Read Online Brick by Brick by Maryn Blackburn - Free Book Online Page B

twisted. “Only I was, you know?”
    “I’m lost,” I said. “Can we start over, and go slower?”
    “Sure.” Again Gage topped my glass, then James’s, although we’d only taken a sip. “Remember I couldn’t stay because of a call I was expecting? It didn’t go well. At all. I had to fly back to LA and rent a car, meet with people face-to-face. Kissing ass on the phone isn’t the same. You can’t really get your tongue in there and work it, you know?”
    James grinned.
    “So I get that straightened out, pretty much, and there’s still some time before Romania for me to figure out what I’ll need there, and pack. But I’m thinking, Hell, they sell stuff in Romania, right? I’ll just fly back to Tucson.” He shook his head, the shaggy dark hair swinging. “I was literally throwing a few things in a suitcase for here when my sister called. On something. Again.”
    “A drug problem?” I said.
    “Yeah. We went through some tough times, us against the world. Rowan used to take care of me. Now it’s my turn.”
    “Is she okay?” I said.
    “So far.”
    “Is there anything we can do to help?”
    “Not unless you can order a hit,” Gage said.
    “No problem,” James said. “Natalie’s maiden name was Felluca. They’ve all got connections, right?”
    “Right,” I said. “I’ll just call my uncle in New York, or the one in Las Vegas. Who are we hitting?”
    “This guy my mom used to live with. She could get anybody, and she had to choose him.”
    “She must be pretty.”
    “I guess. She was an actress.”
    James said, “Should I know her name?”
    “I doubt it. She called it her alphabet career. She provided the T and A in some B movies for a few g’s, before she got old enough that they said C-U . She was still pretty hot, I guess, enough that there’s always been this parade of boyfriends. Some okay guys, some assholes, no father types. And this one motherfucker. Stuart. He smacked us around—Mom too—but she wouldn’t dump him. He moved in, and everything about me pissed him off.”
    “Uh-oh,” I said. “How old were you?”
    “Fourteen. Rowan was sixteen. He’d beat me with a belt. You look close in nude scenes, you can see lines on my ass. Makeup can’t cover the scars completely.”
    James raised startled eyebrows. I guess he hadn’t seen them with only firelight. “Where was your mother?”
    “Watching and biting her lip. But never once trying to stop him.”
    “How awful,” I said.
    “Pretty fucking awful. Rowan ran away, crashed with these kids near the college, a dozen of them renting this big old house. She’d call me at my friend Rob’s house, after school, to make sure I knew she was okay. Anyway, Stuart saw I wasn’t worried enough. One night he beat me until I told. I, ah, held out a long time. That’s the scars.” Gage took a gulp of his champagne and burped politely behind his hand.
    Nobody laughed. James put his hand on Gage’s forearm.
    “Fucking Stuart hit us all, but only boys got the belt. I was self-involved even then, so sure nobody had it worse than me. He went and got her and everything was just like before. I didn’t know he was raping her.” He looked at James, then me. “How could I not see that?” The fleshy point of his chin quivered, barely discernible.
    “Oh, Gage.” I grasped his hand. It hurt to see his pain, an invisible fist between my lower ribs. Forget magazines with Beautiful People. He didn’t exist in some celebrity vacuum where life was nice.
    He sniffed, avoiding our eyes. “Sorry. She ran away again a few months later, and this time she didn’t call. Protecting me. I didn’t see her for five years, and by then she was a mess, with drug problems nobody can fix but her. If I hadn’t told—”
    “Hey, no,” James said. “This is Stuart’s fault, and your mother’s. Not yours.”
    “It’s mine to fix, though, and I can’t. All I can do is make sure she’s got a place to live with the lights on and food in the