Lance

I’m about to throw back a shot of tequila when the doorbell rings. Setting it down with more force than necessary, a little splashes onto the dark kitchen countertop.

Unbuttoning the second button of my shirt, I yank open the door. Peck is standing on the stoop, a plate covered in tinfoil in his hand.

“Nana sent leftovers.” He says this like I couldn’t have guessed.

My stomach growls. “Guess it’s good timing.” Popping open the door, I step aside so my cousin can walk in. “You just leave Nana’s? It’s late.”

“Nah, I’ve had that in my car a while. Ran by Crank to work on a motor I took apart yesterday and got caught up in it. Didn’t realize I was there so long.”

“I do that grading essays,” I say, taking the plate from him.

“You could’ve said anything and I would’ve agreed. Television, a book, porn. But essays? Fuck that,” Peck laughs. As we enter the kitchen, he motions towards the shot of liquor. “That good of a day, huh?”

Hunger forgotten, I slide the plate down the bar. It hits the coffee maker with a thud.

I’ve paced these floors all damn evening trying to work out this kink in my brain, this fucking blip that seems to be overriding all sense and sensibility.

Lifting the shot glass, I swallow the tequila in one gulp. It burns like hell, making me cringe. “That shit is horrible,” I say, smacking my lips together. “Reminds me why I stick to Old Fashioneds.”

“So, why are you shooting tequila?”

“Peck. I have a problem.”

He eyes me warily as he pours himself a shot and downs it.

“How do you do that without flinching?” I ask.

“Practice. Lots and lots of practice,” he says, wiping his mouth with the sleeve of his flannel shirt. “Wanna talk about that or your problem?”

Pulling out a chair, I sit at the table. Peck follows suit.

“Fine,” I say, wishing I would’ve brought the tequila to the table with me. “I have this … what word do I want to use? This … discomfort,” I say, not happy with the word selection but going with it to hurry this along.

“Um, I think this is a discussion to have with Nana. Or your doctor.”

“Shut the fuck up,” I laugh. “It’s not like that, asshole.”

“Good because I love you and all but I don’t love you enough to hear about excretions and shit.”

I reach as far as I can to the side and grab the bottle of tequila. One more time and I have the shot glass too.

As I’m pouring another swallow of fire, I ignore Peck’s curiosity. I pretend like he’s not there until the shot has settled in my stomach and I feel the tinge of numbness only a good tequila can bring.

“Okay,” I say, licking the bitterness of the drink from my lips. “I think I’m experiencing feelings, Peck.”

His laughter is unexpected. It bounces off the walls of my kitchen, the sound amplifying as it rattles around me.

“If I hadn’t drunken this shit, I’d be knocking you off that chair.” I laugh, not able to keep a straight face.

“You’d be trying, lover boy.”

“Have I ever told you I hate you?”

“Not in a while,” he grins. “Good to know you haven’t lost all of your damn mind.”

The tequila sloshes in the bottle as I spin it around and around. “I might’ve. Or I might be. Fuck this shit.”

“All right. Slow down. What’s happening? Or who is happening?” His eyes light up. “The nurse. It’s the nurse, isn’t it?”

“She’s not a nurse.”

Peck leans back in his chair. “Okay.”

“It was the nurse, only she wasn’t a nurse. I actually know her in my real life. Not that the app isn’t real life, but you know what I mean.”

His smarmy smile from the other side of the table makes me pour another shot.

“I do know what you mean,” he says. “Continue on.”

“I told myself I’d just fuck her. But that was before I knew who she was. When she was just the librarian—”

“Wait.” Peck shoots up, leaning forward on the table. “The nurse is the librarian? The one you’re always talking about who bakes cupcakes and stuff?”

“That,” I say, pointing a wobbly finger his way, “is true.”

He motions in a circle and laughs. “Keep going.”

“So now I’m in this Catch-22, right? I mean, as the librarian, I like her as a person, but I totally want to fuck her. And as the nurse, I totally want to fuck her, but I kind of like her too. Now they’re the same person and I like her and want to fuck her and I did fuck her at her mom’s house today and now I have all these weird thoughts in my head that I can’t get rid of and I think …” I down the shot.

Peck takes the tequila bottle and places it in front of him. “I think you got more than a little pussy today, cousin. I think you went and got yourself fucked.”

My forehead hits the table. The room spins but I’m ninety-nine percent sure that it’s just my imagination, just like I hope the rest of this fuckery is my imagination too.

I was this close to not taking her home. It would’ve been so easy to just drive to my house or to Bluebird and spend a few more hours together.

Why do I want to spend actual time out of bed with a woman?

I don’t want to want this. I don’t want any fucking part of this but it doesn’t seem like I have a voice in the matter.

I love touching her, feeling her light up as our bodies connect. It doesn’t even have to include my cock, which is a new thing for me. I can control my dick. Plenty of practice there. But the rest of this? Wanting to hold her hand? Touch her face? Fucking talk to her about cupcakes and books and family stuff? What the hell do I do with that? Who am I?

