Don't Explain

by Audrey Dacey

“What do you have to do today?”

  “I should go visit my mom and then I am going to watch the game with Alexis at the Tipperary. It’s what I do on Sundays.”

  Michael threw the covers off his naked body and stood up. Caitlyn turn her gaze to the floor, but Michael walked over to her, and she was soon looking directly at his penis. She shot her stare up to his face and chewed on her bottom lip.

  “How about this? I’ll take a shower. We’ll get some breakfast, go shopping, stop by and see Cat, and meet Alexis to watch the game. We’ll figure the rest out when we get back.”

  Caitlyn shrugged. “I don’t know. My mom probably won’t be up for a lot of visitors, and the game is kind of a girl thing.”

  Michael grabbed her hips and pulled her into his hardness. “You’re trying to get rid of me again, aren’t you?”

  “This time I am.” She nodded her head to show that she really meant it, but he stopped her with a hard kiss. She didn’t struggle as much as she knew she should and told herself that this was the last one, so she might as well enjoy it.

  “Too bad. You’re going shopping with me. I need a woman’s perspective.”

  #

  “I’m kind of partial to the ‘49ers,” Michael said as Caitlyn held up a New England Patriots t-shirt for the third time.

  “Well that’s too bad. You’re in New England, and I am not showing up at the pub with someone in a ‘49ers’ shirt. You’re more than welcome to go back to your motel if you don’t want to pick one of these shirts.”

  She’d been saying stuff like that all morning, and he was pretty sure that she actually did want to get rid of him. He didn’t really know why. The night before had been great, and the other times they spent together were great too. He just couldn’t stop thinking about the night before and hoping that night would be an encore performance.

  Since telling Caitlyn about Margaret after dinner, his vacation had been successful, and he was kind of glad that Margaret left him. If she hadn’t, he wouldn’t be here enjoying Caitlyn more than he thought was possible.

  He looked at the t-shirts she was waving in front of him. They all looked the same to him, so he grabbed one at random. A t-shirt was not going to keep him away from her. Michael didn’t know how much longer he would be able to spend with her, but he was going to make the most of his time in Massachusetts.

  “I need some jeans, and some shirts without logos on them.”

  “Fine,” she said and began limping further into the men’s department. “What size?”

  “I don’t know. Come check these pants.”

  Caitlyn looked back at him and glared. He just stood there unrelenting, and she finally gave up and walked over to his back side. She reached her fingers into the back of his pants and flipped the waist band. He felt the familiar aching he had for her, and if she hadn’t moved so quickly, he would have turned around and kissed her again.

  He followed Caitlyn to a pile of folded jeans and ran his finger along the curve of her neck. “Let’s go back to your place.”

  She shrugged his hand away without looking up from the pile she was now digging through. “No can do. We’re already in Worcester. If my mother finds out that I was in town and didn’t visit her, she’ll raise all sorts of hell. It’ll be doubly true if she finds out that you were the reason.”

  Michael smiled. He actually liked her mother. She had no sense of decorum, and he found it hilarious. He couldn’t wait to see her again.

  “Fine. We’ll see Cat.” Caitlyn hobbled around the table. “How’s your ankle doing?”

  “I’ll survive. Here.” She held up a pair of pants.

  “Looks good.” He grabbed a green shirt off a nearby table. “Let’s go.”

  “You don’t want to try them on?”

  “I’m wearing the same clothes I did yesterday. I’m going to change into them the second they’re charged to my account. If there’s a problem, I’ll bring ‘em back.”

  Caitlyn placed her hands on her hips and narrowed her eyes at him. “Whatever.” He had to get her out of this mood. While it was fun to mess with her right now, he wanted the Caitlyn from last night back for later. Maybe she’d relax after watching the game and drinking a few beers.

  Michael emerged from the bathroom not too long after paying for his clothes. The jeans were a little baggy, but otherwise the clothes were fine, which is why he was surprised when Caitlyn saw him.

  “That’s not going to work,” she said.

  “Why not?”

