Landslide (2 page)

After having a DNA test to determine that I am in fact his son, I’ve spent all of my nineteen and a half years of life being raised by a hard-ass who started pounding it into my head before I could even talk that life isn’t easy and there are no freebies or handouts. Not only that, but anyone who ever tries to give you something for nothing is an untrustworthy liar just looking to screw you in some way or another. That being the case and our household motto, I was expected to wash my own clothes, work around the house, do all the yard work, learn how to work on cars because, “every man should know how to take care of his car if he’s lucky enough to have one,” and I wasn’t to be a freeloader in general.

Thus the minute I turned thirteen and was old enough to open a bank account in my name, my dad told me to find a job and started charging me to live under his roof. At first it was just for meals, but when I got older and could drive, he started charging me rent and made me pay my share of the household utilities; and I found myself swapping out my sporadic babysitting gigs and neighborhood lawn mowing jobs for a pizza delivery position in addition to adding days to my paper route. Of course that was after my dad fronted the money for me to buy my jalopy of a dream car—a 1967 Chevy Impala. It was the only time he’d ever offered to help me out in my entire life and even then, I had to pay him back for the loan plus interest.

Regardless of whether I had a car though, being a minor and having a driver’s license requires insurance, and that was an additional bill I was suddenly responsible for paying. So, I picked up another job at one of the movie theaters in town. A little while after that, I was falling asleep in class so I gave up the paper route, but I decided I wanted a computer and a cell phone like everyone else in the free world so I got hired on as a bus boy in the restaurant at the golf course, which turned into a double position with me taking the early morning weekend shifts setting tee times and working the register at the pro shop. I don’t bus tables there anymore, though, because I got promoted into the kitchen doing meal prep and learning how to be a cook, but I still work the pro shop every Saturday and Sunday morning. When the pizza place I was delivering for went bankrupt and shut down about four months ago, I got myself a job with a mom and pop construction company building things like gazebos and add-ons to people’s houses. The money is pretty decent and although the work is hard as fuck, I like the time outside and using my hands. The hours are unreliable though so I figured I’d add Walmart to my schedule just so I can try to save enough money to get out of my dad’s house and this hellhole of a town.

Sad to say, that isn’t gonna be happening any time soon, seeing as how my baby has been making some clunking sounds and has slipped once or twice when I go to change gears, which means I might be having to replace the transmission soon. At least I know how to do that, thanks to my asshole father who wouldn’t even let up a little so I could go to college. Like everything else, if I want to go to college, I have to pay for it myself. The day before the first football game of my senior year, though, I slipped and fell off the roof while I was patching the tile up there and I broke my leg in two places, forcing me to sit out the entire season, and there went all hope of an athletic scholarship. And even though my grades were in the top five percent in my graduating class, they weren’t good enough for a full-ride academic scholarship. So, I work my ass off, take as many community college classes as I can afford and can cram into my work schedule, and I’ve completely forgotten what sleep is like; all so I can hopefully blow this popsicle stand one day.

I look at the burning end of my one indulgence and think again about giving it up. Cigarettes are expensive and let’s face it, I can be saving the money instead of upping my chances at an early death, but hell, smoking relaxes me. Plus, I like it and it’s not as if I don’t deserve to do
something
that I enjoy with the little free time I have.

“Why would I wanna quit? No one likes a quitter and besides,” I take another drag and smile huge so all of my teeth show, “everyone knows guys who smoke are hot and have enormous cocks. You’re just jealous because all the chicks want me.”

To prove my point, another Walmart employee of the female variety pushes through the backdoors talking on her cell and when she looks over at us, I give her the what’s up nod and wink at her. She gives me a little wave, smiles, and covering one end of her phone, she whistles and says, “You are one sexy beast, Cole.”

“You know it,” I answer around the cigarette in my mouth.

“And you’re a horrible flirt. Wanna grab something to eat later? You still owe me Cold Stone you know.”

Out of the corner of my eyes I look at Holden and catch him shaking his head again and chuckling to himself.

