Unlovable (15 page)

Like he did Tammy Byrne.

Bill had begged him not to go out.
He’d seen the restless look in his eyes, and he also knew Alan had
dipped into their private stash of grass. Whenever Alan was high,
trouble wasn’t far behind.

Alan’s clothes were covered
in blood when he returned, and he refused to change out of them. He
wanted to relax and relive the
event
. Sicko! Bill had to get him
good and drunk to get the clothes off him so he could burn them in
the sink, and he had to bleach the knife, again.

Saving Alan was getting
old.

“
I’ll go insane by
Saturday.” Alan stomped over to the refrigerator and yanked the
door open. Empty. He slammed it shut. “You know what I really
want.”

Bill shook his head. “We can’t take
any more chances. The old man will have our hides if we blow
this.”

“
Don’t you think I know
that?” He sneered over at his brother. “I need to get out and see
something besides your ugly face. Maybe a soft female face. One
with huge—”

“
Alan,” Bill said,
interrupting his brother’s concupiscent thoughts. “If we wait until
the festival, we’ll be able to score big. The place will be
crawling with potential clients.”
He
hoped
. “Maybe you can find a sweet young
thing there that’ll need your help using for the first time. You
love it when it’s their first time.”

“
I want the girl from the
park!” Alan flung his knife across the apartment, embedding it
three inches into the wall.

Bill slammed the newspaper down in
frustration and broke a small glass end table that sat next to the
couch. He was tired of this, it had to end. Enough was enough. He
was done taking Alan’s lumps, and he was done cleaning up after
him. He dug out his cell phone, their father was the only one that
could control Alan.

“
I’ll make you a deal.” Alan
had to think fast. He realized he’d pushed his brother too far, and
the last thing he needed was for Bill to get the old man
involved.

“
We go back by the park and
watch for the girl to show up. You’ll only have to drive around, I
swear, I won’t even get out of the car unless I see her. If she’s
not there, I won’t bring it up again,
and
I’ll go to the festival with you
on Saturday.” Alan wasn’t too keen on the whole festival idea. Too
risky. Nevertheless, he hoped it would pacify his stupid
brother.

It did. He smiled as Bill sighed and
shoved his phone back into the pocket of his slacks.

“
Deal.” Bill knew it was a
waste of time arguing. Once his brother’s mind was made up, there
was no changing it. He also doubted the girl would be stupid enough
to go to the park alone again. At the very least, it would settle
his brother down. Come Saturday, they’d do some serious
business.

9

Seth

“
Hi, honey. I’m
home.”

“
Hey, Booker, I’m in the
kitchen.” Cooking, it was my way of unwinding, or in this
case,
forgetting
the last couple days, for a few hours, anyway. I could still
see Maggie standing in the parking lot accusing me of using her,
mistrust written all over her face. The face with the amazing blue
eyes.

So much for forgetting.

“
Hello, is anyone in
there?”

“
Huh?” I snapped out of my
mini daydream to find Booker standing next to me waving a hand in
front of my face. He was dressed in a pair of worn 501’s, and a
long-sleeved, deep purple Henley with a gold tee shirt
underneath.

“
I asked
what are you making for dinner
, three
times!” He shook his head at me, an exaggerated look of pity on his
face. “This wouldn’t have anything to do with your new assignment,
would it?”

“
Maggie?” I asked casually,
stirring the cream sauce before it burnt.

“
Please tell me this is what
I think it is.” Booker took a spoon and dipped it into the sauce.
Raising it to his nose, he inhaled before slipping the spoon into
his mouth and moaning. “It is. Beef Burgundy. I love your Beef
Burgundy!” His dark brown eyes immediately began scanning the
counter. I knew what he was looking for.

“
Forget it, Book. I already
added
it
, and
put
it
away.” He
was forever hounding me to reveal the secret ingredient.
Nutmeg.
I was surprised
he hadn’t figured it out yet, he usually did. “Of course, you know
what you have to do to get it.”

He was a connoisseur of hot chocolate,
taking great pleasure in creating new formulas. His number seven
was my personal favorite, but he wouldn’t share the recipe. Old
family secret, he'd say, but we both knew that wasn’t the
case.

“
Deal?”

He debated for a moment before shaking
his head. “No deal, kid. You’re a better cook than me. I have to
have one recipe I can out do you with.” I shrugged my shoulders
casually and added the steak to the sauce. Frustration pinched his
brow as the steam rose from the pan, trailing up to his
nostrils.

“
Oh, man, I’m starving. How
much longer before Cole gets here?” He took another spoonful of the
sauce, moaning once more as it bathed his taste buds and meandered
down his throat.

“
20 minutes. Add some salt
to the wild rice, will ya?”

“
So, how
is
your new assignment coming along?”
Booker walked over to the bar and planted himself on one of the
stools that he’d built. He was a master carpenter. When I bought my
home two years ago it was a disaster, and we’d spent the next year
and a half remodeling it. Actually, Booker did the lion’s share of
the work, I was more or less his apprentice and gopher, but I
learned a lot.

He scooped up my latest copy of Bon
Appétit from the huge pile of mail I’d not had time to go through
and began perusing the pages.

“
It’s not going very well.
I’m alienating her more than anything. I think she hates me.”
Truthfully, I was still upset with her. How could she lump me in
with a moron like Zack? It also seemed odd to me that they had
gotten back together. I’d watched the way he treated her the last
time they were dating, and listened to the crude things he’d said
about her in gym class. Why would a girl with major trust issues,
and clearly, trust wasn’t something Maggie did easily, date a lying
weasel like Zack?

