Outside the bar, a guy offered me a cigarette. It wasn’t blood, but at least it was something.
I sat on a retaining wall, the unlit cigarette dangling from my lips. The music and light filtered out to the empty street, making it feel lonelier than silence, a reminder that there was a warm, welcoming community only two feet away.
“Need a light?” someone asked. I looked up to see Tyrone in a wool coat with the collar flipped up.
Tyrone was not the guy you’d look at in a crowd and say, “He’s definitely got a lighter.” That had probably been Jeff, at the skate park with the high score onStreet Fighter II.
Tyrone pulled a Zippo out of his pocket and I leaned toward him. He sheltered the end of the cigarette, cupping his hands around it so it could burn, even in the wind.
I took a drag. The nicotine filled my lungs and calmed me almost immediately.
He sat down next to me and I scooted closer until my thigh was pressed against his. His breath was coming out in icy puffs. Mine wasn’t. Oh, well, if he noticed, he noticed.
“You want my jacket?” he asked.
I said “Yes,” because the gesture was nice. I wanted to be a girl whoneeded a jacket. I did, emotionally speaking.
“You’re a little late for trivia night,” I commented.
“I came here hoping to run into you,” he said. “No one was answering your door, even though I could definitely hear Heaven singing inside.”
“She’s going through a real Doechii phase.” I took another drag and watched the smoke curl up from my cigarette, soft curls of ethereal gray going up, up, up to—nothing. “Can’t get me off your mind, huh?” I laughed half-heartedly.
“No, I really can’t.” He said it like it was a burden.
Why so tortured, Tyrone? What could this handsome, smart, land-owning, patent-holding man have to worry about?
Leaning my head against his shoulder, I inhaled the scent of hard work, hay, horses, and Christmas. “Everyone around here thinks you’re a saint.” It was a statement, not a question. “Are you?”
He swallowed a laugh, not a joyous one. Tired, sardonic, jaded. I turned to get a better look.
“If people knew me, knew what I’d done, they wouldn’t call me a saint.”
“It can’t be that bad.” I stopped before telling him I’d almost killed Heaven in LA and basically gone on the run with her mostly dead body.
“Let’s just say everything I’m doing now is atonement.”
“I bet you haven’t even killed anyone.”
He swallowed another laugh. “Uhhh.”
“Well,thatwas a pregnant pause.” I decided to steer us in another direction. “Did you work with Jeff before he died?”
He flicked his lighter and stared into the flame.
“To the extent Jeff worked.” He glanced up at me to gauge my reaction. “You know Jeff, he mostly came around with big ideas and then disappeared.”
That tracked. “What happened between you two?”
“You don’t know?” He searched my face, which probably looked as blank as I was.
I shook my head no.
“Nothing?” he asked again.
“Nothing,” I answered.
“What did you two talk about?” he asked.
