One More Time

by Caitlin Ricci

  Eli looked hurt by what I’d said, but I didn’t have the slightest idea why. “Mr. Robinson, your application has been approved. Please expect a call this week regarding potential horses that are available for foster care that meet your requirements.”

  Eli didn’t say anything else to me as he walked out the front door. I locked it after him, then came to sit next to Caleb. I didn’t know what to say to him and for a while we just sat there in silence.

  It was Caleb who broke us out of that uncomfortable moment, though, by saying, “Was he that obnoxious in bed?”

  I laughed and took a chance at putting my arm around Caleb’s shoulders. He didn’t pull away. “Yeah, he kind of was. Caleb, I’m sorry you met one of the guys I’ve had sex with. I know the casual sex thing is an issue for you, and I never expected you to meet one of them. I drove down to Castle Rock for him, which is over an hour away in case you were wondering. I never thought I’d see him in Thornwood.”

  Caleb sighed and laid his head back against my arm. “Was it recent?”

  “Define recent,” I said.

  He turned his head to look at me. “Since I’ve moved here? Since we kissed… since we…?” He swallowed heavily and looked away from me again.

  I shook my head. “No. It’s been over six months since I saw him.”

  “I guess that should make me feel a little better,” Caleb said, and I winced, knowing he was hurting but not knowing how to make him happy again.

  Especially not when I needed to tell him something. “Not that you need any more to think about, but I do want to talk to you about something,” I said. I turned toward him on the couch, and he looked over at me again. “And it’s not going to be good. But I want you to know.”

  His expression told me he didn’t think it could get any worse. But it could and I knew that. Part of me didn’t want to tell him anything at all and let Simon’s passing go by with only my dad knowing why I was going to be so upset. But I was trying to be honest with Caleb, and that meant telling him about the bad things that were happening in my life and not just that I was having sex with people he should have never been able to meet.

  “Two days from now I need to go down to Denver. I’ll probably be out for a few days. I’ll have my phone, but I didn’t want you to worry in case I didn’t pick up right away or return your text or something,” I began.

  He pursed his lips and closed his eyes for a few moments before opening them again. “Because you’ll be there having sex with someone?”

  I was quick to shake my head. I reached for his hand, but he didn’t let me take it, instead pulling away from me before I could touch him. “No.” I took a deep breath and let it out on a sigh. “Five years ago I was in love with someone. His name was Simon, and I honestly thought I’d be spending the rest of my life with him.” That got Caleb’s attention in a hurry.

  “About eight months into our relationship, we were skiing in the mountains here and he lost control. He fell and injured himself pretty badly. He was lucky to survive, but he never woke up again.” I found it hard to talk about Simon and very few people knew what had happened. Those people in town who did know we’d been together assumed we’d broken up. I hadn’t corrected them.

  I licked my lips and kept going with Caleb watching me. “On Thursday his family will be taking him off life support. He’s at a hospital in Denver. I’ll be going down there to say good-bye. I just….” I didn’t know what to say since Caleb had barely moved while I’d been talking. “I just wanted you to know that if I’m not around, if I’m not answering calls, it’s because I’m there.”

  I waited for him to say something, anything, to me. I needed comforting, but I could see he was having a hard time too right now. I tried to touch him again, but he didn’t let me. I probably should have waited until after the movie to talk to him about it, but seeing Eli there had made me realize how much Caleb needed to know my biggest secret, since the little ones had hurt him so much already. And I didn’t want him hearing it from my dad in case he tried to ask him where I was or something.

  “Caleb….” I tried to say something, but I didn’t even know where to begin. I just wanted him to speak, to say anything to me. I needed that from him, needed to know that he was okay, that I hadn’t lost my only real friend so soon after meeting him.

  “I’d like you to go now.”

  I frowned at him. “What?”

  He didn’t turn to look at me. “Please get out of my house.”

  “Don’t be like this,” I told him as I shook my head. “C’mon, let’s talk.”

  This time he did look at me, and I saw that there were tears in his eyes. “You’re in love with someone else. There’s nothing for us to talk about. Now please leave. Don’t make me call the cops.”

  “I am the cops,” I reminded him. But I did get up and walk toward the front door. “Bye…,” I said as I opened the door. He didn’t say anything back to me.

  I was upset as I left his house, and I did consider going onto the app and finding someone to fix me. But in the end it was easier just to go home, crash out on my bed, and stare up at my ceiling.

  I DIDN’T hear from Caleb again until the next afternoon. “Hello?” I answered my phone when I saw it was him calling. I’d been avoiding all other calls but my dad’s.

  “Do you still love him?” he asked without saying hi.

  I was in my apartment even though it was only two in the afternoon. My dad had sent me home early since I was snapping at people over e-mail, even the nice older ladies who wanted to have a handsome police officer at their book club meeting while they talked about some murder mystery. I was off work until the following Monday, which would have been nice except I didn’t want to spend my time off with anyone other than the one person who had kicked me out of his house.

  “No,” I answered honestly. I sat down on my bed and looked out the window at the grocery store. “I did, when he was my Simon. But the man I loved, the one I wanted to be with forever, he’s been gone a long time.”

