Outside the Lines (4 page)

Sherm nods, plunking himself down in front of the shelves of odds and ends in front of the teacher's desk.

She gestures with a tip of her head toward the classroom door. I follow when she heads that direction. We step outside and I realize I'm on autopilot, casing the school grounds, when she clears her throat and brings my focus back to her.

“Mr. Davidson—”

“Rob,” I say, then wonder why I volunteered that.

“Rob,” she repeats pensively, those baby blues peering past my walls again. “Those are the first words your brother has said since he's been here.”

I drag in a deep breath. “He's been having a rough time with the move.”

“Is he talking at home?”

I hesitate a second too long. Her eyes narrow slightly, peering deeper into mine.

“He'll be fine.”

Her gaze brushes over my face again, trying to read me. I fight to keep my eyes on the ones staring back at me, seeing more than they should. “Can I ask . . . where are your parents?”

“They were killed in a car accident.”

Her face crumples. “Oh. I'm so sorry.”

But I can see her starting to fit the pieces together as to why Sherm's so withdrawn. She thinks it's because of our parents. I don't correct her.

Finally, she sighs. “I also wanted to talk with you because I messed up with Sherm yesterday and I thought you should know. I made the error of giving him another student's desk, and this particular student took exception. Sherm was great about it and moved spots, but, unfortunately, this other child is a little bit . . . aggressive, and he and his friends have started picking on Sherm. It was my fault. I made him a target. The student in question has been sent to the principal's office, and if the problem persists, we will be taking more severe disciplinary action. I'll keep you updated. And please let me know if Sherm seems stressed, or . . . just not himself in any way.”

We're all stressed and not ourselves, but I can't very well tell her why. “Have they tried to hurt him?”

She shakes her head vehemently. “If that were the case, I'd have contacted you yesterday. It's more just little things, but I need you to know I take it very seriously, and I don't want Sherm to feel uncomfortable here.”

If this were me sixteen years ago, Pop would have told me to “deck the fucker,” and I would have done it. When you deal in the business of fear and intimidation, as I realized at a very young age my Sicilian family did, the currency with which you make purchases is violence. When doled out sparingly, at appropriate times, violence will buy you the world. I've tried to protect Sherm from all that. But maybe I've gone too far the other direction. The kid should know how to defend himself.

“I'll talk to him,” I say.

“Good. That would be good. And again, I'm really sorry. I didn't mean to get him off on the wrong foot.”

She's nervous. I intimidate her. Which is good, because the feeling is mutual.

“He'll be fine,” I say.
Fine
seems to be my mantra lately, even though none of us are anything resembling fine.

She nods, stares at me. The stupid thing? I just stand here staring back, giving her more of myself than I should through my gaze, but unable to look away.

“So . . . ,” she finally says, “you'll be back for Sherm at two thirty?”

I give her a slow nod. “I will.”

“Okay.”

I turn for the parking lot. When I glance back and see she's still watching after me, I'm almost embarrassed to slip into our shitty blue Lumina. We had a fleet of cars back home, and a staff that cared for them. None of us ever would have been caught dead in something like this. I back out of the parking spot and can't stop myself from glancing back at her before I take off. But now, she's not just watching after me, she's running after me.

Adrenaline floods my veins. I fling my door open and bolt out of the car, sure something's happened to Sherm.

She skids to a stop in front of the car, slams her palms down on the hood. “This is my car.”

That's the last thing I expect her to say. It throws me off balance—a place I'm not used to being. I just stare at her a second, trying to process what the hell's happening. Is she joking?

“What?” I finally manage.

“I don't know how you hot-wired him so quickly, but you know you can't just pick one, right? That they all belong to someone?”

I tip my head at her, feel my eyebrows arch in total bewilderment. “And this one belongs to me, unfortunately.”

“Nice try, but I've had Frank since high school.”

“Frank?”

She leans more of her weight on the hood of the Lumina. “Frank.”

I have no idea what she's playing at, but there's no way I'm leaving the most important person in my life in the hands of this woman. She's delusional if she thinks she's going to make me believe this isn't my car, as evidenced by the fact that she wants to fight me for a piece of junk no one in their right mind would ever want.

“Listen . . . ,” I say, flicking a glance past her to the classroom door, where students are filing in. “I think I'll just grab my brother and go.”

“Oh no, you don't.” She strides around the side of the car and stands in front of me, her feet wide and her fists planted on her hips, like she's gearing up for a fight. If I wasn't trained to detect even the most infinitesimal trace of fear, it would be easy to miss the tremble at the hem of her skirt. “You're not going anywhere. I'm calling the cops.”