“Sorry, beautiful, I don’t get off until three this morning and I have to be at the golf course by 4:30. Maybe hit me up next week after New Year’s.” She nods and goes back to her phone call, and I turn back to Holden. “See?”

“You’re impossible, dude. Why do you owe her Cold Stone?”

“Not a clue, man…I don’t even know what her name is,” I admit and we both start laughing.

“So if we’re not gonna get any hang time this week, am I at least gonna see you at Erica’s on New Year’s Eve?” he asks, watching me finger-punt my spent cigarette into the darkened alley.
 

“I dunno, man, I think I might be pullin’ a double that night.”

“Cole, come on, that’s bullshit and you know it. You just don’t wanna go to a party that parents and little kids will be at, but, dude…I fly out early on the first so the party will be our only other chance to catch up if you can’t get time off this week. I miss you, man, and you can afford to take one night off to party and have fun with your best friend before he has to go back to school. So, whatdaya say? Will you show?”
 

All true. And he knows what a good guilt trip will do to me, the fucker. I open my mouth to answer and then shut it just as quick when I see him pull his phone out and smile as he looks at the caller ID.

“Hey, Babe!” … “Yeah, I’ll be there soon, I’m just trying to get Cole to commit to your party.” … “No, he hasn’t.” … “Yeah, he’s right here, I’ll put him on,” he says, grinning at me and holding out his phone for me to take.
 

I roll my eyes in response.
 

Except in passing, I haven’t really seen or talked to Erica since Holden and I graduated this past June and he went up to Oregon on a full-ride to play college football. I still know what’s coming though. Holden shoves his phone at me again and while sighing and taking it from him, I light up another smoke just to be a dick.

“Damn, girl, I only left your bed an hour ago, you miss me already?”

Anyone else would’ve been cold-clocked.

No one talks to
or
about Erica Taylor like that. No. One. Not even the love of her life and my best friend, Holden St. James. I’m not entirely sure why I can get away with it, but no matter how crude or outlandish, any time I’ve ever popped off with some kind of remark in regard to Erica and mine’s nonexistent love affair, all Holden does is shake his head, smile and/or chuckle.

Not that he has anything to be worried about with her and me. Or with her and anyone really. I knew her before he did, being that her house is around the block from mine, and her grandma used to babysit me when I was a little kid. Although despite her being admittedly prettier than your average cheerleader, she’s never done much of anything for me. Even if she did though, everyone knows she’s taken and therefore completely untouchable. I mean tons of guys think about it, I’m sure, but I don’t care who you are; as long as she’s going out with the town’s golden boy, you just don’t admit out loud that you want to bang her. If you were dumb enough to let something like that slip, somehow, someway, you’d end up with a fist in your face at the very least. It’s just a fact.

When they first started dating, most everyone thought she was a rebound. Erica was a fifteen-year-old sophomore and Holden was a seventeen-year-old junior, and the relationship he’d been in for about six months had just come to a crashing halt when the chick dumped him on the dance floor at Homecoming. It was the longest relationship he’d ever been in and having always been the dumper, he never saw it coming. He was a wreck for all of two days until he started talking to Erica on Facebook. From the time he and his family moved here shortly before he and I went into sixth grade, he and Erica only had one class together and it was when she was a freshman. They’d never actually talked to each other though until she posted that infamous “Truth Is” status the Monday evening after Homecoming and when Holden “liked” it, she actually followed through with writing a truth statement on his wall the very same night. From there they started texting, by Wednesday they were FaceTiming, and by Friday night, he was shaking hands with her grandparents at a family barbecue.

That was just over two years ago. They were Homecoming King and Queen last year and although she was a junior, everyone voted them Prom King and Queen. Holden graduated with a full scholarship to play football for the University of Oregon where he spent this last fall being the only freshman getting starting, televised game time, and Erica…? Well, she’s still here in California, a senior in high school and captain of Varsity Cheer, of course, but even being over a thousand miles away from Holden, she’s still untouchable.

I pull in another long drag and pretend to listen to what Erica is yammering at me about, however all I can really focus on is the way Holden keeps staring anxiously at me and fiddling with something in his pocket. I mean I know I’m a damned good-looking guy, but, Jesus, dude, ya don’t gotta rub one out right in front of me.
 

