Because I watched what Mom's infidelity did to Dad. It wasn't some accidental drunken hookup—it was intentional, calculated. Our UPS route driver was an acquaintance of Dad's, someone he'd known most of his life.
When Dad walked in on them, it was…bad. He nearly killed the guy, for one. Spent two months in jail for aggravated assault and battery, and his already problematic drinking habit only worsened to apocalyptic levels after he got out. He was the one to file, and Mom fought him every step of the way, just to fuck with him, just to spite him, even though she wanted out worse than he did. And no, Dad was far from innocent. He didn’t beat her but he did get wasted regularly and started shit with her, and more than once he slapped her. She slugged him back, of course, because our dear old Mom didn't take any shit from anyone, least of all Dad. The divorce was long, nasty, messy, and chaotic. They talked shit about each other to us boys constantly. Pitted us against the other. Used us for leverage. Dad especially was bitter and angry—after jail and the divorce, he never again referred to Mom as anything other than “the whore" or "that fucking whore." He never dated again, and every female he ever encountered thereafter until the day he died, he treated with disgust and disdain.
Hard not to absorb all that, I guess. And clearly, it left scars on Riley and me both.
He's watching me. "Yeah, now you get it."
I frown at him. "When did you become so introspective?"
He rolls his eyes. “When every woman you seriously date says the same damn thing, you start paying attention."
"And what do they say?" I ask.
He doesn't answer right away. "That I'm fun, great in bed, and nice to look at, but not real boyfriend material. That I'm…shallow. A hound dog. Man-whore. Himbo."
"Rye, you're not—"
He cuts me off with a raised hand. "You know what really fuckin' sucks, bro? Realizing that they're all right." He blows out a blustery breath, shaking his head. "Fuck all that mess. Let's get bombed."
Twelve
EMBER
Ican't sleep.
Every time I close my stupid eyes, I see Felix.
Naked.
Standing there by his bed, panting, eyes glazed over and staring down at me with an expression that…I don't have the words to capture the way he looked at me after I finished blowing him. Reverent. In awe. Stunned speechless. Those are all close, but not good enough.
Good girl. Taking every last drop.
Apparently I have a praise kink, suddenly? That's new, unexpected, and fucking weird.
I also can't sleep because this couch is all springs and no cushion. I tried the floor a few hours ago, but that was worse. Sort of like when it's torrentially downpouring so hard it seems like the wipers aren't doing a damn thing, so you turn them off and it does, in fact, get much worse.
The trip out here to LA with Faye was one for the ages. It took us just shy of three days, and those days were some of the most memorable of my life. Faye is endlessly hysterical. Turns out she brought her stash of pot and decided to get stoned and stay that way, and god, is she funny when she's high. Full of wild stories, twisted and crude jokes, and the occasional nugget of wisdom.
We actually got busted once, on I-80 somewhere, late at night. We got pulled over, and the state we were in—I forget which—wasn't a legal state. But I guess Faye has a medical card and a magical ability to talk even the most hard-ass of cops into letting us go with a warning. She actually, legitimately asked the cop, "You're notreallygoing to arrest a little old lady on her way to see her grandkids one last time before she dies, are you?"
No, he was not.
We laughed our asses off, ate a toxic amount of shitty fast food, smoked atonof pot, listened to great music, slept in shitty motels, and talked about everything and nothing. We stayed away from touchy and painful subjects like our dead husbands, and I stayed away from talking about Felix, even though he was on my mind constantly.
Tina lives in a decent but not great part of LA in a three-bedroom apartment on the fourth floor, no elevator. When we got there, Faye stood at the bottom of those stairs with dread in her eyes.
"Guess I’ll be staying home more, huh?" she'd said to me.
Tina is a darling—sharp-tongued like Faye and dryly funny. She works as a hospice care nurse; and in the two days I've been here, I've never seen her out of scrubs. Ben is an adorable kid who developed an immediate crush on me—I don't play into it or encourage him to think anything inappropriate is gonna happen, but I do pay him attention because growing boys need attention. Alaina is a precocious little thing with a trulywildvocabulary and a penchant for sass that does her grandmother proud.
Faye and I spend the days with Ben and Alaina while Tina works—we take them out for lunch and ice cream, to the nearby park where Ben at first pretends to be too old and cool to play, but when his sister begs him to push her on the merry-go-round, he can't help but end up having fun. We watch TV and movies, and Ben makes me play Mario Kart with him—I suck horribly, but he thinks it’s hysterical.
The only less-than-stellar part is Faye's health. It's like now that we've made it to California, her grip on life is just…slipping. She hides it behind a facade of bravado, hilarity, and orneriness, but I see it and Tina does, too. Faye just seems thinner and paler every day, has to take longer and more frequent breaks from walking, and eats very little.
Eventually, I decided to just get up. The small apartment is quiet and still in the pre-dawn gray. I set a pot of coffee to brewing and once there's enough, I sneak a cup and take it out onto the landing outside the door, where Tina has set up a folding camp chair for smoking her cigarettes—a habit which she and Faye have already fought about twice since we arrived.
I sip black coffee and watch the horizon above the LA skyline ombre from gray to pink to orange as the sun rises, and I cautiously pick apart the shield behind which I've hidden my feelings.
