Chapter 3
CHASE
Ipassed out on Saturday morning with Cash curled up tight against my side, but when I woke up, the light was streaming around the edges of the blanket and I was alone. I hadn’t noticed when Cash had left, so I must have crashed hard.
I still wasn’t sleeping well and I was still trying to figure out how to get off nights, but at least Cash and I both had tonight off, so we’d both get some sleep. I needed it desperately, but I was pretty sure Cash needed it more.
I dragged my ass out of bed and pulled on some jeans and a shirt that was halfway clean, then wandered out to the kitchen, stifling a yawn.
As I passed Gracie’s room, I could hear her singing under her breath, the way little kids did when they were making up some game, and it made me smile.
I liked having Gracie around. She was fun.
She and Wilder spent about half the time at our house and half the time next door at Avery’s.
Danny joked we should just knock the rickety fence down and be done with it.
When he said things like that, it reminded me that it was more his house than ours, even though we all lived together.
And even though Grandma Jane had said we could stay as long as we wanted, I worried sometimes what might happen if that changed.
I guessed we’d be back up shit creek in a heartbeat.
And yeah, it wasn’t likely to happen, but I didn’t like to take anything for granted, you know?
Sometimes I thought about what would happen if we had to live like we had before.
The past couple years living with Danny and Wilder had made me soft.
If I didn’t sleep great or I missed a meal, I got cranky as shit these days.
Back then, that was every fucking day, and if that was the worst that happened, we’d have counted ourselves lucky.
See, if we had to run again now, we’d be going backward. But when we’d done it the first time, anything had been better than what we’d been leaving behind.
From outside on the back porch, I could hear the low murmur of voices. My brain was still too sleep-fogged to figure out who it was or to give a shit. I was drinking milk straight from the carton when the back door opened. I shoved the milk back as quickly as I could and spun around.
It was Cash. He raised his eyebrows at me. “That’s gross. Use a glass.”
“You didn’t see a thing,” I said. “And even if you did, who are you gonna tell?”
He snorted. “You’re an asshole.”
I flipped him the bird to prove his point, and he came and rested his head on my shoulder. I put my arms around him. “Did you sleep?”
“Yeah,” he said. “Slept good.”
The dark circles under his eyes were still there, but they looked less like two caverns now and more like he’d forgotten to wash off his eyeliner.
Not that Cash had ever worn eyeliner in his life.
He hated anything that might draw attention to him.
Sucked that we were twins, right? People always stared at twins.
“How are your knees?”
“Itchy and scabby.” He pulled away with a grin. “We’re having a cookout. Miller’s bringing steaks.”
“Nice. Is Avery bringing his potato salad?”
Cash shrugged. “I didn’t ask.”
No. Of course he hadn’t.
I stretched, and my back gave a satisfying crack that made Cash wince. “I hope he does.”
Cash leaned on the counter. “Pretty sure he will.”
The back door creaked again, and Danny stepped inside. “Hey, guys. Chase, wanna help me clean the grill since you’re awake?”
“Nope,” I said, and Cash shoved me and snorted. Of course I was gonna! Maybe I’d ask him about approaching Bobby to move back onto day shifts. Danny had changed his shifts around when he started community college, so it wasn’t like it was impossible, right? Though everyone liked Danny.
But hey, since he was working less, that meant there might still be some daytime hours available, right?
I didn’t need everyone to like me to make this work.
Just Bobby. And I was pretty sure that Bobby liked me since I still had a job even though I got more complaints than everyone else combined.
But also, maybe that meant I was already on thin ice.
I had no idea. I hadn’t had a job before this one, and I didn’t really know how any of this shit worked.
I wasn’t sure why he’d even hired me in the first place. But then, Bobby made his own rules.
Like, who even had a freaking pet goose?
I pulled on a jacket and went outside into the crisp air and helped Danny clean the grill.
“Do you think Bobby would put me back on days?” I asked.
Danny shrugged. “I have no idea. Ask him and find out.”
Like it was that easy. But it probably was for Danny, because he was open and friendly and actually liked people.
Hell, back when Harlan, our neighbor before Avery, had been getting all up in his face every day, it’d taken the old man cutting down the tree out front for Danny to actually get pissed.
