Tourmaline wasn't usually home from her visits to Hazelton until late, and the long line of motorcycles stretching under the leafy oaks bordering her driveway stood as silent testimony to Dad banking on her not being around. She climbed out of the truck and used the door to crack her back, taking deep breaths of the heavy valley humidity to work out the six hours of interstate stiffness and emotional spiraling.
They were all here. Their bikes tipped on kickstands, one after another in a languid line of chrome. The amber porch lights and blue tint of moonshine slipped from one bike to the next. Country rock blared under the deeply shadowed trees, mingling with the smells of smoked meat and wood fire. All hidden behind a row of sweet bay magnolia, red cedar, and sweet summer darkness.
All hidden, except for Big Mac stationed at the end of the driveway to watch the road, and Sauls standing under the eaves of the garage in his vest and tucked-in T-shirt, nursing a cigarette in the hazy purple shadows as he kept watch over the bikes.
He met her eye, nodded, and looked back to his phone.
Sighing, she slung her bag over her shoulder and texted Anna May. Party at my house. Save me. Movie? What she really wanted was to shower, cry, and inhale a package of Oreos. But there was no space for that here. She'd dump her stuff, sit in a dark movie theater with Anna May, and try not to tell her best friend and youth group student leader she'd just tried to smuggle contraband into a federal prison.
Me and Dalton were just heading out. Pick you up?
Ugh. It'd be easy to keep the stuff about her mom to herself with Dalton around, but if he was in the car with Anna May, she'd have to hear about how Dalton found motorcycles an unsafe, ridiculous expression of poorly formed masculinity. Please, she texted anyway. Pocketing her phone, she opened the front door of the house with an ache in her chest she couldn't begin to unpack.
A strange woman looked up, blinking in surprise.
It shouldn't have bothered her—Tourmaline had known the second she'd seen those bikes what kind of crowd would be here—but it seemed as if the universe had put the woman there—behind the kitchen counter, having the nerve to be all domestic and shit, putting chips into a goddamn bowl—just to dig farther into her skin.
Tourmaline let the door slam behind her.
"Heeyyy." Her father yanked his feet off the table and his boots thumped to the floor. "I thought you weren't going to be back till late."
"I see that," Tourmaline said, dropping her bag into a chair. The kitchen and dining room were one room, divided by a wide counter covered in picked-over food. The table stood overflowing with half-empty trays of chicken and an array of liquor. Her stomach growled. The food smelled amazing. Was it from Moe's? Moe's food didn't usually smell like this. Maybe she was just really hungry.
"How did it go?" Dad asked.
He hadn't told the woman to leave. Who was she? Tourmaline bit the inside of her cheek.
The woman stood with her hands folded on the counter. Long nails. Sleek blond hair skimming her shoulders. Big silver earrings jingled softly with even the slightest of her movements, and she wore a tight Harley-Davidson T-shirt, cut deep, with rhinestones on the front. She was young. Not in her twenties, thank God. But young thirties maybe.
Tourmaline's stomach turned. She grabbed a chip out of a bowl and looked back to her father with a brow raised. "Can't leave you alone for a second, huh?"
"Thought we'd change it up for a Saturday night. I didn't know you'd be back so soon. We'll get outta your hair in a little bit, don't worry." Dad's gaze kept steady, but in a way that screamed how much he was working to keep it there.
She wanted to tell him she was going out. That she wanted to get away. Judging by the sheer amount of alcohol stacked in the dining room, there were probably close to fifty people outside. Twenty-five Wardens and the rest a mix of party girls and hang-arounds.
Exactly the sort of thing Virginia wanted to see.
"Hey, T!" Jim, a thin black man with graying hair, said as he crossed through the kitchen. He'd been the Wardens' vice president for a long time and should have been the president after Tourmaline's grandfather died, but he'd had to step down after a stroke. Everyone still called him the VP and treated him that way, even though he couldn't ride anymore. "Congrats on graduating. Your daddy says you're off to UVA." He plucked up a roll and didn't really wait for an answer before sailing out the door to the garden. "It's a good school. Don't get into trouble. Be a good girl."
Tourmaline waved. What Virginia and other curious outsiders didn't get was that, in reality, this was boring. It was super weird. It was old men, motorcycle spec talk, and the strong possibility of a hairy, sweaty drunk dude doing something terrifically embarrassing, and only laughing louder about it because Tourmaline was watching. She wanted to hide in her room and turn up her music until Anna May came, not join in the fray.
But it was her house, not the blonde's. So Tourmaline stood there and took a slow bite of her chip. Waiting. Refusing to completely hand over the space her mother used to occupy as queen.
"Don't fuck with my food, Jason," someone she didn't know yelled over his shoulder as he came through the door. He balked at the three of them and ducked his head. "Sorry." His boots clomped hollow on the creaking wooden floor as he skirted around them for the hall.
