Freaks in the City (16 page)

Jay floored the accelerator and zipped into
a barely there gap in the next lane. “But you are not required to
support your family. Both your parents are working. Your mother
still has use of the black American Express card I gave her. She is
fully aware that if your family requires anything at all, she can
charge it to the card and I have it covered.”

Tyler waited ’til his stomach was safely
back where it belonged before letting out the breath he’d been
holding. “By
family
I mean
you
, not my mom and
dad.”

“But I don’t need your financial
support.”

“I know. But that’s not the point.”

“It’s illogical. I have money secreted all
over the world in private accounts—more than both of us, your
parents,
and
Caro, could spend in a lifetime.”

“I know. What can I say? It’s a male pride
thing.”

“Then male pride is illogical. Would we be
arguing if I were a wealthy male and you were female, we were in a
relationship, and I wanted to take care of you and ensure your
financial security?”

“I know it’s illogical but….” He scrubbed a
hand over his face, desperately searching for the right words. Huh.
Ironic he had no trouble coming up with song lyrics, but he
couldn’t for the life of him think how to explain this simple
concept in a way that she would understand and accept.

Thankfully, she quit analyzing his
expression to concentrate on the road so he could pry his
white-knuckled fingers from the seat and relax a bit. Okay, time
for a straight from the heart explanation he’d barely admitted to
himself. “If you throw money at me so I can just mooch around and
do what I want, I’m afraid I’ll lose the edge.”

“Edge?”

“The thing inside me that makes me want to
push myself to write better songs and better music, and keep
pushing even when I know it’d be easier to quit this songwriting
lark and become a… a….” He wracked his brain for the most boring
job he could come up with. “A bank clerk in sleepy old Snapperton.
Instead of an unrealistic dreamer with his head in the clouds.”

Jay’s gaze snapped back to him and it was so
fierce it rocked him back against the seat. “Who said you were an
unrealistic dreamer? Your mother?”

Uh oh. Protective instincts ahoy. But she’d
guessed wrong. Two people had accused him of being a dreamer when
he’d expressed his desire to become a songwriter, as well as
continue exploring his artistic talent, but neither of them had
been his mother. She’d been nothing but supportive—of that
lifestyle choice, anyway. Grandma Davidson, on the other hand, had
been most displeased. She’d had high hopes of him being a doctor or
a lawyer, or, to quote her verbatim, “Someone who’ll make a
difference.”

“My grandmother—my dad’s mom, for one. But
she was just using me to have another dig at my mom. She blames Mom
for Dad leaving us.” He mimicked his grandmother’s querulous tones.
“Tyler would never have grown up with such ridiculous ideas filling
his head if you’d been a better wife to my son, Marissa. If my
grandson runs off and joins a commune, you’ll be to blame!”

“This is the same woman who was waiting for
your mother to screw up while Michael was AWOL so she could sue for
custody of you and your sister.”

Tyler nodded.

“She sounds like a thoroughly unlikeable
person,” Jay said.

“Let’s just say she’s had issues ever since
my mom married my dad. No woman was ever gonna be right for her
son.”

“And the second person?”

He should have known she wouldn’t let it
slide. “Caro.”

Jay rewarded him with such astonished eyes
that he laughed. “Yeah, it does sound like one big-ass case of Pot,
meet Kettle, since she’s currently doing a BFA in fashion design.
Hey, we were arguing at the time. Siblings always know which
buttons to push. She knows how important music and art are to me.
She didn’t mean it.”

“How can you be sure?” Jay sounded genuinely
curious.

“Because she ’fessed up later. She told me
if it hadn’t been for me being so determined to follow
my
dream, she’d never have been brave enough to tell mom and dad she
wanted to go into the fashion industry. She reckons she’d probably
be studying for a law degree right now, and hating every minute of
it.”

Jay nodded. “I understand. And I bet
she
would graciously thank me if I offered to pay her fees
at Eddings.”

Nice segue. Tyler refused to rise to the
bait. “Yep, I bet she would, too.”

“Oh.”

She sounded so deflated he turned to stare
out the window in the hope it might escape her that he was trying
not to laugh.

