Gun Games - Faye Kellerman [115]
“It must be lonely.”
“It has its good points. I practice all the time. As a result, my skill set took a quantum leap. I’ve expanded my repertoire tenfold. I’m far better than I should be.”
“I’m glad something positive came out of it.”
“The only positive thing until Yasmine came along. It was just a weird confluence of things that drew me to her. My parents deserted me, and I didn’t have any real friends anymore. I certainly didn’t want to hang with those idiots in Starbucks. I guess I didn’t realize how lonely I was until she came into the picture.” He paused. “She’s such a cutie. Every time I see her, something inside of me just . . . melts.” He stopped talking, his eyes moist. “I’m rambling. Sorry.”
“Nothing to be sorry for.” Marge waited a moment, and then went back to business. “So you’re at the table with Dylan and his friends at Starbucks.”
“Yes.”
“Did he tell you his last name?”
“Nope. Just Dylan.”
“And then you talked to him about guns, and your dad and the lieutenant.”
“Exactly.”
“How’d you excuse yourself?”
“I just said, I gotta go home. Sometimes Rina worries if she doesn’t hear from me. It’s nice that someone cares enough to notice if I’m alive or dead.” His thoughts were far away. He snapped out of it. “I ran into the girl, Cameron, maybe a month or two later. I remember the day was Tuesday because it was the day that I auditioned for Jeff Robinson. He’s my agent. I could get you the exact date if you need it.”
“Yes, that would be helpful.”
“So it’s like six-thirtyish in the morning and I was waiting at the bus to go to SC. And this drop-dead gorgeous blonde comes up to me saying, ‘Chris, Chris . . .’ ” He looked at Marge. “I told Dylan that my name was Chris. It seemed convenient at the time.”
“Smart.”
He shrugged off the compliment. “So the girl says to me, like, ‘Do you know who I am?’ And I didn’t know except that she called me Chris. Then it came back to me. So I said, ‘Yeah, you were with Dylan.’ And we start talking. I’m like half asleep. And I don’t want to tell her anything about me, because I just have this weird feeling about her. So I ask her what she’s doing up so early, and she shows me that she just bought some pot.”
Marge nodded.
“So she says, ‘Come to my house and we’ll smoke it together.’ Then she tells me that her parents aren’t home. And she starts like . . . flirting with me . . . rubbing my neck . . . telling me I need to relax.
“She’s really good-looking, you know. In another world, it would have been a big turn-on. Instead, the girl gave me the willies. I ran with a fast crowd back in New York so I know the type perfectly. She’s a druggie and an easy lay, but also a mean girl. I’ve had enough of crazy people in my life. I wouldn’t have done her even if Yasmine wasn’t in the picture. But you don’t say something like that to a mean girl—especially one who hangs with a guy who likes guns.”
“I see your point.”
“Yeah, so I’m trying to get out of it without pissing her off. So I tell her I have a band audition, which for the most part was true. And then I make this big point of adding her phone number into my contact list in my cell so she won’t feel rejected and pissed off.”
“Do you have her number?”
“Nah, I erased it as soon as I got on the bus. I also gave her my number. But I mixed up the digits. She asked me for my last name and I told her Donatti because if she googled the name she could see for herself what a badass my dad is.”
“And she told you her name?”
“Cam . . . short for Cameron. I didn’t ask her last name.”
“Okay. Go on.”
“Nothing more to say. I forgot about her—until today.”
“Tell me what happened today.”
“I was supposed to meet Yasmine at Coffee Bean. That’s our regular spot. We’ve been together every school day morning for a long time. Maybe not every morning, but most weekday mornings.” He got quiet. “I lived for those mornings. It turned waking up from a chore to something I cherished. This particular morning I was supposed to meet with some bigwigs from a record company in New York at SC. It took my agent a month to arrange this.