Melissa
The next two days actually felt really nice.
I deliberately avoided asking her about the Devil’s Patriots in any fashion. She never brought them up. For at least forty-eight hours or so, then, we were able to just hang out as two sisters. Hailey only needed a couple hours each morning to get some YouTube stuff done, and twice, we stopped by local bars we knew were hiring to get a spot for Hailey to interview, but otherwise, we just went about our way in the city as two broke girls were bound to do.
We walked an awful lot. We window shopped. We took hikes where we could see downtown Phoenix. When we did eat out, we went to one of those hole-in-the-wall places, a Chinese restaurant that had prices like McDonald’s but quality slightly above it. We got exercise, conversation, and plenty of great times in.
But as much as I wanted to imagine that life could just continue like this perpetually, I knew better. I knew there would come a point where we’d have to have the talk.
“By the way,” Hailey said as we finished the last of our crab rangoon appetizers, which we’d saved as dessert. “My boyfriend wants to meet you tonight.”
“So he is real,” I said with a sarcastic smirk. “I was beginning to think that you were deliberately keeping me away from him.”
“Well, kind of.”
That created a very unsettling, ominous feeling in my stomach. Crab rangoon didn’t seem quite so delicious anymore. Suddenly, the prospect of having driven a full day here to see my sister seemed like it would prove even more disastrous than I had feared.
“What does that mean?” I said. “Is he a Devil’s Patriot?”
“Just keep an open mind; you’ll see.”
So probably.
I fought back the urge to groan loudly. The first time Hailey had hidden something from me, it had, sure enough, proved to be related to the Devil’s Patriots. If she was now dating one of them…
I honestly felt insulted. Had she learned nothing from my experience? What if she was dating Corey? Oh, holy fuck, that would be a disaster of epic proportions. I wasn’t going to say I’d disown her, but I would certainly scream in her face and call her a fucking idiot if she was dating Corey.
“That’s not very encouraging, Hailey.”
“I know, it’s just…”
“Just what?”
She sighed.
“I promise you that you may not like him at first, but he’s a genuine guy. Just give him a chance.”
By now, Iknewhe was a Devil’s Patriot. Nothing could have gotten me to think otherwise. Maybe if he openly affiliated with the Bloods or Crips, but those seemed like they weren’t relevant anymore. I hadn’t run into any of them in Phoenix, anyway.
I supposed I’d give him “a chance.”
But by chance, I only meant that I wouldn’t cut off Hailey forever if she was, in fact, dating one of those assholes. Everything else was fair game.
* * *
Hailey drove us to her boyfriend’s place. It was probably just as well for her sake, anyway; if we’d gone in separate cars, there was a better than decent chance I would have just peeled away at the first sign of anything troubling. And unfortunately, I was seeing trouble frequently, and it was difficult to tell how much of it was real and how much of it was imaginary.
The mere sound of motorcycles always triggered me. Always. Odessa was small enough that I didn’t hear it that often, but big enough that I knew randoms would occasionally drive by. Sometimes, I wished I lived in a colder part of the country where people would have to be inside their cars from September to April.
Additionally, the sight of familiar stomping grounds, from the bars and restaurants Corey and I frequented on date night or just hanging out to the pizza shop that I loved to get pickup food from, weren’t exactly bringing back fond memories. Even the pizza place reminded me that it was the last spot I’d eaten at before hauling ass out of Arizona.
But then something strange happened.
We moved past the turn that would have taken us to the Devil’s Patriots.
And not only did we move past it, we went way past it. When we pulled off the busy roads, I found we were driving in a pretty nice neighborhood. It wasn’t the ritziest set of houses I’d ever seen in my life, but it was definitely upper middle class, perhaps even upper class in some respects. Hailey had apparently done quite well for herself.
“Good for you, girl,” I said to myself.
