by Sarina Bowen
“Caleb thinks it’s his fault.” Maggie laid a hand on my arm. “It isn’t, though.”
“He…” my voice was scratchy. “He left her there. I got tossed, and he left.” Talking about Caleb made me ache. I was so angry at him, and so hurt. But I ached for him too. Even when someone you love is being an asshole, it’s hard not to empathize. “Caleb was always the responsible one. Always. It kills him that he couldn’t save us both. His words.” And it killed me that I needed to be saved at all. I did, though. Caleb saved me a year ago. Without him, I’d be in a homeless shelter in Cheyenne. Alone.
Maggie cringed. “Tonight, he came into the house with an armload of his clothes,” her eyes smiled at me. “He couldn’t even speak, he was so upset.”
“Oh,” I said, my voice flat.
“Do you want to tell me what happened?”
“What did he say about it?”
“Nothing, honey. He put the clothes down, and he said he was going out. Then he got in his car and drove away.”
My neck began to prickle. “He’s not here?”
She shook her head.
“Where could he be?” Fear settled into my chest.
“Out?” Maggie suggested. “With a friend from the garage? Just because he isn’t home at ten o’clock doesn’t mean anything bad has happened to him.”
I blew out a breath, uneasy. “We had the most awful fight.”
“That happens,” Maggie whispered, her face gentle.
“It doesn’t, though.” Caleb and I never fought. “I slapped him, and I threw his clothes out the window.”
She clapped a hand over her mouth, and a nervous chuckle escaped. “Oh, Josh, I’m sorry to laugh. But that’s just not like you.”
Hot tears sprang into my eyes. “I know, but…” It wasn’t like me. I’d finally stood up for myself. And doing that wasn’t like me, either. “I went too far. I snapped, Maggie. Because Caleb was trying to throw me away.”
Her eyes bugged out. “He would never do that.”
“Yes he would. He did. I don’t even know what’s going to happen now.”
“God, why? That makes no sense.”
“Because…” I looked into her patient brown eyes, and I got it. I understood why Caleb would want to pay back all the wrongs he felt he’d caused. There were flecks of gold in Maggie’s caring eyes. She was beautiful and Miriam was beautiful and they deserved everything. “Miriam,” I choked out. “He said he should marry her.”
Maggie gave a long, slow blink. “Oh.” Her shoulders sagged. “Oh, Caleb, you idiot.”
“What?”
“He’s trying to undo one disaster with another one.”
“Well…” I swallowed hard. “It’s only a disaster for me.”
She shook her head. “Not true. What if there’s a man out there for Miriam. Someone good and true, who she deserves to meet?”
“But what if there isn’t?”
Maggie shook her head. “It’s not easy to be Miriam. An eighteen-year-old single mother with no education. She’s going to have a tough road. But we’re all here to help her. And she deserves to figure some of it out for herself. Not to have some guy she was half in love with throw his life away so they can be unhappy together. That’s a recipe for heartbreak.”
Just hearing her say it eased me. Even if I didn’t know if Caleb would ever believe it. “She always wanted to marry him.”
“And so do you!” Maggie cried. “I love my sister, Josh, and so does Caleb. But he doesn’t love her like that. It’s not fair to anyone.”
“Except the baby,” I pointed out.
Maggie threw her hands out wide. “This baby is getting five parents and a cousin. No baby ever had it so good.”
A fair point.
Maggie sighed. “Oh, honey. I hope he comes to his senses soon. I think he may have shared this plan with Daniel, actually. He’s all grumpy, too. And he won’t tell me why.”
“Men,” I said.
Maggie giggled. “Did you really throw his clothes out the window?”
“I really did.”
“I’m sorry I missed it. And maybe Mr. Stupid got the message that you are not to be trifled with.”
Did he? Obviously not. Because if he had, he wouldn’t be gone right now.
Part Four
The Gospel According to Caleb
Twenty-Six
I’D DRIVEN TO RALPH’S Tavern for two reasons. The first was that I couldn’t face any of my family. And the second was that I only knew of one bar in the county. The guys from the shop often came here, and spoke of it frequently.