"That's the new conscript," Dad said, pushing up his worn denim shirtsleeves.
Tourmaline shrugged. "Can't be that new." Conscripts weren't brought around families until the very end; probably no less than a year had passed since he started wearing the bottom rocker, decorated with the word conscript, on his vest. Which was after at least a year or two of being a hang-around.
Dad rolled his eyes. He'd meant new to her. As if she'd missed the last eighteen years and didn't know how this worked. "Do you remember Old Hawk?"
The woman began rearranging the dip bowls, earrings tinkling and catching the light as she moved. It was impossible not to look in her direction. Which Tourmaline guessed was the point. But for Tourmaline, it was impossible to not remember her mother there instead, presiding over the food and the men alike.
"He was an original Warden," her dad continued. "More your grandpa's time than mine. He would be president if he'd stayed around."
"Who?"
"I just said. Old Hawk." Dad reached for a beer, a little too casually. "They went to Sturgis together, and he bailed your grandpa out of jail. Virginia boys stick together, I guess. He was around when you were young, but you might not remember him. They moved up to northern Virginia when there was a big construction boom up there. Made good money with all those houses. Don't you remember him? He babysat you a few times."
"Kinda."
The woman began rustling the chip bags.
Dad kept talking, louder. "He passed away from cancer a while back. That's his kid."
Tourmaline frowned. "Who? What?"
"The new conscript."
"Oh." Her father never told her this kind of thing. This smelled like avoidance.
The silence drifted back in.
Finally, the woman sighed. "I'm going to take these out to the boys." Her voice was small and feminine. The way Tourmaline's mother's had been before her spirit had drained out and just left the edges. She picked up the bowl and walked out.
"I'll catch up in a second," Tourmaline's father called.
The music had turned up. Jason yelled from somewhere outside.
Tourmaline didn't even want to think about what they would do with this house come August when she left for UVA. She checked her phone and tucked back the wisps of hair falling out of her ponytail. "I'm going out with Anna May. She's on her way."
"You got a minute?" Her father stood and headed toward the hall. "I got something I need to talk to you about."
Something dark and heavy trailed a slow circling beat into the pit of her stomach.
Wayne.
Without a word, she followed him into his office. It couldn't be Wayne. Fourteen years. He'd gotten fourteen years. It had to be something else. Anything else.
Her father shut the door and went around the polished oak desk. The dim evening light filled the room with soft shadows. The sounds of the party were muffled. One of the framed posters on the wall yelled in bold letters over a motorcycle, KICK HER. SHE'LL KICK YOU BACK IN ALL THE RIGHT PLACES. After years of looking at it, Tourmaline still didn't get it.
She plopped into one of the chairs before his desk and tucked her leg nervously underneath her. "What's up?" she asked, voice quivering despite her best intentions. If it was anything good he'd have been able to say it in the kitchen.
Her father stretched his hands out and inspected the horned-skull ring on his index finger, the tattooed lines circling his wrists like bonds, and Semper Fi inked on his forearm. Frowning, he rubbed at some invisible spot on the ring. "I just wanted to let you know Wayne came home today."
Tourmaline went cold.
"I wanted you to hear it from me and know this isn't going to affect your life. We'll keep you safe."
"How is he home already?" Tourmaline asked.
"His sentence was only—"
"It was fourteen years." She didn't need reminding. "It's only been three."
"State prison. He was eligible for parole."
"No." She didn't know what else to say. Mom had at least eight more years before she was eligible for parole. Eight. Tourmaline could have a Ph.D. by then. She pulled a length of her hair through her fingers and stared unseeing at the ceiling. "What kind of shit justice is that?"
"If you go through life expecting justice to be handed to you, you'll always be disappointed. It's not about right. Never is. It's about the demands of the system."
Tourmaline bit her lips tight, meeting the easy, clear blue of her father's eyes. Who delivered justice, then? she wanted to ask, but the question stayed stuck in a ball in her throat.
"I just wanted to let you know," he said. "In case you see him around. I didn't want you to be surprised."
"Maybe he doesn't care."
A look of deep pity crossed her father's face. "Maybe. But if you see him, call me. Right away. We'll take care of him."
Tourmaline stared at her sneakers. There was a tiny bit of dirt on the edge of the rubber and she licked her finger and rubbed at it. What if Dad did something and got sent to jail? She'd lose two parents over the same shit. The same mistake. That couldn't happen.
"It will be fine," her father said confidently. "Wayne probably has better things to do with his time now that he's free. People fixate on one thing inside and forget about it once they get out. Just be cautious. We'll keep you safe."
Tourmaline frowned at the floor, disgusted. Wayne was back. After three stupid years in state prison.
Her phone buzzed and the screen lit in her hand with the text from Anna May.
