Due South (The Compass series Book 5) Page 14

  He laughs at how my nose has wrinkled up because he probably realizes those are the only circumstances under which I would eat celery.

  “Lucky for you, I know where to get the best wings in town. I used to go there with my brother.”

  Evans’s face turns bright red and shutters. Clearly there’s something about this place. Maybe something happened there? Or maybe it’s just that he used to go there with Darren? When Evans talked about Darren before, it didn’t seem as though they had the greatest relationship.

  “If you don’t want to go because—well, if you don’t want to go there, we can go someplace else. I love wings, but not so much I’d—” Want you to be uncomfortable so I can get my sticky-fingered fix. “—anyway, we can go someplace else.”

  He shakes his head and his gaze gets pulled to the side, as though he can’t look at me. “It’s not…it’s not bad memories. Good ones, actually. But the reason I—”

  If it’s possible, his face gets even redder.

  “Jeez, Evans, what?”

  “It’s—it’s a—” He lowers his voice and honest-to-god looks around as if there might be someone spying on us from somewhere in his tiny office. “It’s a strip club.”

  He’s said strip club as though it’s some kind of house of ill repute, which I guess it sort of is, and heaven knows Pastor Elijah would’ve thought so. But it’s not as if it’s a brothel or an opium den. And though the idea of women strutting around on a stage, displaying their bodies and wearing items that can barely be called clothes, makes the blood rush to my cheeks, it’s not with disgust. If anything, the idea is hot. Sitting in a corner booth with Evans, watching some lithe woman move provocatively against a pole, gyrating and spinning, showing off her breasts and her buttocks, with some sexy music playing? I could reach under the table, unbuckle and unzip his pants and—

  “Luce?”

  “Sorry.” My face is so hot it might burst into flames. “Um, that’s okay.”

  “Okay?” he echoes, his eyes wide.

  “Yeah. I mean, we won’t be there for that long. And I want some good wings. Like, really bad. Hella bad.”

  He snorts at my California girl impression and shakes his head. “If you’re sure.”

  “I’m sure. I can handle some half-naked women dancing in the background while I stuff my face full of wings.”

  “If that’s what the lady wants…”

  *

  Evans

  I am on my way to a strip club to eat chicken wings with the most gorgeous, coolest girl in the world. I feel like a lot of women would not be down with going to a strip club (not that I would blame them) and the fact that Lucy is game—it’s cool she’s secure enough not to worry about her body being compared to the dancers. Which I’d tell her not to even worry about because she has a phenomenal body, but the fact that it hasn’t even occurred to her is awesome. Or maybe she wants wings that badly. Note to self: Lucy loves chicken wings. Which is also awesome.

  Pulling into the Hen House, I suck air between my teeth and cringe because I forgot what a dump this place is. Strip clubs usually are, and it’s not as though I’ve been here recently. Maybe it was better when I’d come here with Darren? Or maybe I was so excited about the prospect of seeing mostly naked women he could’ve taken me to a literal garbage dump and I still would’ve remembered it as “not that bad.” Whatever the case, I’m regretting this. It’s a total shithole, and Lucy deserves better than this.

  “Luce, we don’t have to—”

  My apology and backpedaling is cut off by her vaulting out of the car. She bends down through the open door. “Evans, I can smell the buffalo sauce from here. It took us fifteen minutes to get here and there’s no way I’m leaving without eating something. So come on, before I take a bite out of your arm.”

  Then she slams the door and walks away. I can either go after her or drive away without her, and let’s face it: there’s no real choice.

  I get out of the car and jog after her, admiring the purposeful way she strides through the parking lot, a woman on a mission. When we get to the entrance, there’s a flyer on the door announcing it’s Amateur Night, with a prize of $100. I have to wonder how many women they actually get, but I don’t have much time to contemplate it because Lucy’s practically ripping the door off its hinges.

  The inside is even worse than the outside, dark with low ceilings, the lingering scent of stale smoke emanating from the walls of the place. It’s…not nice. And yet Lucy’s not turning tail, not turning on her heel and marching out of the godforsaken place. Instead she hightails it over to the hostess.

