The Body

by Arabella Abbing

  “That’s none of your business!” she fired back, stepping over to where Kyle had slumped down the wall and was cradling his shoulder. “Are you okay?”

  “Fucking peachy,” he said dryly, shooting me a hard glare. “What’s the matter, boy? Don’t want a new daddy in your life?”

  “I’ll fucking kill you,” I hissed, marching back to where he sat and only stopping when my mom stood between us and pressed her hand against my chest. “Get out of the way, mom.”

  “I will not. You need to calm down, Adam.”

  “Like hell I do! You think I’m just going to ignore you hooking up with this loser?”

  “I ain’t no worse than your real dad,” Kyle chimed in with a self-deprecating chuckle. “Or did you forget your roots on your way up the food chain?”

  Thankfully, mom seemed content to completely ignore Kyle’s commentary. “I know I haven’t been a good parent over the years, but don’t you think I deserve a little happiness?”

  I covered my face with my hands and shook my head, trying to clear the murderous thoughts out of my head and failing miserably. With a note of desperation that I wished I had managed to better suppress, I said, “Mom, we need to talk about this. Alone.”

  It was a damn shock that she seemed able to sense how badly I needed it and judging by the look on Kyle’s face when she turned around and asked him to leave, I wasn’t the only one surprised. But I supposed she was only granting me this because she had no intentions of giving in to my pleas to get rid of him for good.

  In an effort to avoid becoming enraged at the sight of them saying their goodbyes for the night, I marched down the hall and dropped my duffel bag on my bed. I ran a hand through my hair and looked up at the ceiling, wondering when—if ever—my life was finally going to straighten out.

  The thought that it might stay like this—full of enough drama to rival one of mom’s favorite soap operas—was almost more depressing than the remembrance of Kyle suggesting that he’d someday become my stepfather.

  “This is hell,” I said softly to the ceiling. “This house is hell.”

  The words were a reminder of what I’d left behind to come here and the urge to punch the wall was almost overwhelming. Wasn’t risking that Brianna wouldn’t feel the same way about me after I told her the truth still a better option than staying in this house?

  The urge to punch the wall disappeared, replaced by the frightening urge to call Brianna and confess everything. Despite my fears about telling her the truth, it would be better. And on the off-chance it didn’t change the way she felt—

  “Knock, knock.”

  Right. I could only deal with one problem at a time. The mistake I made with Brianna would have to wait until I talked to mom about her... lover.

  God, just thinking that word in relation to Kyle made me want to fucking vomit.

  “I put on a pot of coffee,” she said nervously, giving me an awkward smile that I had come to recognize as one of her few genuine ones. “Come sit with me?”

  To the untrained eye, it was such a reasonable request. But to me, it was just another sign that this wasn’t going to be a discussion where either of us would change our minds. It was more than likely going to turn into another yelling match.

  There was no place like home. That was for damn sure.

  “Fine,” I agreed with a sigh before following her to the kitchen and plopping down at the table. Once the matching mugs of coffee were placed down, she took a seat across from me. Thankfully, she decided to bypass the bullshit.

  Unfortunately, it wasn’t anywhere close to what I wanted to hear.

  “I’m not breaking up with Kyle.”

  “Mom, listen—”

  “No, you listen,” she interrupted, surprising me with the softness of her voice. “I know what you think of him, but he’s not your father. He’s good to me and Kyle is a much better man than David ever was.”

  “That might be true, but he’s still a dealer,” I said angrily as the remaining amount of my patience began to fade. “Can’t you find someone to make you happy who doesn’t enable your habits? You need someone who’s actually good for you, not just good to you.”

  The shift in her tone told me that her patience had worn out as well.

  “And you’re suddenly the expert on healthy relationships because you’ve been with one girl for the better part of a week?” she sarcastically asked, ending with an incredulous scoff. “If I want advice about sports, I’ll give you a call. But I’d like you to stay the hell out of my personal life.”

  “So it’s okay for you to get involved in mine but I can’t even comment on yours?”

  “I’ve never—”

  “You practically shoved me at Brianna!” I reminded her, pushing my chair back from the table and standing up. “You didn’t even give me a chance to think of another option.”

  Mom stayed seated, one eyebrow raised. “And are you complaining? If you didn’t like the girl, you would’ve let her walk off. But you ran after her.”

  “We don’t exactly live in the safest neighborhood,” I said dryly.

  “Exactly. The only reason you didn’t want to stay with her was because it meant she might wind up in danger. That bothers you because you like her.”

  She shook her head as she finished, muttering something under her breath about men that I didn’t ask her to repeat. I didn’t need mom to tell me that I liked Brianna. I already knew that.

  My only issue now was what mom was going to say when I admitted to fucking up my shot with her.

  “She did end up in danger,” I said as I retook my seat and reached for my coffee mug. “I asked her to have dinner with me and when we finished and went outside, dad had dropped by to smash my rental all to hell. She kicked me out.”

  For a brief moment, mom looked positively enraged. Then—as if her sixth sense for bullshit suddenly kicked in—the look disappeared, replaced with suspicion.

  “She kicked you out, huh? Just like that?”

