Page 69

Shane’s hands were shaking and it wasn’t all about Laney. He’d left his supply at Jenna’s and hadn’t taken anything since the acid the night before, which was all fun and no business. Normally he’d have taken some codeine, maybe an oxy or at least some valium by this point in the day.

But there had been no answer at Cody’s house, and Shane wasn’t willing to leave to try to find him. Not until Jerry got home, and he knew what was going on.

He paced the gravel drive of the scrap yard, chain smoking Jerry’s good hash and waiting for the sound of crunching tires pulling in.

He was a mess.

That guy – Nick – had wrapped his hands around Laney’s waist like… like… like he’s seen her naked. Dustin’s voice was on repeat in his head, scratching at his mind.

She lets him see her naked.

She lets him see her naked.

She lets him see her naked.

It was an evil hymn, a cursed mantra, slowly unwinding his sanity.

All he’d wanted to do was protect her. Keep her young a little longer, keep her… clean. Away from the darkness that had plagued him his entire life, away from the black cloud that followed him everywhere he went, infecting everyone he’d ever loved.

And she’d gone and found herself someone else. Someone worse.

The last place on earth he’d expected to bump into her was an illegal warehouse rave in a shitty part of the city, dressed like her mom, high as a kite, and wrapped around a guy with at least a decade on her.

If it wasn’t such a huge risk to Laney, Shane would have phoned Cary himself to make sure there were no misunderstandings. Make sure Nick’s dickless, disemboweled corpse found its way into a hole so deep it’d strike oil.

Instead, he paced.

His head snapped up when he heard a car coming. He sucked back his joint, the embers burning his lips, and tossed it haphazardly into the bush, charging the gate to meet Jerry.

But it was Cody, in his beat-up Ford Taurus.

Shane interlocked his fingers behind his head and squatted, bouncing on the balls of his feet, so full of anxious energy he didn’t know what to do with himself. As he stood back up, Cody got out of the car, walked straight up to him, and punched him in the nose.

“WHAT THE HELL?” Shane shouted, blood streaming down his upper lip, as he stumbled backward and tripped over the retaining wall he’d fixed for the damn perennial garden.

Cody reached out a hand to help him up.

“What is wrong with you?” Shane asked, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand, blood staining the gauze wrapped around his knuckles.

“What is wrong with you?” Cody asked, kicking him lightly in the shin.

“Ow,” Shane mumbled.

“You just left her there? By herself?”

“She wasn’t by herself, Dustin was home,” he said, pulling off his t-shirt to staunch the blood.

“Who’s Dustin?”

“Her brother… wait… who are you talking about?”

“I’m talking about Jenna, ass wipe. You left her and Laura at the rave last night.”

Shane froze. “Oh…” He literally hadn’t thought about her once since he’d gotten into that cab with Laney.

“ Yeah, you fucking turd.”

“Is she… okay?”

“She’s fine,” Cody huffed, shaking his hand a little. “Jesus, you have a hard head.”

Shane gestured to his nose, gushing blood. Cody sighed and sat down on the retaining wall. He tossed Shane a black film cannister that rattled.

“To make up for it,” Cody said.

Shane popped it open with his thumb and awkwardly swallowed what looked like some T3s.

“Thanks,” he said.

“Look man, I get it, okay? That blonde, from the new year party? She looks like Kate Moss and Karen Mulder had a threesome with Brad Pitt. But Jenna is good shit. She didn’t deserve that. She’s heartbroken.”

Shane pulled the t-shirt away from his face, saw that he was still bleeding and put it back to his nose.

“I shouldn’t have left her. I’m a dick, I admit it. But I think you’re being a bit dramatic about the heartbreak, Cody. We fuck. That’s it.”

Cody laughed. “Must be nice to look like you. To think all women just act like that. She loves you, dude. Like, gross running mascara, annoying hiccups, best friend brushing her hair loves you.”

Shane blinked. “She never said anything…”

“What’s she going to say?” Cody leaned back against the azalea bush. “Hey, Shane, so I know that you barely notice that I exist except when my mouth is wrapped around your cock, but I was thinking maybe you’d like to father my children?”

“Fuck off,” Shane said, spitting out some blood. “Jenna’s… no strings. It’s never been anything else. She’s never asked me for anything else...”

“You’re dumb, brother. That chick would do anything for you.”

Shane looked at him and cocked his head, a mannerism he’d picked up from Laney.

“You like her, don’t you?” Shane asked.

“Doesn’t matter,” Cody said, sitting back up. “She’d never touch me. Not with you in the picture.”

“Well, I’m not in the picture,” Shane said firmly. “I never really was.”

“You’re a cold bastard, you know that?” Cody said, shaking his head. “You’re just gonna walk away? Just like that? Like she was nothing?”

Shane steeled himself. “Cody… she is nothing. I get that you’re never supposed to say this shit out loud. I get that you’re supposed to pretend that every girl you bag more than once means something. But she doesn’t. I didn’t want to hurt her feelings. And I didn’t think I was, which is why I stuck around. But to me, there’s only one girl. Okay? One. She’s it. The rest of them…” He sighed. “I don’t even see them. I don’t see their faces. Don’t hear them when they talk. Laney is it, for me.”

“But you’re not with her, either.”

“It’s… complicated.”

“It always is with you, isn’t it?”

Shane smiled at his friend. “Look, Cody… when she’s up for it? Make a move. It doesn’t matter to me.”

“Can I tell her it does?” Cody asked, a faint blush creeping up his neck. “Can I tell her you’re, like, mad? That you’re jealous, or some shit?”

