The Favor (32 page)

Gabe had smiled without much humor. “What do you think might happen, Janelle?”

She hadn’t answered. It had stung him, she thought, watching him now as he went through a series of instructions with a serious-faced Bennett. She’d taken a seat off to the side and couldn’t hear everything they were saying, but when Bennett moved to pick up the gun from the weather-battered card table on which Gabe had set everything up, and Gabe put his hand firmly on the boy’s to stop him, everything inside her relaxed.

Then

Janelle’s never shot a gun. She’s never wanted to shoot a gun. She thinks she could probably go her entire life without shooting a gun.

But Gabe wants to show her how.

So here she is, out in snow up to her shins, freezing her ass off while he sets up a series of cans along a railing made of two-by-fours. It’s not from a set of stairs or even part of a fence; Gabe and his brothers and a bunch of other guys built it out here specifically so they could line up cans and jars and bottles from the garbage and take turns blasting them to bits. They shoot at paper targets, too, tacked up against trees or bales of hay. It’s apparently quite the hangout.

Last night brought nearly a foot of thick, white snow that normally wouldn’t have caused a bus delay in a school district so well-accustomed to such weather, but the storm had ended with a long spell of freezing rain that coated everything in ice. School had been canceled, a rare holiday. Most of the other kids are out sledding or ice skating, or at home making out under blankets. Gabe convinced her this would be more fun.

His brothers are here, too, tromping through the snow. Janelle’s little brother, Kenny, used to drive her insane, but Mike and Andy make her miss him. They toss snowballs back and forth and at Gabe, and she likes the way he lets them get away with it. Earlier he was angry with them, mad enough to punch them. But now they’re making him laugh, and she likes watching him be happy.

“My hands are going to freeze if I take my mittens off,” she says.

Gabe has waded through the snow, busting the icy crust with his big boots, to set up the cans. Every step he takes leaves a distinct hole. He’s dressed better for the weather than she is. He looks up at the sky when she complains, then shrugs.

“It’s not that cold, Janelle. C’mon.”

“For you, maybe. I’m not from around here, remember?”

Gabe’s not a jokester like his brother Andy, and he’s not a Goody Two-shoes like Mike. Still, his smiles are rare as rainbows and usually make her feel sort of the same way. He gives her one now, and suddenly he’s right—it’s not so cold.

“You’ll be fine,” he assures her. “And it’ll be fun.”

Andy and Mike have their own guns, and they take turns shooting at the targets. When Gabe shows her how to load the gun, Janelle knows enough to be impressed with how accurately and swiftly he handles it, but also how carefully. He’s no cowboy, no sharpshooter. Everything Gabe does with the gun is precise and deliberate. No flash. She doesn’t really care about how a revolver works, but she listens and watches his face, because obviously, Gabe cares.

He won’t let her even aim the gun until she can demonstrate to him she understands how to empty the cylinder and how to check if the weapon’s loaded or unloaded. He’s a patient teacher, and this surprises and impresses her because the Gabe she’s always known has a short attention span and shorter temper.

“Now,” he says, and presses the gun into her hand. “Shoot the shit out of something.”

She can’t, of course, not at first. His hands on her hips, tilting her body, distract her. He straightens her shoulders. He aligns his body with hers, one arm stretched out along hers to help her level the gun.

“Squeeze the trigger,” he says into her ear. “Don’t jerk it. Don’t pull it. Squeeze it.”

The shot rings out into the snow-covered trees. A Straub’s greenie bottle explodes. Janelle, stunned with success, hoots and hollers, but Gabe’s hand on her arm keeps the gun pointed away from them both.

“You did it,” he said. “I knew you could.”

* * *

The kid was eager to get shooting. Gabe understood that. But first he made Bennett go through all the paces his own dad had taught him. How to make sure the cylinder was empty. If the kid got bored before the end and didn’t want to pay attention, Gabe was prepared to call off the lesson right then.

“My mom says guns aren’t toys,” the boy said as Gabe walked him through everything one more time.

Gabe glanced at Janelle, sitting on a fallen log with her fingers linked around her knees. She was watching them pretty intensely. He guessed he couldn’t blame her, considering what he was sure she believed to be true. “She’s right.”

