Game (Gentry Boys, #3)(32)

“No. Stephanie keeps it close to the chest. You know that. Even Truly has trouble breaking through.”

I grunted. “Well she’s not shy about letting me know what a lousy f*cker I am.”

Saylor nodded. “Yup, you can be.”

“What?” I was surprised, insulted. “Thought we were kindred spirits, you and me.”

“Chase,” she sighed. “You know I love you. I mean, you do know that. But you can come off as a total unserious man whore. Yeah, I get it,” she continued when I started to sputter an objection. “You’re trying not to be, but Steph didn’t just meet you last week. She’s been able to watch you for a while. You’ve got to show her that you’re better than you seem to be.”

I thought about the way girls were always draping themselves over me in class, whether I invited them or not. The last few weeks, even before Vegas, Steph would spin around in her chair to shoot me dirty looks now and again. Then after class I would catch up to her for a short bout of profane banter. It had pleased me in a sick way, her evident jealousy. Maybe I should have considered how much damage my cocky bullshit was doing. Instead of answering with a madcap grin I should have gone and sat beside her, like I wanted to, like she’d done for me once.

But today I was still feeling the sting of rejection. I’d offered to be a good guy and she’d insisted it was impossible. I crossed my foot over my knee and scoffed. “Chick’s got issues, Saylor.”

“Who doesn’t?” she challenged. “You? Me?”

It made my heart sore when I remembered how timid Stephanie had been about sex. Even if she wasn’t a virgin, something was holding her back.

I told Saylor about it, feeling mildly guilty because I’d promised Stephanie I wouldn’t spill the beans to anyone else besides Cord. But I needed someone to be honest about whether I was wasting my time here. I didn’t like getting smacked down over and over again, especially now that there were other moments, sweet moments, mixed in there to make me think about Stephanie Bransky in a tender way.

Saylor listened carefully and then sighed when I stopped talking. “So she’s never talked to you much about her past?”

“Much? Girl could have hatched from an Easter egg for all I know.”

Saylor gave me a sympathetic smile. “Did you ask?”

“No,” I admitted slowly. “I didn’t.”

“So why don’t you start asking? Maybe there are a few things she’d like to ask you too.”

I was quiet for a minute. I hated the idea of getting another door slammed in my face. I almost hated it as much as I hated the idea of never being inside Stephanie again.

Saylor was waiting for me. “Think about it, Chase. Is she worth it? Forget about what everyone else might think or say. Is Stephanie worth the effort?”

I made up my mind quickly. “Yes. For some crazy reason I believe she is.”

Saylor only smiled with serene triumph. I leaned over and kissed her on the cheek.

“Thanks, sis.”

She shoved me. “Go get your girl.”

As I showered I thought about what Saylor had said. I thought about the flashes of vulnerability I’d seen in Stephanie before she had time to cover it with something else. I might go over there in a little while and get shot down again. The idea made me nervous and I got nervous about as often as I took a girl out for an event that didn’t end up horizontal. Which was to say, never. The best I could do was to keep it honest.

When I was toweling off I noticed the scar running down the middle of my abdomen. Sometimes I forgot all about it. Truly had once told me that the scar would fade, as scars do. Truly was right. I also had a faint line along my right cheek and my nose was slightly crooked from having been broken. That had been some cowardly bullshit. I was blindsided, jumped behind the gym one sunny afternoon four months ago by a couple of snotty punks who were pissed that Cord had gotten the better of one of their buddies in a fight. There never was any justice over it, other than Creedence scaring the piss out of one of them before Cord pulled him back. I was all right with that. I could do without vengeance if it meant my boys and I would get to come home every night.

Still, it was a source of humiliation to have been taken down so easily by some lousy pricks I could have certainly beaten had I seen them coming. Maybe that’s what started me down a bad road with the pills. Getting numb was easy at first. Then it became easier. By the time I realized it was a problem I was locked in the jaws of addiction. It was a horribly lonely place to be.

Back in my room I spied a book on my desk. It was quietly given to me the first day I stepped into the outpatient program. Getting clean was tough, at first. My dreams were full of terrifying things and I kept breaking into a cold sweat out of nowhere. A powerful sense of panic would find me at the oddest times. It’s a difficult feeling to describe. Saylor had asked me about it once, out of curiosity. I told her that every day was like walking a tightrope with no net underneath. Either you make it across in one piece or else the messy alternative awaited.

I wondered how much Stephanie knew about me. Given the fact that she was Truly’s roommate and girls are known to talk I figured she knew more about me than I did about her.

As I made a bit of an effort to look neat I examined myself critically in the bathroom mirror. Sometimes when I caught sight of my profile out of the corner of my eye I saw someone else. For a long time it would be one of my brothers and the idea would comfort me. But lately I’d been seeing Benton Gentry. Not as he was now, all beer-gutted and jowly, but the petrifying wall of muscle he’d been in his youth. I wondered about my father sometimes. I wondered if he’d been born a cruel bastard or if life had twisted him that way. If the same thought ever occurred to Cord or Creed they never said so. If they ever worried whether it was possible for any of us to go the same way they never said that either.