Red Sun (21 page)

             
“I don’t have anything planned,” she chimed in excitedly.

             
Elan shrugged.  “I’m game.  I don’t think Jo has anything planned either.”  I sighed to myself.  It was a date; a terrible, horrible, regrettable date.              Kaya bounced out to her car, looking forward to Saturday no doubt.  I think I was the only one who wasn’t. 

             
Elan dismissed the strange and awkward conversation the three of us just had and stared at me from where he rested against the counter.  He reached for my hand and held it loosely in his, fidgeting with the silver ring on my finger while he pulled me in with his eyes.  “Believe it or not, I didn’t come here just to look at your pretty face.” His smile grew. “You should let me pick you up this evening.  There’s something I want to talk to you about.”  Those are words no one ever wants to hear, but the faint smile on his face kept me from being nervous about what he needed to say.

             
I nodded.  “Sure.  I’m free.”

             
“Perfect.  I’ve gotta get going, but I’ll be here when you get off.”  He kissed me once again, leaving me to swoon over him as he exited and then took off down the road.

             
Ruthann didn’t make it back until it was nearly time to close.  When she came in, I was just about done mopping and had finished with the windows shortly before that.  She looked around with a pleased look on her face, but didn’t say anything.  She had a few bags in her hands, one of which I recognized.

             
“Since when did we start making deliveries to Macy’s?”  I asked playfully.

             
Ruthann grinned.  “No, this one’s for me.  Well, for Lou actually.”  She pulled a long black dress from the garment bag and held it up.  “Do you think he’ll like it?”  She asked.

             
“No,” I replied, shaking my head.  “I think he’ll
love
it.”

             
Through her long, dark hair, I could see her cheeks turn bright red.  “I sure hope so.  It cost me a fortune.  And let’s not even talk about how far I had to drive to get to the mall.”

             
I walked over to her and examined the dress with my hands.  “You must really like him.”  I looked at the $129.00 price tag.  “I mean
really
like him.”

             
“Maybe a little.”  She paused.  “Ok, maybe a lot.  He’s a really good man; a rare breed.”  Ruthann held the dress up to herself and thought.  “I’m just glad I listened to this really smart young lady who convinced me to get out of my own way.” 

             
I smiled.

             
“Speaking of good guys,” she started, and then nodded toward the window where we both stared at the glowing red lights of Elan’s truck.  “Go on.  I can finish this up.”  She shooed me toward the door, turning the sign to ‘closed’ as she watched me cross the small parking lot.  When I climbed in, Elan greeted me with a warm smile and waited for me to shut the door. 

             
He didn’t say a thing as he intently watched the road, thinking as he drove.  The silence was making me a little bit nervous. Our hushed ride led us to an area I was familiar with.  We pulled off the road along the bridge and turned the engine off, letting the gentle hum fade out and eventually give way to the sound of the frogs and crickets at the water’s edge below us.  I rolled down my window to hear them better.  I caught Elan smiling at me when I turned toward him, appreciating how the moonlight glinted off his beautiful complexion.  The music lulled in the background.

             
“Who’s this?”  I stared at the green glowing numbers on the clock instead of at him.

             
“Crowded House –
Don’t Dream It’s Over
.  Never heard it?”

             
I shook my head ‘no’.  “It’s nice though.”

             
“Yeah, I’m a fan of any music from the 80s.  Some of the best music was birthed out of that era.”  He turned it up just a little so that I could hear the words more clearly and leaned back in his seat while we both listened, me with my eyes closed.  As the words and melody danced around in my head, I could feel Elan’s warm fingers interlock with mine.  My entire body quivered when he raised my hand to his lips.  His emotions were so intense, so raw, impossible not to detect.  They were so strong that I could hardly distinguish his from my own.

             
What am I doing?  How stupid do you have to be to get involved with two men who not only share a roof, but share DNA? 
No one knows better than me that what I’m doing with the brothers is a dangerous thing.  There are a number of ways I could get caught.  The greatest consequence that could possibly come from this would be for them to be at odds because of me.  Yet, knowing all these things didn’t stop Jolon from getting to my heart, nor did it stop Elan from whispering my name and commanding my attention without ever opening his mouth.  Having him be so into me was hard to fathom.  I couldn’t help but to wonder what it was about me that made him go out of his way to come around. I stared. 
He
stared.  His voice eventually broke the silence.

             
“What’ve you been up to lately?”  Elan asked, making it known that my lack of presence affected him.  On the inside, I smiled a little.

             
“Same old thing,” I replied.

             
“Nothing interesting at all?”

             
I looked up at the ceiling while I thought.  “Nope, nothing at all.  What about you?”

             
He shrugged.  “Nothing exciting.”

             
I nodded and looked out the window.  After that we were both silent again.  The sound of Elan’s door opening startled me a little when he climbed out and went around to the truck bed.  I watched from the rearview mirror as he spread out a thick blue blanket and then covered it with another that appeared to be heavier than the first.  My first thoughts were definitely accusatory – from the looks of it he hadn’t brought me here to do much talking.  Blankets, music, it didn’t look all that innocent.

             
The window separating the back of the truck from the cab slid open.  “You gonna leave me back here by myself?” 
He
was smiling, but not me; this felt like a trap.  It felt like he’d pretended to be all sweet and nice to lure me out here thinking that his intentions were equally as sweet and nice. 