“She doesn’t even really like me playing shooting games that much, unless it’s zombies or monsters. No real people.” The kid sighed. “No soldier games or anything like that.”

Gabe had never understood the appeal of those sort of games, anyway. He like pinball or old-school, arcade-style Pac-Man, Donkey Kong, things like that. “Why do you want a play to game where you blow someone’s head open, anyway? Pick up the gun. Stand here, in front of me. You never point the gun at anyone, you got it? You keep it pointed away from people. And your own feet.”

The kid nodded and picked up the gun, too gingerly. Gabe put his hand over the boy’s to curl his fingers into place. He leveled the kid’s arm. Steadied it. He almost said, “Hold it like you’d hold your dick,” but that seemed a little too mature. With another glance at Janelle, Gabe murmured a few more instructions, then stepped back.

The kid’s first shot went wild, but he didn’t get upset. He planted his feet a little wider, fixed his stance and aimed again. Gabe’s revolver was heavy enough for a grown man, but Bennett did pretty good with it. His next two shots blew off a pair of soup cans. The fourth nicked the wooden railing. The final shot shattered a bottle.

Carefully, the kid let his arm drop to his side, keeping the gun carefully pointed away from anyone else and his own feet, just as Gabe had instructed. “That was cool! Can I go again?”

“Sure.” Gabe pointed at the table. “Show me everything you learned.”

He had to help a little, but the kid quickly got the hang of things. As he set his stance and aimed again, Gabe stepped back. This time, Janelle got up and walked over to him.

“You’re a good teacher,” she said.

“Thanks.”

They watched in silence as Bennett managed to shoot a few more of the cans. He turned to both of them with a look of pure glee that made Gabe smile. “Can I do it again?”

Gabe looked at Janelle, who hesitated, but nodded. “Okay. But we can’t be out here all day, Bennett. I’m sure Gabe has other things to do.”

He did not, as a matter of fact, unless you counted cleaning up after the old man and arguing with him over what to watch on the television. Andy was working until closing, and Gabe had promised to pick him up, but that was hours away. He wasn’t going to tell her that, though.

“I need to set up the cans again, right?” The kid looked at Gabe. Without being told, Bennett made sure the gun was both unloaded and had the safety on before setting it on the card table and running across the clearing toward the railing.

When he was out of earshot, Janelle turned. “I mean it, Gabe. You’re a good teacher. You’re patient, and you know what you’re doing.” She paused, tilting her head to look him over. He hadn’t seen that expression in a long, long time, but he recalled it all too well. “Remember the day you took me out here?”

Gabe busied himself with arranging the ammunition on the table. “Yeah.”

Janelle stepped around the table and pressed her fingertips on the edge of it. “You showed me all those things that you just showed Bennett. It was a long time ago, but I remember a lot of it.”

He looked up at her. “You want to take a crack at it?”

Her slight smile didn’t fool him. She was still looking at him as if she could see right through him. “No, that’s okay.”

The kid was certainly taking his time setting up the next round of cans and bottles, pulling them from the box where everyone dumped their empties, and inspecting each thoroughly before setting it on the railing.

“C’mon, kid, you’re not decorating out there. Set ’em up so you can knock ’em down!”

“Gabe,” Janelle said quietly. “I was thinking about that time when you showed me how to shoot. I’ve been thinking about a lot of things....”

He didn’t want to hear it. He didn’t want to talk about it. Most of all, he didn’t want her to think about it.

“C’mon, kid! I’ve got stuff to do!”

Bennett turned from his careful arrangements. With a grin, he ran back toward them, slipping in the mud onto one knee. Janelle let out a low groan.

“Bennett. Your clothes...”

“Boys get dirty,” Gabe said. “That’s what they do.”

Janelle looked at him again. This time, she didn’t smile. “Yes. I guess they do.”

FORTY-TWO

Then

MOST OF THE time, Gabe moves like a cat—sleek and silent and sort of ripply. As if he’s full of coiled energy that could burst out at any time. Janelle’s seen him running, fists and feet pumping, and that was what she thinks it might be like if Gabe ever lets himself really go. But not quite.

Mostly, he moves smoothly, but not today. He jitters and paces and jiggles his foot restlessly when he does finally manage to sit on the couch next to her. He shakes it so much the couch’s wooden feet squeak on the floor. At last, she can’t stand it anymore and puts a hand on his knee, pressing his foot down.

