Convict: A Bad Boy Romance (15 page)

It takes me a few moments, but when I see HEPATITIS B: NEGATIVE
,
I figure it out.

I swallow and shift my weight from one foot to the other.

I might be a huge jerk
, I think.

“Next page?” I ask, my voice coming out softer than I meant it to.

Stone flips. Everything else says NEGATIVE too, and then there’s more text at the bottom with numbers to call and that kind of thing. I push one hand through my hair.

“I swear I wouldn’t put you in danger,” Stone finally says.

“Did you come to my house to show me your STD test results?” I ask.

He shrugs.

“I was in the neighborhood,” he says, folding them back up.

“Luna, did you get a package?” my mom calls from the kitchen.

Then I hear her get out of her chair.

“My parents are here,” I tell Stone. “It’s not really a good time—”

“Do you need help carrying somethi — oh, hello, Stone.”

My mom sweeps into the living room.
Sweeping
is pretty much the only way she walks, like she’s royalty in a movie crossed with someone who went to Woodstock.

Stone glances from me to my mom, just barely raising one eyebrow.

“Hello, Mrs. Rivers,” he says. “How’s the van?”

“I told you to call me Karen,” she says. “And it runs like a dream. I can’t believe you managed to fix it after that charlatan nearly ruined the entire engine converting it to biodiesel.”

Stone just grins.

“I can’t believe it either,” he says. “I like a challenge, though.”

“Come in and have some pickles,” my mom says. “I tried a new technique and I brought way more than the three of us can eat.”

I shoot my mom a
hey, remember how we’re in my house and not yours?
look.

She looks slightly guilty.

“As long as you don’t mind, Luna,” my mom says. “Stone is the one who managed to fix our Volkswagen bus after that that guy Petey recommended completely messed up the biodiesel conversion.”

I appreciate the effort, but what am I supposed to say now?
Yeah, I super mind, actually?

“Come on in,” I say, and pull the screen door open.

“Gary, it’s that nice mechanic who fixed our van,” my mom calls into the kitchen, sweeping back out, her long skirt swishing after her.

Stone and I both pause, and he looks down at me.

“I won’t stay,” he whispers. “I just... wanted to show you.”

I glance again at the papers in his hand, now neatly folded in half. At least my mom didn’t see that he was showing me STD tests.

I take a deep breath. I spent the last couple days imagining the mean, angry things I’d say to Stone if I saw him again, but now I don’t want to say them any more. I’m kind of surprised that I’m
not
as angry as I expected to be.

Besides, I can hear my parents talking in the kitchen. Well, mostly I can hear my mom talking. I can’t stand here and discuss diseases with Stone.

“It’s fine,” I say. “I was running out of conversation topics. We can talk later, they’re on their way to a chakra painting workshop or some hippie bullshit.”

“If you’re sure,” he murmurs.

I just nod once and walk into the kitchen. I’m not
sure
sure, but at least if he’s here, they won’t ask me questions about him in front of the man himself.

Stone shoves the papers back into his pocket and I lead him into my kitchen.

“Ah, yes,” my dad says, looking up at Stone. “You’re the one who managed to figure out that the clogged filter was still stuck.”

“Yes sir,” Stone says.

My parents glance at each other like they’re amused. Stone and I sit, and my mom starts explaining what all the different kinds of pickles are while my dad sits back in his chair, looking from me to Stone to my mom.

He’s oddly
good
with them. I wonder if that’s because he got politeness beaten into him as a kid, but he’s sitting up straight, asking questions about the acidity of the vinegar my mom uses and commenting on the flavor profiles of different vegetables.

It’s a fucking one-eighty from the way he talks to me, when he’s dangerous and teasing and practically
dares
me to rip his clothes off, wherever we are.

There’s more to him
, I think.
You were kind of a jerk. Give the guy a chance, Luna
.

My eyes drop to his tattoos, and I remember the one on his back: eye, cross bones, barbed wire. A quick shiver runs down my spine, because whatever else is happening, that tattoo still gives me a black feeling in my gut.

Stone’s pointing at a jar, still chewing and frowning.