“I understand you needing an edge.” Her
quiet comment drew his full attention again.

“You do?” Progress. Hallelujah.

“It’s believed that artists move people
because their songs or paintings or sculptures—or however they
choose to express themselves—are true expressions of themselves.
And it’s posited that an artist can’t truly portray the pain of
loss, or the joy of love, if he or she has never experienced
either. You worry that the strength of your lyrics and your music
will be diminished if you have everything handed to you, and your
life is too easy.”

“Got it in one.”

“Logically, financial security must
contribute to an artist being able to spend the time he or she
requires to fully immerse himself in, and perfect, his or her
craft. There are numerous artists who have gained considerable
wealth and have gone on to produce superior products. Do you
agree?”

“Yes, but—”

“Yet by your definition, the output of those
who have attained wealth will be inferior, lacking heart.”

Tyler refrained from gnashing his teeth.
“You’re twisting my argument. Which was your argument, too, by the
way.”

She gave him her neutral face. “Of course I
am. My outcome is to either have you move in with me permanently,
or buy you an apartment and hire you a housekeeper so you will have
the opportunity to concentrate on your craft instead of struggling
to pay your living expenses. So I will continue to debate the point
until we settle on an outcome we can both live with.”

“Or until I threaten you with such dire
consequences you promise to never bring up the subject again.”

She cocked her head. “Have you given any
thought to these dire consequences? I’m most interested to hear
them.”

He groaned. “It’d be so much easier if you
were a poor student like me. If you were—”

“Normal? I will never be normal, Tyler.”

“I know. And you know how I know? Because
normal
people keep their eyes on the road. And
normal
people don’t majorly freak out their passengers by looking at them
while they’re driving. Just sayin’.”

“I like looking at you. And I haven’t had an
accident while driving yet.”

“There’s always a first time.”

She grinned at him and turned up the volume
on the car stereo before turning her focus back to the traffic.
“Don’t worry, Tyler,” she said. “I’d punch out the roof and toss
you to safety before we hit anything.”