  “We’re practically matching.” She pointed to her outfit then his. “We’ll look ridiculous.”

  “You said that I had to wear a Patriots shirt.”

  “To the pub, not around the mall and to my mother’s house. Put on the green shirt.”

  “Doesn’t fit. Looks like we’re twins.”

  Caitlyn let out a deep sigh, and then put a fake smile on her face. “Let’s go return the green one.” She turned and started limping back toward the store.

  Michael jogged after her and stopped right in her path. She stopped and glared up at him. He grabbed the green shirt out of the bag and held it in front of a passing teenage boy. “Free shirt,” he said, handing the shirt to the kid.

  “It’s ugly,” he said.

  Michael dug out his wallet and found the receipt. “It’s worth thirty bucks if you return it.”

  “Sweet.” The teen took the receipt from Michael’s hand and walked away.

  Michael turned back to Caitlyn, who was not looking any happier. “Why’d you do that?”

  “You shouldn’t have to walk any further,” he said. Then he picked her up and draped her over his shoulder. “Whose idea was it for you to walk around the mall anyway?”

  Caitlyn squealed. “Put me down!”

  “You’re injured. I’m going to carry you back to the car so you can rest up that ankle.”

  “I can do it.”

  “I’m your attending doctor and…”

  “Are you okay ma’am?” A short, bald man stopped in front of Michael. “Do you need me to call the police?”

  “I’m okay. Thank you,” Caitlyn called from behind Michael.

  Michael looked seriously at the man and said, “It’s okay. I’m a doctor.” Then he walked past him and toward the exit.

  Caitlyn giggled. “Does that work often?”

  “Almost always.”

  Michael carried her to the car and set her down in the passenger seat and then got into the car. “And you thought we’d look ridiculous because we were wearing matching shirts.”

  Caitlyn laughed. Michael leaned in and kissed her cheek. “I’ve really missed you, Murph. I don’t know where you went earlier, but I want you to stay with me.”

  “We’ve been together all day.”

  “Yeah, but you weren’t with me. I’m not going to be around for a long time, but I want you to be with me while I am.”

  “What happens when you leave? To hell with me then?”

  “No, but let’s cross that bridge when it gets here. For now, let’s just enjoy this for what it is.”

  “And what is that?”

  “Friends who occasionally make out and have sex.” When he said it, he knew there was something wrong with it. It sounded too brash, too impersonal. But it was the only label he could put on it.

  “So, I am your rebound.” She looked down at her hands.

  He couldn’t help but wonder it himself. She was a distraction from Margaret; he couldn’t deny that. He pulled out of the parking spot and drove toward the parking garage’s exit. “Maybe. But the truth is, now that I think about it, Margaret and I weren’t working. She was always complaining about my work schedule, and we were comfortable in a way that bored the hell out of me. She was a great person—pure sugar—but we didn’t have much in common outside of working in a hospital, liking kids, and knowing sign language.

  “I don’t think I could have realized that without you. Without remembering the kind of connection two people could have not
just in bed, but out of it as well. I wish I could say I was happy with her, but I was more just content that I found someone to share my bed nightly. Someone to come home to.

  “It’s scarier to realize that I was in that type of relationship. So, really I should thank you because you’re one hell of a friend and the best rebound a guy could have. Because I don’t know how long I would have been miserable only hoping for something that I didn’t really want.”

  “Turn right at the light.” Caitlyn was strangely stoic. In all the years that he knew her, she was never stoic.

  “Caitlyn?”

  “Yeah.”

  “You okay?” He prepared for tears. He didn’t like them, but he could deal with them if he had to.

  “At least you know where we stand.”

  The rest of the car ride was silent with the exception of directions. Michael didn’t want to hurt her. He was trying to compliment her, thank her, but it obviously didn’t take. He wasn’t sure how it was possible for him to completely screw up this friendship at least once a day since he got there. He was just trying to be as honest with her as she was with him.

