21. Cassius
twenty-one
“Do you have a plan?” Garrett helps himself to a glass of bourbon and sits across from me. He swirls the amber liquid in the glass, sniffing it as it spins.
“Dude, what the fuck are you doing?”
“Huh?”
“We grew up on six-dollar vodka. Don’t sit there and pretend to know what you’re doing with that.” I throw a coaster at him.
He clutches his chest. “Says the guy who just threw a fucking coaster at me.”
“And a plan? Other than killing the person who hired her? No.”
“Do you really think it was him?”
“Do we know anyone else stupid enough to pull this shit?”
Garrett shakes his head. Because we don’t. Nobody else would. I don’t have enemies. And while my life hasn’t been perfect, I’ve protected those who needed it. Garrett included. And I’ve killed anyone who has been even a miniscule threat. Except for the loose thread I should have dealt with months ago. But I didn’t want the heat, so I backed off. Not anymore.
Garrett picks up his knight and moves it to F3.
“Remind me why I play this game with you?” I groan.
“Because it keeps our minds sharp?”
Mine has never been as sharp as Garrett’s, but until recently, I’d always been able to hold my own with him. Stress eats at me, so I’m not surprised that I’m not in the right headspace for this right now, besides my mind has been a million miles away since…
I clear my throat and crack my neck.
“Yours, maybe,” I say as I slide one of my pawns forward.
“So focus man. Chess is what we used to do when shit got real. It’s relaxing. Stop stressing,” he says as his knight attacks my pawn, sacrificing itself.
He’s right though; I know he’s right. Using my pawn, I attack his knight. Chess is where we used to hide. It’s where everything was right and safe. When we couldn’t go home, we’d go to old man Forrest’s and play chess. We would sit on his front porch for hours, getting eaten alive by mosquitos and drinking sun tea. The tea was awful, but the game wasn’t. Forrest taught us everything he knew about chess, including how to read your opponent and how to think several moves ahead.
When we started regularly smoking his ass, Forrest taught us poker and, more importantly, how to count cards. Garrett and I can both count, but G can’t mask his features. So while he took to the counting, it was the deceit he struggled with. We owe that old man everything. Which is why he spent the last days of his life in a cushy nursing home, and his granddaughter wants for nothing—even if neither of them knows why or how. It’s better that way. Our past has to stay in the past.
“Did she break your brain too?” Garrett gestures to my face. “Or just your nose?”
“It was worth it.” And it was. I would spend hours trying to read whatever game board her and I are playing on if it gave me one more taste of her. Because this game we’re playing, it far surpasses the ones that came before.
“It’s your turn, jackass.”
My fingers rest on what has quickly become my most important chess piece, and I consider her move.
My queen. Ruby. Are they not one and the same?
My phone buzzes on the table with an incoming text.
“Saved by the vibration,” Garrett mumbles and leans back in his chair, crossing his arms in clear annoyance. “Let me guess, it’s the crazy bitch looking for a booty call?”
Nate: Package delivered.
“Actually, no. But it’s something almost as good. And besides, we both know you were going to win.”
I leave him to his sulking.