by Cameron Lowe
“Sure. We’ve got an inflatable mattress.”
“Thanks. You coming in?”
Malcolm smiled. “No. Just going to think for a bit.”
“All right.” Calvin reached down and squeezed his shoulder, and headed in.
Snowflakes. Malcolm tilted his head back and let them melt against his skin. He was like that when Runa came out. His heart broke for her as she led him back inside, shimmying her butt to the beat on the CD player, because it was over for them and he was too afraid of being alone to tell her.
Chapter 12
The two cops showed up half an hour after Nic called Hunter Carr. Why Malcolm’s roommate didn’t just go to the police station was a mystery, but he figured – rightly – it probably had something to do with presentation. Nic obviously worked with some shady people and if it looked like he just turned himself in, that might mean problems for him in jail.
With a freeze overnight, the blades of grass that early in the morning looked like they could cut someone. They were what Malcolm focused on as his best friend said his goodbye.
“You’re gonna get some shit from the landlord,” Nic said dully. His voice was nasal and ragged from crying. After almost everyone else had passed out, he stayed awake, sitting by the living room window, watching Alicia snore on the couch. Only Malcolm kept him company the whole night until the dawn, when Alicia woke up and they disappeared for a while into the bedroom. Now, with Calvin and Runa inside sleeping off the night’s festivities, the three of them were on the front porch, talking quietly. “Might even get evicted. Probably will. I’m sorry about that.”
“It’s okay,” Malcolm said. “I’ll figure it out.”
Nic nodded. “It’s better this way. Me going in. They would’ve got me eventually. And this thing, it’s getting violent here. All the gangs… I’m glad it’s done.”
“It’s just weed, Nic. They’ll go easy on you.”
“No, Malcolm, it isn’t just weed, and they won’t,” Nic said, and Alicia came over to kiss his cheek. He glanced aside at her, amused. “Really? Just a kiss on the cheek?”
So Alicia kissed him, good and hard, and if they were crying, Malcolm didn’t see, because he was too much of a coward and stared at the blades of grass instead. He barely acknowledged his roommate when Nic came over to hug him.
“I’ll see you later, brother,” Nic said.
“Yeah. See you.”
As he headed towards the cops, his hands outstretched for the cuffs, Nic tossed back over his shoulder to Alicia, “Wait for me?”
“Hell no,” she said, brushing at her cheeks with her hands. “But… when you get out, look me up. Maybe we’ll have some fun.”
Nic chuffed out a laugh, and was cuffed. One of the cops read him his rights as he was put into the backseat, but at his request, he popped back out one last time. “Malcolm. Tell her. Life’s too short.”
When the car pulled away, Alicia turned to Malcolm. “Tell who what?”
Malcolm knew.
* * *
“Thanks for bringing him back,” Gwen said. It was hardly more than a whisper. They’d just managed to drag Calvin in, semi-conscious and massively hungover. He’d fallen onto their bed, still dressed, and Gwen was removing his shoes. “How much did he tell you?”
“That you’ve been fighting some…”
Tell her.
“…and that he’s sorry. So sorry that he drank damn near a whole bottle of rum by himself.”
Gwen shook her head. “Woof. He’s a lightweight under the best circumstances.”
“I hate the sun,” Calvin muttered. “Stupid sun.”
“I’ll get the rest off later,” Gwen said. She dipped her head towards the door and they headed for the living room. “Coffee? Anything?”
You. Your heart.
“Uh. Coffee would be great.”
“Hope you don’t mind it microwaved. I made a pot a while ago.”
“Sure. That’s fine.”
She smiled at him tentatively, and Malcolm strangled down the urge to drag her to one of the extra bedrooms. Instead, he smiled back wanly and failed in his effort not to stare at her ass in her jeans.
* * *
Get. It. Together.
Gwen felt his stare on her butt, even turned slightly to catch him looking. He glanced away, and she darted the rest of the way into the kitchen, her breaths coming too fast, too shallow.
