Wild Reckless (Harper Boys #1)(109)
Gus is facing the door, his cane in his hand, ready to help him stand as I enter. I can’t help but smile at the sight of him, and I get to him quickly, giving him a hand to his feet. He hugs me as if I’m his own, his hardened hands squeezing my shoulder then wrapping around my back, patting.
“How’s the metronome, young lady?” he asks. I feel guilty, because I haven’t used it yet. But I will.
“It’s keeping time,” I say, walking with him toward his door.
“Let’s bust out of this joint,” he teases, winking at me. His heavy eyebrows dip down then up when he winks, like caterpillars exercising. I wonder if Owen will look like this one day?
I hold Gus’s arm as we make our way out to the main room, to a small table with a checkerboard on it. Once he’s sitting, I take the other chair. Gus begins to put the pieces in place, his hands shaking a little as he drops the checkers onto their squares with careful precision.
“So, what’s this business about the boys and Iowa?” I’m surprised when he asks. I wasn’t sure how much Owen had shared with him, or how much he’d remember.
“I guess Iowa is the land of opportunity,” I jest, my answer laced with sarcasm.
“Horseshit,” Gus says, tapping his finger on the board between us, then moving his first piece. “That uncle of his ain’t worth a damn, and neither is his business. Now Billy…I always liked Billy. Owen’s dad? But Richard, Owen’s uncle? Well, let’s just say I have a hard time trusting a fella named Dick for short.”
Gus keeps his eyes trained on the pieces on our game board. I’m glad, because I’m blushing from his bluntness. I’m also feeling more uneasy about Owen leaving.
“I want him to stay.” My honesty surprises me. Gus, he has a way of filling me with comfort, and I have to talk to someone about how I feel. I think he might be my only outlet.
He looks up at me before reaching forward to grab a checker, his heavy brow cocked on one end. “You need to convince him it’s safe to stay,” he says, letting his hand go from the board. Gus leans back in his chair, folding his hands over his chest. He looks around the room, and when he sees Owen and Emma far away, sitting at her desk, he looks back at me.
“Owen’s always craved security,” he says. I can’t help the way I react, flinching in surprise.
“Owen laughs in the face of danger,” I say, my mind easily counting a dozen things I know about Owen that defy the very idea of feeling comfortable.
“I didn’t say safe. I said secure,” Gus says, patting his hands once on his belly. “That boy has a nose for danger. He likes thrills. But he also needs to know that when he comes back, after he’s done playing stuntman with all of his antics, that there will be something there waiting for him—a home.”
“I kind of thought I was his home,” I answer, my chest hurting.
“You are,” Gus says. “But Owen’s used to people leaving. And he’s never prepared for it. Billy’s death did a number on him. He needs to know he has a place. Right now, he’s looking at Iowa, at that numbskull uncle of his, as a security blanket for his future. He’ll have somewhere to go, something to do…someone to be.”
I’m starting to understand more, and I’m starting to feel more hopeless. I lean forward as Gus does, and I watch him move one of his checkers. He puts it in a place where it’s vulnerable, where I have no choice but to jump it and keep it as mine. So I do. He makes the same move again, and I jump again. We play without talking for a few minutes, and I grow a small stack of Gus’s checkers, feeling bad that I’m winning, and wondering if I should start making different moves to let him catch up. And then, he moves one more into place, and I see it. He’s been baiting me. As I sit back and look at the board, only a few of his red checkers left, the rest of the board covered in my black, I see the trail he’s left behind. My mind does the math, and I know instantly there’s no way I can win.
“Give him a place,” Gus says, picking up one of my pieces and handing it to me before working his way out of the chair to stand. He holds his hand on my shoulder, his eyes penetrating mine, his smirk full of confidence and assurance.
A place.
I think about Gus’s words the entire way home, about how nice it feels to know your future, to have a plan before you. I think about the way I felt on that stage, when I quit playing for everyone else—and I played something for me. I found my place that very instant. I don’t know where it will take me, what college, if a college at all, where I’ll be able to play that kind of music. But I know that I need to be able to do that in life if I want to feel that feeling again, to feel alive.
The thoughts and ideas linger in my head the rest of the day, into the late hours. My mom is home tonight, so Owen stays at his house. We text a few times, and I promise to let him know when my mom heads to bed so he can come over, but by midnight, she’s still awake. I hear her on the phone with someone, and she shuffles into the small spare room downstairs for privacy. I think she’s talking to my dad. She’s been hiding their conversations from me.
Eventually, Owen gives up on our plan, texting me goodnight, looking at me once more through the window before turning out his light. I turn mine out as well, but my conversation with Gus keeps rolling through my head.
There’s no way I’m sleeping, so I pull my laptop up from the floor and flip it open. I look at pictures of DePaul. I click through their basketball program until I find the picture of the man I saw with Owen, the one who gave him his card. He’s on the coaching staff. Then I type the words: BILL HARPER WOODSTOCK DEATH.