33. Gio
GIO
“ W hat the fuck just happened?”
Neither Nolan nor Lex answers me as the taillights of the retreating sedan flash red as they slow to the stop sign at the end of the street and then turn out of sight. I whirl to face them.
“Dudes!” I gape at them. “What the fuck just happened!”
Lex’s expression is one of pure shock. He looks like he got sucker punched by a rabid animal and is still processing. I focus my attention on Nolan. The motherfucker stares down the street and slowly lifts his beer to his lips and takes a long sip. The sight of his composure makes me lose mine.
It takes three long strides to reach him and when I do, I round back and punch him in the face. Nolan’s head snaps to the side and he stumbles back a step, that bottle crashing and shattering on the pavement.
“Answer me!” I scream. Did Juliet really just leave? Why isn’t he doing anything?
Nolan doesn’t punch me back. Instead, he maintains his calm and merely reaches up to wipe away the trickle of blood that escapes the corner of his mouth from where my blow ripped open a cut on his lower lip. “What do you want me to say?” he asks.
“I want you to tell me that you and Juliet planned this,” I snap. “That this is a fucking practical joke or—or something !” Because it can’t be real. Juliet did not just leave us. She didn’t go back to…
“Oh fuck.” I rake my hands down my face and stumble away from Nolan’s knowing gaze. I can’t bear it. I turn away from him. “ No .”
“She… left?” Lex’s voice is a croak and I turn just in time to see him collapse onto the ground, his knees hitting with such force that it sends a visual jolt through his whole body. “She left.”
“No.” The denial is quick to come to my tongue. “No.” I can’t believe it. She was here. She accepted us. She… I don’t fucking understand. “We killed for her. We…”
“Don’t.” Nolan’s bark is a command that makes my shoulders go rigid, but when I shoot him a glare, he isn’t looking at me. His eyes are back on the street, scanning. “Don’t talk about shit like that out here.”
I follow his attention, searching for whatever he’s seeing that I obviously am not. When I turn to face him again, he’s at Lex’s side and gripping him by the arm.
“Get up, man, we’re going inside.”
My hands clench back into fists and the urge to start throwing them all over again assails me. “Are you fucking serious?” I shake my head. “You’re not bothered by this at all?”
Cold brown eyes flash up to meet mine and then back to Lex.
Nolan doesn’t respond as he coaxes a damn near comatose Lex to his feet.
He’s still in shock, wavering as he gets to his full height.
He tries to take a step towards the road as if he means to follow after Juliet and my chest constricts tight enough to make my breath seize.
I grit my teeth but step in front of my friend, taking him by the shoulders and turning him back towards the house.
Together, Nolan and I get him inside and seated on the couch in the living room.
Once Lex sinks down onto the cushions, his eyes locked on somewhere distant, but most certainly not in this room, I close my eyes and inhale a deep, long breath.
I’ve only ever seen Lex like this one other time and I shudder at the memory. Nolan and I had been worried he’d kill himself. He’d been inconsolable and we still have no idea what triggered it—only that it had happened years ago.
“Why would she go?” Lex’s softly whispered question has my eyelids lifting.
“I don’t know, man…” I have no answers to give him and it makes me want to wreck something.
Lex leans forward, rocking ever so slightly as his eyes grow more and more distant. Then he presses his forehead into his knees and goes completely silent. I stare down at him with a rising panic swelling in my throat.
What do I do? How do I fix this? Why did she do this to us?
Did you think I was going to be happy being passed between the three of you?
Fuck. My eyes burn. Actually fucking burn… like I’m going to cry or some shit.
Unable to face Lex any longer, I back away from him, one step and then another and another until my back hits the wall next to the television. My breath chokes in my lungs and my eyes turn scalding hot as I fight the urge to lose control.
Fuck this. I can’t stay here any longer.
Nolan returns to the living room, having disappeared down the hall minutes after we reentered the house. I don’t spare him a glance as I shove off the wall and head for the front door.
“Where are you going?” he asks.