Then it had turned out that Harlan hadn’t been a dick at all—well, he had, but it hadn’t been him, sort of.
It had been dementia. And Danny had roped the rest of us into helping Harlan’s daughter pack up his house so he could move to the memory unit at Sunny Fields in Brodnax.
He was just a decent guy, but I knew that already, because there weren’t too many people out there who would catch you eating out of a dumpster behind the gas station and take you back to his place for a shower, a meal, and someplace to sleep out of the weather for the night. And here we were still.
I muttered something.
Danny scraped the wire brush over the grill. “Is this because of Cash? The not sleeping, and the nightmares when he does?”
I nodded sharply.
Danny’s expression softened. “Bobby’s not unreasonable. He’s weird, but he’s not unreasonable. If you told him—”
“It’s nobody’s business but ours,” I said.
“Let me finish, okay?” The corner of his mouth tugged up a little.
“I wasn’t going to say you have to tell him anything about Cash.
But you can tell him that you’re having a hard time and not sleeping well.
And maybe promise not to punch any more customers.
Wade’s worked nights before and doesn’t hate them, so he might be willing to switch back. ”
“What if he’s not?” I asked.
“Well, ask Bobby,” Danny said. “I mean, that’s your first step, right?”
I didn’t like it. I didn’t want to talk to Bobby, because what if he said no? But I wasn’t dumb enough to think Danny was wrong, because of course I didn’t have any other choice. I hated that part too. I didn’t like being backed into a corner.
“Okay,” I said, looking away from Danny’s concerned expression. “Okay, yeah.”
The thing with Danny was that if he saw I was stewing on something, he’d try to get it out of me, but since the only thing to get out of me was that I was an asshole, then what was the point?
We both already knew that. Sometimes I thought Cash had the right idea.
If you didn’t talk to anyone, they gave up trying to ask you shit.
We finished cleaning the grill, and Danny said, “I’m gonna go grab some beers.”
I followed him back inside long enough to see him grab his wallet and then come back for the keys he’d realized he forgot once he got to his truck.
Then I went looking for Cash. He wasn’t in our bedroom or the living room, and he wasn’t out front, but I could hear Gracie’s voice and it sounded like she was talking to someone now instead of just singing to herself.
Her bedroom door was partway open, so I knocked and pushed it open the rest of the way.
Cash was sitting cross-legged on the floor, wearing a glittery purple tiara and surrounded by stuffed toys.
There was a teddy bear perched in his lap, and he was holding out a plastic teacup for Gracie to pour the tea.
When the door opened, his shoulders hunched up instinctively, but when he saw it was me, he relaxed again and gave me a half smile.
“Uncle Chase! We’re having a tea party. Do you want to play?” Gracie asked.
I eyed the crowded floor and said, “Maybe another time, okay?”
“Okay,” she said. “There’s your tea, Uncle Cash.”
He eyed his empty cup, his eyebrows raised in a question.
“It’s pretend,” Gracie stage-whispered. “Don’t you know how to have a tea party? We pretend.”
Cash nodded and took a sip of his imaginary tea.
I stepped back and leaned against the wall, closing my eyes. I listened to Gracie continue to chatter to Cash and her toys, and Cash’s hums of agreement whenever she asked him a question. It sounded like he was figuring out how it worked.
Don’t you know how to have a tea party?
Even all the pretending in the world wouldn’t have given us tea parties when we were little kids.
I didn’t like to think about how we’d grown up, while at the same time it was always right there, threatening to make me scream and punch the walls out of sheer fucking anger.
Except then I’d be just like him, and I was too much like him already.
Dad had hated me, but he’d respected me a bit too.
Like, you at least admired the fight in the kicked dog who bites back.
But Cash? Cash had never bitten back, and Dad had hated that more.
So no, there had never been any tea parties when we were kids. Never much of anything, except Cash trying to vanish into the shadows and into silence while I yelled and kicked and swore, hoping Dad would take it out on me instead.
I drew a deep breath and opened my eyes, staring at the scuff mark on the wall across from me. Yeah, I didn’t like to think about it, but it was always fucking there. Even here, it was always there.
Gracie said something and giggled, and Cash laughed quietly.
No laughing once upon a time too.
The creak of the boards on the porch alerted me that someone was coming, and I straightened up and moved toward the front door as it opened.