Page 17 of Enforce This
Could I shoot Eric Aviston, the first hero I’d ever met, the man whose story seemed as bleak as my own?
What if he was telling the truth, and he was the only person standing between me and the mafia?
I took a slow, deep breath and decided not to pick up the gun and confront him.
Chapter Nine
Trista
We ate store-bought pizza for an early dinner. He hadn’t bothered turning on the television, and I was pretty sure I knew why. It would have been nothing, but my family sprawled across the screen.
“Do you think they’re looking for me… Notthem, I mean like… Doug?”
“That Janice’s big shot husband?”
I laughed at his description. “He’s shorter than I am.”
Eric snorted and his eyes sparkled. “I never met the man before to be honest, but I heard plenty about him over the years.”
“He’s… Doug,” I grunted.
Doug was just that… Doug. I didn’t know anybody like him, either. He was the opposite of Mark in every way.
“He insists the cleaning lady comes five days a week. Even so, my mother is expected to mop the floor again before he arrives home. If the house doesn’t smell like cleaning agents, it isn’t sanitized correctly, and we will all die of the plague,” I dramatically described my stepfather for him.
He quietly laughed and shook his head.
“So, compared to your house, this place is….” Eric trailed off looking around.
I smiled and put my head down, “This place reminds me of Doug’s mother’s home. She is a minimalist.”
“So am I,” he readily admitted.
“But seriously… what is that smell?” I lifted the blanket up and breathed in the faint skunky scent again. “Don’t you have incense or something?”
He gave a throaty laugh until I mentioned the incense.
“I hate those things.” He quietly scoffed.
“Incense?”
He nodded and twisted the cap off a beer.
“How can you hate incense?”
“It reminds me of Afghanistan.” He made another nasal sound and looked down the neck of the beer bottle like there was something really interesting floating inside. “Other places don’t always favor the uh… the chemical fragrances and shit that we do here in America. Over there, incense are what they used to…”
He gave up trying to explain and waved his hand, fanning the air about.
“Gotcha,” I nodded. “Guess you don’t have many pleasant memories from over there, huh…”
His eyes locked with mine and his jaw set, making me wish I hadn’t said that.
“There aren’t many pleasant memories where war is concerned,” he admitted after a few moments. “Never is. It isn’t a big deal, though, I just—I don’t like frankincense. It’s no different than the way your— Mark doesn't like the smell of Asian cuisine cooking. Sometimes, smells bring back memories that are best left in the past.”
“I get it,” I quietly whispered. “My mom says Mark was a different man, before he went to Vietnam.”
“He didn’t just go to the Vietnam War, Feloni. He went to Saigon. He was there for the evacuation.” He almost sounded like my father was his hero for a moment.