Page 89 of On the Beat

“Can you forgive me for what I’ve done?”

Staring down at her, all I want to do is say yes. But I’ve let far too many people do whatever they want to me just because they called themselves family. Poppy. River. I can’t let that happen with her, too. “I need… I need time, first. There’s something I need to do. I’ll call you.”

Isla walks out and takes some indiscernible but vital part of me with her.

Chapter 38: Ryder Black

I’ve never liked chickens.

They’re dirty, smelly, messy, and they’re really only good for laying eggs.

But now, feeding them in the chicken coop that my father recently installed, I feel somewhat grateful for their presence. At least out here, their indistinguishable squawks don’t have to be interpreted. I don’t have to traipse across a minefield of conversation, in which my mother dodges the subject of my brother while focusing on the topic of my love life.

I pour a pitcherful of chicken feed into the feeder and then toss some at the chickens with my bare hands. They scatter as the handful of feed touches the ground, as though I’ve thrown explosives instead of food at them. I sigh, watching their feathery heads bob up and down as they peck at the food. Brown, white, and black feathers all fly up as I move closer.

“Terrorizing the livestock?” River yells out as he stands on the porch. We both ignore the reason he can’t leave it: the ankle monitor cuffed to his leg. I finish feeding the chickens and start giving them water, using the hose to fill the contraption that the chickens drink out of it.

“Something like that,” I say, as more hens squawk and peck around my feet. I set down the hose, wanting a shower after my hours-long drive and feeding animals in the Kentucky heat.

The drive to Lexington from L.A. was brutally long, but I needed time to myself. Time to think amidst the semi-silence of staticky radio announcers and Top 40 cutting in and out.

Closing the gate to the chicken coop and locking it, I brush my hands off on my faded jeans. Being out here, facing River, makes me feel like a kid again. But then again, we never could afford chickens when I was a kid. Some things do change, and some things never do.

“You alright?” he asks me, surprising me with his concern. “You look kinda queasy. Bad flight?”

“Long drive,” I retort. “Didn’t Mom tell you?”

“She just said you were back, that’s all.” River scratches the back of his neck. He’s wearing city clothes despite the heat: charcoal slacks and a grey button-down tucked into his belt. Yet the faint Kentucky drawl in his voice can’t be disguised. “Why’d you come all the way down from L.A.? That big ole’ mansion in the Hills gettin’ lonely?”

“I don’t live in the Hills,” I retort, walking past him into the house. “And I wanted to ask you a few questions.”

“Couldn’t do it over the phone?” He sits on one of the rocking chairs on the porch, sipping an iced lemonade through a red and white paper straw.

“I wanted to see my brother. Didn’t you want to see me, River?” I look him dead in the eye, stopping in the doorway. “And I don’t know what you’re talking about, only that you’ve been blabbing to journalists.”

He snorts. “So what if I was?”

“You knew that this was going to look bad for me—for all of us, and you still talked to the reporters like it was nothing.” I turn away, not wanting to look at him anymore. He looks like what he is: a failed businessman, a wannabe grasping at fame and power. A small fish in a big pond, thinking he’s the opposite.

An always-hungry child who never knows when he’s satisfied.

“I did that interview for you! To clearyourname,” he says. “No one’s calling you a drug addict anymore, are they?”

“You had no right to talk about me the way you did! Everything you did was just for yourself. I read that article. It was all about you and getting what you wanted. You were just too stupid to realize that your so-called business partner was looking out for number one, too.”

“Boys!” Our mother’s voice still rings through the house the way it did when she heard us roughhousing and didn’t want us to break anything. “Dinner is ready, so I’d appreciate if the two of you would stop arguing, wash up, and help set the table.”

River rolls his eyes, taking his sweet time with his lemonade, before he gets up from the rocking chair and walks into the house. I brush off the rest of the dirt that’s gotten onto me and dart inside for a quick shower.

My mother’s eyes narrow when they see me. “Where do you think you’re going?”

“To take a shower. I haven’t had one in three days. I told you, I’ve been on the road.”

She mutters something likewhat’s the point of having a private jet if you don’t use itand says, “If you don’t help set the table first, River will complain about having to do it himself.”

“He’s thirty-three, not thirteen. I think he’ll be fine.”

Edna Black sighs and says, “You know, there’s something about being home again that always turns the two of you into children.”

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