Knox (A Merrick Brothers Novel)

by Prescott Lane

I know I got off on a tangent there. Sorry about that. I just don’t want this to be an issue between us. I’m not ready. I’m really hoping you can understand.

  *

  Cassette

  Knox to Mae

  Age Seventeen

  Mae,

  I don’t have a lot to say. I know you know I’m a virgin, too. But here’s the thing. For me, being a virgin is an affliction, and you are the cure.

  But you’re the cure I’m willing to wait for.

  CHAPTER NINE

  Mae

  “Mommy, look at the crown of wildflowers Auntie Mae made for me,” Gracie yells as Everly gets out of her car in front of my house. Gracie is a love, and since it’s summer, school is out, and Gracie is in between summer camps, I sometimes watch her for Timothy and Everly.

  Gracie hangs out at the coffee shop a lot. She loves it there. She’s such a friendly little girl, all the customers love her. Around four thirty or so every day, right before The Tune Up becomes more bar than a java shop, they close down for about thirty minutes, and Gracie leaves. And sometimes that means I watch her. I love the time we spend together. I don’t know the circumstances of why Gracie was put up for adoption. I don’t know if it had anything to do with her Down’s Syndrome, but I sure as heck hope not. Either way, we are all blessed to have her in our lives.

  I’m able to watch her a good bit because my job is so flexible. It’s really only one day a week that I work. Of course, there’s preparation for the show, but that can be done on my own timeframe. I also do a few radio commercials here and there, which boosts the income. I make enough to afford my simple life by the lake. I’m truly blessed.

  It wasn’t always that way. Before the show was syndicated, when I was just a little, local Sunday evening show, it barely paid enough to cover the gas it took to drive back and forth to Denver. Back then, I worked several jobs. I even worked at the coffee shop for Everly and Timothy, but I was terrible. Since I don’t like coffee, I couldn’t tell the difference between an espresso and a cappuccino, but they kept me on just the same.

  When I finished college, I had degrees in both psychology and communications. Back then, I could’ve found an eight to five job, something steady, but I always believed in my show, in what I was doing at the station. I had faith that one day the radio gig would turn into something, and it has.

  “That’s pretty,” Everly says to Gracie. “Can you make me a flower crown?”

  Beaming, Gracie sits down in the grass and gets to work. Everly gives me a look, reaching in her bag and pulling out a brown paper bag, which can only be hiding one thing—wine! You know you have a good friend when she smuggles you alcohol.

  We meet at the back steps of my porch, taking a seat where we can still keep an eye on Gracie. The sun is shining, my best friend is here. Life is good.

  “What else you have in that purse of yours?” I ask, teasing her.

  She opens it up wide. “I’ve got chocolate and condoms, which do you need?”

  “Dang,” I say. “I really was hoping for a chocolate condom.”

  She giggles a little, popping open the bottle of wine. “Only one sip for me, I’m driving.” She doesn’t even bother with glasses, simply taking a sip from the bottle. We’re classy chicks like that. Then she passes it to me. “I haven’t slept with Timothy in four days,” she says quietly so Gracie doesn’t hear. “Punishment for telling Knox where you live.”

  “Don’t do that,” I say. “That’s just punishing yourself, too.”

  She laughs again. “I’m lying. I totally fucked him before coming over here.”

  I laugh so hard wine comes out of my nose. Everly is the best. We just get each other. In all the years we’ve been friends, we’ve never had a big fight. It’s hard to be mad at someone who carries alcohol and condoms in her purse. If the zombie apocalypse ever comes, Everly is screwed without any suitable supplies, but if a spontaneous swingers’ party erupts, she’s ready.

  “It’s fine. Something tells me Knox would’ve found a way to find me, anyway.”

  “He did look good,” she says, nudging me a little.

  “I know,” I say, rolling my eyes. “Dangerously so.”

  “So?”

  “He left me his number,” I say. “I haven’t called.”

  “Did you keep it?” she asks.

  “Yeah. Why?”

