Crazy Beautiful Love (4 page)

“Highlander?”

“Corolla.”

“Good for resale.”
He nodded and took a swig of beer. “We got worried. Why were you gone so long?”

“There was some
drama on the pier, I had to wait it out.”

“No one saw you,
though?” He looked up through small eyes. “I don’t need the police coming to
harass me tonight.”

“No one saw.”

“Good.” He frowned
as he drank the last of his beer and threw the can into the corner. “Go and get
me another beer from the fridge.”

“Okay.” I walked
to the kitchen quietly, not bothering to ask if he was sure he wanted another.
I no longer cared how drunk and obnoxious he got; he wasn’t ever going to change.

“Hey.” I nodded at
Vincent who was sitting at the table with a stack of books in front of him. “
Wassup
.”

“Trying to figure
out these equations.” He sighed and slammed the book shut and jumped up. “Where
have you been?”

“At the pier. It
took longer than I thought it would.” I opened the fridge and grabbed a Bud Light.
“Want one?” I lifted the can up to Vincent.

“Nah.” He stared
at me. “You should have told me, I would have come.”

“I work best
alone.” I shrugged.

“You need a
lookout, you know that.” He sighed.

“You got an exam
tomorrow.” I walked to the kitchen. “You need to focus.”

“It doesn’t
matter, I’ll fail anyway.”

“Hold on.” I put
my hand up, walked to the living room, threw the beer to my dad, who was
staring at
The Simpsons
on TV and
mumbling, and then I walked back to the kitchen. I looked around and resisted
the urge to start shouting about the mess. The sink was full of dirty dishes,
and there was food all over the counters and on the floor. “Where’s Jared?”

“
Dunno
.” Vincent sat back down and opened his book. I sat
down at the table with him and studied his serious face. I wanted to tell him
about my night. Not about the thrill of stealing the car; he knew what that was
like already. I wanted to tell him about Maddie, and how she had lit my heart
on fire, and how we had made sweet, hard, passionate love in the grass, and how
I had thought I was going to explode from the sensations. I wanted to tell him
how sweet the sound of Maddie screaming out my name had been. But I kept my
mouth shut.

“You okay, Logan?”
Vincent looked at me in concern, his blue eyes worried. He ran a hand through
his spiky black hair and he leaned towards me. “Did something happen tonight?”

“No. Nothing
happened.” I faked a smile and hit him in the arm. “You don’t know who I am?
I’m Logan
Martelli
, the cops can’t keep up with me.”

“Ha, ha, I almost
forgot you’re Logan
Martelli
.” He smiled and me and
then sighed.

“What’s wrong,
Vincent?”

“I just don’t
think I can do this.” He nodded at the books on the table. “I’m too stupid to understand
this crap.”

“You’re not too
stupid for anything.” I gave him a stern look. “Let’s have a look.” I opened
his book and saw the page on quadratic equations. “I can help you with this, I
was pretty good in math.”

“You were good in
everything.” He laughed and sat back. “Genius of the family.”

“Well, you’re the
college boy, so I expect you’re just as much of a genius as me.”

“I don’t know if
I’d say I’m a college boy. More like a hopeful community college man.”

“Community college
is still college, you’ll still get a degree. And then you can go on to a four-year
university.”

“I don’t know
about all that.”

“You’ll do fine.
Now go take a five-minute break, let me look over the problems, and I’ll help
you, okay?”

“Okay, thanks,
Logan.” He jumped up. “You’re the best.”

“Yeah, yeah.” I
rolled my eyes and watched as he ran up the stairs. I sat back in my chair and
closed my eyes for a second. I was worried that Vincent was going to drop out
of community college and that everything would be for nothing. At twenty-two,
Vincent was one of the oldest freshmen students at River Valley Community
College, but I was so proud of him. Even though I had been pushing him for a
long time to get a college education, he had ignored me. It was only when he
got busted for smoking pot on the beach with some of his friends that he
decided to enroll. Thanks to the judge, it was community college or jail. I
hadn’t told anyone, but I was glad Vincent had been caught that night. I didn’t
want a life of crime for him and Jared. I wanted them to go to school and get
out of River Valley. They didn’t need this life.

