The First Last Boy(26)

Tana turned her face under the spray of water, then smoothed her hair  out of her eyes. "It was really stupid of me to ask you to sleep with  me. If Mom gets better and I am able to leave for college as planned, I  guess we'll lose touch and what happened between us won't matter  anyway."

The need for reassurance was there in her voice but I couldn't give it  to her. Let her think I was self-centered. Let her cringe when she  looked back on her time with me. Let her get angry, let her dislike, and  then hate me. Let her move on with her life, but let her be safe. I  could live with the pain of losing her as long as I knew she was happy  and moving on. "Yeah, it won't matter," I finally said.         

     



 

Her lip trembled but she firmed it and said, "I can't understand why someone would want to shoot my mom."

My chance to tell her to the truth. To point the finger at myself and see the disgust in her eyes. "I can't understand, either."

"I'm going to find out who did it."





Chapter Fourteen

TANA



As soon as I said the words out loud, I knew that's exactly what I  needed to do. I'd figure out who did it and then maybe, I could stop  feeling so helpless if I could make sure that whoever did it was caught.  Ryan didn't like what I'd said but I didn't care. Someone had grabbed a  thread from the tapestry of my life and unwound it. I needed to know  who and why.

He crossed his arms. "What are you going to do if you find the person?"

"I don't know. Maybe figure out a way to make that person pay for what happened."

Ryan swore. "You want revenge? Want to shoot someone?" His eyebrows rose  and the expression on his handsome face turned intense as his eyes  blazed into me. "Have you ever held a gun before? Fired one?"

"No." I held my head under the water spray again and let it flow over  me¸ wishing I could wash away the pain rat chewing on my heart. Gripping  the shampoo bottle, I looked at Ryan as the thought dawned on me. "Have  you?"

He didn't blink, didn't flinch, and his voice was perfectly flat. "Yes."

Apparently there was a lot about my best friend that I didn't know. "Yes to both questions?"

He didn't answer.

"You must have been just a kid." I lathered the shampoo in, not caring I  was naked in front of him. Not like he hadn't seen all of me before  anyway. After I rinsed out the shampoo, I wiped my eyes on the towel he  held up. "What happened?"

"I don't want to talk about me."

"I've noticed that you don't talk a lot about yourself, especially your past."

"Leave it alone."

His sharp answer only made me more curious, but I rinsed out the shampoo  and began to soap my limbs while I changed the subject. "I called my  so-called father yesterday. I wanted to talk to him about Mom."

"He ran right over with emotional support."

"Right," I scoffed. "He said he couldn't talk right then because he and  the new wife were leaving for a cruise and he didn't want to be late."  Remembering his self-centeredness pissed me off all over again. "I asked  if he was going to pick up Mark and he said there was no reason to  change Mark's living situation because his new wife didn't really like  kids."

"Knocking a girl up doesn't automatically make a guy a father. You're better off without him in your life."

"I know. I asked him about the personal injury policy he had on Mom  because he never cancelled it. He said not to look forward to getting  any financial support from that. The policy would pay out fifteen  thousand dollars. It's not like he doesn't have the money to help. I  know he still has money in hidden accounts." Even part of that would  help keep me and Mark afloat until like Ryan said, I got my shit  together.

"He can be forced to be financially responsible for Mark."

I shook my head at Ryan's suggestion. "I don't have the energy to deal  with it or the money for a lawyer or a court case. What if he decides to  take Mark and not let me see my brother just to get even? 'Cause he's  like that. Then my brother would be stuck with the jackass father of the  year and his anti-kid wife."

"Who said anything about involving lawyers or the court?"

"You said he could be forced-oh." Finished with the shower, I shut the water off. "Street justice."

"It's pretty effective."

My mood marginally improved now that I was clean, I took the towel from  Ryan and started drying off, pleased with the desire I saw in his eyes.  He might have said that our being together was a mistake but he couldn't  hide that he wanted me. I wrapped the towel around me and tucked the  end across my breasts. "Thanks for coming over."

