Chapter 7 Boone
BOONE
Ducking under the long, unfurling branch of my favorite oak, I tug the slim case out of my zippered thigh pocket and pluck out a single, hand-rolled cigarette.
Holding it to my lips, I take out my mom’s old lighter and fire it up, drawing in a deep breath until the fragrant cherry brightens the darkness.
I extend the inhale, getting as much of that sweet tobacco as possible into my lungs before letting out a slow exhale, watching the smoke swirl and expand before disappearing into the night air.
Puffing like a dragon in the shadows, I reminisce about how I ended up here in the first place.
I hadn’t planned on attending the university in Austin.
Hell, my first year of college was spent in the same town where I’d grown up all my life, and where I figured I’d go into law enforcement and eventually retire, just like my old man.
Mom likes to say, though, that life has a way of sending you off in oddball directions.
You have no idea how right you are, Mom.
I chuckle, thinking about the stories they repeated a million times throughout my childhood. The roads taken and not. My favorite is the one about the day they found out Mom was pregnant. I might roll my eyes, but I never miss a chance to hear them tell it again.
Closing my eyes, I can almost hear their voices.
“I’d come home from my big New York adventure, tail tucked between my legs.”
“She was trying to avoid me,” Dad tacks on, always in that low, warm voice of his, a barely there smile on his lips. “But I wasn’t having it.”
“So here I am, waitressing at Maude’s diner, hating everything about my life, and in saunters my old high school boyfriend, wearing that police uniform, looking like something out of a Hollywood movie.”
“Helluva lotta good that did me,” he jokes. “When she came up to take my order, she puked all over the table.”
Mom always wells up telling that part of the story. She ran out of the diner, mortified, and he ran right after her, not caring one whit about the vomit. A smart man, by the time he got my mother to turn around and talk to him, he’d already worked out that she was in a heap of trouble.
He’d never stopped loving her, though, and a little thing like being pregnant with someone else’s baby wasn’t about to get in the way of what they could have together.
That’s the part that always tightens my throat. Loyal Hitchens isn’t my biological father, and we don’t always understand one another, but he’s been my dad since before I was born.
“It took some convincing…” Dad starts.
“…but he was persistent,” Mom finishes, always with an adoring look into his light-green eyes.
I press my forehead into my palms, no clue how I got so lucky in the dad department, while little girls like Sara get the shit end of the stick.
Dad hated the possibility that I’d be made fun of for not looking like him or much like my mom. He took me aside and explained that I took after my birth father, someone from a New York Italian family.
“Mafia,” Mom would later say in hushed tones.
Family lore, I assumed, to explain my darker, sharper features and slimmer, shorter build that stuck out in West Texas like a smudge on a picture.
By the time talk turned to what I wanted to be when I grew up, there was never any question for me.
I wanted to be a cop, just like my dad. He’d have supported me regardless of the path I took, but the small upturn of his lips when I first talked about joining the force let me know he was proud of my choice.
I’m never gonna be as physically imposing as he is, but I can make him proud by being strong. By studying to wear the badge, just like him.
I return my attention to the sculptures, reminded of the fact that Mom has always been light on the specifics in the retelling of her “big New York adventure.” I brought it up once to my father, who told me to let my mother keep the details to herself.
While I’ve respected his wishes, given what I now know about my birth father, I have more questions than ever before.
I refocus once again on the green turf and the ethereal brass figures. They’re made from melted-down Confederate statues that used to flank the Littlefield Fountain, which have now been shaped into flowing abstracts that lend an atmospheric feel to the lush mall.
Despite their fragile appearance, each figure weighs thousands of pounds and represents the spirits of those who gave their lives to protect the vulnerable.
They’re anchored by rough-hewn iconic Texas pink granite and stand guard over the students like sentinels, often taking on a ghostly visage in the misty morning fog.
I take another drag, grinning at my once-certain conviction that I was gonna stay in Canyon, Texas, till they put me in the ground. I wonder, not for the first time, if the man who crafted these ethereal pieces would be proud of my art.
He’s responsible for half of my DNA, after all.
Not to mention the one brief exchange at summer camp that altered the entire course of my life.
Not that he knew who the fuck he was talking to.
I sit there for a while, staring off into the middle distance until the rising symphony of crickets brings me back to reality.
