The Keys to Jericho (74 page)

Dash retorts, “Says the man who line-dries his underwear on his front porch, and collects ketchup packets for the homeless.”

“Absolutely. Let’s not be spendthrifts, Dashiell,” Victor scolds him and then says to me, “Now, Katriona. Don’t tell me you only see Dashiell as a friend. Underneath the bitchiness, he’s a prize.” Dash? Bitchy? I see Victor hasn’t met Jared Beckett.

I glance at Dash and smile. “Uh… We’ve been friends for quite a while now.”

Victor shrieks, “So slow, Dashiell! If I batted for your team, I would’ve married this young lady by now!”

Dash sighs. “Jesus, Victor.”

Victor asks me, “Katriona, you do know Dashiell is straight?”

I laugh at Dash frowning. “Yes.”

“Well, show him your boobies already!”

As I gasp, Dash says, “And my best friend would knock out all my teeth with a crowbar, cut off my dick with a circular saw, and then set me on fire.” What the fuck?

Victor says, “Sounds kinky. Make it a threesome then.”

Dash laughs, his blond hair gleaming in the overhead light. “What do you think, Kat? You think he’d go for it?”

Adjusting my glasses, I clear my throat. “No way in Hell, to both of those questions.”

Walking past the counter, Dash goes down a hallway and I follow. Dash says, “You’re right. He’s not the sharing type.” He shrugs. “Me neither.”

“Dash, stop. He and I aren’t together.” Not anymore.

He grins over his shoulder. “Not at the moment. You’re in a floral shop.”

I sulk, “We’re not even friends anymore.”

He leads me into a room with a table and counters lining the walls. Cutting tools and pins clutter the surfaces, while dead leaves and flowers litter the floor. “Oh, Merrick. You two will make up.”

I pick up a pair of pliers, poking my finger with the tip. “Unlikely. He’s so pissed off.”

“Do you know a different Jericho than I do?” I used to.

I reluctantly smile. “Shut up.”

Dash yanks open a heavy door and cold air spills into the room as he disappears inside. The rush of cool air is welcomed, despite the goosebumps it causes along my arms.

When Dash returns with a large, white box, I say, “Tony said he hasn’t shown up at my mom’s since...” Our fight in the kitchen.

Pushing the door closed with his foot, Dash carries the box over to the table. “Well, neither have you, so that’s not a surprise.”

“I guess. I don’t even know where he is.”

After he zips a knife through the tape on the box, Dash glances up at me. “He’s still in town.”

“He is?” I look around the room, as if he’s going to come through the door.

“Yeah. He leaves tomorrow to go back to Philly. He has some meeting Friday afternoon for work.”

“Oh.”

Pausing over the box, he says, “He’ll probably be back on Saturday, if you wanted to talk to him.”

“Not really. We only argue, I cry, and then one of us leaves. It’s infinite.”

“He hasn’t texted you or tried calling?”

“No.”

“Why don’t you call him then?”

I look to the table. “No. I think we’ve said enough.”

“Maybe you haven’t said the right things.”

“He always says what he wants to say.”

“Then I guess you don’t really know him.”

I swiftly look up at Dash. “What’s
that
mean?”

“Hey, sugar bear.” We both turn to see a buxom woman with platinum blonde hair pulled high up on her head, wearing heavy makeup, a low-cut top, and tight, dark blue jeans. Shit. She looks like the quintessential Barbie doll. The only stripper stereotypes missing are the high-heeled shoes, body glitter, and bikini. I do notice from which parent Dash got his dimples and smile, making her the female version of Dash, giving her a disturbing twist. Still, she’s strikingly beautiful, and in my worn jeans, plain, gray T-shirt, makeup-free face, glasses, and bland, purple-less ponytail, I feel enormously inadequate around her.

Her smile is bright, of course, when she says, “Oh, hello.”

Dash rolls his eyes when his mother kisses his cheek, which leaves a red lip print. “Mom, this is my friend Kat, who I told you about. Kat, this is Shelbie, my mother.”

She smiles at me and holds out her hand. “Call me Shell.”

I smile back, but suddenly feel very shy as I shake her hand. Her shiny, red nail polish catches the light, making my pastel pink nails look hideous. “Hi.”

Dash says, “Kat has volunteered her help.”

She offers another bleach-white smile. “Oh, really? Thank you so much! I’m shorthanded, so any help I can get is great!”

I shrug and toy with the pliers again. “It’s no problem.” I’m here against my will anyway.

“Dash told me you’re a teacher. That’s awesome! What grade?”

I smile, which is genuine. “Third.”

Dash says, “What grade will you be teaching with your new job in Virginia?”

“Fourth.”

Shell sighs. “Dash was so awkward around that age, but so damn cute.” She brushes his hair off his forehead, and says to him, “That was the year you were in that food groups play.” She turns to me and laughs. “My poor ear of corn tripped over his shoelaces and fell headfirst off the stage. Wouldn’t return to the play and cried all the way home.”

Dash mutters, “Lies.”

Shell pushes on his cheek. “Hardly.”

Dash jokingly frowns at her and says to me, “Jericho was a carrot, if you need ammunition.”

I try not to smile, but fail. Shell asks me, “You know Jared Beckett?” I nod, biting my lip. Shell smiles, saying, “He was a cutie, too. Always sticking up for Dash. Jared has a lot of heart, but pretends to be a hardass.”

Dash laughs. “Sometimes.” I glance at Dash and he smiles at me.

