Chapter Seven #2
And she could hear the fractured honesty in that statement. There was something that he did like about this, even if he didn’t know how quite to be involved in it. That made her feel a little bit sad because it reminded her of how she felt earlier when talking to her sisters.
She hadn’t asked to feel feelings for Denver King. It was annoying.
“My sisters got out. I’m glad of that. Honestly. I’m glad that they are not stuck here.”
“You don’t like Pyrite Falls, do you?”
“I don’t have any reason to. I don’t dislike it, I guess. It’s more what it represents. Like you said, your siblings have
spent a very long time trying to undo some of what your dad did. I didn’t want my sisters to have to do that. And I’m not
saying that you wanted your siblings to do it, or that it’s somehow worse that they’re trying. But I just . . . I wanted them
to go live lives that had nothing to do with our dad. I wanted them to get to be themselves. Whatever that looks like. And
honestly, if they are our father’s daughters, then that’s up to them. But I didn’t want it to be a decision that was made
for them.”
“We’ve spent a lot of time living in decisions that other people made for us.”
He said it low and slow. And there was deep truth to that. Just deep fucking truth.
“Yeah. But you know, there’s no call wasting time being mad about it.”
“I agree.”
“You just have to keep moving.”
“Also agree.”
They looked at each other. She could honestly say that she had never known anybody who had the potential to understand her quite the way that Denver King did.
Yes, he had been involved in some of the stuff that their dad had done, but if she had been older she probably would have been too.
The truth was, if she had been older, not only would she have likely been involved in helping out with drug running, but her dad probably would’ve pimped her out.
That was just true. He hadn’t given a single shit when one of his friends had . . .
Men had tried it with her. Her dad didn’t care. She had to take care of herself. Bottom line.
If he could have made money selling her body, he would’ve done it.
And she wouldn’t have even really known it was wrong. That was the really screwed up thing. The messed up part about the lives
that they lead. He knew that.
She knew it. It messed with your moral compass. And then in the end, you couldn’t really afford to have the same morality
as the people around you that had grown up in safe, loving homes. You had to have the kind of morality that sustained you.
Everybody didn’t start at the same starting line in life.
That was why she felt kinship to Denver. Not resentment.
And sure, maybe that was tangled up in a lack of trust. But she didn’t especially trust anybody.
She took a bite of the food on her plate. “This really is delicious.”
And she pondered what it said about him. The way that he had learned to barbecue. Because he hadn’t just spent the last few
years serving up the bare minimum to sustain the people around him. He had learned how to do it well.
He was reaching for something that they hadn’t been given inherently.
She understood that too.
“Thank you,” she said. “For all the financial assistance that you’ve given us. Because you know you’re why my sisters got
out. They’re at college, and it is because of you. My sister Abigail graduated. She has a house. She has a good boyfriend.”
She winced.
“What?”
“I hesitate to say that any man is good. Based on the testimony of a woman who's sleeping with him.”
He huffed a laugh. “That’s probably a good call.”
“Yeah. I’m known for those.”
“I’m not comfortable taking thanks for all that. The world is just a big messed up tangle. People who deserve better get worse.
People who deserve worse go off into the sunset and live whatever the hell lives they want. If I can do anything to balance
the scales of all that bullshit, then I want to.”
“Has anybody ever told you that you are a saint for what you do?” She looked at him, at his profile. He was so damned handsome.
“No. Nobody has ever said that I’m a saint, Sheena.”
“People have said it to me. That I’m a saint for raising those girls. For taking care of them when my dad didn’t. Which is
pretty damned hilarious, the idea of anybody calling me a saint. I certainly haven’t gone out of my way to live perfectly.
Mostly, it just feels so wrong. The worst description ever. I have never felt like what I was doing for my sisters was some
kind of higher calling. It’s just sort of the mantle that settles over your shoulders, right? Like everybody has a burden
to carry, and that one’s mine. And it isn’t that I don’t want to do it, or that I feel put upon, or whatever. It’s just . . .”
“There’s not another choice,” Denver said.
