The Debt (3 page)

By the time Hadley and I got back to the house from running our errands, my bandmates were already tuning up for rehearsal in my garage. We had a weekly gig at a college bar in the city. Nothing spectacular, but it gave us a hobby and a little extra money. For me, it was an excuse to keep writing music.

Corey played a double paradiddle at his drum kit while I pulled a couple broken strings from my guitar. He had no great musical aspirations beyond dive bars and the occasional street festival. Though he was proficient enough, Corey’s first concern was attracting the attention of women who fawned over musicians.

“Where the fuck is Scott?” I had energy to burn and there were changes to the set list that we needed to practice. There was just one problem: We were short one rhythm guitarist.

“He had a date.” Corey laid his sticks on his tom and cracked his knuckles.

Scott had always been a bit of a flake, but lately he’d been a stranger. Skipping rehearsals, never answering his phone. He would show up ten minutes before a gig, looking hungover and like he hadn’t slept in days.

“I thought he broke up with Tori,” I said, pulling a broken E string off my guitar.

“He did.” Corey leaned back against the wall behind his kit, thick arms bent behind his head. “I think he’s out with that chick from Saturday night.”

“Getting his dick wet is not a good excuse.”

“Speaking of which...” Trey, our bassist and resident buzzkill, walked in from the house and sat on a road case. “I heard what happened with Stephanie.”

In our collective of misfits, Trey was an oddity. Two happily married parents. Never arrested or institutionalized. No addictions or personality disorders. Had we not become friends, I would have hated the prick.

“Spare me the lecture. I got enough of it from Hadley.”

“What the hell were you thinking? You can’t fuck Scott’s sister and then hide from her.”

“Hey, she came on to me.”

“Doesn’t mean you have to pull your dick out for every girl who flirts with you.”

“The way things are going, Josh might have to leave the country. Or marry her.” Corey eyed me with a stupid grin. “Stephanie’s been posting photos of you from our shows on Instagram.”

“She keeps calling Hadley. Someone sent me half a dozen tit pics since last week.”

“Maybe it says something about your lifestyle that you aren’t sure who,” Trey said.

“What does that mean?”

“I don’t mind if you want to throw a groupie my way.”

“Piss off, Corey.” I rubbed my hands through my hair, tired of the subject. “She’ll get bored and move on eventually.”

“I get it.” Corey barely contained a laugh. He was built like a linebacker but gossiped like a pubescent girl. “She’s been after your dick since high school. But she’s straight-up psycho. You know she keyed Clint Holmes’s car at prom in eleventh grade because he took Lisa Libby instead of her, right?”

“Clint was an asshole.”

“Senior year Michael Falk found his cat dead in the driveway after he broke up with her.”

“You don’t know it was her. Could have been a raccoon or something.”

“Sure.” He stood, placing the covers on his drumheads. “But it makes you wonder.”

“This is why I don’t date.”

There was a time I could fill a concert hall, one kid at piano performing to an audience of thousands of well-dressed patrons. Something about a child in a tailored tuxedo created a spectacle. They called me a prodigy, an oddity worth paying for. To me, playing was fun and composing was easy. The music was all in my head; all I had to do was write it down.

Standing onstage Saturday night, I sang to a couple hundred inebriated college students at the Nest. And Scott, my inept rhythm guitarist, was doing his best to ruin it.

I was going to kill him, or perhaps maim him a little. Nothing would please me more than to wrap a steel guitar string around his neck and tighten my grip until the life left his eyes. I’d strip Scott of his guitar—he’d clearly forgotten how to play the instrument and therefore had no further use for it—to demonstrate my best Babe Ruth impression, pointing to the audio booth before taking a swing at his head. The crack would be satisfying, as would the
thud
when the decapitated former member of my band collapsed to the floor.

By the end of the first song, it had become apparent that his body had been possessed by some unholy creature bent on destroying music as we knew it. Scott was out of tune and falling behind on the rhythm. He kept his eyes on his fingers, like it was taking all his concentration to suck this badly. I was so fucking done with his punk ass.

When the set was over, I walked right the fuck off.

