I hadn’t seen Maxfield since spring break, when he came home with a girlfriend for the first time. I gave him shit about settling down to one girl, but he was so seriously fucking happy it made me realize just how unhappy he’d been before her. I’d hardly ever seen the dude smile in all the years I’d known him. From the beginning, I’d figured him as one of those unstable emo types. His mood was either grim and quiet or violent and homicidal—nothing in between.
We had never spoken about what had fucked him up so bad, but he’d come here in middle school carrying some heavy shit. I’d made it worse for a while, but I liked to think I’d atoned for the dick I’d been at first—in my own way, of course. Not like I gave him candy and flowers.
He’d introduced me to his girl, Jacqueline, as his best friend from high school.
“Ah, so you’re the one responsible for all those tattoos and this?” she’d asked, reaching up to tap a finger on the ring through his lip. That thing still made me shudder to look at it. I’d had to leave the room when he got it done because once Arianna pulled out that wicked curved needle, I knew I was either going to pass out or puke.
“Yeah, that’d all be my fault. Sorry.” I’d only suggested the tattoos on his wrists. The rest of that shit was all him, but I wasn’t gonna rat him out.
Then she threw her arms around me and said, “Thank you,” while he stood there with a smartass grin on his face.
I had no fucking idea what to make of any of it, so I hugged her back until he said, “All right, that’s enough appreciation,” and pulled her back to his side. I laughed because I’d never seen him get territorial over anything but that old truck of his. It was about damned time he got to feeling that way over a girl who felt the same way about him.
Even to Maxfield, I’d never confided anything about what was between Pearl and me, but he had come close to guessing when I asked him about her last fall. They went to the same college, and I hadn’t seen or heard from her since I’d told her I thought her boyfriend was a prick. I’d always told her the truth when she asked for it, but that didn’t mean I wanted to hurt her or push her away.
When Maxfield asked about our relationship, saying, “One of these days, you’re gonna have to tell me,” I’d changed the subject.
Now they’d both graduated and he was home for a spell, visiting his dad before heading to Ohio to work. Ohio. Right there was proof of why five-year plans are bullshit. If anyone had told me five years ago that Maxfield would move to Ohio and Pearl would move back home, I’d have said they were high.
We met at the Saloon. “Shit, man—no facial ornaments and I can see your ears,” I said. “Have I ever seen your damned ears? I’m not sure. You look almost respectable.”
“Says the guy who owns his own business.” He knew better than to express sympathy for my loss. He’d known my dad better than any of my friends except the Thompson kids, who’d lived across the street and got eyefuls of his drunk-ass shit on a regular basis.
“Yeah—about that…” I slammed my first shot.
He sat forward, frowning. “What’s up?”
“A buncha shit, so let me get it all out first.” When he nodded I said, “First, my parents weren’t divorced. Long story short—I own nothing. The trailer, the money and the garage—all hers.”
“Shit,” he said.
“Second, Pearl moved in with me.” His eyes popped wide and I could see the questions forming, but I held up a hand and he shifted in his seat, silent. “She decided not to go to med school. She’s staying here to study marine biology instead, and her mom was none too happy.”
“Jesus—they kicked her out?”
I nodded. “More or less.”
“So you gave her a place to live.”
“Everything was fine until my mom came back to town last week and moved into the trailer. Now I’m sleeping on the fucking sofa, Pearl and me are sharing my closet, and all three of us are sharing one bathroom and one thousand square feet of space.”
“What the hell, Wynn? You’ve been working there since I’ve known you and running the whole place for what, two years? All that time under the justified belief that you’d inherit it… and now you’re working for your mom?”
“Yes and no. I assumed the garage would be mine, and I was dead fucking wrong. It is what it is, and I can’t change it. That said, I don’t intend to stick around long-term to get dicked over by another parent. But Pearl needs a place to live, here, until mid-August. She has to spend the first two semesters in Austin, so she’s working at the inn to save for a deposit and rent on a nine-month lease there.”
“That I think I can help with. Hang on.” Maxfield pulled his phone out of his pocket and dialed. “Hey, Cindy … Yeah, everything’s great. Listen—a friend of mine from high school—my class valedictorian? She’s starting the graduate program in marine biology here, and they spend the first year on the main campus there. She needs somewhere safe and cheap to live. Do you think—”
He broke off and I held my breath.
“Yes. Exactly.” He nodded to me, one thumb up. “Great. Let me know and I’ll have her call you. Her name’s Pearl Frank … Thanks, Cindy. Bye.” He hung up and grinned. “She’s checking with Charles, but that’s a formality. I lived in the apartment over their garage for four years—just vacated it two days ago. It’s quiet, private, cheap, and close to campus. She’ll love it.”
“Goddamn, Maxfield. I don’t know what to say.”
“Pearl was my friend too—I wouldn’t have made it through high school without her help. So… how about you tell me what’s really going on? I know she was a challenge for you in high school—the one girl you wanted who wouldn’t give you the time of day—”
“That’s not exactly true.”
He lifted a brow.
So I spilled it. Not all of it, because some things are meant to be private. But I told him about the day I saved her life and how she saved mine by being the one perfect thing in my nearly twenty-three years, and I admitted that she’d ruined me for any other woman the summer before she left for college.
“Wynn—she’s living with you. Have you told her how you feel? What you want?”
Not unless taking her to my bed counts. “I’ve got nothing to offer her. Not now.”
He sat back and rolled the bottle back and forth in his hands, stabbing me with the icy look that’d scared people shitless in high school. Came in handy when the two of us were collecting overdue weed payments for Rick Thompson. I was grateful on more than one occasion that I’d made a friend of him because he’d had a side of crazy even I wouldn’t go to. People saw my wrath coming if I was gunning for ’em. Maxfield’s just fucking exploded out of nowhere.
“Whatever happened to I’m Boyce Fucking Wynn?” he asked. “That guy wouldn’t let anything get between him and something he wanted this bad.”
I barked a laugh. Ah, damn. Boyce Fucking Wynn. My high school motto. “I’m not that idiot anymore, man.”