I did what I had to do for my family. I always would. I couldn’t stand by and let a thing like money threaten my mother’s recovery.
A man couldn’t be a man if he wasn’t willing to sacrifice, to fuck shit up in the name of keeping his family safe.
Soon, I got to the campground with plenty of time and sat down on my usual picnic table to strip off my shoes and socks. The sun felt good on my face as I leaned back and waited for the black cars to suddenly show up with their gangsters and their drugs.
As I sat there, river water dripping from my clothes, I remembered the walk back to our house with Becca. After an hour of just lying there, we stood up and dressed, heading back slowly toward the house.
I had wanted to tell her everything. I’d wanted to tell her what she made me feel when she walked into the room, how my dick stirred almost every time she came near, how hungry I was for her body. I wanted to take her again then and there, over and over, until she walked crooked and I could barely breathe. I was starving for her in a way I had never experienced before, and getting a taste of her pussy had only made it worse.
With so many women before her, one night had been enough. One night and I was tired of the boring, vapid girls that kept going after me. And because I was successful at climbing, that made me popular in a small town like Ridgewood. For a long time I had no trouble getting girls back into my room and doing what I wanted with them. And after I got it, I didn’t need it again.
But Becca was different. She had staying power. She was still lodged deep in my skull, despite getting inside her.
But as we walked back toward the house, I didn’t say any of that and she didn’t say anything either. We hiked in silence, hardly looking at each other, almost as if it were awkward. I could practically hear her brain screaming out about us being stepbrother and stepsister, but that never mattered to me. Those were just words. Our parents may have gotten married but that didn’t mean a thing to me. We weren’t really siblings. I wanted what I wanted and that was enough.
Once we got back to the house, I heard my mom moving around the kitchen, cooking dinner, and her dad was watching a baseball game on TV. She looked at me and frowned.
“Keep it between us,” she whispered.
“What am I going to do, go inside and announce to your dad that I just gave you the best orgasm of your life?”
“Reid!”
“Tell my mom I just fucked you up against a tree and made you squirm?”
“Okay, I get it.”
I grinned at her, my heart pounding, excitement filing my veins again. I moved closer to her. “I want to make you scream my name again. I want to take you out to the deep woods and let you scream it.”
She was quiet for a second. “Just keep it between us.”
Then she walked into the house, smiling big. My mom swept her up into dinner preparation and she was gone.
I leaned back and sighed as the memory faded and I was back at the campsite, sitting on a bench like an asshole, waiting for more assholes to give me drugs to drag across the border. It felt like a never-ending cycle even though the end was supposed to be in sight.
That was my biggest fear that the gangsters would keep coming up with excuses to keep me in debt, to keep me shackled to them. Sometimes, especially in the hours directly after crossing back into America with a backpack full of drugs, I would think about all the different ways I could get back at them, from gunning them down in cold blood to stealing their shipment and running away with it. But if I gave into any of those stupid, childish fantasies, I could kiss my climbing career goodbye, along with my family.
The sound of tires on gravel announced the cars long before I saw them.
I pulled my wet shoes on over my feet and stood.
One black car turned the corner, stopped, and only Rigley got out of the driver’s side.
“Mister Smuggler,” he said, grinning at me.
“Rigley.”
“How was the trip?” He walked over and stopped in front of me, crossing his arms in front of his chest and squinting against the sun. I had the urge to break his jaw but kept myself in check.
“Uneventful.”
“That’s how we like it, yes?”
“Got the stuff?”
He frowned. “So fast, down to business.”
“I have a long trip back.”
“Yes, you do, don’t you?”
“I’d love to get started as soon as I can.”
He took the hint. “Okay, follow me.”
We walked over together to the car. He popped the trunk and nodded at the contents.
“Is this a joke?”
“No joke, Mister Smuggler.”
Inside the trunk was at least twice as much product as the last time, and that had been pushing it. I looked at him and shook my head.