Infamous (16 page)

She got it, too. Bev and A.J. and Adam and I whooped and hollered when she hung that college diploma on the living room wall, and when she passed her MCATs with flying colors.

Her plans were on the verge of coming true, but I knew from the look in her eyes that her plans had changed years ago. I knew that she would have gladly given that diploma away if she could’ve had our Ryan back.

But life does go on.

And after I’d passed, after Bev had had her adventure with Charlie, after A.J. left home to join the army, Rose became a doctor.

I confess I had high hopes that, as time went on, Rose would also let herself fall in love again. I had hopes that she would find someone to fill the hole that Ryan’s dying had cut into her heart.

I was sorely disappointed when I returned to Heaven and found her living all alone in that big old house that Mel and I used to share.

She was still smart, still beautiful, and still lonely as hell.

“Call Craig,” I told A.J. now. “It’s a three-birds-with-one-stone thing. You maybe help Alison, you get to make your mother happy,
and
you reconnect with a man you used to call friend.”

“I don’t think my mother’s going to be happy,” A.J. pointed out, “unless my calling Lutz makes you disappear.”

While A.J. was still several blocks away—too far to shout a greeting—he saw Alison and another woman go into the sleazy-looking little roadhouse on the corner of Main Street and Mexicali.

It was crazy the way his heart did gymnastics at just that distant glimpse of her. And not just his heart. His dick was warming up and stretching, too. It definitely wanted to be part of the workout.

He was early, as planned, but she’d beaten him over here. And now if he wanted to see her—which he suddenly desperately did—he was going to have to go inside.

When the door opened, music and laughter spilled out onto the hard gravel of the parking lot. It was only 7:30 at night, but a country band was already playing full volume and the little honky-tonk was packed.

The sky and the building seemed to glow with the rosy hues of the desert twilight. It softened the piles of scrap metal and old tires that surrounded the place like ornamental shrubbery and even made the crumbling adobe of the dingy roadhouse a pretty shade of pink.

The roadhouse door opened again as more members of the movie’s production staff went inside, and the muffled music again became sharper. A pedal steel guitar solo cut through the darkening heat, clear and sweet, before the door closed again.

A.J. could almost smell the thick cigarette smoke that he
knew hung heavily in the air. He could almost taste the golden flavor of the whiskey, sliding down his throat, warm and welcoming.…

A throat he now cleared as he turned to look at Jamie, who was standing beside him.

“Well, hell,” Jamie said. “Who knew she’d be early?”

“It’s no big deal,” A.J. said. “I’ll just …” He cleared his throat again. “Go in.” He’d get a cola so he had something to hold on to. And then, maybe—if he was lucky—he could put down the drink and hold on to Alison.

“Bad idea, kid,” Jamie said. “Just slow down a bit. Let’s regroup. Figure out our plan B. Don’t move, okay?”

As Jamie popped away, A.J. looked back at the roadhouse, listening to the throbbing, low beat of the kick drum and bass guitar.

The ghost reappeared almost immediately. “There’s a back door,” he reported, “but the back parking lot is badly lit. I seriously believe that when Alison leaves she’s gonna exit through this entrance here.”

“So your plan B is to sit and wait for her to come back out?” A.J. asked.

“Seems as good a plan as any.” Jamie shrugged. “Or you could wait for her over at her house—on her front steps.”

A.J. sighed. “Yeah, that’ll go over well.”

“What’s to not go over? She gets home, you stand up and back off a bit because you’re a gentleman. You tell her that you couldn’t stop thinking about her so you dropped by because you wanted to say good night.”

“Which she’ll interpret—correctly—as a booty call.”

“No, she won’t,” Jamie scoffed.

A.J.’s head suddenly ached—or maybe he just suddenly became aware that he was carrying around one big pain-in-the-ass headache. He was tired, too—it had been a long day. And—bonus!—he was sweating. Even though the sun had faded almost entirely from the sky, the air was still thick and hot, the temperature still in the eighties.

“She’ll think it’s romantic,” Jamie continued. “And okay,
yeah, maybe she
will
think it’s about sex, but she’ll realize she was wrong when you bid her good evening and walk away.”

