Cracks in the Armor Read online

  “Seriously, you look like you’re going to shit a brick right now. What’s the deal? Why let her do this when you know it makes you crazy?” I asked.

  “Look, man, she said she wanted to do it, and who am I to tell her she can’t? She set it up in her own place, so I figured she had to know what was going on. Obviously, I was wrong. Besides, it was that or I let her unpack the kitchen, and that sure as hell wasn’t an option.”

  Jamie looked up from the magazine he was leafing through and snorted.

  Hayden rolled his eyes and pointed a finger at Jamie. “Don’t even pretend you don’t cave for Lisa all the time.” He turned back to me. “If it meant the difference between getting action or not, wouldn’t you let Sarah hook up your TV?”

  I blinked and thought about it for half a second before I replied, “No, H, that would never happen. Sarah knows better than to mess with my TV. I’d also like to point out that if you’d asked me to set it up when you first moved in, I wouldn’t have to undo all this crap.”

  “Just fix it, please.”

  He sat down and nursed his beer, as if it made it less obvious that he’d traded in his man card for a pussy. The fact that TK was still wrapped around his neck was more proof of that.

  Forty minutes later, the cord extravaganza had been removed and everything rerigged so Hayden could control not only the entertainment system but his entire alarm system from his laptop and his phone.

  Hayden was the most neurotic person I’d ever met when it came to personal security. He’d moved from a condo in a building with twenty-four-hour surveillance to a house with a pass code and retina display. It wasn’t surprising, considering the scene he’d walked in on when his parents were shot to death in his childhood home.

  He hovered around while I finished checking things over to make sure everything worked properly. As soon as I moved out of the way, he started with the rearranging. I didn’t take it personally. It was just his way. To help, I’d bundled together the few cords I couldn’t get rid of so they could easily be hidden.

  His compulsive organization was less of an issue than it used to be, though. I had my doubts that part of his personality would ever disappear. We all dealt in different ways. Organization and Tee were Hayden’s, and not necessarily in that order.

  I had my own way of managing the unpleasant parts of my life, mostly by avoiding them. My stepdad had made that simple when he gave me the boot for flunking out of high school. My mom was too scared to do anything but take his side. I couldn’t blame her. I had a little sister, and my mom didn’t want me to be a bad influence on her. My mom hadn’t made the best choices, either. Her high school education had been cut short by my unexpected arrival. Now she worked as a cashier at two convenience stores. And all the paychecks went to take care of my stepdad’s habits.

  Hayden’s phone rang and he paused in his quest to make sure everything was aligned.

  “Hey, kitten, how’s it going?” During a stretch of silence, Hayden’s eyebrows climbed his forehead. “Yeah?” Then they went low and a devious smile appeared. He turned his back to me and Jamie. Lowering his voice, he crossed the room and disappeared into the kitchen.

  I took a seat on the couch. “Not hard to guess what that’s about.”

  “Good to know moving in together hasn’t slowed them down,” Jamie said.

  I dug into my pocket and pulled out my phone to check for any missed messages. I was hoping Sarah might want to come over after her shift, even if it was late. She hadn’t gotten back to me, though. I tossed the phone on the coffee table and got to work on Hayden’s satellite connection.

  He came back a few minutes later and Jamie asked, “The girls on their way?”

  “Not yet; they’re going out to some kind of juice bar.”

  “Sarah loves that stuff.” When I got a strange look from both of them, I explained, “It’s healthy. You know, veggie and fruit juice with wheatgrass thrown in. They look gross, but some of them taste all right.” I would never admit that the first time Sarah and I went out for “drinks,” alcohol hadn’t been involved. Or that I’d bought a blender so I could make fruit shakes for her whenever she came over.

  “Oh. Right,” Hayden said, vaguely disgusted. “Anyway, they won’t be back for a while, so we’ve got some time.”

  “Excellent.” I’d just finished hacking the remote server, giving Hayden access to more channels than he could watch, including the porn ones. I flipped through the selection of raunchy films until I found one that seemed decent.

  “What the hell are you doing?” Hayden asked.

  “What does it look like?”