Shell says to Dash, “Or when that one, weird substitute teacher who was there for a week, thought you wrote your name as
Desk
. He kept calling you that for the entire week. Jared corrected him each time. Still, you came home crying every night.” 

Dash gripes, “Okay, Mom. Enough.”

Shell asks me, “Dash said you two went to high school together?”

I nod. “I was a year behind him.”

“Did he tell you about the time he slammed a kid into a locker, and then punched him?”

“No…” I look from Shell to a red-faced Dash, who feigns interest in the box in front of him.

Shell says, “Shit. I had to give your principal tickets to my show to get Dash out of trouble.”

Dash shouts, “Mother! Zip it!”

Shell blinks innocently at him, appearing truly perplexed. “What?”

Dash sighs. “You can go now.”

Not surprisingly, Shell presses the matter. “Did you ever tell Jared you did that?”

Dash frowns, looking back to the box. “Uh...”

Shell scoffs, “Your best friend, whose honor you were defending, doesn’t even know you were beating the shit out of that kid for
him
?”

“I think there’s a stripper pole that needs polishing,” Dash grumbles.

Shell slaps his arm and I laugh. “Dashiell Paris Calder, behave.” I never knew his middle name. Totally suits him. I’m surprised Jared hasn’t made fun of it in front of me. Not that I’ll ever hear him do that now.

Dash rolls his eyes at his mother. “What? I wasn’t ‘beating the shit out of him.’ The guy said something, so I threw him into a locker. He mouthed off some more, so I introduced him to my fist.”

“You broke the locker door.”

“I didn’t break his face.”

I ask, “What did he say about Jared?”

“Daryl Santo ran his mouth about some plays Jericho fumbled in a few games. He said Jericho needed benched or his legs broken.” Dash shrugs. “I contested that.”

“Holy shit, Dash.”

Shell says, “Jared was the firecracker, but I never thought Dash would be the one in trouble. He had to spend three days in the principal’s office, despite me giving that lowlife tickets. Ass.”

Victor yells from the front, and Shell shakes her head. “I got to go see what the drama queen wants. Just unload the boxes and I’ll mock them up later. Thank you again, Kat, for being here.”

“Sure.”

When she leaves the room, I laugh. “What the hell, Mike Tyson?”

Dash grimaces as he lifts the box flaps. “It’s no big deal. Daryl ran his mouth, and I’d had enough.”

“I didn’t know you had it in you to get into a fight.”

“Nobody does, really. Jericho thinks I’m a wuss. Throwing that punch was in the heat of the moment, but it gave Daryl a bloody lip. I might not have the muscles, but I’m pretty slick and if I have to, I can throw a punch, and outrun people. When I was in fifth grade, my mom got mugged outside the club after a show. She started taking self-defense classes and kickboxing, dragging me with her, and often I got to be the instructor’s assistant. She went for years to kickboxing. Through all that, I picked up a thing or two by watching. I can hold my own if need be.”

“Again. Holy shit, Dash. How does Jared not know about this?”

Dash shuffles around in the box as he says, “I didn’t talk to him much that year. He was always…busy.”

“Busy? Football?”

“Yeah.” He glances up from the box. “And you.”

I shake my head, confused. “We were just friends.”

Dash rolls his eyes. “You two need to get that put on T-shirts.”

Dash pulls out some black roses from the box and I narrow my eyes at them. He grins. “Funeral.”

“Wow. For Morticia Addams?”

He grins. “I want black roses for mine. These rock.”

I laugh. “That’s totally unexpected.”

“Keeps you guessing, doesn’t it?”

“You could be a serial killer.”

“I could be.” He unloads more roses and chuckles before saying, “It all makes sense now. Jericho was friends with you during that time. Even if he wasn’t
with
you, he still was with you. That’s why he kept to himself more. He didn’t want people to see his feelings for you.”

I inhale, staring at the black rose petals. “Um, okay, Dash.”

“And it also makes sense why he wasn’t focusing.”

I glance up at him, shocked by what I think he’s insinuating. “Are you saying he was screwing up at his games, because of me?”

He shrugs and twirls a rose. “Maybe.”

“I didn’t have
that
kind of effect on him.”

He laughs, setting down the rose. “He’s not the only one sailing on the river of denial.”

“Dash, don’t.”

“What?”

“I… I can’t talk about him like this anymore.” I grab onto the table to keep myself steady, wanting to be alone now.

Seeing how tense I am, he sighs. “Let’s get this shit done, and I’ll take you home.”

I sigh and nod at the table, feeling a little relieved that there’s an end in sight.

We finish unpacking the boxes in silence, but it’s not awkward or contentious. It’s actually nice, and the flowers don’t remind me of Jared’s cologne, allowing me to breathe easier, and my heart not to hurt. For now.

As I slide into the passenger seat, Dash asks me, “How was class?”

“It was class. I’m not sure what else I need to report to you.”

“Okay... Do you want to play with flowers again?”

I nod as I gaze at the dashboard. “Yeah.”

“Wow. No argument?”

I glance at him. “It was nice. I didn’t mind it.”

He grins and looks over his shoulder as he shifts into reverse. “More lies.”

“No, really. It’s fine. You’ll just owe me one.”

“One? More than one. My mom really appreciates your help.”

As he merges with traffic, I check my phone, but am disappointed when I see no missed anything. “It’s only unpacking flowers.”

“Yeah, but it’s saving her a lot of time.”

“I’m happy to help.” I have nothing else to do, except wallow.