The mug she picked was deliberate. A picture of her and Calvin riding a rollercoaster together took up most of one side, while the park’s logo sat on the other. If it was in Malcolm’s hands, maybe it would remind them both they were spoken for.
She hoped.
While the microwave warmed up the coffee, she stared at the timer, willing her heart to slow. A little black fog crept into the edges of her peripheral vision and the light on the microwave had never seemed brighter. It was strange, though. At the forty-seven second mark, the world shifted just a hair and suddenly the clock read thirty-six. Must’ve lost focus. Not like she didn’t have a thousand things on her mind.
Malcolm liked sugar, she remembered. She grabbed a ceramic dish of it from the cupboard above the stove, thinking back to a coffee shop they’d visited together before one of his shifts at Radio Shack. She poked fun at his frappe, and he admitted he couldn’t drink coffee without masking the bitterness. Gwen smiled thinking about it.
When she brought out the coffee and the sugar and settled in on the far end of the couch from him, she said quietly, “So. Um. New girlfriend, or a hookup?”
“Ah,” he said, staring either into his coffee cup or some immensely interesting spot on the coffee table. “Runa. She’s, um… we went on a nice taco date and… she’s very nice.”
“Very nice is good. She seemed cute. What little I saw of her.”
His smile was faint. Pleased, maybe? Gwen irrationally wanted to strangle the bitch. No. No, Runa was probably great. Probably. “She is. We have… nice times together.”
“Oh.”
“Yeah.”
He sipped his coffee, and Gwen found absolutely nothing to do with her hands or her gaze, so she gripped the hem of her blouse and closed her eyes tight.
“Are you okay?” he asked.
“Yes.” A pause. “No,” Gwen whispered.
“Gwen…”
“He’s a good man.”
“He is.” Was his voice choked?
“We’re with good people.”
“Yes. We are.”
One of her eyes slid open and she peeked at him. He was leaning forward now, hunched, really, deeply focused on that invisible spot, his chest rising from the deep breaths he drew. She opened her mouth, to tell him, to admit the truth in her heart, but he spoke first.
“He’s feeling guilty. Calvin is. He’s so crazy about you. He knows he fucked up. I… I hope I helped him realize that you… you deserve…” He stood up abruptly, and didn’t so much set the coffee cup down as drop it onto the table. What was left sloshed around inside, and then Malcolm was moving for the door. He turned, his mouth moving, but no words came out.
Then he was outside, and gone.
She picked up his coffee cup and finished it off just to feel with her own lips where his had been pressed. Her soul clenched, and Gwen spun, throwing the mug as hard as she could against the wall, shattering it and biting back the scream she wanted to let loose.
Chapter 13
Three years.
Nic was going away for three years, and Malcolm found an eviction notice on his door the day after the sentencing. At least he was being given a month. That was something.
He turned in his two weeks’ notice at Radio Shack. The talk with Runa was short, painful, and as miserable as he expected. She slapped him hard enough to draw blood. That was okay.
It was all over. He was going home.
* * *
Everything fell back into a false sense of normalcy, but Gwen’s heart was no longer in it. She had to end things before she hurt Calvin any
further. But Malcolm was with Runa now, and it wasn’t fair to ask him to be with her. Alone. She’d have to be alone for the first time in her adult life. That was intimidating, but she knew this had to happen.
During her shift with Dr. Robertson two days after Alicia told her about Nic’s sentencing, Gwen received a huge bouquet of her favorite flowers, daisies and lilies. The card tucked inside read simply, “Forgive me?”
Back home, Calvin’s car was already in the garage. She parked beside it and hauled the flowers out of the backseat, taking the time to sniff them once more. Nothing like fresh cut flowers, even if she pretended to dislike them. As she tried to take pleasure, the writhing guilt in her soul overwhelmed her other feelings. Tonight, she decided. She’d have to do it tonight. Calvin’s gift was beautiful, but she couldn’t let him spend any more money on her or invest any more of himself into their relationship.