Shit. This is all I need. I yank the key out of the ignition and start toward the office. There's no fucking way I'm leaving my brother here.

Her eyes go wide when she sees the keys in my hand before flicking down the row of cars. “Oh, no.”

I follow her gaze five parking spots down to a blue Chevy Lumina.

Her hands go to her face, her cheeks a pale shade of pink when she turns to face me. “Oh my God. I am so sorry.”

“Let me guess,” I say with a jut of my chin at what is obviously her car.

“I thought . . .” She glances back at my car, then her eyes find mine again. Her face flushes through pink right into red. “I mean, what are the chances?”

It
is
kind of fucked up that we'd both drive beat-up blue Chevy Luminas. “So, can I assume you're not going to call the cops on me?”

Her face scrunches. She brings a hand to it, covering her eyes. “I am so going to get fired.”

I can't stop the chuckle. “For thwarting a potential car theft?”

She peeks at me from between her fingers. “I'm so sorry,” she says again.

I shove my hands in my pockets, look at her a long second. She's not crazy, she's ballsy. I like that. I don't think she'd let anything happen to Sherm if it was in her control. “What do you say we just forget the whole thing?”

Her fair skin is still beet red when she lowers her hand. “Can you? Because you must seriously think I'm psycho.”

“Honest mistake.”

“So, you're leaving Sherm?”

“He's in good hands,” I say, tipping my head her direction and lifting an eyebrow.

She starts backing toward her classroom. “Do you think I'm crazy?”

My lips curl slightly before I can fully contain the smile. “The jury's still out.”

She smiles, then turns to jog for her room.

I move toward my car and watch her go. She glances my direction just before she disappears through her door. I shake my head at my gut reaction. She's something, all right.

When I get home, Ulie is sitting at the kitchen table with a bowl of cereal, her cheek propped in her hand and her long espresso hair obscuring her face from my view. There's still no sign of Grant.

“I never thought I'd wish I was back in elementary school,” she says, bobbing her Cheerios in the milk with the tip of her spoon. “At least Sherm has something to do.”

I drop into the chair across from her. “You could look for a job—be a productive member of society.”

She sits up straight, the boredom on her face giving way to righteous indignation as she flings a hand at me. “I was a semester from finishing Parsons, Rob! Miley Cyrus is wearing one of my designs to the Golden Globes in a few weeks. I
was
going to be a productive member of society. Now I'm destined to rot in backwater Florida for the rest of my life.”

Where Lee is the responsible one, Ulie has always been the drama queen. But in this case, she's got a legitimate gripe. Of all of us, she's the one who had the most potential to make something of herself outside the family business.

I open my mouth to tell her it's not the rest of her life—that I'm going to settle things in Chicago, get everyone their lives back. But then I close it. There's a very real possibility I'll die trying, and they might be stuck here.

From upstairs, there's a shout and thud, then Grant spews a string of expletives that I'm glad Sherm's not here to hear. A minute later, Lee sweeps down the stairs with her hair wrapped in a towel, fresh from the shower.

“Grant's up,” she says, pouring herself a mug of coffee. “Want some?” she asks, holding the carafe up toward me.

“Yeah,” I answer.

“What the fuck, Lee?” Grant croaks, dragging himself down the stairs in nothing but his boxer briefs. He heads straight for the coffee, elbows her aside. “You could have just told me to get up. You didn't need to dump me on the fucking floor.”

“I did tell you to get up. Four times,” Lee says.

He takes a long swallow from his mug, grimaces, grabs a fistful of his sandy hair, which is sticking out at twelve different angles. “Okay, but why? Why the fuck do I have to get up? It's not like anything is happening here. Or is ever going to happen.” He casts a bleak glance out the window over the sink. “How do places like this even exist? Why would anyone live here if they had a choice?”

Ulie rolls her eyes at her brother's soliloquy and wanders to the living room, clicking on the TV.

Lee pours another mug and sets both hers and mine on the table. She sits in the seat next to me. “How's the leg?”

“It's fine,” I say as Grant disappears up the stairs, probably on his way back to bed.

Her face hardens and her palms splay on the table. “Actions speak louder than words, Rob. Nothing about you is fine. I saw you at my door last night. You're not sleeping, you're paranoid, and you're wound so tight you're about to snap, which makes me
really
want to confiscate your gun before you shoot one of us with it. You can't spend the rest of your life suspicious of everyone. We're out, Rob. We're safe. You need to figure out how to leave everything from before behind and start over, or you're going to go crazy.”

