Silas (8 page)

(Well, we could probably
spend all the money if we wanted to be really conspicuous and
stupid, I guess.)

So, I didn’t really feel the
need to go to school to get a job. I was studying whatever the heck
I felt like studying, whether it added up to a degree or not. I was
having a blast.

But Sloane was fulfilling
requirements and on track to graduate early and being really
regimented about it. Which was fine with me. I didn’t care or
anything.

She and I were different. We
might have been twins. We might have shared the same womb in our
early development. But she tended to be a little bit more serious
than me. I did whatever I wanted. Sloane followed the
rules.

“
He hates me,” I said. “He
said that I treat women like objects and that I’m two steps down
from being a rapist.” I was sitting in the kitchen, eating corn
chips.

Sloane sat down with me. She
took the bag and grabbed a handful. “Well, that was kind of
harsh.”

“
But I’m back in the
wedding. He wants to keep Leigh happy.”

Sloane chewed thoughtfully.
“What do you think about what he said?”

“
I don’t.” I ate some more
chips. “Hey, did you lock the door when you came in?”

“
Yes. Don’t be a spaz.” She
chewed. “I don’t think that’s fair for him to say that about you. I
mean, you’re not into commitments, but that doesn’t mean you treat
women like objects. That makes you sound psycho.”

“
We don’t need to talk about
it.”

“
You don’t think of women as
objects, do you?”

I shrugged. “I don’t know.”
Honestly, I had very little interest in thinking about
this.

“
How can you not
know?”

I shrugged again. I shoved some more
chips in my mouth.

Sloane got up. “Do we have
any salsa? These chips would be better with salsa.”

“
I don’t think so, but I
didn’t look.”

She opened the refrigerator
door. “For instance, you didn’t think Sylvia was an
object.”

“
Do we have to talk about
her?”

“
Well, she’s the whole
reason you’re in a bad mood. If it weren’t for her, we wouldn’t
have to kill Rolf.” She pulled a jar of salsa out of the
refrigerator. “Aha!”

I watched her come back to the table
with the jar of salsa. She opened it and dipped one of her chips
inside.

I followed suit. “Sylvia
thought of me as an object.”

Sloane was chewing, but her
eyes widened and she shook her head. She swallowed. “No, she
didn’t.”

“
Of course she did,” I
said.

“
Well, maybe it started out
that way,” said Sloane. “But you guys had real feelings for each
other.”

I dragged a hand over my
face. “I guess so. I didn’t want her to die.”

Sloane patted my shoulder.
“I’m sorry.”

The doorbell rang.

I leapt up. “Who is that?
Are you expecting anyone?”

“
No,” she said.

I hurried into the living
room. I could see that there was a pizza delivery car in our
driveway. “Sloane, did you order a pizza?”

“
No,” she called from the
kitchen

“
Fuck,” I said. “It’s Rolf.
Get a gun. Get one now.”

“
Silas, maybe it’s
not.”

“
Oh come on? The delivery
guy? It’s the oldest trick in the book.” I got the gun I’d stashed
by the front door and began loading it. “You have a gun,
Sloane?”

“
Yeah, okay, I’ve got one,”
she said. “But please don’t shoot that guy unless you’re sure he’s
with Rolf. You understand me?”

I fumbled with the bullets. My hands
were a little shaky.

The doorbell rang again.

“
You understand,
Silas?”

“
Yeah, yeah,” I said,
tucking the loaded gun out of sight and striding to the door. I
opened it a sliver.

The guy outside was holding
a pizza box. He was wearing black sunglasses and a t-shirt from the
pizza place. But that didn’t mean anything. Rolf’s guy could have
gotten the pizza and the t-shirt anywhere. “Hey there. Got a pizza
for you.”

“
Didn’t order a pizza,” I
said.

“
You sure?” said the guy,
eyeing our address.

“
I’m sure,” I
said.

He furrowed his brow.

I took slow breaths. If he
was really a delivery boy, he’d leave now, wouldn’t he? He was at
the wrong place. He’d made a mistake. If he was actually trying to
deliver pizza, he’d go back to his car.

I waited.

He didn’t move.

“
So, you gonna go?” I
said.

“
Well, the thing
is—”

I cut him off by whipping out the gun
and settling it against his stomach.

His eyes bulged. “What the
hell?”

“
How did Rolf find us? How
many men does he have? If you cooperate with me, I’ll let you
live.”

The guy’s voice came out a
squeak. “Oh my god, is that a gun?”

I winced. “All right, are
you acting, or are you really a delivery boy?”

“
Don’t shoot me,” the kid
said. “Please, don’t shoot me.”

“
Fuck.” I put the gun away.
“Would you go find the people who actually ordered that pizza,
please?”

The guy let out a sob. “Oh.
Thank you. Thank you for not killing me.”

I slammed the door in his face. I
locked it.

So, maybe I was getting a little
paranoid.

* * *

“
I don’t see the point of a
bachelor/bachelorette party anyway,” I told Sloane. I was in a bad
mood, because she’d dragged me to this thing, but no one was even
acknowledging my presence.

Leigh and Griffin were
treating me like chopped liver. Christa was pretending she’d never
met me. I didn’t know half of the other people.

We’d been to about three
different bars that evening, and now we were heading back to
Griffin and Leigh’s place for the last leg of the party.

“
It’s a chance for them to
let off steam before they get married,” said Sloane, from the
passenger seat of the car.

I was driving. I would have
glared at her, but I had to watch the road. “I don’t get why it’s
combined. These things are supposed to be divided by gender. There
are supposed to be strippers.”

