Bone Deep (18 page)

Ah, shit.

As fast as I left the bed, I’m back, kneeling on the edge and holding her face. “Cambria, I’m not upset at you. I will
never
be upset at you. You understand?”

She
nods, and I kiss the tip of her nose.

“
We can go out the front door,” she says, scooting out of bed and tugging down her T-shirt.

“You’re not worried about your brother seeing me?”

She shrugs and steps into her little, yellow shorts. “He’s going to have to meet you eventually. Why not start now?”

I look again, this time blatantly stopping at her hard nipples poking into her thin shirt and the shorts that hardly cover her ass. She gets the hint, but then rolls her eyes.

“I’m eighteen not fifteen.”

I spot a pair of jeans hanging on her desk chair and toss them to her
. “And I’m not taking any chances.”

She changes then leads me into the kitchen
where a humungous guy—her brother I’m assuming—is standing in front of a small TV, a clump of orange material balled in his hands. A line of text scrolls beneath the image of the courthouse:
More prisoners set to release this hour.

I
stiffen, and beside me Cambria stops short, too. Then she clears her throat, and the guy glances over his shoulder, his oh-so-familiar gaze falling immediately to me.

Say it to my face cocksucke
r.

Ledoux
is a pussy’s name.

What the fuck?
He
is her brother? The guy I sent flying across Krispy’s with my fist?

Quickly, I tug the bill of my cap lower—thankful I wore it and for my now-longer hair—as Cambria
scoops my hand into hers. “Jer, this is my boyfrien—”

His eyes narrow,
hand jerking the material out in front of him. “Are you ever going to listen to me, Cam. I told you not to get into Mom’s things anymore.”

The poncho. The one she was wearing at the train station weeks ago. That’s what he’s holding.

Cambria shifts from one foot to another, her shoulder brushing my arm. “I—”

“You what? Regret what you did? Is that why you wear this?” The guy finally registers me, pointing at our entwined hands with a deepening scowl. “And
that’s
classy. I’m sure she would love
you sneaking boyfriends into your room. Just like old times, right?”

“
Jeremy, stop.” Cambria says, her tone sharp and defensive and sounding like this is a continuation of a conversation from earlier. “I missed her, okay? That’s why I put it on. And
no
this isn’t like old times because I never once snuck a boy into my room.”

“Right.” He chuckles and tosses the poncho to the couch in front of him with a shake of his head. “I must be confused. It was the other way around. You sneaking into their rooms.”

“I didn’t do that, either! Ever!” She releases my hand, stepping forward with her shoulders squared. A part of me is glad she’s standing up to the guy for being an ass to her. The other part, however, wants to get the fuck out of here before he says anything more. Before he recognizes me, too. “God, if you must know,” she continues, “I was a virgin up until a few weeks ago, so you can stop thinking I’m a freaking slut.”

Virgin? A few weeks ago?

You being here makes it better. Now will you please take what’s yours?

Take, take
, take.
That means…

Shit.

Goddamnmotherfuckingshit.

Cambria adds,
“And
classy
would be saying ‘hi’ without being a complete jerk.”

Behind her brother,
the camera zooms in on a man’s face. Another prisoner being released. And this would be my cue to leave.

I squeeze
Cambria’s hand and lean down to her ear, praying to whatever god exists that the twist in her brother’s expression isn’t more than the typical older brother, so-you’re-the-one-who-took-my-little-sister’s-virginity look. “Hey, don’t worry about it.” I whisper to her, trying my damnedest to keep my voice even.
Virgin, virgin, virgin.
“I have to go, anyway.”

Chapter Nineteen

I jump the curb and cross the street, heading toward Fair Drive
, my heart still thundering in my chest. I don’t remember Jeremy from the trial, but then again there’s a lot I don’t remember. A lot I
choose
not to remember.

Still, I can’t believe that dickhead is her brother. As if my ties with this family needed to become more tangled—

I took her virginity. Tried to distract her from her pain, and instead stole what she’d been saving for eighteen years. What a fucking tool I am.

Once a
t home, I lock myself in my room, leaning against my door, needing something—
any
thing—to clear my head. With thoughts of Cambria swirling, twirling, threatening to choke me, I encourage the other lingering thought to take over: my dad.

