“It still can be,” she says, soothing. “Just tell me what’s wrong. Why do you owe him? How can I help?”
She has no idea.
“There’s nothing you can do, baby.” I shake my head. “The further away from this you stay, the better. The further from me.”
Her face changes. “Don’t say that,” she orders, sharply. “Don’t you dare. You told me to trust you once, you said I could tell you anything. Now it’s your turn.”
I look at her, agonized. She looks so beautiful in the moonlight, so strong, so brave. I want so desperately to let her in, but this shouldn’t be her burden. Fuck.
“Talk to me, please,” her voice twists. “Let me in.”
I should take her home right now, and never look back. But then she opens her door and walks around, holds out her hand to me, and I can’t keep it inside anymore.
I take her hand and follow her into the house.
Inside, I fetch a blanket and some candles from the trunk in the corner of the living room. I lie out under the open sky, and light the candles to set them around the edge of the room.
“It’s beautiful,” Tegan breathes, looking around. “You’ve already done so much, it’s going to be great.”
The whole interior has been stripped down and cleared out of dirt and rubble since she was here last. The crumbling roof is gone, leaving nothing between us and the clear, midnight blue of the night sky, dotted with a thousand shining stars. I planned for the first time she saw this to be romantic, I had the whole scene set, but right now, there’s nothing but the dead weight in my chest and the hollow resignation that all this work has been for nothing.
Tegan curls up on the blanket, and I take a seat beside her, fighting to speak.
How do you find the words for something like this? How do you admit the worst of yourself, the darkest corners you never wanted to see the light?
“After I left here, I bounced around a while,” I begin, looking down. “I took whatever work was around, construction mainly. You’d meet a guy, he’d have another friend on a crew, they’d hook you up… I headed down the coast, wound up in Miami for a while.” I pause, yanking at the laces on my boots. Restless, and full of resentment. “That’s when I first met Driskell. He didn’t run that town, but he was trying pretty damn hard. Into all kinds of bad shit: drugs, gambling, most of it I don’t even want to know. You didn’t ask questions, not if you wanted to keep your head down,” I add quietly.
She nods, still waiting. So understanding, so strong.
“Anyway, some buddies of mine did gigs for him,” I continue reluctantly. “Driving, security, low-level grunt work. The money was good, but I always turned them down when they invited me along. I wasn’t into that, I just wanted to make an honest wage. Then…” I pause, feeling the knot in the back of my throat. “Then my mom bottomed out.”
“Your mom?” She takes my hand, looking confused. “I thought you hadn’t seen her since you were a kid?”
I shake my head. “I’d been helping her for a while, whenever she showed up. She would get clean for a while, then relapse,” I explain softly. There’s still a shadow of bitterness whenever I remember it, the old wounds that still aren’t healed. “She always needed something from me. Rent money, a place to stay. And I always fell for it.”
I shake my head. “But this time… It was bad. She OD'd, nearly died. Some nurse found my number on her and called me out to Atlanta. I’ve never… I’ve never seen someone like that.” The memories crash through me, bleak and full of fear. “She looked like a stranger. I knew I had to do something, but the good rehab programs all cost a fortune. We had no insurance, no savings, nothing. So I went to the only place I knew I could get fifty grand in a hurry.”
I feel Tegan inhale. “Driskell,” she whispers, understanding for the first time.
“Driskell.” I nod. “He would loan me the money upfront, but at a price. Personal security, he called it, but basically it meant I would do his dirty work for as long as it took to pay off the debt. I had no choice.” I sigh. “I took his deal, and I did his dirty work for two years. Until one night in Vegas. The night I met you.”
Tegan looks thoughtful. “You were playing cards, I remember, I saw you at the table.”
The weight eases at the memory, and I smile. “You were my lucky charm. I won big, enough to clear the debt and then some.” The smile fades. “I thought I got Driskell off my back, but ever since I left, he’s been calling. He thinks he still owns me,” I say, hollow with resignation. “I don’t know if he’ll ever stop.”
“But you paid him back!” Tegan looks outraged.
“The usual rules don’t apply to a guy like that. If he thinks we’re not square, he won’t ever stop.”
Not until there’s a body in the street, I silently add.
“Can’t you do something?” Tegan looks stricken. “What about your brother, can’t he help? Or Brit? Hunter has all those connections in law—”
“No!” My reply is harsh. I catch my breath, and lower my voice. “They can’t ever know. Promise me, Tegan, you won’t say a word.”
She frowns. “I don’t understand. They’ll want to help you.”
“They can’t ever know,” I repeat, gritting my teeth. “If they find out about Driskell, then they’ll know about the debt. About Mom. I can’t do that to them, Tegan. All along, I tried to keep her out of their lives, stop her from fucking things up for them the way she did for me.”