She snorted. “Griffin would
never go see strippers.”

“
You don’t have to go see
them. You can hire them and have them come to your house. They make
house calls.”

“
You’re disgusting,” she
said.

“
Now, you sound like
Griffin.”

“
I didn’t mean it like
that,” she said. “I meant it in the way that you’re a normal,
disgusting member of the male species.”

I pulled into Griffin and
Leigh’s parking lot. “Oh, well, that clears it up. I’m no longer
the least bit offended,” I said sarcastically.

“
You know.” She considered.
“You are kind of a jerk when it comes to girls, Silas.”

I pulled into a parking
spot. “Yes, I’m aware of this. You all don’t have to attack
me.”

“
Why is that?” She unbuckled
her seat belt. “You’re a good brother. You’re a good friend. Why
are you a dick to girls?”

“
I’m not a dick,” I said.
“They know what they’re getting into.”

“
Do they really?” She opened
her car door. “Because I seriously doubt that you’re laying down
ground rules while you’re trying to get in their pants.” She got
out of the car.

I sighed.

She peered down at me. “Is
it because of Sylvia?”

I got out of the car and
slammed the door. “It has nothing to do with Sylvia.”

“
Okay,” she said, shutting
her own door. “Does it have to do with Jolene French?”

I rubbed my forehead. “Do we
have to talk about this?”

“
Fine,” she said. “But I
think you should really work through your issues.”

“
I think I should go home
and let you stay at this party.”

“
You’re my ride,” she said,
walking towards Griffin’s and Leigh’s apartment.

“
I’ll come pick you up
later,” I said. “You can call me.”

“
No. You’re the best man.
You need to be here.”

I sighed. I followed her.

* * *

I came out of the
bathroom.
“Okay, who’s up for
shots?”

It was quiet.

Christa looked up at me from
the couch. Sloane was passed out next to her. Griffin and Leigh
were nowhere in sight. “Oliver and Jordan left.”

“
For real?” I said. “It’s
like 12:30.”

“
Yeah, Griffin’s friends are
pathetic.”

I looked around. “I guess
Griffin and Leigh went to bed.”

She nodded. “They’re
pathetic too.”

“
You know it,” I
said.

“
I remember when I used to
think that Griffin was so cool,” she said. “He was my big brother,
and I thought everything he did was just the most awesome thing
ever.” She shook her head. “And now…”

I laughed. “Hey, he’s still
pretty cool, right?”

She shrugged. “I know he’s
your friend and all, but sometimes... I guess I don’t know him very
well. I mean, he was in that coma for all those years, and we
thought he was dead.”

Coma? Oh, yeah. That was
right. Griffin had told his family that he’d been in a coma and
that the hospital had a paperwork snafu, leading to his being
labeled as someone else and his family mistakenly being told he was
dead. The truth was that Op Wraith had faked his death when they’d
busted him out of prison. His family had no idea that he’d been an
assassin.

Luckily, Sloane and I didn’t
have any family to worry about besides each other, so we didn’t
have to worry about spinning stories like that.

“
Yeah, that must have been
strange for you,” I said. “It must have been like he came back to
life.”

She nodded. “Yeah. Pretty
much exactly like that. But he’s so different now. He used to be
fun, you know? Now, whenever I look at him, he just looks like he’s
been through hell or something. There’s all this pain in his eyes.
It’s like he’s years older than he actually is.”

I wasn’t sure what to say.
Christa was more insightful than she actually knew. But it wasn’t
my place to tell her Griffin’s secrets.

She got up off the couch.
“Fuck. Why am I telling
you
this?”

“
Because I’m here,” I said.
“Because I’m a good listener?”

She snorted. “You are the
opposite of a good listener, Silas.”

“
Hey, you don’t even know
me,” I said. “You’re basing all of your information on that one
night when we hung out. You give me a chance, I might surprise
you.”

She cocked her head at me.
“Okay, fine. I’ll give you a chance. Let’s be friends, Silas.” She
offered me her hand.

I took it. “You know,
friends was not exactly what I had in mind.”

“
What did you have in
mind?”

“
Hot, sweaty sex, of
course.”

She pulled her hand away.
“You don’t give up, do you?”

“
No,” I said.

She sighed, going around me and into
the kitchen.

I followed her. “Hey, I was
joking. Mostly, I mean. You
are
wicked hot, and I can’t be around you without
thinking nasty thoughts, but I didn’t mean that I didn’t want to be
friends.”

She looked up from the
refrigerator. “You know that there’s all the stuff for Irish car
bombs in here?”

I raised an eyebrow. “You
don’t say.”

“
I do say,” she said,
pulling two bottles of Guinness out of the refrigerator. “If I make
them, will you drink one?”

“
Of course.” I leaned
against the counter, watching her get two glasses out of the
cupboard.

She looked up at me. “Look,
Silas, you gotta trust me when I say I’m no good at repeat sex,
okay? It’s better if we just let it go.”

I swallowed. “I don’t know
if I can.”

She set down the glasses on the
counter. She was several feet down from me. So close.

I went to her. “I keep
thinking about you. I think about you a lot.”

“
It’s only because you’ve
been seeing me a lot.”

“
No, I don’t think so.” I
touched her chin, turning her face up to me. “I think…”

I kissed her.

She opened her mouth to me, her body
pressing into mine. I folded my arms around her, and she was so
small and perfect, like she fit against me.

I trailed the back of my
knuckles over her neck and shoulder.