  “Just like that.”

  Her eyes narrowed even further before she began shaking her head. “I don’t buy it.”

  I couldn’t help it—I snorted. “Well, you are the expert here on lying, aren’t you? Guess I didn’t inherit that skill.”

  “Watch your mouth,” she hissed, pointing a finger at me from across the table. “You want real? You want honest? Fine. Kyle can do things to me that David couldn’t even imagine.”

  “Please stop talking!” I shouted, covering my ears with my hands and doing my best to force the words out of my brain before a mental image formed.

  Out of all the things I wanted her to be honest with me about, that was not one of them.

  “You’re the one complaining about being lied to! Well, listen up. I’m ready to share.”

  After she stood, she mockingly opened her arms for a hug while rolling her eyes. When she turned around and reached for the handle of the fridge, I stopped her. It was bad enough that I had to hear this at all. I definitely wasn’t going to let her get drunk on top of it.

  I couldn’t even fathom what would come flying out of her mouth then.

  “I don’t want to hear about you and Kyle. Fuck. I wish I didn’t even know about it.”

  Mom spun around to face me and folded her arms across her chest, staring at me with her best no-nonsense look as she said, “Tell me what happened with the girl and I won’t say anything else about our sex life.”

  Sex life. Two words no son ever wants to relate to his mother. But I imagined that the details I was bound to get would scar me for life unless I owned up to what happened with Brianna.

  “Fine. She told me to either get out or tell her everything.”

  A knowing look appeared in her eyes and she slowly began to nod. “And you opted to leave. Good for you, honey.”

  I opened my mouth to respond but snapped it shut when I felt my lips beginning to form a frown. She used the moment of my obvious confusion to turn and root around in the fridge, pulling out
a gallon of milk before moving back over to the table and pouring some into both of our mugs.

  I felt a twinge of guilt for automatically assuming that she had been going to get a beer earlier, but I decided not to fault myself for it. Because under normal circumstances, she would have done just that. Instead of letting the guilty feeling overwhelm me, I shifted my focus back to what she said.

  “How is that good for me?”

  Mom scoffed as she stirred her coffee. “That little bitch gave you an ultimatum! And for what? Because you wouldn’t be honest with her about the danger you put her in? Because you obviously didn’t trust her enough to let her know about your past? Because building a relationship on secrets is impossible? Psssh. I would’ve left, too.”

  I hated this. I hated that every word she said made me feel worse and worse about not taking the chance and telling Bri. I hated that I left and came home to find Kyle here. I hated that my mom was using sarcasm to mockingly tell me what an idiot I was.

  But mostly, I hated that I was too ashamed of my past to want to speak about it. Somewhere deep down, I knew Brianna wouldn’t walk away because of it.

  The only problem here... was me.

  “I get it. I fucked up.”

  “So what are you going to do about it?”

  “I don’t know,” I admitted with a heavy sigh. “I guess I’ll call her tomorrow and apologize. It’s a start at least.”

  Mom nodded and loudly slurped at the edge of her coffee cup, trying to hide her sly smile behind it and failing.

  “That sounds like a good idea. And hey! Since Kyle’s stash is gone, you’re more than welcome to stay here again. We can stay up all night trying this new ‘honesty’ thing. How’s that sound?”

  “On second thought, I think it’d be better to apologize in person,” I said as I hastily pushed myself away from the table. “Right now.”

  Mom didn’t move from her spot, but she did bring the cup back up to hide her victorious grin.

  When Dale’s window didn’t immediately roll down when I approached the car, I gently tapped three times on the heavily tinted glass. It cracked open after a brief moment and I heard Dale’s groan of frustration right before the sound of the doors unlocking reached my ears.

  “Were you fucking sleeping?” I asked incredulously after sliding into the passenger seat. “Way to do your job.”

  Dale blearily rubbed his eyes and glanced at the clock, letting out a pained sigh before he said, “I dozed off about ten minutes ago. What’s going on now? You and Linda already get into it?”

  I glanced between my uncle and the clock a few times with a frown, unable to force out my request for him take me back to Brianna’s apartment. As much as it pained me to admit, I was fairly certain that she was really pissed at me anyways.

  I knew I would have been if I were in her shoes.

  So I decided instead to give her some time to cool down for both of our benefits and give Dale something he obviously needed.

  “Mom and I are fine—well, as fine as we ever are.”

  “But?”

  “But I can’t stay here.”

  He let out a groan and started to speak, but I cut him off.

  “You got a pretty good security system at your place, right?”

  With a look of sheer shock, he raised an eyebrow at me before he nodded. “Yeah. Top of the line.”

  “Got a couch I can crash on tonight?”

  Dale didn’t bother giving me a verbal reply. He simply turned over the ignition and refastened his seatbelt. I followed suit and leaned back against the seat, already making a mental plan of how I was going to apologize to Brianna.

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Brianna

  “Large coffee—two creams, no sugar for... Bradley? Brandon?”

  “It’s Bradlen,” the young man said with a sneer as he reached across the counter for his cup.

  The guy disappeared without so much as a ‘thanks’ and for what felt like the thousandth time that day, I regretted calling my boss and mentioning that I was free to pick up my shifts at the coffee shop again.

