Morrie was standing across from them, his shoulder against the wall, his eyes looking out a window, his thoughts unpleasant.
Jack and Jackie were out in the hall with Hobart Norris, the Chief of Police back then. Jack’s voice was a murmur, as was Hob’s, as was Jackie’s but suddenly Jackie’s voice grew louder.
“I don’t care, Hob, you hear me? Social Services be damned. You go back to that Station, you make your calls and you cut through your goddamned red tape.”
“Jackie,” Hob said, raising his voice too but trying to calm her.
“No, I see you don’t hear me, so I’ll explain. That boy in there’s not goin’ home to those two jackals. I been sending him back there for eleven years, each time it cut me to the quick. I also been talkin’ to you ‘til I’m blue in the face. I’m tellin’ you, he’s not goin’ back there again. You tell me right now he has to go, I’ll tell you right now I’ll pack my kids and my husband in our goddamned car and you’ll never see us again.”
“I’ll take it you mean Colt too when you talk about ‘your kids’,” Hob stated.
“Damn right I do,” Jackie returned, not missing a beat.
“Not a good idea to tell me your plan to kidnap Alec Colton, Jackie,” Hob was trying to joke.
This was not a good idea, Colt knew it, Feb knew it, Morrie knew it. They knew it because they heard it, heard it through something they’d never heard before.
They heard Jackie Owens shout.
“A sixteen year old boy is black and blue in there, Hob, and you joke?”
Jackie had a temper, it was lethal but it was quiet. None of her kids ever heard her shout.
But those words bounced around the hall, around the room Colt, Feb and Morrie were in, hell, they were probably heard throughout the hospital.
“Calm down, Jackie,” Hob warned.
“I’ll calm down when my boy puts his head down at night on a pillow under my roof!” Jackie shouted back.
That’s when Jackie laid claim to Colt at least in any official way. He might have felt like a cub wandering around, having never had a lioness who was there to protect him who was meant to keep him safe. But he wasn’t one. Or he would be one no longer.
“He’s not defenseless, woman,” Hob was losing patience, “you should see what he did to his father.”
“No, I shouldn’t. I did, I’d get the itch to finish the job Colt started,” Jackie shot back, Colt heard Morrie let out an amused snort and Feb squeezed his hand.
Hob tried a different tactic. “Jack, talk to your wife.”
“Why? She’s talkin’ sense, far’s I can see,” Jack said.
“Jack –”
“Cut through the red tape,” Jack interrupted.
“Impossible,” Hob replied.
“Then tonight’s your night to become a miracle worker,” Jack returned.
At that moment Feb dropped her head to his shoulder and Colt forgot about his night when she did, wondering, if he was living with Jack and Jackie, how they’d feel if he asked their daughter on a date.
He didn’t go home to his mother and father’s, never stepped foot over their threshold again. He didn’t know if Hob fixed it or Jack and Jackie just didn’t bother following the rules and he never asked.
Jack took his friends Hal Woodrow and Phil Everly to Colt’s house and he did it because both Hal and Phil were just as big and solid as Jack, they’d get no trouble. The three men packed up Colt’s shit and brought it back to Jack’s house.
Around about the time Colt was six and he was spending more nights at Morrie’s than he was at his own home, they bought Morrie and Colt bunk beds. Colt and Morrie used to fight over who would sleep on top, so they separated the beds, put them both on the floor at opposite walls. Then Colt and Morrie used to fight by throwing pillows and toys at each other from bed to bed. This would turn into a game where they’d eventually laugh themselves sick and Jack would shout through the walls from his and Jackie’s room, “Enough you two!” Then they’d hear Feb giggle from her room and Colt and Morrie would whisper to each other about all sorts of boy shit before they fell asleep.
Him moving officially into that room should have been no big thing, he’d had a bed in there for near as long as he had memories. Even so, his moving into that room was a big thing and everyone in the house knew it, most especially Colt.
