TURNED OUT, I would have spent the entire night in jail had I waited for John to come get me. The jerk went out of town with Diane. On Valentine’s Day. And proposed.
Yeah, I called it last year.
Whipped.
I told him as much when we met to play pool a week later.
“You give her your mom’s ring?” I asked though I knew the answer.
“Yeah,” he said softly.
“You didn’t hide it in her food or some dumb shit, did you? Because I’m not sure I can handle you turning into one of those guys from jewelry commercials with their balloons and bows, and no balls.”
“No balloons or bows. I swear.” He gave me a wide smile, revealing how ridiculously happy he felt.
“Good. Cause I can’t be best friends with a pussy.”
“Says the man whose nickname is Tom Cat?”
I dismissed his teasing with a tilt of my head. “I’m more like the catnip. All the pussies go wild for me.”
He gagged.
“Can’t help it if they can’t resist my charms.”
Olaf snorted from his spot at the bar.
“You got something to add, O?” I asked, lining up my next shot, but pausing to observe the opinionated old goat.
“Don’t mind me. I’m proud of you, John. You found yourself a good woman and were smart enough to realize it,” he said.
“Hey, what about me?” I took the shot, missed, and stood up to glare at O.
“You’re an idiot.” Olaf set down the pint glass he’d been drying.
John chuckled on the other side of the table, chalking his cue and studying the balls.
“Hey, now. I don’t see a Mrs. Olaf around here. Us bachelors got to stick together.”
“You want to wake up some day and be me? Tending bar and putting up with idiots like you?” He set down the glass with a thump.
John and I had joked over the years about taking over the Dog when Olaf retired or ever decided to sell. It didn’t sound like such a bad idea.
“No offense, O, but I’ve always been more handsome than you.”
I’d made him laugh and he muttered under his breath, “Stupid, cocky bastard. God cursed you with those good looks and not enough sense.”
John was having himself a good old-fashioned giggle-fest as he made another shot and sunk his ball in the corner. I scowled at him, and he grinned at me.
“Whipped,” I mouthed at him.
“So, how’s the single life?” John asked.
“Eh.” I fixed my eyes on the table.
“No hot new girl from over in town? No lonely, single lady on Valentine’s Day?”
“The only woman I saw on V Day was Ruby in Oak Harbor.” I lied by omission.
“When you called me from jail? What the hell were you doing all the way up there anyways?”
“Shh.” I stared over his shoulder at Olaf. “Minding my own damn business.”
“Defensive much? What’s the story?”
I told him the short version: pull-tabs, bar brawl, jail, the phone call to his voicemail. I failed to mention Kurt or Hailey.
“You were in a full out brawl? Since when do you fight? First sign of trouble, you’re out the door or walking in the other direction. What, or who, started it?”
“Some asshole,” I muttered.
“He give you that black eye? Anyone we know?” He wasn’t dropping it.
“No one you know.”
He studied me. “You’re being cagey. Why?”
I huffed and set my cue on the table. “And you’re being fucking nosey.”
“Did you get arrested?”
“No, no charges were pressed. I was more of a bystander.” I rolled and cracked my neck.
“Don’t pull any fighting bullshit around here,” Olaf grumbled at me.
“When have you ever known me to fight?” I waited for a beat. “Ever?”
“I don’t want to disrespect your grandfather’s memory by calling the cops on you, Tom.”
I threw up my arms. “For chrissakes! It was a one off thing. No arrest. No charges. It was only some assholes who thought they could run their mouths about shit.”
I grabbed my jacket and reached in the pocket for my wallet. Pulling out a twenty, I tossed it next to our pitcher.
“How’d you get home?” John’s words stopped me.
“Huh?”
“From jail. You called me, but since I wasn’t around, who’d you get to pick you up?”
I closed my eyes and went with the truth. “Hailey’s got a cousin on the force up there, and he gave her the head’s up.”
John pressed his lips together and nodded, but didn’t say anything. I didn’t have to say I’d fucked Hailey, but he’d probably come to the same conclusion on his own. “You definitely seem to have nine lives like a cat.”
“Now she’s a keeper, that King girl is. Talented artist, too. Came to her senses and didn’t marry the wrong man,” Olaf said, and then turned up the TV by the bar, ending this rare episode of giving his opinion.
I side-eyed O, and then met John’s eyes. “This has been a most peculiar evening. I’m calling it a night.”
“I drove your ass here, so unless you’re walking, you better wait up,” John called out to me at the door.
I closed my eyes and exhaled, long and slow, before stepping outside into the frosty night air. When John followed me out a few moments later, I laid some ground rules.
“Remember the conversation we had last year in this exact spot about relationships and women?”
He nodded.
“I think we’re not due for another one of those for a while.”
“Gotcha.”
Those were the last words we spoke until he dropped me off at my house.
He was the best kind of friend a guy could have.
I waited for the fight to hit the island gossip circles, and the inevitable fallout from the family, but I never heard a word. Oddly enough, everyone seemed to buy my story about a chunk of wood hitting my goggles. The more time passed, the more the bruise around my eye faded, and the stranger the whole situation felt. I didn’t think John would say anything. Or Hailey. Kurt? I figured he and his buddies would have rushed to smear my name all over the island. Wasn’t that the whole point of the attack?
