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I WAS PITCHED FORWARD, directly into Lila.
It would have been a perfect, romantic, silly moment, where our lips crushed into each other in a first, accidental kiss, and led to whatever that would lead to afterwards. It would have, had Kevin not been the reason I was pitched forward. Kevin was almost seven feet tall, and it resulted in my forehead smashing into the top of Lila’s skull and busting my nose and making her duck away, holding the top of her head.
“What the fuck?” I laughed as I stumbled a few steps away and spun around. “Watch those two left feet, bubba.”
“Hey man, chill the fuck out,” Kevin was saying to someone else behind him. At first, I thought he was talking to me until I looked over his massive shoulder and caught a glimpse of the man in front of him.
It was the bald-headed biker from the night before.
“Shit,” I muttered.
“What the hell?” Lila said, chuckling and rubbing the top of her head.
“We have to go, now,” I said, grabbing her hand. If she had resisted, I would have had to leave her there, knowing Kevin would take care of her and the boys weren’t there for me anyway. But she didn’t resist. She took off behind me without a word, and we ran.
Weaving through the crowd of dancers, we made our way toward the water, where even more people were crowded together. I pulled her behind me through a group of girls, all taking shots and nearly knocking one over as I dove off the raised porch and onto the sand.
Lila shook her hand out of mine, stopping for a moment to take off her heels and then took off behind me as I started running again. Zooming between more people, I looked back over my shoulder. I could see the bald head in the crowd, pushing through like a mob-boss Moses. We were almost to the water now, and I knew I needed to make a choice.
Either I could keep running until either Lila or I was exhausted, and considering the amount she’d had to drink, she was going to get there pretty quickly, or I could try to get her to get safe and fight. I was going to have to. There really wasn’t much else I could do.
But for now, I was going to keep running and hope I got us somewhere that they couldn’t follow.
“Who are we running from?” Lila panted behind me.
“You don’t have to run,” I said, turning sharply and heading up the sand toward the far side of the club. Maybe if I could wing around it and back to the street, I could hail a cab or something.
“I’m not letting you run by yourself,” she yelled behind me. “I just... oh dammit that hurt... I just want to know what we’re running from!”
I glanced back and saw that she had stubbed her toe on the raised platform and was hopping for a moment.
“No time,” I said. “Sorry about your foot.”
I glanced up and saw the bald head moving through the crowd. They were still down near the water but moving quickly and heading in a long loop this way.
“It’s fine,” she said, hiccupping. “I’m just not all there, you know. A little more accident prone when I drink tequila, you know? Gavin?”
I was already a few steps away, hoping she wouldn’t notice I had taken off while she examined her foot. Instead, she thundered after me, reminding me again that while Lila wasn’t tiny, she was fast as hell. She did lead her league in doubles for a reason.
“We just have to keep moving,” I said. “I’m sorry.”
She groaned and kept running behind me, our feet now back on solid flooring.
“Fine,” she said. “Look, that way. I think we can lose them if we go back in the building and out the front.”
“Good idea,” I said.
Turning hard to head back onto the dance floor, we started making our way back inside. People were still dancing, moving erratically into and out of my way, elbows in my face and blocking my vision. A trickle of blood was running from my nose to the top of my lip, and I brushed it with the back of my hand. My arm glistened red as I looked down at it.
“Oh my goodness,” someone said as I passed them. “That guy’s bleeding.”
I kept moving, not wanting to stop and explain that I had accidentally headbutted the girl behind me because I was being chased by bikers.
The bar was right ahead of us, and I noticed Kevin standing by it. I desperately tried to find a way to get past him without getting close, but people had closed in. There was no other way. At least his back was turned.
“Lila!!!”
Emma’s, however, wasn’t.
“Shit,” I muttered.
“Gavin?” Kevin said, turning toward us. “Hey man, you disappeared on us. Did you see that guy?”
“I did,” I said. “Sorry, I have... to go.”
“The fuck?” Kevin said.
“There’s no time,” I said. “I just... I gotta go.”
“Hey, you!”
I looked back over Lila’s shoulder and saw the bald guy, flanked by two others in jean biker-jackets.
“Shit,” I said.
“You need to talk to us,” one of them said. “Now.”
“That’s the guy who ran into me,” Kevin said, taking a step between us. “Hey, buddy, what’s your problem?”
“Kevin, don’t,” I said.
“They bothering you?” he asked.
“Gavin, go,” Lila said, coming up beside me and pushing at my shoulder. “Kevin can hold them off for a second, and we can get out of here. Then you can tell me what is going on.”
“Kev,” I said.
“Gavin, meet me back at the hotel. I have some shit to take care of,” Kevin said, cracking his knuckles and turning back to the bikers. “Now, you boys, I don’t want to have to hurt you, but you are going to want to lower your tone of voice.”
“Let’s go!” Lila shouted.