He heard the cupboard close, his thoughts came back into the room and his head turned to see Feb running water over a sponge at the sink. He watched her turn off the water and wring out the sponge before she went to town on the counters and he was stunned when the rawness came back. Not that it was back just that Jackie had managed to take it away so soon, even for awhile. And also he was surprised that it didn’t seem so fucking raw anymore.
“Come here, baby,” he called and Feb’s head came up.
“I’ll be there in a sec, just let me finish cleaning the counters.”
She didn’t need to clean the counters. She’d done it while Jackie was washing out the pot and skillet. He had no clue why she was doing it again.
“Feb, no one’s gonna perform surgery on them. They’re ‘bout as clean as they can be.”
“I like to wake up to a clean kitchen,” she told him, still rubbing down the counters.
He let it lie. She liked a clean kitchen? Who was he to argue?
He let his head fall back to the couch and rubbed his face with his hands, thinking he’d never been so fucking tired in his whole fucking life. He left his hands where they were even after he heard the soft splat of the sponge hitting the sink and felt Feb getting close. He only dropped his hands and lifted his head when he felt her moving on top of him.
She straddled him, crotch to his crotch, knees and calves in the couch, ass to his thighs, her hands coming to rest where his head met his neck and having Feb astride him, her hands on him, Colt found he suddenly wasn’t the least bit tired anymore.
“I hate to ask,” she said softly, “but you need to tell me about Craig, babe.”
He knew he did. It fucking sucked and the fatigue slid right back because he knew he had to tell her and he might as well get it over with.
“How much do you know?” he asked.
“I know Morrie got to you and it got physical but everything was all right. That’s all I know.”
Colt nodded and put his hands to her hips then slid them back and over her ass and liking them there, he left them where they were.
“Craig works for his Dad’s farm supply shop, out on 36,” Colt told her, she nodded and he continued. “I was so out of it when I got there, didn’t note it until later, but the minute he saw me come in, it was like he knew.”
He watched her lips part slowly, like the skin didn’t want to separate, before she said, “Really? How weird.”
“Not weird when you know what I know.”
“What do you know?”
He ran his hands down her ass then up her back and around her ribs, the sides of his thumbs brushing the undersides of her breasts. Colt just wanted to touch her, remind himself she was real, this Feb sitting astride him, gazing at him, her face gentle, her hands warm. But his cock jerked when her lips parted again, this time in a different way, just as her eyes grew soft. She liked his touch a lot and she didn’t guard against showing it. Colt liked both knowing she liked it and that she wasn’t afraid of showing it.
He moved his hands down to the tops of her thighs. He wanted to fuck her but he wanted to fuck her when he knew Jackie was asleep, Jack was still at the bar, he had this shit out and he never had to speak of it again. She looked at him like that again he’d fuck her on the couch.
Therefore, his hands stopped moving and he kept talking. “I got there, he took one look at me, put his hands up and said immediately ‘I’ll tell you everything, Colt,’ I didn’t hear him, wanted to beat the shit out of him, that’s all that was on my mind. He backed up, tryin’ to calm me down, his Dad got between us, another farmer, that’s when Morrie got in, got me out, we wer
e into it in the parking lot when Sully got there.”
One of her hands moved from his neck to his jaw then it lifted and she smoothed one of his eyebrows. Then both of her hands dropped to his chest.
Through this she didn’t say a word. She wanted it to help, he knew and it did, just not much.
When her hands settled, Colt kept talking. “Sully had called Chris and Chris got there fast. By this time I was calm enough to share what we’d figured out and Sully talked me into going with Chris to Frank’s for coffee. I went and Morrie and Sully went in to talk to Craig. They came to Frank’s after, relieved Chris and told me what they learned.”
“What’d they learn?”
Colt shook his head. He still couldn’t believe it even hearing it and repeating it, he couldn’t believe it.
“Craig couldn’t wait to talk,” he told Feb. “They barely got him in the office before he split wide open. Sully said Craig called it ‘livin’ under a thundercloud’.”
Her head tilted and she muttered, “I don’t get it.”
