“Good, you’re awake. What were you doing on the water tower?” she asked, smoothing my hair from my face. I want to lean into her touch but instead I flinch, a little reflex I picked up courtesy of Chop and she withdrew her hand.
I flashed her the biggest smile I could, forgetting about my missing tooth. I must have looked a mess. “I...” I started, not really remembering why I was there in the first place, but when the memory hits and I recall the party. The ring. The backstreet boy I knocked out. THE KISS. I decide to go with the truth. Sort of. “I was looking for you.”
“Were you trying to jump?” she asked, crossing her arms over her chest like she was both pissed and disappointed, but I couldn’t linger on that because the motion pushed her tits up over the neckline of her shirt and suddenly I hated the inch or so of cotton hiding what I knew to be perfect pink nipples from me.
“No, but I might have been screaming a little. Okay, a lot. Someone must have called the cops about the lunatic on the water tower and they hauled me in thinking I was going to take the long leap to nowhere.”
“But you weren’t?” she asked, like she was making sure.
“No, Doc,” I reassured her. She nodded and breathed out slowly, like she’d been holding her breath. “One of the officers must have gotten a little punchy,” I said, feeling the knot on my forehead. “Fucker.”
“King and Bear are in the waiting room. I’ll go tell them you’re ready to go home,” she said standing up.
I grabbed her wrist and she sat back down. “No, Doc. I can’t go back there. It’s too.” I stopped. “It’s just too...everything.”
“Where do you want to go?”
“With you,” I said, pleading with my eyes. “I want to go with you.”
“Preppy...” she started, looking down at her lap. “That’s not a good idea.”
“Because you’re engaged?” I asked sounding more bitter than I intended. “‘Cause married people can’t get engaged, unless the rules have changed. Shit, everything else has changed. Wouldn’t surprise me.”
“No, because I’m not even going to be here long. I’m going home to help my dad the second the house sells and the realtor thinks that could be really soon. And I’m not—”
“Okay, so I’ll only stay until it sells or until you go home.”
Basically, I’ll just be there for as long as you’re there.
“Preppy,” Dre said, sounding unconvinced. I was going to have to bring out the big guns.
“As your husband on record, don’t I have to sign off on the sale?” I asked.
Doc straightened her spine, “Wait, what?”
“Even if it’s on a technicality we’re married, right? The house would be considered our marital property, therefore I’d have to sign off on the sale regardless of who’s name the house is in.”
“Fuck,” Dre mouthed when she realized I was right. It was adorable when she swore.
“Sounds good. Maybe later. Right now I’m just looking for you to say, ‘yes, Preppy, I’d love for you to come and stay with me for a while.’”
“So...you’re blackmailing me?” Doc asked.
I smiled. “Abso-fucking-lutley.”
DRE
“That’s the kid you’re fucking?” Preppy asked, pointing to the screen saver on my phone. It was a picture of me and Brandon at my college graduation. I graduated in three years and had a big smile on my face. Brandon was holding up my diploma like it was a trophy.
For me, it kind of was.
“Excuse me?” I snatched my phone from his hand and pushing it into my back pocket. “He’s not a kid,” I argued.
“Oh yeah? Could have fooled me. He looks like Zach Effron or a backstreet boy circa 1997. I mean, come on, Doc, he doesn’t even have any facial hair. I bet he hasn’t sprouted any pubes yet either, looks a little too young for that. What kind of man doesn’t have any fucking facial hair?”
I glared at the short beard on his face.
“I mean what kind of man normally doesn’t have facial hair. My beardlessness was due to special circumstances.”
“Such as?”
“Such as shit I don’t want to fucking talk about,” Preppy said. He then started to whistle as he opened the back slider and stepped out onto the deck.
“See, I told you this wasn’t a good idea,” Ray said walking in the door and setting down a garbage bag of what I assumed was Preppy’s stuff onto the floor. “He won’t talk to any of us. He won’t tell us anything. Insists that everything’s okay when people hauled in to the hospital for attempted suicides are not okay.”
“I can hear you,” Preppy said, coming back inside and grabbing the bag off the floor. “Thanks, kid.”
“So what were you two arguing about?” Ray asked.
“Doc’s fiancé Where is he by the way?”
“You mean, Brandon?” Ray asked.
“He means Brandon,” I said with a smile. “And Brandon had to go home.”
“Oh yeah? And why is that?” Preppy asked.
“Because, he missed his boyfriend,” I said casually.
“Oh, okay, because his...wait. What?” Preppy asked.
Ray snorted. “Preppy, Brandon’s gay.” We both broke out into a fit of laughter while Preppy looked at us like we’d lost our damn minds.
“Hold the fucking phone. Brandon’s gay?” Preppy asked like he hadn’t heard it right the first time.
He leaned onto the counter on his elbows. “Fuck, I lost my hair, a portion of my fucking gut...and my gaydar?”
“Seems so,” Ray said, planting a kiss on Preppy’s cheek. She may not have noticed him flinch but I did. “I’ll check up on you kids. Behave yourselves,” she sang as she closed the front door behind her.
“Don’t feel too bad. I missed the signs too when I first met him.” I laughed at the memory. “I actually thought he was asking me out when I first met him until we actually went out and his boyfriend met us after the movie.” I tried to ignore the thickness of the air around us. I tucked it away in the linen closet, trying to pretend like his every word didn’t make me feel something I didn’t want to feel. Relief. Lust. LOVE. “So back to your earlier question. The kind of man who likes a clean look. That’s who doesn’t have facial hair.”
“Oh yeah?” he asked, taking a step forward, crowding me in, staring down into my eyes with an intensity that had me biting down hard on my lower lip. “Do YOU like a clean look, Doc? Or do you like it dirty. Beards. Tattoos...scars.”
Yes, I like it dirty. So dirty.