Almost there. Had to get gas and then Katy LimbaUGHHHH wanted to "chat." Aka pump me for inside info about making varsity. Shoot me now.
Autocorrect is a genius. Katy LimbaUGGGGHHH.
She was wearing navy and black and it really got on my nerves. I don't care who says you can wear them together, you can't. You just can't.
"You okay, T?" her father asked softly.
"I'm going out with Anna May," she repeated absently.
"You don't have to go. We can get out of your hair."
"She's already on her way."
"Oh. Just her?"
"Her and Dalton."
"No one else?" He always sniffed around the topic of boys but never approached it head on.
"No one else." Allen was out of town with his older brother until the following day. Not that she'd ever tell her father.
He pushed out of the chair. "I'll keep my phone on," he said, heading out.
Tourmaline followed aimlessly. The smell of the food hit her as soon as she stepped into the hall, and she remembered she hadn't eaten all day. Anna May still wasn't there, so Tourmaline grabbed a paper plate off the stack, putting the ruffled edge to her mouth and looking over the food. Roasted chicken. Mashed potatoes with flecked things in them. She dug out a spoonful and inspected it with a frown. She should have told Dad about what Hayes had said. Wayne Thompson is looking for you. She should go right now. Find him. Tell him.
She stared at the potatoes. What if it was just a rumor? Of course the guard could know if Wayne was released—they'd probably alerted everyone involved in the trial. Mom included. And Mom only knew via the guards. What could Dad do about it, anyhow?
"I think it's rosemary," Jason said from her right. "It's pretty good, but don't tell him I said that."
She blinked. "Better question: Is it edible? I'm still scarred from your charred hot dogs and unfried French fries. Oh God, and the peanut butter and bologna sandwich you made for my school lunch. Remember that?"
"Yeah, I was a nightmare as a conscript," Jason agreed. "I think they rushed to patch me out just to stop me from having to do any more cooking."
Tourmaline snorted, plopping a spoonful onto her plate, half covering the chicken. "I know I was grateful when Dad went back to school-lunch duty."
Jason's eyes and the diamond stud in his ear winked at her, but that was just him. He was beautiful and baby-faced; and playing the charming boy soldier was a routine he'd been running long past boyhood. And his clear hazel eyes always looked bright and sober, no matter how drunk he was.
It was strange to think of him from Virginia's perspective. Most of the things people talked about centered on Jason.
At Mom's trial, Tourmaline had heard all the rumors. There under fluorescent lights, with the stenographer tacking away and the judge leaning forward on his elbows. The federal prosecutor seemed as if he'd spent a week in Moe's just jotting notes on whatever shit people would say. People always have shit to say about things they don't understand.
If Virginia was looking for cheap thrills, what could Tourmaline give her that the rumors hadn't?
Jason put a roll on her plate.
"Eh," she said, adding a spoonful of corn.
"What?"
"One more. Come on now." She pushed the plate toward him, and he shook his head and added another. "So, your new conscript cooks, huh?"
Shrugging, Jason walked his fingers through the line of bottles and plucked one out. "He's all right." He popped the top off.
"Who sponsored him?"
"I did." Jason gave her a smirking rolled-eyes face. "Anyway."
She smothered her chicken in gravy.
"How's your mom?"
She didn't answer.
He took a long drink. "Your dad's talking about selling the Shovelhead."
Tourmaline glanced at him. "Okay?"
He gave her a look and walked off without another word.
Tourmaline watched him go—out the back door, disappearing into the softly lit garden, where everyone gathered underneath the strung lights. On the hazy edges of the dark garden, the woman from the kitchen stood with two others just like her. Tourmaline blinked at the ground and let out a long breath before turning for her room.
She picked a piece of chicken off the bone and stuffed it in her mouth. It was amazing—moist, with an herbed saltiness in each bite; so good she stopped right there, in the hall, and swooped up a bite of potatoes on her finger to try. Rosemary. Holy shit, the conscript was actually a good cook for once.
A tall young man in jeans and a T-shirt appeared in the hall, startling her before she remembered he was the cook. The guy who came through the kitchen. The conscript.
Tourmaline wiped her fingers on her jeans and moved so he could pass, but he moved the same way. She stepped again, but she was already half a step behind him. "Here. I'll go—" But they nearly ran into each other again.
"This isn't rocket science, conscript."
"I'll go left. You go right," he said.
She stepped right and nearly ran into his chest. Clenching her jaw, she tipped her chin to meet his eyes. A current of something sparked and turned the marrow of her bones to liquid. When had the conscripts gotten so young? And hot?
"How's the chicken?" he asked.
"Fine," she said coolly. He was a conscript, after all. Her dad's friend. Her memories of Old Hawk were a thin collection consisting of a booming laugh and a big black man always wearing a black Carhartt T-shirt—not enough to remember whether this man, his son, looked like him.