  She takes the bottle from me, putting it aside. This must be serious. “You didn’t burn it or rip it in a million pieces. You kept it.”

  “I didn’t use it,” I say.

  “But you kept the option open to use it.”

  “No. I’m not calling him.”

  “Let me see your phone,” she says.

  “Why?”

  “I want to see if you saved his number in your contacts.” She can tell by my face that I did. “Oh my God, you saved it in your phone!”

  “You act like I accepted a marriage proposal. I saved his number, so what?”

  “You didn’t keep it on a piece of paper that could get lost. You kept it on your phone, where it will be safe.”

  “None of this means anything.”

  “Oh, I think it means something,” she says.

  There’s that word again, the same one Knox used. What is this elusive something everyone seems to be referring to these days? I look out on the water, a slow ripple on the surface. If the wind blew, the ripple would grow bigger. Right now, it’s just a little small—something.

  “For someone who gives relationship advice, you sure are clueless,” Everly says.

  Of course, she’s right, but I still push back. “I give breakup advice,” I say.

  “Okay, what if a caller phoned in and said that their ex came back to town after five years to see them. What would you tell your caller?”

  “Depends on the situation.”

  “Same as you and Knox. Both single. Both successful. Everything the same.”

  “I’d say that if they were calling me for advice, it would mean they were still attached to this person.”

  “See!” Everly cries out.

  “See what?” I ask. “I didn’t ask you for advice about Knox. I didn’t even bring him up. You did!”

  “But you kept his number,” she says.

  “Everly,” I say, my voice soft, revealing how vulnerable I feel about this whole situation. “I will always have a soft spot for Knox. He’s my first love. That’s special. You don’t ever forget that person.”

  She wraps one arm around me, forcing me to lay my head on her small shoulder. She knows I’ve reached my limit. “How about I set you up with . . .”

  “God, no!” I laugh out. “The last guy you set me up with had a criminal record.”

  “I didn’t know!” We both laugh. “You could just have a sex thing with Knox. No attachments.”

  “A sex thing?” I ask.

  “That’s something,” she says with a smile.

  *

  “My boyfriend of two years gave me something interesting for my birthday,” a female caller says. “I’m not sure what to make of it.”

  It’s been a particularly crazy Sunday night at the radio station. It started with my first caller, whose boyfriend dumped her for her mom! It all went downhill from there. No telling what delights this caller has in store for me, and her use of the word “something” brings me back to my conversation with Knox a few days ago. He said there was “something.” And then Everly did, too. What the hell does that mean? What am I supposed to make of that? He left a few days ago, and I don’t know whether he plans on coming back soon, or if whatever “something” he was talking about is going to rear its head in another five years.

  “Tease,” I say into the microphone. “What was this something?”

  She clears her throat. “A . . . a vibrator.”

  “Well, this is a first,” I say. “I’ve heard about sex toys for Valentine’s Day, but never on one’s birthday.”

  “It’s weird, right?” she asks.

  �
��Was there an engagement ring on the end of it?” I joke. “Because that would be really weird.”

  She laughs. “No, but we are talking about getting married, so this just seemed . . . I don’t know. Do you think he’s just trying to spice things up?”

  “Perhaps,” I say. “Let me say this. I think you need to talk to him.”

  “But what do you think?”

  “I have a theory about men who don’t mind their wives or girlfriends using vibrators,” I say. “They don’t want to put in the work. And the last thing you want is a man who’s lazy in the bedroom.”

  Seemingly satisfied with my advice, she promptly thanks me and hangs up. Amy sends me follow-up questions she thinks I should’ve asked. She does that sometimes, telling me she likes to play devil’s advocate. I appreciate her enthusiasm for the show. She hasn’t been here that long, but she’s totally invested. Which I like.

  The switchboard is lighting up with callers left and right. Sometimes, like tonight, the show takes on a life of its own. I’m always prepared with topics, but a lot of what happens on-air is organic. It just flows from the audience.

