The Favor

by Blaire Edens

He’d been telling himself since the beginning, that even after Anna left, he could still have a relationship with Louie. But he’d known in his heart it wouldn’t be the same. The heat between him and Anna would make it difficult for them to see each other, and after the broken nose and the threatening letter, he was pretty sure George wouldn’t be thrilled for him to spend time with Louie when he and Anna divorced.

  The dog.

  The beagle was growing into a fine companion who followed the boy everywhere. His leash training was going well and he was on the way to becoming house-trained. It would break Louie’s heart to leave the dog.

  He’d call Anna’s landlord. Pay him a hefty deposit to allow the dog. No little boy should be without a canine companionship.

  No. She wanted to do things on her own, and he had to give her that opportunity. Just like with Jake and the estimator job. Clark had to start respecting what other people wanted in their own lives.

  The marriage had gone mostly as planned. Even if it had ended a little sooner than expected, the end result was that Anna had Louie. For keeps. The fixer in Clark felt like he’d accomplished the goal. The man in Clark felt like his world was crumbling.

  Louie was in the yard with Chewy when Clark went downstairs.

  “Can we teach him to sit, Clark? I think he’s ready.”

  “Sure. We can give it a shot.”

  How am I going to explain this to Louie? Is there a good way, a better way, to break a kid’s heart?

  Clark shook his head and exhaled. The sooner the better.

  “Let’s sit him up on the picnic table so he’ll pay more attention.”

  Chewy liked the picnic table. He paced from side to side, sniffing and inspecting it nail by nail. “Grab his collar and push his butt down. Gently. Very gently. You just want to show him what you expect. Once he sits, give him one of these.” Clark took some puppy treats from his pocket. “Watch.” He demonstrated several times. “Now you try it.”

  Louie did it just right. By the sixth or seventh time, Chewy was getting the command every time.

  “Let him play for a while. You and I need to talk.”

  Louie’s eyes went wide. “Did I mess up?”

  Clark ruffled his hair. “No. You’re doing an excellent job with him. I just need to tell you a few things.”

  They walked through the grass hand in hand. “When you and your mom moved into the cabin with me, we told you that it was only for a few months, remember?”

  Louie nodded.

  Clark decided on the most direct approach. “You and your mom will be going back to your old house soon.”

  Louie stopped and looked up at Clark. “But what about you? What about Chewy? We’re a family now.”

  “We’ll always be a family, buddy. It’s just time for you and your mom to move back to Florida Street. Chewy can stay with me, and you can visit him anytime it’s okay with your mom.”

  Tears welled up in the little boy’s eyes. “But I like it here.”

  “I know you do, and I’ve loved having you here.”

  “Can I come spend the night?”

  “Anytime it’s okay with your mom.”

  Louie sniffled. “I’ll miss you and Chewy. A lot.”

  “We’ll miss you, too.”

  Louie reached his arms up to Clark, something he usually only did at bedtime when he wanted to snuggle with his mom. Clark picked him up and held him close. He inhaled the scent of little boy’s sweat.

  God, I’ll miss this kid.

  …

  The next morning, Louie didn’t say a word on the way back to the rental house.

  It didn’t take a genius to figure out he was angry.

  Someday, when he was old enough to understand, Anna would explain it all to him. His dad’s bid for custody, the fake marriage. She’d never hurt him this badly. He’d never been so mad at her.

  She’d kept him with her but at a very high price.

  The grass in her front yard was nearly knee high. She was a little surprised that Clark hadn’t hired a lawn service. He rarely missed a detail, but she was glad he’d missed that one. It made it feel like her house was still hers alone. When she finished unloading the boxes and Louie’s bike, she’d have to fire up the old push mower. Back to the grind. Even though she hadn’t booked any new cleaning clients yet, she had some leads. While she had a little savings in the bank, she knew it would only take one minor disaster to wipe her out again.

  Back to the same worries.

  “Help me carry some things inside, honey,” she said when she pulled into the driveway and put the car in park. “Then you can play with your friends. Maybe visit Mrs. Rosemiller. I’m sure she’s missed you.”