Right in front of my eyes, she turns into someone I've never met before. She thinks we're staying here.
Long term
. My blood starts to boil as I stare at her, trying to wrap my mind around how she can be so complacent.

She sips her coffee and continues, her voice deadly calm. “And if I think you might hurt anyone under this roof—Sherm, Ulie, or even Grant—I swear to God, Rob, I will take you down faster than you can say little sister. I get that you're broken, and I get that it's not your fault, but—”

“You
don't
get it, Lee!” I slam my hands on the table and stand so fast my chair tips over. “You don't get
anything
. It
is
my fault. All of it. What happened at the house, almost getting all of you killed. The whole fucking thing is on me! If I could have—”

Grant's mocking voice cuts in. “Lee told you to watch your mouth, so I'd suggest you make a concerted effort to do so before I ask you much less nicely than she did.”

I spin as he crosses from the bottom of the stairs to the front door, tugging on a T-shirt over his jeans.

“Where the hell are you going?” I bellow as he yanks the door open.

The door slamming behind him isn't enough to cover Grant's “Blow me.”

I start to follow him, but Lee grabs my arm, pinning me in her intense hazel gaze. “It's not your fault, Rob. It's
not
your fault. You kept us all alive that night. You got us all out of there in one piece.”

She has no fucking clue how wrong she is. The only reason I had to get them out was because I put them in danger in the first place. The storm raging inside me churns to a head at her words, threatening to blow me apart from the inside. I need to distance myself before I inflict collateral damage as I self-destruct. I bound up the stairs two at a time to the widow's walk, where I pace a thousand laps until the turmoil inside settles and I can breathe again. I head to my room and throw on running shorts, then hit the beach.

I can't let all the venom I keep pent up spew out all over the very people I'm trying to protect, or none of us is going to survive this. It will all be for nothing.

Adri

Unfortunately, all the mysteries of the universe are not unlocked during my morning run. I don't know whether it's the soothing rhythm of my breathing and the fall of my feet, or if it's the endorphins, but running usually helps me to put things in perspective. I'm smarter when I'm running. Solutions to whatever I'm dealing with at the moment become clear when I'm alone on the road before dawn, and I come home with a better idea how to fix things.

But not today.

I have no idea how to fix the broken little boy in my classroom.

Sherm's been with me for a week, and if I remember to phrase my questions in a way that he can't answer with a nod or a shake of his head, he'll speak. I also see him and Macie, the pretty brunette who sits next to him in class, with their heads together in the playground at recess sometimes. Other than that, he still hasn't opened up.

Rob walks Sherm in and stops at the door when he drops his little brother off for school this morning. He's looking at me with an expression I'm not sure of . . . something between curiosity and discomfort.

Probably because he's decided I am, in fact, totally off my rocker. I want to lower my gaze as his becomes more scrutinizing, but force myself to hold it.

Sherm settles in at his seat without a word, the shark jaw firm in his clutches. He's really supposed to wait in the playground with the other students until the bell, but I'm not going to turn him away after the trouble I made for him.

“Good morning,” I say to Rob, then, same as every morning this week, mentally kick myself for not coming up with something more clever to show I'm not mortified over what I did, even though I totally am. Something like,
You were really good in
Gone in 60 Seconds.

Why didn't I think of that faster?

“Morning,” he returns with a brisk nod.

I know there are things I wanted to say—questions I need answers to. They all scatter from my brain at his paralyzing gaze. I hate that he unnerves me like this.

“I'll be back at two thirty,” he tells his little brother, then turns for the parking lot.

“Wait!” I call.

He turns and steps back into the door.

“Do you have a second?”

His honey eyes darken a shade, and that curious-uncomfortable look is back.

I gesture with a tip of my head that we should talk outside. He steps back and lets me pass. My shoulder brushes his chest on the way by and holy smokes, he's solid.

“I just wanted to check that everything was okay with Sherm. Has he seemed anxious or upset about coming to school this week?”

He glances past me at his brother. “No. He seems fine.”

I nod. “Good. Okay . . . good.” I clear my throat. “Also, are there any activities or sports Sherm likes? We'll be doing PE later, and I'd like to choose something he's comfortable with.”

His eyes take a sweep of the playground. “He and his friends played a lot of street hockey back home.”

“In Philadelphia?”

His eyes snap back to me and narrow.

“I saw in his school record that's where you came from.”

“He also likes baseball,” he says. I seem to have his full attention now, his gaze drilling through me. But I don't miss that he didn't answer the question.