Two of the other extras—Flynn and Marty—were sharing a motel room, and they were fine with A.J. stopping in to use the shower. Once a day. More than that, though, would be an imposition.

Problem was, this was three-shower weather and by the end of the day he was pretty damn ripe.

God, but he missed Alaska. He missed the long, endless summer days and the fresh bite of the cool northern air. He missed the peaceful solitude of his isolated cabin and workshop—a complete one-eighty from the bustle and noise of this movie set.

And as long as he was missing things, he missed the soothing feel of the wood against his hands as he crafted it into furniture—beautiful furniture, that would last well beyond a single lifetime. But most of all, he missed his sense of … not quite contentment—he doubted he’d ever feel truly content—but he
had
felt acceptance. Before Jamie had returned, before they’d taken this insane road trip and arrived here in Jubilation, A.J.’d accepted that his life—the rest of it anyway—was destined to be a quiet one. He’d accepted it, because he knew that, just as things had once been a whole hell of a lot worse, it wouldn’t take much for him to get tossed back there, for his life to become much worse again.

The certainty of his acceptance of his current quiet life brought with it a huge amount of safety.

For example, he would never find himself, while up in Alaska, standing in front of a bar and seriously considering going inside.

All because he’d kissed some random woman and now wanted more, even though he knew it would lead absolutely nowhere.

“What if I don’t?” A.J. asked Jamie as the sky darkened even more and the first stars appeared. He turned to look at the ghost. “Tell her good night and walk away.”

For once, Jamie wasn’t flip or funny. For once, he paused before answering, as if he were really considering A.J.’s words.

“Well,” he said. “I guess it all depends on what you’re really looking for. If it’s a quick slap and tickle—a booty call—then, by all means, take it if it’s offered. But if you want something more substantial? Then walking away, as hard as it might seem, will get you farther in the long run.”

Something more substantial.

The way Jamie said it, it actually sounded reasonable. Attainable. Not just possible but likely to happen.

But it wasn’t.

According to Bev, his sister, who was a social worker and knew a thing or two about human nature, it made sense that A.J. would only be attracted to women that he absolutely knew he couldn’t have.

Through the years, Bev had gently suggested that A.J. was commitment-averse because he was frightened by the idea of having to open himself up and share his secrets with anyone.

She got that right. The past was the past, and it was going to stay in the past—unmentioned, unacknowledged, unable to hurt him anymore.

He’d done the veterans’ support group thing, he’d done the therapy, he’d done as many steps as he could handle, and he’d come quite far in the ten years since he’d wandered the streets of Los Angeles, too drunk to care that he’d lost his job, his truck, his home.…

And that alone was something that he couldn’t imagine telling even the most intimate of lovers.
Yeah, back when I was homeless
 … That would go over well with a woman like Alison.

Yet, at the same time, A.J. couldn’t imagine ever making a lifetime commitment to someone who didn’t know all the terrible things he’d seen and done.

Hence his lack of attraction to anyone with whom he might forge a relationship that was
more substantial
than a relatively short-term sexual encounter.

And to be honest—at least with himself—for years now,
even the sex seemed too much. Too close. Too personal. Too risky.

About two years back, Bev had tried setting him up with a vast variety of beautiful, smart, funny, successful women. Blind-date-of-the-week, was how she’d jokingly referred to it, even though the entire operation had been deadly serious.

But out of all the women Bev had introduced to A.J., there was only one to whom he found himself attracted. She was the older sister of date number seven.

And she’d been happily married.

In a similar way, Alison Carter was attached to her career. It seemed clear to A.J. that she was living the life she wanted, and any space she made for a lover would be only temporary.

With that in mind, he should go, as Jamie put it, for the slap and tickle.

And he should feel no guilt, whatsoever, for secrets left untold.

“Where’d you go, boy?” Jamie asked quietly. “What’s cooking inside of that head of yours?”

But A.J. forced a smile. “Let’s wait for her at her house.”

“I changed my mind,” Jamie told him. “Now I’m thinking that might not be a real good idea.”

A.J. looked at him in disbelief. “
Now
you’re thinking that?”

