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“What?”
“Hearin’ you and Paisley have a whole conversation without arguin’ over somethin’.”
“What’s there to argue about? All I said was that we were available.”
“Knowin’ the two of you? You’d find somethin’.”
“I think it’s some kind of unofficial cease fire.”
Jackson pursed his lips as he considered my words. “You ever gonna tell anyone why there needs to be a cease fire in the first place?”
“In this town? I’ll pass. If I told anyone, I’d be tellin’ everyone.”
“So... I guess that means there really is somethin’ to tell, huh?”
I stared at my brother for a long moment, debating how to respond. Part of me wanted to spill the whole story, just have someone to talk it through with. But the larger part of me knew that once I opened that can worms, there’d be no putting the lid back on.
Especially not in this town.
“Look, it’s ancient history,” I finally said with a shrug, trying to play it off. “Nothin’ worth rehashin’ now.”
Jackson raised an eyebrow, clearly not buying it. “If it’s so ancient, why do y’all still act like you’re on opposite sides of a war?”
I sighed, rubbing the back of my neck. He had a point. We knew how to keep things professional, especially over the radio, but the rest of the time it was like we couldn’t help needling each other. Even over the most mundane things. In fact, the only reason I was standing here having this conversation was because it’d been my instinct to butt in while she was dispatching and put myself on it, likely just to mess with her.
“It’s complicated,” I said, knowing it was a cop-out answer.
“Isn’t it always?” he asked.
At that, I grinned, repeating my earlier words. “In this town?”
Jackson smirked, patting my shoulder as we headed back to our separate vehicles to get on with the day.
As I got back into my cruiser, however, I couldn’t help but replay Jackson’s words. He was right, of course. Things hadchanged between Paisley and me on the bickering front, but it was only a matter of time before something sparked another argument.
Silent truce, or not.
9/
paisley
Flicking open the lid of the small pill case that held my Skittles, I glared down at the empty square that should have held the orange ones.
Empty.
Not a single orange Skittle to ease my nerves, and it shouldn’t have surprised me considering how many of them I’d needed to eat over the last few weeks.
Tyler was... MIA. AWOL. Whatever other acronyms existed for not knowing where the heck a person had run off to.
One minute he’d been hopping on a Greyhound using the money I’d sent him, and the next?
Poof.
Well, to be fair, he had let me know he was taking a bit of a detour and would be in town later than he’d planned. I’d hoped that meant he was going home to see our parents, but nope. I’d checked. And just as I’d feared, they hadn’t even known he was out of prison.
Hang on… Could I call to verify that he was even out?
What if he was still on the inside… and he’d borrowed a contraband phone that first day, and then used the money I’d sent on something illegal?