I stirred in the mushrooms
and onions, covering the pan to let everything simmer a bit. “Maybe
you should reassign her to Garrett Woolley.” He was the
floater
agent at the high
school. “He’s a likeable guy.”

“
Possibly in a few weeks,
I’m not ready to give up on you yet, you’re my best agent, Seth. I
have complete confidence in ….” He began laughing, set the magazine
down and picked up a crumpled piece of paper from the pile of
mail.

“
You think my bills are
funny? By all means, laugh away. You can pay them while you’re at
it.” I walked over to see what had caught his attention.

“
Like you need me to pay
your bills,” he said. I didn’t, thanks in large part to him. After
my parents died, he helped me invest the insurance money into some
very profitable investments. The guy had the Midas touch, no doubt
about it. If I never worked again, I could still live very
comfortably.

He began reading aloud.
“
The Hottest Guys at Port Fare
High
. Looks like you’re number one, my
friend.” I tried snatching the paper out of his hand, but he held
it out of my reach.

“
Look. There’s a rating
system of one to ten. Someone wrote down 12, crossed it off, and
changed it to 23. Not bad, kid.”

I lunged forward, this time getting a
hold of it. I read the list as Booker studied it over my
shoulder.

“
Correct me if I’m wrong,
but I do believe this list was made up by at least two different
girls … well, I’m assuming they were girls,” he teased. “Look at
the different handwriting.” He pointed to the first five names at
the top and the names that were added near the bottom. I
immediately recognized the handwriting.

“
This here looks like
Maggie’s handwriting,” I said, pointing to a few names at the
bottom.

“
It seems she’s the one who
upgraded you to a 23,” he said, thumping me on the back. “And you
claimed she hated you. Wrong!”

“
I don’t understand,
Maggie’s never set foot in here. How did this get on my counter?” I
sat down on a stool, trying to make sense of it all.

“
Wait a minute. This
afternoon when I was getting the mail, she came jogging down my
street and practically plowed me over. Her book bag spilled out,
and I helped her pick everything up. This must have gotten mixed up
with my mail,” I said, looking over the list again.

“
Knock, knock.” Cole walked
in the back door carrying the round baguette I’d asked him to pick
up from the
Little Bakery
in town. He was dressed like he always was; blue
scrubs and scuffed up leather clogs. “Here’s the bread,” he said,
handing me the still warm brown sack. I did a quick scan for a
bandage. It was a rare occasion when he didn’t have one stuck to
some part of his body. It’d become a game between Booker and
me.

There it is; left hand, little finger!
I knew well enough not to question him about it, he was
self-conscious about his clumsiness, besides once Booker discovered
it, he’d tease him enough for the both of us.

“
Dinner will be ready in
about 20 minutes, we’re waiting on the rice. How’s work
going?”

“
Yes, by all means, Doc,
tell the
Hottest Guy at Port Fare
High
and myself about your
day
.”
He laughed
and swiped another sample of dinner.

“
I guess I missed the joke,”
Cole said. Booker offered him a spoonful of the sauce, along with
the list. Cole eagerly accepted both, groaning with pleasure as he
swallowed the sauce.

It was probably the first
meal of the day for him. If you looked up the word
workaholic
in the
dictionary, it would say “See Cole.” He was the kindest, gentlest
man I’d ever met. He definitely had strong ideas about life and the
world in general, only he had a way of professing them without
coming across overbearingly.

He was the opposite of Booker in that
way. Cole was the calm to Booker’s passion. While both men had
exceptional work ethics, Booker knew how to play, where Cole seldom
did. I couldn’t remember the last time I’d seen him wearing
something other than his hospital garb.

Differences aside, Cole, like Booker,
was a good man. Compassion poured out of both, and their integrity
was unquestionable. It was that quality I admired the most. They
reminded me of my dad. Honorable. Cole was a med student at the
University of Rochester when we met. I had a Biology lab that was
way over my head, and he helped me out. I introduced him to Booker,
and the three of us became fast friends.

“
I’d say you have a few
admirers at the high school. It doesn’t appear as if you’ll be
overlooked for the prom,” Cole said with a chortle.

“
Good one, Doc. Hey, are
those new scrubs?” Booker bantered.

Cole ignored him. “Do you know who
wrote this?”

“
N–”

“
Yes.” Booker interrupted
me. “Maggie, the girl he’s sweet on. I’m afraid our little boy is
growing up.” Booker wiped away a faux tear. To his credit,
Cole
tried
not to
smile.

“
He doesn’t know that for
sure.” I took their spoons away. Between the two of them, a fourth
of the sauce was already gone.

“
Tell me about her,” Cole
said as Booker began setting the table. He must have been hungrier
than I thought.

I took a glass bowl out of the cabinet
above the stove then began chopping up some roma tomatoes for a
salad. “She’s cute, smart, kind. You should see her with the kids
at the elementary school. She lights up whenever we’re there. They
adore her. She gives up her lunch hour to help other students. She
… What?” I frowned at their goofy expressions.

“
I wish you could see your
face, you’re partially glowing. It pains me to say this, but you’re
right, Booker. Our little boy is growing up,” Cole
mooned.

“
Keep it up and you two will
have to fend for yourselves tonight,” I said, placing the finished
salad down onto the table.

“
I’ll be fine.” Booker
smiled. “I have some leftover lasagna I can warm up. Cole, on the
other hand, will starve.”

“
I can take care of myself,
thank you very much.” Cole pulled a tomato half out of the salad
and stuffed it into his mouth.

“
That’s right. I heard you
and Ron were good friends,” Booker said innocently, the first clue
a joke was coming. Booker was many things, but innocent wasn’t one
of them.