“Those are the best,” he says, his eyebrows furrowed like he’s deep in thought. “I like that they’ve got a kick to them.”

“Those’re my favorites too,” my dad offers.

“I just don’t like the kick too much,” my mom says, leaning her head on one hand. “Do you think they would be good with a little less spice?”

“If anything, I’d make them spicier,” Stone says. “But I like things hot.”

I could
swear
his voice changes just a tiny bit on that last word, and I keep my eyes firmly on the pickle jar and think very, very hard about the qualities that make a good pickle. Crunch. Tang. Mouthfeel.

Dammit
.

“See, Karen?” my dad says. “The kicky pickles are the winner. ‘Lick a kicky pickle.’ There’s your advertising slogan.”

I can’t help but giggle. My dad has come up with dumb stuff like this for as long as I can remember, and it’s always made me laugh.

“Don’t bicker, don’t snicker,” my dad starts.

“Gary.”

“Don’t invite your friend Nick, the pickle stickler.”

“
Gary
.”

“Lick a kicky pickle today.”

My mom looks unamused, but I’m giggling helplessly. Stone’s got one eyebrow raised, like he’s not quite sure what to do.

“She likes it,” my dad says, talking to my mom but nodding his head at me.

“That’s because you conditioned her to like it as a toddler,” my mom says.

My dad just shrugs, then looks at Stone.

“Fixed any interesting cars lately?” he asks.

“We had a ’65 Alfa Romeo Giulia in about a month ago,” Stone says. “Someone found it under a tarp out in a barn. Had a family of raccoons living in it.”

My dad whistles.

“Those were fun little cars,” he says. “I remember, right after I dropped out of Cal State, my buddy Norm had an Alfa Romeo, and we used to do speed tests up and down the one-oh-one late at night.”

Stone nods.

“The thing had all sorts of problems, but it was a flashy little thing,” my dad goes on. “This one time we took her up to Santa Cruz, where our other buddy was living at the time...”

He tells a long, rambling story. There’s no real point to it, other than a list of places he went and people he met when he was nineteen or twenty. Plus, I’ve heard it a couple of times before.

I catch my mom’s gaze. She rolls her eyes good-naturedly and I nod back at her, then take another Kicky Pickle from the jar and crunch into it.

Stone’s still listening to my dad, though I can’t tell whether he’s just being polite or whether he’s actually interested in my dad’s travelogue of 1970s California. I don’t mind the opportunity to just zone out for a few minutes, because I’m still not sure what’s happening.

Stone’s here? With my parents?

...And they’re kind of getting along?

My dad comes to a long pause in the story and takes a pickle. My mom puts a hand on his arm.

“We should go,” she says.

“It’s just over at the Seastone Gallery,” he says.

“Yes, at five,” my mom says. “It’s four thirty.”

“It’s ten minutes away.”

“Yes, but we need to get there, park, register, find our spots in class where we can see well enough, not to mention you’re going to want to set up your supplies the way you want them...”

“All right, all right,” my dad says. He finishes the pickle and my mom packs up the food they brought, then leaves most of it in my fridge, like she really
is
worried I’m incapable of feeding myself.

Stone and I walk them to the front door, where my mom gives him a quick hug and my dad shakes his hand again.

They think we’re dating
, I think as I shut the door behind them
. I guess I’ll know what they think of that the next time I see them
.

“They were nice,” Stone says once the door is closed. “The pickles were good.”

I exhale hard, blowing one wild strand of hair out of my face.

“Thanks,” I say.

L
una flops on her couch
, one hand buried in her mass of hair, and looks up at me. My brain feels like a whirl, my heart still clenching in my chest.

I just met her parents. I don’t
meet parents
, not even by accident, and I especially don’t
hope to impress parents.

But there I was, talking pickles with her mom and old cars with her dad. Calling them
Sir
and
Ma’am
, even though they obviously thought it was kind of funny.

I think they liked me. Hell, I think I liked
them
, even if the whole time I was nervous as a cat on a hot tin roof, certain I’d slip up.

This is what Luna thinks is normal
, I kept thinking.
This is what she wants, to grow old with someone and listen to them talk about pickles and old cars. Go to chakra painting classes together.