  “I hate this job so much,” I muttered to myself, rubbing my temples with my fingers and willing away the headache that was progressively getting worse. I turned to my coworker and asked, “Tina? You mind if I take five?”

  “Go ahead, just hurry back. Rush is going to start soon,” she said, sliding up to the register and taking the next few customers for me.

  “Don’t remind me,” I said, more to myself than to her, as I reached for my purse below the counter and grabbed the bottle of ibuprofen. After popping a few into my mouth and washing them down with a glass of water, I rushed into the back and stepped out into the fresh air.

  Summer in Arizona meant it was hot as all hell, but there was a light breeze that made the heat much more bearable. I took a few deep breaths and tried to mentally imagine that I was somewhere else, but ultimately ended up wishing that I could just find a way to stop living in the fantasy land that I’d been in since I saw Adam at the reunion.

  Because that’s all it was. A fantasy world where I actually mattered to a man who had long since proven that he was way out of my league.

  As I reminded myself yet again to keep a positive perspective on our time together, I smiled at the thought that at least it had been an incredibly pleasurable fantasy. One I would mentally replay over and over for years to come.

  Instead of allowing myself to be depressed by that thought, I took another sip of my water and headed back inside. As soon as the headache went away, I had a feeling that distracting myself with work would be the best thing I could do for my state of mind.

  Also for my wallet, which was starting to feel considerably lighter after skipping my shifts over the past few days.

  Much as I hated it, I supposed I was at least partially grateful that I still had a job at all.

  Of course, that feeling of gratitude only lasted through three customers after I took register duty back from Tina, which was when some punk kid snidely called me an idiot for asking how to spell the ridiculous name he gave me.

  Half an hour after that, a woman screamed as she accused me of giving her incorrect change even though I knew I hadn’t. When the woman finally realized that the price of her drink had raised since her last visit to the coffee shop, she left without apology.

  The lunch rush eventually slowed down, but I was still at the end of my rope. Tina had just sent me to the back to stock—relieving me of counter duties while I got my anger in check—when her head poked back into the room.

  “I need you up front.”

  “But you said—”

  “I know what I said,” Tina said with an annoyed eye roll. “Just get out here.”

  I grumbled under my breath about who really had the right to feel annoyed here as I followed her back to the front, freezing in the doorway when my eyes immediately landed on Adam.

  Adam—who was standing at the counter of the coffee shop that I had tried so hard to avoid telling him about.

  Fuck.

  “How did you find me?” I asked in a daze.

  “Stacy told me you were here,” he offered, his eyes flickering between Tina and I a few times before he asked, “Can you take a break?”

  Tina jumped in before I had a chance to answer.

  “She had hers already. If anyone’s taking a break—it’s me. I’ll be back in ten.”

  She pulled the apron off and dropped it on the counter while I gaped at her retreating form, wondering what I had done to piss her off. She practically abandoned me. With wide eyes, I looked helplessly back at Adam, who didn’t seem to recognize the sight of my inner turmoil.

  “So… you work here?”

  I didn’t get the impression that ignoring him was going to make him go away, so I answered, “Unfortunately.”

  “Why didn’t you tell me?”

  With a half-shrug, I turned my back to him and reached for a fresh rag to wipe down the counters with.

>   “I was embarrassed,” I muttered just loud enough that I knew he’d hear it.

  Adam was silent while I wiped the back countertops and I couldn’t find the courage to chance a look back at his face. But soon enough, I ran out of areas to wipe down that kept him out of my field of vision and I was forced to face my fear.

  When our eyes met, he gave me a smile that was filled with sadness.

  “Guess we have even more in common that I thought.”

  “How do you figure?”

  Adam’s head tilted to the side as he studied my face. I looked around nervously, wondering if I had said something wrong when he finally answered.

  “You were embarrassed about your work—I’m embarrassed about my past.”

  “My work isn’t going to smash up a rental car.”

  The sad smile on his face twisted into a smirk. “True. And I guess we’re pretty imbalanced now considering your big secret is out.”

  “Care to even the score?”

  “I’d like to,” Adam readily agreed, before looking down at the counter and absentmindedly scratching at the veneer. “If you’re still interested, that is.”

  When I asked if he wanted to even the score, I had been joking. I thought that levity would help ease my increasingly rapid heart rate and get rid of some of the tension between us. I never expected him to actually agree to it.

  The conversation I had with Stacy came back to my mind and it finally clicked in my head that this was it. Adam Reed came to my work to apologize and the only logical reason why was that he really did feel something for me, just as I did for him.

  My growing excitement died when I stole a glance at the wall clock. Adam noticed the change in my demeanor and frowned.

  “As much as I’d like to take you up on that, I’ve got five hours left of the shift from hell.”

  “You really hate this job, don’t you?”

  “Yeah,” I admitted with a shrug and a sigh. “It’s the biggest reason why I’m so embarrassed about having it.”

  Adam’s eyebrows narrowed further and he looked past me at the door Tina had walked through to take her break. He began to shake his head and reached his hand out over the counter, jerking his head towards the door.