“How’s things, Tanner?” Dave asked, coming to his side as they made their way slowly down the hall by the stairs.
“Could be better,” Layne answered honestly. Dave was a friend, Dave had known him a long time and Dave used to be a cop, three reasons not to lie. One way or the other, he’d know.
Dave was silent for a beat before he said, “We’ll talk later.”
Layne nodded and they hit ground zero on the smell.
Merry was standing at a counter, wielding an electric knife. Tripp had his head in the fridge. Jasper had settled on a stool at the counter.
Raquel was nowhere in sight.
“Yo, Tanner,” Merry called with a grin over his shoulder.
“Merry,” Layne replied.
Garrett Merrick looked like a male replica of his sister, but taller and definitely masculine. Same dark hair (without the fake streaks), same deep blue eyes.
Merry’s nickname was apt. He was a good ole boy. Always had been. He was such a good old boy he made an art out of it.
“Dad, you want something to drink?” Tripp asked.
“Beer, Pal,” Layne answered.
“Where’s Mrs. Astley?” Jasper asked, looking around while trying not to look like he was looking around.
“Went home about two minutes ago, buddy, headache,” Merry answered Jasper and Layne’s eyes went to his friend.
She didn’t have a headache. After the way he spoke to her that morning, she had an intense desire not to be in his presence.
He told himself that worked for him when he knew he felt guilt that he could see all around, and smell, how hard she’d worked and she’d blown out of there before she could enjoy it.
Then again, she could also have a headache.
“Bummer,” Tripp muttered and handed him a beer before he took a can of pop to his brother and cracked open his own.
“Yeah, I’ve tasted this shit,” Merry put in, lifting his hand, a slab of meat between his fingers, “Bummer. This stuff is the freaking bomb.” Then he tossed the meat into his mouth.
“Awesome, I’m starved,” Tripp replied.
“She get headaches a lot?”
That came out of Layne’s mouth before he could stop it and both Merry and Dave looked at him. For over a year, anytime the three of them were together, Rocky had been the elephant in the room. This was the first indication Layne had given that he was aware of its presence.
But she’d suffered headaches when he was with her, migraines, pain so extreme he couldn’t touch her, he couldn’t even be in the same room walking around. The barest hint of noise, light, anything, increased her agony. He hated having to leave her to battle it alone but he had no choice. Nothing worked. She tried everything. It didn’t happen often, thankfully he could count on one hand how often it happened when she was with him, but he remembered every last one.
“Not really,” Merry answered and Dave looked at Layne’s sons.
“Boys, grab bowls of whatever you see and take them to the dining room. Roc set the table. Sit your butts down when you get in there. Grub’s up, we should eat,” Dave said and the boys, unlike at home, moved quickly to do as ordered.
“How do you do that?” Layne asked jokingly when the kids left the room.
“Years of practice,” Dave answered, a smile lighting his blue eyes.
Then, completely unable to control it, Layne looked at Merry and said, “She gonna make it home?”
Merry dumped another load of lamb on a platter and looked at Layne.
“What?”
“If it’s a migraine, she’ll have trouble making it home. She used to get sick,” Layne told his friend something he already knew.
Those were the only times she let him touch her when she had a headache, when she was puking in the bathroom. He’d hold her hair back and press a cold washcloth to her neck while she did it. When she was done, she’d wait for him to rinse the cloth and she’d sit on her ass on the floor, head tilted up to him, eyes hazy with pain and she’d let him wipe her face and mouth.
Merry studied him then said, “She doesn’t have far to go.”
Dave lived about five minutes from Layne, Merry lived about two minutes from Dave, Rocky lived at least fifteen minutes from all of them. Rush hour traffic, even in the ‘burg, could get rough and it was still rush hour and would be for another half an hour. That could mean a twenty-five minute ride home, if not longer.
“Rush hour, Merry,” Layne said.
Merry’s head tipped to the side but his eyes slid to his Dad. He only answered when he was looking directly at Layne again.
“She’s stayin’ with me, big man,” he said quietly.
Oh fuck. This didn’t sound good.
“Come again?” he asked and he wondered why the fuck he did. But he did.
“Left him, Tanner,” Dave said, moving forward to grab the platter as Merry unplugged the knife. “She did it over two months ago.”
“No joke?” Layne asked, this time he knew why it came out of his mouth. He was shocked. Jarrod and Raquel Astley were pillars of that community. Rock solid.
“No joke,” Dave answered.
“And no joke that fuckwad moved his latest piece right in before Roc’s side of the bed was even cold,” Merry added, his tone low but trembling. He was pissed.
Layne felt his body freeze.
The he repeated, “Come again?”
“We’ll talk about it later,” Dave said.
“We’ll talk about it now,” Layne replied. “He’s moved another woman in?”
Merry turned away from the counter, wiping his hands on a dish towel.
“Been steerin’ clear of this, big man, but you have to have heard,” Merry said.
He hadn’t heard. Everyone he knew in that town knew he and Rocky had had a thing. No one said boo about her to him.
“Heard what?” Layne asked.
“Fucked around on her all the time,” Merry informed him. “Far’s I can tell, since about a week after they said ‘I do’. Nailed every nurse in his hospital. Every nurse’s aide. Every decent looking patient, probably.”