I am right in that spot where I fit comfortably in his arm. Lucas misses nothing and must have seen me with his phone. Figures. I wouldn't put it past him to remind me how simple it is to dust for fingerprints if I tried to deny it. I let the moment ride a few seconds while I leisurely sip the wine from the glass I am again holding. I could push my luck and tell him it's our favorite dentist calling to remind him to floss before he goes to bed but I am selfish and keep that amusement to myself.
“They didn't actually say.” I lick my top lip slowly. There was a sigh and then disconnected. I am sure you could figure it out by your logs or if it is important they will leave a message.” I think that saves my *** from being guilty of answering a phone that is not mine. “My phone hasn't went off.”
I pull my cell from the pocket it was in. It was rather uncomfortable against my hip while wedged in otherwise comfortably next to Lucas. If mine went off we both know how he would react. I leave the plain silver phone out on the coffee table in front of us for good measure.
“Any idea what kind of tree that is?”
My hand is full of popcorn as I gesture towards the direction of the screen. Lucas Ballard is no Bob Ross with a paintbrush or a botanist who specializes in dendrology. I am in a mood and it's New Year's Eve. With the wine inspiring me I am hopeful he has something in mind.
One of the key personality traits many detectives share is a morbid curiosity that leads them to need to know. We are driven by this need and can resist it no more than we can resist breathing. I reach for the phone. I don’t know what kind of tree it is on the screen. Right now our hero, Jake Sully is hair ******* it though. Damn, blue people just shag everything. I look at the number and I recognize it immediately. I know what it going to happen next.
Her phone rings.
Neil Hurst was my best friend in my youth. We shared everything. Played sports together, we were inseparable until Roxie. I was dating her, Neil wanted her. She stayed with me. I got engaged to her, Neil wanted her, she stayed with me. We got married, Neil wanted her, she gave in to his advances. He’s a constant irritation nowadays. He’s rarely in Harper Rock but when he comes through he always calls both of us. Me to see if the friendship can be mended, then Roxanne to assure that it can’t be. I hate the man more than there are words for.
I can’t help the thought that comes unbidden to my mind. That’s right *****, she’s with me tonight. Her husband. I can be childish at times sure, but the thought is satisfying. Now to see how she reacts as her phone goes off. We both have to know who it is. I sit back and watch her. “It’s a happy little tree,” I say answering her question. “It’s getting hair fucked by a blue person, why wouldn’t it be happy.”
I watch the my cell light up while I finish chewing my popcorn. I swallow and sip my wine. The screen doesn’t go dark. Obviously I know who it is. Lucas knows who it is. The question is do I really want to go there or have him involved as well. No, I don't.
Lucas has it in his head that Neil is something huge to me. Like the fact he has some big bank account or job that has taken him all over the world is supposed to impress me and rank higher than Lucas does. I want to tell him if money was all that it took then why was I with him or him with me still in Harper Rock doing what we do. Neither of us will be rich or famous. We are committed to what we do and sadly would likely do it for free. I watch the phone and finally reach over and pick it up.
“I think it's more about energy being exchanged, Lucas.” I hand him the phone. I see Neil’s number as I do. “He called you first. Maybe it has to do with the timeshare you guys have. Perhaps he wants to use it?”
Lucas and Neil had a lot in common besides taste in women. I am reminded of it as I think about their shared investment in the hunting lodge that was in the middle of nowhere. It literally was a sneeze short of Iqaluit. It was a cheap investment. The guys found out why when they arrived fresh out of college to the spot that had over 4 times the national CSI. Lucas was in heaven while Neil ended up with his car and their hunting gear stolen. Why they still kept the place is beyond me. I would like to think that they don't have it in for each other as much as they act like they do.
“I will get you another beer while you two work it out.” I get up and make my way to the fridge while Lucas is left with my phone and Neil.
I take the offered phone. I kinda want to hang up in his face. I don’t. “Ballard.”
“Hell Lucas, it’s Neil, Happy New Year to you and Roxanne.”
“Yeah, thanks.” I don’t wish him a Happy New Year. I don’t really want him to have a happy one. I want his to have a shitty one, go broke, not get laid, maybe get a skin condition or something. Warts would be good. At least lose his hair. Something.