Let it go,
Ledoux. Not everything has to do with your dad.

This is where Ditty is wrong. Because it seems like my dad and what he’s done has infiltrated my life irrevocably. Like mixing two colors of glass… Once they’re combined, there’s no way to separate them. I let my head fall back, knocking the wood with a
thump
. God, I fucking I hate this. I hate this! What I wouldn’t give to go back to a year ago. Be average. Normal. Untainted, with things like school and internships and girls who won’t want to kill me when my last name is uttered.

I rip off my hat and whip it across the room. It hits the wall and bounces to the floor. My shoes are next, and I hurl them as hard as I can, not even looking where I’m aiming. The first one hits the lamp beside my bed, knocking it to the floor. The second does a full three-sixty before entering my opened closet and crashing right into the pile of boxes stacked unevenly along the
side. The tower of boxes wobbles for a moment, slow-motion like, and then faster than I can blink comes tumbling to the floor.

I laugh—a clipped chuckle, because I suddenly feel like I’m trapped in a really bad sitcom. What are the chances
that
box would be the one to spill all over the floor?

I tip my head to the ceiling. “Shove it in my face, would you?” I don’t know who I’m talking to. It’s not like anyone’d be listening anyway.

After a deep breath, I pad into the closet, ready to sweep the old Krister—all of the things I packed up from my room at our other house, like baseball gloves and DVDs and the funky wooden tiki Ditty whittled two years ago—back into the box when something shiny catches my eye. The word Camaro spelled out not in chrome die cast like every other emblem, but in silver-plated steel. The real deal. Dad gave it to me on my sixteenth birthday… It was the last piece the car needed.

I lift it, feeling its weight in the palm of my hand. I remember how happy I was the day I attached this piece to my finished car, the smile I couldn’t get rid of as I drove it through town to pick up Ditty. I even remember the little bit of relief when I found it on the street after the wreck, scratched and staring up at the night sky.

Beside the lid of the box is a four-by-six sheet of white, and my fingers start to tremble as I flip it over and stare at the gray-blue eyes—glinting with joy—in the picture. It’s me, and I’m not smiling at the camera, but at a slightly younger-looking version of my father. He’s smiling, too, focused on his hands and the wrench he’s holding. I draw in a fathomless breath, feeling somewhat dizzy. That was the day he was showing me how to install the fuel pump. It was also the day I heard my car’s engine for the first time.

Looking at my face, my happiness is undeniable. It was the type of pleasure that filled me to the brim, like the way Cambria makes me feel now. Only…without all the complications.

Let it go.

God, maybe Ditty was right all along. Maybe all these complications are because of me, because I’ve refused to get past them. Maybe I’ve been so focused on the bad—thinking Dad was a horrible father—that I forgot there was once some good. He wasn’t horrible, and I guess for being a single dad and raising me on his own, he did okay.

The echo of the front door shutting rattles the window. Keys hit the coffee table, and it’s like the universe is giving me a sign. I found Cambria the last time things fell into place like this… Perhaps something good can come out of this, too.

Slowly, I pull myself to my feet, shove the emblem in my pocket, and make my way into the living room.
Dad’s tucked into a recliner in the corner of the living room, a crime novel in his lap.

“Hey,” I say, lowering onto the couch across from him.
He dog-ears the page and glances up, his expression both disquieted and amused, which I guess I deserve; I haven’t exactly been the nicest person in the world to him. The emblem presses hard against my skin, giving me the push to continue. “So…there are things that obviously need to be said, and I think I’ve gone long enough without saying them.”

He
sits up, a small smile tilting his lips. “I thought we’d never have this chance. There’s something I need to say to you, too. Can I go first?” He doesn’t wait, just jumps right in, which normally I’d be pissed about, but in a way I’m glad I have a minute to put together what I need to say. “I’m sorry I got on you about school,” he says. “I guess I was hoping that while I was gone, everything could continue as they were. I didn’t want to think my absence would crumble all of your lives, too.”

I run my finger over the scar on my hand, remembering not the day it happened or the reason, but Cambria’s words from this morning instead.
You should cherish the time you have with him, because you never know when he’ll be gone for good.

I don’t know what it is about her, why I feel so connected to her or why I want to
please
her, but the memory of her words—and the slight crack in her voice as she said them—sends a wave of chills over my arms.

