Losers: Part II

After dinner, Stephan poured Vincent and I a couple fingers of the moonshine he kept stored out in his shed. He and Vince lit up a joint, although I declined, and the three of us sat near the greenhouse as we talked.

Lucas and Jess were helping Vera clean up, while Jason played with the kids. They’d been giving him a “makeover” when I last saw him, his blue hair affixed with numerous sparkling hair clips. All my memories in this house were good ones, and I was thankful for that. Coming back felt like a homecoming, regardless that I hadn’t grown up there. Vera and Stephan had made their house a shelter for not only their own kids, but any child who’d needed them.

Lucas and I had slept on the couch here dozens of times when we had nowhere else to go. They would have taken all of us in permanently if they’d had the space.

“Jessica seems like a good woman,” Stephan said, passing the joint back to his son. He was always slow to speak, choosing his words carefully.

“She’s the wildest little angel you’ll ever meet,” Vincent said. “She’s amazing.”

“Makes me feel like I’m losing my damn mind half the time,” I said, and Stephan chuckled as he nodded. “Luckily, I’m happy to lose it.”

“The right person will change you for the better,” he said. “Sometimes, it’s a temporary change — someone comes into your life for a time and tweaks things a bit before they move on. But sometimes, it’s permanent. Things in your life shift around just right and they fit in like the spot’s been waiting for ‘em.”

Part of me had known Jess would fit in with us perfectly. But in my experience, good things weren’t meant for me. Being cautious and expecting the worst was safer than having hope.

But I felt hopeful, for the first time in a long time. Maybe good things weren’t meant for me, but I’d fight fate and God to have them anyway.

There was eventually a lull in our conversation, and in the ensuing silence, Stephan’s expression changed. He straightened up, cleared his throat, and said, “I suppose you may already know this, but I still wanted to bring it up. Your papa is back in town.”

I took another small sip of moonshine, focusing on the heat as it went down. My stomach coiled around it, threatening to reject it. “Yeah, I know. He’s been up to the house. How did you find out?”

“Word gets around,” he said. “Old Reagan has been down at Billy’s Bar recently, and a friend of mine said he overheard some conversations.” He looked between Vincent and I, the seriousness of his expression giving me a cold feeling. “He’s stirring up trouble, boys. He seemed to be saying anything and everything he can to try to get people up in arms about you all.”

“Up in arms?” I frowned, leaning forward on my seat. “What do you mean?”

“Let’s just say that he’s trying to make friends with some folks that don’t have very positive feelings about you all. I’ve been told that Reagan has been talking to a group of young men over there, trying to convince them to sabotage you all.”

“What kind of sabotage?” Vincent said.

“Not a clue, but I’ll keep an ear out for any word. I know you boys like to handle things on your own, but don’t go thinking you don’t have people at your back. If Reagan is going up to the house and giving you trouble…”

“We have it under control,” I said quickly. The last thing I wanted to do was drag the Volkovs into this drama. They’d done more than enough for us already.

“I figured you’d say as much.” Stephan glanced over at Vincent. “I know you’ll look out for each other, and I have no doubt Miss Martin can handle herself —”

“She’s safe. We’re keeping her safe.” I drained the last of the moonshine, welcoming the fire it shot straight into my veins. Vincent nodded his head in agreement.

“We’ll be safe, Pops,” he said. “We’re used to this shit anyway.”

“I’m sure it’ll be a relief for you to finally make the big move,” Stephan said. He rose from his seat, carefully stubbing out what was left of the joint. “I was looking around the old place while I was up there checking on things. You’ve done real well with that house; should turn a nice profit for you. Have you all decided on where you’re looking to move?”

“Not yet,” I said. The topic had been coming up more often now that we were closer to being able to sell. We’d all been trying to keep an open mind when it came to location.

But lately, there had been certain areas that were calling to me. One area in particular.

“It’s a big decision to make,” Stephan said. “But there must be someplace you all are drawn to.”

“New York.”

I looked at Vincent in surprise, right as he looked at me. We’d responded in perfect unison, and Stephan chuckled. “New York, eh? I have a cousin who lives in Buffalo. He’s always seemed to like the area…” Then he was off on a slow-moving tangent about why his cousin had moved there in the first place. I barely heard a word of it.

When we’d finished our drinks and were headed back inside, Vincent hung back with me, and in a lowered voice, said, “Are you okay? Do you need a minute?”