  “Table for two please, a booth if there’s one free, and don’t bother bringing a menu. We’ll take four orders of chicken wings and a couple of Coronas with limes.”

  The hostess seems amused by Lucy’s take-charge attitude, as am I. She’s normally so mild-mannered, almost skittish sometimes, but I like this in-command Lucy very much. And what’s a guy to do but follow her to a booth on the side and slip onto the cracked vinyl upholstery next to her? This guy? I’m not doing a thing.

  Once we’re settled, it seems to occur to Lucy to actually look around. She folds her hands on the table top—which, thank goodness, is actually clean—and studies her surroundings. While she’s looking around, I take the opportunity to look at her. The outfit she changed into after our shower is one of my favorites: a clingy black pencil skirt; black heels; and a flower printed high-necked blouse, one of those ones with the tie at the neck. Which should be prissy and proper, but it makes me want to pull it open with my teeth and not stop there, opening the buttons with my mouth until the silk parts and I can see what kind of delicious retro lingerie she’s got on today.

  My fantasy of getting her undressed is interrupted by her voice. “So you used to come here with your brother?”

  I shrug, feeling awkward because I don’t want her thinking I’m the kind of guy who frequents strip clubs. I don’t, but… “We came here a few times. Before he joined up.”

  When he was just irresponsible, good-time Darren. The small-town quarterback hero who never thought he’d have to make more of himself.

  “He used to tease me, say he wanted a designated driver, but I don’t think that was it. It was one of the few times he’d want me to come along with his friends, you know, his geeky older brother, and it was one of the few times I felt okay about joining them. I couldn’t play sports with them and going to a pool hall demanded too much…talking. And I was never good at video games. But a strip club? Yeah, I could come here, watch some girls dance, and have a beer.”

  She looks at me, her gaze open and curious. “You don’t talk about him much.”

  I wish there was something on the table to fiddle with—silverware, a napkin, a coaster—but there’s nothing, so I look at my hands. “No. We’re not close. Never have been. But more so now than before. He—”

  I sneak a glance at Lucy, and there she is, sitting next to me all pretty and perfect, her hair a little messed up because we’ve been at work for eighteen hours, but she looks as though she’d wait all night for me to find the words. She’s right that I don’t talk about Darren often, because I don’t like to. Don’t like to be reminded of any of it, even though he’s my brother and I love him. So I tell her.

  “When we were in school, he was the hometown hero. Captain of the football team, homecoming king, all that. Most of the time when you’ve got siblings in a school, it’s always the younger one who gets the ‘Oh, you’re so-and-so’s brother.’ Not with us. A lot of people didn’t even realize we were related, and neither of us did anything to correct that. He was Darren Evans, golden boy, and I was Chuck Evans, nerd extraordinaire.”

  The smile I give Lucy is half-hearted at best, and I’m relieved that a scantily clad waitress comes over with our Coronas, lime wedges sticking out the top. I immediately squeeze the juice into the bottle before stuffing the carcass down the neck so the beer will catch even more of the citrus flavor on its way to my mouth. I�
��m not a huge beer fan, but having anything else in a strip joint seems wrong. I start picking at the label and go on with my tale.

  “After high school, I went to college and grad school, and Darren…well, he was good enough to dominate the local conference, but he wasn’t quite good enough to get a scholarship to any college. So he messed around for a while, doing odd jobs or working at minimum-wage places. Tried a bunch of things, but outside of sports, he never had much of a work ethic. Got fired from a bunch of places. And when I came home, with a good job and my own place and my own car, he lost it. Enlisted. Even though he didn’t say it, I think it was partly so he wouldn’t have to be around to watch me be more successful than him.”

  The label peels off in my hands, and I tear it into strips, remembering how petulant Darren had been, how he’d given me shit over family dinners and the bullying part of him came out harder than it had in a long time. I was a grown man, but it had felt as though we were back in high school. I hated that he still had the ability to make me feel that way, as if he could still stuff me in a locker, and I hated myself some for letting him. Why couldn’t I brush it off? Why did it have to matter so freaking much?