“Well, give Roxanne my regards, I’ll try her again another time when she’s not busy.” The line goes dead. I hold the phone to my ear for a few seconds and then set it down when the screen goes black. As far as I’m concerned Mr. Neil Hurst, millionaire playboy businessman can do a Jake Sully and **** a tree.
The evening has been thrown off track. My dislike for my old friend is seeping into me, permeating my senses and irritating me deep inside. I wanna hit something, someone.
I look up to Roxanne as she approaches, beer in hand. “Thanks babe,” I tell her as I take the sweating glass full of cool liquid numbness. “I think I’ll switch to the Crown after this one.”
I smile when he takes the glass from my hand. I don’t over do it and all out grin. There is something that says the man who was ready to switch his poison was not the happy camper that opened the door earlier in the evening to me. I sink back down into the spot I was before and finally decide this is as good as time as any to see if we can at least leave this issue with Neil in the year that is about to be history. I want it resolved for the New Year.
“Can we just talk for a minute?” There I go dropping the words any guy likes to hear with a drink in his waiting to be consumed on New Year’s Eve. Just like during sex. No guy wants to 'talk a minute' while drinking or getting it on. “I really think this whole thing with Neil is really getting a little old. I want it done with. How about it?”
Sure I have some history as well as he but at this point I am hoping we can just let it go now that 2010 is less than an hour away. We need to start it on a positive note. Something. I can’t see taking old insecurities and negativity into it. There will be more than enough of that for us to accumulate as the months ahead drag on. Lucas and I wouldn’t know what to do with each other if everything was ‘perfect’.
“I just am getting too old for trying to explain something that isn’t there to begin with.”
I take a sip of my wine while my suggestion is out there for him to think over and do with what he chooses. I hope he is open to it. I really do. It will mean I have to switch my dentist and learn to make time for a normal schedule to make my appointments on the other side of Harper Rock. If Lucas is willing to compromise then so am I. If not...he may just spend the new year arguing with himself.
We’ve been here before so many times I can’t count. One of us exerts their “right to do what they want” citing that we “aren’t really together” and the other one gets pissed. Then we want to “put it in the past” so we can “move on” and then we repeat the cycle. There are a few different answers I can give here. Likely the smart one would be to agree that it can be put behind us and move on. That way I can get Roxanne into bed, **** her brains out and wake up tomorrow with fond memories of 2009’s last moments and bring in the New Year with our own fireworks.
The worst thing I can do is be honest.
I could go with a middle ground answer but she knows I’m an extremely black and white person. Right and wrong. She would know it was a cop out. Then her reaction would set the tone. She would go for a similar tactic, a cop out until I react. By the time I react I would be pissed about the cop out thing and I’d **** everything up with my normal angry demeanor.
“I don’t want you to see Neil again. Not as lovers, not as friends, not as anything. I want you to tell him you two are done. Nothing left to say and to walk away and forget him.” There. The worst thing. Honest and demanding with no leg to stand on. Roxie ain’t the only one at fault and she could list off a ton of sins on my side (most of which I was stupid enough to confess to her myself) but she wanted to talk right?
I asked to talk. I opened up the dialog and of course Lucas took it and saved all the banter back and forth, the bargaining attempts and what-ifs and pretty much said Neil is off my Christmas Card and postcard list. He won’t be on my speed dial and if I am hearing him right I won’t be seeing the guy in Rio. I blink while I hold my glass of wine which is going to likely be empty pretty quick the more I give what he said some thought. I guess I could do that. Not see him, speak to him or whatever it is that Lucas ‘thinks’ we are doing which is really nothing. Enough so that I almost want to chuckle at how much the one I have been legally married to for the last two decades has failed to remember about me.
Neil was a ‘thing’. I remember when it ended on my part. Lucas had everything to do with it. It was when he found the receipts from dinner. I took Neil out for his birthday while he was in town. Lucas knew he was in town but was tied up elsewhere. He came home and found the proof that said I made the biggest mistake in my life. It was from dinner the night before and I was just getting home. The look in his eyes disintegrated my insides. I literally felt guilt hit me like a truck followed by the sensation that I couldn’t begin to explain what happened. So, I did the shitty thing that usually results in me trying to turn it on him. Yeah, there is nothing there at all except memories attached to Neil. Memories of just how cruel Lucas and I can be to each other.