             
“Well?”  He added.

             
I stared at the door handle for a long time, wondering if I was right.  Did he really think that I was about to let him in like that?  Behind me, I could hear him move away from the window and the truck shifted under his weight when he rested on top of the blankets.  I sighed and stepped out onto the grass and stared up at the stars while I walked around to the back.  He got up to help me climb in and then he went back to his spot.  It was difficult to read his expression.  Slowly, I crawled toward the cab, my knees aching a little as they pressed into the deep metal grooves despite the thick blankets Elan had put down.  Desperate to relieve the discomfort, I rested on my hip where I sat facing him. 

             
“Beautiful out, isn’t it?”  He folded his arms over his chest when he asked.

             
I looked around nervously.  “Yeah, it is.”

             
“I remember when me and Jo were little we used to sneak outside when our parents fell asleep and we’d camp out in the grass in our sleeping bags on nights like these.  We had to have been like seven and eight.”  He laughed quietly.  “Used to drive our mom crazy ‘cause she’d get up in the morning to find empty beds and neither of us anywhere in the house.  After a while she came to expect it and bought us a tent so we’d at least be off the ground.”

             
I watched him lie there thinking. 

             
“It was funny ‘cause Jo got scared every time and wanted to go back inside.  He’d heard stories about bears and coyotes and stuff like that and it stuck with him I guess.  Never failed, he’d do it every time.  We’d get out there and get set up and then he’d swear he heard something and he’d just about start crying.  I’d tell him to go in without me.”  Elan shook his head.  “But he refused to leave me; like he thought we’d stand a better chance against a bear if there were two of us.”  He shifted a little.  “That’s us though – if one of us is going down, both of us are going down.”

             
“You two probably got into a lot of trouble together when you were little.”

             
His smile answered my question.  “I think I got
him
into trouble.  He was the quiet one who always did what was expected of him while I, on the other hand, had a head harder than a rock – at least that’s what my mom always said.  But Jo would always take the fall with me – no matter what it was.” 

             
Elan laughed again, remembering a particular incident.  “This one time, I snuck my dad’s truck out to go see some girl – it’s funny now that she was important enough then for me to risk getting in trouble, but now I don’t even remember her name.  For some reason I just
had
to see her though.  I was about a week away from getting my license and thought I was the man I guess.  So, when my dad fell asleep, I went for it.  Me and Jo shared a room at the time so he knew what I was doing.  But I left, was gone about an hour and a half.  I came back and got right in bed like nothing had happened.  Somehow I managed to scratch the door on the driver’s side and didn’t realize it.  Keep in mind my dad loved that truck like he loved us – he noticed everything.  So when he gets up to leave for work in the morning and sees it, we can hear him yelling our names all the way up in our room.  He was pissed.  I don’t think I’ve even seen him that mad to this day.” 

             
I smiled, watching him laugh.

             
“As soon as we got down to the driveway, he knew it was me; I have a hard time hiding it when I feel guilty.  I couldn’t look at him.  He didn’t even have to ask, just started barking out my punishment right away.  It was heavy too; no TV, no phone, couldn’t go out.  Nothing.  But when he finished, Jo cleared his throat and told Dad it was him that took the car.”

             
“Did your dad buy it?”

             
Elan shrugged.  “Probably not, but what could he do?  Jo said it was him.  He stayed grounded that whole month – all because my birthday was in a couple days and he didn’t want me to spend it stuck in the house.”

             
“Hm…”

             
“I know…..” Elan nodded.  “He’s loyal like that.  I paid him back though – took the wrap for breaking one of my mom’s lamps that he knocked over when we were throwing a football in the house while she was gone.”

             
I smiled despite the way I was feeling on the inside.  Listening to him talk about Jolon like this made me feel like even more of a monster.

             
Out the blue, he asked, “He been to the shop lately?”

             
I was caught off guard.  “Who?”

             
“Jo.”

             
“Oh, uhhhhhh….yeah – he stopped in real quick Friday morning.  That was the last time I saw him, but he’s in just about every day so…...”  I did my best not to seem suspicious of Elan’s inquiry.

             
He laughed a little to himself and shook his head.

             
“Why’s that funny?”

             
“I’ve just been trying to figure out why that is, but I think I already have my answer.”

             
I tried to stay calm.  “Trying to figure out why
what
is?”

             
“Why he’s still been coming in everyday.  Business has been slower than usual so far this summer.  He doesn’t have a reason to be there that much.” I felt flushed.  Wild, erratic breaths puffed from my lungs. He laughed again.  “The other day, I went into his tool box to grab a wrench to fix the edger and he had like six new pairs of work gloves with the tags still on them and a ton of safety glasses.”

             
“What’s strange about that?  Those are things you guys need, right?”  I asked.

             
Elan looked at me funny as if he was surprised that I wasn’t figuring it out on my own.  “Solei, he’s been fighting me about wearing safety glasses since we started.  He hates em’; says they’re distracting.”

             
I shook my head.  “Maybe he just decided to listen all of a sudden.”

             
“Or………maybe he just needs a reason to come into the shop all of a sudden.”  He raised his eyebrow suggestively and looked me up and down slowly.

             
My heart stopped.  “What’re you saying?”