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figured he stayed in another year just to play against me. He pitched. I hit.
And when our teams met in the playoffs, the fucker beaned me cold. Swore
he didn’t do it on purpose. Maybe he hadn’t. But I’d be damned if I was
going to let a pinch runner take that base. Damned if I wasn’t going to steal
a second and drag my ass up to the plate in the next inning.
I was a hitter. I knew where to put the ball. And when he sent an offspeed
pitch I saw coming a mile away, I sent it right to his fat fucking head.
He dodged but couldn’t catch it, and I got to second.
It was the last time he let a man on base, but I stole third and made it
home on a sac fly. It was the last run we needed to win, so fuck him. When
we got home, he apologized and I slept like a concussed baby for fourteen
hours.
For him, anything less than total domination was a loss.
I was more surgical. I wanted what I wanted. He could have the rest.
And I wanted Crowne. I didn’t want to lie to get it, but I had to, and I
had to lie now or let Byron take everything.
The address on Highland was in a semi-industrial zone on a block of
converted warehouses built when the neighborhood was one big storage
unit for Hollywood studios. Most had been turned into restaurants and
furniture stores. Ella Papillion’s sat between two galleries and had a
billboard on the roof. The barred steel door and small window in front had
been integrated into a graffiti-style mural that said BREAK SHIT.
Not a great sign.
My family would have to be convinced I’d marry into a message like
that.
I turned around the corner and found the back alley. Two cars were
parked behind her building. An El Camino that had been dark blue when it
came off the factory floor, but was now a cool gray, and a new black Toyota
Camry.
I pulled my BMW into the last available space and got out, then went up
the concrete steps to the metal door, which was ajar. I pushed it open.
“Hello?”
The space stretched to the front of the building. Clean white wall on one
side. Fucking mess of small, stacked canvases on the other, along with
shelves of paint, brushes, a slop sink, a drafting table, and a mismatched
couch and chairs that looked as if they’d been dragged in from the street.