Draw (Gentry Boys #1)(28)
“Hey,” he nudged my knee. “I didn’t mean to kill the mood. Here,” he turned up the radio, “listen to this song. It’s impossible not to be all kinds of happy while listening to this song.”
I listened. “It’s Tom Petty.”
“It is,” he confirmed. “Did you ever see that Tom Cruise movie where he’s flipping the stations in his car and looking for something to match his enthusiasm? Well, when he gets to ‘Free Fallin’ he has this big YES moment and he starts howling the lyrics at the top of his lungs. Now he can’t sing for shit, but it doesn’t matter because everything he’s thinking and feeling at that moment is all wrapped up in that song so he belts it out anyway.”
I laughed. “You can be pretty wordy when you want to be.”
“Only when I have something important to say.” He pointed to Sun Devil Stadium as we passed it. “You know, they filmed that movie over there.”
“I think I remember it. Jerry Maguire, right? My dad used to watch it all the time.”
Cord began singing along to the music. It shocked me to hear the smooth timbre of his voice.
“You’re good,” I told him.
“At many things,” he boasted.
“Maybe. But I was talking about singing.”
“Nah, you should hear Creedence. My brother could be a superstar, if he would only let people listen to him.”
I gave a short laugh. “Creedence, Chasyn and Cordero.”
“That’s us,” Cord said, somewhat somberly, as he turned onto the Interstate.
“Unusual names. All three of them.”
He laughed hoarsely. “Okay, Saylor.”
“Yeah, that was my mom’s bright idea. While she was in the hospital waiting to be induced she read a magazine article about what ladies’ footwear was going to look like for Fashion Week.”
He was confused. “Did I miss the trend of Saylor shoes?”
“No. That was the last name of the article’s author.”
“Ah. Well, I can’t throw stones. I’m named after a f*cking soap opera character. Creedence, of course, is because of that old rock band. Chasyn is from some fantasy novel, the name of a king who tamed dragons or some kind of crap.”
“It suits you,” I told him. “All of you.”
He glanced at me questioningly. “Why is that?”
“Unique names for a set of unique boys.”
“Men now,” he reminded me.
I stared at his muscular arms. “How could I forget?”
And then I saw it again in his eyes, the expression of raw desire. I wondered if he had any idea how much I’d thought about him since that dark night when he’d found me, a ruined mess, and shown a level of kindness I would never have expected from a Gentry.
We talked easily as the miles passed, mostly about Emblem, about the limitations of being raised in a prison town, about the tired people we knew who remained there with resignation. We paused in Blythe for a rest stop and to grab a quick bite to eat.
As I leaned against the truck, sipping a mammoth forty four ounces of Styrofoam-clad caffeine, I watched Cord carefully wash the truck’s windows. Something was still troubling me about him.
“So you had the day off today?” I asked mildly.
He froze for a second and casually resumed his window washing. “I might have some work to do tonight.”
“That’s evasive.”
He didn’t look at me. “Intentionally.”
“All right, all right. I can take a hint.” I started to meander around to the back of the truck when Cord suddenly caught my hand.
“Saylor?”
His touch elicited a sensational shock which traveled straight to my libido. He held on to me and I didn’t jerk away.
“Look,” I told him, “I’m sorry if I came off as prying. It’s really human of you, giving up your day for me like this. You don’t owe me a thing, Cord.”
He smiled and shook his head, finally letting go of my hand. “I was just wondering if you’d mind running inside and grabbing me a pack of gum while I finish gassing up.”
“What flavor?”
Cord allowed me to pay for the gum but he wouldn’t accept any cash for the gas. It made feel a little guilty, given what a guzzler the truck was. It also made me wonder what exactly he expected in return. And if I would give it to him.
The closer we got to the coast the more restless I became. Once, a seeming lifetime ago, I’d traveled this way as a fresh faced teenager full of hope and promise for the future. I’d intended to never return to the searing desert.
“So this is smog,” Cord observed, peering into the haze surrounding the greater Los Angeles area.
“This is nothing. It’s not bad right now. You’ve never been to California?”
He ran a hand through his short hair and his face turned troubled. “Twice. First time was a disastrous road trip to Coachella with Benton. He said he was visiting some old friends. Only they turned out to be a pack of burnouts who went on a three day bender with our father while we slept in a filthy shed.”
“And the second time?”
He broke into a dazzling smile which stabbed a hole in my heart. “Chase woke up one morning and decided he had to see the ocean. It evolved into something of an argument with Creed since we were so low on cash were living off Ramen. But Chase can be rather theatrical when he wants to. Said he was going to see the goddamn ocean before he died and since you never know how a day is going to end, now was the only time.” He shrugged. “So we went. Laid on the beach for hours, got drunk and swam in the ocean. It was a good day.”