Josh

 

 

Raw looks at me sideways, a toothpick in the corner of his mouth and the winter sun shining bright in his blond hair. “You’re looking thin, brother.”

“I know.”

“Harley got you eatin’ anything yet?”

“She made lasagna last night.” I squint into the shadows, scanning the park for our buyer. I’m relieved that the bruise around my eye aches a little less than normal. My body is on the mend, in more ways than one. “It was burned but it was still good. I ate a whole plate of it.”

“She seems like she’s doin’ okay. I’ve seen her working behind the bar and she’s all business as usual.”

“Yeah, she’s alright,” I mutter vaguely.

The truth is, I’m not sure how she’s doing. Harlow doesn’t handle emotions very well and this one, losing Pops, is a big one. An ugly one. I’ve asked her if she’s okay, if she wants to talk, but she always turns it around until we’re talking about me and how I feel. What I need. She’s avoiding it and I don’t know if that’s a good thing for her or not. I’m in uncharted water here and my captain is gone. Lost in the current that floated him away without warning, way before I was ready.

“She’s a tough one,” Raw comments.

“With her dad, she had to be.”

“That son of a bitch,” he snarls. “I’d love a shot at him.”

“You and me both, brother.”

“Sometimes I look at Ava and I think about what Harlow’s old man did to her with the closets and shit, and I get so fuckin’ mad I can hardly see straight. I can’t understand doing that to your daughter.”

“I’ve had dreams of all the things I’d do to him if Harlow took the leash off.”

“Oh yeah?” he asks interestedly. “What you got?”

“Something special I’m working on. It’s not ready yet, but hopefully soon.” I nod to the west where a guy in a red hoodie is headed toward us. “That’s our man.”

The dude is built. A wide body on squat legs that probably make him a powerhouse of a defensive lineman, and I know that’s what he is the second I see the Winslow Football logo on the right breast of his hoodie. He pushes back the hood to nod to Raw and I, and I have a weird sense of déjà vu. I don’t know who he is but I know him. I just can’t think of how. And I can’t think of why the sight of him pisses me off so damn much.

“What up?” he says, stopping a few feet from us.

His voice makes the déjà vu even worse, sending the hair on my arms standing straight up.

Raw nods to him. “‘Sup, man. You Teddy?”

“Yeah. You got the shit?”

“Shake my hand and find out.”

Raw moves in close to shake hands with the guy. He comes away with a fistful of wrinkled dollar bills.

I keep my hands in my pockets. My fingers wrapped around the handle of my gun.

I don’t like this guy. I can’t put my finger on what it is, but from the second I saw him, I’ve had a bad feeling in my gut. It only gets worse as Raw goes to shake his hand again, handing off the little bag of blue pills.

Teddy grins as their palms meet. He has a mouth full of pearly white teeth, each of them perfectly in a row.

All but one – his front top tooth is chipped nearly in half.

Adrenaline floods my system, making my hands shake slightly.

“How’s Bryan?” I ask him clearly.

Teddy freezes, his hand still in Raw’s. He scowls at me angrily. “What do you care?”

“Just curious. He playing ball this year?”

“Fuck you.”

“I’ll take that as a no.”

“Whatever,” he mutters angrily. “Thanks for the shit.”

Teddy releases Raw to turn on his heel, in a hurry to leave us behind.

Raw looks at me questioningly.

“That’s the other guy,” I tell him clearly so Teddy can hear me. “The one who robbed me with Bryan in September. I broke that tooth of his with the back of my head.”

Teddy quickens his step, nearly jogging away from us.

“Your beef, your call,” Raw reminds me severely.

I take my hand off the gun, flexing my fingers. My body is still a mess of bruises and agony at times from the beating Devo gave me, but my hands are solid. I didn’t raise them to defend myself because I deserved what I got from him. But what Teddy and Bryan did, that was some bullshit. Two against one is an unfair fight – a lesson Teddy’s about to learn.

I grin at Raw excitedly. “Let’s kick his ass.”

 

***

 

When I get home, my hands throbbing and my head screaming from a hit I took to the temple, Harlow isn’t there. I’m surprised but not worried. She said she had some errands to run after work. Maybe she’s at the bank or the grocery store. I assume she’ll be home soon.

But two hours later when she hasn’t showed and hasn’t called, I start to freak a little. I call her cell, but she doesn’t answer. I call The Three to see if she’s still there but Vanessa says she left hours ago. It’s starting to get dark and my worry is turning quickly to fear. It’s a move I wish I didn’t have to make, but when I’ve exhausted every other option, I do what I have to do – I call Devo.

“Yeah?” he answers brusquely.

“Hey, man. I’m looking for Harlow. Have you seen her?”

“Yeah.”

I wait for him to elaborate.

He doesn’t.

“When did you see her?” I push.

“Couple hours ago.”

“Where?”

“At the bar. Out back. She was crying over a keychain.”

“Fuck,” I whisper, my body deflating. “Did you talk to her?”

“Nope. Harley and I don’t really talk. You know?”

“Yeah. I know. But she’s not answering her phone and she hasn’t called.”

“Oh no,” he moans dully. “Call the cops.”

“I’m being serious, man.”