“No, I’m good,” I said, releasing a deep breath. As Stephan opened the front door, I got a glimpse of Jessica seated on the floor as the twins braided her hair, with Lucas beside her playing with Kristy. Jason was on the couch, laughing with Vera as they finished off the wine. “That fucker doesn’t get to steal one more minute from me.”

“Good, man.” Vincent clapped my shoulder, a small smile coming over his face. “So…New York, huh?”

“We’re all thinking about it, aren’t we?” I said. The laughter and conversation coming from the house helped put me at ease; it grounded me. And the reality was that if we didn’t make a decision soon, we might lose Jess again. She might slip away, because she had a life to live and so did we — but I wanted her to stay in ours. “We’ll need to have that conversation, Vince. We’re going to have to choose.”

“Fate gave us another chance,” Vincent said, casting his eyes skyward as if this had been divinely planned. “I’ll be damned if I let that chance slip away this time.”

***

Darkness had fallen by the time we left the Volkov family’s house. Lucas and I took the dogs in the Bronco, while Jason and Vincent drove Jess home in the WRX. Parting from her, after kissing her good night, was even harder than I had expected. I loathed the thought of not having her in my bed every night any more.

After Stephan’s warning, my feelings weren’t only rooted in longing. How was I supposed to know she was safe if one of us weren’t with her?

Lucas noticed that my mood had plummeted.

“Sucks sending her home, doesn’t it?” he said, and I nodded. “Why don’t we just have her stay the night? She could bring her laptop over. She could work here in the morning, there’s plenty of places in the house where she could get some privacy.”

I’d been asking myself the same question. “Her mom gets on her case enough as it is,” I said. “How is she supposed to explain where she’s staying all the time?” She already had to lie about who she spent the weekend with. As much as I wanted to keep her by my side, I didn’t want to cause her more trouble either.

“Well that’s fucking stupid,” Lucas muttered, folding his arms. “I’m going to have to have a talk with her mama before this shit gets out of hand.”

We pulled up to the gate, and I gave him a warning look before I got out to unlock it. “Don’t confront her Mom. Seriously.” He shrugged, but that wasn’t an agreement. I scowled. “I mean it, Lucas.”

“Okay, okay,” he said. When I still didn’t move, he motioned towards the gate as Jojo began to whine. “Come on, the dogs are gonna piss in here if we don’t let them out soon.”

He still hadn’t really agreed, but he was being stubborn. Rolling my eyes, I went to unlock the gate so he could pull into the yard. He parked, and I opened the back hatch to allow the dogs to jump out. They ran around the yard, sniffing everything. It didn’t take Jojo long to find a ball and bring it to my feet, demanding I play with her.

“We’ll play tomorrow,” I told her, wrapping my arms around her chunky body and giving her a squeeze. She licked my face in understanding, her tale whipping from side to side.

The garage was still locked, exactly as we’d left it. A cynical part of my brain had expected to find it broken into again, but fortunately we weren’t so unlucky. We trudged inside the house, flicking on the lights and dumping our bags in the living room. It would probably be a few days before we bothered to unpack.

“Can I bum a cigarette off you?” I said, before Lucas could make his way upstairs.

“I thought you were quitting?” he said, holding back the pack as if he wanted to be sure I meant it.

“I’m working on it.” I hadn’t bought another pack since my last one ran out; I’d been cutting back. But every time I thought I was ready to go cold turkey, stress reared its ugly head and demanded I light up again.

My answer was good enough for Lucas. He tossed me the pack with a smirk, saying, “It’ll cost you.”

“Yeah?” I took one out of the pack, shoving the remainder in my pocket. “What’s the price?”

He stopped at the top of the stairway. “Hurry up and smoke it, fucker. Then come upstairs and find out.”

I was going to make it a quick smoke break then. The screen door slammed behind me as I walked out onto the back porch, taking a deep breath of the cool night air. Leaning against the railing as I smoked, I could faintly hear the music Lucas turned on upstairs. The pipes groaned as he started the shower, and I imagined the bathroom filling with steam as the water heated. It had been a long day, and a hot shower sounded heavenly.

Putting down the cigarette for a moment, I curiously sniffed the air. Something smelled strangely minty — no, it wasn’t mint. It was menthol.