  He grabbed the remote. “You can’t watch porn. What if Tenley comes home?”

  “You said she wasn’t going to be home for a while. It’s not like she doesn’t know you watch it, right?”

  “That’s not the issue.” Heavy bass blared through the surround sound as a music video flashed on the screen.

  “Then what’s the problem?”

  “How would it look if she walked in to find the three of us hanging out watching chicks get banged? Don’t you think that comes off as a little disrespectful?”

  “He’s got a point. I mean, if I’m going to watch porn, it’s either going to be by myself or with Lisa,” Jamie added.

  “Thank you,” Hayden said, as if Jamie’s being on his side made it okay that they’d both had their balls cut off.

  “You two are brutal, you know that?” I said, irritated that even though the girls weren’t here, they could still ruin our fun.

  “Whatever. If you and Sarah ever figure out what you’re doing, you’ll get it.” Hayden snatched up one of the controllers. “Set up the Xbox.”

  I ignored the comment on my relationship with Sarah, and showed Hayden how to switch from function to function. The smart TV made it simple: cursor and click.

  “Thanks for fixing this for me,” he said as I rifled through the box of games.

  Everything was outdated, but there were still some cool games. I put in the original version of Call of Duty and we faced off against each other.

  It was good to hang with the guys. Not that I didn’t like chilling with Lisa and Tenley, but being a fifth wheel gave me some perspective on how Hayden must have felt when Tenley was gone.

  Between classes and work, Sarah was rarely available these days. She kept saying it would get easier once her internship started, but the way I saw it, it would only get worse.

  Right now she had occasional downtime. The internship meant she’d be working five days a week, plus pulling shifts at The Sanctuary. I’d been against her working there, but she said bartending wasn’t lucrative enough.

  Besides that, I wanted to punch out her boss. He’d instated a rule that meant I wasn’t allowed in when she was working. He said I couldn’t be objective, and it impaired Sarah’s ability to do her job properly. Jamie and Hayden both agreed. But how could I be objective, when the fucknut told me he’d watch out for her personally? While staring at her chest.

  Three rounds in, the TV let out a beep. A message appeared at the bottom of the screen indicating Tenley and “guest” had entered the house.

  “Ah, man, that’s wicked,” Hayden said.

  “I can make it so it recognizes all of us.”

  “Yeah?”

  “For sure. I’ll do it next time I come over.”

  Hayden’s excitement over the prospect gave me the opportunity to take him down. I shot his player in the head, splattering digital brain matter all over the screen.

  “Eat it, Stryker!” I shouted.

  Female chatter came to an abrupt halt. Hayden’s attention moved from the screen, where his player lay in a pool of blood while mine loaded his body with a spray of lead.

  “Hey, kitten, how was the juice bar?” The smile on his face fell as the drink in Tee’s hand slipped out of her fingers and hit the floor.

  Thick pink liquid splattered up her shin and spread in a pool at her bare foot. Tee’s eyes were tr
ained on the screen, wide and confused.

  “Kitten?” He dropped his controller.

  Her panicked gaze shifted slowly to Hayden, oblivious of Lisa’s hand as it came down on her shoulder. The tremor in Tee’s body was visible from across the room. “Where did you get that game?”

  “Chris found the Xbox in your office. I thought it’d be okay to hook it up—”

  “Why are you playing that?” she asked. “How can you play that?”

  “Shit,” Jamie muttered.

  “It’s just a game, kitten—”

  “That was Connor’s,” she said, eyes shifting back to the screen, the gruesome 3D scene replaying over and over. “All of those were his. I was going to give them away.”

  “Turn it off,” Hayden barked over his shoulder.

  I fumbled with the remote. Whatever was about to go down wasn’t good. The entire room hummed with energy, none of it positive. I hit the Off switch to shut down the game and the satellite station came on, showing a gangster rap video with some chick’s mostly bare ass shaking on the screen. It would have been hilarious if the timing wasn’t so poor.

  “Seriously?” Lisa shot me a look.

  “Shut it the fuck off,” Hayden said in that eerily calm way of his.