“He isn’t surprised about Denny, not in the slightest, Feb,” he informed her and he watched understanding dawn as he continued. “Says he was gonna come into the Station that day anyway, he’d heard about Denny, Marie, Amy, all the shit’s been goin’ down. He knew it’d come out and he didn’t want that shit to stick to him.”
“So, he was in on it.”
Colt shook his head but answered, “Yes and no. He said he thought it was going to be a joke, Denny convinced him of it. Said Denny talked him into going with him and they broke into his Dad’s pharmacy and got some shit, Denny knew what he wanted, where to find it, had it all planned out. They were gonna play games at the party. He said he didn’t know what Denny took or what it could do, not until after but he reckoned Denny knew. Then Denny slipped the shit to me, Craig saw him do it and couldn’t believe it. He freaked out because he knew if I found out I’d go ballistic. He just didn’t expect he’d have to wait a couple of decades for it to happen.”
She nodded and slid a hand up to where his neck met his shoulder, fingers digging into the muscle, massaging the tension there.
Her touch felt good and he finally felt the tension start to ebb as he kept going. “Once I started to stagger, Craig figured either Denny gave me too much or that this game wasn’t gonna be as fun as he thought. Denny told him the drug would make people high, make ‘em do or say stupid shit and wouldn’t last long. Denny told him it was all a lark and there were no side effects, folks would just laugh, it’d be a hoot. What he saw it did to me, Craig didn’t like so Craig says he stepped in. So no one would see me and I wouldn’t hurt myself, he says he took me upstairs and into Sherry and Sheila’s folks’ room.”
The bitterness was clear in Feb’s tone when she mumbled, “Nice of him.”
Colt gave her thighs a squeeze. “Pissed as I was this mornin’ Feb, I think he was tryin’ to do right.” She shook her head, not yet willing to believe and Colt went on. “Craig says he closed the door and later, when you asked him about me, he knew you’d take care of me so he told you where I was. Though he was a surprised when you came rocketing back down not five minutes after you went up. He knew by lookin’ at you something was not right but he couldn’t get to you to ask before you headed out.”
“I got out of there fast,” she whispered and Colt nodded.
She didn’t need to say more, they’d been there, that was done.
Earlier that night without his asking, she’d laid herself bare for him, handed him her life, her loneliness, the pain Denny had caused. After wishing for years for Feb to let him in, he found listening to her, after she cut through his anger, he didn’t want it anymore. Listening to her nearly made him come out of his skin. But he made himself listen because he knew she was offering him a gift. A gift he thought he needed but realized when she gave it to him, he didn’t want it even though it was a gift he felt honored that he received.
But they weren’t ever going there again, not ever again. No matter what happened, what fights they slid into, what she feared, he wasn’t going to throw that in her face because, no matter how she felt about herself, there was nothing to throw. He didn’t know about the lies, the betrayals, the blows he’d unwittingly landed when he didn’t make love to her. He didn’t know all that as the sickness that Denny planted years ago twisted in his gut that day. He didn’t know he should have never made her go there in the first place. It’d been tough to guide her back out. She seemed so broken he feared he might not be able to do it. He sure as fuck wasn’t going to take that chance again.
Colt lifted a hand, ran his fingers along her jaw and she twisted her neck, dipping her jaw to press against his fingers, accepting his unspoken apology or giving him her own. It didn’t matter which, both worked.
He dropped his hand back to her thigh and kept speaking. “So he went upstairs to see what was the matter,” Colt squeezed her thighs again before he said, “this is where it gets really ugly.”
She lifted her other hand to his shoulder and started massaging there too as she said gently, “Tell me.”
Colt didn’t hesitate, this was the part he needed to get through and be done with, his own hell, a hell he didn’t remember and didn’t understand but he had it all the same, a hell Denny had led him to.
“Denny was in the hall outside the door, actin’ weird. Craig wasn’t dumb to the knowledge that Denny had a thing for you, though he thought it was a crush, one that he was surprised after high school didn’t go away. He’s not a stupid guy and figured that’s why Denny targeted me with the drugs. Says he tried to confront Denny in the hall but Denny wasn’t listening to him. Denny was excited about somethin’.” Feb shook her head, a look of pain sliding into her face and settling there.
