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“You ready for story time, Riggs?”
I jerked my chin to confirm I was.
Even though the old man was surprisingly bearable for a human, I mainly gave him my time and attention because of Duffy. As selfish as it may sound, if it was up to me, I’d be with her right now, telling her we needed to cut the bullshit and decide what we were doing next. What would having a girlfriend entail? I didn’t know, and I still wasn’t sure I wanted to give up my nomadic lifestyle.
But I was also just as sure I didn’t want to give her up.
“When I was young, really young, I used to smoke all the time. Until something happened to make me stop completely. I hadn’t touched a joint in thirty-seven years before you came to visit me in the hospital.” Charlie scratched his stubble, focusing on an ivy-laced wall in front of us.
“Okay ...” I frowned. I hoped he wasn’t about to launch into a drugs-are-bad, straight-edge routine. Smoking weed recreationally and responsibly was fine. And yes, it was my hill to die on. Happy and stoned,thankyouverymuch.
“I tended to do a lot of bad things when I was high. Maybe I blamed it on the weed ... I don’t know. But I always found myself up to no good. Driving recklessly, missing work, cheating on my girlfriend ...”
“That was almost forty years ago,” I reminded him. “Fucking around and driving under the influence were shit moves, but you were a kid.”
When I was twenty, all I did was drugs, booze, and sex with as many people as I could find.
“One time ...” Charlie ignored me, forcing himself to unglue his gaze from the wall and look me in the eye. “I really messed up. We were at a river. I worked the zip line at a park, so I had a lot of time to burn until opening hours. I’d rented out a dirt-cheap cabin nearby and goofed around most days.”
He licked his lips and swallowed. I had no idea where all this was going, but I was starting to feel uneasy. He seemed really stressed, considering this was four fucking decades ago.
“I had put up a tent on the river and forgot to zip it. I smoked a few and went down on some tourist. My girlfriend caught me.”
I puffed my cheeks, shifting uneasily. “That sucks, man. Is that the one who got away?”
“It is.”
“Well, sorry—”
“I’m not done,” he said sharply.
Dafuq did they put in your IV drip?
“She ran away. It took me a full five minutes to realize she’d walked in on me. That was how high I was. When I found out, I took the car and chased after her. Needless to say, that was a gigantic mistake.”
He shook all over in his wheelchair. I took the joint from his fingers and put it out, alert now. If he’d killed the woman, I was 100 percent telling the authorities.
“You chased her by car while you were high?” I repeated. “Were you competing for the Dumb-Fuck Award?”
He nodded grimly. “She sped up to escape me. I didn’t want to give up. I thought if I could just explain myself, she’d forgive me. We were going to go away, you see. She’d finally convinced me to move to California and assume my responsibilities. Start a family. I mean, we alreadyhada family, I guess. A son. His granddad took care of him while we were working at this adventure park.”
I was beginning to feel very, very sick.
Either this was a tasteless joke made by Duffy and Charlie that they were going to pay for, or today just became the shittiest day of my entire existence.
Staring at him, I said nothing.
Charlie looked me straight in the eye. I held his gaze. I saw the guilt there. And it killed me just like it killedher. The woman I didn’t remember and would never meet again.
“She veered off the road trying to take a turn. Her car totaled right then and there in front of my eyes. I pulled off onto the shoulder of the road and ran to her. She was still alive when the paramedics were called. She told me to take care of our son. She really wanted to get her act together and become a mom to him.”
I didn’t move. Didn’t even blink. We did look alike. Fuck, we looked so alike it was comical. But when you meet a complete stranger who looks like you in a huge-ass country, in a city of multi-digit-million people, your mind doesn’t immediately go toMaybe he’s my dad. Yippee-yay, can we go to Disneyland together?
“Riggs?”
“What?” I couldn’t fucking breathe.
“This happened in Denali National Park. In Alaska.”
