The Pick Up

by Allison Tempe

  Adam suppressed a grimace at that. Sometimes he felt like an unwilling participant in Rebecca’s mandatory exercises in family togetherness, but she had been a critical part to his success in settling in Red Creek, particularly in those first few lonely months as he adjusted to a new town, new job, new everything. He hadn’t realized at the time that letting her be so involved in his life then would mean a lifetime of nosy text messages and advice, but it was too late to do anything now but grin and bear it.

  “Are you still close with them? Olivia’s family?” Adam asked. Kyle squinted his eyes a little. Adam could see his lips moving, though he didn’t say anything, like he was choosing his words carefully.

  “They still talk to Caroline every week,” Kyle said, which wasn’t really an answer. “And I promised to take her to see them this summer. But they’re still out west and . . .” his smile quirked to one side, “well, if they didn’t always understand Olivia’s decisions, they definitely didn’t understand how I fit into everything.”

  Adam considered that. He hadn’t thought about whether Caroline might have other extended family. He imagined these unknown grandparents trying to make sense of Kyle and his rapid-fire monologues when he was nervous.

  “Their loss, then,” he said.

  Kyle nodded and his face turned playful again. “I’ll say. I mean, it’s not every day you can say you knew the president of the Hot Mess Club before he was famous.”

  They arrived at the van as the sun cast long shadows across the parking lot. Adam was disappointed as he realized their date was coming to an end. They’d shared an important moment on their walk back, and despite his anxiety over talking about Olivia, Kyle had made the moment feel safe. Nervous hope fluttered in Adam’s chest, nearly impossible to contain. He’d been attracted to Kyle from the moment they’d met, but now what was growing between them went beyond attraction. They were finding common ground.

  As they approached the van, Kyle’s phone chirped. Notifications beeped repeatedly.

  “Everything okay?” Adam asked.

  “Yeah, fine. There must not have been much signal out on the trail.” His face was strained.

  “You’re sure?”

  Kyle’s expression turned devilish in a way that made Adam heat as Kyle closed the space between them, crowding up against Adam. Kyle’s breath washed against his neck.

  “You know”—Kyle’s hands slid up the inside of Adam’s shirt—“all evidence to the contrary, I do have my shit together. You don’t need to take care of me.”

  Adam tipped his head back. He arched against the van, as Kyle’s palms roamed over his body. Kyle continued to kiss under his jaw, and Adam groaned. He was warm from the walk and the heat of Kyle’s body against his made him light-headed, but that might also have been because he panted as Kyle’s mouth slid up over his chin. It was a relief when Adam could finally kiss him properly.

  His hands grasped at Kyle’s hair as he held him in place. He tried to say anything and everything he was feeling without the words that he knew wouldn’t convey half of it. He didn’t know how to tell Kyle he didn’t care if Kyle didn’t have his shit together, as long as they were honest with each other. And he wasn’t going to say that he hoped they’d take care of each other.

  He groaned again as Kyle ground up against him. Adam was half-hard already in his shorts. He’d never been a big fan of PDAs, but as his tongue pressed into Kyle’s mouth, he was sure that he would do anything Kyle asked him to do, right there in the parking lot against the world’s oldest minivan. Eventually, they pulled back, gasping. Kyle’s sunglasses were askew and his lips were puffy, and Adam desperately wanted to continue. Kyle must have seen the need on his face, because he smiled, pressing one kiss to Adam’s collarbone.

  “Come on, Mr. Hathaway,” he said. “Let’s get you home before an unsuspecting forest ranger finds us and has to hose us down.”

  “That’s it for stories, Bean. Time for bed.” Kyle tried to use his best fair but firm parent voice. Olivia had always been better at the bedtime routine, but he and Caroline were working out a reasonable balance.

  His phone rang somewhere down the hall. He half rose to run and answer it, but Caroline made an ominous sound of protest, and anyway, it was after eight, so he was off the clock to clients.

