Page 57 of Rough

EIGHTEEN

Pee Bee

“Do you have any idea what happened?” he asked.

I did, but I couldn’t say. I guess I could have, but I wasn’t going to. I didn’t want him – or Tegan for that matter – to know what I was going to do. I laid my helmet on the floor beside the couch and sat down.

“I don’t know, Pop. She had an emergency. Probably girl stuff.”

He looked worried. “She’ll be back though, right?”

“As far as I know.”

“Do you know where she lives?”

I hesitated, but decided to tell him the truth. “Yeah. I’ve been there.”

His face contorted. “You’ve been to her house?”

“She rode on the bike, Pop. I took her home.”

“Remember your promise, Son. I meant what I said.”

I cocked an eyebrow.

He did his best to flip me off, but his cast prevented it from being noteworthy. “I was just reminding you.”

“I told you I wouldn’t, and I won’t. You ought to know me well enough to know I’m not going to break a fuckin’ promise.”

“Hell, I thought I knew you, but then you went and cut off your hair and shaved that mess of shit off your face. You look like a God damned human, now. What’d your buddy Navarro say? He going to kick you out of the gang?”

“It ain’t a fucking gang. And, he hasn’t seen it yet.”

“Scared of showing up at your little clubhouse?”

“No.”

It was a lie, at least partially so. I wasn’t scared, but Crip was going to shit when he saw me. I’d shaved my beard off completely, and then I had Rita cut my hair as if I was going in for a job interview at one of the banks in downtown SD.

“Well, you look damned fine, Son. You really do. You never said the other night if you were going to ask Tegan on a date. Now that it’s just you and me, I’m going to ask point blank.”

In anticipation of the imminent barrage of bullshit that I was about to receive, I exhaled heavily and shook my head. I didn’t know what I was going to do about Tegan, and I damned sure didn’t want to discuss it with him.

I wasn’t eighteen, I was thirty-two.

“What?” he snarled. “

“I’m not in high school, Pop.”

“No, you’re not. But you’re as irresponsible as a fuckin’ teenager, that’s for god damned sure.”

I shot him a glare. “Why do you say shit like that?”

“How many girls have you had sex with?”

I looked away. He didn’t want to know. “I don’t know.”

“You’re a god damned lair. Be a man, Son. Tell me. I’ve got a point to make.”