Read Online Racing the Devil by Jaden Terrell - Free Book Online Page B
Authors: Jaden Terrell
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only a shitty thing to say to Jay, but also probably untrue. Sit behind a group of women in a Starbucks sometime. Sooner or later, one of them is going to point to some stranger and say, “That guy’s way too good-looking. Ten to one he’s gay.”
I decided I didn’t like Eric Gunnersen.
Jay seemed not to realize he’d been insulted. “Isn’t that the truth,” he agreed. He picked up the bottle he’d put his evening meds in, flashed me a sad but hopeful smile, and tucked his hand into the crook of Eric’s arm. “Don’t wait up, darlin’. I intend to dance until the cows come home.”
It was bravado speaking. We both knew he’d tire long before dawn, probably before midnight. The AZT cocktail kept him alive, but it also left him listless and fatigued.
“Don’t forget your red shoes, then,” I said, referring to one of his favorite films.
He picked up one foot to show me his snakeskin cowboy boots. “Oh, honey. I have something better than red shoes tonight. I have boots made from the foreskins of the rare and priceless Ming snake. Do you know how many foreskins it takes to make a boot this size? And every one is endowed with incredible virility and vitality.”
“Get out of here, you lunatic.” I steered him and the Viking toward the door. “Reptiles don’t have foreskins.”
“They don’t?” He turned to Eric and said sotto voce , “He knows this from experience, of course. Years of examining the genitalia of a thousand species of genus reptilicus . He’s considered a giant in his field.”
I closed the door behind them just as Eric said, “I’m considered a giant in my field too. Why don’t we go to my place, and I’ll show you my credentials.”
Since Jay wasn’t my kid sister and I couldn’t fly out of the house and flatten Eric in defense of his honor, I turned on the dishwasher and went out to the barn to feed and water the horses, hoping the blond Viking wouldn’t turn out to be a complete shit after all. I didn’t have high hopes for that, though. Jay’s taste in men had turned out to be a lot like my taste in women lately. He picked the ones most likely to pour acid on his heart.
I THOUGHT I ’ D FALL ASLEEP before my head hit the pillow. But there was something eerie about being in my own room, where everything was so familiar, and yet everything had changed. There was a subtle disorder to the room, along with the black residue of fingerprint powder. It looked like Jay had tried to clean it up, but there were still traces of it in the cracks and crannies.
The hairs on my forearms prickled as I realized they hadn’t been looking for my fingerprints, which were already on file, but for Amy Hartwell’s.
My gun cabinet had been emptied, the rifles and handguns confiscated as evidence. The room looked empty without them.
I ran my fingers over my desk, picked up the framed photograph of my father. I was four when he died. He’d come back from Vietnam with a silver star and a purple heart, spent three years as a patrol officer, went out for cigarettes one evening and was killed while protecting a seventy-year-old convenience store cashier from a cranked-up junkie waving a .45.
Maria used to ask when I was going to stop trying to live up to him.
Frank Campanella was my friend, and he had seen this picture maybe a dozen times, but the thought of him dusting it for prints made my stomach roil.
Mom’s picture smiled up at me from the opposite corner of the desk. She passed away when I was fourteen. Cancer. It happened fast. Diagnosed in February, buried in June, and in between, the radiation treatments, the nausea, and the pain. By the time she died, she’d scream when you touched her. I was both relieved and bereft when she died.
I pictured clumsy fingers pawing at my mother’s face, jostling my guitar, riffling through my books: Louis L’Amour and Zane Grey, a couple of John Grishams, a handful of thrillers and graphic novels, and a shelf full of books on
I decided I didn’t like Eric Gunnersen.
Jay seemed not to realize he’d been insulted. “Isn’t that the truth,” he agreed. He picked up the bottle he’d put his evening meds in, flashed me a sad but hopeful smile, and tucked his hand into the crook of Eric’s arm. “Don’t wait up, darlin’. I intend to dance until the cows come home.”
It was bravado speaking. We both knew he’d tire long before dawn, probably before midnight. The AZT cocktail kept him alive, but it also left him listless and fatigued.
“Don’t forget your red shoes, then,” I said, referring to one of his favorite films.
He picked up one foot to show me his snakeskin cowboy boots. “Oh, honey. I have something better than red shoes tonight. I have boots made from the foreskins of the rare and priceless Ming snake. Do you know how many foreskins it takes to make a boot this size? And every one is endowed with incredible virility and vitality.”
“Get out of here, you lunatic.” I steered him and the Viking toward the door. “Reptiles don’t have foreskins.”
“They don’t?” He turned to Eric and said sotto voce , “He knows this from experience, of course. Years of examining the genitalia of a thousand species of genus reptilicus . He’s considered a giant in his field.”
I closed the door behind them just as Eric said, “I’m considered a giant in my field too. Why don’t we go to my place, and I’ll show you my credentials.”
Since Jay wasn’t my kid sister and I couldn’t fly out of the house and flatten Eric in defense of his honor, I turned on the dishwasher and went out to the barn to feed and water the horses, hoping the blond Viking wouldn’t turn out to be a complete shit after all. I didn’t have high hopes for that, though. Jay’s taste in men had turned out to be a lot like my taste in women lately. He picked the ones most likely to pour acid on his heart.
I THOUGHT I ’ D FALL ASLEEP before my head hit the pillow. But there was something eerie about being in my own room, where everything was so familiar, and yet everything had changed. There was a subtle disorder to the room, along with the black residue of fingerprint powder. It looked like Jay had tried to clean it up, but there were still traces of it in the cracks and crannies.
The hairs on my forearms prickled as I realized they hadn’t been looking for my fingerprints, which were already on file, but for Amy Hartwell’s.
My gun cabinet had been emptied, the rifles and handguns confiscated as evidence. The room looked empty without them.
I ran my fingers over my desk, picked up the framed photograph of my father. I was four when he died. He’d come back from Vietnam with a silver star and a purple heart, spent three years as a patrol officer, went out for cigarettes one evening and was killed while protecting a seventy-year-old convenience store cashier from a cranked-up junkie waving a .45.
Maria used to ask when I was going to stop trying to live up to him.
Frank Campanella was my friend, and he had seen this picture maybe a dozen times, but the thought of him dusting it for prints made my stomach roil.
Mom’s picture smiled up at me from the opposite corner of the desk. She passed away when I was fourteen. Cancer. It happened fast. Diagnosed in February, buried in June, and in between, the radiation treatments, the nausea, and the pain. By the time she died, she’d scream when you touched her. I was both relieved and bereft when she died.
I pictured clumsy fingers pawing at my mother’s face, jostling my guitar, riffling through my books: Louis L’Amour and Zane Grey, a couple of John Grishams, a handful of thrillers and graphic novels, and a shelf full of books on
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