5. Blake
5
BLAKE
“You here to fix that Geo?” I ask. “I doubt they’ll be able to do it for that amount, Kori. You know that better than anybody. The way that engine was looking, it needs a lot of work. If you bring it by the Chop Shop, we’ll take care of it free of charge?—”
“I have to go,” she mutters.
The paperwork at the counter remains unfinished. The same can be said for the transaction with the clerk at the desk. Korine’s busy pocketing her wallet in the same quick motion that she pulls out her keys. She flees from the Autoshop lobby like she’s in imminent danger.
“Kori, what the hell’s up with you? Why are you—KORI!”
I rush after her, but it’s not as easy as it should be. Korine’s always been a quick one. When we were kids, she’d race the boys around the block, often winning. It wasn’t ’til puberty hit that that changed, but by then she’d moved onto showing them up in other ways.
Fixing bikes better than they could. Outgunning ’em in the back road drag races we sometimes had. Generally being cooler and funnier than they were.
And they knew it.
Korine was always the girl all the guys didn’t mind having around. She was one of the guys.
…except so much better.
Because she was a girl. A good-looking one, as we all eventually noticed, with soft skin and nice-smelling hair.
But I don’t know this Korine.
I follow her outside the Autoshop feeling like I’m dealing with an impostor. This Korine’s more anxious mouse than bold lioness. She doesn’t talk and seems like she’ll do anything to get the hell away from me.
“Kori!” I yell as we start across the otherwise empty parking lot.
“Don’t call me that!”
“Seriously, what the hell did I do wrong? How’d I piss you off? Slow up!”
“Don’t talk to me!”
She tries her damnedest to speed up, pushing herself harder. But it’s as she tries to walk even faster that I notice the way her side seems to pain her for every step she takes. Instead of a smooth stride, she winces and drags herself forward. Almost a limp .
“What’s wrong with your side?” I call after her.
“I was in a car accident twenty-four hours ago. Mind your business!”
Anger rushes me. I show her what’s up—in a couple quick steps, I jog ahead and cut her off. She stumbles to a halt to avoid walking straight into me.
Her nostrils flare as her eyes narrow. “Move out of the way, Blake.”
“Not ’til you tell me what’s going on. It’s been ten years and you’re acting like we’re back in first grade and somebody told you I’ve got fucking cooties. What the hell’s up?”
I sense a smile. It’s almost there. For a quick second, as she shakes her head, her lips twitch as if the smile’s fighting to take shape. She forces it away before it ever does. Any flicker of personality disappears from her like it’s never existed.
She returns to glaring. “You need to let me pass and accept I don’t want to talk to you.”
“What’s the matter with you? You’ve been acting different from the moment I saw you on the side of the road.”
“Because one moment by the highway is enough to make a judgment on someone’s behavior,” she snipes, crossing her arms and giving a roll of her eyes. “You don’t know anything about me. You knew a girl over a decade ago that was still just that. A girl. A naive, stupid girl who didn’t know squat. You don’t know a damn thing about who I am today. I’m a whole grown-ass woman, Blake—and I don’t owe you any answers.”
“I never said you did?—”
“You’ve been asking twenty-one questions every second I’ve been around you,” she interrupts, more hostility filling her voice out.
It flashes in her dark eyes to the point I’m questioning if I’m seeing things. Does Korine really hate me this much? Did I really screw things up between us this badly, and I’ve spent the last decade oblivious to that fuck up?
Here I was, thinking, imagining, we were still friendly at the very least. It seems, like usual with matters of the heart, I misjudged big time. I must’ve hurt Korine more than I ever realized. Hurt that’s been left to fester and rot for ten long years.
I sigh, lifting a hand to rub the back of my neck. “Look, clearly, there’s some bad feelings between us. Bad feelings I didn’t realize were there. If I hurt you?—”
She scoffs, her expression souring even more. “You think that’s what this is about? That I’m still so heartbroken ten fucking years later that I’m being mean to you now? I’ve spent the last decade hung up on you? Blake Cash, you’ve always been cocky, but do you hear yourself right now? I’m married. You might think you’re god’s gift to women?—”
“You obviously hate me!” I growl over her. For the first time since our recent reunion, I raise my voice with her. I let my own pent-up anger rear its nasty head. My hands grow animated, my gestures expressing this anger, as I step toward her.
She goes silent. Her gaze falls on those hands, like I’ve given some signal that’s put her into a trance, or she’s been frozen in a block of ice.
It makes me freeze up too, lost as to what’s going on. My temper fades away. In its wake is a weak pulse of confusion that makes me tilt my head to the side. “Kori?” I say much quieter. “Hey… you alright? What’s wrong?”
But getting through to Korine in this moment feels impossible—she’s at a standstill, her face glazed over, her eyes unfocused. If I didn’t know any better, it’s one of those reactions they say people go through when they get caught in fight or flight mode. Except Korine’s caught in freezing up. She’s practically become catatonic.