Unless he was so much of a wuss that when the police refused to press charges, he slunk back to Seattle with his tiny, micro-tail between his legs. It was possible.
Once again, Hailey and I avoided each other at work. Although, Bertha caught me wandering through the front office more often than typical. I started bringing her a fresh cup of coffee, four sugars and extra cream, as a cover, and maybe as a bribe.
A month after the fight, the proverbial shit hit the fan.
I was working away, sparks flying, when movement from the corner of my eye caught my attention. I turned down my torch and lifted my mask to try to catch what Al was shouting.
“I’m coming down.” I gestured and turned off my equipment, set my gloves and mask aside, and lowered myself to the ground.
When my feet hit the gravel, I could tell whatever he needed to say, it didn’t make him happy.
“You’ve got a visitor in the office.”
“Who?” I asked the obvious question. No one dropped by to visit me during work. I was a welder. Not like I had an office. Hell, I never paid attention to my phone when I was working.
“She wouldn’t say.”
She. Shit. Who would be bringing personal drama to the yard? “Is it something with my family?”
“Wouldn’t say. Told me you had to come meet her, or she’d wait.”
Some woman I’d never seen before—yes, I was positive—stood in the office reception area wearing a lady suit with a skirt and blazer.
She turned at the sound of us walking through the door. “Tom Donnely?”
“Yeah?” I kept the counter between us.
“Tom Donnely, you’ve been served.” She handed me an envelope. “Have a nice day.”
Kurt had decided to sue me for his medical expenses and damages to his professional reputation.
Broken nose was probably my doing. Sullied professional reputation? He did it to himself.
My feet led me straight to Hailey’s office. Completely focused on her computer, she didn’t acknowledge me in the doorway until I rapped my fingers on the frame.
Her gaze flicked to mine before returning to the screen.
I waited and knocked again.
This time when her eyes landed on me she jumped in surprise. “Hi!”
I shut the door behind me and sat down.
“Have a seat?” she said with a question on her face. “What’s up and why is the door closed?”
“Kurt is suing me.”
“What?” She pushed back her chair, slamming into the wall behind her. “That’s ridiculous.”
I held up the envelope to show her the physical proof.
“I’m going to kill him.”
“Better not. He might sue you, too.”
“I told you he wasn’t done.”
“Well, it’s not an issue. I’ll call the family lawyer, and he’ll take care of it.”
“I hope it’s so easy. He’s on a rampage lately.”
I tapped the envelope on my knee. “What did he do?” My temper reared its head.
“He kicked me out of my studio over in town.”
“Studio?” My tapping paused.
“For welding. He owns a warehouse building in SoDo as an investment. He let me turn the ground floor into my studio. When we broke up,” she paused, “when I called off the wedding and we broke up, he said he’d let me stay for a year and I could pay a quarter of market rate.”
“Let me guess, after last month, he raised your rent to full price.”
Her eyes crinkled in amusement. “No, double the going rate and denied ever saying I had a lease, so it’s month to month.”
“Didn’t you sign anything?”
She ducked her chin and glanced to the side. “I trusted him.”
I pursed my lips and my right hand balled into a fist.
“I know, I know. It’s really not a big deal. I have to move all my stuff out of there and into another studio soon.”
“By when?” I asked.
She sighed. “This weekend.”
“Or what?”
“He’ll padlock the door.”
“Did you find a space?”
“I haven’t really had time. Work’s been crazy and leads from U-Dub friends keep falling through. I’ll probably get storage space and shove everything inside.”
Without thinking, I made her an offer. “We can move your stuff into the shop. There’s plenty of room on the other side of my work space. Or upstairs in the loft.”
“You don’t know how much stuff I have. You’ve seen my work. It’s all huge and ridiculously heavy.”
“Not a problem. You need a moving truck? I have a cousin who rents them over in Lynnwood. We can enlist John and a bunch of the guys. Move you out on Saturday and you’ll be done.”
“Why?”
“Why what?” I asked, confused.
“Why would you do all that?”
“Besides the fact the asshole thinks he’s going to sue me? Because we’re friends and this is what friends do. Guys move shit that needs moving. I think it’s in the sacred book of being friends, especially in the men being friends with women chapter. On page forty-two: Have a penis? Thou shall move shit.”
She smiled and I returned it.
“So give me the address and how big a truck you need. We can meet in Clinton and catch the ferry together.”
“Wow. You’re not messing around.”
“I’m pissed off at your ex. It’s good motivation. Plus, I told you I’d have your back and I’m going to prove it.”
She nodded, appearing a bit stunned with her eyes wide and her lips parted. She looked like she was about to be kissed, or expected to be.
“I make art to leave my imprint. I want someone to see something I made, and even if they don’t know it was me, they know someone tried to add more beauty to this world. Somehow each piece proves I existed.”
Her words coiled around me. This was the answer to the question I’d asked months ago.
I carved for the same reason, to leave a mark, to make someone smile or pause in their day to observe something beautiful, something to make them smile. My body reacted and instinctively leaned forward before I caught myself. I nodded and shoved away from her. “Friends.”
I needed the physical distance.
And maybe a cold shower.