  Tonight, there is a specific topic I want to discuss. My show works because I’m honest. I talk about myself, my bad dates, my good ones, the whole messy dating thing. When it comes to dating, I’ve done it all. Blind dates, speed dating, online—if there’s an app, I’ve tried it. I considered it research for my job, and if I met a nice guy, that was just a bonus, but mostly I just got a lot of funny stories to tell. I share all of this on-air, but I never use names or any identifying information.

  “I want to bring up something we’ve talked a lot about before. I’m bringing this up because it happened to me this past week. What do you do when your ex shows up? Let’s discuss. And to be perfectly clear, I’m not talking about the casual one-night stand that you bump into at the coffee shop. I’m talking about the one who broke your heart. Lines are open.”

  I get caller after caller with horror stories of running into their ex-boyfriends with their new boyfriends, or vice versa. One poor man calls in relaying the time he ran into his ex at a strip club. She was on the pole!

  “I can always count on my listeners to make me feel better,” I laugh then see my call screener Amy jump up from her seat outside the booth, waving to me. “I’ve always thought the Harry Potter reference to ‘he who shall not be named’ sounded like every girl’s slogan about her ex.”

  I push the button to take a quick commercial break to allow Amy to stick her head in. “There’s some guy on the line,” she says. “He gave some silly name, but he sounds like the same guy who called last week. You know, Knox from California.”

  “What name did he give?” I ask, knowing we sometimes get a few crazies.

  “Scooby-Doo,” she says, rolling her eyes.

  Even though I don’t want to, I smile. It has to be Knox. That man is ridiculous. “What line is he on?”

  She tells me then asks, “You don’t think it’s the actor?”

  The cat is out of the bag. It’s kind of obvious to Amy, at least. I simply hold my finger up to my lips in the “shh” motion, indicating that’s a secret. She wiggles a little before shutting the door. The commercial ends, and I answer his line.

  “I understand we have a famous caller on the line with us tonight. Tell us, Scooby-Doo, did Shaggy eat all your Scooby snacks?”

  “This is much more serious than that,” he says.

  It’s Knox. Stubborn man is not going to go away. “Do tell.”

  “I’m being accused of breaking this woman’s heart.”

  I don’t need to ask for more details. I know them all—how long we were together, how old we were when it ended. It’s my story, our story.

  “You saying you didn’t break her heart?” I ask, glancing up to see Amy outside the booth, her eyes wide. I’m doing my best to control my emotions, but the way my voice is shaking should make it obvious to anyone listening that this is a personal call.

  “I’m saying she broke mine, too,” he says quietly.

  “How did she break your heart?” I ask, trying to steady myself.

  “She wouldn’t give me a chance to fix it,” he says.

  “You wanted to fix it?” I snap back, my show taking a profoundly serious turn.

  “Every day for the past five years,” he says.

  “Maybe she was too hurt,” I say.

  “I want her to know how sorry I am.”

  On-air silence is never a good thing, but I can’t speak.

  “How long do you think it’ll take for the hurt to go away enough for me to try again?” he asks.

  He’s killing me here. A tear falls down my cheek, and I quickly wipe it away. “Depends.”

  “Is five years enough?” he asks.

  “Maybe.”

  CHAPTER TEN

  Knox

  I love the ocean at night, the way the moon reflects in the waves. You can’t see the water clearly, but you can hear the crashing sound of the waves against the cliffs. I lean against the clear glass railing on my balcony, looking out into the darkness. It’s the same sky Mae and I used to stare up at when we were kids. I have everything I ever dreamed of back then. I always talked about being an actor, being rich, famous, having big houses, and living in the big city. I’m only twenty-six, and everything on that list is checked off.

  Mae used to talk about having a house, settling in one same place, not moving around. She’d seen the world already, traveling all over with her parents. I just want to be in the same place for more than a couple years, I remember her saying. She also wanted a dog—a St. Bernard, to be exact. I didn’t see a dog when I was at her place, so I guess she hasn’t gotten that part of her dream yet.