“Baseball,” I say. “We can do that.”

He nods and turns for the parking lot. “It's okay if I take my car?” he asks, then looks over his shoulder at me. “You're not going to alert the local authorities?” His expression is deadpan, but there might be a spark of amusement in his eyes.

“You were really good in
Gone in 60 Seconds
!” Okay . . . that sounded much more lame out loud than in my head.

He just looks at me like he thinks I'm crazy, but when I glance over my shoulder as I step through the classroom door, I swear I see a smile crack that hard exterior as he heads down the walk.

A giddy little tingle courses through me as I fight a smile. I shake my head at myself. The Hormone Portal strikes again.

When Rob gets to his car, he stands there for a minute with his head down, as if debating something, then looks back toward my room. I know this because I'm stalking him from my classroom window. As his eyes sweep systematically across campus, always alert, I see by the ripple of his forearm, where he grips the door of his car, that every muscle is taut, as if he's ready to spring.

His physique, intensity, hypervigilance, and all his concern over security . . . it's all starting to add up. I'd bet my bottom dollar he's ex-military. When my bestie, Chuck, came back from Afghanistan, he was just like this, always on alert. It took him six months to start to relax.

Finally, Rob gets into his car and pulls away.

I can count on my fingers the number of times Sherm has spoken in the last week, but I have something I hope might bring him out of his shell a little. I started his reading assessment on Monday, but he clammed up with the reading aloud. I know he's an amazing reader, I just need to find a way to make him comfortable enough to read out loud so I can finish.

“Hey Sherm, look what I found,” I say, fanning out the stack of paperbacks I pulled off Mrs. Martin's shelf that I hoped might catch his interest.

He looks over the titles, among them
Shark Munch
,
Bullies of the Deep Blue Sea
, and
Sharks!
and plucks
A Shark's Story
from my fingers. It's the thickest of the four, and has a picture of a hammerhead shark swimming through an old shipwreck on the cover.

“That one look good?”

He nods and flips open the cover.

“Do you like to read, Sherm?” I ask.

His eyes lift to mine and he nods again.

“Do you have a favorite book?”

He looks at the paperback in his hand. “Harry Potter,” he says on a breath.

“Me too! Which one do you like best?”

His gaze flicks to me and he shrugs.

“How many of the Harry Potter books have you read?” I ask.

“All of them,” he says, flipping a page in the book.

Progress.

I shift a hip onto my desk. “Did someone read them to you?”

He shakes his head.

“You read them yourself?” I say with a grin. “That's amazing, Sherm.”

Something that might be pride flickers in his gaze as he lifts it from his book to me, but then it fades back into the sadness that's always there.

The bell rings and students start filtering into the room. “If you want, you can take that home tonight,” I say, gesturing to his shark book.

He doesn't answer.

I look at him a moment longer before making my way to my desk, wishing I could see past his skin to what's making him so sad.

Despite several warnings yesterday, Jason and his buddies continue to pick on Sherm, finally knocking him down in the playground at afternoon recess. I escort Jason and his cohorts to the school office, then bring Sherm back to the classroom to clean up. Once his scraped palm is bandaged up, I pick up the phone to call Rob, but then think better of it. This is a conversation I'd rather have face-to-face. He needs to know that Sherm was hurt, but there are things I need to know too. It seems to me Sherm's scraped hand might be the least of his hurts. Rob's guard is always up, and it would be too easy for him to evade my questions on the phone, but something happens between us when I look into those incredible eyes. Something that I don't think strong, silent Big Brother likes. I have a sneaking sense his eyes truly are the windows to his soul, and I want to be looking into them when I ask the tough questions.

But by the time two thirty rolls around, I'm nervous. More nervous than I should be about having a guardian-teacher chat about a troubled student. I wait at my desk as students file out the door, but when I see Sherm stand along with the rest of them and start to shuffle past me, I spring to my feet. “Your brother's not coming in for you?”

He shakes his head.

I follow Sherm out the door, but everything in me screeches to a halt in a shower of sparks, like an engineer throwing on the brakes of a moving freight train, when I see Big Brother's not alone. There's a woman standing very close to him, and they appear to be in the middle of a heated conversation. She reaches for his face and brushes the backs of her fingers over his stubbled cheek, and when she backs away, I see she's really pretty. What appear to be designer clothes fit like a glove over curves that make me look like an adolescent boy by comparison. Hair that sandy color between brown and blond falls in long waves nearly to her perfect, round butt. When Sherm reaches them, she leans down and wraps him in a hug that melts my heart. She obviously loves them both, a fact that simultaneously cinches and lightens my heart. If Sherm has support at home, that's half the battle. And if Rob has a woman who loves him, maybe she can help him past the PTSD I suspect he has. It was stupid of me to think a guy like that would be unattached.

