v Ashley: Golden Trail

But he knew he wasn’t hallucinating.

He rolled out of bed and got up, walked to the bathroom, took a piss, washed his hands, splashed water on his face then brushed his teeth as he stared at his torso in the mirror.

The wounds were fading, still red, the violence of a bullet tearing though flesh still visible. Three inches down from the middle of his right shoulder and another at his upper gut. His pajama bottoms hid the wound to his right thigh. They joined the stab wound he got in his right side in San Antonio and the deep graze wounds from the shrapnel he took to the left hip and side of his thigh after that car bomb went off in LA.

He bent his neck and spit, rinsed and wiped his mouth with a towel he took from and threw back to the counter before he raised his head and looked into his eyes in the mirror.

“I need a new fuckin’ job,” he told himself.

Then his head cocked and he listened.

Nothing.

He walked into the room, his eyes at the drawn curtains, seeing weak light coming around the sides, through the slit in the middle. His eyes went to his alarm clock.

Six thirty.

He listened again.

“Fuck,” he bit out and strode fast from his room, a huge master suite that had a bedroom that held his king-size bed, a low dresser and another narrower, higher dresser on which he’d put a flat-screen TV. If he wanted, he could put a chair and couch in there, which he didn’t, so there was tons of empty space making the room seem cavernous. This led to a master bath that had a double sink, a huge mirror in front of it, acres of counter space between the sinks, cabinets underneath separated by a space where the woman of the house, if there was one, which there wasn’t, could put a bench and have a dressing table. Behind the sinks a room with the toilet, giving privacy – to the left, if you were facing it. Across from that, a shower stall big enough to fit two. In between and up two carpeted steps, a huge, oval sunken tub. Beyond the bathroom was an enormous walk-in closet nearly as big as the bedroom.

Layne threw open one of the double doors that led out to the large open area at the top of the stairs that held his weight bench, weights, a treadmill, a wall filled with in-built shelves, cabinets and a desk unit under the wide window where his computer was, a beat up swivel chair in front of it.

He walked through the room and to one of the doors at the opposite side of the stairs. He knocked loud, twice. His hand went to the handle, he pressed down and pushed in, swinging his torso into the dark room, he saw his youngest son Tripp dead asleep in bed.

“Tripp, up, shower,” he ordered, his voice loud.

Tripp’s body moved, rolled. “Wha?”

“Up, boy, shower. You’re late. You gotta get to school,” Layne told his son.

“Right,” Tripp mumbled and rolled back to his stomach.

“Now, Tripp,” Layne demanded, pushed the door all the way open and walked down the hall to the next door.

He knocked, twice again, and then opened the door. There was movement immediately but this was Jasper’s dog, Blondie, a way-too-friendly yellow lab. She jumped from Jasper’s bed and moseyed to the door, her body swaying with the force of her wagging tail. His son, however, didn’t move.

Blondie skirted him and then stopped, her body close, she wanted out.

The room smelled like teenage boy and dog. Not a great combination.

“Jasper, get up. Time to get ready for school,” Layne called, again loud.

Jasper didn’t move.

“Jas, get up,” Layne said louder.

Jasper’s body moved, only slightly, but he didn’t make a sound.

“You’re up, showered and downstairs in fifteen minutes. Get me?” Layne informed him, pushed open the door and flipped on the bright overhead light as added incentive.

Tripp was a big fan of the snooze button but Tripp would get up. Tripp would do what he was told.

Jasper would not. Jasper was not a big fan of getting up. He was even less a fan of school. And he was even less a fan of his old man and especially his old man telling him to do something. He was supposed to set his alarm and wake his brother if Tripp wasn’t up. He never did because he never set his alarm and when Layne started doing it, Jasper turned it off just to get under Layne’s skin. This was their every day dance when his boys were with him and it never failed to piss Layne off.

Layne turned from the door and walked down the stairs, Blondie so close to his side she nearly tripped him.

She was shaking with excitement, this was her favorite part of the day. She got to go outside, which she loved, then she got to come inside to food and all her boys together at the same time, something she didn’t get very often, or, not as often as she liked.

Gabby hated dogs but she bought Blondie for Jasper two weeks before Layne moved home. She did this to be a bitch because she was a bitch and because she hated Layne more than she hated dogs. Three weeks later, when he was home and they’d established the joint custody schedule, she declared that Blondie was to stay at Layne’s no matter what.

So Tanner Layne was home for the first time in twelve years and he had an active, excitable, yellow lab puppy on his hands as well as two sons who barely knew him and one who could barely stand the sight of him and Rocky breathing the same airspace, albeit ten miles away, that was still too damned close.

His life, never great, or it hadn’t been great for eighteen years, had turned to complete shit.

He walked through the vast open space that was the kitchen and the living room to the sliding glass door that led to the backyard. He bent, yanked the steel pole out of the rails, straightened and unlatched the door. He reached out an arm, pulled down the door to the security panel, punched in the code, slapped the door back up and then slid the sliding glass door open for Blondie to go outside. She didn’t hesitate, she raced right through.

Layne slid the door closed, flipped the switch to the kitchen lights, turned and surveyed the bottom floor of his house.

For twelve years, he’d had nothing but apartments and condos. Sometimes his apartments were small, even studios. Sometimes they were large or townhomes. Some were shit, some were palaces. All of them were crash pads.

Now, to his right was the kitchen. In the far corner, countertops and cabinets at a right angle around the door to the big pantry and utility room that led to the garage. A huge triangular island with the points cut off was in the middle of the kitchen, stools in front of it on the outside. An enormous space for a dining room table by the big window, a space Layne hadn’t filled. He ate standing up or sitting in front of the TV. His boys ate at the stools, in their rooms, on the fly or sitting in front of the TV.

To his left, the living room, enormous console of cabinets and shelves into which he’d fit an equally enormous, big screen TV. Two reclining chairs at either end of a big deep seated couch, enough tables around where you could set your beer or bag of chips so you didn’t have to reach very far to get to it. There was a low wall and a column beyond which there was nothing but open space. Dead space. He’d never figured out what to do with it. If it didn’t store food, have a couch and TV, a weight bench or a bed, he had no use for it. So, like the dining area, it was empty.

There was a toilet and sink under the stairs, the rest of the downstairs was taken up by a two car garage that jutted out at the front of the house.

Layne stared at it, his gaze moving right, left, then right again.

How the fuck he ended up in a three bedroom house in a development with other three and four bedroom houses, all painted one of four colors, each one one of limited floorplans and with an HOA that made the Nazi party look like a bunch of pansies so pretty much the whole fucking development looked the same, he didn’t know. Hell, when he’d first moved there, more than once on his way home he’d gotten lost in the acres of houses that all looked the same and he had a highly tuned sense of direction.