“Sure,” Shane said. “Whatever you want. I owe you one, okay? Thanks for checking on her.”

“Are you going to call her?”

Shane shook his head. “No.”

Cody whistled. “Stone fucking cold, man. Really.”

Shane just shrugged, feeling exhausted. “Thanks for the pick-me-up,” he said, rattling the cannister.

Cody hopped back into his Taurus and honked twice on the way out.

By 4:00, Shane was losing his mind.

Jerry should have been back a long time ago, and Shane had half a mind to drive to Laney’s, despite swearing on Jerry’s 1967 GTO that he’d stay put.

Fuck you, Jerry. Where are you? You could have at least phoned…

He was about to kick at the retaining wall when he heard the telltale rumble of Jerry’s truck, the crunch of tires on gravel, and saw him come over the hill and down the laneway.

Laney was out the door while the car was still moving, throwing herself into Shane’s arms and burying her face in his fresh shirt.

“Hi,” he whispered in her ear, breathing in her scent.

“Hi,” she whispered against his chest.

Two doors slammed shut, and Shane looked up to see Dustin walking towards them, his backpack slung over his right shoulder, and Jerry leaning against the hood, looking as worn out as he’d ever seen him.

“What are they doing here?” he asked Jerry, shifting so that Laney was tucked under his arm, her face sinking into the crook of his shoulder.

“I done fixed this mess for you, boy,” Jerry said grumpily, pulling out a stogie and lighting it, the comforting smell wafting over and mixing with his other favourite smell in the whole world – Laney.

“What do you mean you fixed this mess?”

“Little Laney an’ the boy are gonna come here every day, after school.”

“Don’t call me that,” she mumbled.

“Laney is gonna help me with my paperwork. Lord knows neither o’ us are any good at it. An’ Dusty’s gonna do his homework. We’ll drive them home every day after dinner.”

Shane was floored. “How did you swing this, Jerry?” he asked, concerned.

Jerry waved a hand. “It all been cleared by Cary. Laney works here, now. I’mma pick them kids up after school and bring them here, and deliver ‘em to the house by 8:00pm sharp every day.”

This can’t be real. This can’t be happening.

“Jerry… Cary knows I work here. He knows I live here! Why is he allowing this?”

“Because Cary trusts me,” Jerry said, “an’ knows I’ll be watchin’ ya. You two get inside,” he nodded at Laney and Dustin, “I need a minute with Shane.”

Laney reluctantly peeled herself from his chest, frowning at his nose and reaching up to touch him but Shane caught her hand and pushed her towards the house.

“Later,” he said to her.

She nodded, took Dustin’s hand, and led him inside.

Jerry passed Shane the stogie and he took a puff, coughing a little, before handing it back.

“Now you listen to me, Shane Mathers,” Jerry rumbled, his voice low and serious. “It wasn’t no easy thing, convincin’ Cary to let me bring her here. Even if I really do need the help with my paperwork.”

“How did this happen? How did you pull this off? Is Nick… What's going on?!”

“I told Cary that Linette been dippin’ into the kids’ money for bills. Which is true. An’ I told him I been needin’ a hand. That maybe I could keep an eye, take care of dinner and the like instead of Cary leavin' money for them, less cash in Linette’s pocket. He can’t stand Linette, it was the only angle I could think that might help get Laney outta that house, make things a bit easier on you two…”

“Why was Cary at Nick’s? Does he know, about him and Laney?”

“He was there for unrelated reasons, and no, Cary don’t know. John, his number two, has some suspicions. Oddly enough, he figured you was the one who’d be keepin’ Nick in line.” Jerry levelled him with a hard stare.

Jerry hadn’t supported Shane’s cold-turkey Laney blackout. Said it was cruel, to all of them. That Shane was just torturing himself for no good reason, and depriving the kids of someone who loved them.

Shane had thrown a really nice bottle of scotch into the wall, brown liquid seeping down onto the tile.

“I can’t control myself with her, Jerry!” he’d shouted. “I can’t do it. I wish I’d never met her!”

Jerry had tutted at him, a look of pity on his face.

“You two are inevitable, boy. Maybe you stop trying to figure out how to live without her and start tryin’ to figure out how to live with her.”

“What about ‘ time never hurt nobody’,” Shane had said in a mocking voice.

“Can’t fight fate, kid,” Jerry had replied, reaching for a tea towel to sop up the scotch on the wall and floor. “An’ this is comin’ out of your paycheck. That was a two-hundred-dollar bottle of brew.”

Shane dragged his thoughts back to the present and flushed under the weight of Jerry’s stare, cigar smoke billowing out of his mouth and around his face. “I thought I was doing the right thing at the time, Jerry. You know I did.”

“I said it then and I’ll say it now, you can’t fight fate.” Jerry sighed, the wrinkles around his eyes deeper than ever. “You met the right girl, at the wrong time. Fate’s a cruel mistress, Shane, and she seems to have it in for you. So I’m warning you, boy…” Jerry stepped right up to him, chest to chest. “I swear to God if you get that girl pregnant under my roof, there’s no savin’ any of us. You hear me?”

Shane nodded.

Jerry put his hand under Shane’s chin and tipped his face upwards, looking at his nose.

“Don’ look broke to me, but that’s gonna hurt like a bitch for a week.”

Shane raised his wrapped fist. “I’m used to pain.”

Jerry’s eyes drifted toward the house, Laney and Dustin unpacking their school things at the kitchen table, visible from the window.

“I know, kid. I know.”