“Kori,” I say when seconds go by and she still hasn’t moved. She comes to her senses slowly. The ice melts away, thawing out ’til she’s able to blink, and then she’s peering at me like she recognizes me again. She’s taking a step back as I take one forward.
I’ve noticed something else about her—since seeing her for the first time since high school, I’ve marveled at how she’s still the same. Just a little older. Her features that I know so well are the same except more defined, less girlish, more womanly. Except her beautiful bare face isn’t bare for once.
“You’re wearing makeup,” I blurt out.
Her brows knit. “So… what?”
“You never used to wear makeup before.”
“Blake, that was ten years ago.”
I’m no expert by any means. I don’t know shit about the junk women put on their faces. The only reason I’ve picked up on the makeup she’s wearing is because I’m standing so close, but I swear I see something on her jaw. That can’t be… can it?
She seems to sense what I’m zeroing in on and tucks her chin into the scarf that’s wrapped around her neck. “I have to go. I can’t be doing this. Not around you.”
“You haven’t answered me—you alright? Kori? Kori!”
But my calls fall on deaf ears.
She’s already spun away from me and shot toward the dented and dinged Geo Metro. I don’t get the chance to chase her this time; the instant she’s got her car door open, she’s throwing herself inside and locking it.
I watch, flabbergasted, as she twists the key in the ignition ’til she forces the dying engine awake with a loud whine. She guns that little toy-sized car out of the One Stop parking lot at a speed I didn’t even know it’d be capable of. Smoke from the overheated engine and burned rubber of the tires hazes the air.
I run my fingers through my golden mane, feeling like the last five minutes have been some of the most confusing of my life. One thing’s for sure—something’s up. I’m certain of it.
I know my girl. I know everything there is to know about her. Which means I know when she’s troubled.
I won’t let it go ’til I figure out just why.
An idea comes to mind at once. Possibly a Hail Mary but worth a shot. I return to the lobby of the One Stop Autoshop, flashing a smile at the female clerk behind the desk.
“Hey, what’s up?” I say in my casual tone, adding a jut of my chin. Her expression softens like she’s about to let out a dreamy sigh. “That lady that was just here—mind if I take a look at the forms she was filling out? She dropped something in the parking lot and I’d like to return it to her home address.”
* * *
Korine lives on 4729 Riddell Road. It’s on the nicer side of town, where real estate developers have recently come in, knocked down decades-old homes, and put up rows of modern houses that look fancy and uniform but lack any real character.
I drift to a slow stop half a block down from her house. Before coming to check out her address, I swapped my truck out for my bike, figuring it would offer a better chance to scope the place out from afar.
Double car garage. The neatest lawn I’ve ever seen. A shit ton of windows both on the first and second story. Some kind of neutral shade I bet has a nauseating name like dove gray.
I shake my head.
Sure, it’s a nice place. The kind of home you’d see on fucking HGTV. But even taking in the home at a distance, it feels fake.
There’s no warmth. No sign of Korine. Both figuratively and literally.
Figuratively because I know my girl. And I know she always said when she bought her own home, she wanted it to have charm. She wanted wind chimes and a fruit and vegetable garden. She wanted a basketball hoop out front in the drive. This house has none of those things. None of the things Korine said would make her house a home. It’s nice and new but plain and sterile. Ice cold.
Literally because she’s not around. She must’ve gone somewhere else after the One Stop.
I’m about to pop a U-turn and ride off when the garage door slides up. A car begins backing out from inside.
Tension lances through me. Much of it shoots to my jaw.
Black and white with a badge painted on the side and a bar of blue and red lights up top.
It’s a cop car. Korine’s married to a cop!?
The shock paralyzes me. I’m left sitting immobile on my bike for so long the car backs out of the drive and then disappears down the other end of the road. I snap out of it only when a cold breeze happens to blow past me.
I rush to switch gears on my bike, kicking at my shift lever. My heart’s pounding as I roar down the block after him.
Tracking him down becomes my sole purpose. Seeing him for myself to make sure I’m not going insane.
He’s a real person. He’s really her husband. The man who put a ring on her finger and made her his wife.
It’s a pulse of adrenaline mixed with equal parts possessiveness. Suddenly, I’m reminded of past times where I might’ve gotten too territorial for Korine’s liking—I’m a man on the hunt pursuing the asshole that took her away.
Some would say it’s wrong and irrational. I’ve never met this man before in my life and have no reason to hate his guts, yet I can say without a doubt that I do.
I’d like to end his existence. However psychotic that sounds, I don’t give a fuck.
Kori’s my girl. Nobody takes her from me.
I track him down a couple blocks over. He’s idled at a red light with the rest of midday traffic. I slow up a few cars away, careful not to draw attention to myself. If he’s on his way to the local station, then my pursuit won’t go on much longer.
I tail him anyway.
We pass the street that leads to the police station. He hooks a left onto the country road that leads out of town. Maintaining even more of a distance, I’m left wondering where the hell he could be going. Pulsboro PD’s jurisdiction ends at the town limits.
