Hold (Gentry Boys, #5)(20)
They laughed and jostled each other as we reached our stop and headed to the art museum. They quieted down when we got inside the building though, listening respectfully as the docent took us through the temporary exhibit on twentieth century photography. We spent three hours walking through the bright galleries, running into Bastian’s group and some of the others a few times. We ate a brief lunch at the café before returning to the library. The kids chattered brightly on the ride back and compared notes about what they’d seen. Then they spent the afternoon at the library composing a ten-minute skit about contemporary art, which they performed in one of the large meeting rooms in front of all forty members of the camp.
The day went fast and didn’t even seem like work. At five o’clock we bid farewell to all the kids and cleaned up everything from the afternoon’s activities. Bastian was talking to one of the other counselors but he stopped and headed my way when he saw me.
“You know,” he said with smiling warmth, “you’re a natural teacher, Chase. The kids love you. That’s a gift.”
The compliment was one of the best ones anyone had ever thrown my way. I didn’t really know how to say what teaching meant to me so I just flashed a grin and said “Thanks,” before carrying a bag of trash out to the dumpster.
A short time later as I idled in traffic with the air conditioner working hard to overcome the hellacious heat, Bastian’s words came back to me. My brothers and I were once a set of hard-luck kids that no one had much hope for. Back in our hometown, the Gentry name was infamous for violence, abuse and the kind of poverty that had nothing to do with money and everything to do with bad character. Our father was nothing but evil atop a pair of brutally strong legs and it was widely assumed that the apples don’t fall far from the tree. Even once we were out of Emblem, we floundered for a while, trying to scrape together a living with odd jobs and with our fists in the underground fighting rings that are so common to university towns. I hoped Bastian was right, that I have what it takes to stand in front of a room full of kids who might not see much point to showing up and convince them otherwise, to persuade them that there are beautiful things in the world and that their minds are precious.
Maybe it was the height of arrogance to believe I could change anything for anyone. But I was damn well going to try.
I had daydreamed my way through the worst of the traffic headed eastbound out of Phoenix. As I steered toward the ramp that bent in the direction of Tempe I noted the gleaming ASU football stadium. Now that I was back among the familiar landmarks of the university I started to get a little jazzed about an evening with my boys. The only thing I missed about the old days was being with my brothers every day. But it always gave me comfort to know that we would fall back into our same patterns as soon as we were together. We joked, sometimes roughly, and laughed and were generally obnoxious but the three of us loved each other to f*cking pieces. Always had. Always would.
There wasn’t much in the way of parking outside of Scratch, Cord and Deck’s tattoo parlor, so I parked up the street, right behind Creed’s pickup. He must not have cleaned the thing in months; a layer of Sonoran dust covered the back window. So of course I felt obliged to lean over and trace the words ‘Wash Me’ with my finger. Then, for good measure, I added the crude outline of a penis because somewhere in my heart still lurked the spirit of a thirteen-year-old brat.
As I whistled my way down the sidewalk I passed a tasty little coed who threw a pair of interested brown eyes my way. I nodded curtly and looked at the ground. She didn’t stand a chance. No one had since the moment I kissed a beautiful, stubborn girl in a Las Vegas hotel room nearly four years ago.
When I reached the door of Scratch the light of impending evening was soft enough that I could see right through the glass with no glare. And right there was Creed’s cranky backside just waiting to be clobbered. Since we were born Creedence has been the biggest and the strongest of the three of us, but I could always hold my own. We didn’t knock each other around like we did when we were kids but every once in a while I still liked to yank his chain when the chance came up. So I flung the door open just hard enough to bash him on his muscled ass.
He swiveled around to scowl at me in a way that only Creedence Gentry could scowl. Damn, I loved that guy.
Something was wrong though. Cord was standing ten feet away with a grim look on his face. Cord didn’t rattle easily.
“So what’d I miss?” I asked slowly.
Creed glanced at Cord.
“Nothing yet,” he said, motioning to the door. “Let’s move.”
“Where might we be moving to?”
Cord slapped a hand on my shoulder. “Creed and I are taking a trip down to grand old Emblem. There’s a couple of errant Gentrys who need some bail money.”
All my senses went on high alert. Emblem wasn’t a place I visited regularly. Or ever. “What Gentrys?”
“Elijah’s boys,” answered Creed with a touch of impatience. He never enjoyed explaining anything. “Deck apparently looks after them and they need some cash to get out of trouble.”
I tried to picture the children of my father’s quiet cousin. “What are they now, like ten years old?”
“Seventeen,” answered Cord.
“Shit.” I shook my head. “Time sure as hell flies.”
“Yes.” Creed looked pointedly at his watch. “It’s flying right now.”