“Poor you,” I spat, so lost in my anger I didn’t even begin to think what I was saying or if I should be saying it, “try livin’ my nightmare, you asshole.”
It was his turn to get in my face. “You’d share it with me, I’d take that shot.”
“Why are you doing that?” I shouted. “I don’t need to share what you damn well know.”
“That’s your constant refrain, Feb, is it sinkin’ in yet that maybe I’m not lyin’ and I have no fuckin’ clue?”
“Not even for a second!”
“Christ,” he bit off but I was done and I took a step back.
“This is so over, why we’re still talkin’ about it is beyond me.”
“Maybe because it means something?”
“To who?”
“Fucking hell,” now Colt was yelling, “you think two people don’t give a shit about something would be shouting about it?”
I had no answer to that mainly because I had no intention of even thinking about that.
He read me and closed the distance I’d gained, getting back in my face. “There’s a lot of people we both care about tied in this shit and now it’s in their face. Again. We need to talk it out so we can finally shut it down and move, the fuck, on.”
“I’ve moved on, Colt.”
“Bullshit, Feb, you’re stuck, same as me.”
I turned away from him toward the door but he caught my arm and whirled me right back.
“We’re not done.”
“That’s where you’re wrong,” I snapped and then told him what he already knew, “we are. We have been for twenty-two years.”
I caught his flinch before I yanked my arm from his hand and walked right out the door. It was embarrassing knowing that everyone heard. Some of them pretending they didn’t; others not bothering. But taking a page out of Susie’s book, I kept my head held high and lifted my hand to slide it under my hair, pulling it off my neck and shoulders to let it fall down my back.
I went right behind the bar and asked, “You need another, Joe-Bob?”
“Always need another, Feb,” Joe-Bob answered quietly and I knew his eyes were gentle on me but I didn’t meet them when I got him his beer.
I spent a lot of time with Joe-Bob. He was mostly a silent drinker, looked older probably than his years; wife had left him, kids long gone. He didn’t talk much when he got loused, he’d sometimes get in the mood to share but it was rare so I didn’t know him all that well. Still, he was a fixture in my life and had been awhile and seeing his eyes gentle on me I knew would undo me.
Colt wasn’t through with me, I should have known he wouldn’t be by the way he treated Susie.
As he walked down the bar toward the door, he said loud enough for everyone to hear, “See you at home, Feb.”
Two could play that game.
“I’ll be late,” I called to his back, “pull the covers back for me, baby.”
He stopped with the door open in his hand, his eyes sliced to me and it was a wonder I didn’t cower under his dark look but he didn’t hesitate before he openly gutted me. “Honey, you know I’d do anything for you.”
The door closed him from sight and the bar was silent for a good four beats before the murmur of conversation jumpstarted my muscles.
Morrie slid close to me. “Feel like talkin’ about Colt yet?”
“Fuck off, Morrie,” I snapped.
“Didn’t think so,” Morrie muttered but there was laughter in his voice and I just caught him exchanging a smile with Joe-Bob before they wiped their faces clean and I got down to the business under more than a dozen curious eyes of wiping the bar top, every fucking inch so spotless it was sparkling.
*
Colt lay on his back in the dark on the couch with the light he left on for Feb outside shining through the blinds he closed at the windows. He’d discovered that sitting on his couch it felt just fine, but lying on it, even not the pull out, it was lumpy.
Feb’s cat, who had given him a wide berth in the short time he was home before he settled on the couch, jumped up at Colt’s feet. The animal rightly hesitated before he made his way up Colt’s leg to his stomach then to his chest. Then he stood there for a moment before he lay down on his belly.
Colt wanted to shift the damn thing off him but instead his fingers went to the cat’s neck and he rubbed it behind its ears. The purring started immediately.
Trying to keep his blood pressure down, Colt didn’t think of February and their fight that day.
In the attempt to do the same thing, he kept his thoughts off Susie and the idea that her behavior at J&J’s might have scratched her name on a hit list.
Instead, he thought of Amy Harris.
He’d gone to the bank that morning only to find she’d called in sick. Dave Connolly, her manager, wasn’t put out by this, he was worried. Dave told Colt that she’d been working there forever, before he was even hired there, and as long as he’d been there she’d only taken half a day off once, in order to go to her grandmother’s funeral. She came in even if she had a cold or a headache and since she lived close she was always the first one there when it snowed because she’d leave early and walk.
With no Amy to be had at the bank, Colt went to her house. Her car was in the drive and even though he saw movement at her draperies she didn’t answer the door when he rang the bell. Not the first ring, or the second, or the third.
Colt was a cop in a small town. Years ago not much went down, speeding tickets, kids joyriding, a party at someone’s place that got too rowdy, a fight at J&J’s. Every once in awhile there was a domestic disturbance, sometimes folks would call with their concerns about how their neighbors were treating their kids.
Now there were more drugs, not just kids experimenting but adults flat out using. This meant more crime all around. He’d seen a lot, heard a lot, knew people did some shitty things to their neighbors, their partners, their kids, themselves.