“So are you going to tell me what you wanted to talk about?” he asks, setting the saltshaker aside and leaning back in his chair. He places his hands behind his head, elbows bent outward. “Because I’m guessing it wasn’t about pool.”
I shake my head, picking at the cracks in the table. “I wanted to ask you something about Quinton.”
He pretends to be nonchalant, but I can tell he gets tense because he starts grinding his teeth. “What about him?”
I fidget with the band on my wrist, trying to figure out where to begin. “Well, I was sort of wondering about his dad?”
His eyes fasten on mine, shadowed with irritation. “What about him?”
God, how do I say this? I mean, I don’t want to bring up his sister at all, but how do I avoid it and still get what I want? “Does he ever talk to him?”
Tristan lowers his arms onto the table. “Nope, at least not that I know of.” He reclines in the chair as the waitress arrives and puts our drinks on the table, and he waits for her to leave before he speaks again. “They don’t get along at all.” He drops the shot of Jäger into the taller glass then picks it up. “In fact, it’s pretty much why he ended up in Maple Grove—because his dad kicked him out of the house.”
I want to ask him if Quinton’s dad knows about his drug use, but since Tristan’s high I’m not sure how well that’d go over. “Yeah, but if he knew where he was living, do you think he’d want to talk to him?” I take a sip of the soda. “Help him?”
“Help him with what exactly?” There’s a challenge in his eyes, daring me to say “drug use” aloud.
I stir my straw around in my drink. “I don’t know…I was just curious…if they talked or if someone’s told him anything about the situation.”
He takes another large swallow of his drink, staring at me over the brim of the glass. “And what situation is that?”
I’m obviously pushing the wrong buttons and I don’t know any way around it, so I decide to be blunt. “Look, I know I’m making you mad right now, but I really want to help Quinton and I just think that maybe if I could get ahold of his dad and tell him what’s going on, it could maybe help him get better. But I need you to give me his name and number in order to do that.”
“Who said I was getting mad at you?” he asks calmly and then finishes off the rest of his drink.
He’s being an ass but I know for a fact it’s not really him, but this ghost, drug-addict version of himself. He doesn’t say anything else to me and gets up from the chair to take the empty glass to the bar. I wait for him to come back, but instead he starts hitting on our waitress, a leggy woman whose top is see-through when the light hits her at the right angle.
Tristan seems to be going out of his way to make it obvious that he’s hitting on her, even going as far as groping her breast. The woman giggles in response and starts coiling a strand of her hair around her finger. The longer the scene goes on the more awkward I feel and finally I get up from the table, deciding this was a bad idea and that I need to come up with a better plan. I throw a five on the table to cover my drink and then leave the musty bar. When I step into the sunlight, I breathe freely, but the feeling that I failed crushes my chest.
By the time I make it to my car, I’m panting and struggling not to count the poles in the parking garage. I grab the door handle, my hand trembling.
Inhale…exhale…inhale…exhale…
“Nova.” Tristan’s voice floats over my shoulder. “Are you…” His feet scuff against the pavement as he steps toward me. “Are you okay?”
I’m on the verge of crying and the last thing I want to do is turn around and let him see that fact. “Yeah, I’m good.” I lift my hand to discreetly dab my eyes with my fingers and pull myself together before I turn around to face him. “I’m just not feeling very good all of a sudden.”
There’s speculation in his eyes as he looks me over. “Maybe we should get going, then.”
I nod and am about to climb into the car when I spot a tall guy, with sturdy arms and broad shoulders, wearing black pants and a nice button-down shirt, strolling toward us, with his eyes on us. He has this strange look on his face, like he’s found something he’s been dying to get his hands on and finds it amusing.
“Well, well, well, look who I finally ran into.” Tristan tenses just at the sound of his voice, then gradually turns around. “Trace, what’s up?” There’s a nervous laugh under his stressed tone.
Trace stops just short of us with his arms folded. He’s probably in his mid-twenties, tall, with a very sturdy body and intimidating gaze. He also has brass knuckles on his hand and a scar on his cheek, just a light graze, but it screams drug lord to me. As soon as I think it, I shake my head at myself at the absurdity. There’s no way that could be going on—no such thing.
“You know, you’re a hard person to track down,” Trace says broodingly. “I show up in the parking lot and you let your friend take the blow. Then I go over to your shitty-ass house and Dylan takes the blow for you that time, although if you were there he probably would have ratted you out.” A small smile touches his lips, as if he’s entertained by Tristan’s nervous manner. “Things would have been a hell of a lot easier if you would have just stepped up instead of being a f**king coward.”
Tristan deliberately inches to the side, placing himself between Trace and me. “Yeah, sorry about that. But you know how things are…you’re high and shit and you just do stupid stuff.”
“High on my drugs,” Trace says, ambling forward and cracking his knuckles. I’m not sure what to do—stay put? Get in the car? But I can feel the tension in the air, so thick it’s smothering. “Drugs you owe me money for.” He stops in front of Tristan, towering over him, and Tristan isn’t that short, which means the guy is tall. “I’m going to make this real easy on you. Give me the money you owe me, plus interest, and I’ll let you walk.”
“I don’t have the money right now,” Tristan mutters with his head tipped down. “But I’ll get it to you. I just need some time.”
“Time, huh?” That’s when the Trace guy looks at me for the first time, but it feels like he noticed me long before. “And who’s this lovely thing right here?”