  #

  Michael parked the car on the street in front of Caitlyn’s mother’s house. Caitlyn examined the property: the lawn was overgrown again and the house needed to be painted. Caitlyn didn’t care what her mother said. She was firing the middle schooler from down the street that her mother paid ten bucks a week to mow her lawn and was hiring a proper landscaper.

  Caitlyn got out of the car and shuffled to the front door. Her ankle still ached, and she wished she brought a bottle of aspirin with her. She doubted her mother would have anything that hadn’t expired four years ago.

  Michael came up behind her and offered a hand, but she refused. She was angry with him. Though she wasn’t sure why. The truth was she was angrier with herself for letting him use her as a rebound, and as hard as she tried, she couldn’t help but be drawn in by him. He was intoxicating, and she wanted more despite the consequences that waited for her at the end of this “friends-who-occasionally-make-out-and-have-sex”-ship.

  Caitlyn walked into her mother’s house and was assaulted by a cloud of smoke. “Ma!” She moved down the hallway and toward the den, which is where her mother almost certainly was. “Ma! You home?”

  “Caitlyn?” Her mother appeared in the door frame of the den. She wore a house dress, and her hair was rolled into a bun at the top of her head. Caitlyn tried to remember what her mother looked like ten years ago, but it was hard to fathom the beautiful woman that her mother once was behind the raspy voice, wrinkles, and weight she had acquired since Caitlyn’s father died.

  A heart attack in the middle of the night was the end of her father. It was unexpected. Her father was a swimmer and ate well. He seemed to be doing everything right, but it didn’t keep his heart from going out and his wife from waking up next to a corpse.

  It changed Catherine Murphy forever. She stopped going out, started smoking again after almost 30 years, and ate junk food. Caitlyn wondered if she was trying to speed up her death.

  “Who’s with you? I’m not dressed for company.” Her eyes narrowed on Michael.

  “Ma, this is Michael Fitzgerald. I went to college with him. You met him once, remember?”

  “It’s good to see you again, Mrs. Murphy,” Michael said.

  “You cut your hair. Much doctorlier than the shag you had in college. You were able to come out here with your busy schedule?”

  “I needed a break.”

  “Sometimes trips aren’t about us.” Caitlyn’s mother was good at holding a grudge.

  Caitlyn turned to Michael with her eyes wide and mouthed “sorry,” but Michael was smiling back at her mother.

  “I would have come with Murph—Caitlyn—for the funeral, but I couldn’t get excused from class.”

  Caitlyn’s mother ignored him and turned back to her daughter, “You know you should really tell me if you’re going to bring someone by the house with you. At least he’s not dressed properly either, but what if he was?”

  Caitlyn shook her head, and she heard Michael slip a giggle behind her. “Jesus, Ma, you need to open a window.” Caitlyn walked into the den, waving her hand through the dense smoke, and opened the two small windows.

  “It’s too damn cold outside. Besides, I like the smoke.”

  “A little too much.”

  Caitlyn took a seat on the brown sofa, Michael sat next to her, and her mother moved to her recliner.

  “Is he the reason you’re too busy to come visit me these days?”

  Michael placed his hand on Caitlyn’s thigh and began nodding, but Caitlyn quickly removed it. The more she pushed away the more he pulled her back in.

  “He’s just visiting for a few days before he goes back to California.”

  “That’s too bad. You need to get married and have kids before it’s too late,” she gave Michael a once over, “and he’s better than nothing.” There it was: the Cat Murphy charm. She wondered why Caitlyn never came to visit, that was it. What she thought was an innocent comment was actually a not-so-thinly-veiled insult.

  “He’s a doctor.”

  “Being a doctor doesn’t make someone successful. You know there is a website that you can rate doctors so you can avoid the real bad ones. I haven’t seen it, but I’ve heard there are a lot of low ratings. Hopefully it will put the hacks out of business. Are you on that website?”

  Caitlyn rolled her eyes. “You don’t have to answer that.”

  “It’s alright. She’s right. I’m not that successful. I haven’t been able to open my own practice yet. And I haven’t looked at the website, but I promise I will. I’ll let you know if I am a hack or not.”

