Held A New Adult Romance(29)

The next thing I know I see her thin, dark figure running into the garage. She opens the door of a black Escalade. Cory reaches for the alarm, but I jump in front of him. "Dude, what are you doing?"

"She's leaving."

"So?"

"She's not supposed to fucking leave, dumbass."

I don't move. "No," I say. "She can leave. She told me she could leave."

"And you believed her?"

I watch as the Escalade pulls out of the garage. "Nobody told me otherwise," I say. I can already hear it approach the gatehouse.

"Jimmy, move your ass. You know she can't go out there."

"Why?" She's nearly on us. My instincts are torn in two. On one hand I want to do my job, but on the other hand I'm rooting for her to run. The new camera shook me up but this? This is flat out scary. The Escalade is at the gate and I'm standing right next to the console that will open the gate. She leans heavily on the horn, a loud, angry blaaaaaat sound that speaks more of impatience than desperation. And maybe that's why I do what I do. I hit the console button. The gate opens.

She drives through, off onto Laurel.

"Holy shit, man," says Cory. "The fuck did you just do?"

"She wanted out. I let her out." That was all, right? I know it's not all, but if I tell myself it should be that simple then maybe it will be.

Cory has gone a weird gray color. "You're dead," he says. "Jimmy, you idiot."

"I don't understand. She said she could come and go as she pleased."

"Yeah - in theory," says Cory. "What the fuck is the matter with you? Get after her. Bring her back." He grabs the keys to the security vehicle and tosses them to me.

"Just like that?"

He practically shoves me out of the door. "Yes, just like that," he says, his voice rising in panic. "Get out there now, before they realize she's out. They'll eat her alive."





Chapter Ten




Amber



My Dad never got Thanksgiving. He managed to go native when it came to the Fourth of July - "Good riddance to bad colonies," - but Thanksgiving passed him by. Christmas was the time for turkey. "You don't need another holiday," he'd say. "Three months of stuffing your face with sugar - Halloween, Thanksgiving and then Christmas? It's no wonder you're all so fucking fat."

I was always kind of relieved that his accent made everyone think he was being funny, when in fact he was serious, at least about the fat thing. He'd never quite got over his early career as a tubby English character actor, before he lost the weight and got his big break playing a bad guy. The mere mention of Thanksgiving food could turn him queasy.

Everglade hadn't done much better. The closest she'd ever come to a real Thanksgiving was one year when Kiersten was fresh out of rehab and determined to make it a 'real family affair'.

"Her idea of a 'real family affair' was like something out of Sophocles," said Everglade. "Oedipus Rex meets Martha Stewart. She had a fucking frilled apron on and everything. Then it all went to shit when Grandpa said she'd oversalted the green bean casserole and she started screaming about how he'd belittled her at every turn when she was growing up, and was it any fucking wonder she had validation issues?"

"Holy shit."

"Yeah, it was pretty magical," she said, leveling out the pumpkin pie filling. "Turned out rehab had told her to be 'free with her feelings', like my mother ever needed any encouragement in that direction. Fastest relapse ever. Why the hell would you tell an already emotionally-incontinent attention-whore to let it all hang out, for fuck's sake?"

She stood back from her handiwork, hands on her hips. We'd gone all out - consulting cookbooks and recipe websites. We were determined that year that we'd have a real, all-American Thanksgiving dinner, like the ones we'd never had when we were children. "Not bad," she said. "For a kid who was practically raised by grunge wolves."

"It's perfect. Ina Garten eat your heart out."

Everglade pulled a face. A week of watching food channels had turned her into an expert. "Yeah, if you wanna talk sodium intake," she said. "There hasn't been that much salt in one place since Lot's wife took a peek at a goddamn pride parade. Now, did you blanch the beans?"

We'd made hand turkeys and table decorations, and all the sugary food that made my Dad so sick - sweet potatoes with marshmallows, canned cranberries and his worst horror of all - Jell-O salad. (Everglade pointed out he had no business freaking, considering he came from a country where people actually ate a thing called Spotted Dick.) We wrangled a monstrous turkey into the oven and watched neurotically through the glass door, squealing and hugging each other in triumph as it slowly began to resemble the varnished brown birds in the cookery books.