Chapter 8
Nothing
Shit. Charity dropped onto the barstool beside mine and dropped her keys on the scarred wood surface of The Plank’s bar. She raised an eyebrow at me.
“What?” I asked.
“It’s raining again, figured I could offer you a ride home, seeing as your bike is in the shop and Marlin has your car.”
“I’m good,” I said and downed the shot of Crown in front of me. Lightning took the shot glass off the bar and sighed.
“You’re done, bro. I ain’t going to watch you do this to yourself all over again.”
Fuck.
“Let me take you home?” she asked gently. I shook my head and ran a hand over my hair.
“I’m not ready to go home.”
“Okay, fine. Then I’ll sit right here until you are.”
“Fuck, really? Go find someone else to take care of,” she flinched at my tone but I didn’t apologize or back down. I was bad news; she didn’t need any of what I had to offer. She was a nice girl… Corrine had been a nice girl, too. Corrine and I had made the sweetest little girl together… Fuck. Fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck.
“It’s the time of year, Honey. It’s not you,” Hossler said at my elbow.
“Fuck, Hoss, stay out of it!”
“You’re drunk and acting like an asshole; Charity’s a guest. Take your sorry ass home, Nothing. People are sick of your fucking pity party for one.”
I stood up abruptly and staggered, definitely unsteady on my feet. Charity reached out and put a hand on my arm but I jerked away from her.
“Just fucking stay out of it, all of you!” I barked and headed for the door.
I saw Radar get up out of the corner of my eye and I didn’t want to deal with him, or anyone, so before he could get to me I went out the door and into the pouring rain outside. He caught up to me, grabbed my elbow and I was in the mood to force the issue. I turned and raised my fist but was cold cocked by Charity’s glacial stare before I could swing.
“The fuck?” I asked.
“I could ask you the same thing, except I’m done asking. Get your ass in the Jeep.”
I blinked and opened my mouth to reject the notion but before I could, she was speaking again, tone full of consternation.
“You can either, get your ass in the Jeep and let me drive you home, or I can tell your leader how you almost cold cocked his woman’s sister in the face.” She arched a light brow, her face set in stone and I shut my gob and looked this way and that, striking out in the direction of her white Jeep Wrangler.
“Thank you,” she said, chirping the alarm, the locks unbolting themselves. I got in on the passenger side and she climbed in to drive. She started the engine and turned to me calmly, water dripping off the end of her nose.
“Where did you go?” she asked softly.
“Nowhere,” I said looking hard out the window.
“Well you went somewhere. I turned around after loading Thomas into the ambulance and you were just gone. One minute you were talking to the tall paramedic, the next you just vanished. What happened?”
“Nothing,” I lied.
“Nothing is your name, not what happened back there. I didn’t know you had medical training, why didn’t you say something? You know I just graduated with a nursing degree.”
“I’m not a medic, not anymore… I just paint houses for a living.”
“What, why?” she asked and I could hear that I’d startled her. I couldn’t resist, I refocused my gaze from outside the dark window glass to her reflection in it. Her mouth hung open, her blue eyes livid with surprise.
“Doesn’t fucking matter, I’m not that guy anymore.”
She shut her mouth, “I call bullshit,” she said and I turned to look at her, “If you weren’t that man anymore you wouldn’t have seen them, you wouldn’t have gone running down the beach to help them.”
She had me there, and it irritated me, I didn’t want to answer anymore of her questions, didn’t need her peeling back any more layers. “Just take me home,” I grated and stared her down for a long time. The silence growing long and uncomfortable between us.
“Fine, where am I going?” she asked.
“Hit the boulevard, go right on Everglade Road.”
She put the Jeep in gear, did her checks, and pulled into a smooth u-turn, following my directions.
“I don’t get you,” she said after a moment.
“What’s not to get?” I muttered.
“You, your behavior, help me out here. You do nice things for me, but any time I try to talk to you, you get yourself drunk as fuck and are an ass about it. What gives?”
“It’s for your own good.”
“Excuse me?”
“Don’t pretend like you didn’t hear me – ow!” She’d punched me in the arm and pulled the Jeep to a stop right there in the middle of the road.
“This isn’t fucking kindergarten, you ass! You don’t get to pull my hair and be a bully as a way to tell me you like me. All you’re doing is pissing me off.”
I shook my head and slicked my hair back off my face with one hand, “That’s not it,” I said shaking my head, laughing at myself in self-deprecation. I couldn’t argue her point, it was kind of what it looked like.
“Then what is? What gives, Nothing? What are you running from?”
She put the Jeep back in motion, headlights in her rearview cut a swath of light across her eyes and I was mesmerized until they were cast in shadow again.
“Nothing… nothing gives, I’m not running from anything.”
“If God went around hugging liars, he’d break every bone in your body,” she uttered disgustedly.
She made the turn onto Everglade and I blew out a breath, “Take the next right. It’s the third house on the left.”
She pulled into the driveway of my sad, lonely, boarded up house and killed the engine.
“Can we just start over?” she asked.
I eyed her warily, “Like how?”
“Like, ‘Hi my name is Charity, you know my sister, Hope.’” She stuck out her hand and waited, while I eyed it like it was going to snap out and bite me, like one of Hossler’s snakes.
“Nothing,” I said, reluctantly, I took her hand in mine and shook it. Her skin was so soft and smooth against mine. Some of the hardness I’d tried to put up around my soul melted a little bit, softening up.
“Pleasure to meet you, Nothing,” she said and I snorted. Her face crumbled into a frown and I reached out without thinking, moving a lank piece of her hair out of her eyes, tucking it behind her ear.
Silence stretched between us, until finally, she said softly, “I don’t understand you.”
“That makes two of us,” I murmured. More silence, filled only by the sound of the driving rain pattering against the hard top on her Jeep. Someone must have put it on for her. I would have done it… but I didn’t know why. Why did I want to do things for this girl? Why did she do the things she did to me? Why couldn’t I be a better husband when I was around her? Because you’re tired of being a miserable fuck and she’s a breath of fresh air, that damn internal voice spat out of the dark corners of my mind. It was true, only problem was I didn’t deserve to be happy, and she didn’t deserve me making her miserable. Fuck. Why did this have to be so complicated?
“Good night, Charity,” I said and she drew a breath to protest but it was too late. I’d opened the door and was out into the wet. I let myself through my front door and leaned against it. It was probably a full two minutes before I heard her Jeep start back up and back down the drive. It was the longest two minutes of my life.
Damn, but I fucked that one up good. It was probably for the best for her though. I turned and looked at the photographs on the walls of my smiling wife and our beautiful little girl.
No probably about it, it was for the best.