  A grunt came from the backseat.

  “I know you’re upset, bud, but it was always meant to be a short-term adventure. It wasn’t supposed to be forever.”

  “But I liked it there. Plans can change. You always say so yourself.”

  He had her there. She did say that. A lot.

  Anna sighed. Hang in there. He’ll forget in a day or two and everything will go back to normal.

  She hoped her heart would be back to normal in a day or two, too.

  The house looked dingy and felt stuffy. She opened all the windows and turned on the ceiling fans. She took a candle from a box and placed it on the stove. The last time it was burning, she’d been with Clark. In his bed. She shivered at the thought.

  Who says sex is dead after marriage?

  By sundown, she’d unpacked, mowed the grass, and warmed a frozen pizza. Louie was still giving her the silent treatment. He wouldn’t even watch Redhawk versus the Blot. Anna collapsed on the sofa and picked up a paperback.

  The words swam in front of her eyes. She couldn’t keep her mind in the story. It kept wandering back to Clark.

  She had to get over him. They had a deal. They’d stuck to the deal. The term of the contract had expired. End of story.

  Anna looked at the pearl ring on her finger. It was so beautiful. She’d have to give it back, even though Clark had told her when he’d proposed it was hers to keep. It wouldn’t be right to keep it. He might want to give it to his real wife someday.

  Tomorrow. She’d take it off tomorrow and have Taylor return it to him.

  Then it would be finished.

  Chapter Nineteen

  Clark’s cell phone rang at five minutes after three. After dropping the phone on the floor, he scrambled to answer it before it went to voicemail. He’d fallen asleep on the sofa, unwilling to face his empty bed. Two weeks on the lumpy couch had been hell on his back.

  “Hello?”

  “You need to get to the hospital,” Taylor said. “It’s Jake.”

  “Twenty minutes.” He clicked end. He slid his legs into a pair of jeans he grabbed off the top of the hamper and grabbed a clean T-shirt. Two minutes later, he was in the truck speeding toward Asheville. He pressed the gas pedal to the floor and watched the speedometer tick upward.

  He covered nearly twenty-four miles in thirty minutes. He pulled into a space and jogged inside. The automatic doors slid open with a hiss and he hurried toward the information desk. “Jake Davis,” he said.

  The woman behind the desk tapped several keys. “He’s not in a room yet. Still in the ER. Have a seat, and I’ll let you know when they move him to a room.”

  “Is he going to be okay?”

  “Sir, I’m not at liberty to discuss any of Mr. Davis’s medical issues with you. Just have a seat, and I’ll keep you posted.”

  There was no way he could sit. “Thanks,” he muttered and strode toward the ER.

  It was chaos in the ER. The waiting room was packed and several people stood at the registration desk. Clark pushed his way to the front. “Jake Davis,” he said. “I need to see him.”

  “You’ll have to wait, sir. Just like everyone else.” The tired-looking woman behind the counter pointed to the growing line.

  “But I need to see—”

  “Get in line,” sh
e said before he could finish.

  Clark got in line and dialed Taylor. When she was on duty, she rarely answered her personal cell. He crossed his fingers and hoped to hear his sister’s voice.

  Voicemail.

  The line was moving slower than molasses. By the time he got to the front, it would be dawn. On a whim, he tried Jake’s cell.

  “Yeah?” Jake answered.

  Clark breathed a sigh of relief. “Are you okay?”

  “Not sure,” he said.

  “I’m in the ER now. I’ll come back as soon as they’ll let me.”

  “Okay.”

  “What happened?”

  “It’s a long story.” Jake’s voice held none of the humor, none of the mischief it normally held.

  “Have a nurse come and get me.”

  “Okay.” Jake hung up the phone.

  A few minutes later, just as Clark ran out of Candy Crush lives on his smartphone, a nurse came into the waiting room and escorted him back to Jake’s room.

  He hated seeing his friend like this. Once muscular and vigorous, Jake was wan and pale. He looked like he hadn’t been out in the sun in months. Dark circles ringed his eyes and he’d aged ten years in just a few months.

