by BT Urruela
Paige’s voice sounds like it’s coming from the end of a narrow hall. “Babe? Did you hear me?”
Her voice breaks through and my vision steadies. “Wait, what?” I mean to say more, but it’s all I can manage.
“I told you not to drink so much.” There’s a bite to her words. Unnecessary bite.
“I’m not drunk. I’m just tired.”
“Tired, my ass. You just passed out mid-conversation.”
Did I?
The events of the night are fading already. I’m angry. But why?
“I said, you don’t always need to provoke them. I know they start a lot of this shit, but they’re not really people you want to fuck with. There’s a lot of them. As much as—”
“You think I can’t take him?” I cut her off, hardly even realizing what I’m saying. The words fall freely from my lips. “You think I’ll ever let a pussy like that make me afraid? That’s what he wants. I know guys like that. They talk a big game, but they ain’t shit.”
“Oh seriously, drop the tough guy act.” Whatever sweetness she carried into the conversation has dissipated. “It’s not just about Cody. I know you can take him. I’ve seen you take him. This is about all of them. Cody, Benji, Russ. They’re fucked up guys. They’re friends with a lot of other fucked up guys. I’ve seen them do some really messed up shit to people.”
“I’ve done some really messed up shit to people,” I blurt out, the anger simmering deep inside. “Whatever you think about me…whatever you think you know…you don’t know the half of it.”
“I want to know all of it!” She parks the car and I look around, unaware we were even on the Watson’s property. My head pounds relentlessly.
Paige grabs my shoulder and squeezes gently, drawing my attention.
“I want to know it all,” she repeats, softer this time.
“There’s way too much to share, Paige. More than I’d ever want to.”
“Don’t you think talking about it might help you move past it a little?”
“I am past it.” My words are unconvincing.
“Are you? You’ve opened up to me. And I can’t tell you how much I appreciate and respect that. But I just want you to know, you can trust me. I’m here for you. I mean that.”
“It’s just too much, Paige. It’s all too much. I’m tired. I’m going to go in.” I open the door and move to get out when she grabs my arm and pulls me back in.
“Can I come with you…just for a bit? We don’t have to talk. I just want to lie with you.” She smiles, weakly, and everything in me wants to say yes. But I won’t. I can’t.
Not tonight. Tonight, I just need to slip into a drunken slumber and let this conversation end before I say something I truly regret.
“I’m tired. Let’s talk tomorrow.” I get out and close the door behind me. Paige follows, meeting me on the other side of the Chevelle and taking my hand into hers.
“Okay, Xander. I understand. Get some sleep.” She pulls me in close, rises to her tiptoes and wraps her arms around my neck. Then she presses her lips against mine. I want to hold her there and never let go. But I won’t. I can’t.
Not tonight. Not when I’m like this.
“Good night, Paige.” I kiss her again, a quick peck, and release her. Stumbling to the guesthouse, I can feel her still behind me. I stop and turn back toward her.
“Good night, Xander.” She turns on her heel and then she’s gone.
I wake up still wearing my jeans and tee, boots still tied tight to my feet, and I’m sprawled on the love seat. Empty beer cans that weren’t there the night before line the coffee table, a half smoked bowl beside them. Morning light cuts through the window, my eyelids helpless against it. I swipe my shades from the end table and put them on. Rising to my feet with a heavy groan, my stiff back cracks from neck to tailbone. The walls spin and a fog sits heavy in my head. I grasp for memories from last night, but they’re spotty and unclear.
I know Paige was upset with me—or withdrawn, at the very least—but I can’t for the life of me remember the details of our conversation. This isn’t the first time alcohol has gotten the best of me. I always reasoned that I just liked to have a good time. But nearing thirty and with the good times steadily accumulating, it’s hard not to start wondering if there’s more to it.
Too many mornings like this. Too many drunken mistakes.
I make it to the kitchen, grabbing a water and four aspirin before I realize something’s missing.
Rowdy.
