Chapter 2
SCOTT: JUST SAY NO
I caught her in the rearview mirror and adjusted it to get one last look. Yep, there she was, hair blowing in the breeze, light blue eyes catching the sun. Legs for days. Damn. She reminded me of Brooke Shields. Innocent, hot, and definitely out of my budget. Didn’t mean I couldn’t dream.
I watched Michelle fade into the horizon, half expecting her to chase me down…
and then what? Hop in my truck? Take a ride on the cash-strapped side?
Catching my expectant reflection in the rearview mirror, I actually laughed.
Like I could nab me an heiress. A girl from the neighborhood?
Not a problem. Middle and upper-class girls?
With some effort, usually. But the heir to an oil fortune?
Even I understood my charms didn’t extend that far.
“Yeah, she’s not coming to the show,” I chuckled to myself.
I didn’t lack the confidence; no worries there.
I just knew my place in the natural order of things.
A guy from the practical side of town was never welcome in the well-to-do cul-de-sacs.
Dating the O’Reilly twins had taught me that.
Their father owned the three McDonald’s franchises closest to me and had threatened to ban me from each and every one if I didn’t immediately cease and desist with his teenage daughters.
It wasn’t like I’d set out to date them both, but they were identical, and I wasn’t detail-oriented.
So, when one of them pushed me against a wall and we started making out, I genuinely thought I was kissing the correct twin.
I wasn’t. And when my twin found out, she went ballistic…
on her sister. There was hair-pulling, face-slapping, and an all-out screaming war in the O’Reilly house, prompting their father to issue the McDonald’s ban.
I didn’t fight for Tina. Or was it Gina?
At the end of the day, Chicken McNuggets meant more to me than any girl ever could.
I adjusted the rearview mirror to its correct position. She was long gone. It was better this way. I definitely didn’t need the distraction. It was tough enough meeting my day-to-day responsibilities without adding a Rockefeller to the list.
Returning my eyes to the road ahead, I belted out the lyrics to “Porno Queen,” a favorite among Rabid Jackal fans.
As always, in-car concerts were an interactive experience, and by the time I’d pulled into the gravel driveway off to the side of a tri-level home, my throat was raw and my neck was aching from headbang-related whiplash.
Instantly I spotted my buddy, Allen, sitting in the gravel with his back against the garage.
Shit. I glanced around, looking for my landlord.
Meg had made it clear she didn’t want my deadbeat friends hanging around her house.
She had this thing about caring what neighbors thought of her, and Allen—yeah, he would not be a welcome addition to the community.
“Dude,” I whispered, stepping out of my truck and shutting the door as quietly as I could. “I told you not to wait on the property.”
“I know, but I thought you were joking,” Allen said, squinting up at me like a vampire venturing out into the sunlight.
“No. No, I wasn’t.”
“My apologies for existing in your zip code.”
“You should be sorry. Property values plummeted the second you lit that joint.”
“Chill, McKallister.” He offered me his blunt. “I just got here.”
I glanced over my shoulder, on the lookout for neighborhood narcs. “Put that out.”
“No.” He swiftly shielded his pot from me. “She got to you, didn’t she?”
“Who?”
“Nancy Reagan and her ‘Just Say No’ bullshit.”
“Sure, Allen. She personally called me last night and begged me to save your soul.”
Before he could reply, I snatched the blunt from his fingers, stubbed it out on the gutter pipe, and tossed the smoldering butt into his lap.
“Dude!” he huffed, patting it out before shoving it into his jacket pocket. “You’ve changed, man. You used to be cool.”
“I was never cool,” I said. “You were just too high to notice.”
“No.” He stared at me, blinking hard. “No, I distinctly remember you being cool once.”
“Whatever you say.” I shrugged. “Are you coming up or what?”
I didn’t wait on his reply… because I knew he was coming.
Allen was one of those guys who’d wander in place if you didn’t give him direction.
We walked through the dusty garage and then up a set of interior stairs.
Once at the top, I gave the apartment door a good shove and it burst open, taking me with it.
“The only part of this place that’s not easily accessible,” Allen mumbled, following me into the apartment. “You could literally crawl through that hole in the wall, but god forbid the door swing open with no resistance.”
“Don’t be crapping on my place,” I said, although I did it plenty myself.
There’d never been a day I’d walked in here and thought, Ah, home sweet home.
This place was a shithole. The secondhand—no, the dumpster-dive furniture, the flickering light, the surfboard propped against the wall as its lone decoration. “At least it’s a roof over my head.”
My buddy looked up at the exposed rafters. “Barely.”
“A technicality,” I said, grabbing a Tab from the fridge and not offering Allen one. I had a strict BYOB rule. If Allen didn’t bring one along, he’d be slurping tap water from the faucet. “Anyway, I got a good thing going here. Don’t fuck it up for me.”
“You live in a garage.”
“I live in an apartment above a garage,” I corrected, as if neither of us remembered the time I’d almost died when Meg’s boyfriend left his Pinto idling a minute too long and the rising fumes from its exhaust pipe damn near had me knock, knock, knockin’ on heaven’s door.
“You got anything to eat in there?” Allen went straight for my fridge.
“Just an old sandwich.”
My fridge was never stocked. Most of my eating took place in fast food parking lots, and the rest came out of a cereal box.
Allen retrieved the old sandwich, gave it a sniff, and then asked, “You gonna eat this?”
“Knock yourself out.”
There were more sandwiches where that came from.
I was friendly with one of the cooks at the resort and he slipped me food when he could.
Pretty sure he thought I was homeless because he’d caught me showering in the locker room, even on my days off.
I didn’t correct him. The ham sandwiches were worth it.
