Draw (Gentry Boys #1)(35)
“There gonna be fallout from that?”
“Nah,” I answered, though I was thinking uneasily of Saylor and the glance of disgust she’d given me after I offered to screw her on the freeway off ramp. “Not from him.”
“And Say?” Chase asked, guessing where my mind was.
“Saylor believes the same thing she’s always believed, that I’m a hellish thug. She might even be f*cking right.”
“She said that?”
“She didn’t have to. I’m nothin’ to her, I’m garbage.”
Creed chortled lightly. “You know that ain’t true.”
I turned on him. “You trying to give me love advice? When’s the last time you used a girl for more than exercise?”
He smiled thinly. “That what it is between you two? Love?”
I scoffed. “I barely know that damn girl.”
Chase reached over and poked at me. “You know her,” he teased.
“Enough of this shit. I don’t want to talk about Saylor or that douche in Cali or anything else. I just want to go smash some poor f*cker and maybe scavenge for something to meet my dick later. That all right with you boys?”
“Sure, man,” Creed yawned. “I’m gonna go rinse off.”
There were still several hours to kill before we needed to head out. I spent it eating three bowls of Chase’s cereal and then playing Creed’s apocalypse game with a stoic fury. My brothers kind of tiptoed around me the rest of the evening but I was of a single minded focus. If I thought about shit too much then I would have had to dwell on the small hope that there would be a knock on the door and she would be standing there.
When Creed bellowed that it was nearly time to get a move on, I looked down and realized I wore blood on my pants. The blood wasn’t mine. Fuck it, I thought. Let whatever jittery gangbanger they threw in my direction see it and maybe get a little rattled. I taped up my hands just a little. Anything more would be cause for taunting and anyway I didn’t need anything more. I headed out to the patio and pumped a few free weights to get my blood moving.
Chase was out there, already drinking. He appeared to be in an uncharacteristically somber mood as I grunted my way through a set.
“Send it to the dungeon, Cordero,” he said. That was a thing between us brothers. Creed came up with it eons ago when daily battles were a matter of survival for us. He was always the most fearful that he wouldn’t be able to control the madness. It had a simple meaning. Take whatever garbage threatened to overwhelm you and bury it in a place too deep to touch. It might mean lashing out first to take some of the edge off. But bury it just the same.
My brother was looking at me. “I don’t mind taking the fight tonight,” he said.
I shook my head curtly. “Let me do this. Then I’ll send it the dungeon.”
“You burying Saylor there too?”
“I should have left Saylor the f*ck alone in the first place.”
Chase grunted and took another drink. “You ever wonder,” he mused, “whether someday there’s gonna be payback for all the shit we’ve ever done? Like somewhere there’s some great universal karma bank and one of these days we’ll find ourselves overdrawn on our account?”
“No,” I said flatly, standing up. “Because there’s no such thing as justice. Or fairness. If there was then Benton Gentry wouldn’t be free and breathing.”
Chase’s blue eyes went flat at the mention of our father. That was a forbidden subject. Creed told me once he couldn’t dwell all those old nightmares. If he did then he might have to kill someone.
Speaking of Creed, he poked his head into the darkness. “Time to head out, boys.” My brother was about to duck back inside when he decided to look at me more carefully. His eyebrows were raised with the silent question of whether I was really up for this.
I nodded and started to push past Creedence when Chase enveloped me in a sudden bear hug from behind. Chase did that sometimes though. The surprising part was when Creed grabbed us both and squeezed us in a tight embrace. Creed never did shit like that. He reached up and awkwardly patted my head because even though his own heart might be something only slightly softer than stone, he always knew when we were hurting and tried to right it. I closed my eyes for a moment and just felt grateful for the indestructible circle we made, my brothers and I.
Creed was the first one to break off. “Let’s go,” he said and held the door for us.
The place was a real shithole in South Phoenix. A former elementary school which had been shuttered for a good twenty years, it was the picture of urban blight. The parking lot was crowded with hordes of gleaming low riders and a smattering of high end vehicles which didn’t really belong in this part of town but which no one would dare touch, not here. Especially not with some tatted up dude the size of Godzilla working security in the lot.
“You got business?” he barked as Creed eased the Chevy into one of the few empty spots.
“We do,” my brother barked back. “Check with Gabe.” At the mention of Gabe’s name, the tatted dude nodded and backed off.
We followed the noise out behind the school to the old athletic field. It was illuminated by a half dozen standing lights which had been brought in. With all the milling racket and turmoil I figured a fair amount of cash had to change hands with the cops who were unfortunate enough to work this neighborhood.