Nova (42 page)

He didn’t reply.

“There’s no way I’m missing Brandon Flowers
,” I added.

With a chuckle he said, “Maybe
he’ll
marry you.”

“He’s already married.”

“Oh.”

“Anyways, I thought I was married to you,” I told him.

He gave me a look of confusion. “Huh?”

With a chuckle I said, “Charlie claims we’re secretly married but he’s not supposed to tell anyone.”

Ben
rolled his eyes
, but I was surprised when he asked, “And what else did he tell you?”

“Charlie?
Uh,
nothing really.
He’s kind of weird, you know.”

“Yeah, which causes me to worry sometimes,” he smiled.

“Worry about what? All your deep, dark secrets?”

“Maybe. Probably should have had him ride with us,
though
,
” he kind of mumbl
ed to himself. “Laurel and Andy might’ve
needed some time alone…”

We’d arrived at the Fox T
heatre, and after Ben parked
, the subject was
dropped
. By then I started to get excited for the concert again, and having a night out with Ben and his friends seemed to be just what I needed. From the opening act to the very end, the show was amazing, and even though I barely knew Andy, Laurel, and Charlie, I had a lot of fun with them.

We stuck around for a little bit afterwards, mainly because Charlie had left our group for a few minutes
and we didn’t know where he went
. I wasn’t sure what was going on when I heard Ben say, “
Great
,” and
he left
us
,
as well. I watc
hed him walk across the theatre
and that’s when I saw Charlie.
He was standing with another group of people that he seemed to know, but one of the guys appeared to be giving him a hard time.

“Wait here,” Andy said as he left Laurel and I standing there.

By then Ben had met up with Charlie. But he said something to the other guy instead, and it didn’t look like a friendly exchange. Some words were spoken, and as Ben was trying to lead Charlie away, the other guy said something that made Ben stop. I was worried that he was going to get into some type of altercation with the guy, so I was happy when he decided to
shake it off and
just walk away.

“Let’s go,”
Ben
said when he approached us. He barely waited for us and continued to walk.

“What was that all about?” I asked as I caught up with him.

“Just
Charlie getting mixed up with the wrong people again.”

“Who was that guy?”

“
Josh
Keller.
Biggest
dealer
in town.
It’s because of him that Charlie got into all that crap.”

“So what did he want?”

By then we were almost to the exit and Ben decided to slow his pace. “Who knows, but I don’t want Charlie around those guys,” he said quietly as the others caught up to us. “I’ll take you home,” he said to Charlie.

Charlie nodded, we said our farewells to Andy and Laurel, and the three of made our way to Ben’s
Jeep
. It wasn’t until we were on Chester Avenue when Ben finally said, “What were you thinking,
talking
to those guys?”

“I didn’t
make it a
point
to talk to them. I saw Kendra so I thought I’d say hi. I didn’t see
Josh
until he came over to me.”

“And what did he want?”

“Nothing, he just…
I don’t know, said ‘Hey,’ I guess.”

“Just ‘hey,’ huh?” Ben scoffed.

“Yeah,” Charlie replied, getting angry. “What, you think I’d be dumb enough to associate with the guy
again
? Gee, thanks for the confidence,
man
.”

“I trust
you
, Charlie; I don’t trust
Josh
.”

“Well you’d better damn well trust me,” Charlie growled. “You think I really want that life again, Ben? Huh? Are you out of your mind
?!
”

“Don’t yell at me
in here
. You’re right in my ear.”

“Then don’t lecture me like I haven’t learned my lesson. I already feel like your retarded little brother.”

That made Ben chuckle, and so did Charlie. I smiled too, just because the mood had lightened.

“Well I’m just trying to look out for you,” Ben finally said. “Whether you’re actually retarded or not,” he added with a smile.

“Maybe not retarded, but I’m sure there are a few billion brain cells missing.”

A few minutes later we dropped Charlie off at a dumpy apartment building. It reminded me of the first apartment that my mom and I lived in when we moved out of my grandparents’ house. He said so
mething about “home, sweet home
” when he got out
,
and then he waved goodbye as he climbed a set of stairs.

Ben actually waited until he was inside of his apartment before he left. I thought that was
thoughtful
. I think he might have even walked him to his door had I not been there with him, and when I mentioned that to him, he kind of
laughed.

“Yeah, I usually do. But it’s more out of habit because Charlie used to be paranoid that the Feds were waiting for him in his apartment.”

“Really?”

“Yeah. Either that or the Russians that wanted his plans for an invisible
spy
plane.”

I couldn’t help but chuckle, but at the same time I knew it wasn’t funny.

“It’s okay,” Ben said
, realizing that I felt
bad
. “We laugh about it now, but back then… Man, he was really bad, Nova. It’s one thing to s
ee one of your best buddies
get into trouble now and then, but to watch them literally destroy themselves…” I didn’t know what to say so I didn’t say anything. We drove in silence for a
bit
before he finally said, “Sorry, I normally wouldn’t say stuff like that to anyone, but Charlie said he told
you
, right?”