Reluctantly, I took off with her, if only to make sure she got to safety too. We flung ourselves through the side door and out onto a sandy area leading to the beach. An Italian ice stand was nearby, and I dragged her toward it. Diving behind it, I stopped to take a breath, Lila pushing her back against the wall and gasping as well. Her shoes were in her hand still, and she set them down on the stand, which apparently had been abandoned for the night.
“If they come out of that door, I have to stand my ground,” I said.
“Why?” she thundered. “What the hell is going on? Can you tell me that?”
“It’s... it’s complicated,” I said.
“Try me,” she said. When I didn’t move or make any indication that I was going to elaborate, she grabbed my shoulder and pulled. Lila was surprisingly strong, and I felt my body wanting to turn toward her anyway. When her eyes locked on to mine, the will to keep her in the dark disappeared. “Gavin, please.”
I sighed heavily, looking back at the door again. Whatever Kevin was doing in there was at least keeping them at bay for now.
“I don’t tell people about my family,” I said. “But this is because of my family.”
“What, running from bikers?” she asked. “What the hell is your family into?”
“Everything,” I said. “They’re into everything. Everything that can get them into massive amounts of trouble, that is.”
“Like what?”
“My dad... he’s in jail at the moment. He’s probably going to prison. He got caught dealing meth, I think. But before he got caught, he did some really, really stupid shit.”
“Dealing meth is already really stupid shit,” she said. “But what did he do specifically?”
“Fair,” I said. “He... he owns a bike shop. I worked there sometimes. Anyway, he owned it, and he got into trouble with money and got into business with these guys. At first it was just silly stuff. Low level stuff, right? They would use the backroom to gamble or some shit. Or they would go there to drink and do drugs, but always after hours, right? After the store closed.”
“Okay,” she said.
“Then it got... worse,” I said. “Dad started using again. No one said he did, but I know him. He started using. It’s the only way he would have thought he could get away with this. They apparently trusted him, or threatened him, I’m not sure, with hiding a bunch of dope money at the shop. Which, if anyone knows my dad, they know he cannot be trusted with money. Ever. Mom pays what few bills they ever pay. Dad’s stupid.”
“My mom pays the bills too,” Lila said.
“Is your mom also a recovering drug addict, alcoholic, lying piece of shit?”
I could see the forcefulness of what I said hurt her, and I looked away. I didn’t want to see how pained those eyes were. Not just from how I snapped at her, but the pity in them. I hated pity. I never wanted to see it in anyone’s eyes for me, especially not a girl. Especially not Lila.
“No,” she choked out.
“I’m sorry,” I said. “I shouldn’t snap at you. I’m sorry.”
“It’s fine,” she said, her voice warbling. “But what is going on specifically? What did your dad do?”
“He spent the money,” I said.
“He spent the money?”
“He spent it. All of it.”
“How much?”
I paused, swallowing hard.
“Twenty thousand dollars,” I said. When I looked at her, her jaw was wide and her eyes like quarters. “He spent twenty thousand dollars, and on stupid shit. Some of it on a lawyer after he got popped, I’m sure. Because he showed up at a salon or something that Mom was at, dropped her a couple hundred bucks, and told her to run right before he went back to jail. He must have had bail money and then voluntarily went back in or something. I don’t know. All I know is he’s missing, and she came here to see me for whatever damn reason. Because I always clean up her mess, probably.”
“Oh, Gavin, I had no idea...”
“And now,” I said, continuing and hoping to blow right past any platitude of pity, “she’s on the road heading south somewhere. And these guys are after me.”
“But why you? You don’t have anything to do with it,” she said, then paused. When she spoke again, her voice was barely above a whisper. “Do you?”
“No,” I said firmly. “That’s not my life. I barely ever even drink. Tonight was the most I’ve had in ages. I only ever have anything to drink when Kevin’s around, because I don’t trust myself, and I know he will take care of me. But even he doesn’t know about this.”
“Kevin doesn’t know about the money?”
“Kevin doesn’t know about my parents,” I said. “I’ve kept as much as I could from him. I mean, I know he knows some of it. He knows they are pieces of shit. But he doesn’t know to what level. I’ve tried to shield everybody from knowing any of that part of me. Until tonight. Until you.”
“Gavin, I...”
“Just... don’t,” I said. “Look, you don’t need to keep running with me. I doubt they even know what you look like. You could saunter down to the beach, and they would never even notice you. They are after me.”
“But what for? They don’t just expect you to have twenty thousand dollars, do they?”
“Not immediately,” I said. “But by next week. And they want a deposit tonight. I told them I would try, but that I didn’t know how much I could get because I was busy. I didn’t think they’d chase me around, though.”
“Shit,” she said. “You have a week to come up with twenty grand? What are you going to do?”
I gritted my teeth, my eyes back on the door.
“I don’t know. Honestly, Lila, I don’t know. But what I do know is Kevin is in there trying to hold them off for me, and he doesn’t even know who they are. I should go back in there and straighten it out.”
“No,” Lila said. “They don’t have a beef with him. They’re just going to ignore him and come after you. We need to get you somewhere safe.”
“But where?” I asked. “I have to be at the hotel for check-in and for the games tomorrow.”
