The Familiar Dark(54)

I woke up naked, between cotton sheets. A ceiling fan whirling above my head. Popcorn ceiling with a watermark in the corner. I knew that ceiling. I knew that fan. Fuck. I turned my head, and Jimmy Ray looked back at me from the opposite pillow. I stayed still, like maybe if I didn’t move, didn’t acknowledge him, I could go back to sleep, wake up a second time and be somewhere else.

“Hey, Eve,” he said. “You look like hell.”

“Thanks,” I muttered. I stretched out my leg, froze when it brushed up against his.

Jimmy Ray hooted out a laugh that pierced my skull. “You should see your face right now. You’d think this was the first time you’d ever been naked in my bed.”

I closed my eyes, forced my aching brain to remember. I got only bits and pieces, shimmery and vague. A hand under my legs, lifting me. The slam of a car door. My arm tangled in my bra strap and my laughter, loud and crazed. Jimmy Ray’s face moving closer, my hand curled around the back of his neck.

“I was drunk,” I said. My voice was thick and hoarse, my stomach caught somewhere in my throat.

“Yep,” Jimmy Ray said. “Wasted.” He nudged me with his knee. “Never seen you like that before.”

“And you never will again.” I pushed myself upright, one hand holding the sheet to my chest. I rested my forehead on my bent knees. Baby steps.

“You were definitely looking to get wrecked.” Jimmy Ray ran a finger down my back, bumping over my spine. I hated myself for not hating his touch. “Was it about Junie?” He asked the question so quietly, so sincerely, that I looked over my shoulder to see if he was screwing with me. But his face was solemn, his eyes steady on mine.

“Everything’s about Junie,” I told him. Saying her name sparked something, like a lit match that sputters in your fingers, not quite sure if it’s going to take. I pressed my fingers against my temples, not sure if I was willing the memory of last night to gel into something solid or hoping it would disappear into the shadowy corridors of my mind. “I saw my mama yesterday. She spent time with Junie. Did you know that?”

“Yeah. I saw ’em in the Bait & Tackle a time or two. They were two peas in a pod, always huddled together in the back corner.”

“Doing what?” I’d swung toward him too fast and had to put one hand down on the bed to steady myself, bile rising. “What were they talking about?”

“Hell, girl, I don’t know. Eavesdropping on them wasn’t top priority for me.” He paused, thinking. “I did hear Lynette telling Junie that she’d never finished junior high, that she wasn’t much for book learning. She was encouraging Junie to keep up with her studies, far as I could tell.” He shrugged. “Seemed harmless to me.”

I raised my eyebrows. “My mama is never harmless. You know that. I can’t believe you didn’t tell me about seeing them together.”

“We haven’t exactly been on speaking terms these past few years,” he reminded me. “Hell, if I even tried to say hello, you hit me with the stink eye before I could get a word out. And as I recall, Land gave me a pretty stern talking-to after our last fight. Told me to mind my own business where you were concerned. Besides, far as I knew, it wasn’t a secret that Junie and your mama saw each other. They were kin, weren’t they?” Jimmy Ray reached behind him with one hand, pulled his pillow up a little and settled back down. “That’s what brought you into my place last night? You wanted to ride my ass about your mama and Junie knowing each other?” He sounded dubious, at best.

“I wasn’t looking for you, if that’s what you’re thinking,” I said, wanting to wipe the smirk right off his face. It didn’t work. Maybe because I’d still ended up in his bed, one way or the other. “I’m not sure why I was there. I wanted to forget everything for a little while, I guess.” I paused, pulling on my memories again, worrying at the threads. Knowing this road was nowhere I really wanted to go, but helpless to stop walking it. Because in the light of day, Junie loomed large again. The pain was back, full throttle, and with it the anger. Burning and boiling below the surface. “I talked to Crystal while I was there.”

“Crystal.” Jimmy Ray snorted. “Pretty accurate name given her meth habit.”

“She said something about Matt and Cal.” I hoped he would contradict Crystal, tell me she was full of shit. “That they were always talking. Hanging out. Or something.”

“You’ll have to ask your brother about that,” Jimmy Ray said after a pause that went on a little too long.

My heart plummeted, left a hollow, aching void in my chest. “You’re saying it’s true?”

Jimmy Ray shook his head. “I’m not saying shit. I’m saying you’ll have to talk to your brother if you want answers to a question like that.”

“Fine,” I said, “that’s what I’ll do.” I slid my legs to the edge of the bed. I took a deep breath, grabbed my underwear and jeans from the floor, and pulled them on, ignoring Jimmy Ray’s eyes on my bare ass. Nothing he hasn’t seen before, I told myself. Last night, in fact, if we’re keeping track. “By the way, weren’t you the one telling me I wasn’t asking the right questions a few days ago? ‘Follow the money, Eve,’ isn’t that what you told me? And now, suddenly, you’ve got nothing to say?”