Parking my new (to me) Toyota in the lot, I’d heard the sound of music and laughter before I even opened the door. Inside, I liked the look of the place. There was dark wood paneling and soft lighting. Two pool tables lined the back wall.
My next thought was just a reflex. I should bring Josh here. It took me a second to realize how fucked up my brain really was. I’d just wrecked things with Josh. I’d made him cry, for God’s sake, and slap me. The look on his face was going to be with me a long time. And even if I made it up to him somehow, he’d still know.
Nobody gets to throw me away, he’d said. But that’s exactly what I’d tried to do, without realizing how he’d take it. And then! Even if Josh could forgive me, there was still poor Miriam to consider.
All I had was impossible choices.
“Hey! Look who it is!”
I turned my head to see Danny and Jakobitz sitting at a high table on bar stools. “Hi,” I said, realizing that this had been a mistake. When I first started working at the garage, they’d asked me several times to join them here. But I never did.
It’s not that I didn’t want to go out with them. It’s just that I couldn’t justify spending money on beer. And what’s more, I couldn’t justify hanging out at the bar with these guys while Josh waited at home. And bringing Josh with me… I didn’t know how that would go.
So I’d always begged off.
But now here I was, finally accepting their invitation, on the night when I was a giant fucking wreck. Nicely done, Caleb. You idiot.
“You meeting someone?” Jackbitz asked.
I went closer to them. “No. Just needed to get out.”
Danny cocked his head toward an empty bar stool. “Get over here, then.”
I sat down, and a waitress appeared immediately, temporarily saving me from further conversation. “What’ll it be?” she asked.
“Uh,” I didn’t know much about beers. “Let me buy a round,” I said, taking out my credit card. “I’ll have one of whatever they’re drinking.”
She took the card and walked off.
“Don’t take this the wrong way,” Jakobitz said, pausing to drain his glass, “but you don’t look so good.”
I must look almost as bad as I felt, then. Because Jakobitz wasn’t the most perceptive guy I’d ever met. “Yeah,” I sighed, tucking my wallet back into my jeans. “I fucked up tonight.”
“Bad?”” Danny asked.
“Bad,” I confirmed.
“We’re talking, like, life-changing fuck up?” Jakobitz asked.
I nodded, miserable.
He whistled. “Did you cheat?”
“No,” I said immediately. But then my heart seized. Because I might as well have said yes. I’d told Josh that I meant to marry Miriam, and to me, that was nothing but a giant sacrifice. But from where he sat, it wouldn’t look like that.
“Does she think you cheated? Women can’t ever get over that shit. They tell you they will, but they don’t.”
My heart dipped. The waitress set a beer down in front of me, and I took a sip of it before I looked up at Danny and Jakobitz. “Well. Is the same true for guys?”
Jakobitz’s beer halted on the way to his mouth. “You’re with a guy?”
I sighed, setting my beer on the table. “I was until about an hour ago. You got a problem with that?”
Danny let out a hoot and smacked the table with an open hand. �
�He does got a problem! His problem is that he owes me twenty bucks. Pay up.”
“Christ,” Jakobitz swore, opening up his wallet. He took out a twenty and threw it at Danny.
“You had a bet?”
“Don’t be mad,” Danny said, tucking the money away. “We bet on everything. Jako once won ten bucks off of me because the boss took a piss break before noon, not after.”
It took me a minute to relax, though. I had exactly zero practice telling people I was gay. The only person I ever told was Josh. Everyone else just guessed. “Where we’re from, they would have jumped us for being together.”
“Cuz you’re from… Iran?” Jakobitz quipped.
Danny thumped him on the chest. “There are assholes everywhere, moron.”
Wasn’t that the truth? And now Danny and Jakobitz were both staring at me. “I don’t say much about my life. Pretty much all of it is freaky.”
