Page 23 of Turning Back

“I’m just saying,” Bric explains. “Let’s try to keep this… professional.”

“Professional?” I ask.

Everyone turns to look at me. I don’t like the attention and Smith realizes this, because he picks right back up where he left off.

“You have a lot of actions to account for,” he says.

“Maybe,” Rochelle says. Calmly. She takes a seat in another chair, opposite Smith and just a few feet to my right, holding Adley tightly to her chest like she needs the comfort. Adley. What a pretty name. Something I’d agree to. “Maybe not. We did have an agreement, right? The contract said—”

“I don’t give one flying fuck what that contract said,” Smith spits, stabbing the wooden arm of the chair with his finger. He’s really pissed off. I don’t think Chella has ever seen him this way, because she looks at him, aghast, with a hand over her heart. “What you did was bullshit.”

“Can we stop with the swearing?” Bric interrupts again.

“Fuck off, Bric,” Smith counters. “You’re not gonna take her side now. Not after what she did to Quin. Fuck that contract, you know? He loved you, Rochelle. And you knew he loved you. And even Bric cared.”

“You never did though, right?”

“Right,” he says, matter-of-factly. “Your decision to leave didn’t hurt me one bit. But the way you treated them”—Smith hikes a thumb in the direction of Bric and me—“that did hurt me, Rochelle. So I’m gonna be as pissed off as I want right now.”

“Look,” Rochelle says, huffing out some air. “I don’t have to explain myself.”

“I paid you ten thousand dollars a month, you sneaky bitch,” Smith says. “So you goddamned will explain yourself.”

“What?” Bric and I both say at the same time.

“That’s right,” Smith says, not taking his eyes off Rochelle. “I kept paying my part. And you know why I kept paying my part, Rochelle?” He spits out her name like it tastes bad.

Rochelle stays silent.

“I paid you to stay gone.”

“What the fuck is happening?” I ask. “You paid her to leave?” I ask Smith.

“Not to leave, dumbass. To stay away. But now that she’s back, and she took my money, now she fucking owes me. I have questions for you, Rochelle Bastille. I paid you over three hundred thousand dollars for these answers. And you’re gonna give them to me right the fuck now.”

A part of me wants to stop Smith’s angry outburst, but most of me doesn’t. I have so many questions too.

Where did you go? Why did you leave? Whose baby is that? What day was she born? Is she healthy? How long are you staying?

“And my first question is…” Smith continues. “Why the fuck are you here?”

Rochelle says nothing. She’s not afraid of Smith. I’ve heard them have small arguments before. Nothing this dramatic. But she’s not a pushover for him like she is for Bric.

Chella stands up, takes a deep breath, and says, “Maybe we should go.”

Smith continues, undeterred. “And once we get past that little formality, I want you to tell Quin just what the fuck happened last year. And then I want to know when the fuck you’re leaving Denver. Because we don’t want you here.”

“I plan on telling you all those things,” Rochelle sneers back at Smith.

“Liar. Such a little fucking liar. You were trying to use that fucking contract to get out of it, so don’t—”

“Smith,” Chella says in an uncharacteristically loud voice. “We’re leaving. This has nothing to do with us. This is between Bric, Rochelle, and Quin. So let’s go.” She stands up, holding the dog in one hand while simultaneously pulling on Smith’s arm.

Smith waits a full second, staring at Rochelle. Then he looks at Chella and gives in to her request.

I expect him to get the last word on his way out, because that’s just the kind of guy Smith is, but he drops it and they leave quietly.

Rochelle huffs out a breath of air that makes the baby’s hair fly up. “Well, he hasn’t changed.”