Cadillac Payback: Rising Tide by AJ Elmore (the false prince .TXT) 📕

“I trust I'll hear from you when you're done.”

It's directed at Frederick, but I'm not looking at him. I'm climbing into the driver's seat. Josh hesitates next to the passenger door. I can't see above his chest, so I can't see the look on his face, or what he's looking at. Suddenly it's infuriating that these two are silently communicating, and I've cut myself out of the situation.

I take a long breath, and steady my hands on the wheel. Stupid. My grandmother is right.

Frederick turns his back on me without a word, which stings well enough, so that by the time Josh climbs in beside me, I'm staring coldly at the street. It's still not his fault, so I channel my old teacher, and internalize the fuck out of it. Despite our distances these days, this is surely a situation with which Josh is familiar.

He's quiet as I glide the Caddy into the narrow street. He's known me long enough to recognize when I'm mad, and he's smart enough to leave it alone. He just watches the city roll enchantingly by. I wonder if he sees the same thing he used to, when he was little more than a frat boy wandering down Bourbon. Of course he doesn't.

He's never really talked about that night either. I had to learn second-hand from Izzy that when Josh found Frederick, Derrik was alive. When they left, he was not.

I shake my head. What horrible thoughts. I've shut them down for so long. Why now? Josh is staring out his window, so I hope he didn't see me.

The drive isn't a long one, and we're soon pulling into the spot next to his shiny black '71 Challenger in the lot to my building. The silence is getting a little too heavy, and as I stare up at my building, the thought of that huge empty apartment is gut-wrenching.

My voice is quiet, hoarse from disuse when I say, “Offer still stands.”

He glances at me, shoulders tense, and he says, “What?”

I'm so goddamned tired of fighting. I wake up with my fists in the air, I walk with a perpetual shield on my arm. I've lost everyone who ever mattered because of it.

“Smoke?” I say.

He hesitates, and that stings almost as much as Frederick's silent retreat. Maybe he thinks I'll bring up the trap incident. I won't. Frederick said he'd handle it, and I trust him to it.

Finally he says, “Sure. That dinner was stuffy as hell.”

“No shit,” I say, and it's so almost a sigh of relief.

The tension shifts, eases its pressure as the night weighs down on us. We don't speak as we enter the building. The hallway smells like garlic from a nearby neighbor, and the aroma is oddly comforting.

This is what I call home these days, something that is only mine. I don't have visitors, don't have time for that shit. My stuff is here, I sleep here, and have a few plants that I forget to water. It's strange to invite him in, but it's something I should do.

He follows me quietly, as he's used to doing, but it feels less guarded. Less like work. I point him to a table for four where I eat my meals alone, and he sits obediently. I kick off the heels under the table, and amble into the kitchen.

I keep my personal stash in a cigar box in the cabinet, next to a bunch of spices and no food. I snag it, and when I close the cabinet door, I realize Josh is watching me. It's a different sort of hunger in his eyes than those pigs at the party. I need to change. Now.

I pretend not to notice anything at all as I set the box down in front of him and say, “I think a blunt is in order.”

“Yes, ma'am,” he says.

I see the corner of his lips hook upward as I pull away, as my hair brushes across his arm. I didn't mean to, I swear I didn't. And the smile disappears. I'm already padding down the hallway by the time he starts moving to break up a blunt.

In the relative safety of my room, I shimmy out of the dress without a second thought. I catch my reflection out of the corner of my eye, and stop to look. No bra and a black thong, and no one will ever know but me. It's better that way.

I lost weight after Izzy left and I no longer had revenge as a motivation and distraction. I haven't been able to gain it back. My gaze lingers over the ridges of my ribs and my shoulders, too pronounced. Even my tits are smaller. I give myself a disgusted look and turn my back.

I move to my dresser and dig through three drawers before I find what I want. It's a big faded black t-shirt bearing a cracked Rancid logo. Charlie gave this to me years ago, after my very first punk show, attended under his supervision, of course. At some point, I cut the neck out of it, and it hangs over one shoulder. I slip into the shirt and pull on a pair of gray shorts. Already I feel better.

By the time I return to the dining room, Josh is about halfway through his rolling process. He doesn't look up when he says, “It's been a while since I rolled anything. This could suck.”

He doesn't look up, so he doesn't see me stop and stare. His tie has been discarded on the table, the first few buttons on his shirt are undone, and his sleeves are rolled up. The suspenders are in place. He's like a goddamned biological weapon. He's a man of style where once there was a boy who wanted to be . . . something. Anything.

My brother created a monster. No, not quite. My brother molded a damn fine protegé. I made him the monster.

I swallow the knot that forms in my throat at my thought