CHAPTER TEN
BETWEEN THE BARS
AGE TWENTY
“Dude!” Jay cackled, flopping backward and clutching his hands over his stomach. “Are you fuckin’ crazy?!”
The girl at his side laughed soundlessly along with him as I pulled off my shirt and threw it on the ground. She was about as drunk as we were. I couldn’t remember her name, but I guessed it probably didn’t matter.
He’d broken up with Giselle a couple of years ago, after she took Ash’s side and wanted Jay to stop hanging out with me, and ever since, he’d been sowing his wild oats all over the southern border of Connecticut.
Still, I tried to make note of their names. Tried not to be a rude dick about his casual conquests … or mine for that matter.
My girl this week was Julia, and her eyes twinkled with excited mirth at the sight of my shirtless body, though I couldn’t understand why.
I wasn’t fat, but no amount of weight lifting seemed to have much of an effect on my string-bean body.
My jeans hung low on my scrawny hips, and her chocolaty gaze dropped to the trail of hair leading from my belly button to my waistband.
She’d get fucked later.
But right now, I had a dare to make good on.
And to answer Jay’s question, I was.
Fuckin’ crazy, I mean.
I dug my wallet, keys, and phone from my pockets and tossed them on the ground between Jay and Julia, telling them to “watch those.”
Then I turned to face Mayor Fischer’s house. Or more specifically, her backyard, where her pool was open and secured only by an easily hopped fence and a border of well-kept rhododendrons.
“She’s gonna kill you, bro,” Jay said, but he continued to laugh.
Jay always laughed, and I thought it was what egged me on. The laughs. The attention. The thrill of doing the things I knew were wrong.
Spray-painting the Main Street trash cans with a dick mid-jizz.
Slipping a laxative into one of Kylie O’Leary’s lattes at Black & Brewed.
Swiping a shitload of sod from a house Kev Scott was in the middle of building.
Knocking over a few garbage cans before Connor Jacobs could grab them and toss their contents into his truck.
The list was endless.
But anyway, my point was, Jay dared me to do stupid shit, and I always pulled through, despite the trouble I inevitably got into.
I always got caught, and I thought … I thought …
that was my ultimate why. Deep down, at the heart of it, I wanted to get caught.
I wanted someone to see me, to listen to the things I wasn’t saying.
And the wildest thing was, nobody ever did.
The people in town saw the shit I did, and they all swept it under the rug, giving me excuse after excuse.
Guessed it paid to be traumatized, and I was constantly testing the limits of their forgiveness.
And today, I was going to skinny-dip in the mayor’s in-ground pool.
I unzipped my jeans, letting them drop and pool around my ankles.
My boxers came next.
Jay howled with laughter behind me. Julia giggled, and if I had to bet, I’d say she was blushing at the sight of my naked ass.
That nagging little voice in my head told me not to do this while the other louder voice, fueled by alcohol and marijuana gummies, told me that maybe, just maybe, this is what I needed to do to get someone to notice me. To see. To listen.
So, I took off running from beneath the cover of the willow trees.
Summer sunshine hit my flesh, warming my shoulders as I crossed the street, my bare feet slapping against the asphalt.
I reached Mayor Fischer’s white vinyl fence and effortlessly scaled it.
The bushes on the other side scratched and prickled against my skin, and I winced, cupping my hands around the more sensitive, vulnerable parts of my body, until, finally, I emerged and stood on the outskirts of her yard.
Success.
And, man, it really was nice back here. Manicured and clean.
Alongside the pool was a seating area with wicker couches and chairs. Directly behind the house was a covered patio with an outdoor kitchen and dining area. Near where I stood, there was a firepit and tree stumps carved into little stools.
We’d been invited to a bunch of parties here over the years.
The mayor and her husband, Howard—the owner of The Fisch Market, where Dad had worked and been made partner when I was fifteen, and brother of Dad’s best friend, Harry—were nice enough people, and they knew how to throw a shindig like no other.
But she was snooty as fuck. She looked down her nose at people—Dad had been one of them at one point before he got the chance to prove himself—and someone had to teach her a lesson. Someone had to humble her.
I supposed that someone could be me.
So, with alcohol and weed fueling my confidence, I uncovered my groin and coolly sauntered over to a nearby planter. Then, with a wave toward a security camera, tucked between the branches of a nearby cherry blossom tree, I took my dick in my hand and started to water the flowers with my piss.
Then it was time for a swim, and with that same casual flair, I walked onto the diving board and did a very impressive backflip into the water, if I did say so myself.