And since when does thinking about a woman screwing another man bother me? It’s a given. People aren’t monogamous. Having to interface with Eric today and knowing he had her before me, that somewhere in her beautiful little mind she remembers what his cock felt like, made me want to knock him out. I want to erase that from her brain and fill it only with memories of me.

Fuck. This.

“I’m going to go out on a limb here. I’m not saying this for your ego,” Peck says, “because we all know that isn’t an issue.”

“Go to Hell,” I groan, my stomach twisting with the drink.

“No, I don’t think I’ll join you tonight in Tequila Town. I like my insides just the way they are.”

“I hate you.”

“You’ve said that.” He chuckles at his own stupid comeback. “Anyway, I’m going to assume she likes you.”

This is enough to get me to lift my head. “Of course she does. Everyone likes me.”

“How could they not? Feel that charm?”

“She was feeling something and it wasn’t just my charm.”

“Good God,” he scoffs.

“She said something similar, yeah.”

He gets to his feet, taking the tequila with him. “If she likes you and you’re all crybaby over her, what’s the problem?”

My head throbs as I raise it solely for the purpose of glaring at him. Instead of narrowing, my eyes close. All I know is that Peck’s hand on my shoulder keeps me from falling out of my chair.

“Get me some water.” I place both hands on the table. “Who let me drink that shit?”

“You’re a grown up. You did it yourself.” The faucet turns on and off, then a glass sits in front of me. “Here. See if this helps. Did you eat today?”

I grin up at him and he shakes his head.

“Food, Lance. Did you eat food?”

“Yes, Peck. I ate food.” I sip the water, but the extra fluid in my stomach doesn’t help anything. Scrubbing my hands down my face, I try to wake up and pay attention. “Okay. What did you ask me?”

“I asked you what the problem was.”

I could tell him the truth. Mariah is way too good for me. I could tell him the other truth—that I would never be able to meet her conditions. I could go further and tell him the rest of the truth but I don’t really want to say any of that out loud. Just thinking of it has the alcohol sitting at the base of my throat.

“I’m going to tell you a little something about relationships, Peck.”

“Gee. I can’t wait.”

My glare is better this time. He at least sits down.

“They all come with a condition,” I tell him. “Like, we can be together but you must not have sex with other women. Or I must be able to go through your phone at any time to ensure you’re behaving. Or you must make a certain amount of money.” I force a swallow, the saliva hitting the pool of acid in my gut. “Or you must be willing to father x-number of children and have a house by the lake. That kind of thing.”

“Sounds about right.”

“I could never meet Mariah’s conditions.”

My stomach rolls and I have to close my eyes to keep it from spilling over. I blame it on the tequila, which I don’t consume much, but I’m fairly sure I’d feel just as sick saying that out loud even if I weren’t half-inebriated.

“Do you know that?”

“Yup.”

“You’ve had this conversation then?” he asks, the lines on his forehead creasing. “You’ve asked her to have a relationship?”

“Fuck no,” I wobble. “But I know her well enough to know what her conditions would be.”

Or what they should be. She should want everything the world has to offer her. She probably does. Nah, she does. I know she does. Why wouldn’t she?

He rolls his eyes and sighs. “I love how you think you know what she wants.”

“I don’t think. I know.”

“And those are completely unacceptable to you? You’d rather not be with the only woman I’ve seen fuck you all the way up than compromise?”

I nod slowly to keep from puking all over the table.

“What do you want from me?” he asks. “Sympathy?”

“I don’t want your sympathy. I didn’t even ask you to come here with your dumbass questions.”

Peck leans back in his chair, tapping a boot-clad foot against the hardwood floors. He crosses his arms over his shirt and watches me for a long time.

I sip the rest of the water, trying to clear my head. If Peck hadn’t shown up, I could’ve been in bed by now. Asleep. Not thinking about Mariah.

“What’s her condition?” he asks.

My lungs constrict as I consider telling Peck the one thing no one knows but Blaire. My head feels heavy, threatening to fall off my shoulders and roll around on the floor. I may as well let it because as soon as I say this, my nuts will be gone.

“Remember just after I graduated high school?” I ask. “And I was in that car wreck down by the lake? It was right before the Water Festival.”

“Yeah. You missed the entire festival that year. Were in the hospital for a couple weeks, right?”

I nod. Focusing on the knives stuck to the magnetic wall behind the stove and not on Peck, I decide I can’t talk to Blaire about this. Even though she knows, she’s too clinical about things. I couldn’t tell Walker or Machlan. All that leaves is Peck.

He sits across from me like he has all the time in the world. There’s no judgment in his eyes and I know even after I tell him there won’t be. It’s not who he is.

I clear my throat. “My lung was punctured. A broken rib. Whatever.” I cough once more, like somehow it’s going to help my lungs fill with air. “Um, I also found out then that I most likely cannot have kids.”

Peck’s leg stops tapping. His arms fall slowly to his sides, dangling towards the floor.

My brain replays those words in a sick-mashup with the doctor’s face as he told me the results from my scan. The way Blaire’s hand felt as she held mine. The feeling of having fatherhood stolen from my body.

I get to my feet and shuffle to the counter and pour myself another shot. Peck doesn’t stop me.

“So, there you go,” I say, looking at the overfilled glass.

