Inevitable Detour (Inevitability Book 1)(80)

But I’m considering the selling thing, albeit for a different reason than my friend. Tate hopes to eventually make enough cash to buy his own wheels. He hates borrowing the piece of shit we’re currently in—his mom’s old, rusted Ford Focus. I just want to make enough money to buy a ticket out of this place. The little bit I earn painting people’s houses, picking up construction work here and there—it’s not adding up fast enough for my liking.

Hell, I still live at my grandmother’s farmhouse out on Cold Springs Lane. Granted, I recently fixed up the little apartment above the detached garage, moved from a bedroom in the main house to an area not too much larger. But that little apartment provides privacy, and that’s what I need. I am no longer a teenager, like when I first moved back two years ago. That’s why I want, more than anything, to just get the f*ck out of here. I’m thinking the money I make selling will make escape a reality, not just some pipe dream. No pun intended.

I raise the bottle of gin to my lips and tip it back. Alcohol heats my throat. “I think I’m going to take Kyle up on his offer,” I say after I swallow the burn, the resulting grimace distorting my voice. “I need the money and it’s going to take forever to earn it legit.”

“You’re making the right decision, my friend,” Tate replies as he reaches over to take back the bottle.

Whoa… My vision turns wonky. There are three overlapping filmy images of my friend, and then just two.

“It’s all about the numbers, man,” two filmy Tates tell me.

I tell myself I need to slow down, and then I say to Tate, “That it is.” I squeeze my eyes shut to keep from swaying in my seat. “That it is,” I repeat.

The irony is that I once had money. Well, my family did, enough that my parents had a trust fund set up for me. Not a big one, mind you, but enough that it would’ve allowed for me to go to a decent college, get set up in a new city, shit like that.

I have no idea what my future holds nowadays, but I know it’s been tainted by my past.

Back when I was around eight my parents moved from this town out to Las Vegas. My dad, who’d been successfully building houses here for a while, started a similar construction business out in Nevada. The timing was right, the stars aligned. We caught magic in the early days of the housing boom. Everything was golden and money poured in. It was happy times. For a while.

During those good times, Mom got pregnant. She gave me a little brother named Will that I still love like crazy and miss every f*cking day. We used to talk on the phone all the time, but now I’m lucky if I get a two-word text from my little bro. I suppose when you’re eleven years old—and haven’t seen your big brother in two years—memories become a little hazy.

That’s another thing the extra money from selling drugs will help with: I’ll have enough funds to fly out to Vegas to see Will. Or I can just buy him a ticket to come here. As it is my mom, Abby, barely makes enough to get by out there.

But, like I said before, it wasn’t always that way. In the early years, my father’s construction company grew and thrived, so much so that I once entertained dreams of taking over the business. I used to imagine following in my father’s footsteps, as sons are apt to do.

One afternoon, when I was about thirteen, I told my dad I wanted to build homes, same as he did. I showed him some sketches, just some basic designs and floor plans I’d thrown together. My dad was impressed. And not the false kind of fawning parents often try to sell to their kids. No, my drawings truly floored Jack Gartner. I could tell he couldn’t believe his eldest son possessed that kind of crazy talent. He told me I should aim high, the sky was the limit. My sketches were incredible, he said, especially for my age. I could be an architect if I wanted, design skyscrapers even.

I had no reason not to believe him.

When you’re thirteen you think you can have it all. Life hasn’t roughed you up so very much…yet. At least it hadn’t for me. So I told my father I’d do both—I would design the skyscrapers, and then I’d build them. My buildings would sell like hotcakes, and I’d be as rich as Donald Trump. No, richer even.

“The sky’s the limit,” I said, echoing my father’s words back to him.

Dad smiled and patted me on the back.

Jack Gartner wasn’t patronizing me, he truly believed in my possibility. “You have talent, Chase,” he said. “Just don’t ever lose yourself. If you can stay true to your dream…to who you are…then you’ll do more than fly. Someday you’ll soar.”

Yeah, right. I sure am soaring at the moment, but I have a feeling this isn’t what Dad had in mind.

Tate tries to pass the bottle back to me, but my mood has dampened. The pills, along with the memories, are doing a f*cking number on my emotions. I’m sad one minute, reflective the next, mad at everything, contemplative over nothing. I guess I am officially f*cked up.

I push the bottle away, harder than necessary, and clear liquid sloshes over the side. “Asshole,” Tate mutters.

“Sorry,” I say.

Do I really mean it? No, it’s just a word, an empty string of letters. Empty, like me.

I tune Tate out. I am high as f*ck and lost in my mind. We idle at a swinging red light hanging over an empty, dark stretch of road, and I sit waiting on an imaginary red light in my head, one on memory-f*cking-lane.