16
Farley, Wyoming
Rooster was from a small town originally, though that seemed a lifetime ago, now. After he got blown up, when he was discharged with a mountain of doctor referrals, crutches, and the kind of limp that inspired kids without filters to ask probing questions, the idea of returning home to that small town had sent him into a downward spiral of panic attacks.
He imagined all the horrors:
Bob at the hardware store shaking his hand and declaring him a hero, staunchly not looking at his crutches.
Mrs. Peterson across the street welcoming him back with a too-familiar, warm hug, her grip faltering when her hands patted across the chunks of muscle and fat that were missing, the places where the doctors have carved him up so they could piece him back together.
His old friends from school, the ones who’d never joined up or gone off to college, Ty, and Everett, and Jason, grimacing as they slapped him on the bad shoulder, flinching away when the pain made him sweat.
The church ladies bringing him casseroles that he ate straight from the dish, standing up over his dead mother’s kitchen sink, watching his dead father’s grass grow too long in the backyard because his own body was half-dead and he couldn’t even push a goddamn lawnmower.
He would have become the reclusive, skittery, broken vet who lurked behind his door when neighbors came calling, the kind of guy the kids started telling haunted house stories about. He’d known, the second he got his first real glimpse of his full-body reflection in a hospital mirror in Germany, that he would never marry or have children. No one would ever want him. But to be that brand of sad in the town where he’d grown up, where everyone shook their heads, and clucked their tongues, and pitied him…unbearable.
He could have kissed Deshawn for his invitation to come and live in Queens – he had cried a little, Deshawn gripping his good shoulder in reassurance. In New York, no one knew anything about him except that he had his back up and he walked with a noticeable limp. Deshawn and Ashley lived in a nice neighborhood full of families, but he was never pestered, never suffered any awkward questions; no one wondered why he wore long sleeves and long pants even in the summer months, or why he never came to any of the block parties. In New York, he was no one’s friend, or former employee, or ex-friend; he was just the weird white guy who lived in Deshawn and Ashley’s basement, and everyone seemed fine with that.
Even now that he could walk, now that he was once again a broad-shouldered, capable tank of a man, small towns made Rooster’s skin itch. Too many close relationships; too many curious eyes following the newcomers. The strangers. The ones who didn’t belong.
But of course, Red, deprived of any kind of normal childhood, loved little single stoplight places like Farley.
She cupped her hands around her eyes and pressed her nose to the front window of a shop crowded with colorful, western-print fabrics and mannequins wearing fringed leather jackets. “Oh,” she breathed, breath fogging the glass, that single syllable full of delight and longing. “Look at that, Roo.”
“What?” he asked, distracted, scanning the street for the tenth time.
It was evening, and after a day cooped up in the hotel room, Red had pleaded for a walk around town. He hadn’t denied her that simple pleasure, but the back of his neck was crawling. The citizens of Farley, on their way home from work and school, stopping into cafes and diners for dinner, passed some looks their way. The late, slanted sunlight caught Red’s hair in a dazzling shower of copper; people would remember her hair, and no doubt the cagey man who’d trailed along after it.
A box of hair dye hung from a drugstore bag around his wrist.
“This jacket,” she said, and then sighed. “Rooster, you’re not looking.”
He sighed too, inwardly, and turned to give her his attention. “Which jacket?”
She tapped the window and leaned back in.
The jacket she indicated was on a mannequin positioned deeper in the store, a cropped, light brown suede number with motorcycle lapels and fringe along the hem and all down the insides of the arms.
He snorted. “That gaudy Pocahontas shit?”
“It’s beautiful!” she insisted, scandalized.
“Uh-huh.” In truth, it would look cute on her, but he didn’t want to imagine the price tag.
Too late, he realized that the shop’s proprietress had spotted them and was now waving at them. Then crooking her finger and inviting them inside.
“Damn it,” he murmured.
Red turned to him, trying and failing not to look plaintive. “Can we?”
Like he could tell her no. “Sure.”
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.”