We had an ashtray out here, and we were always careful about not leaving discarded cigarette butts around the yard. But as I looked toward the far side of the porch, I spotted three stubbed-out cigarettes on the railing. They had been crushed against the wood, leaving circular burns on the white paint.

One of them still had a thin trail of white smoke streaming from it.

Dread knotted my stomach and made my limbs go cold. The porch suddenly felt too vulnerable, as if I was being watched from all sides. My father could have been standing right there in the shadows and I wouldn’t have been able to see him.

No sooner had I stumbled through the back door, than Jason and Vincent were coming in the front.

“Hey, you’re still lit,” Jason said, when he noticed I still had my cigarette. But then he saw my face, and his expression fell. “Are you okay?”

“Pull the cameras,” I choked out. “Lock the —” My lungs felt like they were closing. Christ, I couldn’t panic, not now. I had to hold it together. I braced my hand against the wall, and forced out the words, “Someone was here. Someone was on the property.”

Someone. I knew exactly who it was.

It only took Jason a few minutes to pull up the camera feeds on his laptop. Vincent and I gathered close behind him, watching over his shoulder as he rewound the tapes.

“There,” Jason said grimly, pausing the video. My father stood on our back porch, gazing across the yard as he smoked. Occasionally, he’d glance up and look directly into the camera. He didn’t seem nervous; even when the Bronco pulled up to the gate, he didn’t show any alarm. He just put down the cigarette and walked out of the camera’s view.

“You barely missed him,” Vincent said. “Holy shit, Manson. He could still be out there.”

“We need to search the yard,” I said. “Get some flashlights. I’ll tell Lucas.”

Our search was fruitless. After wandering around the dark for half an hour, all we found was fresh shoeprints near the fence. There was no relief in coming up empty-handed. Even once we were back inside with the doors locked, I couldn’t make myself relax.

This wasn’t just a violation of our space. My father was sending a message. He knew the cameras were there, and he’d left the cigarettes in plain sight. He wanted me to feel threatened. He wanted me to be afraid.

“You’ve got to try to get some sleep,” Lucas said, when our search was over and I was still sitting on the couch, staring at the camera feed on Jason’s laptop. The slightest movement on screen made me flinch: a fluttering bug, a leaf tumbling in the wind.

I shook my head. “I’m going to stay up for a while. I need to keep an eye on —”

Lucas closed the laptop, grabbing my hand before I could wrench it open again.

“You’re shaking,” he said, but I couldn’t stop. I was sweating, but I was so damn cold. “Your fingers are freezing.”

He pulled my hands close to him, then wrapped his arms around me. The shivering got worse; I was shaking so hard, he knew it wasn’t only from the cold.

“Do you want your pills?” he said.

It took me a while to answer. “No. Just stay with me.” He held me tighter, resituating us so he could lean back and I could lay against him. With every passing second, I felt guiltier. It killed me that all it took was one little incident — one goddamn trigger could destroy my self-control, my courage, my logic.

“I’m not going anywhere,” he said. “Grab that blanket.” He pointed to a thick fleece blanket folded on the back of the couch. I spread it over us and lay against his chest again, listening to the steady beat of his heart.

“Good boy,” I whispered, and he squirmed beneath me, wrapping his arms around me a little tighter.

“I love you.” He scratched his fingers through my hair, and I closed my eyes. It felt so good to be held.

“I love you, too.”

There was a creak on the stairway, then Vincent and Jason shuffled into the living room. They both had blankets around their shoulders, and Vince looked half asleep already. Jason was dragging his pillow in one hand.

They both settled down on the couch, and I frowned as I watched them. “What are you doing?”

“I thought we were having a sleepover in the living room,” Vincent said, stifling a yawn halfway through the sentence. He collapsed onto the couch, stretching out his limbs until his bare toes were shoved against Lucas’s side. Jason lay down beside him, the two of them sharing his pillow.

“You don’t have to do that,” I said. Lucas sleepily patted my head.

“With all due respect, stop talking,” he said. “Let us take care of you.”

“If you think you need to sleep down here to keep watch, then that’s what we’ll do,” Jason said, buried beneath his blanket. “I enjoy sleeping on the couch.”

Soon enough, Haribo and Jojo wandered in too. Jojo made a brief attempt to lick my face, then settled herself with a heavy sigh on the carpet. Bo jumped up on the couch and curled himself at Jason’s feet.

“Jess should be here,” Vincent said softly. But he was only stating what we were all thinking.