. I unloaded onto the floor, loud splats echoing through the large bathroom, my breaths filling the space of silence, reflecting how fast my heart rate shot up.
I looked down at the mess. It looked like I had saved up an entire month’s load. Fantasies with Sam hit differently. There was something about him. It was that smile of his… it was his entire being. I cleaned up after myself with a smile on my face, continuing to paint dirty thoughts of Sam.
The smile stayed on my face as I got ready for the last-minute date.
A date. Fucking hell.
My brow arched like the crest of
a wave as I buttoned up my shirt, thinking back to the last time I’d been excited about going out with someone. This felt foreign to me. I’d been used to keeping things with as few strings as possible, and that meant dates were a very rare thing for me. Dating required conversation, and conversation required connecting which in turn required opening up to a certain degree.
I didn’t do open. I kept my shit to myself. Fuck everyone else—the cross in my life had been given to me and was my burden to bear, and that was the end of that. No need to bring anyone else into my crap.
I walked around the bed and stepped into my closet, going to the shelves that held my jeans. I pulled out a crisp, dark pair and pulled them up, realizing that I’d left off my underwear by the time I got up to my knees and not caring enough to reverse course. I pulled on the jeans, grateful these were the button kind as opposed to using a zipper, which always made things extra precarious when going commando.
I checked myself out in the tall mirror hanging up between my jackets and my wall of shoes. The shirt was short-sleeved, my sleeve tattoo appearing extra bright underneath the white lights of my closet. I rolled each sleeve up once and then did the same to the cuffs of my jeans. I popped open the top two buttons of my shirt, showing off some of my chest and a flash of the golden necklace I wore.
The drive to pick up Sam was spent thinking about where I’d take him. By the time I pulled up to his apartment building, I’d managed to snag us reservations at Oceanside Luna. I waited for him to come down, feeling myself suddenly grow nervous. Surprised at myself, I took a deep breath. When I spotted him coming down the stairs, his silhouette appearing on every floor as he passed by the windows, I grew even more nervous. I was thrown all the way back to being a seventeen-year-old and waiting outside my date’s house, wondering where the hell the night would take us, a list of endless and magical possibilities playing out in my head.
The door opened and I was hit with his cologne first, and then came the cheerful but slightly nervous-sounding “Hey, hey, hey!”
