Total pages in book: 120
Estimated words: 114211 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 571(@200wpm)___ 457(@250wpm)___ 381(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 114211 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 571(@200wpm)___ 457(@250wpm)___ 381(@300wpm)
“Then what? Trey pities him?”
“Is that such a bad thing?”
“You tell me. First time we met, he hated my guts. Then he’s either feeling me up or trying to kill me. And now he shows up tonight acting like nothing happened?”
“He wouldn’t be the first closeted small-town guy.”
“I don’t understand the first, second, or third thing going on in that boy’s head.” I peer back at the window, seeing Trey and Anthony together at the kitchen sink. “He’s … confusing.”
Pete’s hand appears on my shoulder, giving it a squeeze. “I did say you couldn’t tell, even if a guy literally threw himself at you.”
“What?”
“Thick as mud, man.”
I shrug his hand off of me. “If you’re still trying to imply that that guy scrubbing alfredo sauce off plates in there is into me, that these past several days, he hasn’t been torturing me, but has been hitting on me …”
“Dude. He literally just made out with you.”
“He’s got a girlfriend.”
“Did you confirm it’s his actual girlfriend and not just a friend?”
“He’d sooner literally hit me than hit on me.”
“Maybe a smack on your ass, sure, but wouldn’t you like it?”
I snort. “Had my ass smacked enough by my dad as a kid. Don’t need any more of that. Good riddance to that miserable old man.”
“Heard Tony’s got a hard-ass dad, too. Or used to, before Trey worked his counseling magic on them.” He swats away a June bug from his face. “Maybe you two have some trauma in common or something. Y’know, daddy issues.”
“It’s Anthony, not Tony.”
“See? You’re already defending your boyfriend.”
I roll my eyes and glance back at the house. Cody has returned from the bathroom to join Trey and Anthony in the kitchen. The three of them are laughing. Anthony. Laughing. I haven’t seen it before. I didn’t know he’s capable of any positive emotion at all. Maybe it’s just made more possible with him still being buzzed.
Seeing Cody in there pulls my mind somewhere else. “So what was that between you guys earlier?” I ask Pete. “You and Cody?”
Now it’s he who’s put on the spot. “Huh?”
“At dinner. Before Anthony chimed in with his … wisdom, I guess we’ll call it. Cody brought up the IED incident. You got weird about him saving your life.”
“No, I didn’t.”
“Like you were implying he shouldn’t have covered you. That he did the wrong thing.”
“Dunno what you’re talking about.” He moves to the opposite side of the porch, swatting at the air. “Fucking bugs, too naïve to figure out the light bulb isn’t the sun or moon, it’s a damned lie.”
“Is that what this is?” I ask him, grasping at straws. “A lie? Are you a bug flying toward the light? Help me get what’s going on.”
“Nothing happened at dinner. Everything was fine.”
I come over to him. “What about that talk we had in the car ride here from the hotel? I thought you saw Cody as your savior … your hero. Now you’re acting like he’s not.”
“I’m not acting like anything.”
“You guys have been so chummy since we got here, like long-lost brothers. What’s changed? Do you resent him or something?”
“The fuck you going on about? I’m getting a beer.”
“Pete …” But he’s back inside. I watch through the window as he joins the others in the kitchen. Soon, all of them are laughing again. Even Anthony. A June bug buzzes past my face, smacks into the window, then drops dead on the ground by my feet.
The last and final time I stood up to my father, it was just before I enlisted, and I got right up in his face and told him he was never gonna raise his voice or a hand to my mom again. He held a glass of whiskey. I can still hear the ice clinking around in it as he staggered to the left, to the right, like it was the hardest thing for him to keep his eyes on me, as if I was a target that wouldn’t sit still, like a June bug, like a moth. I stared him down, and despite the brave front I put on, I was scared shitless, shaking inside, my mom and younger brother tucked behind me by the mantle of the fireplace, protected.
And then at once, my father broke down and cried. Sobbing. Inconsolable. Blubbering on and on unintelligibly, not making any damned sense. I just stood there and watched as he fell to pieces in front of me, unable to move, unable to even trust his tears. Even my mom, wrung out emotionally as she was, stayed right behind me, watching him as if he was nothing but a show on TV, detached and unreal, a scripted thing that was about to end.
I wonder if the words he was trying to form were an apology.
I’ll never know, because the next day, he left, and I never saw his sorry ass again.