  “I’m thirsty.” Caroline coughed and batted her eyelashes dramatically. Kyle screwed up his mouth and arched an eyebrow in a way that made him look like a comic book villain.

  “Thirsty?”

  “And I have to pee.” She shimmied under her covers. Down the hall, the phone rang again.

  “Go to the bathroom. But no water!” he said as Caroline flung the covers back and scrambled out of bed. “You’ll only need to pee again later.”

  “Okay!” She ran down the hall and slammed the bathroom door behind her. Kyle went to his bedroom, where the phone vibrated on the dresser. The screen showed it was Shannon.

  “This is Kyle,” he said.

  “Hello?” Shannon’s voice was broken and distorted.

  “Hello?” Kyle said.

  “Hello?” The connection crackled.

  “Shannon, are you in the car?”

  “Kyle, I’m in the car. Can you hear me?” The line was filled with static, then, “Hello?”

  “Shannon,” Kyle said. The door slammed down the hall, followed by the sound of running footsteps toward Caroline’s bedroom. “Shannon, I’m putting my daughter to bed. Can I call you in five minutes?” The line crackled, then there was a beep followed by silence.

  By some little girl miracle, Caroline was in bed when Kyle checked on her, already wrapped up in her blankets, and a glance over his shoulder told Kyle that none of her toys had disappeared from the shelf where he put them each night. She had a tendency to smuggle them into bed with her when she thought he wasn’t paying attention, and then he’d hear her giggling a half hour later as she staged elaborate situations where one princess was kidnapped by an ogre or a dragon and the other princess had to mount a rescue attempt.

  He went back to the kitchen, where his laptop was set up. In his pocket, the phone rang again.

  “Hi, Shannon,” he said.

  “Kyle?” The connection was better, but she sounded uncertain.

  He frowned. Who else would it be? “Sure is! What’s up?”

  There was a pause on the other end. “Sorry about before. I was in the car.”

  “Yes, I heard that. But I don’t think you could hear me.” He pulled out a glass from the cupboard and filled it with water.

  “No,” she said. “Well, a bit, but I didn’t want to—”

  “Did you get the updated itinerary for the Maine trip?” he asked. “Sorry it was a bit late, but I think you’re going to like it.”

  He hadn’t been a bit late. He’d been few days late in fact, which was a lifetime when Shannon’s plans changed hourly sometimes. The original deadline had been Saturday evening, but between his second date with Adam, a playdate for Caroline with Ben’s girls on Sunday, and his job interview at the conference center on Monday, he had wound up emailing Shannon’s itinerary very early on Tuesday morning.

  “It’s fine, Kyle,” Shannon said. “In fact, I don’t think the trip’s going to happen.”

  Kyle clenched his teeth and took a sip of water, which was harder to do at the same time than he had expected, so that he could rein in the disappointment at the idea of planning yet another trip.

  “That’s okay,” he said, pleased at how polite he sounded. “We’ll keep it on file in case you change your mind. Did you have somewhere else you wanted me to check out?” He hoped she’d decided to go back to Vegas, so he could resurrect the trip he’d already planned. With Rebecca’s event and the town hall meeting coming, he had a lot on the go, and he had a feeling the conference center interview had gone well. With any luck, there would be regularly remunerated employment in his very near future. If the job came through, he wouldn’t have time to plan a new trip for Shannon.

  “No
,” Shannon said, and there was still a weird edge in her voice. She usually talked in longer sentences. Kyle rarely had to fill space when Shannon called him. “No, it’s . . .” There was a sigh on the line, then “Ted lost his job.”

  Kyle’s mouth dropped open. Ted was Shannon’s husband. It had never been clear to Kyle what he did exactly, other than he worked for an investment company. Shannon had described it once, but Kyle had got the impression she didn’t understand what it was her husband did either, other than it had to do with trading and financial models and more money in a day than Kyle would see in his lifetime.

  “I’m so sorry,” he said.

  “It’s fine,” she said, but it clearly wasn’t. “But Ted says we’re going to have to scale back a bit. You know, money-wise, until he can get a new job. He’s got good skills, knows a lot of people, it shouldn’t take long.”

