The jacket fit like a dream, and Red made it work. Over her plain white t-shirt, jeans, and boots, paired with her brilliant hair, she looked like one of those candid celebrity-on-the-street photos in the gossip magazines, making something throwback look chic.
“It’s perfect on you,” the shop owner said, clapping her hands, beaming like she knew she’d just made a sale.
Rooster jammed his hands in his pockets and thought about the credit card that was working through some sort of miracle, and the cash that wasn’t going to last through the next week.
Red stood in front of the shop’s three-way mirror, arms held out to the side, turning this way and that, watching the fringe on her sleeves flutter. Rooster could see his own reflection, too, tight-jawed and closed-off, looming behind her, looking like a creep, or a kidnapper, or the world’s sulkiest big brother.
Jesus.
He wished, like he so often did, that life was different, because Red deserved things. This jacket, sure, but also a stable home. Parents. A chance to go to school. Friday nights of underage drinking and kissing boys and laughing with other girls her age. Mondays in the hallowed halls of some ivy league college, studying to become something important; something that made good use of her smarts and her passion.
The kid deserved a future, and all he could give her was one long, drawn-out escape plan.
“…Sir?” The proprietress was talking to him.
He shook off his thoughts and tried not to glower at the woman. “Yeah?”
“I was just telling your daughter that this particular jacket has been marked down.”
“Daughter?” He choked on the word.
“Oh, um.” The woman blushed. “Your…um, I was…The jacket’s on sale,” she pressed on. Determined – he’d give her that.
In the mirror, Red bit her lip like she was trying not to laugh.
“Marked down by how much?” he snapped.
“It’s one-twenty–”
“I’ll give you one-hundred flat for it,” he said, deadpan. “Take it or leave it.”
Red spun to face him, green eyes wide. “Oh no, we can’t. You shouldn’t–”
“Take it or leave it,” he repeated.
“Yes, sir,” the shopkeeper said, frightened and smiling. “I think I can make that work.” She went to collect the jacket from Red and bustled to the counter to ring it up.
Red stared at him, little worried notch between her brows. “Rooster, we can’t,” she whispered.
“Let me worry about that.”
She stepped in close, finding one of his hands and pulling it between both of hers. “Please don’t.”
“Too late.”
She bit her lip again, fretting. “It’s just a jacket.”
“You ought to have things you want. And not just stuff you need.”
She blinked hard and looked away, chest heaving as she took a deep breath. “Thank you.”
She wore it out of the store, as they walked across a street made gold by the last fingers of setting sun and grabbed dinner at a tiny, hole-in-the-wall taco joint with painted iron tables set out on a cracked concrete patio. Colored Christmas lights came on when the sun was fully down, casting a warm, festive glow over their baskets of pork and beef and fish tacos, all of it glistening with grease, redolent with fresh lime juice. Cheap and delicious.
“Hey,” he said, when he’d eaten his fill and Red was playing with the straw in her Coke. “Do I really look old enough to be your dad?”
Her brows lifted, small smile gracing her lips. “I didn’t think you were the sort of person who got self-conscious about things.”
“I’m just asking.”
She pretended to scrutinize him, gaze narrowing. “Hmm. I think you look…mature.”
“Aw, come on.”
She laughed. “I didn’t mean it like you looked old. Just. You know. Responsible.”
“Like somebody’s dad,” he grumbled. “Got it.”
“But also scary,” she went on. “Like a big, scary, muscly Viking guy who could kick everybody’s ass. And responsible.”
He felt a smile of his own threatening. “So, like, a Viking dad.”
“Ugh.” She rolled her eyes. “You don’t look like a dad. Especially not my dad. That would be weird.”
He said, “Would it?” and wasn’t sure why. It just slipped out, one of those impulsive, dangerous questions better off not asked.
This happened, sometimes. More often now than it used to. These little…hiccups. They were close – how many nights did they fall asleep curled together on the same hotel bed? – and they loved one another, that selfless, unspoken love as certain as breathing, as sure as the sun rising every morning. It was something he knew; something they both did, unquestioned and untroubling.
But there were moments, like these, when a question took a certain stuttering step; when a normal, familiar touch felt like the prickling of ice. When he would notice her watching him, through a mirror or from the corner of her eye. When he caught himself watching her. And for those moments, the world would tilt, just a fraction, and all the things he thought he understood about their relationship tilted, too, until he was afraid something might spill out. Something might crack. Something might change in a terrifying, irrevocable way that he wasn’t willing to acknowledge, not even in his imagination.
Red smoothed her hands down her thighs a few times, jacket fringe swaying. “Yeah,” she said, missing casual, her shrug more of a wince. “It…yeah.”
Rooster cleared his throat, determined to bulldoze his way past the moment. “So, a Viking?” He managed a grin. “Maybe I oughta cut my hair.” He ran a hand through it, as always surprised by how long it was getting. He could have borrowed one of her elastics and pulled it back into a man-bun. Geez.
The joke didn’t land, though. She stared at him, expression almost…wistful. The sweet, guileless wistfulness of a girl who hadn’t gotten the chance to have the things she wanted. “No, don’t. It looks good like that.”
“Yeah?” His voice came out shaky. Vulnerable in a way he didn’t want it to.
She smiled, soft and…and, well, beautiful. He didn’t want to think that, but it was true. “Yeah. I like it.”
He glanced down at the table, flicked the paper that lined his now-empty taco basket. “Alright,” he murmured, not liking the way his chest felt. The warmth there. The strange tightness.
He cleared his throat again. “Come on. Let’s go.”
17
Rooster had become a pro at locking down extraneous thoughts while he was awake. If it wasn’t protect, procure, or plan, it had no place in his brain.
But he couldn’t guard his dreams, and scenarios – fantasies, he guessed; mostly nightmares – drifted up to the surface of his consciousness when he slept. No matter how he tried to shield himself, the dark corners of his mind were something against which he couldn’t defend.
It was getting worse.
More frequent.
Like tonight. They watched old Friends reruns while Red sat on the end of the bed and Rooster carefully combed the black dye into her hair. No matter the city, no matter the TV station selection, Friends had always been a constant, and Red knew the dialogue by heart; she laughed before each joke was delivered, parroted the lines she liked best. And something small, and fragile, and better left unexamined inside him fractured as the vibrant red of her hair disappeared under foam and shadow.
She rinsed the dye – he heard her quiet sigh as she glanced at her reflection in the bathroom mirror – and they climbed into their separate beds.
“Night.”
“Night.”
Like always. Click of the light switch, enfolding darkness.
Rooster wasn’t sleepy, strung tight with nerves, too aware of her quiet breathing on the other side of the room. He shut his eyes and concentrated on his own breathing, slowing it, forcing regular, deep inhalations. It would pass, he knew, whatever it was that nagged at him. In the morning things would be back to normal, and he wouldn’t feel guilty for things he hadn’t done, hadn’t even thought.
Your daughter.
He didn’t want to think of her like that. For other people to think it.
That was wrong of him. But…