  I hit the right button this time and the screen went blissfully blank. The silence that followed was painful. Tee put out a hand to stop Hayden as he advanced on her, but he ignored it. Skirting around the mess on the floor, he grabbed her hand and brought it to his mouth.

  “I didn’t know. I’m sorry, kitten. I should have realized—we’ll get rid of it,” he murmured, pulling her close.

  His arms went around her, and she stood there stiffly while he continued to talk, his voice low so none of us could hear. It took only a few seconds before she relaxed against him, her palms coming up to rest on his shoulders, her fingers curling around and gripping hard. Jamie elbowed me in the side and inclined his head toward the kitchen. I followed him, giving Hayden and Tee the privacy they needed. As we passed, Lisa’s fingers trailed over the back of Hayden’s hand before she stepped away. His eyes lifted. She didn’t say anything, just gave him a look that spoke of apology even though she’d done nothing wrong.

  We put on our shoes in silence. It wasn’t until we were through the garage and outside into the crisp night that any of us finally spoke.

  “H is going to be so pissed at me tomorrow.”

  “It’ll be fine.” Lisa patted my arm in assurance.

  “Like hell. Did you see Tee?”

  “It’ll be fine,” she repeated.

  “I don’t know. Maybe—” I turned around and considered going back to take the heat off Hayden. If I explained about it being my idea, maybe I’d get him off the hook.

  Lisa caught my arm. “Don’t even think about it. Those two are working things out the best way they know how. They don’t need anyone interrupting.”

  The photographs on their bedroom wall came to mind. “Good call.”

  We piled into the car. As we headed toward my apartment I checked my phone again. Sarah still hadn’t responded; but then, she kept her phone in her locker when she was working. The Sanctuary dress code for waitresses was pretty explicit: the less she wore, the better the tips. There weren’t a whole lot of places for her to store a phone when she was on the floor.

  “Can we stop at The Sanctuary on the way?” I asked.

  Jamie glanced at me in the rearview mirror. “I thought we talked about that.”

  “I’m just gonna leave a key for Sarah. In case she wants to come by later.”

  “I don’t know why you don’t just give her one,” Lisa said from the passenger seat.

  What Lisa didn’t realize was that I’d given Sarah a key plenty of times. She’d just never kept it. I figured it’d make things a shit ton easier if she had one. Otherwise, she had to call before she came over, or I had to drop one off so she could let herself in when she worked late, which was typical of her shifts at The Sanctuary. But every time I handed one over, it ended up on my counter before she left. I’d never told her explicitly to keep it; I thought it was implied. And now it had become this thing I didn’t have the balls to address. Because if she didn’t want a key, it confirmed what I didn’t want to know: that she wasn’t as into me as I was into her.

  Jamie pulled into The Sanctuary lot and went around the back where staff parked. No one was manning the back doors. I didn’t like it. Someone should have been posted there to watch out for the girls when they were coming and going. Annoyed by the slack security, I headed for Sarah’s car. As expected, she’d left it unlocked.

  When I’d mentioned it to her before, she’d said the car was a beater and she didn’t keep anything important in there, so locking it was pointless.

  I slid my apartment key under the front seat and locked all the doors before I got back into Jamie’s car. I fired off another text to Sarah as Jamie drove the short distance to my apartment. Lisa was quiet—either because of what had happened at Hayden’s or because we had stopped by The Sanctuary, I couldn’t be sure, but I felt bad either way. I got why she didn’t like the place.

  Things had been different between Sarah and me since she started working at the club. We were stalled in some kind of limbo; not moving forward, treading water. It made me feel shitty. Especially since Hayden and Jamie were so happy most of the time. Still, I was reluctant to say anything to Sarah about it. I didn’t want to lose the one good thing I had because I wanted something different out of it than she did.

  Rocking the boat didn’t seem like a smart idea after the trial. It had been a nightmare. I understood, in a way I hadn’t before, Lisa’s and Hayden’s absolute disdain for The Dollhouse and the people in it. I was still trying to get my head around Damen’s involvement in Hayden’s parents’ deaths and my complete lack of awareness of it.