I swam to the bottom of the deep end, spun in the water, then took my time reaching the surface. Breaking through and hitting the air, I closed my eyes, sucked in a lungful of oxygen, and pushed my hair back off my forehead.
When I opened my eyes again, I was greeted by Mayor Fischer and Sergeant Kinney, standing at the edge of the pool. And neither of them looked all that happy to see me.
“Wow,” I said, wiping the dripping water away from my mouth. “You got here fast.”
“You know, Mr. Mason,” Mayor Fischer said, looking down her nose at me in the very manner I would’ve expected her to, “when you want to break into someone’s backyard and use their pool for … whatever it is you’re doing, you might want to make sure they aren’t home first.”
Dumbfounded, I slowly nodded as I muttered, “Yeah, that was an oversight.”
“I’d say.”
She was angry. Livid even. I wasn’t too drunk to see that. I guessed I hadn’t anticipated anything less, but I also hadn’t anticipated facing her during the act either.
Sergeant Kinney though … he was less angry and more … disappointed, and somehow, that stung more than Mayor Fischer’s fury.
“What are you doing here?” I asked him.
He jabbed a thumb over his shoulder. “Mayor invited me in for a cup of coffee,” he explained in a flat tone. “Just in time to watch you finish waterin’ her flowers.”
“They looked dry,” I jabbed with a smirk, even as my gut told me to shut the fuck up.
“How much you been drinkin’ today, Noah?” Sergeant Kinney asked in that slight Irish accent of his.
“Enough to feel it,” I said. But not enough to not care about the way he was looking at me.
His chest lifted with a sigh as he regarded the mayor and asked, “What do you want me to do?”
She scowled, lifting her chin even higher as she replied, “Get him out of my pool and call his parents.”
Call his parents. I snickered, shaking my head. Twenty years old, and this town still treated me like a kid. A child who’d seen too much.
But Sergeant Kinney caught my amusement. He saw me. And he cocked his head and said, “Actually, with all due respect, Mayor, I have a better idea.”
Then he demanded I get out of the pool and put my hands behind my back. I complied, and Mayor Fischer shielded her eyes with a hand while Sergeant Kinney seemed unfazed by my nudity.
“What are you—” I stupidly began to ask when I felt the cool metal of his cuffs being slapped onto my wrists.
Panic wrestled with my heart.
“Wait, you’re actually arresting me?” I asked, my voice higher in pitch than it had been when I was in the sanctuary of the water.
Meg had warned me once. I saw now that she’d been right.
“Noah Mason, you are under arrest,” Sergeant Patrick Kinney said, then continued to read me my rights like I was a damn criminal.
A bad guy.
But I wasn’t a bad guy.
I was a stupid, fucked-up kid. I was an idiot. I goofed off, I had some fun, but I wasn’t bad … right?
My dad … Seth … he had been bad. And I wasn’t anything like him! Right?!
Maybe this apple didn’t fall that far from the tree after all.
And maybe this apple is just as rotten as he was.
***
“Put these on.”
The door of the holding cell was pulled open, the bars sliding against each other, and Sergeant Kinney stepped inside to throw my clothes and shoes on the floor at my feet.
“You went back and got them?” I asked sheepishly, gratefully shoving my legs into my boxers.
“No,” he replied curtly. “Your buddy brought them by, along with your phone, wallet, and keys.”
I looked up, my brows rising with hope. “Can I call—”
“No,” he cut me off. “I’ve already taken the liberty of calling your parents. Your dad’s on the way.”
I furrowed my brow. “I thought I got a phone call. Isn’t that part of the whole thing or something?”
“I guess under normal circumstances, that’s how it would go,” he replied. “But you’re not exactly a normal circumstance, are ya, Noah?”
I snorted. God, this town was ridiculous. “Why? Because you’re friends with my dad, you think you can just—”
“That’s exactly why, and you know it,” he fired back. “Finish gettin’ dressed.”
With that, he left the cell and closed it behind him. I watched him walk down the hall, heading toward the front of the station.
Good, I thought as he left because fuck that guy.
But why?
Sergeant Kinney hadn’t done anything wrong, and I knew it. Yet I was so angry.
I was mad at him, mad at Jay, mad at Dad and Mom and Miles. Hell, I was even pissed at Mayor Fischer, who’d done nothing but get an eyeful of my dick.
Yeah, I was furious, and as I finished pulling my shirt over my head, I decided the entire fucking town was at fault. For what? I wasn’t sure, but fuck them all. Fuck all of Connecticut. Fuck everyone I’d ever known.