Kicking through the flimsy door to the greenroom, I set down my Les Paul and picked up the first thing my eyes landed on. Scott’s guitar case went flying across the room to put a nice dent in the graffiti-covered wall. The greenroom was just a dingy little space with a bathroom attached. There were two disgusting brown couches and a counter with a mirror that spanned the distance from one wall to the other. Not fancy digs, but it matched the motif of the college dive bar where our band, Mad Electro, played on Saturday nights.

I knew better than to put my fist through the wall. Breaking my hand was not something I longed to do again. Although shattering the mirror that reflected my impotent rage would have been satisfying, I reined myself in and tamped down the urge. Two hundred hours of anger management supposedly had done me well. Whatever. I was still angry. But now I threw inanimate objects like a girl rather than throwing a punch. Progress.

Scott’s guitar case lay open on the floor. Inside, a tiny plastic bag caught my attention. Unless Scott was hiding some broken bones, he had no business carrying around eighty milligrams of oxycodone.

Noise spilled in through the door behind me. In the mirror, I stared at the guy too chicken shit to look me in the eye.

“You’re a fucking twat.”

“What the hell is your problem?” Scott collapsed onto the couch by the door. He propped his foot up on the stack of milk crates that made a coffee table. Sweat-matted hair clung to his sickly pale face.

“You sounded like shit out there.”

“So I had a bad night. Get off my back.” The middle and forefinger of his right hand bled on his lips while he chewed at his nails. Gnawing, spitting the jagged shards on the dirty green carpet.

“Maybe if you fucking showed up for rehearsal—”

“Did you see my stick nail that guy in the face? I’m like, duck!” Trey and Corey barged into the room.

“Here we go.” Scott kicked at the milk crates, scattering them across the floor. “Another one of Josh’s righteous tantrums. No one is ever fucking good enough.”

“Whoa, simmer down,” Corey said, a massive presence in the center of the toppled mess of blue crates. “What’s the damage?”

“Him.” Scott jumped up from the couch. “I’m tired of this asshole always running his mouth like he’s Mozart.” He came at me, stopping only when Corey held him back. “You’re a fucking has-been, Josh. You washed out. You’re nobody.”

“You’re out. Get your shit and go.”

“Fuck you.” He backed off and looked to Trey standing silently against the door. Scott wasn’t going to find any sympathy there. “I’m not the problem.”

“You’re an addict.”

The accusation hung in silence. Seething, breathing heavy, Scott stared at the bag of pills as I held it up.

“You don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“Fine. Then flush them.”

Corey turned to Scott. “Dude, what’s going on?”

“Nothing.” He shoved Corey away. “He’s full of shit.”

“Do it.” Trey came forward, trapping Scott between us. “Flush them.”

“To prove what? I’m not—”

“Then I’ll do it.”

I went into the bathroom and kicked up the lid to the toilet. Before I could get the bag open, Scott was on my back. He reached for the pills, his bloody fingers slipping down my arms. Corey tried to pull him off, the three of us crammed into the tiny room, elbows knocking into walls, feet slipping on the exposed cement floor. I was shoved sideways at the sink and dropped the bag. Scott dove for it but was yanked back, Corey with his neck in a choke.

“This is your one chance to ask for help,” I said, and dumped the pills in the toilet.

Corey dragged Scott away from me.

“All will be forgiven. Check yourself into rehab or fuck off. Those are your choices.”

“Fuck you, Josh.”

Corey let him go. Scott grabbed his guitar case and left, slamming the door behind him.

The trio that comprised Mad Electro was silent as we packed up our gear. No more needed to be said on the topic of Scott, and so the matter was closed. We could worry about the consequences later. I doubted he’d admit he needed help, and for that he had my pity.

Back inside the bar, the guys went to join Hadley at our usual table while I found the bar’s owner, Nate. His office was more like a large closet with a single desk and chair. No room for visitors to sit among the file cabinets and boxes of flyers stacked along the walls. He sat hunched over his desk with piles of money in neat rows.

Nate was a skinny middle-aged man who looked like he might have been a meth head at one point in his life. His eyes were too sunken and large in his head. His skin was tight and papery. But he always paid us in cash and invited us back week after week. I didn’t need to know his life story.

“Josh, hi.” Nate nodded as he wrapped a rubber band around one stack of cash and slid it into a white envelope. “Just in time. Here’s your take for tonight.”