The room is quiet except for the hum of the ice maker. I don’t know what I want Peck to say, just that I want him to say something.

“Guess you see my point now.” I stare at the pool of liquor. “I might be an asshole, Peck, but I’m not cruel.”

“The only cruel part of that is the universe’s cruelty to you.”

“Don’t I know it.”

Leaning against the counter, I look at Peck. He’s younger than me by five or six years. A good guy, hard worker, heart of gold. Someday he’ll make a woman a good husband and a kid or two a great father. Something he’ll never know how much I envy.

My heart shreds in my chest as I allow myself to think about the future. How I felt when my parents died and realized one day my siblings would all have families of their own and I wouldn’t. No one would want someone as broken as me—not for the long haul. Not to build a life together. I could adopt, want to adopt, actually, but a woman isn’t going to willfully give up her ability to look at a child and see her own face, those of her mother and grandmother first. I couldn’t even ask that of someone.

“I went into teaching because I love kids,” I say, hearing a crack in my voice I hate.

“Do they know that for sure?” Peck asks. “I mean, maybe things have changed.”

“They haven’t changed. I’m infertile. My balls don’t work.”

I eye the tequila again. This time, I shove it away.

The words coming out of my mouth are mine, but damn it if they don’t sound like they’re a million miles away. Maybe it’s my wishful thinking that I weren’t here right now having this goddamned conversation.

“I don’t know what to say, Lance. I’m sorry.”

“Yeah. Me too.”

He stands, pushing in his chair. Then he leans on the top, his arms dangling over the top rung. “This explains a lot though.”

“Like what?”

“The dating app. Why you never bring girls around. You were shoving everyone away, huh?”

Making a face, I shrug. “Not really. Just not letting them get close enough to have this conversation, you know?”

“Does this mean you love me?”

“Shut the fuck up,” I laugh.

He joins in, his chuckle a lot freer than mine. “Look, I admire your consideration for this … what’s her name?”

“Mariah.”

“Mariah,” he repeats. “I appreciate how considerate you’re being. But shouldn’t you see if it even gets to a point where this conversation would take place?”

“Are you fucking serious? I’m not so drunk I just misheard that, am I?”

“You don’t know what will happen.”

I swipe up the glass and down it. It’s not as bad this time. “I know exactly what will happen with her, Peck. Ex-fucking-actly.”

“The fact you can say that when you’re drunk as hell is impressive.”

I let my stomach settle. My language skills while drunk aren’t what’s impressive, but I don’t tell Peck that. I don’t explain it’s the fact I can still think logically and reasonably that’s surprising.

That I want to call her but I don’t.

That I want to drive to her house and feel her skin on mine but I don’t.

That I got the woman I’ve wanted for a long time for a few hours to myself today and it wasn’t nearly enough, yet I back away.

That I have no fucking clue how tomorrow at work is going to go knowing I was buried inside her this afternoon.

All of that? That’s impressive.

“This girl isn’t one I can forget. She’s not another pussy, another screen name, another color hair in a hotel bed that I’m reminded of when looking at a box of crayons.”

“So you love her.”

“Hell no.”

“Sounds like it to me.”

“And you also think you love Molly McCarter. I think your reasoning skills are inept.”

He laughs. “And you’re batting a thousand tonight, buddy.” He heads to the bottle and pours himself a shot. “You can drive a man to drink.” The liquor goes down a lot smoother than it did for me. “What’s your plan?”

“My immediate plan is to go to bed, jack off, and then sleep.”

“I’m thrilled to know that.”

“You asked,” I point out.

“I meant with Mariah.”

Of course, he meant with Mariah. I just don’t want to answer that.

How do I tell him on the heels of telling him I can’t have kids that watching her with Betsy today made me wonder what she would look like holding our baby? I wanted to know what if felt like to be Eric and standing at lunch with my wife and child?

That I never wanted to know what that would feel like until I met Mariah.

There’s an emptiness in my soul, a hollowness I haven’t felt since Britt left me shortly after the accident. When she told me she loved me but couldn’t imagine not being a mother and packed her bags and left for LA.

That hurt. That felt like an ice pick straight in the gut and I didn’t even necessarily want to have kids with her. It was a talking point only. A possibility after two years together. But imaging those words coming out of Mariah’s mouth seems to hold a whole hell of a lot more potential to inflict a pain I couldn’t absorb.

I also couldn’t live knowing she’d never know the sound of a baby’s heartbeat from inside her womb. Or what it was like to buy maternity clothes. Or the feeling of being sick in the mornings from incubating a life inside her because of me.

Sure, there are sperm donors and all kinds of other ways to be a parent and that’s all fine. But I couldn’t give that to her and that kills me. It feels like I’d be lacing my problems onto her and I wouldn’t do that to anyone.

“I need to go to bed,” I mutter, squeezing my temple. “Can you let yourself out?”

“Yeah.”

Shuffling to the doorway, I partially lambaste myself for drinking so much and partially rip my own ass for not going back in the kitchen and finishing off the bottle.

“Lance?” Peck calls out behind me.

“Yeah.”

“I’m really sorry.”

I head off down the hall. “Me too, Peck. Me too.”