  “Right. So no girls’ weekends while the money train is parked in the station.”

  “Right,” Shannon said. “And Kyle, there’s another thing. To cut back expenses.”

  “Sure.” He opened up his laptop and started a new file so he could make some notes. “Just let me know what else you need.” He ran through a mental list of the regular tasks he did for Shannon. There would still be bills to pay, and he’d already registered Shannon’s daughter for summer camp, and that was paid for too. He’d have to look at the cancellation policy, if they decided to pull Madison out. There were a number of charitable donations he usually made for Shannon in the fall. There would probably be fewer of those, but that was still months away. If Ted was working by then, would it be business as usual for Shannon again? Would they make smaller donations, or donate to fewer organizations? He’d have to find his list of charities and send it to her to review.

  “Kyle, did you hear what I said?” Shannon asked. She must have spoken while he was taking stock.

  “I’m sorry, what?” He heard her sigh, then there was another long pause, then a deep breath. A strange feeling worked its way out from his chest. The feeling said he should be sitting down. His free hand reached out, groping until it found the back of a kitchen chair. Trembling, he pulled it toward him, and collapsed into it.

  “Kyle, I’m so sorry. I hope you understand—”

  “No.” He cleared his throat. “No, I didn’t hear what you said.”

  “I’m so sorry,” Shannon said again, and this time there was a distinct wobble in her voice, almost like she might be crying. “I can’t keep you. I can’t . . . I have to let you go.”

  In the silence of the kitchen, the fridge whirred to life.

  “Oh.” It was all he could think to say.

  “It’s not personal,” she said, “but what you do for me . . . It’s a luxury, you know? To have someone like you.”

  Kyle bit his lip. A luxury. Like a fancy car, or an expensive dinner. And equally disposable when the chips were down. “I know,” he said, and he did . . . sort of. But what he really understood was that she probably couldn’t begin to imagine that what she paid him barely kept him afloat in Seattle, and paid the grocery, electricity, and cable bills here, while he tried to put enough together to get a place for him and Caroline that wasn’t his dad’s house. His mind churned like a sewing machine, doing the math, calculating the income he’d be losing.

  “You have other clients though, right?” she said.

  He did, but they were mostly one-offs, or they’d come to him for specific projects, like book launches and special events. Shannon was his only long-term retainer client.

  “Right.”

  “I’ll . . . I’ll call you tomorrow. When it’s not so late. I know your contract has conditions if I terminate early.”

  He’d forgotten there was a contract. They’d drawn one up when he’d stopped working for her full-time, but he didn’t remember what it said. They renewed it every year, though. He must have read it at some point.

  “Of course. I uh . . .” His voice cracked. “I have a bunch of information I should send you. Records and . . . passwords . . . for different . . . things.” He wondered if she understood how much information he managed. How many accounts there were online, and how many documents he had on file.

  “That’s fine,” she said. “I’m really sorry, Kyle.”

  “It’s okay.” It so wasn’t okay, but what was he supposed to tell her? “Call me in the morning, and we’ll go over everything.” Everything. Five years of everything.

  He hung up and stared at nothing. The fridge clicked off again, and the ensuing silence tried to swallow him.

  He should be making a plan, but his brain was sluggish and felt stretched. His chest tightened, and there was a panic attack forming: he could feel it, even as his stupid brain wouldn’t let him do the things he needed to do. He wanted to talk to his dad, but his dad wasn’t home. He wanted to talk to Olivia, but she would never be home. It was only him, still alone. Only him and—

  With shaking hands, he picked up the phone and dialed Adam’s number. It rang three times.

  “Hey there,” Adam said, and Kyle immediately regretted calling him. He slid his thumb towards the End Call button. “Kyle?” Kyle couldn’t say anything. He didn’t want to saddle Adam with this, not until Kyle worked out what it meant, what his next step would be. He should have called his dad, or Ben, or . . . “Hello? I think you pocket dialed me.” Adam laughed, and the sound made Kyle’s throat close over like he was going to strangle himself from the inside. “Kyle, can you hear me? Hello?” His voice grew louder, like they were playing telephone hide-and-seek. “Kyle? It’s me, speaking from your pocket. Hello?”

