Chapter 36
THIRTY-SIX
TEN YEARS AGO
Adam
I enter the basement through the garage after walking Madeline to her car.
I hope she manages to get home before dinner, since the lingering kisses we exchanged before she climbed into the driver’s seat went on longer than I’d planned.
Not that I regret them. I’ll only regret it if it means Madeline gets into trouble and she’s not allowed to come around next time.
I sink onto the couch and turn on the TV, but nothing holds my interest until Madeline texts that she got home safe and all is well with her mom. Madeline’s mom is pretty cool as far as parents go but certainly more protective of Madeline than my dad ever was. But I guess that’s not saying much.
Madeline texts me a kiss emoji, and I groan, remembering the feel of her lips on mine, the taste of her tongue, the press of her breasts against my chest. God, what I would have given for her to be able to stay.
Especially with Jason out of the house making a delivery for work, and Jason’s parents at a hospital banquet.
I can’t wait until next year when we’ve graduated from high school, I have my own place, and Madeline can stay as long as she likes.
She’s still deciding on a college, and she’s planning to live in the dorms. But we agreed that wherever she goes, I’ll rent a place nearby.
Thanks to the job that Jason helped me to land, I’ll actually be able to afford it.
I’m making deliveries four or five nights a week and saving thousands of dollars a month.
If this keeps up, I’ll be in great shape to support myself by the fall, and maybe I can even take a couple of college classes wherever we land.
I’ve got to hand it to Jason, he might have given me shit about the autobody shop, but he was right that I needed this job.
The pride I feel at knowing I can go out on my own, that I can support the girl I love, that I’m not going to be that poor kid from the trailer park for the rest of my life, is the best feeling in the world.
I really ought to do something special for Jason, and the thought makes me a little emotional.
It’s not just about thanking him for this job, it’s all the support he’s given me over our friendship, and especially this past year.
Who just moves their homeless friend in with them?
I can’t begin to imagine where I’d be if he hadn’t.
Screwed. That’s where I’d be.
I wouldn’t be dating Madeline, and I definitely wouldn’t have any kind of future ahead of me. What kind of gift do you give someone to say thanks for saving my life ? I’m still mulling it over when the garage door opens and Jason bursts into the room.
“Hey, how’s it going?” I ask, ducking my head so he doesn’t see the tears brimming in my eyes.
He flops down on the couch next to me, and it takes me a minute to notice that he’s breathing hard, panting like he just ran up a hill. Or wait—no. I study him as a low moan vibrates in his chest. He’s not panting. He’s crying . His shoulders are shaking, head bent as he sobs into his hands .
I stare helplessly. “What happened? Are you okay?” My shoulders stiffen, and my thoughts go wild. “Is it your parents?”
“I am so fucked,” Jason stutters.
“You’re fucked?” I lean forward to get a closer look at his face.
If it’s not his parents, and Jason is sitting here, all in one piece, how bad could it be?
Did he crash his car? Cheat on a test? I stare helplessly as he continues to sob.
This seems much worse than getting suspended over a test. Jason can usually charm his way out of trouble. “Tell me what happened.”
He takes a shaky breath and raises his gaze to mine. My chest squeezes at the sight of his red, tear-streaked face and swollen eyes. I’ve never seen him like this before.
“I fucked up at work. Seriously fucked up.”
What could he possibly have done? Making deliveries for the owner of CyTech just isn’t that serious. I picked up the guy’s dry cleaning last week and two shirts were missing. He just shrugged and told me to go back and track them down at the shop. No big deal.
“I was delivering a package out to Glassport.”
I nod. He’s describing the warehouse I drove to on my first day on the job. I go there maybe once a week with a box of equipment. Laptops, I think.
“You know it’s a long drive, and I hadn’t eaten after swim practice, so I was starving. I stopped at that gas station on Route 65 to grab a few snacks.”
I know that place, I’ve filled up my gas tank there a few times.
It’s a little off the beaten path, you have to take an exit off the highway to get there, but gas is thirty cents cheaper than the truck stop.
“Did something happen at the gas station? Was there a holdup?” Do things like holdups even happen in real life, and not just in the movies?
And if so, how would that be Jason’s fault?
Jason shakes his head and swipes at his nose with the back of his hand. “No. The package was stolen. I came out to the car, and it was gone.” His shoulders shake. “Adam, I swear I locked the doors. It’s a habit, you know? I hit the clicker the second I get out.”