I have a tendency of letting him out when I’m drunk or stoned and forgetting to let him back in. He usually hangs around outside the front door, but he’s known to take off on an adventure for stretches of time too. I’m crossing my fingers for the former, though there’s no sign of him when I open the door.
I see Jack is already outside working in the barn, which means it’s sometime around eight a.m. He’s there even on Sundays, just like clockwork.
Rowdy isn’t anywhere in sight. I slink toward the house, hoping to go unnoticed… conversation with anyone sounds like a bad idea right now. My brain still isn’t functioning properly, and I’m sure I look like a homeless junkie. Fortunately, I make my way inside undetected, and after checking the kitchen, I find myself in front of Paige’s door. All is quiet and still.
I put an ear to the cracked door and listen. Nothing but the light whir of her ceiling fan. I edge the door open further and slip my head in. The shades are still drawn, casting a shadow over everything, but I can see Paige fast asleep and wrapped in a satin sheet. She has an arm around Rowdy, who looks to be equally comatose, his tongue falling limply from the side of his open mouth.
I have every intention of leaving Rowdy right where he is to avoid waking up either of them, but for a moment I admire Paige as she sleeps. Even with her mouth agape and the little spot of drool on her pillow, she’s still the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen. This girl could climb right out of bed and put every other woman to shame, no problem.
Rowdy must get a whiff of me because he pops his head up, spots me, and jumps off the bed with a purpose.
Time for food.
Paige sits up from the mattress, her eyes wide in momentary panic. She spots me and calms, stretching both arms high in the air with a noisy yawn. The sheet falls to her waist, and the way the t-shirt hugs her body allows me to see her nipples under the cotton. A throb jolts from the pit of my stomach down through my cock. Then she opens her eyes, and I quickly avert my gaze, first to the ceiling and then to the wall.
Smooth, man.
“Get a good look?” she asks with a playful smile. She brings both her feet to the floor. Her long, perfect legs are bare besides the thong peeking out from below her hiked up tee. She grabs a pair of shorts from the floor and pulls them on slowly, flashing me a coy smile. “Why are you watching me sleep anyways, creeper?”
She stands and scoots right past me to the kitchen. Rowdy prances right alongside her.
“Hey now, I just came in,” I say as I follow the two of them.
“Uh huh, that’s what they all say.” She pours two cups of coffee and sets them on the table, then takes a seat, patting Rowdy on the head. Knowing her well enough by now, I grab the Bailey’s from the fridge and add some to both of our coffees. Her eyes light up and she nods in appreciation.
“I wasn’t watching you sleep, ya know. I was just looking for Rowdy.”
“Defensive, much? You’re sounding pretty guilty to me,” she says as I return the Bailey’s to the fridge and take a seat across from her.
“I guess you left him outside last night. He was scratching at the back door and woke me up.”
“Okay, one… I watched you sleep for maybe a second. Creeper regulations require at least a minute of sleep-watching to count. And two, yeah, I have a tendency to do that.”
“When you’re drunk, you mean?”
I look down, feeling a bit guilty, but she just laughs. “You had quite a bit last night. I’ve yet to see you that d
runk. I told you to slow it down.”
“It was just too much all at once. I guess you were right.”
“God, that’ll never get old. Can you say it just one more time for me?” She smirks, taking a sip of her coffee.
“That’s the only one you’re getting out of me! Was I an ass, by the way? If so, I’m sorry.”
“You don’t remember our conversation”
“Honestly, I remember parts of it, but it all kind of snuck up on me at the end there. Everything’s a bit hazy. Was I an ass?” I repeat my question, hoping I wasn’t as douchey as my clouded memories suggest.
“Not an ass, per se, but you definitely weren’t a happy drunk like I usually see you. You seemed…” Her words trail off, and she glances to the ceiling in thought. “I don’t know.”
“No, what? I wanna know.”
“No, nothing like that. It just seems like when you drink—I mean, really drink—some deeper shit comes out.”
