Hold (Gentry Boys, #5)(27)

“Thanks for getting my brother out of there,” he said tersely and exited the truck. It was a weird thing to say. Not thanks for getting ‘us’ out of there. Could be that he felt like he deserved to be in there for whatever role he’d played in the Gnome’s auto misfortunes. Maybe Con had just gone along with his brother because that’s what brothers do.

I watched Stone in the rearview mirror as he jammed his hands in his pockets and patiently waited while his brother took forever and a day to extricate himself and his girlfriend from the back.

Suddenly Con came around to my window, Erin in tow.

“My brother’s not really good at gratitude but believe me, we’re both glad you showed up.”

“Not a problem, man,” said Cord.

“You get those grades up,” Chase called from the backseat. “Next thing I want to hear about you is that you’re heading up to Tempe.”

“I will,” Con promised and slung an arm around Erin’s waist.

I leaned out of the truck a few inches to get his attention. “Stay out of trouble,” I told him. “Don’t do anything that you can’t undo. That goes for you too,” I called to Stone who was still rooted to the same spot on the sidewalk. “I know you heard me.”

“I heard you,” called Stone and even in the darkness I could tell he had at least half a cocky smile on his face.

As I pulled away from the curb and gave one final wave to the boys, I heard the identical sighs of my own brothers and knew at that moment we were all of the same mind.

We wanted things to work out for those two kids, wanted them to shake off whatever demons led them to do dumb shit like steal cars, f*ck around, blow off school.

We hoped they’d step back from the ledge that straddled the good world and the bad.





CHAPTER NINE


CHASE



There wasn’t much conversation on the drive home. We were relaxed, just enjoying the comfort of each other’s company. When we reached the east valley I asked if there was any interest in going for a cup of coffee but Cord yawned and said he’d already texted Saylor that she could expect him home within half an hour.

“What about you, monster?” I asked Creed, flicking him in the back of the neck.

“I’m beat,” he answered. “Got shows the next three nights so I should probably turn in early tonight.”

I flopped back into the seat and looked out the window, thinking how strange was the march of time, that the archetypal party boys of yesterday were now in for the night by ten o’clock.

Not that I was complaining. In fact my brain offered up an appealing flashback from last night; Steph naked and on her knees. I hoped she was still awake.

We passed right by Cord’s neighborhood on the way back to Scratch. I was tempted to ask if we could stop at his house for a minute. Even though my nieces were surely asleep at this hour I never passed up the opportunity to look at their precious faces. The sight of them always stirred something soft yet protective in me. I imagined the feeling was probably ten times more intense for their father.

But there was really no good reason to disrupt their whole household so I just waved goodbye to Cord as he hopped out of Creed’s truck and into his own, taking off almost immediately. My car was parked where I’d left it a few dozen yards away from the door of Scratch but I lingered in Creed’s truck for another moment as we watched Cord’s taillights disappear.

“You did good today,” announced Creed suddenly.

Compliments from Creedence didn’t come easily so I raised an eyebrow and waited.

“With the kids,” he explained. “I mean I’ve always thought you would make an amazing teacher but today when I saw how you were able to get through to those boys I knew it was true.”

“Yeah, well,” was all I said because I really couldn’t describe how much those words pleased me.

Creed put his elbow up on the window frame and exhaled thickly. I knew he was going to switch topics to one I wouldn’t like as much.

“Pretty relieved we didn’t run into any ghosts tonight,” he finally said.

A shiver rolled through me, a primitive instinct triggered by the memory of something bad. Yeah, I was also damn glad that tonight there’d been no sign of our parents. Most likely they were holed up several miles deep into the desert, in the filthy shithole we’d been raised in, a place I had no desire to inhabit again.

“No ghosts,” I said, feeling strangely troubled. Violence. Addiction. Despair. Abuse. Those were all the things that were wrapped together in my earliest home and the people who created it. If not for Creedence and Cordero I didn’t know if I’d still be alive.

“Why don’t we meet up for lunch, maybe next weekend?” Creed suggested as I opened the door. “We’ll drag Cord out of Scratch for an hour or two, bring our ladies. I know they miss each other.”

As proof that our lives had always been hopelessly interconnected, it was a fact that Truly and Stephanie were roommates before we’d met either of them. Creed got together with Truly first and I’d already happened to take an interest in Steph when I’d seen her skulking sexily around campus. All of that seemed like it had just happened yesterday yet it also seemed like it had always been true.

“It’s a date,” I yawned. I wasn’t tired though, not really. I wanted to get back to my apartment and press my head against Stephanie’s bare breasts in ways that were both naughty and nice.