  “Is he the reason you don’t have relationships?” Caleb continued.

  “He’s the reason I don’t want to fall in love again and get hurt,” I clarified. I’d loved Simon with everything I had. There was no going back from that kind of love, and I knew sex with strangers wasn’t something that was necessarily healthy or good for me. But I was an adult, and I had needs they helped fulfill. There was nothing wrong with what I did, though I was pretty sure Caleb didn’t agree with me.

  After a few moments of silence during which I let him think, and I stared at a woman trying to juggle a shopping basket and three kids, not a single one of which was behaving as the shopping cart started to roll away from her, he asked, “Do you want a friend to go with you tomorrow?”

  “I’d like that. Know of anyone who’s available?” I tried to joke with him.

  I heard him chuckle, and it made me smile. “What time should I be ready to go?”

  “Four probably. It’ll take a little while to get down there and find parking. And, Caleb, I got a hotel room for the night since I didn’t know if I could handle driving back. I’ll reserve one for you too.”

  I didn’t expect him to stay with me in the same room, and I hadn’t even considered that as a possibility.

  “Reserve it and I’ll pay for it myself.”

  It wasn’t right of him for pay for a hotel room because I wouldn’t be able to come back up to Thornwood immediately after saying good-bye to Simon, and I was ready to argue with him, but he was apparently done talking to me before I could even begin to say what I wanted to.

  “I’ll see you tomorrow.”

  He hung up on me and I sighed as I let the phone fall back onto the bed. I was bored in my townhouse that evening, but I didn’t want to go out and see people either. I wanted to go spend time with Caleb, but I knew I probably wouldn’t be welcome there, so I watched TV until I started to get drowsy. Eventually I fell asleep on my couch and woke up the next morning feeling exhaus
ted and cranky. To add to it my whole arm was asleep and my fingers hurt to move.

  “Fucking perfect,” I grumbled as I got started with my day.

  My dad called at ten while I was cleaning up my kitchen. Being bored and not knowing what else to do sometimes led me to cleaning. It wasn’t something I enjoyed doing, but it had to get done so I did my best to stay on top of it and not get distracted by all the thoughts currently swirling through my head.

  “Hey. You doing okay?” he asked as I put him on speakerphone. “It’s going to be a tough day for you.”

  I knew it was and didn’t love the reminder, but I did love my dad for calling to check up on me. “I know.”

  “You need a ride? I can take you if you want.”

  I shook my head and kept cleaning the sink. “Caleb and I are going down in a few hours. We’ll be there overnight and be back tomorrow morning. Just as friends,” I tacked on in case he got any ideas.

  “I didn’t think anything else. Though I do like Caleb, from what little I’ve seen of him. He has a clean arrest record and only a few parking and speeding tickets from California too. But he needs to get those tags updated.”

  I groaned and put the sponge down so I could wash my hands. Of course my dad had checked him out.

  “I loved Simon too, you know. He was a good guy.”

  I appreciated that my dad talked about Simon like he was already gone, because to me he was, and it was something I’d asked him to do a few years back when I’d been really ready to let him go. At the hospital, saying good-bye to Simon’s body? That was just a formality. My Simon had been gone for years.

  “Yeah, he was,” I agreed as I dried my hands on a dish towel.

  “Don’t let what you had with Simon get in the way of what you could have with Caleb,” my dad told me in his sternest voice.

  I stopped and stared at my phone for a moment. “We’re just friends,” I reminded him.

  “Yes, and you look at every single one of your friends that way. Don’t lie to me, boy. Lie to yourself all you want, but not to me. I know that look. Your mom used to look at me the same way. Like she could stay with me forever, like I made everything better. Doesn’t matter that Caleb is a man. It’s the same look. You care about him.”

  “It’s been two weeks,” I told him as I rolled my eyes.

  “Your mother was pregnant with you within four days of us knowing each other.”

  I’d heard that before, but it still made me groan. “I don’t need to know that, Dad. Really, I don’t. That’s not something people tell their kids.”

  “When their kids are being stubborn, absolutely it is. My point, Trent, is that you don’t have to worry about anything here. Let it flow naturally. Don’t get held up on time and how long it’s been or hasn’t been. If you like him, then you like him. I don’t want you to stay in love with Simon forever, not when he’s not here to love you back.”

  My dad was right, and he was smart, but he didn’t have any idea what he was talking about. Not really, anyway. “I’m not still in love with Simon,” I reminded him. I just didn’t want to lose another love of my life. One was too much for one lifetime.

  At four o’clock I was parked in front of Caleb’s house, but I couldn’t make myself get out of the car because when I did, well, that would be one more step toward seeing Simon. As much as I’d already said bye to him, as much as I’d given up on ever seeing him awake again, I didn’t want to see him officially gone. I thought it was just going to be a formality, but I sat there knowing that if I went to get Caleb, and if we went down to Denver, after his family took him off life support, there would be nothing left of him at all, anywhere.