  It’s twenty minutes since her show ended. I was her last caller of the night. Maybe it’s risky to call into her show, someone could recognize my voice, but I think the risk is small, and it’s worth it just to talk to her. Suddenly, time seems to be moving at a snail’s pace. My life is usually fast paced, jetting from one side of the world to the other—making movies, going to parties, doing interviews—but this past week has been so damn slow.

  Time is supposed to heal all wounds, but not Mae. She’s timeless.

  The kind of love we had isn’t the kind that disappears. They say time makes you forget. But not what we had. That kind of love can be put on a shelf, buried deep in our heart—like our cassette tapes—but it’s always there, always waiting for you to open it, set it free.

  When it comes to Mae and me, time is a failure.

  Time hasn’t worked. It hasn’t made my heart forget. It hasn’t made the memories fade. Time hasn’t done its job.

  Time is a failure because nothing can heal my heart from Mae. She owns it.

  I don’t want it back.

  Why didn’t I reach out to her sooner? I could’ve fought for her. I wish I knew the answer. Some of it was pride. I wasn’t going to grovel or beg. I was Hollywood’s hottest up and coming actor, the world was my oyster. I told myself I was better off. I did one hell of an acting job on myself. And when you believe a woman wants nothing more to do with you, what choice do you really have?

  My cell phone vibrates in my pocket, and I pull it out, not recognizing the number, but I definitely know that area code. I don’t have the same number I had in college. That’s long gone. Can’t have random people knowing my phone number. Next thing you know, your college roommate is selling it to the highest bidder—then you’ve got some crazy person trying to high jump the fence to your house.

  I guess she doesn’t have the same number, either. I can’t believe she called, but it has to be her.

  “I’d like to speak to Scooby-Doo,” Mae says.

  “You picked the alias,” I say, starting to pace back and forth on my balcony, unable to believe she actually called.

  There are turning points in relationships. Times when you know things are shifting.

  Like a breakup. There’s a moment in the relationship—a
moment when you know it’s over. You might not break up right then, but it’s when your heart recognizes what’s coming. It’s the moment when you realize the other person doesn’t feel the way about you that you thought they did. It can come in the form of a look or an accusation, but your heart knows that person doesn’t love you anymore. You can ignore it, try to hang on, fight, but when you look back on things, that moment was the beginning of the end.

  How long that ending takes is up to you.

  Then there’s the opposite moment, the moment I’m having with Mae right now. The moment when you know there’s hope. When you know this could lead to something. I think of Ryder’s advice: Don’t fuck it up.

  “You can’t keep calling my show,” she says.

  So that’s how she wants to play this—like she’s calling to scold me. “Well, now that I have your cell phone number, I won’t have to.” I think I hear her exhale, but there’s a lot of background noise. “Are you driving?” I ask.

  “Yeah, I usually drive home after the show.”

  That means she has forty-five uninterrupted minutes. Plus, I don’t like the idea of her driving so late by herself. The roads between Denver and Haven’s Point are poorly lit and curvy. I have to stay on the phone with her to make sure she gets home safely. That’s as good an excuse as any to keep talking to her.

  “Knox,” she says. “I need you to stop whatever this is.”

  I stop mid-stride, that not at all what I expected to hear. I must be off my game. I thought this was going well. “Can’t do that.”

  “You broke up with me,” she says.

  “No, you broke up with me,” I say.

  “What are you talking about?” she snaps. “You went on national television and said you were single! We’d been together for four years!”

  Of course, I know what she’s talking about, but that wasn’t me breaking up with her.

  After my dad died, I tried to stay in college, but I was restless. I’d drive back and forth to California for auditions, casting calls, any meetings I could get, hoping to get a break. I had a few bit parts, one-liners here and there, but I finally got lucky and landed a role in a major movie. It wasn’t a huge part, but it was opposite a big-name actress. The film got a ton of buzz, so my agent had me making the rounds at the award shows, walking the red carpet, rubbing elbows with the right people. By that time, I’d decided to quit school. I was barely going, anyway. I wasn’t going to miss my big break.