“I don’t know, man,” Danny said, shaking his head. “Lotta people I know could say the same thing. The bar is set pretty high around here.”
At that, I smiled for the first time all night.
Our waitress was passing by, and Jakobitz reached out and touched her arm. “Can we get six shots of Jack? Seems like we need it.”
“Sure, hon.” She moved on.
I didn’t know what Jack was, but I bet it was going to be strong. “You know I have zero tolerance, right?”
Jakobitz grinned. “Could be fun, then. You eat dinner?”
I shook my head.
He got up and went to the bar, where I heard him order some fries.
* * *
Two hours later, the room was swimming, and I clutched the edge of the table with both hands, just so it didn’t get away from me.
“That is fucked up, my man,” Danny was saying. “If this girl knows you really want your boy, not her, she won’t marry you. A woman don’t work that way.”
The whole story had come pouring out after that first shot of Jack. All of it. Stealing the gun. Getting Josh kicked out. Finding him in the dirt behind the bus station. Washington. Maggie. Daniel. Chloe.
Miriam. Miriam’s rape.
“I don’t know what to do for her,” I slurred. “She’s eighteen.”
“You’re twenty-one, right? Just a baby yourself. It’s not your fault what those assholes did to her.”
“Yeah, it is. She needed my protection and I ran away instead, so I could finally get laid.”
“Can’t believe you were a twenty-year-old virgin,” Jakobitz muttered. “That’s the weirdest part of this story.”
Danny ignored him. “You need to go home to your guy and apologize. Plead innocent, by reason of insanity. You gotta stay with the guy, because faking it with the girl sounds like a bad plan. You can still help her, though. Just not with a wedding and a ring.”
They made it sound so easy. “When I think of what those fuckers did to her, I just want to hurt somebody.”
“No kidding. But if you do this, you’re only hurting your guy, yourself, and that girl.”
“Why do people keep saying that?” I asked.
“‘Cause you’re in need of hearing it,” Jakobitz said. “Listen to Danny. He’s smarter than me. Just ask him.”
Danny gave Jako another thump in the chest.
“I need to go home,” I said.
“Yeah, you do. But none of us are driving. It’s taxi time. One for us, because we live close to each other. And one to drive you out to the sticks.”
“Shit.” That would cost a fortune.
“Or you could call home and ask for a ride.” Jakobitz pulled a phone out of his pocket.
I took it.
* * *
Half an hour later, I was holding up the exterior wall of the bar with my ass. My hands were slowly turning to ice. But the cool air on my face was helpful. It made me feel a little less drunk, although the war between whiskey and greasy fries in my stomach was not going well.
Beside me, Danny and Jako were betting on whether or not I was going to puke before my ride showed up. There was five bucks riding on it.
Finally, Daniel’s truck pulled into the lot. But the passenger door opened, not the driver’s. Josh jumped down, slamming the door. When he turned to me, I saw a look on his face that I never thought I’d see.
Disgust.
“Is that your guy?” Jako asked. “He looks pissed. I don’t think you’re getting any make-up nookie tonight.”
“Shut it, moron,” Danny muttered under his breath. Then he put a hand on my shoulder and called out. “You Josh? I got good news and bad news. The good news is that Caleb is really sorry, and he knows he’s been an asshole. The bad news is that he’s drunk off his ass, and probably going to puke in the next ten minutes.”
Josh took three steps closer, then stopped. He folded his arms and just stared me down. As if he was trying to decide something.
“I’m sorry,” I said.
“See?” Jako piped up. “He’s sorry.”
“We’re both sorry about a lot of things,” Josh said. “It’s what you do about it that matters.”
Ah. So true. If only I wasn’t so drunk, this would be easier. “I shouldn’t have freaked out like that. I wouldn’t last a day without you.”
“Aw!” Jakobitz crowed. “Keep going, dude. You’re on the right track.”
“I want to come home,” I said. “To the apartment,” I added, in case that wasn’t clear. There could be no more fuck-ups. I couldn’t afford them.