A familiar scent drifted to her as she entered. Fish and… yes, lime. Honey lime tilapia, her absolute favorite. But with it too came the scent of something darker, a char that shouldn’t have been there. Calvin was a good cook. He wouldn’t have let this burn, not if he was paying even a little attention. She kicked off her shoes and headed for the kitchen, calling his name.
“I had to try,” he said as she padded down the hallway. His voice quavered.
“Calvin?”
“For myself. I had to try one last time to tell you I really do mean it. I love you, Gwen.”
She stepped into the kitchen. Calvin leaned against the counter by the stove, his arms folded. The burners were all off, the offending fish blackened and cooling on a plate. He stared at the flowers in her hands and glanced away, his throat jumping.
“Thank you for the flowers,” she whispered.
“It was too late, wasn’t it?”
Silence, then, “This wasn’t your fault.”
“No. It was. And yours too. And… neither of us, really. Or both of us. I don’t know. I should have listened. He was right about that.”
“Who?”
“Malcolm. He’s the one who gave me the idea for the…” Calvin waved his hand at the flowers, then the fish. “I went to him. I don’t know if it was really to ask for advice or because I wanted to kick his ass. He told me to listen to you. Really listen. Almost verbatim, that’s what he said. To just… hear what it was you were actually saying, and not what I wanted to hear.”
“Malcolm… told you that? Why?”
Calvin choked out a laugh. “The guy’s in love with you, Gwen. I mean… really in love with you. He didn’t say it, but he didn’t have to. His whole reason for helping me was because…” He shook his head. “Because he thought you deserved me more than him. He’s an idiot.”
“Calvin, I…”
“Don’t. Let’s not say anything that’s going to make pulling the barbs out any harder. I love you, Gwendolyn. Thank you for some of the best years of my life. But if you ever had any feelings for me, you’ll go to him. Now. Please, I’m hurting too much to look at you.”
“He’s with Runa,” Gwen said.
“He’s-”
“I can’t do that to them.”
“They-”
“I’ll go to Juliet’s for now, and-”
Calvin laughed and sobbed all at once, and it was the worst sound she’d ever heard. “For God’s sakes, he had it wrong. You’re the one that needs to listen to me. He. Broke. Up. With. Her. This morning.” He jerked his head towards the door. “Go. We’ll figure out the breakup shit later.”
Gwen settled the flowers down, kissed her ex-boyfriend on the forehead, threw on her sneakers without bothering to tie them, and left the too-big house and the man who wouldn’t listen.
* * *
Nic’s father was flying out soon to pick up his son’s stuff and drive his car back to the Twin Cities. Malcolm was packing everything up for him. Without Nic’s crap around, the house would be damn near empty.
There were more empty boxes in the car, nicked from the back alley behind the Radio Shack, and he headed out to grab them, the chill biting at his exposed arms and face. Hard winter would come soon. Too bad. He wouldn’t be able to gauge for himself whether Minnesota winters or Montana ones were harsher. His heart would forever be broken by that.
Malcolm grinned at the thought as he headed back up the steps. A familiar Camry pulled into the driveway behind him, and he half turned to see Gwen fly out of it.
“Hey, what’s going on? You okay?”
She stormed straight at him, still dressed in the drab blue work shirt and slacks from her job, and he thought at first she was going to punch him for some reason.
“You broke up with her?”
“Yeah. Um. This-”
Then she grabbed his shoulders, and with more force than he would have thought she was capable of, Gwendolyn Caplan, the greatest love of his life then and forever, pulled Malcolm down to kiss her, their noses banging off one another on the first try until they got the meshing of their faces right, and his warm, chapped lips met her soft ones, and they were together.
* * *
He kicked the door shut behind him, his hands around her waist as he sucked her bottom lip between his, teasing Gwen with his tongue before releasing her.
“Calvin…” he growled as her hands went straight for his ass, squeezing.
“Told me everything.”
He kissed her again, greedy, hungry kisses that left them both gasping afterwards as he pushed her further and further into the house.
“Broke up with him,” she gasped in fits as Malcolm jerked her shirt free of the slacks, sliding it up and over her flat stomach, her black, comfortable bralette.