“Okay, back. You
ready to teach me, Einstein?” Vincent ran back into the kitchen. “And I think
Jared’s back. I just heard a car door slam and then a car backing out.”

“He got a ride?” I
looked towards the front door, slightly annoyed.

“I guess.” Vincent
nodded and bit his lip.

“With Joey?”

“
Dunno
.”

“Okay.” I knew
there was no point badgering Vincent about Jared. If there was one thing that
was true about the
Martelli
brothers, it was that we
weren’t snitches.

“What’s up,
bitches?” Jared sauntered into the house and threw his fingers up in the air. I
could tell that he was drunk right away, and I was pissed.

“Where have you
been, Jared?”

“Out.” He walked
into the kitchen with bloodshot eyes.

“With Joey?”

“Yeah, and?” He
glared at me, his green eyes daring me to say something. I stared into the eyes
that were an exact replica of mine, and I counted to ten.

“I told you I
don’t want you hanging out with Joey.”

“You what?” Jared
laughed. “I’m twenty-one, bitch, and you’re not my mom or dad.”

“You know he’s bad
news.”

“We’re all bad
news, that’s the beauty in it.” Jared stumbled to the fridge. “Any food?”

“He’s real bad
news, Jared.” I walked over to him. “We don’t get involved in that stuff.”

“I know, I know.”
He sighed and turned around to me. “There’s nothing to eat.”

“What do you
want?” I looked around the kitchen and realized that there was no space to make
anything, even if I’d wanted to. “Let’s just order a pizza.”

“You sure?”
Jared’s eyes lit up and I pulled him towards me. He was my little brother but
he was still taller than me, with his six feet and four inches. I patted him on
the back and let him go.

“Yeah, go and call
them.”

“You the best,
bro.”

“Oh, I’m your bro
now and not a bitch?”

“You’re still a
bitch.” He laughed. “What up, Vincent?”

“Just trying to
get ready for this exam tomorrow.”

“Tell Logan to go
and take it for you.” He wiggled his eyebrows and we all laughed as we sat down
at the table. I looked at my brothers and felt at ease; these were the guys I
would give my life for. Even though I was only three years older than Vincent
and four years older than Jared, I felt a huge responsibility for them. In
fact, I often treated them like they were my sons. Ever since our mom died
twelve years ago, we had been essentially alone. Dad had only been good for a
few things: teaching us how to steal, how to drink, and how to not give a fuck
about anyone else.

“
Shh
, Jared, Vincent can do this. And so can you.” I looked
at him pointedly, and he gave me such a glazed look, that I knew he wasn’t
going to remember this conversation in the morning.

“Vincent’s going
to become a lawyer so he can keep us out of jail.” Jared laughed. “We only need
one college boy in the family, Logan.”

“Whoa, hold on.
I’m a far way from law school.” Vincent’s voice was gruff, though I could see
the hope in his eyes. Vincent’s dream had always been to go to law school. He
had this idea that if he got into the system, he could change it. I didn’t
really want him to go become a lawyer; I felt it would distance him from me.
But I wanted the best for him. His dreams were important to me, more than my
own worries and concerns.

“You’ll make it,
Vinny
. And Jared, you get your ass working on that college
application.”

“Shit, Logan, I’ve
got two months until the deadline.” Jared rolled his eyes at me, and it took
everything in me not to deck him.

“That’s what you
said last year and you missed it.”

“How was the pier
tonight?” Jared changed the subject, and I turned away from him with a shrug.

“Okay. I got a
Corolla.”

“I noticed, sweet
ride.” Jared laughed.

“Stay away,” I
warned him.

“You taking it to
Marty?” he questioned me.

