Chapter 7 Creatures #2
It’s eerie how quickly he grasps the essence of the show, even if his words are laced with bitterness.
He’s always been like this—able to tease out the subtle threads of the story behind the magic with lightning acuity.
Shilo tried for ages to engage him in the crafting phase, but he remained oblivious to the depths of his own brilliance, instead stubbornly clinging to his self-imposed battles and his jealousy.
It didn’t help that Milla was born to be on stage. Or that her charisma isn’t the type to leave scorched earth and rubble in its wake.
The goddamn impound lot is closed.
I jiggle the handle anyway, then peer through the dark glass door, while Gem scrapes a hand over the stubble on his head and kicks at the decorative shrubbery lining the sidewalk.
“Fuck.”
“You couldn’t check the hours before we drove all the way out here?” I grumble. Before I drove all the way out here.
“It’s fucking three thirty in the afternoon. Who the fuck closes this early?”
“Government offices on a Friday.” The sign in the window says we missed them by half an hour. And that they reopen at 9 a.m. Monday. I follow him around the side of the building, where he eyes the chain-link fence like he’s weighing the odds of making it over the top, busted rib and all.
“Don’t suppose you’ve got bolt cutters in that fancy cross-bed toolbox of yours.”
I do, and for a lunatic second, I’m tempted. Solely because it would mean getting the fuck out of here rather than spending the weekend trapped in Bakersfield with him. Definitely not because any part of me has missed the adrenaline of his crazy schemes.
Except there are two cameras watching us, and I’m not that desperate to get on the road. “Sorry. You might be perfectly comfortable spending another night in jail, but that’s not what I signed up for.”
“Right.” He leans his forehead against the fence and threads his fingers through the links, curling them until his scabbed knuckles split and bleed. “I guess…I probably deserve to lose her anyway.” He turns his head to give me a wan smile, crooked with defeat.
Shit. I was ready to tell him I was leaving—that he could ditch the bike or stay here and figure it out on his own—but having him look at me like that’s exactly what he’s expecting? Like he’s not worth helping, and he doesn’t even blame me?
Turns out I can’t handle that any better when I hate him than I could when I didn’t.
“Look.” I fish my phone out of my pocket and shoot off a quick text. “You don’t have to abandon your motorcycle. We can crash at my mom’s for the weekend and pick it up on the way out of town.”
“Diana? She’s in Bakersfield?”
“A lot can happen in two years, Farrel.”
“Sure, but—”
“But what? You think because I stayed at Big Top, my life is exactly the same?” I whirl away and start back toward the truck.
“My dad died. Jeremy got into UC Santa Barbara, and my mom moved down here to be closer to him.” I guess when her last kid was leaving, she finally remembered she was a mom.
“She has a duplex in Taft and works in-home hospice. She keeps a room for Jeremy, but he’s hardly ever there. ”
“Your dad died?”
“I already let her know we were coming.” On the second try, the key fob chirps, and I yank open the door.
“Rocket—”
“Stop calling me that.” I glare at him through the cab before climbing behind the wheel with an impatient shake of my head. “Get in the damn truck.”
He leaves it alone for all of fifteen seconds.
“When?”
“September before last.” A month after I lost you. I don’t say it, but the hitch in his breathing tells me he does the math.
“I’m sorry.”
Oh, but for what, Quill?
“Why? He was a depressed, angry drunk who never liked you. He barely liked me by the end.”
“He was still your dad.”
“Hals is a better one.” It’s a low blow, poking at too many vulnerable valleys between us, but he drops the subject, so I don’t regret it.
I turn on the radio and tune it to a country station. Petty, sure, but he only pulls out his phone and doesn’t comment. Since the music sort of sucks, I only get surlier the longer he ignores it.
“Take a left at the next light,” he says eventually, as if we’ve been chatting the whole time and I asked for his fucking directions.
“Why?”
“I gotta make a stop.”
“For what? I’m not swinging by some dealer’s so you can replenish your stash.”
“Fuck you very nicely, but that’s not why I need to stop.”
“Then tell me why.”