My eyes meet Dad’s
as he scrubs his hands over his thighs, a move I’ve witnessed plenty amongst Dad-lectures. He’s holding back, waiting for me to speak, trying not to be the parent that barfs up lectures onto their kid like his dad was.

Never once have I wondered why that was…why he’s tried so hard to not be like his own father. Was he a di
ck? Overprotective? Or…like me?

That last thought gnaws at me, like an itch I can’t scratch. And after a moment of watching Dad’s comfort level sink in
to the chair, I open my mouth.

“Sorry,” I say, plucking a loose thread from the frayed arm of the couch. “I’ve been a little on edge, lately. I know you’re trying
to adjust to…
life
again, and I haven’t been making it easy, I know. That’s all I wanted to say. Sorry.”

His hands still. He blinks as a beat of silence overtakes the room. Then he stands, hands slip into his front pockets. “I have to see about finding a car for
Wrenn, and I could really use someone with a no-bullshit attitude to fight off the salesmen.” Wrinkles crawl across his cheeks as he smiles. “Care to join me?”

~*~

Forty minutes later, Dad and I weave between rows and rows of used cars searching for a vehicle that according to
Wrenn needs (1) storage, and (2) a comfy backseat. I get the storage, considering Dad’s new position as “delivery guy” for her pots, but I do
not
want to know what she needs a comfy backseat for.

“
What’s wrong with Wrenn’s Camry?” I ask as he slows in front of a silver Sentra punctuated with patches of rust. One mirror is cracked, the other looking like it might fall off at any second. Apparently, their budget for a new car falls in the POS range.

“Actually,” he says, surveying the car as if it has potential, “we were thinking about
gifting it to you. You know, until we can get your Camaro fixed.”

I shift on my feet, feeling the weight of the emblem move in my pocket.
“The Camaro’s totaled, Dad. As in, not fixable.”

“Well,
how ’bout we build a new one, then?” He looks right at me, and by the casual shrug and smoothness to his face he’s remembering all those nights we spent working on it, too.

I nod. “I’d like that.” And these words, they’re not a lie. Rebuilding a car would mean rebuilding my relationship with my dad, and that might be the first step to getting things back to normal.
“How about a van?” I say, gesturing to a white minivan two cars down the row. “Storage and
two
comfy back seats.”

He follows me to the van, peers through the crackly-tinted window for a moment
, then turns to me and leans against the metal side door. “You know, I never talked to you about Wrenn and me getting married.” He steps closer, resting a heavy hand on my shoulder. “If you were okay with her becoming your stepmom. I know it’s weird with her age and all—”

“It’s not weird
, Dad. I like Wrenn. She takes care of me, and I can tell you guys make each other happy.” I do like Wrenn. And even though I see her more as a sister than a
mom
, I’d still be happy to have her as part of our family.

We meander the rest of the parking lot, the wall between us slowly crumbling as we talk casually about the Dodgers and
Criminal Minds
and my classes until Dad finally decides on a four-door station wagon. It’s cheap, not covered in rust, and according to Bob, the salesman, “runs like a kitten”.

“Can I ask
you something,” I say as we ease the car out of the lot for a test drive. Dad glances sidelong at me, his fingers loosely gripping the tattered steering wheel. I lower my voice so Bob, sitting in the backseat with his phone to his ear, can’t hear. “Was it bad in there?”

Another glance from Dad; this one more round-eyed and soaked with pity. “I made a mistake,
Krister. One I had to pay my dues for. Knowing that got me through the droning day-to-day. But…” Bob, pinching his phone between his shoulder and ear, leans forward and taps Dad’s arm then points to the upcoming light and mouths the word “left”. Dad nods and makes the turn. “…the worst part was not being here for you. I let you down in one of the most important years of your life, and I will regret that for the rest of my life.”

His eyes start to glisten, and the sight of his remorse—the fact he’s showing any emotion at all—makes me squirm like bugs are crawling all over my seat. Obviously, his ignorance to the horror of what happened was a front, a way to bury the guilt.

I roll down the window, the warm breeze blasting my face. “I’m sorry I didn’t visit you more.”

Dad glances over and smiles. “You did what you could.”

“Yeah.” I guess I did.