I couldn’t help but grin remembering that afternoon. With Declan driving his car, I just about sprained my neck, peering over my shoulder and freaking out. “That wasn’t about some guy, though,” I objected. “I was trying to get in trouble back then. All I cared about was pissing off my old man and ruining his reputation.”
“That doesn’t mean it was smart for you to try to stick up the guy we were selling weed to,” he pointed out. “But you weren’t thinking about your dad that afternoon, Maddox. You were thinking about me.”
I scoffed. “I was not.”
“Sure you were. Just that weekend, I’d started hooking up with Silvio on the sly. You had sworn you didn’t care about being in a committed relationship, but the second Silvio got in my bed, you started making all kinds of screwed-up choices. I’ve seen it time and again, Maddox. You convince yourself you don’t have feelings for some guy, and then you go turning your life upside down instead of admitting the truth.”
“I’m trying to be a role model to these kids,” I said again. “They were looking up to me, and I set them up to get killed.” Just saying it out loud made my stomach lurch, the vision of Malcolm and Gunner in my uncle’s office flashing back to mind.
“Sure,” he agreed. “But just because you’re their role model doesn’t mean you can’t have feelings for them. Shit, man, even I know that.”
A cloud came across the sun, casting shadows over the mountain. I gritted my teeth together, forcing myself to hear what Declan had to say.
“Maybe you’re right,” I said. “But that doesn’t help me any. If I can’t take care of those guys and protect them, what right do I have to try to start a relationship? My feelings will just tangle me up again, and I’ll end up dragging them down.”
“Maybe,” Declan said, never one to beat around the bush. “But you’ve spent the last decade hiding in the mountains there, man. You don’t want to run another job with me, that’s fine. I’m not going to push you on it. But maybe it’s time you consider sticking your head back out in the world anyway.”
I kept Declan on the phone a while longer, catching up and hearing his Vegas stories. It felt good just to have someone to talk to, someone who understood me and the life I used to live. He might still have been rough around the edges, but Declan would never judge me, and that was something I had learned to value.
When we hung up, I headed back to the house. It felt quiet inside, even after I flipped on the stereo. Sitting on the leather couch, I pulled out the stack of papers I had taken from the office, shuffling through them as an old Alice in Chains song throbbed through the house.
Just like I thought, all of the records were there. My uncle was such a prick; he never had the good sense to cover his tracks. Pulling a few select sheets from the stack, I decided to take care of the problem myself. I knew which people in the local government were on my family’s payroll, and it wouldn’t take more than a few carefully placed anonymous letters to put the right pressure on Uncle Elmar. I had intended to leave the task for Malcolm, thinking it would be empowering for him, but considering all that had gone down, it seemed smarter to wrap up the loose ends myself.
I might have been fooling myself, pretending I could be the man in their life. But if there was still a way to help those guys out, I was going to do whatever I could.
