Golden Trail (17 page)

“Cool,” Jasper yelled in return.

“Jas, dude, what’re you –?” Tripp began.

Jasper interrupted him. “Waitin’ with
Dad.”

“But –”

“Waitin’ with Dad,” Jasper said more firmly
and Tripp looked to Layne.

“Dad, it wasn’t that –”

“It was, Pal.”

“But –”

Layne leaned into him and got in his face.
“No one puts his hand on my boy. Not like that. Get me?” Tripp
looked uncertain and Layne repeated, “Get me?”

Tripp stared him in the eyes, heaved a sigh,
nodded once and muttered, “Got you.”

Jasper and Tripp stayed close, so did Colt,
Morrie, Cal and Gabby as well as the milling crowd. Finally,
Cosgrove left the locker rooms.

Layne moved right in, Cosgrove saw him and
lifted a hand.

“Don’t need this Tanner, those boys are my
boys on the field.” And he moved to walk by Layne but Layne got in
front of him and stopped him with a palm flat on his chest.

Cosgrove looked down at Layne’s hand, his
face got red and his head shot back but before he could say a word,
Layne removed his hand and spoke.

“You got this weekend to come up with a good
excuse to tell the School Board when they investigate the formal
complaint I’m lodging first thing Monday morning.”

“Those boys are mine on the field,” Cosgrove
clipped.

“I agree, to coach, to motivate, to teach,
to train. I get discipline. What I do not get and will not tolerate
is you takin’ out your frustration that you will not live your
dream through your kid by puttin’ your hand on my kid in
anger.”

Cosgrove’s eyes narrowed. “Who do you think
–?”

“I think I’m a man who watched another man
slap and shove my son with such force, he had no choice but to
physically retreat.”

“He was padded!”

“Yeah, but I counted, Cosgrove, you hit him
seven
times.
Seven
times for lookin’ into the crowd.
He just tagged a pass most college kids can’t tag, ran over forty
yards and you hit him
seven
times for smiling into the
crowd.”

“He was padded, Tanner!” Cosgrove
bellowed.

“Good luck with that at the School Board
hearing.”

“I do not need this shit,” Cosgrove muttered
and moved to pass him, Layne moved to block him and Cal and Colt
flanked him.

Cosgrove looked around the men, all three
taller, leaner and fitter than him and halted.

Then his eyes narrowed and his voice dropped
low. “Don’t cross me, Tanner. That same School Board is lookin’ for
reasons to lose your new girlfriend and, you get in my face, I’m
thinkin’ I might find some.”

Layne pulled in breath to control his
anger.

“Maybe we should give him a shovel,” Morrie,
standing behind Layne, suggested. “It’ll make him diggin’ that hole
he’s diggin’ a whole lot easier.”

Cal chuckled but Layne stared in Cosgrove’s
eyes.

“You do not wanna take me on,” he said
quietly. “I’m givin’ you good advice, Coach, you do
not
wanna take me on.”

Then before Cosgrove could reply, Layne
turned, saw Jasper was close to Morrie, his eyes on his old
man.

“Go get some pizza, Bud, yeah?” Layne
ordered.

Layne stared at his Dad as he said slowly,
“Yeah.”

“Good game,” Layne muttered, stopped himself
from clapping Jasper on the shoulder and walked by him to Tripp who
was standing with Gabby.

Tripp he slapped on the shoulder, his
fingers curling around, he gave his son a few gentle jerks.

Then he said, “Go have fun, Pal.”

“Okay, Dad,” Tripp whispered, looked at
Layne for three beats then peeled off and followed Jasper who was
walking side by side with Keira out of the grounds.

Layne looked around and, still not spotting
Stew, he asked Gabby a question he
really
did not want to
ask.

“You need a ride home?”

“I’m good,” she said softly and the way she
spoke made Layne focus on her. “Wish they had that all their lives,
Tanner,” she went on and Layne felt his neck muscles contract
before she finished on a whisper. “But it’s good they have it
now.”

Then she hurriedly turned and just as
hurriedly walked away.

Morrie clapped him on the back as he walked
by, Layne tipped his chin up at Cal and Colt as they made their way
passed him toward their women and he gave Dave, Ernie and Spike the
high sign which made Dave nod and all of them begin to move away
while Rocky approached.