He nodded, looking so far out of reach emotionally that it made me want  to cry all over again. "I don't know how to talk to you now, since  everything." I couldn't afford to lean on Ryan, to feel more for him  than I already suspected was miles past friendship. I had to make sure I  didn't fall for him. The brink of love was a dangerous slope to be on  when the other person didn't intend to be anything other than a friend  and maybe not even that. "Everything's changed." I almost held my breath  waiting for him to lie to me, to tell me I was wrong.         

     



 

"Yeah. Pretty much."

"I know." I took a deep breath and forced a smile, a bright, phony one  that I'd used often in the past when my parents had given lavish parties  filled with people who were too important to give a shit about anyone  who wasn't as rich as they were.

I clenched my hand to keep from reaching for Ryan. Seeing him, being  this close to him made me feel stupid and girly and want nothing more  than to fling myself into his arms. I wanted him to hold me against his  chest and keep my new, ugly world at bay. But unless I wanted to be a  masochist, it was best that I didn't do that.

Shivering, I pulled my robe down from the back of the bathroom door and slid it on. I couldn't prevent the wide yawn.

"Trouble sleeping?"

I tied the sash around the robe. "I don't sleep much because I worry  that whoever shot Mom will come back. I stay awake and listen to the  sounds outside."

Ryan's eyes turned into glaciers. "You can sleep. You don't have to worry about someone hurting you or Mark."

"What? Are you going to be my guard dog?"

"I won't let him hurt you."

The ferociousness of his response hovered, fat with unspoken meaning,  between us and I scowled, sensing an undercurrent, a meaning I wasn't  privy to. "You're sure that it's a he?"

Ryan blinked. "Most drive-by shootings are done by guys. That's not hard to figure out."

He took a step back into the hallway. "If you're okay, I've got to get back to work. Lock up behind me."

"Okay." I followed him into the living room and kept my hand on the door  after I'd closed it. I couldn't shake the feeling that Ryan was keeping  something from me, something even worse than what had happened to my  mom.







RYAN



I don't scare easily. That was a by-product of all the shit I've seen  but Tana talking about making someone pay scared the hell out of me. She  didn't have any idea the kind of evil that lurked in the world I was  going back into. You didn't hunt for justice without having shit blow  back on you. A life for a life, that was the way of the street. For Tana  to start asking questions and hunting for the person who hurt her mom  would put her in the crosshairs.

I left her house, jogging over to Cooper's car. He lowered the window  and extended his fist. We bumped and I went around to get into the  passenger side. "You see anything?"

"Nah. I got here and talked to Ryker. He said a couple cars came by slow  but the drivers weren't Chanos' boys." He pulled his sunglasses off and  leaned across me to pop open the glove box. "Your old sidekick."

The familiar gun lying there took me back to Donny's side and all the  sounds and smells of that day rushed at me. My hands pressing on his  chest, pumping CPR compressions with every ounce of strength I had while  blood oozed between my fingers. His broken voice telling me he was  scared and pleading with me not to let him die. I slammed the glove box  closed, wishing I could shut off the memory the same way. "I don't carry  any more."

"I know that, but no matter how good you are with your fists, you're no match for Chanos' bullets."

"Every time I look at a gun, I think of Donny," I said.

Cooper nodded. "He was my friend too."

Like me, Cooper had chosen to get jumped out of the gang. He'd fought  demons far worse than mine and had come closer than I had to ending up  in prison. He put his sunglasses back on. "Now picture if that was Tana  you had to bury instead of Donny."

The thought made me break out in a sweat. I couldn't let anything happen  to her no matter what bad shit I had to do and I didn't doubt there was  bad shit on the horizon. The demons I'd tried to outrun were reaching  for me. I could almost hear their triumph. "I'm not carrying when I'm  back in again."