Page 60 of Close Quarters

“I’ve got older siblings, and they aren’t worth shit. Yeah.”

“Yeah, got a couple of those myself. One’s doing life upstate, and the other one’s going to get his life ended probably in the next couple of years. Never did anything for the family, even when they kept saying it was for the family. Assholes.”

I couldn’t resist. “Sounds like you got it figured out better than them, so why are you here?”

He squinted at me. “E.”

“Seriously?”

“Why are you so surprised?”

“I don’t know. I guess I figured it was because you were here.”

“Nah, I’m here because they saw my record and figured I might be a good fit. I thought it was a good way for me not to spend the next five years behind bars and actually get to have something better. Kinda figured the whole ‘fixing yourself’ bullshit was just that, bullshit.”

“But Elliot changed that?”

“You ever asked him how he ended up here?”

“I…no. He told me a little bit, though.”

“Well, since you already told me something you’re sure he’d kill you over, I guess I can trade the same thing,” Dom said with a shrug. “He got caught up with a not-great crowd. He used to do little, stupid shit before, you know, shoplifting, breaking into abandoned buildings because it seemed fun, you know.”

“Small-time things,” I said, thinking it matched what I knew of Elliot. He certainly had a temper when needed, but he was also impulsive. It wasn’t hard to picture him getting into serious trouble over one moment of impulsiveness.

“Till he found some new friends. Sometimes I wonder how he gets caught up in the shit he does, but that’s E for you. They convinced him to help rob a store. Easy in, easy out, no mess, no one has to get hurt.”

“Right, but someone did get hurt, he told me.”

“Yeah, some old guy running the store. The dick weed that put them up to the whole idea hit the guy so hard with a gun, a gun E didn’t even know he had, it put the guy into a coma for a while. Shocked the hell out of E, and well?—”

“He mentioned it got ugly, and he turned himself and everyone else in.”

Dom chuckled. “Where I come from, snitching on your people is a good way to end up in the morgue. But he knew that, had to know it…at least, I think he had to know it.”

“He did,” I said without thinking. “When he gets knocked out of his…hyperness, especially if he got knocked out of it as he probably did then, he gets to thinking clearer. I’d bet he knew full well what he was risking. Still did it.”

“Yeah, kind of stupid of him. I told him that when he finally told me the story,” Dom said, lip curling. “Told him that was really stupid, especially because the old guy was fine after getting out of the hospital. No real harm done, they had the money, and he didn’t have to get locked up.”

That got a chuckle out of me. “You apparently didn’t know Elliot well when you said that.”

“I thought I had a good idea what he was like, what he was about. I was stuck on the idea that there were smart people and dumb people. Always thought he could be smart, but he was overall pretty dumb.”

“I can’t give you shit about that when I kept calling him stupid.”

“It’s just the way I learned to look at things. But E…he can find ways to surprise you. Just when you think you got him figured out, he takes a sudden turn, and you’re left standing there wondering what the hell just happened and where this new shit was coming from.”

Not easy to argue with that, because Elliot had done the same thing to me. It felt like one minute I’d had him figured out, and then suddenly, he was arguing passionately against me giving up and sticking with the program. Then I thought I had him again, and suddenly he was not only putting up a damn good fight but, minutes later, was engaging just as earnestly in sex as I was. Then I thought I had him figured out for good, and the little shit was convincing me to accept his kindness and support.

“It hasn’t been very long,” I admitted. “But I know what you mean. It’s hard to peg him.”

“Yeah, and back when I told him it was stupid, he told me he didn’t care if it was stupid or got him hurt. Told me he realized that when all of his shit finally resulted in someone getting hurt, none of it was worth it. What was the point of doing whatever the hell he wanted if other people got hurt, people who didn’t deserve it.”

That… sounded like the Elliot I thought I knew. The same Elliot who had been willing to fight me on the spot because of what I’d done to Riley. Willing to try to punish me for my fuck up and defend someone he gave a crap about. Though, I was pretty sure he had missed the brief but potent exchange between Riley and me during my needed apology. I’d caught Riley off guard, but when he’d spoken to me during the apology…well, I was still left with the feeling that there was more than sunshine and optimism inside that man.

“And that was enough for you?” I asked.

“Well, not just that. It was the fact that I realized he really didn’t care if it was smart or stupid. He had made a choice, and he was going to stick with it. That meant making himself better, and that was before he even went to prison, let alone coming here. He’d always been getting into trouble, he told me, but when it went too far, he said that was enough. So shit, stubborn as he is, as…I don’t know. He can’t seem to focus on anything for too long. We’ve all seen it.”

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