She stopped massaging his shoulders before she whispered, “Amy.”
Colt nodded his head and tried not to let the heat prickling his skin take over. “Denny said he gave Amy ‘just a little, enough to nudge her in the right direction’. Sully said those were the exact words, told me Craig said he’d never forget them. Said Denny looked like a crazy motherfucker uttering them and he knew he was when he found out Denny was playin’ his game with Amy and me. I’m learnin’ that Amy chooses her friends wrong and Denny was one of ‘em. She’d spent some time with him and Craig and, for some reason, she shared with both of them that she had a crush on me.”
The lines formed by Feb’s eyebrows and her eyes went hazy trying to call up memories as she stated, “I don’t remember them bein’ friends.”
“Me either but Craig says they were.”
Her head tilted as she fought for recall and failed. “Well, it’s not like I paid a lot of attention to them,” she muttered before she focused on him and said, “Bet Denny didn’t like hearing that from Amy.”
Colt nodded his head, agreeing before he said, “Craig said Denny opened the door and by this time the deed was done. Amy wasn’t blitzed, not like me, not according to Craig. She had enough of her shit together to pull the covers over us. Craig said she was rolled in a ball under the comforter, bawling like a baby and I was out cold.”
“Colt,” Feb whispered, squeezing his neck but Colt shook his head.
“I’m okay, baby.”
“No, you’re not.”
She spoke the truth, he wasn’t.
This shit seemed like a story to him, he didn’t remember so it felt like he wasn’t there. But the truth of the matter was, he was there, he was there and he was rendered helpless, likely acting on base instinct, God only knew, but in doing so he violated another person. The worst of it was, Amy wasn’t out of it, not like Colt. She knew what was happening to her and that knowledge cut deep and his helplessness to stop it pissed him off deeper.
Colt pulled in breath. “You’re right, I’m not.”
She licked her lips then sucked them between her teeth before asking, “You wanna go on?”
“I don’t, I won’t,” Colt answered, Feb nodded, started massag
ing his shoulders again and he continued. “Craig says Amy was hysterical. Part drunk, part high, babbling. Denny was laughing, thought it was all hilarious. Craig got pissed, pushed Denny out of the room down the hall. They had words and it hit Craig then that what Denny felt for you wasn’t healthy. He had bigger worries though, Amy. Denny took off in a huff, Craig went back to Amy. When he did, she was dressed, pulling the covers over me, still crying, sayin’ over and over again, ‘It’s all my fault, it’s all my fault.’ Craig got her out of there, in his car and drove her around until she passed out then took her home. Didn’t want her Mom and Dad to see her high. Said her father was shocked, this wasn’t somethin’ Amy would do, but he asked Craig to carry her to her room because her father wasn’t a big guy, wasn’t strong, he couldn’t do it. He says he felt like a shit because her father thanked him, even shook his hand, glad Craig had looked after his daughter. Told him he was a good friend.”
“Oh Lord,” Feb whispered, “I wonder if they thought… when Amy came up pregnant –”
“Craig wondered too,” Colt cut her off. “Said that’s when the thundercloud formed over him. You and me split, Amy got pregnant, she stopped speakin’ to him for a time, Denny was off to Northwestern scot free, leavin’ Craig here right under the bus. He kept his trap shut, hated it but did it because he thought Denny would implicate him, especially since he was in on stealing the stuff. Said Amy never said word one to him about it after and she and her parents remained friendly to him even though, on Amy’s part, it was distant.”
Feb’s eyes wandered to the wall behind him and she said, “You know, don’t think I ever saw Craig and Denny together after that.”
“You wouldn’t have. Craig said he confronted Denny one more time, said, since he felt so much for you he should at least tell you what went down so you could fix it with me but Denny told him to go fuck himself. Their friendship was over at that point but Craig never got the courage to act on his own and time goes fast, shit happens, eventually it was all too late.”