“I said I was ready to put it behind us and if that is how it will work for you fine by me.” The cool wine met my lips while I watched his face over the rim. I swallowed slowly savoring the sweetness that coated my tongue then disappeared down my throat. “That was simple enough.”
I know Neil won’t be happy about the way this New Year is going to end. I give it some more thought as my glass leaves my lips empty. I am here for a reason. I am looking straight at him. I am not sitting over some table in a restaurant somewhere listening to Neil go on about his latest dealings and where the best beach is to disappear to. I made a choice way back and I have kept it. It was never going to be perfect. I set the wine glass down. I would let Lucas catch up with the buzz working on my brain.
Okay…. that was almost too easy. I give a demand and she just agrees? Should have been demanding from the start then. I’m waiting for the other shoe to fall. A demand from her, something ridiculous. Or maybe something sarcastic. Or something about the woman she calls “dental ho”. Something. Instead she downs her glass. Then she does the last thing I expect. She goes silent.
Silent women are either a blessing or a curse depending on their mood. I don’t know what her mood is. I hope for blessing, expect curse. I probably shouldn’t make any more demands right now. I think I basically used up all the allotted power I’ve been given in our relationship as it stands without giving some type of concession in exchange. Actually, I know for a fact that I’ll be paying for my request one way or another at some point in the near future. I decide to make it worthwhile. I add to the tab.
“And no other guys either. Meaning no messing around with any other guy. Not that you can’t talk to other guys. You know?”
I take a drink of the beer she brought me. The cold liquid slides down my throat and makes me wish it was whiskey. There’s whiskey in the kitchen. I’ll make my way there at a suitable lull in conversation. I figure I’ll need it. Already need another smoke. I’m getting pretty bad with the cigarettes. Woke up with a racking cough a few times lately. Not good I imagine. Being able to smell some of the things at a crime scene is not good either.
I set the beer down, smacking my lips and just look over the table at her. I wait to see if the Cold War ends in an inferno or in peace talks.
I listen to what is coming out of his mouth and give a few silent minutes to pass before my lips part to respond. I realize what he is saying and part of me is debating asking him just what the **** he thinks I have been doing besides working and keeping the same insane hours that he does. Last one I slept with was him. Hell, the time before that was him too. Part of me is beginning to believe Lucas is getting a bit paranoid or something. Perhaps the whole thing with Neil sent him off some edge I didn’t see coming. I can do two things if that is the case. One is to play into it and enforce the irrational thoughts he has or I can be honest and still work through this like I proposed a couple minutes ago.
“Lucas, just what the hell do you think I have been up to?” I like honesty. I also like Lucas’ taste in wine. I am ready to consume more and offer him up a healthy portion of what is my version of the truth that I plan I sticking to. “I barely get time to take showers between shifts let alone invest energy in trying to get someone into bed with me when I go. Where you get this **** from I have no clue but seriously ask around. You find something out let me know because it will be news to both of us.”
If he doesn’t believe me that is fine. It was the truth and if he can’t handle it then it is on him. It reminds me of the issues we had back in college but ignored them, pushed them to the side because getting married before Andrea arrived would look good for our families. The fact we fought like cats and dogs was a thing we would grow out of. That was my mother’s bit of brilliance offered as a gift to grow on. I decide as I look at Lucas that our daughter isn’t going to be allowed to get herself into the marital noose until she is forty. I have it in my head she needs to see the world, fall in love no less than ten times and spend several holidays alone to appreciate who she is and feel good in that spot before she opens her life to another.
It’s tempting to start throwing bombs. Really tempting. I want to bring up every time we’ve done this. Everyone she has been with, everyone I have and lay it out there. I don’t. We both already know. Instead I just stare at her when she makes out like Neil was a one time thing and there is nothing else in our combined closets. Or at least in hers. Coming from me it will ignite the situation. Let her catch the fact that I am silently calling ******** on her. Let her think about it, let her vocalize it. Then it’s on her, not me. Then we can start to move forward in the conversation.
Sure she might bring up my indiscretions. I own them. I cheated. Slept with a couple other women in our time apart. Hell, I nearly screwed one of her friends back in the day. Likely would have if we hadn’t passed out drunk and well… that’s another story.
No, Lucas Ballard’s mother didn’t raise any fools. Lucas Ballard is not going to bite the dangling hook in front of him. Not this time.
