Shine - Lauren Myracle [38]
A shadow crossed his face. I couldn’t tell if it was genuine or for show. “And then . . .” He splayed his fingers and made a sound to represent it all blowing up in their faces.
Uh-huh, I thought. It’s all fun and games till someone gets a gas pump nozzle jammed down their throat.
The phone rang. Beef stood, but Dupree waved him off, saying, “I got it.” He went to the counter and fished for an order pad. Sliding easily into his laid-back persona, he said, “Huskers, tastiest subs in town. What can I do ya for?”
I expected Beef to sit back down, but he didn’t. He stood by the table, his hand on the top of his chair, looking lost.
I felt myself letting go of my anger, because this was Beef, and he was hurting, too. We were upset with ourselves for not protecting Patrick, but we were taking it out on each other.
“I’m not attacking you, Beef,” I said. “I swear to God. I just want to know what happened.”
Beef glanced at Dupree, then gestured with his head, a silent request that I follow him. I did, noting how slim his hips and torso were. He wasn’t a man yet, no matter how much he probably wanted to be. He was just a redneck in a ball cap and a T-shirt so threadbare it belonged in the rag pile.
He led me to the back of the store, near the small and filthy restroom/supply closet. He leaned against the cement wall, and I did the same. My eyes drifted to the graffiti scrawled on the supply closet’s door. Much of it had been there for ages. Bailee-Ann luvs Beef. Willow + Darren. Destiny sux cock.
Out of habit, I lifted my gaze higher, and yep, there it was: Cat and Patrick, BFFs 4-ever. Patrick had written the words, because his handwriting was better. I’d used a purple Sharpie to draw a heart around them. A heart-shaped fence that protected neither one of us.
“We hung out, like I said, and then we went home,” Beef said. “I’m the one who drove us back into town, because Bailee-Ann was near passed-out. I think Dupree gave her something.”
My heart rate spiked. “What do you mean, ‘something’?” I said, my brain going straight to meth-crank-ice-crystal. “Something bad?”
“Nah, not bad, just something that made her loopy. She was, like, talking to the trees and petting them and stuff.”
“Petting the trees?”
The look he gave me said, Yes, petting the trees. As I said.
“And then you drove everyone home,” I said stupidly. I was going to lose him if all I could do was to repeat everything he’d already told me. I gulped. “Um, who’d you drop off first?”
“Tommy and Dupree. Dupree crashed at Tommy’s.”
All right, I thought. If Tommy and Dupree were dropped off first, that meant they had the most time to go back out. Hypothetically. “What time was that?”
“Hell, Cat, I don’t know. One fifteen, one twenty?”
I wasn’t going to let him rattle me again. I focused on the purple heart—that was why I was here, after all—and said, “So you dropped Tommy and Dupree off first. Then who?”
“Then Bailee-Ann, and last of all your brother. Why do you care?”
“What about Patrick?” I said.
He didn’t answer immediately. Several seconds passed before he said, with almost no inflection, “I took him back to the gas station after dropping Christian off.”
“So he could get his car?” Patrick had inherited Mama Sweetie’s ancient Pontiac when she died.
“And so he could finish his closing duties. I was like, ‘Dude, it’s one thirty. Restocking the napkins can wait.’” His eyes found mine. “But you know Patrick.”
I did. The purple Sharpie he and I had used to add our names to the graffiti door had come from school, courtesy of our sixth grade teacher’s top desk drawer. When Patrick found out, he made me promise to return it. Heck, he escorted me to Mrs. Padrick’s room the next day and watched me do it.
“Jesus, Cat,” Beef said. “He could have come home with me. I could have taken him back in the morning. Or I could have helped him with his dang closing duties.”
He lifted the brim of his ball cap and rubbed his head. “But no. I left him alone at the Come ’n’ Go. Lights