“Exactly. I had a couple teachers . . . My sisters’ teachers say to me that I did a good job with them. But everybody does
the job they do with their own lives, right? We had a shitty dad, but he didn’t have the final say in who we were. And I did
my best, but they’re not great because of me. I just don’t like . . . I don’t like people acting like I’m somehow better than
somebody else because I did what people ought to do in that situation. Right? That’s what you want to do.”
“Yeah,” he said, and he looked at her, his eyes glittering.
“Exactly that. I get why people don’t understand the gambling.
People think that it makes me a lot like my dad.
But mostly, his money was dirty. It was dirty money, and it was dirty money that I used to play with.
I could make something out of it. Something better.
I’ve invested that money in King’s Crest. In the future of Four Corners.
I’ve invested in my father’s victims. And it isn’t because I’m good.
Any more than gambling is something I do because I’m bad.
It just is. If you have the ability to make things better and you don’t, then you aren’t any better than the shitheads that came before you. ”
She lifted up her solo cup. “To not being saints.”
“I’ll drink to that.”
They both tipped their beer cups back. “I’m okay with being a sinner, to be honest,” said Sheena.
“I heard somewhere that we all were anyway.”
She laughed. “You’ve been to church, King?”
“Nope,” he said.
“Me either. But I used to sign my own permission slip to go to the Bible story hour when those people came by the school.”
“Really?”
“Yes. Two things—school was boring, and the second thing was that I figured I had to do something about my immortal soul.
Since nobody else was going to.”
“I can relate to that.”
“So this whole thing is going to be great,” she said.
“Yeah,” he said, seeming grateful for the change in subject.
That was when a whole group of people came over to them.
A gaggle of redheads, in fact. Redheads that she knew to be the Sullivan sisters, because as a bartender, she did tend to absorb basic information about everybody around her.
There were also several tall, good-looking men with them.
The most recognizable to her was Gideon Payne, because she had gone to high school with him in Mapleton, and he had been a legend and a half.
A football star, who had then gone on into the military.
You couldn’t go to Mapleton High and not know who he was.
Even though he had graduated when she had been a freshman, she had seen his trophies lining the halls.
It was Fia King who spoke first. “I think it’s a great idea,” she said. “Of course, Landry had filled me in on the details
before the meeting today, but I think it’s going to be really fun. In fact, I think I’m going to like to spend time there.”
“Hey,” said Landry. “I thought we were cool.”
“Eh,” said Fia.
“You had my baby,” he said. “Twice.”
“Yeah, yeah.”
“Ignore them,” said one of the younger Sullivan sisters . . . Quinn, maybe? She had trouble with the younger girls. She knew
their names: Quinn, Rory and Alaina. But she had trouble remembering who was who.
“Yes,” said Denver. “Definitely ignore them. Glad to know that I have all your support with what I do with my own money,”
said Denver.
“Get over it,” Fia said. “It’s a collective, whether you want it to be or not. But luckily, that means that there’s extra
help.”
Extra help. Sheena really didn’t know what to make of that.
“I have my own crew,” she said. “I am contributing to the cost of some of this.”
“I didn’t dream otherwise,” said Fia. “But you know, if you do something on Four Corners, you get all the worker bees.”
“Well that’s . . . nice.”
“We are going to need all the worker bees' hands on deck for the big Christmas shindig. That’s going to take a lot of manpower.” Denver had an intense look about him. She understood. She didn’t need it explained to her. He felt so responsible for all of these things. And it was unbearable.
It was why it was so obnoxious when people tried to tell you that you were good. She was going to make a note not to tell
him that again. Because it didn’t feel like you were being good. It didn’t feel like you were being caring. It felt like you
had been given a mission. To walk through swampland. To struggle through enemy territory. It was like being conscripted into
a war. One you didn’t choose, but one you had to engage in.
And she knew that he was still pushing, struggling toward victory. She knew it, because so was she.
“I’m willing to help with that,” she said. “As much as possible. Between the two things. But I don’t have another job right
now, and my sisters aren’t here, so honestly, I can work around the clock.”
He gave her a hard, indecipherable look. “I don’t need you working around the clock.”
“But I can,” she said.
“Appreciated. But as you can see, we’ve got plenty of manpower. And then some.” He looked past her, and she turned. Where
she saw all of the ranch hands, the Garretts, the McClouds. Yeah. All right. They had a robust team. But there was no reason
that she couldn’t help.