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He was actually far more handsome when he was frazzled, which was saying something, because it wasn’t like the guy was ever hard to look at.
That scene I’d caused in there would simply blow over.
And if I felt any doubt, any little wormhole of guilt, it was because of the reporter-guy asking the questions. I hadn’t counted on a reporter, and that might take some repair work. Maybe I’d write a letter to the editor or something, tell the whole world I was just joking. Or maybe stalking the handsome deputy mayor with the lips so perfect they should be bronzed.
More likely, though, I’d just be explained away in some kind of press release issued by the mayor’s office.
Yeah, I nodded, liking that one the best. They’d take care of it.
The second reason that made what I’d done slightly less of a mistake was that the guy was planning on tearing down the heart of this community as if it was nothing; as if a year without day care and senior bingo nights or after-school dance programs was all just an afterthought. A footnote on some memo.
Beauregard had clawed its way out of the gutters and the programs offered at Jimmie Simpson had been part of that. I was part of that. And pretty damn proud.
And the most important reason what I’d done wasn’t a mistake - I had a thousand dollars in my pocket. Like a roll of hope, heavy and dense. I tucked my hand in my pocket, just to feel the thickness, the tension in the rubber band.
A thousand dollars.
A thousand dollars could buy a lot of diapers. A little bit of security.
And for that—I put a hand under my belly, where I could feel the little guppy doing a soft-shoe number—I would cause any number of scenes.
For the baby, I’d do anything.
The woman, Amanda, stood outside Carter’s door, with a cell phone attached to her ear, a distracted guard.
I rubbed my hands over the smooth leather and the slick wood panel on the door. Was it real, that wood? Who knew, but fake or real wood in a car was weird. Seriously, did the world need such a thing?
Yeah, I thought, sliding over to the other side of the car, my mind made up. I didn’t need to feel bad. Carter would be fine. Money made a lot of things go away, and Carter had money. He had money and shine and polish. Hell, he had a staff.
Watching Amanda’s back, I silently opened the door and slowly crept out of the car. Amanda didn’t even twitch.
I ran off into the side streets.
CARTER
“I should have known Dad getting arrested would make you surface. What are you doing, Mom?” I asked, dimly wondering why I still called her Mom. After all she’d done, the years of screwing with our lives, I still couldn’t just call her Vanessa. It was a little sick.
“Let me see you, Carter,” my mother said, her voice gruff with the appropriate amount of manufactured emotion.
I turned, thinking I was prepared, but I wasn’t. Could never be. Her presence was a punch in the gut and a slap in the face. A pain and an offense all at the same time. She was lovely, of course. Looking at her, shrouded in cool elegance, you’d never guess she was one step up from being a grifter. A common thief.
Despite her presence in a dirty Baton Rouge alleyway, she looked like Princess Grace.
She looked, actually exactly like my sister, Savannah.
Her smile, a sharp little slash in her face, was like opening a door to a burning room, and I was suddenly filled with anger and fury. Smoke and fire.
“I can’t come see—”
“No,” I said quickly. “You can’t. That was our deal. I testified and you were supposed to stay away from me. From all of us.” I stepped toward her, gratified when she flinched, one foot sliding backward.
That’s right, I thought, something primal roaring to life, you’d better be scared of me.
But then she stopped herself, stiffening her thin shoulders as if facing a firing squad. “You’re my son,” she said.
I paused and barked out a bitter laugh.
“I understand you’re mad, Carter, but there are things we need to talk about.”
“Sure there are,” I said. “Like why you broke into Savannah’s house a few months ago. Twice. That broke our deal, too, Mom.” I sneered the last word, because a man shouldn’t have dirty deals with his mother, bargains made to keep the distance between them permanent. “You’re supposed to stay away from all of us. I should send you to jail.”
She blinked the beautiful blue eyes that me and both my siblings had inherited. In the past few years it had gotten so bad I could barely look at Tyler and Savannah and not see my mother. Not see all the ways I’d failed my siblings. The ways I’d let them down.