“I know you wanted to take things slow with him,” Malcolm said, throwing her shirt across the room and feasting his eyes on the valley between her breasts as she tugged off her shoes. “We’ll go as slow as you want.”
He started to undo his belt buckle, but she slapped his hands away and worked it for him, sliding it off and throwing it into the kitchen. “I love you,” she said.
“I love you too.”
“I want kids,” she said, jerking down his pants and kneeling.
“Me too.”
“And a career,” she said, freeing him of his boxers.
“Good.”
She enveloped his hardness once and gave his tip a kiss. “I want to marry you.”
That stunned Malcolm into silence. “I… what?”
She rose, her hand lingering on his hardness. “I. Want. To. Marry. You. I want to be stupid,” she said, jerking him slowly. “I want to rush into things.” Her eyes were so dark and beautiful and oh holy shit, was this real? “I want to get old and happy and fat together. Can you handle that?”
For a response, Malcolm pulled her hands free and kissed her again, hard, rough. He helped her out of her pants after he’d finished kicking his away, and lifted her up, grabbing underneath Gwen’s beautiful, shapely ass as she wrapped her legs around him. “Marry me,” he whispered to her as he carried her to Nic’s bed.
“Yesss,” she gasped, and sucked at a patch of skin on his neck, her eyes closing as he dropped her onto the mattress.
Malcolm gripped her panties and yanked them down her legs. What he’d done with his own boxers, he didn’t remember, but they were gone and he was there, his fingers at her entrance, already finding her wet and ready. “Marry me,” he repeated as he lined his cock up.
“Yessss!” Gwen said, her eyes popping open as he filled her. Her hands came around his back, nails digging into skin as he pumped into her.
He jerked down the cups of her bralette, freeing her breasts, and leaned down to kiss her again, and again, and again, timing them to his thrusts, his mouth covering hers when she came, so hard and so fast she screamed. And minutes later he was over the top too, spilling inside her, gasping her name.
Chapter 14
Now
Gwen picked up the office phone, heard a tone, started to dial, then stopped, her fingers trembli
ng. What would she say? What could she say? Maybe it would be the last time her babies heard from her. Maybe it wouldn’t. Either way, she wasn’t sure how to end things on this miserable, lonely night.
And if Malcolm had called the cops, as she thought he might, they maybe could trace back the number. He was fishing buddies with that detective… crap, she’d forgotten his name. Carter, or Casper, or something. Carr, that was it. Oh, Hunter. How long had it been since they had one of their game nights? Had she sent them a Christmas card?
Gwen shook her head, smiling and sniffling all at once. Funny, the things she was worried about here and now. A Christmas card. She was worried about a Christmas card when she was contemplating walking out into the snow and sitting down somewhere to go to sleep. She refused to think of it as suicide. This was… mercy. Not for her. Her family.
She didn’t have her phone. It would have been nice to look at the pictures of the kids one more time. And her family. Malcolm’s too. God, she loved his parents. Missed them terribly. They had plans to fly into International in a few weeks for a visit, and would be there for Malcolm and the kids. That was good. No doubt tomorrow and on Christmas Janet would insist on Adam wearing one of their army of Christmas sweaters, the hand-sewn kind, and he would pretend to be irritated by it. He was so much like Malcolm, who loved the holidays, despite the extra belt-tightening they brought with them.
Gwen loved them too, or used to back before Christmas began to define how bad things were for their family. Winnie was sweet enough to pretend to love the socks and underwear and other necessities they got during the holidays because that was when they were cheapest. Roslyn, Gwen’s emotional lightning rod, was all over the place, sometimes feeling out her parents’ desperate hopes that their gifts would draw out a smile, and sometimes going into crying fits for hours because they couldn’t get her a tablet or whatever toy held her whim that particular week. This year, she was hot on some kind of a pink selfie camera. Gwen had tried to show her that her phone could take selfies just like that thing, but Rozzie had thrown a fit and claimed her mom just didn’t want her to have a camera of her own. That was kind of true. Roslyn was as klutzy as her mother.