Page 18 of Trip Through Your Wires

“Now,” I look down, “it’s about not breaking the promise I made the night she shot Royce. I’m here for her. In whatever way she needs. No pressure, no strings attached.”

“That’s why you rushed to get home,” he says simply.

I nod. “She left a message on my machine before the game to let me know she was coming up a day early. Didn’t say why, but I could tell by the sound of her voice something was wrong.”

“Well, that says a lot,” Cruz rubs his chin. “The fact she called you and not her best friend.”

I dismiss the comment, even though I had the same thought earlier. “It’s not that deep, man. She’s worried about her brother and she knows I understand that.”

“Siblings may be one thing you two have in common, but I say it’s more than that. In fact, I think you two like one another, more than you’re willing to admit.”

“Of course we like each other,” I nod. “We’re friends. But, last summer was a lot, and I just want her to know I am there for her. That’s what friends do. Even those that fool around.”

Cruz turns to my computer desk and grabs the back of the chair, looking at the bulletin board on my wall. “Some days it feels like another life, doesn’t it?”

“It does,” I agree. Sometimes I can’t believe I helped cover up a murder. Me. A cop’s son, and former Boy Scout. Still, I have to imagine it pales in comparison to the weight he, Ellery and Jenica carry from that night.

Jenica killed a man, and Cruz has to live with the memory of the girl he loves more than anything being nearly raped and killed, right in front of his eyes. I can’t imagine how that must haunt him, or Ellery for that matter, who was on the receiving end of Cal and Royce’s brutality.

“How’s Ells?” I ask gently.

Cruz doesn’t say much about that night. It’s hard for him. I know because I saw the red in his eyes when he came down to the basement that night to question Cal. But when he does talk, I listen.

He hangs his head and takes a deep breath. He’s gripping the chair so tight his nails dig into the fabric. “She’s Ellery, you know. Always smiling. Always happy. But some nights she can’t sleep.”

“Jenica, too,” I confess. “She calls me when it happens. That’s how we’ve gotten so close. We talk every night.”

“Every night?” He lets go of the chair and turns around, leaning against it. “How do you do it?”

“Do what?” I tilt my head.

“Everything. Baseball, school, a long distance…friend,” he says as if he was going to say something else.

“Same way you do,” I smile. “You just do. Only, your girl is here and my friend is on the other end of the phone.”

“I don’t have the best grades on the team,” he shakes his head.

“Third isn’t small potatoes, Cabron.”

He nods and shoves a hand in the pocket of his baseball pants. “You two talk every night?” he asks, almost incredulously.

“Pretty much.”

“Is that why you don’t go out anymore?”

I answer honestly. “Yes, and no. Yes, because I don’t want to miss her call, and no, because I’ve had a lot on my mind and lost interest in making the rounds at sorority row.”

He pushes up from the chair and surprisingly doesn’t say anything. Deciding now is a good time to head to the shower, I lift my jersey overhead and change the subject.

“What do you think for dinner, pizza?”

“Sure,” he shrugs as I head into the bathroom and turn on the shower. “Hey, that body back in Cherry Cove,” he calls out. “It’s not Royce. You know that, right?”

I hold my hand under the spray in the shower and yell back. “I do.”

I unzip my pants, peel them down, then reach into my sliding shorts, take out my cup, and toss it onto the counter, before taking them off.

“I didn’t want to say this in front of the girls,” I holler as I stick my hand under the water. Feeling it’s hot finally, I step under the stream. “But with the ocean currents and bottom feeders, there wasn’t anything left of him after a week.”

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