“Enough.”

He goes still. Silent and motionless, his gaze fixed on the crappy TV’s snowy picture. She’d only been pretending to watch while she waited for him to push her back against the cushions. Janelle lets her hand travel a little higher on his thigh, her fingers squeezing muscle. She watches his profile, his unblinking stare and the curved-down corner of his mouth. She takes her hand away.

“What the hell’s going on with you, Gabe?”

There’d been that small graduation party at her house. Nothing for Gabe; his dad was such an asshole she’d bet he didn’t even care. She knew what that was like—no matter how much you thought you’d get used to it, you never really could. And even though Nan had made sure Gabe had his own cake, with his name on it, Janelle knew it wasn’t the same.

In a softer, gentler voice, she says, “Are you okay?”

He kisses her.

All the times they’ve fooled around, he’s never kissed her. Janelle’s imagined his mouth on hers a thousand times, maybe more than that. Soft, sweet, slow, hard, fierce, fumbling...a thousand different ways he would kiss her for the first time, and this is nothing like any of them. Gabe takes her face in his hands, holding her still. His lips slide against hers, parting them with his tongue—or maybe she’d gasped with surprise and her mouth was already open. She can’t tell. All she can do is kiss him back.

She’s on his lap before she knows it, straddling him. Her fingers dig into his shoulders. He hasn’t let go of her face. She can’t move away, but doesn’t care, not even when his kiss becomes bruising. She rocks against him, wanting to feel him get hard, and that’s when he breaks the kiss.

Breathing hard, Gabe looks into her eyes. His mouth is wet and open. When he slides his tongue across his lower lip, she imagines him tasting her. The thought is huge and sudden and powerful. They’ve been fooling around for months. He’s made her come, and she’s done the same for him. But this feeling is somehow adult and terrifying.

Janelle pushes back from him a little, but Gabe lets go of her face to grab her upper arms instead, holding her in place. “Hey!”

“Janelle.” His fingers tighten.

Something is so wrong about all of this...and yet it’s Gabe. Gabe, who Janelle thinks loves her, though they’ve never even gone on a date. He has to love her—why else would he look at her the way he does when he thinks she doesn’t see? The way he looks now? She could lose herself in those blue eyes and never find her way out, because Gabe Tierney is nothing if not made of secrets.

She stops struggling. She puts her hands on his face, mirroring him, though her touch is more of a caress. Her thumbs stroke along the edge of his cheekbones. She leans in to kiss him, and at the last second, he turns his face just enough that she’d end up kissing the corner of his mouth if she kept on. She stops. His breath fans over her lips. She doesn’t move away, and when she speaks, her mouth brushes his. It’s nothing like a kiss.

“Tell me what’s wrong.”

He pushes her away, too hard. He goes to the dresser, pulls out a pack of cigarettes. Fumbles with his lighter. Watching him, Janelle thinks she should get up and get out of this room, because whatever’s going on is bad.

Really bad.

His lighter sputters but won’t flame. Gabe mutters a curse. He throws it, just a cheap plastic thing, onto the floor, so hard it cracks and breaks. He grips the dresser, his head down.

Janelle crosses to him, but stands out of his reach. She’s cold, suddenly, in front of the open window, despite a warm spring breeze. Her arms hump with goose pimples, and she rubs them. She says nothing.

Eventually, he turns, still gripping the dresser, to look at her. “Go away.”

“No. Not until you tell me what’s going on.”

Gabe shakes his head. He lets go of the dresser and stalks toward her, but he’s aiming for the bed, not her. He tosses back the pillows and covers, searching. Muttering a curse, he yanks open the nightstand drawer so hard it flies off its rails and the contents scatter on the floor. Coins, miscellaneous junk. No lighter. Gabe curses louder and pounds his fist against the nightstand hard enough to rock the lamp.

She’s seen him angry before. When he and his dad go at it, it’s like watching two bears in a ring, circling, ready to attack. To the jerks at school Gabe always shows a different face, colder and somehow scarier because of that. He doesn’t even have to throw a punch to make people run away. And of course, with his brothers he’s mocking, snide and sneering. A condescending big brother who grabs them in headlocks and rubs their hair to make it stand on end.