  I realized I was crying only because I suddenly couldn’t see. I ran my hands over my eyes and sighed loudly. I had to do this, because if I didn’t go see Simon, then this was going to happen without me anyway. And I didn’t think I would ever forgive myself for not being there with him one last time.

  Forcing myself to get out of my car was the first part. Going up to Caleb’s house came next. It didn’t become easier with each step I took, like I hoped it would. Instead I stood there just staring at Caleb’s door wondering what I should have done differently. Simon loved to ski, loved to be outside, and had climbed more mountains and been scuba diving in deeper caves than I had even before meeting him. He was wild and invincible. He didn’t need my influence to get him there. But his sister, Cassandra, likely still thought I’d been the reason for his accident.

  With a shaking hand I knocked on Caleb’s door. He opened it a few moments later, gave me a once-over, and then backed up.

  “We need to get going,” I told him weakly, even as I followed him inside the house.

  He shook his head and opened one of the cabinets under the island. “This will only take a minute, and you look like you need this.” He put a bottle of bourbon on the island then poured a little into a glass. Before he handed it over to me he poured a little water into it from the sink.

  “Try it,” he said.

  I looked down at the amber-colored liquid and hesitated. “I don’t normally drink bourbon, or whiskey, or whatever it is.” I looked back up at him and tried for a smile, but it didn’t really work out that well.

  He shook his head and pushed the glass toward me with one finger. It sloshed a little up the sides, and I watched its movement for a moment, letting myself get lost in the ripples before I was pulled out of it by Caleb as he moved around the island toward me. We may have been friends, and I thought we were, but as he walked around me, it was like he was trying his absolute best not to come close enough to touch me. Regardless of the sex, of how much I wanted him, of how hot it had been to have him under me as I ground my hips against him knowing he could feel every single movement… aside from all of that, I wanted my friend to give me a hug right then because I desperately needed one.

  I didn’t feel right asking him for one, though, so instead I took the glass between my fingers and tilted it against my lips. The bourbon burned, like it always did, and I was instantly reminded of why I didn’t usually drink anything heavier than beer.

  I gasped as I put the glass down, then managed to get it into the sink, mercifully without coughing enough to show Caleb just how inept I was with the heavy stuff.

  “Better?” Caleb asked.

  I shrugged and leaned forward over the island. “Do you usually drink bourbon?” When I’d seen him drink, it had only ever been with beer. Not many people I knew drank bourbon, and I didn’t even think the grocery store carried the brand he’d pulled out.

  “I’m from Kentucky. We have thoroughbreds and bourbon, among other things, but that’s what I really remember from living there. This stuff I had to drive into downtown Denver to get. I figured you might need some for today.”

  I tried for another smile and actually managed it this time. “You figured right.” My smile quickly fled, and I was back to wallowing somewhere between wanting to go back to bed and knowing I needed to go to downtown Denver. “Did you get it last night after we talked?”

  He shook his head. “This morning, actually.”

  “You didn’t have to do that. Just for me….” I frowned. It was a bit of a drive to go downtown, especially for a bottle of alcohol. And here I was asking him to drive down with me again so soon. Most people in town hardly ever went into Denver. There were closer places to get the things they needed, or people made do without.

  Caleb smiled at me, just a little. “I didn’t do it just for you.”

  “You didn’t?” I had a hard time believing that.

  With a sigh Caleb shook his head. “I like you, a lot, even though it’s only been a few weeks since we met. And you are in love with someone else….” I was about to tell him that he was wrong, that I didn’t still love Simon, but I couldn’t make myself say the words. So I said nothing and let him believe what he wanted to for the time being. I wasn’t up for arguing with him right then. “I wanted to have it handy, in case I wanted some.” He sh
rugged and started heading toward the door. “We should go.”

  “Caleb….”

  At the front door he turned around and held his hands up to me. “Just… don’t. Not right now, Trent. I want to be friends, and that means at this moment I’m going to drive us into Denver, and I’m going to be there for you when you need me today. But I’m hurt, and what you did, how you didn’t tell me about him, that wasn’t okay. So let’s get going.”

  I nodded and followed him out of the house. “I can drive.”

  Caleb shook his head. “I’m driving. You get to relax and direct me to wherever it is we’re going.”

  I was thankful, and relieved, that I didn’t have to focus any more than that. It wasn’t that the bourbon was getting to me, though that may have been part of it. I felt a little better, though, with the decision of going being taken away from me.

  “I don’t still love him,” I told Caleb again as we headed out onto the main road.

  Caleb didn’t say anything, and I turned my head to look out the window instead of arguing with him about something I wasn’t absolutely sure of yet myself.

  It didn’t take us long to get into Denver, only about an hour and a half with traffic, which was pretty decent for the afternoon. Going back tomorrow morning would be faster I was sure. “Take I-25 south for two more exits, then a left, and three blocks up, the entrance to the hospital will be on your right,” I told him. I wasn’t great at directions, especially to a place I hadn’t been to in a long time, but the place where Simon lay alive but not really was a place I couldn’t easily forget either.

  Instead of dropping me off in front, like I expected him to do, Caleb parked across from the entrance. “Do you want me to come in with you?” he asked as he turned off his SUV.