I miss her.
I really, really miss her.
The traffic on I-70 is horrific—must be an accident up ahead. Colorado has the worst drivers. They say California drivers are bad, but that’s not true. California drivers know what they’re doing. They might speed the hell down the freeway, but they can cut over six lanes of traffic, find a song on the iPod, check their teeth in the mirror, and flip off the slow driver they’re passing, without even blinking.
Here—every day is a major f**k-up on the freeway. And there is really only one way to get to DIA from Denver unless I want to drive up north and cut back around on the toll road. And I don’t. So I sit in traffic.
Back to Ronin. God that guy just pissed me off from the minute I met him. Getting into my truck, chatting and laughing with Spencer like they’re best friends since birth or something.
I was Spencer’s friend all growing up. Spence comes from money, like me. My parents inherited our house and Spencer came from the same situation. Our families have lived across the street from each other for close to fifty years. But there was Ronin, inserting himself between us like be belonged, even though he wasn’t even from Park Hill. He was from f**king Five Points. The slum of Denver. And he was practically the son of a p**n photographer.
I mean, looking at it objectively, that’s exactly what the situation was.
I inch past the accident and finally the freeway opens up just past the 225. I get over in the right lane so I can get on Pena. One long-ass road that only leads to one lonely-ass place. The airport.
But every girl at school loved Ronin the minute he got out of the truck that day. It was like something out of a movie where the action is all slow-mo, the dude drags his hand through his perfectly messed up, yet still coiffed, hair, and all the girls drop their Trapper-Keepers and gawk at him with their mouths open.
I hated him.
I still might hate him a little. Maybe even more than a little.
He’s just lucky that loyalty is my number one moral value. Maybe my only moral value. I do, after all, steal, cheat, lie, and lust. I have most of the vices covered. But for some reason, my whole worldview begins and ends with this absolute dedication to Spencer and Ronin. I’m not even sure how it started since I hated him immediately.
But it’s there. I can’t not be loyal to Ronin. I simply can’t change it. We’re bound together in this life whether we want to be or not. I’m sure he hates me as well. Maybe even more, since he knows Rook loves me in her own way, and there’s nothing he can do about it.
DIA eventually shows up off in the distance. They say the white peaked roof is supposed to remind people of the snow-capped Rocky Mountains, but it looks like some futuristic circus tent of you ask me. I always get a strange craving for cotton candy when I come here.
I get in the lane for the west terminal garage and then follow the road around to the ticket station. Fucking Merc. Making me get a ticket and pay for parking. Why can’t he just show up like normal people instead of being all paranoid and stealthy? Now security will have my plates when I leave because I have to stop at the exit and pay as they take pictures of my car. If he would just stand out at Arrivals like everyone else, then I could swoop in, pick his ass up, and swoop back out. No plates. No pictures. No payment.
I pull up in front of the stop gate and roll my window down so I can take a parking ticket. The gate lifts and I drive through, trying to get my bearings on which way is north so I can find the south elevators on level two.
In California, west equals the ocean. In Denver, west equals the mountains. I find the mountains so I know where south is, and then take the ramp up to level two. This place is packed since it’s Christmas Eve, and there are holiday travelers everywhere. Kids are crying, moms and dads are stressed, and grandparents are happy to be with them, even though it’s an all-out nightmare trying to get in and out of this garage.
I drive past the south elevators, looking for a station wagon and come up short. So I try the old-fashioned method. I roll the window down and yell, “Merc!”
Every set of stressed-out eyeballs turns at my call and stares at me.
I stare back and have to tuck down the urge to say something nasty.
Then the passenger door opens and a man slides in, half ducking down thinking no one can see him, and tugging on his hat to cover his eyes. Merc is a huge guy, at least six foot four and two hundred pounds. So him thinking he can duck in the seat and hide himself is almost funny. His hazel eyes are darting all over the place, checking the parking lot. His hand rubs the stubble on his chin, and his cropped brown hair is covered by a trucker hat that proclaims he’s a bacon lover.
“Good going, Rutherford. Just call out my f**king name in one of the busiest airports on the planet, on one of the busiest days of the year.”
“You said call you.”
“No, I said, do The Call, Ford. Not just scream out my name.”
“I do not scream. And the last call we had together was a duck. Quacking out a duck call in an airport parking garage is gonna be less conspicuous than your name?”
“Whatever,” he says as he turns to check behind us like the paranoid freak he is, “just drive.”
“Well now we have to stop at security to get our f**king pictures taken, so this is all moot anyway. You should’ve stayed in Arrivals.”
“Fuck that, I saw a few suspicious people back there. One on the plane and one in baggage. I went to baggage because it’s what people do and I was blending in, plus I wanted to see if this guy would follow me. And he did.”