  “So he went off to the Air Force, which wasn’t a great fit for him, but it was better than what he’d been doing. He managed to serve out the haul he’d signed up for, but he didn’t want to be in the service any longer than he had to, so he left. And had a hard time finding something to do when he got back. He was messed up—like PTSD messed up—by some of the stuff he’d seen while he was on tour in Afghanistan and Iraq, and he started drinking. More than usual. Like enough to get shitfaced and mean on a pretty regular basis.”

  Lucy rolls her lips between her teeth, and I’m guessing she’s picturing some hulking brute smashing around and screaming, which isn’t so far from the truth. I tried to stay out of the line of fire as much as I could.

  “Anyway, one night he got absolutely blitzed and decided it was a good idea to drive home. It wasn’t.”

  It’d been awful to get the phone call from my parents saying Darren had been in a wreck, but even more awful when my mom had yelled at me because I’d asked if he’d hurt anyone else. “He’s family, Chuck. Your concern shouldn’t be with anyone else.” But it had been. If Darren had hurt anyone, killed anyone, I don’t know that I could’ve lived with that, which is messed up. It’s not as though I’d have done anything wrong, but I would’ve still felt responsible. Luckily, he’d only wrapped his own beater around a tree and no one else was injured.

  “He got in a wreck and spent a long time in the hospital, and when he got out… He’d never been great at holding down a job, but it got even worse after that. I tried to get him to get help. That’s what the VA is for. But Darren didn’t want to, my dad kept insisting there was nothing wrong with him, and my mom thought he just needed a break, so—”

  I clamp my mouth shut around the words: That’s when my life ended. That’s when I gave up my life for his. Because of this abiding sense of responsibility that only goes in one direction. I do feel terrible that Darren has some very real mental health issues, and it pisses me off that the government doesn’t do more for veterans, but I can’t help but be irritated by his lack of motivation to do anything about it and to make it worse by drinking his life away.

  “So?”

  Lucy’s gentle prodding and her big brown eyes make me feel safe, valued. She’s not bored, she wants to know, and she’s not judging me for my conflicting feelings about Darren. I heard that phone call with her mom; she must feel conflicted about her family too.

  I frame it less baldly than I feel, in a way that hopefully won’t make me sound pathetic and resentful and desperate. Even though I am all of those things. But I don’t want Lucy… I’d die if she saw me that way too. Let her keep believing me to be a responsible, stand-up guy, one who’s good enough to be trusted with her body if not her heart. “So I’ve been helping my family out. Financially. For a long time. And I tried to get them to take advantage of some of the services and programs out there, but they…”

  The frustration wells through me. I’ve given up so much for a situation that could be easily made better, but they’re too resistant to change. My brother lets his pride get in the way, and my mom can’t let go of the obligation she feels. My dad pretends like there’s nothing wrong and Darren will grow out of it.

  I shred the remains of the label and throw them on the table in front of me. The words get ground out through my teeth and tears start to sting the backs of my eyes. “But they won’t. So I help. Try to make them as comfortable as possible. And sometimes, I’d like some gratitude, you know? Or some affection? Instead of being the second-best son still. I’m not the fuck-up, I’m the success. I’m the one who makes it possible for them to live the way they do, and they never—”

  I choke on it—my anger and my sadness, the longing for approval and attention that’s never going to come, and the bitterness that’s growing along with it because it’s never going to change. They’ll never change their behaviors. They’ll never say thank you. They’ll never let me go. I’ll just be giving up my life for people who don’t value me and treat me like an afterthought because I’ve managed to lead a productive and relatively drama-free life. People who don’t particularly respect my job that’s important to me, even though it’s that self-same job that provides for all of us.

  It’s fucked up that I could be jealous and resentful of my brother now because of course he deserves help, and maybe if he’d gotten more of it, he wouldn’t be in the situation he’s in. But I can’t deny I have those small, petty impulses, and that makes me feel shittier.