Josh kicked a pebble in the gravel at his feet. Then he glanced at my car where it was parked against the fence. “Is your new toy a manual or an automatic?”
“Auto…” I burped in the middle of the word. “…Matic.”
“Oh, man. You didn’t show him the car yet?” Danny yelped. “Jesus, Caleb. You are kind of an asshole.”
I sighed. “That’s nothing I don’t already know.”
Josh may have hidden a tiny little smile at that point. But then he buried it, and held out a hand. “Keys.”
“Wha? You’re driving?”
“You’re sure as hell not,” he said.
I pulled them out of my pocket just as another car pulled up to the bar.
Jakobitz held his hand up to his eyes to shield them from the headlights. “Can you, like, kiss and make up, now? Because our taxi is here.”
Josh rolled his eyes as he took the keys from me, which he managed to do without even brushing my hand.
“Uh, guys,” I said. “Thanks for everything tonight, but you can go on home.”
“We don’t get to know how this ends? What a rip!”
Danny gave his arm a tug. “Come on. You can talk to Caleb next week.”
The two of them stumbled into the taxi together, and it drove away. So did Daniel’s truck, after Josh went over to the window and waved him off.
That left just the two of us. “Can I take you out to dinner?” I slurred.
“Now?” He squinted at me as if I’d lost my mind.
I hadn’t, I just wasn’t expressing myself very well. “Not now, but soon. Some night. Just you and me. We never do that.”
Josh sighed. “Ask me tomorrow. I really just need this day to end.”
That was probably a good call. “Okay. Let’s go.” I let go of the tavern wall, and began walking to the Toyota. But it wasn’t easy. And my stomach rebelled just as Josh bleeped the locks. “Just a sec…” I said, but then had to double over and vomit on the gravel beside the car. My stomach heaved, and then heaved again. The sour heat of whiskey permeated my senses, and tears of discomfort flushed my eyes.
Fuck. Why did people drink?
I spit a couple of times, then opened the door. Josh thrust a water bottle in my direction, the one I’d put on the console earlier in the day. “Thanks.” I rinsed and spit, and then got into the car with him.
“That was really sexy,” Josh deadpanned.
“You’re…” I stopped a second, trying to figure out if what I had to say wo
uld be taken well. “You should fight back more often,” I said quietly. “It looks good on you.”
Josh gave me a long, exasperated look out of the corner of his eye, and I wondered how much time would pass before his anger wore off. I’d brought him low tonight. I got that now. And it would probably take a while before he trusted me again.
I would wait. Forever, if necessary.
He put the key in the ignition and turned her on. Putting my new baby in reverse, he slowly backed out of the parking space.
“Josh?”
“What?”
“It’s easier to drive at night if you turn on the headlights.”
With his foot on the brake, he dropped his head onto the steering wheel. “I’m sorry.”
“Don’t be sorry. The lever is here.” The smooth skin at back of his neck was visible in the moonlight, and I yearned to put my hand there to sooth him. Instead, I reached over to flip on the lights.
With a sigh, he sat up again. “I can do this. It’s only eight miles on a lonely road,” he said.
“You can do anything, baby,” I whispered. “I only hope I’m allowed to stick around and watch.”
Without comment, Josh put the car in drive and rolled toward the road.
* * *
Several uneventful minutes later, we pulled up in front of the workshop. Josh got out and shut the door, then waited for me to haul my drunk self out and into the building.
My toothbrush was still in the bathroom. So at least I knew that he hadn’t finished evicting me.
I made my way carefully up into the loft, then I stripped off every stitch of clothing and climbed into bed. The bedside lamp was still on, blinding me, so I rolled to the side to escape its glare.
A few minutes later, Josh padded softly up to join me. He shut the lamp off and slipped into bed.
Three feet of empty space lay between us, and I was afraid to breech it. Who wanted a drunk asshole like me, anyway?
Nobody, that’s who. And to think I’d begun the night imagining myself the savior of not one, but two people.
What a crock.