The Rocky Road Pact

Chapter 27: The Heat is On

I'm glad my father was out with his poker buddies. The scream I let out could have woken the dead.

"I'm sorry, I'm sorry," Tommy kept whispering, scrambling out from under the bed. "There was no good way to let you know I was here!"

"Why are you here?" I whisper-yelled, clutching the blanket around me, even though my pyjamas looked like a black ninja costume with a yellow belt - not exactly sexy. My heart was pounding in my throat. "You nearly gave me a heart attack!" Not the first one that night.

"I came here to talk to you, and I needed a place to hide. I'm not a creep, I swear!"

The mention of the word creep made my blood run cold. "How did you know I was out this evening? And where was I?"

"How the hell should I know where you were? I thought you were here," he said. I looked into his eyes and saw honesty and confusion. He wasn't the mystery psycho. I sighed with relief. 

"Cassie, settle down," my mom yelled in a bored voice from downstairs, not even bothering to check on me. She assumed I was shrieking about some boy with my friends on the phone. Good thing I wasn't being murdered in my bed.

"Tommy, what's going on?" I sat down in my rocking chair and began to rock, something I always did when I was nervous. "Are you in some kind of trouble?"

He ran a hand through his shaggy, blond hair and started pacing. "Yeah, I guess. Tonight was just completely fucked. I have to lay low for a few days." He looked at me hopefully.

"Well, you can't stay here!" I could just imagine explaining the dude in my bedroom to my father. "Yeah, this is Tommy. He's having some sleepovers in my room, hope you don't mind." 

He looked crestfallen. "Yeah, no that's fair. I had no right to ask you. I can't go back home, the cops will be at Aunt Bee's place by now."

"The cops?" What had he gotten himself into?

"Never mind. I shouldn't have involved you in this. You're just so smart. I thought you might be able to help me figure it out. But I was wrong to come here. I'm sorry," he said, heading to the window. He paused. "Cassie, whatever they say about me, I didn't do it. I would never do something like that."

"Tommy!" I yelled after him, then lowered my voice. "Tommy, come back." But he was gone. 

Jesus H. Christ, Mary, Joseph, and the wee donkey, on a cracker, in a sidecar. 

I should just let him go figure out whatever trouble he was in on his own and stay out of it. I climbed back into bed, tried to focus on the latest videos. Who was I kidding?

Pulling on a sweater, I threw open the window and climbed gingerly onto the tree branch nearest the house. I hadn't done this in a very long time; not since Mom grounded me from the junior high dance for my smart mouth, and I climbed out and went anyway. She was not happy when I got home; I was grounded for a month. The dance was worth it though. It's where I had my first kiss with Gary Nesbitt.

My bare feet found familiar grooves and footholds in the tree as I scampered down. Just before landing on the ground, my leg got caught on a branch and I gave myself a nasty scrape. 

I caught up with Tommy just as he was getting to the sidewalk in front of the house. "Come on," I said, pulling on his arm in the opposite direction.

"What are you doing? Hey, you're bleeding," he said, looking at the tear in my pyjamas just below my knee. "That makes two of us," I said, dragging him back behind the house. "Shut up and follow me."

I wondered what the neighbours would think of me, the police chief's daughter, dragging a known criminal behind her house in the middle of the night. Well, maybe criminal was too strong a word, but he did go to juvie for beating up some kid. How well did I know this guy, anyway? I was risking a lot to save his neck.

"Here," I said, pointing up. My property backed onto the woods, and my father had built us a treehouse way in the back. We were forbidden to go in for a year or so because the floor was worn in spots and Dad said it was too dangerous. He said he'd fix it for my little sister, but he never got around to it. Tommy climbed the ladder and I followed behind.

The old twin mattress was still there, covered by a sleeping bag. I shook it out, it was covered in leaves and branches, but no bugs or anything. There was a flashlight, a battery powered radio that miraculously still worked, and a stack of comic books. I turned the flashlight on and scanned the room. No critters to be found.

"It's not fancy, but you can hide out here until whatever trouble you're in calms down," I said. "I'll be back tomorrow with some food and extra blankets."

"Thank you," he said, sitting down on the mattress. It came out like a sigh of relief. "A bachelor's paradise," he said with a smile, looking around. "I may never leave."

"Oh you'll leave, all right. If my father catches you in here, you won't need to worry about jail."

He smirked. "Right. I know who he is. He's probably out looking for me right now."

"Tommy, what did you do?"

The smile faded and he rubbed his eyes. "I didn't do anything. It's what I didn't do that got me into trouble."

"Tommy, you're not making any sense." I moved and felt a sharp, stabbing pain in my leg.

"Come here, let me look at that," he said, his voice soft. I sat beside him on the mattress and he lifted up my pant leg. His fingers were gentle as the probed the skin around the wound. "Yeowch," I hissed, when he touched a certain part. "You have a splinter; a pretty big one," he said. 

"A splinter—" Before I could register what was happening, he removed it with deft fingers and held it up to me. "Jeez, that's a shard of wood. You're tough to run around with that in you."

I felt a little flutter of pride, even though my leg hurt like crazy. He found an old t-shirt in the corner and tore it up, wrapping a strip around my leg. "Wash that thoroughly when you get home and put a fresh band aid on it. Maybe some antiseptic creme if you have it. Don't want to get an infection."

"Thanks," I said quietly. Where his fingers moved over my skin, it didn't hurt anymore. Quite the opposite, actually. "Now what about you?"

I moved towards him and smoothed the hair out of his eyes. He had an ugly welt on his cheekbone, and his eye was swelling. I took a scrap of t-shirt and wiped the blood way from a cut near his eyebrow.

"You should see the other guy," he joked, weakly. But I didn't find it funny. I was sick to my stomach, looking at what someone did to him.

"You're going to have a hell of a black eye tomorrow," I said.  Before I knew it, my fingers were stroking his cheek and his forehead. Whatever happened, he'd been through a lot that evening. I was pleased when his eyes fluttered closed as I touched and stroked his face; he had long, curled eyelashes any girl would die for. I dusted my fingertips across his closed eyes and brushed them lightly across his full, sensual lips. I wanted more.

He put a hand on mine to stop my explorations. "You're going to put me to sleep," he said, opening his eyes and staring intently into mine. I swallowed past the lump in my throat. 

He said he didn't want to involve me, but I was involved — with this; with him. I was kidding myself that this was some kind of weird ploy to get Brandon back. Brandon who? I was falling for Tommy, I had been for a while. But I had to know everything about him, starting with tonight. He needed to be honest with me, so I knew exactly what I was dealing with. Who I was falling for.

"Okay," he said, reading my mind. "You want to know everything. I'll tell you. But on one condition. Can I have a sandwich or something? I haven't eaten anything since noon and I'm starving!"