  That Brett dude had been on my mind a lot lately. I’d vaguely remembered him hanging around back then, but he never really stood out. Hayden had been hard not to notice, though. At three years my junior, he’d been just a kid when he started coming around Art Addicts, the tattoo shop where I began my career. Piercings had been his thing in the beginning, which wasn’t my deal, so I hadn’t had much to do with him. It wasn’t until after his parents were dead and he started working at Art Addicts that I got to know him. By then he was more damaged than any of us could have realized.

  Looking back, I got why Damen hired him. Why Hayden had been treated differently, given more leniency than most. He’d been a mess, and he only got worse over time until he was on the path to complete self-destruction. I told Jamie we had to do something, and he’d intervened. Getting Hayden out of Art Addicts had helped. But none of us could replace the family he lost or erase what he’d seen.

  Tenley was the real reason he was better. I just hoped this was it for them; if she ever took off again, Hayden would be done. We’d never get him back from that kind of fall. He was way too in love with her. Their kind of connection freaked me out. It was a weakness I could never afford.

  I felt obliged to help out my parents financially, but at least I wasn’t attached to them the way Hayden was to Tenley. It sucked not to have a relationship with them, but at least that way they couldn’t screw with me emotionally. Most of the time.

  Jamie dropped me off at my apartment on his way home. I grabbed my mail, picked up one of the newspapers from the pile on the floor, and climbed the three flights of stairs. My complex didn’t have an elevator. No nice carpet lined the hall, just commercial-grade short nap, brown from lack of cleaning. The walls, once white, were nicotine yellow. Horrible floral deodorizers only partially masked the smell of cigarette smoke. I stayed in the apartment for two reasons: it was a ten-minute walk from Inked Armor and the rent was affordable.

  When Hayden moved into the new house, he offered me his condo. But I didn’t have enough saved up for a down payment. I disliked the idea of paying him rent, and I didn’t want to tell him how tight finances were. It
was hard to put away money when I was still passing over a good chunk of my paychecks to my family.

  A few months ago I’d forked out three grand for a new furnace. It had been the middle of February, right around the time the trial started. The temperature had dropped into the low teens and my mom had gone a week without heat before she called to ask for help. I’d been her last resort, as usual. She’d only caved because she’d gotten sick. Her doctor had told her one more bout of pneumonia and she’d be at risk of hospitalization.

  My stepdad made her call me because she couldn’t afford to be off work. He couldn’t afford for her to be off work, was more like it. The deadbeat dick spent most of her paychecks on beer, cigarettes, and poker. He was a waste of space, but my mom wouldn’t leave him. As a result of our differing opinions, I hadn’t seen her much lately. My stepdad, I didn’t give a shit about. I missed my baby sister, though, who wasn’t a baby anymore, but officially an adult. She graduated high school last year. I hadn’t been invited to her commencement. She got good grades but my parents couldn’t come up with the money to send her to college, so her options were limited for any kind of future.

  As soon as I entered my apartment, I could hear the neighbor’s TV through the wall. They were watching something involving guns and revving engines. It was preferable to the sound of them having sex. I locked the door but left the dead bolt off, in case Sarah came by later.

  My next stop was the shower. The tub remained a grimy gray color, no matter what I scrubbed it with. The toilet and sink were just as bad. I despised my apartment more than usual after spending the evening in Hayden’s new digs. Once the self-care routine was done, I tidied the bathroom and set out fresh towels for Sarah. She liked to shower as soon as she came in from work.

  I grabbed a beer and made a couple of sandwiches, one for me and one for Sarah. I covered hers with plastic wrap and put it in the fridge to keep it fresh. Then I dropped down on the couch, used the coffee table as a foot rest, and flipped channels until I found Cops reruns. I was too preoccupied to enjoy them, though. I couldn’t get Tenley’s reaction to the Xbox out of my head. I shot H a text, apologizing for any problems I’d caused, hoping Lisa had been right and he’d fixed it with a little bump and grind. I got a message back from him twenty minutes later. He told me not to worry; there would be a used Xbox waiting for me at work tomorrow if I wanted it.