I gaped at him. “What? Youneverwant to talk to your conquests, Myles.”
He frowned. “No woman is a conquest, Crow. I ain’t like that. They’re people. I respect them. I may only be interested in having sex, and casual sex at that, but that don’t mean I think of the women I’m with as…as…as bags of meat, or fuckin’conquests.”
I frowned harder. “Shit, man, I was joking, mostly.”
“I know. Sorry. But Lexie especially ain’t a conquest. She’s not like that. Not for me.”
I ran my hand through my hair. “Well…shit. Okay.”
He pushed a pebble around the asphalt with his big toe. “What?”
“Just…I think youlikeher.”
“No shit, man.” He glanced at her. “The fuck am I supposed to do?”
I shrugged. “Hell if I know.”
He swallowed hard. “Remember back when we first started touring? That old church van, just me and an amp and some guitars? You setting up, running sound, lights, doing everything but play the guitar and sing for me?”
I nodded. “Some good times, brother. Of course I remember. Why?”
“You remember when we ran out of money and got stuck in Des Moines?”
I nodded again. “Yeah, sure. You started hanging out with that group of scary-ass carnies.”
He sighed, a long nasal out-breath. “Yeah. Well, I never told you, but I got hooked on coke, hanging out with them.”
I glanced at him sideways. “Think I didn’t know? Why do you think I never went with you?”
He nodded. Eyed the ground. “Figures you knew.”
“You are about the only family I’ve ever had, Myles. Everyone else is dead.” I clapped him on the shoulder. “What’s this got to do with liking Lexie?”
He pawed his hair aggressively, making it stand up on end—and even that made him look even more like the wild rock star. “I tried, and I knew from the first fuckin’ hit that I was in deep, deep trouble. It was so good, and so, so bad. It scared me absolutely stupid. Like, I just knew in my fuckin’ soul that this shit would kill me real goddamn fast, because I liked it way, way too much. I couldn’t quit, though. Not after the first hit. Had to have that feeling again.”
I growled. “Scariest couple weeks of my life, in some ways, watching you go through that and knowing I couldn’t do shit to stop you.” I bumped him with my shoulder. “We left Des Moines and I’m pretty fuckin’ sure you haven’t touched that shit since.”
He nodded. “Me and the carnies, we were sitting around in this half-assembled tilt-a-whirl, drinking Everclear and bumping lines.”
I winced. “Jesus, dude.”
“I don’t know what happened. That shit doesn’t make you hallucinate, but I swear, I saw myself die. I was laying in this half-built tilt-a-whirl, staring up at the sky, watching it spin and I saw myself laying on the floor of a hotel room, dying, coked out. I fuckin’sawthat shit, real as you’re next to me right now.” A long pause. “I got up, staggered back to our van, and vowed I’d never touch anything harder than booze as long as I live.”
“Again, what’s the connection, man?”
He stared at Lexie, unblinking, his gaze on her exactly the way he’d said mine was—intense, as if she’d vanish if he blinked. “Lexie makes me feel like that. Scared, because I feel so fuckin’…highwhen I’m with her. Like I could lasso the moon and haul it down for her. But it’s…it’s got the feel of an addiction. Like…” He turned to me, and I knew the only reason he was saying this out loud was because I knew him better than anyone alive ever could, because we’d saved each other’s lives and seen each other at the absolute worst, and best. “Like, if I’m not careful, I’m gonna end up fuckin’needingthat chick in my life like I need to breathe, and I am scared abso-fuckin-lutely spitless by it. And all this from, what, less’n twelve hours of sex and talking? What the hell, man? How does this happen?”
“Didn’t think anything like that was possible, but it is, I guess.” I said this quietly, because his words were resonating in me. Hard.
“You too?”
I nodded. “Different, but yeah. That shit is going on under the surface, for me. Like, I feel it, but it’s too hard to let it out.”
“Well, my emotions run on the surface. You keep yours way down deep.”
I nodded. Stretched, kicked. “Don’t know what to do with it, honestly.”
He laughed. “What can we do? Roll with it, and see where it goes.”
