Chapter 21 Dax #2
“I did five years. By the time I got out, I was twenty-three, my parents and all those jerks had moved away, and any chance I had at going to college had been shot dead. I was supposed to go to the University of Wyoming to study business too. I had a scholarship lined up and everything,” I say, meeting Reed’s eyes.
He nods in understanding. Normally, I hate being looked at as pitiable. But Reed’s soulful gaze doesn’t make it seem like he’s looking down on me for my past naivety.
“In another life, we could’ve met through the alumni network,” Reed says when I’m quiet for a hair too long.
“In Rawlins, I had a lot of time to think about other lives. All the different men I could’ve grown up to be had I not fallen into peer pressure.
Even out of all the ones I’ve come up with, I think I like that one the best,” I say.
I fantasize for a second about how nice it would be to be an adjusted, well-respected member of society.
Somebody that a guy like Reed would reach out to for guidance.
To have a career that other people envied and admired.
To hook up and date without fake names and cover stories.
Reed asks, “What happened after Rawlins?”
“I moved east and scraped by doing odd jobs when and where I could, until my reputation caught up to me,” I say.
“I was working construction for a company that paid under the table. We were building a fast-food joint one day when this guy, Eddie—a total slacker at the site who’d rather bullshit than get to work—comes up to me and starts asking about me, says that a bunch of the crew were going out for beers after work, and I should join.
At the time, I thought I could use the socialization. ”
Thinking back, there was something targeted in the way Eddie came up to me. If I’d been looking, I might’ve noticed an opportunistic hunger in his eyes, vastly different from the flat-gazed passivity of my other coworkers, who were there to grind away until quitting time.
“When I got to the bar, Eddie and his buddies were buying round after round, and not the cheap stuff either. Our gig didn’t pay well, so I couldn’t figure out where he’d gotten that kind of money.
Eventually, after I’d gotten drunk enough, he started asking after my record, said some of the guys on the job site had whispered about it,” I recall.
In hindsight, it’s easy to see that Eddie wasn’t strapped for work like the rest of us at the construction site.
He was mining the local talent, if you will.
Hunting for desperate guys to bring into the fold.
“I was drunk enough to spill everything to him, and that’s when he told me he had an opportunity I might be interested in,” I say.
“He ran the ring?” Reed asks.
I shake my head, stare down at the floor.
“He was just close with the guy in charge. This man had concocted a whole criminal empire with two arms to it. On one side, he had people stealing product from local superstores and reselling the stolen goods on secondhand markets. On the other side, he had guys casing houses of the infirm and elderly, anyone who might have unsecured valuables to make off with.”
“Which side did you work?” Reed asks.
“Both, for a while. But it was clear where my talents were. I was seventeen again, mapping out hits of houses and getaway drivers,” I say.
“It’s funny how easily you can sink into something you thought you’d never do again.
I told him no at first because I was going to walk the straight and narrow.
Trusting others is what got me booked the first time.
But then construction work slowed, my roach-infested apartment rent got hiked, and I realized a roof over my head was more important than my morals. I’d just be vigilant.”
“Were you?” Reed asks.
“At the start. But then the operation grew bigger, and the money kept getting better, and our targets seemed like worse and worse people. These corporations could take the hit ten times over, and the homeowners lived in excess, had tons more than they ever needed,” I say.
“A regular Robin Hood,” Reed says.
I snort at that. “It was an illusion. A lie I had to tell myself that caused me to get sloppy. The last job I did with them was a private residence. This rich elderly couple’s mansion.
Nobody was supposed to be home. They were on a three-week cruise.
I sensed something was wrong as soon as we got into the house.
I told Eddie we needed to bail, but he wouldn’t listen. He kept saying I needed to trust him.
“I’d hear later in an interrogation room that the owners’ adult son was having marriage troubles and let himself in on the night of the job using his key.
Nobody knew because he’d taken a taxi and was sleeping in the remodeled basement with the lights out.
During the raid, I heard a crash. I came down and found Eddie had knocked the guy out with a paperweight from a desk in the study.
As soon as we heard sirens, we ran,” I say.
“Did he die on impact?” Reed asks.
My shoulders crunch forward with guilt. “The guy was still kicking when we left. I should’ve helped him and checked if he was okay.
As a kid, I was an elk hunter. If ever we maimed an elk instead of shooting it dead, we were supposed to take mercy on it.
Kill it or get it help. Not leave it to suffer.
I found out after I’d been sentenced that he ended up paralyzed due to complications from the head wound. ”
“That’s heavy,” Reed says.
“That’s life,” I say, trying to sound accepting when I still wish I could go back and change it. “So you can see why I tried to scare you out of the house. I couldn’t stomach a repeat. And it was you. Of all people, it was you. What are the odds?”
“You didn’t follow me out here then?” Reed asks in a way that suggests he already knows the answer.
I shake my head anyway. “The night you came to my place wearing the Nova Ranger suit? I’d gotten fired that morning. This idea was already banging around in my head.”
“So this is why you ghosted me?” Reed asks. I guess we’re going there. Weird time and place for this conversation, but I suppose there will never be a better one. There may never be another one, period. “You became consumed with this job?”
“Not exactly,” I say, unable to lie to him when he looks so downtrodden.
“When you said you’d gotten a job offer, something inside me snapped.
I thought, ‘This guy’s got potential and goals.
’ This is me, Reed. This is what my life has amounted to.
Before our role-play night, I…I only had one-night stands to keep myself from getting invested with anyone. ”
Reed is quiet for a long moment. “Why did you invite me over then?”
“I told you. I’d just gotten fired. I was feeling sorry for myself—”
“No,” he says, “why me? Of all the one-night stands, why did you invite me?”
Oh Christ. It’s not like I’m about to tell him that I think his eyes are soulful and his curly hair is adorable and that his body is incredible.
I’m definitely not going to mention how our nerdy interests and musical tastes align or that he can match me beer for beer.
I won’t say that his backing me into the restroom sink in Buck Shot Bar and kissing me was one of the hottest moments of my entire life because it showed me that not only did he excel at being the doe-eyed sub, but he could be a switch should the mood arise.
A lifetime with him would be a lifetime of sexual exploration and surprise.
Instead of saying any or all of that, I settle on, “Because for some reason, even though I didn’t know you that well and even though I lied about my name, I knew you saw me for who I am anyway and that you didn’t hold who I’d been against me.”
After those words leave my mouth, I realize how unlike me I’ve been tonight. Even when crime was my full-time job, I never experienced this all-consuming mania. I can only liken how I felt to the way my dad approached the elk hunt—with an almost tangible bloodlust that made me sick to my stomach.
“Tonight isn’t who I am. It’s not who I want to be. But I’m in too deep now,” I say to Reed, laying it all bare.
Reed sighs. “I understand. Who I am tonight is not who I want to be either. I thought there was nothing I wanted to be less than Mindy Thompson’s son, but I was wrong. I’d give anything to not be Wendell Blitz’s kid.”
I give that a moment to settle before asking, “He said you…stalked him?” I think back on that well-worn book with the cracked spine in Reed’s suitcase. I wonder how many times he read it, scouring for clues that Wendell had known his mom.
“I…” Reed begins. He audibly blows air out of his nostrils. “It’s complicated.”
I sigh. “I showed you mine. Now you show me yours?”