My shoulders relax. This sucks, but it’s not Jason’s fault. “Listen, I know it’s probably expensive equipment, laptops or something, and I’m sure they’re going to be unhappy about it. But shit happens, you know? Someone broke in, you didn’t do anything.”
Jason drops his face back into his hands, crying so hard that he can barely get the words out. “You”—his voice cracks—“you don’t know how valuable that package was.”
I’ve delivered all kinds of things for this company, from late-night sushi to boxes of what I assume are computers.
So, sure, that equipment that was stolen could definitely be expensive.
I admit I don’t know shit about tech stuff, and the boxes are usually sealed.
“Companies like that have insurance. It sucks to have to deal with that. But I’m sure it will be fine.
Did you call the cops and get a police report? ”
Jason looks up, his eyes dull and glassy. “No, I didn’t get a police report. It wasn’t computers in that box. It was cocaine.”
I choke out a gasp. “What the fuck?”
Jason nods slowly.
“How do you know that?”
He presses on his temples like he’s keeping his head from exploding. “Because that’s what we’ve been delivering. It’s what we’ve always been delivering.”
I stare at him, unable to process the words coming out of his mouth. “You… You’re saying we’ve been driving around with cocaine ? We’ve been delivering it, all along? We’re essentially drug traffickers? What the fuck? ”
“I’m sorry,” he mumbles.
“You’re saying your dad’s friend’s company doesn’t distribute tech equipment, they traffic cocaine?” I’m reeling, trying to think straight. “Does your dad know?”
Jason’s face crumples. “He’s not my dad’s friend.”
“What are you talking about?”
“He’s not my dad’s friend. That’s just something I told you. I met a guy when I was buying that coke a few months ago, and he told me about this job opportunity. He said you didn’t have to do anything, just drive around.”
I stand up and pace across the room. “You involved me in this, and you didn’t tell me? How could you do that?” This is so bad. How could I have been so stupid? All that money they paid me—I wasn’t just picking up dry cleaning and delivering lunch. I was crossing state lines with kilos of cocaine.
Jason lunges to his feet. “I did this for you .”
“For me ? How could this be for me?” I spin on my heel and pace back.
He waves a hand in my direction. “You were about to get stuck in a going-nowhere, minimum-wage job and probably end up living in a trailer for the rest of your life. I could tell you wanted out, that you wanted more, but you had no way to make it happen.”
I grind to a halt.
“You and Madeline wouldn’t have lasted through next fall if you’d stayed in Maple Ridge working as a mechanic while she went off to college,” Jason continues. “Maybe at first, you guys would have kept in touch, but pretty soon the calls and texts would have stopped coming.”
My gut churns because he’s right. Everything he’s saying is exactly what I’ve been thinking since the day I met Madeline. “But cocaine ?”
Jason stares me down. “What did you think we were delivering?”
I open my mouth, but don’t know what to say.
It’s a fair question. What did I think they were paying me piles of cash under the table to deliver?
On some level I knew it wasn’t perfectly legit or I wouldn’t have felt the need to be secretive about my second job.
But I think I assumed the company was evading taxes or something.
That maybe they had guys like me and Jason delivering equipment to keep it off the books.
I never imagined I’d become a drug runner.
“We obviously need to go to the police,” I say.
“No fucking way.” Jason’s head wags back and forth. “These aren’t the kind of guys you mess with.”
I pause. I don’t know shit about stuff like this. At least in the movies, the guys trafficking drugs are the guys who will kill you and dump your body in the woods. But this isn’t the movies. “Maybe the police can protect us. Maybe we could help them catch these guys and send them to prison.”
“Sure, maybe they’ll protect us. But what about my family? They can’t protect my mom and dad, my cousins. Everyone.”
“Maybe your parents could help. Can you ask them for the money to cover it?”
“They’d lose their shit.”
“I know it’s asking a lot. But they’re your parents. They’ll want to protect you. We’ll tell them it’s not your fault, that you didn’t know.”
For the first time, Jason looks hopeful. “Maybe that could work. How much do you think one of those boxes of cocaine could be worth?”
“I guess we could look it up.” I grab my laptop from the coffee table and flip it open. “How heavy was the box? Was it one of those with the stamps on the side that looks like it holds computer equipment?”