CROSS (A Gentry Boys Novella)(29)
“Hey,” he said, looking at me and then and Stone and then back at me. The guilt that pricked at my conscience was illogical. There was absolutely nothing to feel guilty about. Maybe I was just feeling out of sorts because of that rare argument this morning right before Con stormed off. But he was here now so everything must be all right. Yet somehow I couldn’t make my mouth cooperate with words.
“Hey.” Stone waved at his brother casually.
I’d seen Conway Gentry every day ever since I could remember. We’d been in a relationship for two years and I’d loved him far longer than that. I could translate his moods more easily than I understood my own. But as he walked into my kitchen and we coolly locked eyes there was nothing familiar about his flat expression. His thoughts, his feelings, were suddenly all beyond my reach.
He was, for once, a mystery.
CHAPTER TEN
CONWAY
“Where the hell did you get all that?” I asked Stone when I emerged from the shower and found him counting a pile of green bills and loose change on his bed.
“Robbed a bank,” he said, not pausing in in his counting.
“Banks don’t deal in dimes.”
“Robbed an ice cream truck.”
“You mean the one that parks over by the high school and does equal business in bubble gum and crystal meth?”
Stone grinned. “That’s the one.”
I dropped my wet towel in favor of boxers. “Really, what’s going on? You turned your nose up at Carson again when he offered you a job at the garage.”
“Janitor,” Stone snorted. “Washing out garbage cans and scrubbing the staff toilet. And he only made the gesture because you kept pestering him.” Stone abandoned his counting and swept all the money into a large mason jar. “Professional gambling is more lucrative.”
“No way did you score all that from Saturday’s poker game.”
“Indeed.” Stone shook the jar and held it up to the light. “Looks impressive, huh? Actually there’s only about fifty bucks here. Most of those guys had more tissues in their pockets than cash.”
Caleb Marist, who graduated last year and happened to be a distant cousin on our mother’s side, hosted the game in the paneled, shag carpet living room of the house he still occupied with his grandmother. It might have been better if I’d just stayed for the game instead of taking off with Erin because we ended up having one of those ‘Why are you mad? I’m not mad, why are you mad?’ pointless fights that most couples typically suffer through at least once a week.
Finally, Erin complained of a headache and said she just wanted to go home so I walked her to her front door and then took a solitary night hike along the wash. That turned out to be a bad idea because my bladder was full. I’d just started to piss on the rocks when a light shined in my face and a man’s voice shouted at me in Spanish. Since I didn’t want to know what it was I’d stumbled into, I took off running and managed to leak piss all over my underwear. Things got even better when my dick got caught in a zipper as I tried, en route, to shove everything back where it was supposed to go. Like I said, I should have just stayed at the poker game.
“What are you up to tonight?” Stone asked as he searched through his side of the closet. Funny thing about Stone; he took excellent care of his clothes. He hated when I borrowed his stuff, complaining that I always looked like I’d fished something out of the bottom of the hamper no matter what I wore.
“Taking Erin out to eat at the diner and then whatever. I don’t know. She’s been in kind of a funky mood lately. Maybe we’ll find something to watch with her Netflix subscription.” I threw a pillow. “You even listening?”
“Sorry.” Stone yawned and then started buttoning a short sleeve blue shirt. “I nodded off during that rousing description of your wild evening.”
“Fuck you. That shirt makes you look like you work in an electronics store.”
Stone smoothed his hair and winked at his reflection in a small mirror that hung over the dresser. “Eat your heart out, baby brother.”
I didn’t laugh. I didn’t toss back some witty insult. Vaguely I heard Stone’s voice calling me and realized I’d started staring out the window in one of those waking trances.
“What’s with you?” he asked. “You’ve been all spacey and shit for the last week. Gaps said not to worry about the charges. We’ll end up with community service or something.”
“Yeah, about that. You need to back me up when I tell them that you lied about driving the car.”
Stone smirked. “Can’t do that. “
“Why the hell not? It’s the truth.”
“Don’t matter. Fuck with my rep.”
“This isn’t a movie, you jerk. I’m not letting you take the blame for something I did.”
“I could give a shit about the blame. I’m just interested in the reward.”
I couldn’t imagine what he was talking about. “What reward?”
“Kasey Kean is practically panting for a reason to strip and spread.”
“What about Courtney?”
“Who?”
“Never mind,” I grumbled. I hadn’t said anything to Stone about my poolside molestation at the hands of Kasey Kean. Usually I wouldn’t have hesitated to share a story like that but Stone would have guessed at the guilty truth, that a part of me had wanted to stay there and let her keep stroking whatever she wanted to stroke. No way in f*ck was I going to risk having Erin find that out so it was better not to admit it out loud, not even to my brother.