I folded the cash and stuffed it in my pocket. We did pretty well here, taking a cut of the door and liquor from ten to midnight from the eighteen-and-over crowd. The Nest was always slammed on Saturdays, and I suspected the bartenders were lax on checking IDs.

“I caught a few minutes of your set.” Nate lit up a cigarette and kept counting bills. “A little rough.”

“We sounded like shit. Scott is out. We’ll be better next weekend.”

“What’s he doing for work?”

“Washing dishes at a sports bar, I think.” Though I didn’t see how that mattered. “Why?”

“I could always use another bar-back.”

“Right.”

Scott would probably poison me the first chance he got.

Nate glanced up. He eyed me for a moment. With nothing left to say, I thanked him and left him to it.

Making my way through the bar, I pushed and slithered past the bodies in the crowded space. It was standing room only, save for a set of reserved tables in the back separated from the floor by two steps to the raised platform and a wooden railing.

Trey and Corey were alone.

“Where’s Hadley?”

“She was talking to a guy,” Trey said.

“A guy?” That wasn’t helpful.

“They went to the bar.” Corey pushed a chair at me. “Sit down and relax. She’ll be back.”

Hadley was capable of taking care of herself. She didn’t need a babysitter looking over her shoulder. Nevertheless, running off with some random guy wasn’t her style. Of course, it was only under the pretense of wanting a drink that I headed for the bar. Not because I was checking up on her.

A group of teetering coeds took their drinks from Troy, the bartender, making an opening for me to slip in. Troy spotted me. After he passed off a few drinks and swiped a customer’s card, he pulled down a bottle of Scotch. Two fingers neat was passed my way. The band drank for free when we played. A nice perk.

“You see Hadley?”

Troy wiped his hands on a bar towel, then slung it over his shoulder as he looked around. “She was with a guy a second ago. Don’t know him.”

I swallowed a mouthful of whiskey. Searching the horde pulsing to the canned music pumped out over the sound system, I couldn’t spot Hadley.

Someone tapped me on the shoulder. I made it a quarter turn before I took a sucker punch to the face. My drink shattered on the floor. I stumbled, thrown off balance by the force of the blow. Pain flared across my cheek and blurred my vision. Noise overwhelmed me for a moment as the crowd reacted. Scott came at me again, pushing us into a wall of people. I barreled into him, shoving my shoulder into his gut to knock him against the bar. He was trapped beneath me with nowhere to run. Blind rage propelled my fist against his jaw, his nose. His skin turned wet, his face soft and muddy.

By the time Corey had me in a headlock and blood dripped from my hand, Hadley was screaming at me. Whatever. Scott started it. And I never did get to finish my Scotch. But I found Punky.

The next morning, Hadley sat on the couch watching cartoons, six fingers held over her head.

I wasn’t in the mood for our usual spat. “What’s with the score?”

“This”—she extended her fingers toward me—“is for the shiner. It’s a nice piece of work.”

The black eye hurt like hell, though most of the swelling had gone down overnight.

“Is higher better or worse?” Just to be clear. Not that I was amused.

“Better for me,” she said. “Worse for you.”

“Wonderful.”

“Get a move on, sunshine,” Corey taunted from the kitchen. He sat hunched over the breakfast bar with Trey.

“What are they doing here?”

“We’re going to the beach,” she said.

Hadley slid her sketchbook off her lap. She wore a pair of cutoff jeans and a baggy cropped white T-shirt. Underneath, I saw the outline of her blue bikini top. Goddamn.

“And if you want breakfast, you better hurry. The guys have been in there for a while.”

Perfect. I didn’t finish one drink last night, my band was short a member, and now I’d have to fight for my meal. Fucking brilliant. Didn’t I at least get dibs in my own home?

“You’re invited,” Hadley called after me as I headed for the kitchen.

I had assumed as much, but her comment said that perhaps that assumption was premature.

Sure enough, I’d barely been saved scraps from breakfast.

“Thanks for cleaning me out, assholes.” I grabbed the last piece of toast off Corey’s plate and the bowl of fruit salad that sat in front of Trey.