“Yeah, that’s not the first time I’ve heard that. Trouble usually starts when I’m drinking with a purpose. I don’t know why I get like that.” My mind goes to every drunken fight I’ve ever been in, to my DUI in Florida—and the crying fit that happened in the cell afterward—to the kid I almost killed.
“Well, I think it’s because you’re holding on to a lot. I think there’s maybe stuff you’ve got bottled up.”
And I think you have no clue about the things I’ve seen and done.
“Well, thanks for the morning session, Dr. Phil.”
She rolls her eyes. “Hey, I’m just telling you what happened. Take it however you want to,” she says, sounding annoyed.
“I know, I know. I’m just giving you shit. I’m sure you’re right.”
“I know I’m right.” She smiles, a haughty, proud smile. “What’s on your agenda today?”
“I didn’t tell you?”
She cocks her head and looks at me with confusion. “Not that I know of.”
“Well shit…I mentioned it to Jack. I thought I told you as well. One of my Army buddies just transferred to Fort Leonard Wood from Georgia. I’m going out to see him today. Probably leave here in an hour or two.”
I want to invite her. I would love for her to meet someone reasonably close to me—somebody I’ve truly bonded with—but I’m leaving soon, and that’s just not something I can change. I’ll move on from here, and after a few texts and maybe a phone call here or there, we will forget all about each other. She’ll have met the man of her dreams, and I’ll be back trying to piece together my broken, fucked-up life, a neverending job she doesn’t deserve being subjected to. There’s no reason she needs to get more involved in my life than she already is.
“Cool. Have fun,” she says, in a manner that makes it seem as if she just read my mind. She gets up and puts her cup in the sink. “You might want to feed your pup. He doesn’t look like he’s willing to wait much longer.” She laughs and points at Rowdy seated at the back door, his tail relentlessly wagging and warm eyes glued to us. Every few moments, he looks out the door and then back at us.
I hear Paige trying to make a quick exit and I turn to catch her. “Hey.”
Ask her to go with you. Ask her to go with you.
She stops and turns her head to look at me.
“Hey, what?”
Ask her. Ask her. Ask her.
“I hope you have a good day.”
“You too.”
The trip to Fort Leonard Wood is the exact reason I love driving so much. The spring air is crisp and floral. It floods the open windows and the sun shines brightly through the windshield. It’s the perfect time to think… to go over all the things that have been nagging at me. The more I think, the more I realize I have been letting Paige get too close. I have yet to let a woman do that to me. Until now.
But why her?
I’ve told her things I haven’t shared with even my closest friends—not that I’ve had many to begin with. This whole situation has gotten the better of me. I shouldn’t even be here. I shouldn’t have let myself get close, because as much as I need the money and would love to delay seeing my sister longer, the fact of the matter is Paige does do something to me.
She makes me feel again. She makes me feel safe. She makes me feel… normal. But how normal would she see me if she knew it all—if she knew the worst of it? She’d never be able to look at me the same way again. It’s selfish for me to continue on with this…with her.
The sight of my buddy sitting outside the restaurant interrupts my thoughts. The last time I saw Chase ‘Irish’ McGregor’s big burly ass he was deploying to Afghanistan. Three months later, I got word from some of our buddies he was shot. He’s a sight for sore eyes to say the least.
“Motherfucker!” I shout to him as I hop out of the truck. He stands, reminding me how much bigger he is. I’m no shrimp, but this dude is big. Like NFL defensive lineman big, which makes sense considering he started four years at defensive tackle for West Point. Besides a new gut starting to show, he’s still a guy you don’t want to fuck with. His cabbie hat sits atop his head as usual.
“You look pretty good for a man who got shot.” I say. He laughs, pulling me in for a bro hug and letting me go. I feel like a little kid in his embrace.
“Shit, man, call me Forrest Gump, I guess. I got shot in the ass by a sniper. Came out my right thigh without hitting any bone.” He sits, lifting his empty beer to the passing waitress he motions for another one.