“Fine. I need cash, okay? I had enough to pay for twenty-four hours of impound, but not the whole weekend. If we’re gonna be around for a few days anyway, I can work.”
“You have a job?” There’s no way he can miss the skepticism in my voice. “What the fuck am I doing here, then?”
“It’s not that kind of job.”
“You’re not exactly instilling me with a lot of confidence, Farrel.”
“It’s nothing illegal, I swear. This is the turn.”
“Two days.”
“What?”
“Two days. Monday morning, we’re grabbing your bike and getting the hell out of here.”
“All I need is one night.”
Our destination turns out to be a run-down strip mall tucked behind a twenty-four-hour CVS and sporting a liquor store, a questionable Chinese takeout joint, and a seedy-looking club with a sign that reads “Tippy’s” above a mildly alarming neon peacock in a top hat.
“You don’t have a gun or anything, right? I’m not gonna be your getaway driver if you rob a liquor store.”
“Jesus. I told you it wasn’t illegal. You really don’t think much of me, do you?”
I grunt.
Oh, but once upon a time…
“I missed this.” He sounds wistful, and I shoot him a doubtful look.
“Being a shit? Pretty sure you never stopped.”
“You giving me shit for being a shit.”
“You hated when I called you out as a kid.”
“Because you were always right. It was annoying as fuck.” He rolls his head against the seat to study the side of my face. “It took me a while to realize it meant you cared.”
“Let’s get something straight. I don’t care anymore, Gem. I’m not here for me, and I’m sure as shit not here for you. I’m here because your family deserves to know you’re still alive—and the chance to help you pull yourself together if you’re serious about it.”
“Our family.” He’s out of the truck before I can formulate a response, but I hear the rest as he slams the door shut: “They were always more yours than mine.”
After five seconds of debating whether keeping him out of whatever trouble he’s planning is worth following him into said trouble, I hurry to catch up. He bypasses the liquor store and pulls open the blacked-out door to the club, slapping a flyer on the window before he slips inside.
Ladies’ Night—Every 3rd Saturday. Bakersfield’s Only All-Male Revue!
“You’re not serious,” I hiss, as I follow him into a red-carpeted hallway with chipped gilt wainscoting and heavy gold curtains blocking the far doorway.
A tired-looking woman in a tight T-shirt with the words “Tippy’s Tail Feathers” blazoned over her gravity-defying breasts glances up from behind a counter at our approach.
“Better or worse than dealing drugs and robbing liquor stores?” Gem asks with a quirk of his brow, way too fucking amused.
“These places hire people off the street?”
“Most of them. As long as you can show you’ve got the goods.”
“Your goods are looking pretty rough right now,” I remind him, gesturing at his bruises. He brushes it off.
“This is nothing. I won’t be able to invert or do anything fancy on the pole, but my ass is as fine as ever, and I know how to shake my tail feathers.” He winks at the woman. “Besides, I’ve danced in worse shape before.”
I don’t want to know. I don’t want to picture him shaking his anything for a crowd of hungry women—and at least a few men—at all. Before I can drag his “fine” ass out of here, however, he leans on the counter to offer a megawatt smile.
“Got a manager I can talk to, sweetheart?” he asks.
Sweetheart? Ugh. How have I forgotten what it’s like to watch him lay on the trademark Gem charm? I bet she doesn’t even notice his split lip over the blinding glare of his teeth and the sparkle of the barbell in his tongue.
Also, her name tag clearly states “Brandi.”
“Your friend there isn’t exactly lying about your goods, sugar,” Brandi says, eyeing Gem’s face and immediately improving my opinion of her by several notches.
“Maybe he’s the one who should be talking to the boss.
” She gives me an appreciative once-over while Gem makes absolutely no effort to hide his grin.
It’s a fucking conspiracy.
“I’m going to wait in the truck. You’ve got fifteen minutes before I dump your ass and head home.”
The last thing I hear as I flee back into the sunshine is Brandi’s cheerful voice.
“Your boyfriend’s a shy one, isn’t he, sugar?”