“You’re late.” Auden scanned Darrin’s freshly-colored red Mohawk. A few days ago, it had faded to a pale shade of pink, but now it was back to Coca-Cola can red.
“Nah, right on time. I had to pick up a pack of smokes and a couple of candy bars.” He tossed a Twix to Auden, who almost caught it before it tumbled to the floor. “You never were an athlete, were you?”
Auden couldn’t say he was, but he could’ve been if he’d really cared for sports. Most of the time, he hadn’t felt like trying.
“I take that as a no.” Darrin laughed, propping his skateboard against the counter and taking a seat on the stool behind the desk.
“Jacee’s going to throw a shit fit if she catches you behind there again.”
“I highly doubt it. She’s always staring at my junk,” Darrin said, shoving the candy bar in his mouth.
“That’s because you always have holes in your pants and your bright ass underwear shows through.”
“Really?” He stood up to inspect the fly of his jeans. “I suppose I’ve been unaware this entire time.”
When he realized he was still staring at Darrin’s crotch, Auden rolled his eyes and jerked his attention to the cassette rack. “Let me finish putting that last box of tapes up and then we can head out of here.”
Darrin took a seat and started back up on his chocolate. “Heather Thomas is having a party tonight, and you can crash at my place after.”
Heather Thomas was Scott Price’s girlfriend. It wouldn’t have meant shit to Auden, except for one thing—Scott Price was Lark’s ex-boyfriend. Why she’d been with that moron to begin with, he couldn’t understand.
One time the asshole had made a homemade buzzer and without Auden knowing, Scott had shaken his hand and it had shocked the shit out of him. Scott had thought it was the most hilarious thing in the world, so Auden ripped the buzzer from Scott’s hand and crushed it under his shoe. The idiot hadn’t tried anything since then.
“I think I’ll pass,” Auden said, clenching and flexing his fist. He was thinking about the buzzer, but mostly about Scott pressed up against Lark.
“Plenty of booze, man.” Darrin threw back a pretend shot glass.
“You have plenty of that at your apartment.”
Darrin moved out on his own as soon as he’d hit eighteen five months earlier—Auden wasn’t quite that lucky yet. He wouldn’t be eighteen until the end of August.
“Come on,” Darrin begged. “Don’t be like that.”
Auden finally gave in, satisfying his friend’s desire to see those shitheads. “Yeah, okay, but you’re driving after the party.”
The rest of the hour, Darrin fiddled with things on the desk, then browsed around the store. Meanwhile, Auden finished unloading the cassettes and organizing the records that had been dropped in wrong spots by careless customers.
Before Auden closed up the joint, he picked up the store phone to call his mom. Well, it wasn’t his real mom, but his mom’s sister, Janet. She’d adopted him with her husband, Donnie, when Auden was two—after his real dad “accidentally” murdered his mom, blaming it on a bad drug trip and his schizophrenia. His murderer of a dad was now safely tucked away in prison for the rest of his life, and Auden refused to ever visit. He may have not chosen his illness, but he’d chosen to do drugs.
His mom answered after two rings. “Hello.”
“Hey, Mom”—Auden pressed his shoulder against the wall—“I’m going to be staying the night at Darrin’s tonight.”
“Again?” She sounded sullen, as if he’d never return home.
“Yeah, you know, another Star Wars marathon. Watching movies all night, we will,” Auden grunted in his most God-awful Yoda voice.
Darrin’s eyebrow rose as he slowly chewed a piece of gum. Auden lifted his own eyebrow right back at him.
“All right”—his mom laughed and that was what he’d wanted to achieve—“but I want you home for dinner tomorrow after work.”
“Sure.”
“I love you,” she said, sincerity laced in those three words.
“Okay, I’ll see you tomorrow,” he rushed the statement out and quickly hung up the phone. His mom and dad were great parents, but with his past and baggage, he didn’t trust in happily ever afters. Things could easily be broken or taken away, so it was best not to want or enjoy them. A morbid philosophy, but it kept his heart safe.
When he was eight, he’d uncovered the truth about his parents by overhearing his mom and dad talking. The things kids find just by pressing a careless ear to a door in hopes of discovering some sort of buried treasure isn’t always the case. Auden’s mom had been crying. He’d known his real mom had died and that his father was locked away in jail, but he hadn’t known that his dad was the one to do it. He hadn’t questioned his mom about his real dad until he was twelve—by then he’d bottled it up for so long that there was no turning back. Auden wished she’d told him sooner. He knew why she hadn’t. She loved him and worried it would affect him. And yet, maybe it wouldn’t have scarred him if she’d told him from the beginning. But the thing was, if he hadn’t overheard, then she probably never would’ve told him and that bothered him more than anything.
“Star Wars?” Darrin asked, chewing his gum a bit faster.
“Isn’t that what you always put on?”
“I was thinking more like the Romero movies tonight. Night and Dawn to prepare for Day of the Dead.”
“Too bad that one looks shitty.” Auden folded his arms across his chest.
“It really does, but hey, it’s Romero, right?”
Auden did have a soft spot for the violence—maybe he was more like his real dad than he wanted.
Once outside the store, Darrin switched out his gum with a half-smoked cigarette from his pack and lit it. The smoke surrounded Auden, and he missed the nicotine. He’d quit six months ago when it was another thing in his life that he’d felt too addicted to. And now, he was better off ridding himself of it completely.
Darrin blew a smoke ring in the air as he hopped on his skateboard. He flew down the cement path that led behind the building to where Auden’s van was parked, then disappeared from view.
Auden shoved his hands deep in his pockets and kicked at loose pebbles as he stared at the ground, following the rumbling sounds of the skateboard when another noise filled the air. He stopped, cocking his head, and craned his neck for a better listen. It grew louder and took him a moment to recognize the song coming from a flute. “Space Oddity”—one of his favorites.
Something struck his shoulder, a bite of electric shock zinging through his arm. He shook it, trying to alleviate the residual tingle, and twisted sideways, catching a glimpse of a person walking past him wearing black clothing. The stranger was dressed like he’d just come straight out of an old gangster film with his trench coat.
“Watch where you’re going next time!” Auden yelled.
The man stopped in his tracks, slowly angling his ski-mask-covered face over his shoulder.
Auden inhaled sharply and waited for the man to turn around and keep on walking, but the stranger remained planted, staring at him. Something was off—besides his wearing a trench coat in the hell-hot of June. Lark wore jackets in the summer as well, so maybe Auden was the odd one out. Another few flute notes floated in the distance, the song dancing wickedly in his ears. The stranger’s hands fidgeted at his sides as he continued to stare, and Auden took a deep swallow. Something was about to happen—something big and life changing.