“None of your fucking business,” I snap, slamming out into the front yard. My Firebird sits in the driveway from where I’d dropped it off after school so that we could all ride in Lex’s SUV together. I palm my keys as the door behind me swings open and jump into the driver’s seat.
The engine roars to life as Nolan watches me from the porch, his arms folded. I refuse to look at him. He’s just as much to blame for this mess as Juliet. He’s supposed to be the one to control everything. He’s our fucking leader, the one with the plan. He didn’t even try to stop her.
I gun the throttle and speed out of the driveway. The smell of burning rubber reaches my nostrils, but I ignore it as I press down on the gas and do what I should have done the first moment I laid eyes on Juliet Donovan—I get the hell out of town.
An hour later, I pull up outside of the familiar structure that is The Dionysus Lounge. I don’t know what dragged my ass here because I’d left Silverwood with every intention of losing myself in a mindless drive.
I’d taken several twisted turns and exits off the freeway that I’d never taken before. I was convinced I was lost—both physically and mentally—when the sign out front appeared on the edge of my periphery.
I turn off the Firebird and get out, staring at the plain face brick of the building.
Were it not for its quiet, but pleased clientele and expanding rumors of beautiful women and good drinks, this place probably would’ve gone out of business long ago.
Its exterior doesn’t hardly hint at what lies inside—save for the lack of windows.
Most probably assume it’s like every other gentleman’s club in backwoods America.
Not Ma-Ri’s place. No, The Dionysus Lounge is a place all on its own here. It’s different. It’s safety for men in need of a little companionship. Not sex, but understanding.
My legs eat up the distance towards the door and when I step inside, I’m greeted by the smell of feminine perfume and strong liquor. I don’t stop at the front. I don’t want to be sat at one of the tables where men in business suits fawn over giggling women in low-cut dresses and perfect smiles.
I make a beeline straight to the bar, finding a stool and ordering a whiskey on the rocks without delay. The bartender eyes me. She’s seen me here before and she knows my age. Before she can deny me, however, Ma-Ri appears at the end of the countertop.
“Go ahead and get it, Tracy,” she orders. “Make it a double.”
My jaw hardens. “I don’t need charity, Auntie.”
“So you’re back to callin’ me ‘Auntie’ now?” Ma-Ri asks as she sidles closer.
I drop my head and rub a hand over the back of my neck. “I know why you did what you did, but I really don’t want to fucking talk about it tonight, Ma-Ri,” I say. “Not… tonight.”
Ma-Ri doesn’t say anything until Tracy returns with the whiskey. When I reach for it, she snatches it up and turns away.
“Hey!” I whirl around, but she starts walking towards the back hallway.
“I never said it was for you, boy,” she says. “If you want to wallow, then do it in my office, not out here.” She pauses at the mouth of the darkened corridor and looks back over her shoulder. “You’re souring the fun mood with all your dour looks.”
My upper lip curls back away from my teeth, but I hop off the stool and follow after her regardless. I came here for a fucking drink and I intend to get it.
Ma-Ri leads me back into her crowded shoebox of an office and only when the door is shut behind us does she hand me the whiskey.
“I might have a good working relationship with the police department, but not so much that he can handle seeing someone underage drinking at my bar,” she tells me matter-of-factly. “I need plausible deniability.”
With a grunt, I lower myself into one of the rickety chairs stationed in front of her desk. “I didn’t even notice he was here,” I say.
She eyes me as she rounds her desk and takes a seat. “So I gathered.”
The amber liquid in my glass calls to me. “You know I have a fake ID that would take care of the problem.”
Ma-Ri rolls her eyes and opens a drawer, shuffling her slender, wrinkled fingers through the contents for a moment. “That might work when it’s just a uniform,” she says. “Not the chief. You should remember that—the front is for when there are no cops about.”
“Noted.” I tip the glass back and suck in a mouthful of the liquid. It burns a path down my esophagus and into my gut, warming my insides as I close my eyes and inhale through my nose, relishing the sting of the liquor.
The sound of papers ruffling and then a lighter being struck has me opening my eyes again as Ma-Ri lights a cig and puts it to the end of her holder. Putting the narrowed end between her red-painted lips, she inhales and blows out a cloud of smoke.