Besides, the apartment didn’t have a shower, which made my surf job the one I couldn’t afford to lose.
“Hmm,” Allen said through a mouthful, sitting on a loveseat I’d found on the side of the road and dragged back here for four blocks on my skateboard. “How old did you say this sandwich was?”
“I didn’t.”
He swallowed, examined the hoagie, then took another bite. “So, your Aunt Dawn… she was the one with the birdhouses, right?”
“And your Uncle Frank… he’s the one who hated soup, right? Where are we going with this?"
“You didn’t hear?”
“Hear what?”
“She died, dude. Like, her brain exploded.”
“Wait. Back up. My Aunt Dawn’s brain exploded?”
“Yeah, man. You know, like a pipe burst… but in her head.”
“An aneurysm?”
Allen snapped his fingers. “That’s it.”
I shook my head. “My god, you do not know how to deliver bad news.”
“I didn’t know you two were close.”
“Well, I wasn’t exactly braiding friendship bracelets with Aunt Dawn, but she was still family. When did this happen?”
“Sunday. Funeral’s this weekend.”
I nodded slowly, eyes on my soda. The longer I sat with it, the more pissed I got.
Not about her dying, but that nobody had bothered to tell me.
What—were they afraid I’d actually show up?
I got that they didn’t approve of my life, but I figured they’d eventually get over it because what’s done is done. Apparently they hadn’t.
“Good for them,” I muttered, and then under my breath, “That’s some Hall of Fame pettiness right there.”
Allen studied me. “You’re not gonna—”
“Nope.” I set the can down harder than necessary and changed the subject. “Let’s go over the set list for tonight.”
“We only have eight songs.”
“Allen, just… shut up.”
His brows shot up, unaccustomed to me being snappy.
We’d been friends since childhood—grown up three houses apart—and Allen had always known me as the guy without a care in the world.
Easy-going. Full of one-liners. And that was me…
but it wasn’t everything. There were things he didn’t know, things that predated my move to the neighborhood and necessitated masking my pain with humor.
But those were things better left unsaid.
“Sorry,” I said, “it’s not your fault you can’t read social cues.”
“No,” he laughed, rescuing the conversation. “It’s not my fault.”
A rustling in the kitchen caught our attention.
“Oh, shit,” Allen said, pulling his feet up onto the loveseat. “Is it sundown already?”
“That’s not a requirement anymore. He’s altered his internal clock to match mine.”
“How thoughtful,” Allen said, curling his arms around his legs for extra protection.
“Relax.” I reached a hand out to welcome my pet opossum as he waddled out, whiskers twitching in greeting. “He’s harmless. Aren’t you, Zonk?”
Zonk’s snout bonked into my hand in greeting.
“Oh, I wouldn’t go that far,” Allen replied, still emotionally scarred from the time a horny, clicking Zonk had tried to mount his leg.
“That was only one time.” I waved off his concern. “And can you blame him? You’ve got soft features.”
“Well, then you must be a nightly treat for him,” Allen slapped back, scooting up further on the loveseat to escape Zonk. “Only you would find a wild animal living in your walls and befriend it.”
“He was here before I was,” I explained. “And he was still a baby. What was I supposed to do—throw him out?”
“Yes, McKallister. That’s exactly what you do… because it’s a wild animal. You don’t let him move in and share your bed.”
“He sleeps in a shoebox next to my bed,” I corrected. Though, since my bed was just a mattress on the floor, technically, he was right there beside me. “Who’s a good boy?” I scratched his long snout.
Allen watched our heartwarming affection with disgust.
“You hungry, little buddy?” I cooed.
“I have some sandwich left,” Allen offered.
“Don’t give him that. It’s old. Might make him sick.”
Zonk abandoned happy time with Allen when he spotted the brown paper bag I’d filled up at the gas station.
“You know, dude,” Allen said, “if you didn’t feed him, he’d go find himself a nice hollow tree and already have a few thousand babies.”
“He goes out.”
“Right, like… for a beer. But then he comes back to watch “Charlie’s Angels” with you.”
“I don’t see the downside,” I replied, and truly, I didn’t.
They say family is chosen. Well, mine had chewed through the sheetrock.
And despite what Allen might think about our unconventional relationship, it hadn’t been love at first sight.
I had tried to keep him out, but Zonk was small and scrappy, and every day I came home, he was in my apartment.
So yeah. I gave up and started feeding him candy.
Once he got his first bite, he found an old shoebox and never left.
I reached into the bag and pulled out a Red Vine.
Zonk went crazy. He had a sweet tooth, that one. I affectionately ruffled the coarse hair on his head.
“Say please,” I coaxed, figuring it was never too early to start correcting marsupial manners. Zonk smacked me. Noted. I handed him a licorice.
“So, I met an heiress at the gas station today,” I said. “Mistook me for a gas station attendant. Demanded I fill her tank.”
“Fill her tank, huh?” Allen glanced at Zonk, and I swear they exchanged a knowing wink.
“Would you two like a moment, or can I continue?”
Both took a bite, remaining silent.
I continued. “I think we sorta had something. Like, if I wasn’t a no-good surf bum with an opossum for a pet, she might actually be interested.”
Allen didn’t seem convinced. “I don’t know, McKallister. You’ve got the whole ‘after-school special’ thing pretty much nailed down.”
He was right. My life was not a place to drop an heiress and hope for the best. But Michelle was the ultimate prize, and no matter how hard life had pummeled me, I was still looking for a win.
“I invited her to the show tonight.”
Allen raised a brow. “She’s coming?”
“Well, no. Probably not,” I said, tossing him a spiral notebook. “But just in case she does, let’s give her a reason to stay.”