I shook my head. “Nah,
not this one.” I kept my voice monotone and jumped up to grab a beer. Marty was
an old friend of my dad’s. He ran a mechanic shop in River Valley and always
took the cars we gave him. He either used them for parts or sold them through
an auto dealer magazine. However, recently he had been paying less and less and
acting shadier and shadier. I think it was because he didn’t like dealing with
me. He was used to my dad, who just took the money and shut up. By the end of
the night, Marty would have most of the money back, either in his belly as free
beer or as winnings from poker night with my dad and some of their friends. I
didn’t participate in either of those activities and Marty wasn’t too happy
about it. So now he offered less and less. In fact, the last time I had taken
him a car, he had given me a veiled warning: take the cash offered or the car might
make its way to a police parking lot in the middle of the night, and he’d hate
to see them catch the thief due to fingerprints. I took the money instead of
socking him in the jaw because he had his two henchmen next to him. But I knew
after that, I couldn’t take another car to him.

“Where you going
to take it?” Jared questioned me.

“I’ll have to
see.” My voice was rough and strained. “Anyways, I
gotta
help
Vinny
now. You go wait on the pizza and we’ll
talk later.”

“Shit, I better go
outside and wait before Dad goes crazy at the pizza guy for ringing the
doorbell again.”

“Yeah.” I nodded
in agreement. “Do that.” I watched as Jared walked out of the kitchen, down the
hallway, and out the front door, and I let out a deep breath.

“What’s up,
Logan?”
Vinny’s
voice sounded worried.

I looked up at him
with a weak smile. I had forgotten he was still in the room with us. “Nothing.”

“Something going
on with Marty?”

“Yeah, but it’ll
be okay.”

“He’s shady as
fuck, isn’t he?” Vincent sighed and I saw that his fists were clenched. “You
let me deal with him, or all of us can. You, me, Jared, we should go down there
and show him that the
Martelli
brothers don’t play.”

“We can’t go down
there and intimidate him, Vincent.” I shook my head, trying to talk reason into
him, even though his idea sounded good to me.

“I wasn’t talking
about intimidating.” Vincent smiled a wicked smile. “I’m talking about using
him as a punching bag and not stopping until he cries like a bitch.”

“We’re not going
to do that,
Vinny
.”

“Pussy.”

“Watch your
mouth.” I laughed. “You can’t afford to get caught for anything anyway, you
know what the judge said.”

“Yeah,” he sighed.
“What are we going to do?”

“I don’t know.”

“We got enough
money for rent next month?” I could hear the concern in his voice and I was
angry. Angry that we were in this position, angry that I hadn’t been able to do
anything to make our lives better.

“We got enough,” I
lied, not wanting him to worry. I knew what he would do if he knew I was
worried, and the last thing I wanted was for him to go to jail.

“But not much more,
huh?” He sat back, still worried but less stressed. “You think you’ll be able
to sell the Toyota?”

“Yeah.” I nodded.

“We could always
ask Joey …?” Vincent’s voice trailed off, as I glared at him.

“We don’t do
business with Joey.”

“It can’t hurt to
do it this once.”

“No.” I shook my
head vehemently. “We don’t deal with the likes of him.”

“He’s not that
bad.”

“I’m not going to
discuss it again. I’ve told you and Jared already. We don’t mess with Joey and
his boys.”

“Okay, okay.”

“You
wanna
go over this math now or what?” I opened the book
back up, and as far as I was concerned, the subject was closed.

***

I heard
Vinny
and Jared snoring as I walked to the bathroom. The TV
was still blaring downstairs; it sounded as if my dad was watching Jerry
Springer. I checked my watch and realized it was four a.m. It was more likely
that he had fallen asleep on the couch with the TV on. I ran down the stairs so
I could turn it off, but saw that he was sitting on the couch wide-eyed and
staring, as if in a trance.

“Dad?” I walked
into the room hesitantly. “You okay?”

“Just getting
ready for the day.” He looked up at me, but I couldn’t tell if his eyes were
really focused.

“You want me to
help you up to your room?”

“I was just
watching TV.” He blinked at me and rubbed his eyes. “There was a lady that
looked like your mom.”

“Oh?”

“Yeah, same blond
hair.” He stared at me. “You’re the only one who looks like her.”

“I know. People always
wonder if I’m really
Vinny
and Jared’s brother,” I
joked about their dark hair and features. They took after my dad.

“She had such long
blonde hair,” he continued. “She was the love of my life.”

“And you were
hers.” I gave him a wide smile. I knew the routine by now. We’d had this
conversation hundreds of times since she had died.