16. Chapter 12
Crazy for This Girl
Dutch
That funny little black kitten struts onto the bus first, and Rainy’s not far behind.
Nor do I stop myself from creeping on her sculpted thighs, round ass and sweet little waist. For the last week, thoughts of those thighs and memories of her suppressed mewls of pleasure as I rocked her on my leg have kept me up at night.
I refuse to wash her scent from those jeans, and I’ve jerked off so much my dick might have tug-burn.
It’s gotten worse with each practice. God only knows what she’s playing at, but every damn day she’s turned up looking like a candy I want to lick to the centre of. I’m not the only one either. Just like I’m not the only one watching her climb the steps into our tour bus now.
What I am, is the first to follow her. Considering Cohen is still being a bitch, and my brother isn’t exactly speaking to me, I’ve decided I’m switching teams.
It’s not just those two idiots pushing me towards Rain.
Nor am I thinking with my dick. Well, not entirely.
Call it curiosity. Call it hedging my bets.
But something is going on with Rain Gamble.
Between her panic-stricken face yesterday, the clothes, or the way she’s managed to interrupt Cohen every single time he’s so much as mentioned Lou’s equally weird-as-shit behaviour, I’m fucking suspicious.
Now, with three days on the road ahead of us, I’ve got nothing but time to find out Rainy’s new secrets.
Her old ones, most of them at least, are mine already.
The bus is made up of one long central hallway.
At the front is a small dining space. Calling it a kitchen would be an insult to kitchens everywhere.
There’s also a bank of something that’s supposed to be a couch.
Rain is already at the end of the hallway, past the couch and dining area, and standing in the doorframe of the only full-size bedroom.
That’s the thing about these buses: there’s only ever one.
Used to be Cohen would claim that as a couple, he and Rainy had exclusive rights to it, while Dax and I were relegated to the cots.
Cots that fill cut-outs on either side of the bus.
They’re about three feet wide and seven feet long, with a thin mattress and nothing but a curtain for privacy.
I never really gave a shit, except for all the nights I had to listen to the sounds of my Rainy screaming out her pleasure, knowing it wasn’t at my hands.
I’m about to call out to her when there’s the clambering of footsteps behind me. She takes one look over my shoulder and slams the bedroom door. One second later, the lock clicks into place.
Looks like the only one sharing Rainy’s bed these days is that cute little cat. I don’t know what Cohen’s problem is with that thing, but I plan to make as many pussy jokes as possible just to fuck with him.
None of us have even had time to put our bags away properly, but that doesn’t stop Cohen from dropping his and storming through the bus. He balls his fists and slams them against the bedroom door, all while shouting, “Oh hell no! Get out here right now, Rain Gamble!”
“Brother, you might as well just pick a bunk; we all know she ain’t comin’ out,” I say.
Taking my own advice, I stow my duffel bag in the storage compartment adjacent to the lower bunk I’m claiming as my own.
I don’t like heights. Even little ones. Dallas, too, has resigned himself to our current reality, and I start to get a glimpse of my brother coming back when he shakes his head at Cohen, “Shoulda been nicer to the cat, Co.”
He doesn’t bother to look at me, even though we’re standing side by side while he throws his stuff onto the upper bunk above mine. It’s likely just out of habit, one we’ve had for a very long time.
The first foster home I was ever put in belonged to the Montgomeries.
It was one of the better ones, even though they were this strict old couple.
The wife was a real bitch to us, but only when her husband was around, because he was a bitch to her first. The two things it had going for it, at least in my six-year-old brain, were bunk beds and the fact that there was only one other kid in the house. And that kid was Dallas.
By the time I got there, he had already been with them for months and had claimed the top bunk, which was fine by me.
I happily threw the black trash bag of belongings, and it was always a black trash bag, onto the bottom bunk.
That first night, he poked his head over the edge of his mattress and looked down at me with his slightly sunken blue eyes and whispered, like he always did back then, “We can switch if you want?”
We were with the Montgomeries for another six months after that before we were moved on to the next place.
The Carvers. They didn’t have bunk beds, but by then Dallas and I were inseparable, and I’d been able to convince our social workers to keep us together.
From then on, though, right through until the day The Pistols crashed and burned, we had an unspoken rule: if there were bunks, Dallas took the top.
The fact that he’s choosing it now gives me a scrap of hope that he’s almost done hating me for pulling his ass from the gutters of The Neck.
Cohen doesn’t bother to listen to either of us. He’s still pummelling the door, and I guess Rain gets sick of it because she finally shouts back, “Go away, Cohen!”
“Not a chance, Rainy!”
“I’m not coming out!”
“Yes, you fucking are! I will break this door down if I have to!”
“With your scrawny-ass arms?! Ha!”
Above me, Dallas chuckles even before I do.
Cohen is scrawny. I mean, he’s strong too, just doesn’t look it.
I’m the only one of us who resembles a football linebacker.
Cohen and my brother both have slimmer, sprinter-like builds.
