“We can’t do this. If it doesn’t work out…” she looked toward the door to the bedroom where Trent was sleeping.
“But what if it does? We’re so fuckin’ awesome together. So comfortable. You can’t tell me you don’t feel the same.”
She didn’t deny it. “You’d be willing to do the family thing? Are you sure you’re that kind of guy? That you’d even want this?”
“I never thought I wanted it, but with you and Trent… This shit just works. I should be freaking out that you’re in my house right now, wondering how to get you into my bed and out the door again before you start getting ideas about us. But instead, I want you here, whether or not we have sex, and I don’t know what the fuck to do with that.”
She took a deep breath. “Before we go any further, there’s something I need to warn you about. You could be in danger, just being with me.”
I had just bared my goddamn soul to her and it sounded like she was trying to brush me off. “What the fuck does that mean?” I asked.
Her gaze dropped. “I need to tell you what happened to Robbie and Becca, but it’s gonna sound crazy. Hell, itiscrazy. I keep wondering if it’s all in my head… if I’m mistaken or got it all wrong. But they’re dead and that’s real, and I…” When she looked up at me, her eyes were blazing with emotion. “I care about you and don’t want you messed up in this.”
“You’re not crazy, but you aren’t making a whole hell of a lot of sense. Why don’t you start from the beginning and maybe I can help you sort it out?”
She sipped her beer before taking another deep breath. “I told you about my pothead foster parents and how they pretty much let me do what I wanted.”
I nodded.
“Well, once they started messing with meth, everything changed between us. They were tweaking, not sleeping, paranoid, it was difficult to be around them. So, I lived out of my backpack and slept on whichever sofa was available. It wasn’t a big deal because I worked after school, then I’d go to the library and do my homework before crashing at Robbie’s or Becca’s. For the most part, their parents were cool with it, but sometimes they got sick of me coming around so much, so I had to find somewhere else to stay.”
The desire to smack around her foster parents made me open and close my fists a couple of times, but Carly didn’t seem to notice. She picked at her beer label and continued.
“There was this kid, Nate, who was a few years older than me and had his own place. He was the sheriff’s son, and everyone in town knew not to piss him off because his temper was off the charts. He wouldn’t fight or anything, but bad shit would happen to anyone who did him wrong, you know?”
I shook my head. “What do you mean, ‘bad shit’?”
“Uh… one time this guy, Noah, got the job Nate was trying for, and the next day all four of Noah’s tires were slashed. When he was still in school, Nate asked this girl Jenny to homecoming, and she turned him down. The week after the dance, her parents received a package in the mail with pictures of Jenny and her date going at it in his car.”
“Whoa.”
“Yeah. It was never stuff people could pin on him, because nobody ever caught him, but the whole town knows Nate’s not stable. One of the science teachers tried to talk to his dad about it once, but ended up with a yard full of boric acid for his trouble. Apparently, Nate had been paying close enough attention in class to know what could kill the teacher’s yard.”
“Unstable? Nate sounds like a goddamn maniac,” I said.
“Yeah,ifhe did all of it. But the same people accusing him of this stuff, had made my life hell with their whispers and lies, so I didn’t believe them. Nate, on the other hand, has never been anything but nice to me. I’ve known him since we were in daycare together. For some reason, when everyone else was teasing me, he took me under his wing. He was protective and nice, and he didn’t allow people to talk shit about me. Nate was the first person who ever actually stood up for me, and when I needed a place to stay, he let me crash on his couch. He never tried to make a move on me, never made me feel uncomfortable.”
I couldn’t see where her story was going, but had a feeling things were about to get really fucked up. “I think I’m gonna need another beer. You want one?”
She chugged the last of her drink, then handed me her empty bottle with most of the label peeled off. “Please.”
“Keep talking, I’m listening,” I said, walking the short distance to the kitchen.
“My sofa-surfing days ended after Robbie and I got drunk one night and fooled around. About a month later, I found out I was pregnant. I couldn’t wrap my mind around getting an abortion, and I sure as hell wasn’t going to drop the baby off at a fire station. Robbie and I were halfway through our senior year and both working part-time, so we pooled our money and got a little place together. We tried to be a couple, but it didn’t work out, so we lived as roommates. Robbie wasn’t really dad material, but he helped with the bills. We graduated and got better jobs, moved into a bigger house. After I turned twenty-one, I started bartending and making decent tips. Our life wasn’t normal, but it worked. Then, about five months ago, Nate cornered me at the bar and asked me out.”
I’d opened both beers and returned to sit beside her again, handing her a bottle. “What did you do?”
“I was so shocked I panicked and lied. Told him Robbie and I had gotten back together. He seemed fine with it at the time, but a few days later, he cornered me again and he was pissed. He said he’d seen Robbie and Becca making out in Robbie’s truck. After years of flirting, my two best friends had finally gotten together and I was happy for them. I should have come clean and told Nate the truth, but I didn’t. I just told him I knew about them and it was okay. Like it was part of our relationship.”
“He didn’t let it go, did he?”
“Three days later the cops found Robbie in his truck, just outside the city limits. They said he’d used his rifle to kill himself.”
“Jesus,” I swore.
“It doesn’t make sense. Robbie’s parents had beat him down his whole life, and he’d always struggled with depression, but since he’d been seeing Becca, he’d been better. Happier than I’d ever seen him. They were good together. Besides, he had a pistol hidden under his seat. Why would he use his rifle? It seems so much harder. He’d have to reach up the barrel to pull the trigger. He’d have to have it propped against something. I asked to see his body, to see how the bullet had been angled, but the sheriff told me the damage of the short-range thirty-ot-six shot was too gruesome, and that his dad had already ID’d him.”
I could tell she’d thought about this a lot. “You’re right, it is weird that he used a rifle when he had a pistol available.”