Unless he’s driving to a neighboring town about a case that involves other precincts.
Almost three miles down the road, he brakes enough to turn onto the open field that borders the road. He pulls up behind a wall of trees and bushes.
What the hell is he up to? Is he setting up a speed trap?
It’s not until I slow down several yards away that I realize what’s happening.
Korine’s husband isn’t alone. A second car’s parked behind the thick brush. Some kind of Jeep with a wild-maned brunette behind the steering wheel. I don’t get a good look at her face, because she hops out the second I’m pulling up and slides into his passenger seat.
The two come together in what must be a hello kiss.
There’s very little conversation between them. Their lips move for a minute or two before they’re all over each other. He’s tangling fingers in her chocolate hair and bringing her head down over his lap.
I don’t need to see inside the car to know what’s going down.
My hands tighten into fists watching the scene unfold. My pulse echoes in my ears and my skin runs hot.
The most primal part of me wants to storm over and confront the bastard. I want to rip him from the inside of his squad car and introduce him to my fists ’til he’s bloody. Then force him to tell Korine all about what he’s up to behind her back.
The fucker’s cheating on her. A beautiful, smart, infectious woman like Korine.
And she’s probably got no clue.
* * *
After my encounter with Korine in the One Stop Autoshop’s parking lot and my discovery about what her cop husband’s up to, I’m in no mood for handling work business. I skip out on returning to the Chop Shop altogether. Mr. Weaver’s just gonna have to pick up his bike a few hours later than planned tomorrow.
I need a moment to cool off and figure out how I’m going to approach things.
I ride my Street Bob home.
Home being my trailer at the Pulsboro Trailer Park. The wide lot’s full of trailers of various shapes and sizes. Several Steel Kings live here, some solo and others with their old ladies or families.
I’ve got my own double-wide far in the back, overlooking the ravine. From the outside, it’s your standard run-of-the-mill trailer. On the inside, it’s not so bad—more than spacious, fixed up with modern appliances, and kept relatively neat (for a single man). Compared to the wild tornado that’s Ozzie’s trailer across from mine, my place is decent.
…except when I’ve got uninvited visitors prowling around my property.
I pull up with my engine rumbling and my jaw clenched. Behind my mirrored aviator shades, I’m glaring at the station wagon parked beside my trailer. The driver’s side door swings open and an orthopedic shoe touches the spongy grass underneath.
Mom sniffles as she gets out the car, her hair a limp frame for her wrinkled, frowning face. I’d feel sorry for her if I wasn’t so used to seeing tears wetting her eyes.
“Blake,” she murmurs.
I park my bike and stride for my front door without slowing down. “I’ve told you before about showing up here unannounced.”
“What else was I supposed to do? You won’t pick up my calls. You don’t answer my texts.”
“Then maybe you should take the hint.”
“Blake, please!”
She chases after me as I walk up the steps to my trailer. Her foot catches on the bottom stair and makes her lose her balance. Shrieking out in alarm, she tips forward with flailing arms. My reflexes are fast enough that I stop mid-step and catch her.
It’s not hard when she weighs a hundred soaking wet. Not that that’s surprising—Mom’s diet has always consisted of cigarettes and more cigarettes. She even reeks of them.
Turns out, me and Bill aren’t the only ones with vices.
I set her back on her feet. “You could’ve face planted. Then what? You’d blame that on me too?”
“Blake, will you just… can you hang on?”
“What. Do. You. Want?”
“We’re not getting any younger. You’re all we’ve got. And you won’t even come see us.”
My face hardens into a scowl. “You know why.”
“I know your father misses you. I know that if you… if you tried a little bit harder, you’d get along.”
“I can’t fix things. I’ve tried. It’s no use.”
“You ain’t trying hard enough!” she snaps. The sorrowful lines etched into her face, the tears brimming in her eyes, seemingly disappear in a flash. They’re replaced by the irritation that makes her sneer, showing off the rot in her teeth. “Your father and I gave you all we had to give, and this is what you do? This is how you repay us? You ruined his life!”
Tension shoots through me, making my body stiff. A reaction from the guilt that’s already present at any given moment. Guilt that cuts the breath in my lungs short and reminds me what a piece of shit I am.
On top of all my other shortcomings. Things like letting Korine go the way I did and spending years wrecking my life.
“I can’t change any of it,” I say hoarsely. “What else do you want from me?”
“Visit your father. It’s the least you can do, Blake Montgomery Cash.”
I don’t answer her with anything else but a rigid, reluctant nod.
“Good. Family dinner. You know where and when.”
Mom gets the last word. She casts me a shaming look, then turns and goes. I remain where I am, feeling like I’m stuck between a fucking rock and a hard place—a feeling I’ve had every moment around my family for the last few years.
Mom drives off in a cloud of dust. The station wagon bobs along the uneven terrain of the trailer park ’til she’s turning out of the lot and gone entirely.
I husk out a rough breath and slide both hands through my hair.
Day eighteen hundred and nine…