When my eyes shift to Rob, his intense gaze is locked on me.

Oh, God. Could this get any more mortifying? What happened last week with his car was embarrassing enough, but now he probably thinks I'm some kind of sick voyeur. I take a deep breath and start up the walkway. Rob says something to the woman, who nods and opens Sherm's door for him, then starts toward me, meeting me halfway.

I can't keep my gaze from sweeping over his hands on the way to his face. His only ring is the topaz pinky ring on his right hand, so maybe she's a girlfriend? Or maybe he just doesn't wear a wedding band.

His intense eyes are glued to me, but when my gaze finds his, he lowers them. “I saw the Band-Aid on Sherm's hand.”

I nod and force the grimace off my face. “There was an incident in the playground. The boy who pushed Sherm was sent to the office and his parents were called.”

His gaze lifts to mine. “Did Sherm . . . retaliate?” he asks cautiously.

“No! He was really brave—he didn't cry—but no, he didn't push back or anything.”

He nods slowly. “Okay.”

“Also . . . I need to complete Sherm's reading assessment tomorrow, but to do that, he'll need to read out loud for me.”

His gaze grows cautious. “Has he started talking here at school?”

“Very little. I've sent him home with a book about sharks. If you can maybe have him read a little aloud tonight, that might make him comfortable enough to read for me tomorrow.”

His eyes harden and his mouth pulls into a line. “I'll talk to Lee . . . see if she can work with him.”

I nod. Lee. That must be the woman's name. I want to ask why he doesn't work with Sherm himself, but when I glance past Rob and find the woman watching us, I decide to wait until we can have the conversation without an audience. I wave to Sherm as I back toward my room. He returns my wave from the backseat.

As I watch Rob and the woman climb into the car drive away, I refuse to let myself acknowledge the bruise the happy family scene left in my heart.

I head into the classroom and drop into my seat. This is so unlike me. I've always kept my head around guys, which is the reason I've also kept my virginity . . . not that it's a lifestyle choice or anything. It just never felt right with the guys I've dated. But beyond the physical attraction that there's no point denying, there's Rob's quiet intensity. Just his presence demands attention. I've never met anyone like him.

I start logging the math homework grades in the computer to clear my head, then settle in to read Sherm's essay for his writing assessment. When I'm done, there's a lump in my throat, and I feel like I might finally have some answers.

*   *   *

I wait until Dad's settled in watching the news after dinner to cross to the front door. “I'm going over to Chuck's to change out Frank's plugs. I'll be home in a while.”

“Okay, punkin. Pick your old dad up some Chunky Monkey on the way home, will ya?”

“Sure, Dad.”

I pass Len's Market in the middle of town and make a mental note to stop on my way home for Dad's ice cream. Across the street, the front of the decrepit blue tin auto shop is dark, only the
MURDOCK & SON
sign above the roll-up door lit by a dull bulb. As I drive slowly past, I see a swath of light from the window out back illuminating one of the cars Chuck keeps for parts in the dirt lot next to the building. He's home. I take a quick scan and see only his truck parked up front, so with any luck, he's alone.

I take a left into the parking lot of Polly's Diner, next to the garage, and think about going in to ask her about Chuck, but I know he hasn't opened up to his mom since he's been home either. I cut through her parking lot and double back to the garage driveway.

The second I swing my car door open, I hear head-banging metal screeching through the building to the tin roll-up door to the car bays up front—music so angry that just the rhythm winds me tight from the inside out.

Maybe he's
not
alone.

This is new since he got back from Afghanistan eight months ago. He needs everything full blast now, like regular life just isn't stimulating enough anymore. And that applies to every aspect of his life, including his women. I've never asked where he finds them, and I don't even want to know what he does with them, but I've seen some of the stuff he's rigged up in his apartment, and I know whatever it is isn't missionary-style.

I lay my palm on the garage door and feel the metal vibrate under my hand with the heavy beat. My heart pinches a little and I almost climb back into my car. Chuck is one of the best people I've ever known. We've been besties since before we could walk. I love him like a brother, and it's hard watching his internal war. But that's exactly the reason I'm here.

I lower my hand and move around the corner to his place out back. It's just the back twenty feet of the same blue tin building that houses his auto shop, but he's turned it into a makeshift apartment and it works for him.