At least they knew better than to sit in my spot. Certain customs had to be observed for the sake of my sanity. I’d sat on the same damn stool since I was eight.

“She made us wait for an hour.” Corey showed not one bit of remorse. “It was either start without you or wake you up.”

Trey slathered his toast with strawberry jam. My jam. “Just make something else.”

I grumbled a “fuck you” and polished off the two strawberries and three pieces of cantaloupe I’d been left to consume.

Granted, Hadley and I were weird about food, but for good reason. In the foster home where we’d met, there were three other kids ranging in age from nine to thirteen. We had to throw elbows at the table for our rations, and even those were small. Some days we wouldn’t have breakfast at all. Now that Hadley and I didn’t have to worry about money or someone else stealing our food out from under us, I bought too much and she cooked too much. Anyway, I sucked at cooking. The best I could do was a bowl of cereal. She’d conditioned me. It wasn’t my fault my stomach had certain expectations.

“Stop sulking.” Hadley’s voice whispered into my ear from behind me. “Like I’d let you starve.” She came around the counter and opened the oven, pulling out a plate covered in tinfoil.

“What’s this for?”

“Eating,” Punky answered with a condescending eye roll. Snarky thing. She pulled the tinfoil off to reveal an omelet with bacon and a biscuit. “Hurry up. We’re leaving in twenty minutes.”

We arrived at high tide just as the clouds on the horizon began to turn an angry shade of gray. A stiff breeze blew in from offshore. Foam licked at the tidal line. A storm was moving in, electrifying the atmosphere—my favorite kind of weather.

Waxing my board, I watched the white blip of a sailboat on the water make its way south. A sharp whistle caught my attention as a group of guys made their way toward us.

“Andre, hey!”

Hadley jogged past me, shoving my shoulder like I was rude for taking up space, and right into the waiting arms of the shirtless guy who offered her a huge smile. He picked her up. Damn near squeezed the life out of her.

I hated him on the spot. Hated that he could touch her. That he made her smile more brightly than I’d seen in a long time. Most of all, I hated that he’d weaseled his way into her life without my notice. Who the fuck was this dickhead?

“Glad you made it,” Hadley said.

And that just drove the knife deeper.

I couldn’t remember the last time she’d looked happy to see me. Well, I could, but I preferred not to think about it.

“Of course.” The guy was about my height, maybe six-three, and built like an athlete.

“Josh, you remember Andre.” Hadley stood between us, looking at me to say something.

“I do?”

“It’s been a long time. Good to see you.” He stepped forward and held out his hand.

Well, fuck. Now I was the asshole if I didn’t play nice, and Hadley’s sharp expression made it clear she’d make my life hell if I didn’t accept. Steeling myself to the taste of my pride going down my throat, I took his hand and shook it. He squeezed hard, and I squeezed harder.

“Okay, girls. You’re both pretty,” Corey taunted. “Go find a tree if you’re going to start a pissing contest.”

I dropped his hand. Hadley went through the introductions, but I tuned it all out as I stepped into my wet suit and pulled the tight neoprene up the length of my body. I should have stayed in bed.

Grabbing my board, I headed for the water. My toes barely touched wet sand. Hadley wouldn’t let me off that easily.

“Hey,” she called, running to catch up with me. “What’s your problem?”

“You could have mentioned we’d have company. For that matter, what’s with you picking up a whole pack at a bar?”

“Really? Fuck you, Josh. You drag random skanks home, but I can’t hang out with my friends?”

“Are they skanks because they’re fucking me, or is that just a blanket insult?”

“Take your pick.”

“Then who the fuck is he?”

“That’s Andre Evans, jackass.”

“And?” Was I supposed to be impressed?

“His dad used to have those big Fourth of July parties every year. I was friends with him in middle school. He saw me at the Nest and we started talking.”

I vaguely remembered the name, but the Andre Evans I had known was a short, pudgy kid with an overbite. Years ago, he’d gone to live with his mother in Georgia or Alabama, something like that.

“You coming, Josh?” Corey and Trey jogged past us, tossing down their boards to paddle out.

“Sorry. The name doesn’t click.” I tucked my board under my shoulder and walked away, leaving her there.

“You’re such as ass!”

Couldn’t argue with that.