"My name's Cash." He smiled. "There's an herbed butter for the rolls."
"Oh." She turned back toward the kitchen.
"I got it." He put his hand on her back, gently moving her aside as he slid past.
She stopped, holding her plate. Music pulsed outside, but they were alone in the kitchen. No one to notice what had just happened, thankfully—his hand on her back, so casual. Didn't he know the rules? He had to.
The conscript dug through extra rolls and bags of chips on the counter, turning with a bowl of butter. "Here."
The heat of his hand still rested between her shoulder blades. She shrugged it off and grabbed a knife out of the drawer. "You know it's not a guarantee."
"What's not?"
She smothered her roll in a thick layer of butter and dropped the knife in the sink before answering. "You have to follow the rules. Just because your dad was an original member, doesn't mean it's a guarantee."
"I didn't know I broke a rule," he said, putting the butter on the counter and pulling out a stretch of plastic wrap.
It wasn't like a rule that was spelled out—none of them were. It was a truth he had to know by this point. Thou shalt not touch or look at your brothers' daughters. If he was here, allowed into this home, he was close to patching out. He wore the curved conscript patch in blue-green, black and white, sewn onto the bottom of his leather vest—the rest a broad expanse of empty leather waiting for confirmation. By now, he'd know: breaking those unspoken rules would get him kicked out.
"Good?" He glanced toward the roll as she chewed.
Starting, she frowned. "You made all this?"
He nodded.
Ah. Being a good cook gave him an advantage—it meant they couldn't treat him too badly, because they'd always want something only he could give them. "It's all right."
He tilted his head, raising an eyebrow. "All right?"
She swallowed her bite and narrowed her eyes at him. This wasn't normal conscript behavior. They didn't usually argue if you said their herbed fucking butter was just all right. "Do you like cooking?"
He put his finger to his lips. "Don't tell, they think they're making it hard on me."
Tourmaline's gaze flickered over him—taking in the polished boots, crisp jeans, and black T-shirt wrinkling across his chest as he smoothed down the plastic wrap. His black hair was buzzed close. Dark taupe skin—pulled tight over thick muscle like a matte finish on a bike. A well-trimmed ducktail-shaped beard. No hint of boy left in the tall, strong-looking body. How old was he? She felt like she needed to know just to orient herself to where she was in life, as if his age were a missing coordinate. "You're not really supposed to talk to me." Or touch her, but she didn't say it. It had been a meaningless, thoughtless touch, she knew—but a conscript couldn't afford to be either of those things.
He laughed. "Oh, that's right. The Princess."
Her phone buzzed in her pocket—Anna May texting she was outside, probably. She ignored it, forcing herself to keep her gaze locked to the conscript's, as if she didn't feel a thing. She lifted her chin. "You won't patch out."
"For what?"
What did he mean, For what? Hadn't he been listening?
The conscript crossed his arms and leaned against the counter, looking wholly unapologetic.
"Do you like hanging out with your dad's friends?" He asked it a little mockingly. A little teasingly.
Flirting?
It pulled her up short and left her unsure. How old was he? She swished her hair back like Virginia and lifted her chin. "It's my house."
The conscript just looked at her. Deadpan.
"Do you like hanging out with a bunch of rednecks whose only intent is to abuse you until you break?" It left her mouth before she realized what she was truly saying—that this wasn't a regular conscript—and terrible subtext pervaded her words. The Wardens had a few black members, but that didn't mean anything for a conscript. There was no brotherhood until he became a brother. She'd only meant to needle him back in the way he'd done with her, and instead she'd walked right into dumbass white girl territory.
"I'm sorry," she gasped. "Oh my God, I am so sorry. I didn't mean it like that."
"I know what you meant." He heaved off the counter, grabbed a napkin, and stepped close.
Her pulse throbbed in her neck, but she refused to back down to a conscript.
He reached around her shoulder.
"What are you doing?" she asked, horrified that her words came out sort of breathless.
"You got gravy in your hair," he said, the corners of his mouth tensing as if he were trying not to smile.
Her heartbeat thumped a deep, throbbing refrain in her chest, and she stared at the ends of her hair slipping through his hands.
"It's my club," he said.
"Not yet," she said. And not ever, if he was going to be like this with her. Nothing was innocent when it came to the eighteen-year-old daughter of your president. Not even a conversation.
He laughed. "That's what you think." He winked, balled the napkin, and tossed it into the trash. Turning, he went outside.
Tourmaline stood alone, until her heartbeat dropped back to normal and the damp ends of her hair dried.
That was what she needed. A way to make Virginia feel as if she were standing alongside a tall Warden with her heartbeat in her throat and her fingers shaky. A show. That's what Tourmaline could exchange. Not the truth, but what Virginia wanted the truth to be.