“Gee. That makes me feel a whole heap
better.”

~~~

Every time he visited his hometown Tyler was
struck by the sameness. Small businesses started up and shut down
with the same monotonous regularity they always had. People moved
in. People moved on. Kids graduated high school and either joined
the family business or got as far away from Snapperton as humanly
possible.

“There’s Fifi!” Jay sounded delighted to
spot the scruffy little mongrel out walking with her elderly
owner.

“Yay.”

She gave him a look that screamed mischief.
“I’ve been thinking of getting a dog like Fifi.”

“Over my dead body.”

“I wasn’t serious. Dogs sense my otherness.
I’d feel badly about fooling a pet with pheromones to get it to
like me. It seems manipulative, somehow. It wouldn’t be right.”

“Bullshit,” he said. “When it comes to
getting pets to like you, and behave themselves, whatever works.
Vets prescribe stuff to calm animals down all the time. Caro once
told me Bettina’s mom got talked into some fancy mega-expensive
thing for their pedigree cat. It plugged into a power socket and
automatically released calm-down pheromones into the air.”

“Mmm.”

Tyler wondered whether that “Mmm” might mean
he’d soon be sharing Jay’s house with a puppy. So long as it wasn’t
a bad-tempered yappy little rat-tailed thing like Fifi he wouldn’t
mind.

He stared through the window, soaking up the
ambiance of the town he’d grown up in, and thanking all popular
gods he’d gotten out.

When Shawn’s dad had been mayor, he’d tried
to kick-start the town by pushing through his fancy new housing
subdivision, but residents had been slow to embrace it even before
Jay had blown one of the houses sky-high to fake her own death. Not
even high school drug scandals or far more potentially damaging
rumors of meth labs and rampaging drug dealers had managed to put
Snapperton on the map. Once the scandal died down and the rumors
fizzled out, Snapperton had rolled over and gone back to sleep. It
was stuck in a time warp and the long-time residents seemed to
prefer it that way. Tyler’s dad, especially.

Tyler suspected his dad had been profoundly
relieved that nothing much had changed when he’d returned to
Snapperton, almost as if he’d been hanging on to the memories of
his former life and they’d been all that’d kept him going. He
hadn’t come clean about everything that’d gone on while he’d been
AWOL. He’d told them the bare minimum and refused to reveal
anything else. What Tyler did know was the threats made against his
family had been so chilling, his dad had cut himself off from his
wife and kids altogether rather than risk compromising their
safety. Only spotting Tyler on the video with Jay had flushed his
dad out and brought him back to Snapperton. And even then he’d
risked the trip solely to evaluate any potential danger to Tyler
before sending in an extraction team to capture Jay.

If Jay hadn’t been careless that one time,
if she’d destroyed Matt’s phone before the clip of her tossing
Shawn into the Dumpster had gotten out, Tyler knew his dad would
still be missing, and his mom would still be wondering what she’d
done to drive her husband away.

Jay pulled up at the curb outside his
parents’ house. “You ready?” she asked.

“Nope. But let’s get it over with.” He
glanced over his shoulder at the back seat. Huh. No point unloading
the bags when they would be getting back in the car and driving
back to Jay’s apartment if his mom started in again. “We’ll leave
the bags here for now.”

“I’ll wait in the car if you like.”

Tyler emphatically shook his head. No
fricking way did he want to have to deal with his mom’s reaction if
she thought he’d come alone, and then realized Jay was sitting in
the car. Better to be upfront, so everyone knew where they
stood.

Before he could say a word, Jay lunged from
the SUV and sprinted up the driveway, colliding with the figure
dressed in black who’d raced toward her. What the—?

He caught sight of a riot of auburn curls
and his tension dissolved. Caro. This should be good.

“Omigod! I knew you weren’t dead. I knew
it!” His sister crowed with delight. “Can’t believe I didn’t put
two and two together before. I mean,
Jaime
Smythson
?
Puhlease. Couldn’t you have come up with something a little more
original than that?”

Tyler rolled his eyes and leaned out the
open window. “Why don’t you scream it a bit louder, sis? Someone in
the next county might not have heard you.”

“Crap. Sorry!”

Jay patted Caro on the back, whispered
something in her ear, and then pulled from her embrace. Whatever
she’d said must have done the trick for Caro’s grin reappeared.

Tyler got out of the car and stretched his
arms over his head while he observed Jay interact with his
sister—the nearest thing Jay had to a BFF and the only other person
in her life who unconditionally accepted her for what she was. Caro
had never had any issues whatsoever with Jay being a cyborg. But
then, Caro wasn’t in love with a cyborg, either. Her boyfriend Matt
was most definitely human.

His sister linked arms with Jay and wandered
over to greet him with a kiss on the cheek. “Hey, bro. Long time no
see!”

She followed up with a punch in the arm that
Tyler figured he deserved. “If Mom had told me you were bringing
Jay, I’d have dragged Matt along,” she said, almost as if she’d
tuned into his thoughts in that uncanny way she had.

She always put it down to a “spooky twin
thing”. Tyler secretly agreed, but liked to tell Caro that being
whacked in the head by a stray basketball had addled her
brains.

“I’m guessing Mom kinda hoped I wouldn’t,”
he said.

Caro’s brows crinkled. “Wouldn’t what?”

“Bring me,” Jay said.

The crinkle turned into a full-blown frown
as Caro glanced from Jay to Tyler, and back to Jay again. “What are
you two not telling me?”

“Your parents discovered I was still alive a
few months ago when they visited unexpectedly,” Jay said. “Until
then they had no idea that ‘Jaime’ was Jay.”

Her
Oh my God
was mouthed, as if she
couldn’t force the words out.

“Yeah.” Tyler’s attempt at laughter was
pathetic—probably because there wasn’t anything remotely funny
about the way the truth had come out. “Let’s just say the big
reveal didn’t exactly go like I’d planned.”

Caro’s gasp throbbed with sympathy. “Jeez, I
can only imagine. I kinda figured they must’ve known? And here I
was trying to be cool about being kept out of the loop by you
and
them.”

“Sorry, sis. I didn’t want you having to
keep secrets from Mom and Dad for my sake. I wasn’t ready to tell
them. And honestly? I wasn’t sure when I’d be ready.”