“Look, sometimes she disappears. It’s just what she does. She gets freaked out by something or she gets bored or who the hell knows, but she always comes back. You know that better than anybody, right? Sometimes it takes years and maybe she’ll be with another dude when you find her, but you’re patient. You’ll get her back, buddy. Don’t worry about it.”

“Good talkin’ to you, Devo,” I grind out through gritted teeth.

“Whatever, Strat.”

He hangs up on me before I can hang up on him. It’s a little thing but it still pisses me off.

As far as I can tell from what Devo and Vanessa told me, Devo was the last one to see Harlow. And when he saw her, she was crying. Crying over the keychain Pops and I gave her for her birthday.

Sounds like Pops’ death finally caught up to her. And she’s alone.

I’m more afraid now than I was before I talked to Devo because before I wondered if she was in trouble. Now I know she is.

I hurry out of the house, taking off at a jog through town heading north. I’ll go to The Three and make my way back into town from there, looking for her. Odds are I’ll find her in a diner staring into a cup of coffee the way she used to do when she was sixteen and couldn’t stand to be in her dad’s house. But when I pass the diner with its long strands of green and red Christmas lights strung across the floor to ceiling windows, she’s nowhere to be seen inside.

My anxiety goes from a nine straight up to an eleven.

It hurts to run. Not as much as it would have a week ago when Devo’s beating was fresh, but it’s still not great. My muscles are angry, reluctant, but my will is interminable. I swore my life to protecting Harlow when I was just a kid and I refuse to fail her now.

When I come up on the Opal Bridge, I slow to a walk, catching my breath. The Three is starting to glow in the dusk falling over the desert. I can hear music coming from inside its walls. Happy Hour is just beginning, the mill workers popping in for a drink before heading home to go to bed, to get up to go to work; the endless cycle of a wheel that keeps turning and grinding until they’re dead. Dust crushed into the earth. Sand soaring on the wind.

I put my hands on the rough cement wall that runs along the bridge, looking down into the dark waters rushing below. I stare into them, picturing Pops. Naked. Confused. Alone. What the fuck was he doing out here? He walked farther than I just jogged to get here, and for what? Why?

It’s a question that will never have an answer. The only person who could answer it is Pops, and whether I can stomach it or not, he’s gone.

I nearly collapse with relief when I spot Harlow on the bank along the river. She’s standing with her bare feet in the water up to her shins as it threatens to swipe her legs out from under her and take her away on its cold current.

“Harlow!” I shout down to her.

She doesn’t move.

I curse as I run to the end of the bridge before jumping over the barrier down into the brambles below. I have to tread through their thick vines like I’m swimming upstream, but finally I’m free. I’m on the slick, muddy bank that slides down into the water. It’s steep and treacherous, but I ride my feet and ass down it like I’m skiing on a slope that deposits me right behind her.

“Harlow!”

She turns to look at me this time. Her face is pale but her eyes are clear and bright, scrubbed to a startling shine by the tears that race down her flushed cheeks.

“Josh,” she whimpers.

I step into the water, holding out my hand to her. “Come here. Take my hand.”

“He’s gone. Pops is gone.”

“I know, baby. I know it. And I know it hurts, but we’re gonna be okay. We just have to come out of the water.”

I’m relieved when she holds out her hand to me, her fingers trembling violently. That water must be ice cold around her feet and only God knows how long she’s been standing in it.

Once her hand is in mine, I yank her back from the water. She falls against my chest, her body going slack as she sobs quietly. I run my hand up and down her back, my other hand caressing her hair gently as I coo in her ear over and over again, reassuring both of us:

“It’s okay. It’s okay.”

“I wanted to say goodbye,” she cries. “I never got to say goodbye.”

“I know.”

“I just wanted to be close to him again. One last time.”

“He’s not here, ‘Low. He’s gone.”

“He was alone.”

Tears sting my eyes, my throat closing tight. “I know,” I choke. “He deserved so much better than that.”

She hiccups, her fingers tangling in the front of my shirt. “I’m so sorry.”

“What would you be sorry for?”

“I wanted to be strong for you.”

“Fuck, Harlow, no,” I whisper in her ear, holding her tightly to me. I cradle her in my arms, press her to my chest, and silently beg her to stop shaking. “You don’t have to be strong for me, baby.”

“He-he was your grandpa and I didn’t—”

“He was ours,” I interrupt firmly. “He was our father, yours and mine. We both lost him and we should both mourn him, together.”

“I can’t… I just can’t…”

“Shhh. No. You don’t have to tell me how you feel because I already know. I feel it too.” I kiss the top of her head, breathing in the warm scent of her skin. “You’re not alone.”

She sobs in the back of her throat and I know I’ve hit a nerve. A big part of her fear. As much as Harlow has always been afraid to be loved, she’s wanted it more desperately than anything else in the world. She’s afraid to be alone. Afraid that her dad was right about her, that no one will ever be able to love her. But that man didn’t know shit. He didn’t understand the depths of my heart that beats only for her. Whether she was with him or me or Devo, I loved her, and that love will follow her through this world and the next. I’ll wrap her in it every night and wake her with it every morning for the rest of my life until she understands that it’s unfailing. Unfaltering.

Until she feels it in the breath in her body and the blood in her veins, always whispering, always promising, that she’ll never be alone.