  Lucy lays a gentle hand on my forearm, strokes through the cotton of my shirt. “Hey. It’s okay. I know what it’s like to have your family not think much of you. Even when you’ve made something of yourself. I mean, I’m no second-in-command like you, but I’m proud of what I do.”

  I’ve never thought of myself that way, although I guess that’s what I am. But what really gets my goat is that anyone’s made Lucy feel bad. No one outside BCG knows what it’s like to work for India. Well, except Cris. Maybe that’s why he’s so nice whenever he stops by the office or shows up on work trips.

  “You should be. You’re great at your job. And putting up with India should earn you a medal.”

  Lucy’s tinkly laugh breaks through some of the anger inside, but I’m still feeling beat down and shitty.

  “You’re great at your job. You’re so smart, and you know how to talk to people without making them cry, and even if your family doesn’t value that and how hard you work…I do. I know it’s not the same, but I hope that makes you feel better.”

  She’s right that it’s not the same, but I want so badly to latch on to her version of me: Evans, the guy who’s competent and intelligent. Evans, who can make an amazing woman come like a bottle rocket and laugh. Evans, who is deserving of attention and affection, the guy who is…good enough for a woman like her.

  “It means a lot, Lucy.” I lay my hand over hers and squeeze, trying to send all the feelings I have through my fingertips. All the gratitude, all the empathy, all the pleasure that courses through me when she tells me I’m good enough. Not even that. I’m plain good. “Thank you.”

  She smiles at me, shy and sweet, and suddenly I don’t feel so small and useless anymore. If I can make a girl like Lucy smile like that, well, that’s good enough for me.

  Then a waitress plunks down four giant baskets of chicken wings in front of us, dripping with buffalo sauce and smelling so spicy it makes my sinuses burn. We yank our hands away from each other, even though we weren’t doing anything halfway scandalous, and I suspect we’re both flushing the same shade of red. Matching, fair-skinned blushes.

  The waitress doesn’t seem to notice how flustered we are though, just tosses a pile of napkins and Wet-Naps amidst the baskets, asks if we want another beer, to which we both shake our heads. We have more work to go back to after this is over, a
nd then hopefully we’ll get to grab a few hours of sleep before it’s time to go at it again. Work, I mean, not the other thing.

  Chapter Fourteen

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  December 23rd

  Lucy

  Evans was right. These are the best wings I’ve ever had. It may be one o’clock in the morning, but this is totally worth it. The wings are still crispy under the buffalo sauce coating them, and so sticky the unnaturally orange substance is getting all over his face and hands and I want to lick it off. Want to lick it off him until he feels a hundred feet tall, like the man he is. A good man, a smart man, one who works so hard and is genuinely kind. It makes me want to rip his family’s faces off that they can’t see that, that they don’t make him feel that way every single goddamn day. Evans deserves to feel good about who he is, because who he is is pretty great.

  The mystery of where his money goes has been solved, but I don’t feel good about it. Will he ever be able to rid himself of the burden? I love that he wants to help his family, but it seems as though they don’t appreciate it at all and don’t understand the sacrifices he makes. And I wonder…is this why he doesn’t date? Because he doesn’t feel like he has anything to offer? The idea squeezes my heart so tight it might explode, the unfairness of it all overwhelming me.

  Luckily, I have the wings to distract me. I devour an entire basket of them without hardly stopping to breathe. Then my mouth’s on fire, so I stop long enough to scarf down some celery and carrots smothered in the ranch dressing and hail the waitress to bring over a glass of water. When I’ve chugged it and asked for a second, I finally take a breath and can look around the shabby place again.

  Evans was right, it’s not nice. I’d never come here certainly by myself and probably not with anyone else. I feel like with any of the guys I’ve dated, they’d bring me to a strip club to make me uncomfortable or because they’d be too selfish to realize I would be uncomfortable. But Evans brought me here because they have the best wings in town, something I wanted. Something he wanted to give me.