  “Have you been to her coffee shop, Michael? It’s almost as good as Starbucks.”

  “I have. I’d say it’s better.”

  Cat huffed.

  “We’re not going to stay long. We have to meet Alexis to watch the game. Do you need anything while I’m here?”

  Caitlyn’s mother ignored her and instead turned to Michael, whose smile had not left his face. “She never stays long. You’d think that she couldn’t stand me.”

  “I’m sure that’s not true.” His face got all twisted, his voice rose an octave, and he rapidly tapped his thumb on his thigh. God, he was a terrible liar. Her mother seemed to buy it nonetheless.

  “Maybe you’re not so bad after all. Could you talk to her about moving back to town? I’d like to have my only daughter close.”

  Caitlyn stood. “Alright, Ma. We’re leaving.”

  “If you must.” Her mother looked blankly at the TV that had been running muted in the background. Caitlyn hated this part. She knew that her mother wasn’t made of the evil that spewed from her mouth, but she couldn’t be around it. Between the smoke and the comments, the house was physical and mental poison.

  “I’ll call you later this week.”

  Michael said goodbye, and they left quietly out the front door.

  “What the hell happened?” Michael asked as they headed back toward the car.

  “She lost the love of her life and couldn’t figure out how to move past it.”

  CHAPTER 6

  “Go, go, go, go, go!” Caitlyn shouted at the big screen TV in chorus with twenty other people, followed by a loud cheer as they watched the Patriots halfback rush for thirty yards.

  Michael smiled at her as she sat back down in her bar stool. “You really get into this, don’t you?”

  “It’s hard not to,” she shrugged. “Remember the Wildcats games?”

  “You weren’t this excited.”

  “Inside I was, but it really comes out for the Pats. And it didn’t help that the Wildcats kinda sucked.” She smiled and took a sip of her beer, putting her attention back on the screen.

  “Where’s Alexis?” Michael liked Alexis. She was humorously honest, and in some ways reminded him of Caitlyn’s mother. Only she was less bitter about everything.

 
Caitlyn scanned the bar and then pointed to a dark corner where Alexis was running a finger down the chest of a man who was probably fifteen years older than her.

  “Is she going to be alright?”

  “It’s kind of what she does. I wouldn’t worry too much about it. Why? You interested?”

  “No.” Alexis wasn’t his type anymore. There was a time when Michael would have enjoyed her overt sexuality and forwardness, but as of five years ago he wanted something more, something sweet.

  Michael pulled Caitlyn’s stool closer to his and wrapped his hands around her waist. He wasn’t sure why, but she let him. A commercial flashed across the screen, and she spun the stool to face him.

  “I don’t want to stay in the motel anymore.”

  Caitlyn closed her eyes in thought. “Hmmm…There’s nothing else in town, but Gardner has a few places.”

  He leaned in and whispered in her ear, “I want to stay with you.”

  She wrapped her arms around his neck. “It’ll cost you,” she whispered back and bit his earlobe gently.

  “I’m willing to pay.”

  Caitlyn backed away. “Fifty bucks a night and you get the couch.” She turned back to the TV, but Michael grabbed her around her waist and pulled her into his lap. She laughed out loud.

  “How about we leave now, and I’ll give you something worth a lot more than fifty bucks?”

  “There’s two minutes left in the fourth. I think you can wait that long.”

  “What’s going to happen? The Pats are up by seventeen. You won’t miss much.”

  Caitlyn pulled away and sat back on her own bar stool. “Sorry, but the hotel doesn’t open until the last second runs out on the game clock.”

  Michael’s phone buzzed in his pocket. He pulled it out and looked at the display. “Fine.” He lifted his phone to show Caitlyn. “I gotta take this. I’ll be right back.”

  “Hello,” he said as he moved toward the exit.

  “Where the hell are you?”

  Michael stepped out into the cold night air, and the cheering was muted when the door closed. “Massachusetts.”

  “You can’t just take off. You have to schedule it ahead of time. We’re short staffed.”

  “There were extenuating circumstances, Rob.”