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CHAPTER EIGHT

Just when I thought things were getting better, Tristan didn’t come home all night.

There was nothing for me to do about it but sit there and wait. I had no way to contact him since he had no phone. Hell, I could barely keep up the payments on my own phone. And we’d been here such a short time I didn’t have any contact info for the new friends he’d been hanging out with. I didn’t even know their names.

“Curtis?” My youngest brother’s voice was small and sleepy. “Are you still awake?”

“Go to sleep, Breck,” I said from the musty armchair as I rubbed my eyes in the hopes it would help them stay open so I could give Tristan some shit when he finally rolled through the door. I was getting damn sick of spending my nights sitting up. On Saturday I planned to start apartment hunting now that I had a reference for full time employment instead of just temp work.

I checked my phone, cupping my palm over it so the light wouldn’t bother Brecken. There were no new calls or messages. Even though Tristan didn’t have his own phone, chances were he was hanging around with someone who did. He should know I’d be waiting up and worrying. With a sigh I placed my phone face down on my knee.

These past six months I could swear I’d aged fifteen years. I’d never yearned to be a father but here I was trying to parent two boys, one of whom resisted authority every step of the way. And fuck, it was exhausting. The worry, the anxiety, the sheer weight of responsibility. I wondered if parents felt like this every day. Then I wondered why anyone would volunteer for such an obligation that never ever fucking ended.

Speaking of parents, I had received another silent phone call as I pulled out of the Scratch parking lot today. At the time I was busy checking out Cassie Gentry in the rearview mirror when the call came in. I thought about not answering it but ultimately I picked it up

“Say something or stop fucking calling,” I said after a moment of silence. Then I hung up.

“Shit,” I muttered because everything about the situation really was shit. Then I realized I needed to make a plan for dinner. I wished I’d thought to grab that hot dog out of the fridge before I left. Brecken loved those stupid things.

That thought led immediately to Cassie. I was trying to be polite when I followed her out to give her the car keys she’d left behind. It didn’t come across that way though. I guess I was just hopelessly out of practice when it came to being polite. Or maybe I’d really never been in the habit in the first place.

My long lawless stretch began when I was only about a year older than Brecken. Me and a few other guys started a gambling ring and raked in the bucks from the high school crowd. After that I graduated to a deal with a local salvage yard that involved hiking a few miles away to the gated retirement community and stealing catalytic converters and small electronics from the cars of its sleeping residents. I got busted one night by the security guard who’d been hired by the homeowner’s association. Unfortunately he found a pile of stolen GPS units in my backpack. I ended up serving a short stint in the county juvenile facility where I spent my time working out, sleeping through class and hanging around with a fellow delinquent named Abram who thought I’d be a good fit for the Rioters.

The Emblem Rioters were known as a gang but it was more like a loose collection of assholes who were up to no good. You didn’t have to do much to get in except take one good beating and get the letters ER inked on your neck. Their biggest business came from dealing, mostly painkillers. It was easy money and McMurphy, the unofficial leader, had some pharmacy ties that made it easy to obtain large supplies. While I wasn’t part of the drug trade inner circle I was neck deep in a number of other sidelines that weren’t legitimate. That came with some pitfalls. I’d washed blood off my hands too many times and I always hated it. The idea was already in the back of my mind to search for a way out when the tenuous world of the Emblem Rioters collapsed.

The Feds descended as part of some massive nationwide enforcement circus and a lot of Rioters got nabbed. McMurphy himself put a gun in his mouth and swallowed a bullet rather than get arrested. With all the big shots in lockup or dead the whole enterprise fell apart. I was out of town in Vegas and got a tip that it would be a good idea not to come back for a little while. I needed a cheap place to lie low and that’s how I ended up in Nedry. After a year in Nedry I learned all the fuss had died down. Since I was a low man on the totem pole and the politicians had already gotten their hyped crime crackdown, no one was looking for me. But since there wasn’t anything waiting for me in Emblem I stayed in Nedry. My family would have been a good reason to go back but before I left my mother had made it clear she didn’t want me hanging around my younger brothers as long as I was running around with criminals. I didn’t blame her for that. I knew how the boys looked up to me. Anyway I wanted better for them than a destiny as a high school dropout with a record and proof of gang affiliation inked on their skin. I missed them, thought about them often. And yet I didn’t believe I deserved a place in their lives. I thought they were better off without me.

Then right after Christmas came that phone call from my mother and everything changed.

“Come home, Curtis. Please. The boys need you.”

She wouldn’t have called me if she had other options. My father was dead. My grandparents were all dead. The only family worth mentioning was an uncle in Reno but he had some weird ideas, thinking the government spied on him through the microwave and kept watch on his house via a flock of trained pigeons.

I didn’t hesitate. I was needed and so I stepped up. The boys didn’t have anyone else and maybe it really wasn’t too late for me to make a sharp right turn and head down a different path.

I just never expected to be waiting up in a shitty motel room, trying not to nod off in a fucking chair while worry gnawed at my guts.

I fell asleep sometime after one am and when I opened my eyes again the soft morning light was filtering through the thin motel curtains. Across the room, Brecken stirred in his bed. The bed beside him remained empty.

“Dammit,” I muttered and shut my eyes for a second. When I opened them my brother had not magically appeared.

My joints creaked as I rose from the chair. A peek out the window told me nothing except that the world of the Empire Motel looked worse in the daylight than in the darkness. I replaced the window curtain, checked to see if Brecken was still asleep, and dug around in my duffel bag for the last set of clean clothes I had while making a mental note to visit the laundromat tonight.

The shower never really got hot enough to suit me but the water still felt good on my skin. When I shut off the water and pushed the flimsy shower curtain aside I heard voices from the next room and relief flooded through me as I recognized my wayward brother’s cranky tone.

“But where were you all night?” Brecken asked.

“None of your damn business,” Tristan growled. “Go brush your teeth or something.”

“Curtis is in the bathroom.”

“Now Curtis is out of the bathroom,” I said, emerging in a towel. I didn’t want to take the time to throw on clothes and risk Tristan running off before I had a chance to give him hell.

“I’m first!” shouted Brecken, leaping off the bed and darting into the tiny bathroom that was still choked with steam.

I waited until he had closed the door before I confronted Tristan. “So I guess you think it’s not any of my damn business either where you were all night?”

Tristan pulled his shoes off and yawned. “It’s nothing to get excited about. I lost track of the time.”

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