I take one final drag and extinguish my cigarette, then stand, find a trash can, and toss the dead butt at the opening of a crumpled soda can, hitting the mark. Before I can congratulate myself on my aim, a high-pitched laugh rips through the quiet mall.
I make my way down the tree-lined stretch to check things out, sticking to the shadows. A group of drunk university students is entering the mall at the far side, headed right for the fountain, stripping as they go.
The campus police will be coming through on their rounds any second, and that won’t end well for anyone.
Last year, someone got it into their head that the fountain’s bronze horses would look better with bubbles, and the soap they used clogged the historic system so badly that it had to be shut down for six months until they were able to fundraise enough money to replace the plumbing.
Now, campus police are required to press charges against anyone who plays in the fountain.
Not wanting that on my conscience, I grumble about having to be the wet blanket in this scenario and emerge from the darkness.
The fountain is beautiful, lit up like Christmas and New Year’s in May, and the students in it are just as beautiful. They look older, and I curse myself, wondering if I’m about to fuck up their last frivolous night before graduation.
Stepping into the light, I clear my throat.
The students continue splashing each other, and one of the young women takes off her top, revealing miles of pale skin and a pretty purple bra.
She spins her shirt above her head before flinging it off to the side.
The guys are down to their underwear already.
Pretty sure I spy a couple of pocket flasks, but I’m not going to be a hard ass about it.
“Ladies and gentlemen, I’m an officer of the law,” I say, projecting my voice over the water. “And this is not a public pool.”
Half a dozen university students freeze for a brief moment, staring at me like white tails in November headlights.
I raise my brows, and the smarter ones quickly make their way out of the fountain.
One guy shoots up from the water, making dolphin noises, unaware that I’ve put a stop to their impromptu pool party.
The two remaining students can’t help but laugh.
Even I have to bite back a smile.
Tonight’s dolphin is a light-skinned Black guy with a sexy riot of curls held back by a headband.
The glossy ringlets sparkle under the moonlight as water cascades down his perfect chest, arms, abs, and practically transparent underwear.
He grabs a flask from one of his friends, who grins as he tips it back.
Belatedly, the dolphin picks up on the absence of the rest of his compatriots.
Enchantingly confused, he lowers the flask and wipes his generous mouth with the back of his hand, watching his friends disappear into the shadows.
His attention eventually finds its way to me, his eyes going wide as he clocks my holstered weapon.
He nearly loses his balance, pinwheeling wildly until the friend—boyfriend?
—grabs him around his narrow waist and possessively pulls him against his body.
I close the distance between us, and the good-looking dolphin flashes me an all-too-familiar smile.
Shit.
Of all the fucking people to catch trespassing.
I glare at the sculptures, my face heating as the memory of cuffing him infiltrates my brain.
I have no excuse for it, save for the fact that I’d recognized him at Pride and wanted to…I dunno? Remind him of his teenage crush on me?
Embarrassing.
Especially when I realized that he is so much hotter in person than online. His entire aura was just…whoa.
I was standing directly in front of the sun. And the sun smiled at me.
I shift my focus to the man in front of me, wondering if the universe is having a laugh at my expense.
“Rune?” I ask, remembering belatedly that nobody calls him that. He’s known worldwide as Maverick, no last name.
So then what the fuck is he doing here, tonight of all nights?
Maverick is social media royalty. His account is a glittering carousel of parties in Hollywood mansions, billionaire penthouses, and private Italian vineyards, interspersed with being ferried back and forth to far-flung model shoots in private jets.
Then again, the internet has a way of making you feel like you know someone, when all you really have is a heavily curated patchwork of filtered moments masquerading as data.
Not that I’ve been stalking him, online or otherwise.
His movie debut was just last month, a walk-on part in the latest Hikaru Paige cinematic masterpiece.
Paige, known for his cerebral thrillers, astutely cast him as the spoiled-rotten trust-fund baby.
I stood in line for three hours to see it when it came to the local film festival.
To be fair, Rune played the part to perfection, and with a lot more heart than had been expected of him.
He slips from the guy’s hold and splashes forward a few feet, touching his flask to his brow to get a better look at me.
I shift, hyperaware of the fact that I look sorta unhoused and smell of cigarettes.
Recognition brightens his features.
“Is that my Booney?” His grin broadens. “You come here to arrest me again?”