“So,” she starts. I return my attention to the whiskey. “Do you want to tell me what’s going on?”
My head thumps back against the chair and I groan. “I don’t fucking know, Auntie.” That old burning sensation returns to my eyes and it’s a pain to keep it at bay. My fingers tighten around my whiskey.
“You don’t know if you want to tell me or you don’t know what’s going on?”
“Both.” I lift my head and put the glass back to my lips. I swallow the first mouthful and then the second and another for good measure. Now all that’s left is a single layer of liquid at the bottom. So, instead of letting it sit there, I tip my head back and drop the rest in my mouth.
“That bad?” Ma-Ri blows another cloud of smoke out over my head as she sucks on the end of her cigarette holder.
“Worse.”
Ma-Ri is quiet for a long moment and the silence of the room echoes between us. I need another glass of whiskey. Hell, I need a whole fucking barrel.
“Does it have to do with…” Ma-Ri doesn’t need to say her name. We both know who she means.
I laugh, the sound bitter and hollow. “Of course it does. She’s…” Something white-hot and angry slithers up my chest and wraps scaley muscles around my throat.
If Ma-Ri senses my sudden shift, she doesn’t show it. But she does take pity on me because she reaches forward and presses a button on the old landline phone sitting half under a pile of papers and lifts the receiver.
“Bring a bottle of Woodford back here, Tracy, and a second glass. Thank you, darling.” She hangs up the phone and fifteen minutes later, there’s a subtle knock on the door.
It cracks open and the bartender from earlier eyes me as she steps inside, holding a bottle of amber-colored whiskey and a glass that matches my own.
“Set them on the desk, please,” Ma-Ri instructs. Tracy does as she’s told and then disappears back out to the main part of the club, closing the door behind her once more.
Without waiting for an invitation, I reach forward and grip the bottle by the neck. Ma-Ri arches a perfectly painted brow in my direction as I rip off the plastic seal and uncap it.
“Getting a little ahead of yourself, aren’t you?”
I don’t answer as I fill her glass and pass it to her. She chortles. “And here I was expecting you to take care of yourself first.” She takes the offering and sips on the whiskey.
“My mama taught me better than that.” My words are quiet as I refill my glass, giving myself more than the double from before.
Ma-Ri hums in the back of her throat. “Must have, since you’re here to talk girls with me.”
“Not girls,” I correct. “Just one. Just… her.”
“What makes her so special?” Ma-Ri asks as I suck back another gulp of the whiskey. It burns like fire once more through my system, almost shocking me out of the sullen mood I’ve been in since I walked through her doors.
I raise my eyes to the woman before me. “What’s so special about her?” I repeat the question, both confused and surprised she would ask me that.
Ma-Ri continues to pass her lips between her glass and cigarette.
What is so special about Juliet? I contemplate the question. Why does it hurt so fucking much that she left like that?
“Because,” I begin after a moment. “She’s mine…” Ours. Juliet Donovan sold her soul to us. She can’t just walk away.
“Hmmmm.” The old woman hums once more and when I shoot a dark look her way, her slender shoulders rise and fall in a casual manner. “What are you looking at me like that for?” she asks. “You’re the one who said it.”
“She’s gone,” I say. “She left. She went back to…” I can’t say it. My throat constricts and closes up, refusing to let the words pass through. I bite down on a curse and turn my head away from Ma-Ri. “She told us she was tired of fighting and she didn’t want to be passed between us anymore.”
“Did she?” Ma-Ri’s words have my attention returning to her face.
Her eyes glimmer with something keen. She sits forward and sets her half-empty glass on her desk.
Her small hand—wrinkled but tipped in red nails that match her lipstick perfectly—spreads on the surface.
“Juliet never struck me as the type to take the easy road. She’s a stubborn girl.
I would question any sudden change or decision she makes that might seemingly make everything easier for her. ”
“Question it?” I stare at her.
“Yes.” Ma-Ri nods. “Question everything, joka . Always question answers that seem too simple. The chances are, they aren’t the right ones.”