The alt-rock and punk scenes aren’t exactly swimming with jock-types.
Dallas has never seemed bothered by it. Cohen, on the other hand, has always been self-conscious.
And we all know it. Including, of course, Rain.
“What are you going to do, Cohen, complain at the door until it opens? Or maybe you can call Mommy and Daddy to come and open it for you.”
I can practically see the steam billowing from Cohen’s ears.
He’s losing what little cool he ever had.
When he panics, or gets angry, or even just too damn frustrated, basically when he gets like this, his brain loses control of his mouth, and he says things he can’t take back.
Rain has a talent for making that happen.
I brace for impact before the words even leave his mouth.
“Your grandmother would be ashamed of you. Impolite bitch!”
What started out as laughable bickering quickly turns ugly when the door is thrown open, and Rain’s small body fills the doorframe.
It catches Cohen off guard, and he’s forced to take a step back.
Rage radiates through her. Those normally dazzling eyes of hers dance with a kind of fury I’ve only ever seen once before.
“How dare you?” Her voice is quieter than you’d expect. And chilling.
“How dare you mention Grams!” she hisses. “When you couldn’t even be bothered to call me back? To answer my fucking emails?”
I try to interject, but she’s already spiralling, and there is no stopping the crescendo of her anger now that it’s been unleashed.
God help any man who tries to quell such a storm.
We’re all caught up in it as she stomps forward, until it’s not just Cohen backing away but all three of us.
We’re crowded in the dining area of the bus.
Dallas has tucked himself into the booth seating around the small table.
I’m leaning back, practically over the driver’s seat, and Cohen trips over himself so he’s sprawled out across the couch.
“I knew you hated me. But Grams! GRAMS!” she shrieks, her long hair whipping in all directions as she looks to each of us in turn.
“She kept asking about you. All those last days?! She kept asking me where you were? Why you didn’t visit? What was I supposed to tell her, huh? That you were all just too fucking busy?”
Her voice turns thin and reedy, and she points an accusing finger at a paling Dax.
“You were what? Too busy getting high?”
Then at Cohen. “And you, too busy being exactly the kind of corporate stooge you never wanted to be?”
“And you.” She finally turns my way. Her eyes soften, not from kindness but with a chest-deep sadness and her voice cracks. “Where the fuck were you, Dutch?”
She doesn’t wait for my answer because the anger sweeps over her again.
“Of all of you, I thought you, Dutch, you might be the one to show up.” She swallows loudly, trying to suppress the tears we can all see forming. “But no. Instead, I stood by her grave. Alone. The only mourner for a woman who deserved so much better than that. Better than us.”
She deflates before our eyes. Without the fight to prop her up, her whole body sags. She turns to leave, but I refuse to go unheard. I refuse to let her think the worst of me for a single second longer, so I lunge forward, grabbing her arm and pulling her against my chest.
“I did come, Rainy. It was too late, but I did come.”
She fights against me, trying to pull away. Not happening. I just hold her tighter, wrapping my other arm around her waist. For a second, I treasure the feeling of holding her close again after so long. I need her to know I was there as soon as I could be. So I repeat myself.
“I was there. Two days after the funeral, I went to see her. I brought flowers. Big white lilies.”
Grams might not have been my own grandmother, but she might as well have been.
White lilies were her favourite, so I scraped together the money for the biggest bouquet I could get.
It was the least I could do for missing the funeral, for missing my chance to see Rain.
By the time I showed up on the familiar front porch, the house was empty, and there was no sign of the girl I’d come searching for.
Over my shoulder, I cast my eyes toward my brother.
He had the decency to look ashamed. Because, God, how history repeats itself.
I wasn’t at the funeral, forgot about it in all honesty, because I was busy hunting through every goddamned trap house in The Neck for my baby brother.
Only to find him in a pool of his own piss, a needle so deep in his arm I thought it was going to snap in half when I pulled it out.
A dose of Nar-Can, which I only learned how to use because of him, and a forty-eight-hour hospital vigil later, and I finally got Dax a bed in a public detox facility.
Beside him, Cohen refuses to acknowledge that maybe Rain has a point.
To avoid it, he’s looking anywhere but at her.
But there isn’t time to deal with Cohen’s shit or my brother’s sob story right now.
Now, I’m entirely focused on the girl in my arms. The girl I’ve known and loved for coming up on twenty years but can’t bring myself to trust. In her ear, I whisper so low that I hope my brother and Cohen can’t hear it.
It’s the question I’ve been dying to ask.
“I was there, Rain. Every day at first, but even after that, I went by at least once a week. Every week. For years. And I didn’t see your face once. So I guess the real question is: where the fuck were you?”
Only then does she stop fighting. Only then does she look up at me. Her eyes are watery, her expression wide open. For a second I think she’s going to let me in; she’s going to share her secrets with me just like she used to. Then she blinks, and that openness in her expression slams closed.
This time, when she pulls away. I let her go. I let her run. Let her put a door between us, let her lock me out of her bedroom and her soul.