I stick out my hand. “Let me drive, so you can get some rest.”
He hesitates, then stuffs his hand into his pocket and gets out his keys. As he hands them to me, his knuckles graze my palm and I find myself shivering even though I’m not the slightest bit cold. It’s obvious to him by the look he gives me, but he doesn’t say anything about it as I get in the truck and he grabs something out of his bag. When he climbs into the truck, he has this small leather case in his hand. He takes out the pen-shaped object that checks his blood sugar and pricks his skin, reminding me of the night when I found him in the bar and had to do it for him. He checks the screen then shakes his head, clearly annoyed as he retrieves another object out of the bag that has a needle at the end. He takes the cap off, lifts his shirt, but then hesitates, glancing over at me with a mount of wariness in his eyes. I half expect him to tell me to look away. I almost want to too, but I can’t seem to break eye contact, our gazes somehow welded together.
He ends up squeezing his eyes shut like a scared child afraid of needles. His hands quiver as he puts the needle into his abdomen and injects himself. There’s something strangely intimate about the moment; I can’t even explain it. Like no one has ever seen him do this to himself and he’s afraid to let me see it, but also afraid to be alone. I remember how he told me his mother made him inject her with heroin. Doing this has to be hard for him, painful, aching, and not just physically.
This bubble starts to form around us. Reality slips away. I find myself drifting toward him, wanting to hold his hand, wanting to comfort him, but then suddenly he’s done and just like that the bubble pops and reality comes rushing back to me and weighs me down once again.
Chapter 7
Luke
“The names of the buildings are amusing,” Violet remarks, gazing down at a map I had in my bag of the Las Vegas strip. We’re parked at a gas station just on the outskirts of the busy city, trying to figure out where to go. It’s mid day, stifling hot, and my truck has no air conditioning so we’re practically melting. “Oh, I want to stay in Caesar’s Palace,” she says bouncing up and down in the driver’s seat like a little kid in a candy store. She glances up at me and the excitement in her eyes makes me smile just a little, despite how tired I am. “That’s the one from the movie The Hangover, right?”
I nod, glancing over at the strip in the distance. “But we can’t stay there.”
She pouts. Actually sticks out her lip and pouts. She’s never done that before and honestly I’m kind of glad because it’s like a secret weapon that makes it really hard to say no to her. “How come?”
I slide over in the seat toward her, making sure I don’t crowd her space too much. “See all these awesome buildings right here?” I ask, tracing a line up the strip area on the map. “Those are Casino’s and you have to be twenty-one to stay in them.”
“You have a fake ID though,” she says. “Why don’t you use that?”
“Too risky,” I tell her, breathing in her sweet scent and hoping I’m doing it discretely. “We have to be careful. And besides, I’d like to save as much money as possible.”
She’s still pouting as she folds up the map and gives it back to me. “Then where are we going to stay?”
I put the map in the glovebox. “With my uncle.” I reach for the door handle, internally cringing. I never mentioned to my uncle that Violet was coming with me, because I honestly thought there was no way in hell it’d ever happen. So now I’m getting nervous about bringing her with me, not just because my uncle might not be too thrilled, but because of the environment. What the fuck was I thinking, bringing her here? I was thinking selfishly, that’s what I was doing.
“Why do you look nervous?” she wonders as she rolls her window down the rest of the way.
I shrug. “Because of what we’re doing… gambling… being here with my dad’s brother….” Almost unaware, I stretch my arm across the seat behind her as my chest clenches up. “And because of the environment we’re going to be in.”
She gives me a look of sympathy, because she knows about my rocky relationship with my dad—she even walked in while I was freaking out during a phone conversation with him. “And I’m guessing by the wary look on your face that you’re going to be playing at places like Geraldson’s?” she asks.
“More or less.” I dither. “And the place I’m staying at is kind of like Geraldson’s too, at least it was a couple of years ago.”
“That seems kind of dangerous.” A strange look crosses her face as if realizing this makes her interested in something, as if the idea of it being dangerous is almost… turning her on or exciting her. Dammit. It’s like we’re back on the ledge again and I’m starting to wonder just how much she does this, puts herself in these kinds of situations on purpose and why I never noticed it before. Or maybe she didn’t do it when we were first together.
“It’s not that dangerous at his house,” I assure her, but it feels like a lie. A gambler, my uncle Cole cheats his way through life. But desperate times call for desperate measures or whatever and he seemed nice enough the last time I visited here.
“Here, let me drive,” I tell Violet, giving her a gentle nudge in the side. “It’s easier than giving you directions.”
We change spots, her climbing over my lap and sending my body into a mad frenzy of need and desire and giving my cock a hard on. But I keep it together and drive down the road, first to the store so she can get a battery for her phone. Then we head to my uncle’s house that’s on the outskirts of town, not so much in the chaos of the city filled with tourists, flashing neon lights, half-dressed people. The windows of the truck are down, hot air swirling through the cab. Eventually Violet takes her beanie off and fans her face with her hand.
“Holy hell, it’s hot here,” she remarks, reaching to get her sunglasses out of her purse.
“It gets way worse in the summer,” I tell her as I turn off the road onto a side road lined with stucco houses that look the same, yards flourishing with green grass, neighbors outside chatting and smiling, the perfect neighborhood.
“I’m so confused,” Violet says as she slips on her sunglasses and takes in the surroundings. “Why are we in the burbs?”
“My uncle lives here,” I explain, pulling in front of the two-story house at the end of the street of the cul-de-sac. I put the truck in park, then push the brake on before turning off the engine and putting the keys into my pocket.
“This is so weird,” Violet says with a pucker at her brow. “And not what I was expecting.”
I open the door to get out. “This is his normal side of life, well kind of. I’m guessing it won’t be that way when we get inside.”
Hesitantly, she gets out of the truck and follows me up the driveway, glancing around at the flowerbed beside the pathway, the polished landscaping, all covering up what’s behind the front door.
“Welcome home?” She looks even more puzzled as she reads the mat in front of the door. She lifts her sunglasses slightly and gives me a suspicious look. “You know, I’m starting to not buy into this—”
The door swings open and someone lets out a quick chuckle. “Holy shit,” my Uncle Cole says from in the doorway. He’s wearing a t-shirt, black cargo shorts, and no shoes. He looks similar to my dad only he’s in his thirties, ten years younger than my dad, and he’s more rougher with tattoos, gauges in his ears and shaggy hair. “I thought you’d get here a hell of a lot later when you called to say you were on the road.”