“It’s kind of clear you just decided that this
is
a booty call.”

This was too much. “How many hours ago was it that you were telling me I should get laid?”

“That was before I saw how you look at her.”

“Enlighten me.” A.J. crossed his arms. “How, exactly, do I look at her?”

“Like she’s the one,” Jamie replied evenly. “You look at her in the same way that your father looked at your mother.”

“And look at how well that worked out for
her.”

Now Jamie was starting to get mad, too. “Life can be a real pisser of a bitch,” he said. “You know that as well as I do. But you learn to accept what you get, and if you’re lucky, you’ll get decades. If you’re not, you don’t. Rose and Ryan
were unlucky, but at least they had the time that they had, as short as it was. And at least they had Bev and they had you.”

“Oh, I’m a real gift,” A.J. said hotly.

“You are,” Jamie shot back. “And not just to your mother. You were
my
gift, too. You brought me joy, A.J., at a time in my life when I thought the joy was through. And together, with your sister, we made your mother laugh again.”

“I’m sure as shit not making her laugh now!”

“She’ll get over it,” Jamie said.

“The way she got over my father’s death? The way she got over
yours?
You weren’t around to live through
that
. Believe me, it sucked.” He’d spent months, terrified that his mother was going to spiral back down into the deep depression that had nearly broken her years earlier. She hadn’t, but A.J.’s fear had been real, just the same. He pulled off his hat, and ran his hands through his hair. God, would this heat ever abate? “If I really want to be ‘her gift,’ if I want to bring her any kind of real fucking joy, I should just go home and let her check me into whatever facility she thinks will help me.”

“You’re. Not. Crazy,” Jamie said. “Will you just goddamn stop with that already?” He turned, his frustration and anger evident in the sharpness of his movement as he pointed at the roadhouse. “Have you ever been inside of that honky-tonk?”

A.J. shook his head, suddenly exhausted. “No. I told you—”

“Have you ever talked to anyone who’s even been inside of it?”

What? “Of course I have,” A.J. said. “Alison’s in there right now.”

“But have you talked to her or anyone else about it? What it looks like inside? That sort of thing?”

“No,” A.J. said. “Why would I?”

“Wait here.”

Jamie vanished, leaving A.J. alone in the darkness. Alone with his thoughts.

Which included a boatload of swearing and a burning thirst for a shot of something with a hell of a kick, mostly because he knew that if he had a drink or two, he wouldn’t give a
damn. Not about anything. And he’d get what he wanted—Alison, right now, tonight—because his honor and integrity would vanish with his nearly ten years of hard-won sobriety.

He’d be charming and funny—he had that down—and he’d sweep her off her feet. And the sex would feel so fucking good with the warm buzz of whiskey or tequila in his blood and he’d think, no, he’d
know
that this time, it would be different. That he could handle it. That he could ration the alcohol, and it would be okay, because he wouldn’t have to ration the sex. And it would work for four or five days, or maybe even a week, but by then the demon would have its claws in him so deeply that he’d break his rules because he’d need more and more—another drink, and another drink, and then a whole goddamn bottle, and he’d be puking on the bathroom floor or maybe even right in the bed, which was neither charming nor funny.

And Alison would jettison him, and the sex would stop, but he wouldn’t care as long as he could get another drink, and another drink, and another drink—

A.J. sat down on the curb, across the street from that bar, and put his head between his knees and breathed.

This was all he had to do, right here, right now. In this moment. He had to breathe. Just breathe. One heartbeat at a time.

He’d come out of the darkness by surrendering control and simplifying his rules. No drinking. None at all. No hanging out in bars. No temptation. And he’d made it as easy as he possibly could. He didn’t have to not drink tomorrow or next year or five years from now. He never had to think that far ahead. All he had to do was not drink in this one moment.

So he breathed—just breathed. He was okay, and he was going to stay okay. At least for right now.

“The band has eight members, one of them’s a girl,” Jamie reported as he popped back in. “Whoa, you okay, kid?”

“Yeah,” A.J. said, lifting his head to look at the ghost. “I just got a little dizzy.”