I can’t give her that. I can’t. I don’t know how. I don’t even know where to start.

“So you brought me your STD tests,” she says, her voice suddenly cautious.

“Right,” I say.

“The doctor was Nathan Elkhorn, right?”

I pull the papers out again to check, because I don’t remember.

“Where’s he located?” she asks.

“Bakersfield,” I say, and Luna frowns. Bakersfield is a few hours away, and there are plenty of doctors who live way closer.

“Why there?” she asks.

Because that’s the field office I answer to,
I think.

“Tortuga’s a small town,” I say. “I didn’t want word to get out.”

“That you went to the doctor?” she asks, sounding skeptical.

“People never gossip in Tortuga?” I say, feeling defensive.

I cross my arms in front of my chest. Growing up, I couldn’t do a single thing without my grandmother, and then my mom, hearing about it. People in Partlow, Georgia, practically didn’t do anything
but
gossip, and going to the doctor when it wasn’t time for my annual physical would have set off a wave of phone calls.

“Not
that
much,” she says.

We look at each other for a moment.

“You’re going to check up on this, aren’t you?” I ask. I can feel the anger bubbling up inside me, and I pace to the other side of the couch, then turn and pace back.

“I’m going to make sure he exists,” she says. “That’s all the information I can get, legally speaking.”

I look over at her.

“And you’d
never
do anything illegal,” I say.

“What are you saying, Stone?” she asks, glaring at me. “Could I probably come up with a ruse to get the receptionist to talk or something? Yeah. But I’m not gonna risk that just to check up on you.”

My whole life is a lie, but the one thing that’s completely true — that I went to this doctor, got these tests done — that’s the thing she questions. I know it’s better that she question this than anything else, but the unfairness grates at me.

You can’t give her what she wants. You don’t know how
.

I crack my knuckles, take a deep breath, and try to shut up the voice in my head. This is at least some kind of start.

“The doctor’s real,” I say quietly. “He really ran those tests on me. I’m really clean.”

Luna looks at me for a long, long time. She pulls her legs under her on the couch, sitting cross-legged.

“I believe you about the doctor,” she says quietly. “And I know that if you had a prison record, it would have shown up when I searched for you.”

Holy shit, I’d completely forgotten about that. Of
course
it would, and she has no reason to disbelieve me now.

Except for the fact that I’m still lying to her face. That’s fucking inescapable.

Her parents are growing old together and you never even met your father
, the voice in my head says.
You’ll fuck this up sooner or later, you know
.
She deserves someone normal.

She pauses so long I can’t help but start talking again.

“I don’t know how else to prove this to you, Luna,” I say. “I got a bad tattoo in juvie, I’m clean, I used a condom.”

She looks at me, a little incredulous.

“You have to
tell
people, Stone,” she says. “You can’t be in prison and get
amateur tattoos
and not disclose that. Condoms
break
.”

“Juvie,” I say.

“Juvie is still prison!” she says.

“I came here because I wanted you to stop worrying,” I say. “I didn’t want you to think you had AIDS or hepatitis, and I didn’t want you to think I’d fucking
do
that to you.”

She’s quiet for a long, long time, and I start pacing back and forth.

Part of me wants to shout
I’m in witness protection, I don’t want to lie to you
. Part of me just wants to leave right now, get on my bike, and relocate somewhere new, somewhere I’ll never have to look at Luna again, knowing I’m not good enough for her.

Finally, she sighs, looking down at her hands.

“Just tell me the truth,” she says. “I don’t even care what it is. I don’t care if you murdered someone in Mexico, I’m just tired of wondering when you’re lying and why you’re lying and what it is you’re covering up. Tell me. Just
tell
me.”

I stop pacing. There’s a pleading note in her voice that stabs me right through the chest. I know I can’t tell her. I know I shouldn’t.

I take a deep breath.

You’re an idiot
, I think.
You’re a fucking idiot and you deserve everything bad that’s going to happen to you for telling her
.

I don’t care.

“A year ago I ratted out an international crime syndicate for human trafficking,” I say. “Now I’m in witness protection.”

Luna’s mouth comes slightly open, and she just
stares
.