  And it was all Clark’s fault.

  “Hey, Goose,” Clark said, placing his hand on the rail of the bed and looking down at Jake. “What happened?”

  “My leg was hurting. It was swollen and red. Mom insisted I come to the ER.”

  “What’s the diagnosis?”

  “Blood clot.”

  When Jake had checked out the facility that helped him get used to wheelchair living, they’d warned his friends and family that immobility could lead to blood clots. People in wheelchairs were at a much higher risk than people who moved their legs regularly.

  “What are they doing?”

  Jake raised his hand and pointed to the IV pump beside the bed. “Blood thinners. Hoping it doesn’t move to my lungs.”

  “What happens if it does?”

  “Major problems.”

  Clark sat in the chair beside the bed. “Need anything?”

  “Nope.” Jake picked up the remote and clicked on the television.

  Clark googled blood clots then pulmonary embolism. It all sounded pretty damn scary. No wonder Jake didn’t want to talk about it.

  After two episodes of Ink Master on Spike, Jake pressed the button to raise his bed. “What’s going on with you?”

  “Same shit, different day.” It had been their customary response for as long as Clark could remember.

  “That’s not what Taylor says,” Jake said.

  “What does Taylor say?” He should’ve known his sister would tell Jake everything. She’d had a crush on him since forever, and Jake seemed to be the only person in town who hadn’t noticed.

  “That your marriage to Anna wasn’t exactly platonic.”

  Clark breathed out a lungful of air and slid back in his chair. “It was pretty hot for a while.”

  “What happened?”

  “She’s stubborn and pigheaded and wouldn’t listen to reason.”

  Jake smiled for the first time since Clark had come into the room. “And you’re nosy and push your way into everyone’s business.”

  “Am not,” Clark said. “I just try to be helpful.”

  Jake rolled his eyes. “Helpful is changing a stranded motorist’s tire. Marrying a woman you barely know to save her kid from her ex-husband is pushing it.”

  “It was my fault she nearly lost custody.”

  “Everything in the world is your fault, Clark. You’d have taken responsibility for Hurricane Katrina if FEMA had given you half a chance.”

  “But everything is my fault, Jake. Anna nearly losing custody, you being in a wheelchair.”

  “Stop right there.” Jake’s voice was firm. “My missing leg is not your fault. I’ve told you that since the beginning.”

  “But if I hadn’t tried to get the phone from you—”

  “Stop it! For God’s sake, Clark. Stop it. I made the decision that night. I wouldn’t shut up until you agreed to drive me. I’m an adult. I made the damn decision. My leg is not your fucking fault.” Jake’s face was red and his temper, which had been dormant since the accident, flared back to life. “Stop trying to take responsibility for everyone else’s decisions.”

  Clark felt his face flush. “How am I the bad guy when I am simply trying to make right what I’ve done wrong?”

  Jake shook his head. “You just don’t get it, do you? You’re missing your life because you’re too focused on misplaced guilt.”

  “It’s not misplaced when I caused the original problem.”

  “Fuck. Look, I get it. Your parents were totally absent and you had to make sure everything was just right so that Taylor would never know they were so self-absorbed. But it’s time to stop making up for things that happened years ago.

  “Did you force me to get in the car with you? Did you create the weather that caused the icy roads? Did you fucking wrestle me for the phone just so you could steer the car off the side of the mountain just for the hell of it?”

  “I should’ve been more responsible.”

  “No. You should be more realistic. You’re not God, you’re not Jesus. Hell, you’re not even psychic. How the fuck could you possibly have known we were going to crash?”

  “I didn’t, but—”

  “As for George and Anna, he’s been threatening to sue her for custody of Louie since they initially separated. It’s his way of controlling her. The Redhawk incident was just an easy way try to do it. If you hadn’t clocked him, which by all accounts, he had coming, he would’ve found something else.”

  “It’s ironic, isn’t it? I don’t really make things right. Nine times out of ten, I make them worse.”