  Kyle leaned forward until he rested the side of his face on the cool surface of the kitchen table, the phone still held to the opposite ear. He felt like he weighed a thousand pounds, like if he stayed in this position, his weight would eventually pull him through the table and down onto the floor. He couldn’t drag Adam down with him.

  Adam chuckled again. The sound was fond, and Kyle could almost see the way Adam smiled as he laughed. Kyle closed his eyes, burying himself in the silent dark of the kitchen.

  “Okay,” Adam said, “I’m going to go. It was nice talking.”

  Kyle’s heart fluttered at the thought of being left alone in his dark house. “I’m here.”

  “Oh,” Adam said. “I think you pocket dialed me.”

  “No,” Kyle’s tongue still felt thick, but the tightness in his chest was easing. He focused on breathing, and kept his eyes closed. “I finger dialed you.”

  “Oh,” Adam laughed again, but the pause at the end of it this time said that Adam thought this had gone from funny haha to funny hmm. “Did you, uh, did you hear what I uh—”

  “Yeah.”

  “Oh. Okay.” There was another silence, follow by a rustling noise, like a plastic bag, and then a distorted crunching while Adam chewed. Kyle sat with his head on the table and listened.

  “So,” Adam said, “did you call to be sociable or was there uh—”

  “I lost my job.” The words tasted rancid in Kyle’s mouth.

  “What?” Adam’s voice lost all of its joking tone in an instant. “What do you mean?”

  “Shannon called and said she has to let me go.”

  “When?”

  “Now.”

  “No, I mean, when is she letting you go?”

  “Now.” Kyle felt exhausted.

  “Are you okay?”

  “Um . . .” Kyle opened one eye. Still in the kitchen. It was dark; he hadn’t bothered to turn a light on when he’d come in, since he’d thought he’d grab his laptop and go work in the living room after he finished his call with Shannon. “Sure?”

  “Do you want me to come over?” Adam said. There was a different sound, farther away, like Adam was already standing up and heading for the door. Kyle hadn’t considered that he might come over.

  “No,” he said, closing his eye again. “No, keep talking.”

  “Can she really do that? Let you go? Don’t you hav
e a contract?”

  Kyle pinched his eyes together tighter. Apparently he was the only one surprised that he had a contract.

  “Yeah.” He sighed. “Yeah, I haven’t looked at it in a while. It probably has a minimum amount of notice she has to give, but it also says that all my work is as needed. So technically, if she gave me notice, she could also then say she didn’t need any work done between now and whenever she officially let me go.”

  “But did she say why?”

  This problem-solving Adam was comforting at least. It was nice to have someone else do the thinking for a change.

  “Her husband lost his job. Cutbacks. Cost savings.” Kyle felt a sting of annoyance at himself. He hadn’t exactly been the most attentive virtual employee lately. There were all the missed calls when he’d got back to the parking lot after the hike with Adam over the weekend. And the number of times he had ignored a call because it was outside of his official business hours. He’d been flexible with those hours in the past; his sudden change in attitude probably hadn’t helped him keep his job.

  “Are you going to be okay?” Adam asked.

  Kyle would be, but the question wasn’t only about him. There was his sleeping daughter upstairs. He’d come back here for her. He hadn’t expected to find anything in Red Creek beyond a safe roof over his head for long enough to pull himself back together. Instead, he’d found Adam, and now—

  “We’ll make it work,” he said, forcing himself to believe it. “We might have to stay with my dad longer than I planned. But hey, maybe that conference center job will pan out.” He didn’t put much enthusiasm behind his words. The interview had gone well, but it hadn’t left him with any excitement about the position. It would just be a corporate sales job. They’d expect him to wear a suit. A gray one. Preferably a size too big.

  Not that he was in any position to be choosy.