“I know a guy.” Corey straddled his board beside me, drifting beyond the breakers as the swells rolled beneath us. “I could bring him by next week to jam. You know, feel him out as a replacement for Scott.”

“Sure.” My attention was fixed on the shore.

Hadley had her shirt off, skin glowing against the fabric of her dark jean shorts and sapphire bikini top. It had been a while since we’d been to the beach or had any other occasion that made it acceptable for her to wear so little clothing. I hadn’t seen so much of her in a long time.

“He’s played with a few local bands, mostly alternative and punk, and he’s got decent chops.”

“Great.”

Hadley played football with Andre and his friends. Of course they kept throwing the ball to her, an excuse to grab at her. Motherfuckers.

“But he’s only got one arm, so he strums with his toes.”

“That’s cool.”

My fists clenched the sides of the board as Andre wrapped his arms around Hadley from behind and hauled her off her feet. I could hear her laughter from the shore. It had been years since she’d let me hug her.

“Fucking hell, Josh. Take the creeper meter down a notch.” Corey splashed a bear claw full of water at me.

Fucking child.

“Damn it, Corey.” I wiped the salt out of my eyes, snarling at his stupid grin. “Grow up.”

“Says the guy who left his balls in Hadley’s purse.”

“What the fuck is that supposed to mean?”

“Really? You’ve been seething over Andre for the last hour,” Trey said. Cocky bastard. “Surfing requires you to chase a wave.”

“So it doesn’t bother you? If they were manhandling your girl, it wouldn’t piss you off?”

“Ah, he said it!” Corey smacked another handful of water at me.

“Goddammit,” I growled. “Quit doing that. Said what?”

“You called Hadley your girl,” he said, curling his fingers into air quotes. “Not ‘the’ girl. ‘Your’ girl.”

“So what? I’m not arguing semantics. I’ve known her since we were practically in diapers. She lives in my house.”

“Give him a break,” Trey said. “He means that Hadley is like family. You know, a sister.”

“Punky is sure as fuck not my sister.”

“Then go piss a circle around her if you want to claim your territory. Or, I don’t know, ask her out like a normal person. Shit or get off the pot.”

“First of all, fuck you. And if you keep it up, I’m tossing your bass off my roof.”

I wasn’t blind, and I wasn’t dead. Hadley was gorgeous, funny when she wanted to be, a total pain in my ass, snarky, smart, talented. Yes, I knew she was a keeper. But I’d lost her already. There was no retracing my steps down that road.

“Josh, for some stupid reason, we actually give a fuck about you,” Trey said. He had a way of making a kind sentiment sound like an insult. “If you don’t hurry up and figure out a way to fix this thing with you and Hadley, you are going to regret it for the rest of your life. No one gets over a girl like that.”

“It’s been four years. She hasn’t run off yet.” Corey’s fatal flaw was his total faith in people. “Don’t you think that means something?”

“I’m not listening to this.” Chin to the board, I paddled after a wave and didn’t stop until lightning chased us out of the water.

Later that night as Hadley went through her ritual to lock up the house, she barely said a word to me. I took her silent treatment as punishment, an art she had perfected over the years. It was all the more tormenting because there was no shortage of questions I wanted answered about Andre and her intentions with him, but both of us knew I wasn’t about to ask them aloud.

In the living room, Hadley opened the sliding glass door to the back patio and shut it tight. She flicked the lock closed, open, closed; four times in all. I turned toward the front door, but she hesitated. Hadley stood still, her finger stuck to the lock.

Open, closed.

Open, closed.

Her fingers twitched. Hadley held her breath. I wanted to do...something. Say something that might, I don’t know, help. But I’d learned that lesson. Interfering only led to arguments and the nearest object within her reach flying at my head.

Her hands balled in fists, she huffed a breath through her nose. The rest of the routine wrapped up quickly after that as I went around turning off lights while she set the alarm and locked dead bolts, but I noted her frustration when Hadley slammed her bedroom door shut without letting me say good night.

I wasn’t sure if it was my shit attitude that had affected her. Maybe I was an asshole for assuming I had anything to do with it. Fact was, I never had a fucking clue what was going on in her head, but I’d give anything to still have the right to ask.