“Well, it’s great to see you, dude.” I take a seat, backing the chair up just a bit to retreat from the cigar smoke billowing from the ashtray. Chase is rarely seen without a cigar stoking nearby.
“Great to see you too, man. Didn’t think it would happen so soon. Shit, we deployed what… six months ago?”
The waitress returns with two Bud Lights and sets them before us. Chase’s eyes follow the waitress’s ass as she makes her way back inside.
“Yeah, six months,” I say, though his attention is anything but mine. “How the fuck you still drinking that beer piss, Irish? You need to get on the craft beer train.”
He reluctantly returns his eyes to me and shakes his head. “Shit, no way I’m paying seven bucks a beer like you do!” He lifts his beer with a smirk.
“It’s been too long, man,” he adds.
“It has been! How is everything? How’s the wife?”
He takes a long pull of his beer and averts his eyes. “Yeah, that shit’s over. Divorce is almost finalized.” He takes another chug and shakes his head. “Fuck her.”
“Shit, I’m sorry to hear that. What happened?”
“Minus all the bullshit you already know about, my dad caught her fucking my brother. Nobody was able to reach her when I got shot. They got ahold of my dad instead and passed on word I’d be heading stateside. He called and called and called… nothing. So he’s got an extra key for the house—for emergencies, ya know?—and he goes over there. Finds them both strung out on meth. Dog shit everywhere. Fucking ball gags and anal beads… the works, man. Pops said it looked like some bizarre fucking porno shoot.”
I’m speechless. I knew the chick was a piece of shit from the day I met her. Some people just stink of worthlessness. She’s one of those people. But this? This is just fucked.
“I’m sorry, dude.” It’s all I can manage.
“Shit, better to find out now, without any kids or anything. My dad was smart enough to take video of the house and both of them passed the fuck out. She has nothing on me which means a clean break. That’s all I want at this point.”
“Fucking crazy.”
“Anyways, enough with my sob story. What the fuck are you doing in Missouri?”
“Shit, I could ask you the same, man. Fort Leonard Wood?? What the hell is an infantryman doing at a MP base.”
“I’m processing out, man. Can’t keep doing this infantry shit anymore. I’m tired of it and I just don’t know how much more I can take.” He looks a little ashamed of his words. Being friends wi
th a big group of infantry fucks for as long as I have, you come to learn quickly the sanctity of the title and what it means to be in that brotherhood. They don’t often extend a positive greeting toward a civilian like me, but as is the case with most of my life, my fists earned the necessary respect.
I can see in his face it wasn’t a decision he came to lightly.
“Fort Leonard Wood is closest to my family in Iowa, so I asked to do all the exit paperwork down here,” he adds.
As he speaks, I can’t help but think about our years spent together in Georgia. He was the first real friend I ever made and it’s not something I take lightly.
“Fuck, man, you know what just popped into my head?” I blurt out, the rush of nostalgia running through me. “The first time we met.”
Chase laughs loudly, holding two hands to his gut.
“Do I ever, man. I thought for a second that one of us wasn’t gonna make it out of that bar alive.”
“You started that shit, acting like you owned the place.”
“What kind of cocky fucking civilian walks his happy ass into a military bar and starts mouthing off?” Irish says, taking a swig of his beer and then shaking his head. “Compared to you, I did own the bar!”
“Shit, you bumped into me, fucker. Funny how quickly shit turned though, huh?”
“Leave it up to some queer-ass sailors to make me forget about you spilling your drink on me.”
“I think my favorite part was running away from the cops after beating the living shit out of those Navy fucks. Seven grown-ass motherfuckers jumping fences and slinking through alleys and shit. We used to be so fucked up.”
“What’s with this ‘used to be’ stuff?” Irish jokes. “That was only like three years ago. I think I may have gotten worse.”
Though I know he’s kidding, a part of me thinks there may be some truth to that.
“I’m right there with ya. Hey, at least we’re in bed at an earlier time these days.”