The big news wasn’t all that big of news.
Maggie slept with her ex last night.
Shocker.
He called right after we left the restaurant and she blamed the wine for the decision. I called bullshit on her but she didn’t want to hear it. So when her ex - Al - called her, she let him come over. She slept with him. He spent the night. Then he said he had to work early. Al left and sent a text five minutes later saying he had been seeing someone and felt guilty for sleeping with Maggie.
By the time I left the diner I made up my mind that all men were assholes.
There was only so much I could help with Maggie and her relationship issues.
I drove back home, sat in the driveway, refreshing my email, waiting for something to come through. I had two projects that were moving along slowly. Nobody worked on Sunday, which was fine, but for me I didn’t want to be home.
With my phone in my hand, it started to ring. I jumped and touched the screen just as I realized it was a number and not a contact.
“Hello?” I asked.
I heard a shuffling sound and a thud. Then I heard fuck and more shuffling.
“Hello?” I asked again.
“Hey,” a rough voice said.
It sent instant chills through my body. Not the kind you got when you were afraid. The kind when you know something… something intense happened. Not good, not bad, but just intense.
I promised myself I would never forget Duke’s voice. Or his last words to me.
Sweetie, you’re better off…
“Duke?” I asked, never thinking I’d actually say his name again.
“Belle?”
Hearing him say my name made me shiver again. My inner thighs were trembling. The temperature in my car rose by the second.
“What are…”
“You called me?” he asked.
Oh… shit…
“I… yeah… last…”
“You called me four times,” he said.
He sounded pissed off.
I collected myself for a second.
“Yeah, I did. Sorry. No. Wait.”
“Belle, what do you want?”
“What do I want?” I asked. “Seriously?”
“How did you get my number?”
“Jim’s phone,” I said.
“Shit.”
“What?”
“Nothing. How… how are you?”
I felt the trembling stop as the anger entered the picture. Straight ahead of me Jim came out onto the front porch. Still wearing the same clothes as the day before. His hair a mop mess. A beer in his hand.
“Terrible,” I blurted out.
“Oh?”
“You fucked up, Duke.”
“Excuse me?”
“You left Jim behind.”
Did you really just say that?
“You called to tell me that? At fucking one in the morning?”
“Because Jim tried to kill himself.”
“Holy shit…”
“Well, I don’t know if he meant to try. But he came close. Very close. Almost choked on his own puke.”
“Look, Belle… there’s nothing…”
“Don’t give me your excuses,” I said. “He’s a shell of what he was before he left.”
“We all are, sweetie,” Duke said.
I hated Duke’s voice. Calm. Soothing. Rough. Sweetie.
“You fucked me over too,” I said. “You fucked everything. You got him into the military. You and him…”
The rage bubbled.
My eyes filled with tears.
“That’s it?” Duke asked as I lost my breath. “You got all that off your chest?”
“Fuck you.”
“You called me, Belle.”
“I need help with him,” I said. “He’s going to kill himself. I know it.”
“I’m a lifetime away. You don’t know a thing about me.”
“I know, Duke. You think you’re tough with a motorcycle now? Jim can barely walk straight.”
“I saved him. That was all I could do.”
“So that’s what you decided? To leave a brother behind? To leave me behind?”
“I already told you… you’re better off.”
“I’m not,” I said. “I wasn’t then. Don’t tell me what I should think or feel.”
“Then don’t fucking call me for answers you don’t want.”
I hated him. I hated everything about him.
Jim drank his beer and turned. I saw him stumble and I knew it wasn’t from his leg either. He was drunk already. In the early afternoon.
“I hope you’re happy,” I said.
“I’m not,” Duke said. “Got anything else for me?”
“You’re a real asshole. My brother needs you. You were the only one who could ever talk to him. He’ll never admit it…”
“You want to help? Walk away. Don’t try to get into that mind. You have no idea what it was like over there. What we saw. What we did. What we went through.”
“I don’t. I would never say I did. But you promised…”
“Fuck promises,” Duke growled. “Don’t spit promises back at me.”
“I’m sorry I called.”
“So am I, sweetie.”
Just like that, the call was over. The years of waiting, lingering, wondering what it would be like to talk to Duke again and that’s what I got. Not that I should have expected anything else. From what I heard and tried to learn, Duke came home and was a different person. He got into fights, got arrested, gave up on the entire military life and image. He then started hanging out with the local motorcycle gang and got accepted into it.