“How’d that go?” she asked, her eyes going
beyond him, indicating she was referring to the showdown with
Cosgrove.

“I’m not thinkin’ good,” he replied and she
got close and bumped him with her shoulder.

“Tell me over pizza,” she invited. “All this
talk about pizza and I’m starved. I think it’s my turn to
treat.”

He looked down at her to see she was talking
in a light way but her eyes were intense, studying him and trying
to read him without showing she was.

“Sweetcheeks, we got two pizza places in
this ’burg and both of ‘em will be crawling with kids.”

“We’ll get Reggie’s, take it to
Merry’s.”

That
sounded like a plan.

“You’re on but I’m buyin’,” he said, turning
and throwing an arm around her shoulders, pointing her to the
exit.

“It’s my turn,” she repeated, sliding her
arm around his waist.

“Baby, you just put down first and last and
a deposit. I’ll get pizza.”

She walked one foot crossing in front of the
other so her weight pressed into him, taking them both off stride
and he remembered she’d do that too, all the time, just to horse
around when they’d walk close together.

That new bullet scored through his gut but
he was able to handle it when she yielded.

“Okay, Layne, you’ve convinced me. You’re
buying.”

* * * * *

“Let me get this straight,” Rocky started,
sitting cross-legged facing him on Merry’s couch. “Stew Baranski is
screwing over your ex-wife; I’m getting divorced from a cheating
asshole; I just took on an apartment that costs about double what I
can afford if I have to live on my own salary; Coach Cosgrove,
who’s a jerk all the time, by the way, not just tonight, has thrown
down, threatening to get me fired; you’re lodging a formal
complaint against him on Monday; and you and I are faking a
relationship in order to uncover a dirty cop who, nearly seven
weeks ago, almost got you killed.”

Layne, lazing back into the corner of
Merry’s couch, his feet on the coffee table next to the closed box
that contained the remains of a decimated pizza (when Rocky said
she was hungry, she did not lie and he made a mental note for the
future that a concession stand hotdog would not cover it for Roc),
replied, “That’s about it, sweetcheeks.”

She listed to the side and rested her head
on the top of the couch, muttering, “We’re fucked.”

He grinned. “We’ll be fine.”

“You keep saying that.”

Layne kept grinning. “I keep sayin’ that
because we’ll be fine.”

Rocky closed her eyes and sighed.

Layne lifted a leg and nudged her knee with
his shin before returning his foot to the coffee table.

Rocky opened her eyes.

“Cosgrove got reason to be cocky?” he asked
quietly.

She looked over his head then back at
him.

“Let’s just say that I don’t adhere
entirely
to the School Board approved curriculum.”

His grin got bigger as he muttered,
“Baby.”

She lifted her head from the couch.

“It’s boring, Layne, and the kids don’t
learn shit. If they get Halsey, the ones who want the grades do the
work but they don’t get anything out of it. The ones who don’t
care, I kid you not, they
sleep.
They sleep through his
class. Literature is art and art is about passion, it’s about
drive, it’s about beauty. How can you slide through a semester of
that and not be moved by it?”

Layne watched her and he knew this was
dangerous territory. He knew it by the light in her eyes, the
passion, the drive, the beauty of it and he was moved by it. He was
moved that even after eighteen years, when she had that same light
in her eyes when she was studying to be a teacher, it hadn’t dimmed
in the slightest. And he didn’t need Rocky to move him that way.
She was moving him enough.

Even knowing that, he didn’t do a fucking
thing about it.

“Do what you do and fuck ‘em,” Layne
advised.

“Easy for you to say,” she muttered,
reaching out to grab her bottle of beer, she brought it back, took
a pull, dropped her hand and then her eyes went back to him.
“
You
didn’t just pay first, last and put down a deposit on a
luxury apartment tonight.”

“They won’t fire you,” he assured her.

“No? I’ve worked for that school for ten
years, Layne, and I’ve been hauled in front of the School Board
four times.”

“Why?”

“Uptight, ignorant parents pissed about shit
they don’t understand. Do you know, I had a complaint lodged
against me because I make the kids memorize Poe’s
Annabelle
Lee
and some parent thought ‘sepulcher’ was a sex palace?”