“Yeah, yeah. See you on New Year’s, bitch,” I say and hang up. Bitch being used as a term of endearment of course. Erica’s not a bitch. I mean she can be, but for her to get bitchy with you, you have to seriously screw up and if you have, you’ve probably already had a fist in your face, so it’s rare to see Erica actually be a bitch. In fact, she’s one of those unrealistically nice people who reads to old people in nursing homes and to sick kids in the hospital. You know the kind…a chick who would give a stranger the shirt off her own back; someone no one ever thinks twice about defending or coming to her aid in the form of punching someone’s lights out.
 

“She tell you to quit smoking and stop being a pansy-ass and come to her party?” Holden asks me, chuckling and taking his phone back.

“Of course. She also told me she loves me and can’t wait for you to go back to Oregon so we can have wild monkey sex.”

“She did, huh?”

“Well, maybe not in those words…she did tell me to fuck off though, so it’s really just a matter of reading between the lines.”

“Well yeah, when you put it that way,” he says with a grin and then as he begins another disturbing round of pocket pool, his face turns serious, “Can I tell you something and have you promise you won’t tell a soul? I can’t take it anymore, I’ve gotta tell someone…”

Warning! Warning!

All kinds of alarm bells and red lights and shit immediately go off in my head. I don’t want to know what this is, because I swear to God if he tells me he cheated on his girlfriend, I’ll deck him. I mean I understand we’re best friends and keeping those kinds of secrets is part of my job, but come the fuck on! Erica’s my friend too. Not only that, but she’s like Mother Teresa and Gandhi’s love child for crying out loud and you just don’t cheat on a chick like that, you know? Seriously, that’s like asking for Karma to bitch slap the shit out of you.

I drop my smoke and use it as an excuse to look down as I crush it under my foot, buying myself a quick second before responding. “Before I promise to keep my mouth shut, answer me one thing.”

“Shoot.”

“Am I gonna wanna hit you after you tell me?”

“What? No! God, at least I hope not.”

“Then I’ll take it to the grave.”

“I’m gonna do it,” he says, a big grin spreading across his face, “I’m gonna ask her to marry me.”

The fuck?! I thought he said I wasn’t gonna wanna hit him!

“Dude! Are you insane?! She’s in fucking
high school
!”

“She is? Oh, wow. I didn’t know that about the girl I’ve been going out with for two years and two months. Jeez, thanks for pointing that out, you’re a good friend, man,” Holden says with wide eyes, and I must say, his use of sarcasm has really come a long way since we first met back when we were twelve. I’m so proud…

Funny as his retort is, I just stare at him, trying to figure out what he can be thinking asking a girl in high school to marry him. True, Erica will be eighteen in February, but still. What in the
actual
fuck? He’s not even twenty yet; he’s in college and has more than three years to go there, if the NFL doesn’t draft him before he’s done matriculating that is. Regardless, he has his whole life ahead of him, and it’s been shaping up to be a great life. I just don’t get why anyone in their right mind would willingly sell themselves short on getting to live the life Holden has the opportunity to live by proposing to a girl who can’t even vote yet.

“I know what you’re thinking, but I love her, Cole. I can’t even picture a future or a life without her in it. And before you say anything, I’m not proposing because she’s pregnant or anything like that…I don’t think I’m even gonna do it until after she graduates, but I
am
doing it. I don’t care if we don’t get married until after she finishes college even, as long as she’s wearing my ring and promises to be mine forever, I’ll die a happy man.”

I honestly don’t know what to say. He’s one hundred percent serious, though. I can hear the conviction in his voice and I can see the sincerity in his eyes.

Holy shit, are those tears?
 

“You wanna see the ring?” he asks and digs into his pocket. And actually, now I’m sort of wishing he
had
been stroking himself earlier. I mean I think knowing he was petting a damned diamond ring is even more upsetting than thinking my buddy was getting hard for me. I don’t know why, but I think I convinced myself I should be flattered before and now I’m just…disappointed. “I just picked it up before I came to see you.”