  Jake looked his best friend in the eye. “Everything will never be right. Things fall apart, shit happens. We end up in places and situations we never expected to end up, but it’s okay. It’s the way it’s supposed to be. And for the record, some things are better when they’re a little messed up.”

  “Like what?”

  “Like a woman’s hair after she’d been thoroughly and righteously fucked.”

  Clark smiled, remembering Anna’s curls all tangled and damp. “Point taken.”

  “I won’t ever get my leg back. But you know what? I’ve learned a lot from everything I’ve had to go through, and while I may be a little depressed and a little pissed off, I’m working through it. I’m pretty sure I’m going to be a better man after all this shit. Stop trying to micromanage and manipulate everything.” Jake glared at him. “You’re getting on everyone’s nerves.”

  “Everyone?”

  “Everyone,” Jake repeated.

  “Are you calling me some kind of control freak?”

  “Yep. Card-carrying member of the control-freak club.”

  Clark had never seen himself that way. In his mind, he was being honorable, upstanding, and responsible. But Jake had a point. He’d spent the first thirty years of his life trying to keep everything neat and orderly. It wasn’t just about helping. It was about keeping everything under control. Organized. In the box.

  And it hadn’t worked.

  If he’d let Jake scream at the band, he might not have wrecked the car. If he’d just taken Taylor’s advice and dated Anna, he might have been able to convince her to stay in his life forever.

  “What do you suggest, Dr. Jake?”

  Jake ran his fingers through his shaggy hair. “Find a way to keep Anna and Louie in your life. Permanently.”

  “She doesn’t want anything permanent.”

  “Is that what she told you?”

  “About a thousand times.”

  “Ever heard the line ‘Thou doth protest too much?’”

  “Hamlet,” Clark said.

  Jake nodded. “From everything Taylor’s told me, you two are meant for each other. You need to get your head out of your ass, roll up your sleeves, and get
as dirty as you need to in order to get Anna back for real.”

  “I like the sound of that.” Clark grinned. “Especially the dirty part.”

  “Keep the details to yourself.”

  …

  October was the longest month of Anna’s life, and she wasn’t even halfway through it. Instead of enjoying time with Louie, she barked at him over minor things. She wasn’t sleeping well. Her queen-size bed felt huge and empty. She’d cleaned the house from top to bottom five or six times in just a couple of weeks, trying to burn off extra energy, trying to ease the twitchy, restless feeling. Trying to forget Clark.

  The house on Florida Street wasn’t the same. She missed the cabin. The large, private back porch, the hot tub. Even the pantry. Her face flushed with the memory.

  Anna missed Clark.

  She also missed sex.

  How in the world did I go without for so damn long?

  Every day since they’d moved home, Louie had begged to visit Clark and Chewy. He wanted to play outside with the dog, and the cabin had a much better yard. Louie missed his bunk bed. The baseball practice on the lawn. Clark. Chewy. Clark. Chewy.

  She never wanted to hear another C word. Ever.

  It was becoming more and more difficult to put Louie off. She’d made every excuse she could think of, and he was becoming increasingly insistent.

  “But, Mom, you promised we could go visit,” Louie whined. He’d spent the day at Mrs. Rosemiller’s while Anna cleaned two houses. “I miss them.” He pooched his lip out and widened his big blue eyes.

  “We’ll visit them soon, honey. I’ll set something up.”

  By “set something up,” she meant she’d call Taylor and beg her to take Louie out to Clark’s. She didn’t trust herself to even call him, much less visit. It was still too fresh. She needed at least another week. Maybe by then she could handle the sight of him, the smell of him. She’d work up to it.

  She folded the last pair of Louie’s shorts and stacked them on the pile of laundry. Three houses tomorrow and then a couple of days off. She wished she had the money to take Louie to Carowinds, a theme park in Charlotte, but the checking account was already stretched tightly.

  Anna sighed. The months at the cabin had been such a wonderful vacation. It had renewed her in body, mind, and spirit. But now she was back in a crummy rental house, broke, exhausted, and sexually frustrated.