Layne burst out laughing.

“No joke!” she shouted over his laughter.
“They thought it was about underage sex!”

Layne forced himself to quit laughing and
looked back at her. “How could they think that?”

“
I was a child, and she was a child, in
this kingdom by the sea; but we loved with a love that was more
than a love – I and my Annabelle Lee,
” she quoted, those words
struck deep, all humor fled and Layne stared at her as she went on
softly. “It’s the most beautiful, bittersweet, sad love poem ever
written, Layne. When I first introduce it, I take them to the choir
room, which is soundproofed and has no windows. I turn out the
lights, light candles and make them put on blindfolds and I recite
it to them, shutting out everything and making them hear the words
of a man broken when he lost his bride.” She closed her eyes.
“
But our love was stronger by far than the love of those much
older than we, of many far wiser than we, and neither the angels in
heaven above, nor the demons down under the sea, can ever dissever
my soul from the soul of the beautiful Annabelle Lee.
” She
shook her head and opened her eyes. “Sometimes,” she whispered,
“Even the boys cry. I even get through to the boys. I’m teaching
beauty, Layne, how can that have rules?”

“Teach how you teach, Rocky,” he said
quietly. “You don’t like their rules, break ‘em.”

She stared at him and she did this a long
time before something unpleasant passed across her face and she
looked to the side, hiding her expression from him.

“Roc,” he called.

“You know,” she told the wall, her voice
quiet. “Jarrod always told me to do what they say, play by their
rules. He never got what I was trying to do. He never told me to
break the rules.” She looked back at him. “Eventually, I quit
talking to him about it. It annoyed him that I didn’t listen. He
knew so much
more
than me.”

He knew by her face and the tremor in her
voice that this was bigger than her husband cheating on her. This
cut deeper than infidelity.

“He knew more than you?” Layne asked.

“Well, yes, of course, Layne.” Her tone
suddenly held the sharp edge of sarcasm. “He’s a
surgeon.
A
medical doctor.
He’s nearly a decade older than me
and
he’s had at least that much more schooling than me. He’s
from
the city
, not a cowtown. His family lived in
Paris
for three years. He speaks fluent
French.
Of
course he’d know more than me.”

The bastard made her feel small. Stupid and
small.

Christ, but he was going to enjoy getting in
that guy’s face.

“I take it Jarrod’s problem wasn’t just that
he couldn’t keep his dick in his pants but he wasn’t much fun at
home either,” Layne remarked.

“No,” Rocky answered on a whisper, her eyes
glued to his. “He wasn’t much fun at home.”

They both fell silent and held each other’s
eyes and Layne knew she was thinking the same thing he was
thinking.

They had fun at home. Even when they were
fighting, they had fun. They were young, they were in love, they
had fantastic sex, he made decent money, she had a bright future,
they both weren’t afraid to work hard, they got along and when they
didn’t they fought clean, they made each other laugh and life was
just fucking good. He had never, not once when they were living
together, dreaded going home. When work was done or when he’d be
heading home after drinks with the guys or doing an errand, he
looked forward to going home to Rocky.

And now he knew she felt the same.

Slowly, his body tensed with expectation,
and, fuck him, anticipation, as she began to lean toward him,
saying, “Layne –” when they heard a key scrape the lock and she sat
back and twisted her neck to look at the door.

Fuck!

His eyes went over the back of the couch to
see Merry walk in.

“Sorry,” Merry said, closing the door behind
him. “Saw your truck, brother, but to get to my bed, I gotta walk
through this room.” He walked to the dining room table and tossed
his keys on it, finishing with, “Hey Roc.”

“Hey Merry,” she replied and Layne looked at
his watch.

It was nearly midnight and he needed to get
his ass home, not just getting the fuck away from a Raquel Astley
with passion in her eyes, or pain, but because his sons’ curfew was
midnight and he needed to make sure they didn’t break it.

He lifted his feet off the coffee table and
pushed up, muttering, “Gotta go.”

Merry was shrugging off his leather jacket.
“Don’t mind me. I’m wiped. I’m goin’ straight to bed.”

Layne rounded the couch as he heard Rocky
get up. “Gotta be home for the boys.”