“That he was a junkie? Yeah, he mentioned it.”

We were silent again as we
headed
Harmony acres. The moon was almost full, and I leaned my head against the window to watch it through the trees.

“Charlie’s one of those demons that I’ve had to face,” Ben said, breaking the silence.

I looked at him and he glanced at me, and then we took a left for the ranch.

“It’s because of me that he got into that crap, not
Josh
Keller.”

“You said you didn’t do drugs. I don’t understand.”

“I didn’t.
But a lot of those people we hung around
with in the racing scene—
Josh
, Keith,
Kado
—they had other business on the side. I used to race for
Josh
a lot—so did Austin. At the time we were a little naïve to all that stuff. Charlie seemed to know more about it than we did, and it was because he was with those guys
more than we were. Austin and
I
were
busy racing
and Charlie was left to be raised by the wolves. He was kind of our shark, you know? He knew just
how to rope people in for races
and he was great for business.
Josh
loved him, and I later realized that he’d been giving Charlie freebies—drugs—all along.

“
When Austin started to feel some of the heat—you know, being around that crowd and stuff—it made him uncomfortable. He said we shouldn’t race for
Josh
anymore, especially because
Josh
seemed to ge
t even crazier with his betting
and his behavior started to get a little extreme. Too many bad things started to happen—fights, theft, too much
rivalry
—and the scene just changed for the worse
.
It was
n’t
fun anymore.
”

We pulled up to the guesthouse
and Ben parked his
Jeep
by the fence.

“Without Austin,
winning bets was eve
n harder. I lost a lot of
money,
Josh
lost a lot of money… Things just kind of went downhill. And because
Josh
wasn’t making as much street racing, he turned to dealing more often. And that’s when he started to use Charlie. I was so hooked on gambling that I couldn’t even see past my own greed. I had that mentality of, ‘Just one more
race and I’ll be back on top.’
I didn’t even know that Charlie had become so addicted to drugs. Pretty soon he wa
s living the life of a junkie—s
tealing from people, hocking people’s stuff, using every dime for his next fix… I didn’t even know who he was anymore. I couldn’t talk to him—he was delusional half the time, unreasonable—and anything I said to
Josh
got me into trouble. He said he’d stop dealing to Charlie if I did this or if I did that. And yeah, it did work the first few times. But Charlie was too add
icted
an
d
Josh
knew that. It just…didn’t turn out well.”

I internalized the information for a bit before I
asked
, “And what about Austin?”

“Austin was smart and got out. By the time I wanted out I’d already gotten myself in
to
a load of trouble. Austin did help me out
quite a bit,
but when Charlie came around a couple times looking for me to
get him out of some sort of mess
again… That’s when things got worse around here. No one wanted Charlie around here because he was so messed up all the time
and couldn’t be trusted.”

“You said that Charlie got into stuff like stealing from people and hocking things… Um, you said you did that here at the ranch… Did Charlie have anything to do with that, too?”

He didn’t answer at first, but then he replied, “Yeah, that’s who started it all. But Charlie wasn’t to blame entirely. I really did do it, too. I did it to dig myself out of gambling debts at first, and then I was desperate to get Charlie into rehab and did it some more. Not my proudest achievement.”

“But you’ve come clean about all of that, so it’s not something that you still need to atone for.”

“No, but I still have regrets, you know. I mean I wish I could turn back the clock and—”

“Mistakes
are meant to be made
. That’s what refines us the most if we’ve actually learned from them.”

“I know but…”

“Yeah, I understand. I also admire you.”

He chuckled until he realized I was serious. “What for?”

“It’s hard to fess up to things we’ve done wrong. And do you remember the first day we talked to each other?”

“How could I forget that?” he smiled. “You were covered
in dirt and sweat… So beautiful.
”

I laughed at his facetiousness. “Yeah, anyways… I was referring more to our conversation at the truck.”

“Okay.”

“I had no right to spout off my opinions like that. It wasn’t my place and I’m sorry.”

“Apology accepted, but I did aggravate the situation, too,” he smiled.

“Yes, you did.
But you already apologized for that.
”

“Yes, I certainly did,” he smiled again.
We sat there for a few seconds in silence. Ben turned off the engine to his
Jeep and then sighed.
“It’s really true that you can’t judge a book by its cover.”

I thought about that for a second. “No, I guess you can’t. I mean on the outside something could be obvious, but you really don’t know what a person has been through unless you walk a mile in their shoes.”

“Ha, another cliché.”

I smiled. “Yeah, I know.”

He sighed again and then slapped his thighs with his hands. “Well?” he asked, looking at me. “I’m ready to hit the sack. Wanna join me?”

I snorted and then punched him in the arm while he laughed. We both got out of the
Jeep
and headed for the house when he said, “I didn’t mean in the
same
sack.”

“Right.”

He chuckled again. “I knew you were
gonna
punch me, but not that hard,” he said, rubbing his arm.