Logan
I wake around half past six. Maybe it’s my one-night-stand instincts kicking in. This is usually the time I’d sneak out like a real piece of shit, not wanting to deal with all that morning-after bullshit, all those questions: “Do you want to stay for breakfast? When will we see each other again? Last night was fun, wasn’t it?” But when I look down at Cora, half-naked, with her pert breasts rising toward her nipples, I find I don’t feel like leaving. I’ll wait until she wakes up and I’ll let the questions come. I’ll let events run their course. If that means some scary intimacy, maybe I can deal with that. I don’t know what’s come over me. I just can’t get that water-snake dancing out of my head, or that water-snake sex, the way she shifted and writhed and twitched as though caught up in some ancient ritual.
I go into the kitchen and make myself some coffee, checking my phone as I wait for the water to boil. I don’t have any texts or calls, which is good. Lately it seems like all I do is wait for texts or calls from the club or Mom. The club means violence, and maybe bloodshed. And Mom might just mean the same one of these days. I push that thought away and stir the instant coffee into the water, pour in some milk and then take a sip. I feel oddly comfortable here. I’d never dream of swaggering into the kitchen in any other woman’s apartment and—
“What is that?” she asks, standing at the kitchen divider. She’s thrown on her T-shirt but not her bra; her nipples poke through the material. I try to look at her face but damn, it’s hard.
“Coffee,” I say, lifting the mug as if that makes it more obvious. “I’ll buy you a new jar if it’s that important.”
She’s looking at me like I’ve just gone into her bedroom and sniffed her panties. “You just made yourself a mug.”
“Yeah. I wanted coffee. I didn’t shit in your bathtub.”
“You think you can just make yourself a mug without asking, then.”
“Well, you know, I figured since I’d been balls-deep inside of you, we were past the asking-for-coffee stage. Apparently I was wrong.” I can’t hide the annoyance in my voice, though usually I would. I try and summon my usual coldness, but it’s nowhere to be found. Surely she can’t bend over, bounce on my prick, and then talk to me like I’m scum on her shoe.
“Wow, what a lovely way to put it.” Even the way she holds herself is argumentative, shoulders back, lips curled. I can’t tell if she really hates me or if she’s just trying to. “I don’t think it’s very polite to go into someone’s kitchen and make yourself coffee without asking.”
“Then I don’t know what the goddamn rules are, princess, ’cause the way I was raised, if you’re comfortable enough to fuck someone, you’re comfortable enough to offer them some coffee. We shared a pizza last night. Do pizza and coffee have different rules? Maybe you ought to draw me a list. It seems pretty damn complicated.”
“It’s my coffee!” she snaps.
I laugh, but there’s no humor in it. “Fair enough.” I pour it down the sink, even rinse out the mug and place it on the draining board. “Are you happy? Maybe you’ll be able to sleep easy now.”
“There’s no need to be an asshole about it.”
“I think you need to take a look in the mirror. You’re the one acting fuckin’ crazy.”
“Don’t call me crazy.”
“Don’t act crazy, then.”
She folds her arms. “I think you should leave. I don’t want you here. What? Don’t look at me like that! I think you should leave. What’s the problem? You got your payment for helping me out with Charles, didn’t you? You got yours. You took what you wanted.”
“From where I was standing, both of us were getting what we wanted. Unless you’re the best actress in Cali.”
“Maybe I am. How would you know? You don’t even know me.”
I walk around the partition and stand over her, looking down. “Maybe I’d like to get to know you.”
“Well, maybe I wouldn’t.” She takes a step back.
It’s like she’s a completely different woman from last night. I try not to take any offense at it, try not to feel upset or angry, try to remind myself that I’ve snuck out plenty of times before. But right now reason isn’t in the driver’s seat. I’m hurt, is the truth of it. The feeling of rejection isn’t exactly pretty. But I can’t show her that. Men like me never can. I hold my hands up as a sign of defeat. “If that’s how you feel. I just want you to know that you’re acting crazy right now, really bat-shit. I don’t know what it is. You weren’t too drunk. I know that for a fact. You were tipsy, sure, but I was tipsy too. I don’t know what the fuck it is.”
“I don’t have to tell you anything,” she says. “We’re strangers, and I’d like you to leave.”
“Fine.” I feign a casual shrug, when really what I want to do is grab the mug from the draining board and smash it against the wall, kick the oven until the glass shatters, put a hole in the wall. But I keep that inside. Outside, I try and seem calm. “But let me tell you something. You didn’t fake it last night. I know that for sure.”
She bites her lip, seems about to say something, and then bites her lip harder and points at the door.
“Fine. See you around, princess.”
I shrug on my leather and make for the door.
She follows me, standing at the threshold. “Do not call me princess!” she shouts after me, and then slams it closed.
Walking down the stairs, I clench and unclench my fists, my temples pulsing, my jaw aching from where my teeth are clenched. The fucking rejection hurts, hurts bad, and I can’t stop thinking about what an asshole I was in the kitchen, thinking she’d get up and smile at me and ask me to make her a mug, and we’d watch TV or get breakfast and maybe I’d drive her to work if she felt too hungover. What a fucking prick.
That just proves it, I guess. Men like me can’t hang around for the morning after. Men like me can’t expose ourselves, even for something as seemingly harmless as coffee. I feel like I’ve been punched in the chest, and everything is worse because I feel melodramatic on top of it. I want to stop feeling this way.
“Whatever,” I say, closing down my emotions like I do on a job. “Fuck it.”
I just won’t think about her, or what just happened. I’ll just let it grow smaller in the rear-view. The water-snake will soon evaporate in my mind; a few club girls will help the process along.
I take a cab back to my bike. I’ve climbed on when my cell rings. Absurdly, I think it might be Cora for a second, but then I remember that we didn’t even exchange numbers.
“Your father is getting worse!” Mom cries down the phone. “Your father is getting worse and his only son is not even at the hospital! What sort of family is this, Logan? What sort of son are you?”
“Fuck’s sake, Ma. You just called me. What’d you expect me to do, sit at his bedside all damn day and night? You know as well as I do that he doesn’t want that. He doesn’t want to be seen as weak. He doesn’t even want to seem human. I bet if he wasn’t so drugged up, he wouldn’t even let me come by at all.”
“You might be right,” Mom says. “Maybe you are. But I want you here anyway. Okay?”
“Okay, Ma.”
I hang up and ride down to the hospital, stopping on the way to grab a burger and a shake. Dad’s sitting up when I walk into his room, Mom holding a straw to his lips. He sucks weakly, dribbling. That’s the worst part about this whole mess, or at least one of the worst parts. The dribbling, like he’s a child, like he isn’t the president of the Demon Riders.
I take the seat opposite Mom. “You all right, old man?”
He grins weakly. “Fine,” he whispers in his too-soft voice. “I just wanted to tell you, son ...” His eyes close, and then open wide. He’s trying to stay awake but his body is fighting him. “I need to tell you …”
He falls asleep. Mom dabs at his chin and lowers his bed with the switch.
“The doctor thinks it might be the end of this month, maybe next.”
“Shit,” I mutter.
“Shit is right,” Mom agrees. She wipes a tear from her eye. “Where were you? With some girl, I bet.”
I think about telling her, laying the whole thing out (without the sordid details) and seeing if she can make sense of Cora’s behavior. But if I do that she’ll only want me to go back and try and make things right with her, which I know won’t work. And even if it would, I’m not about to start groveling.
“I was with Spider. We were getting shitfaced.”
Mom rolls her eyes but doesn’t ask any questions.