Chapter 5
Chapter five
Baz’s head was throbbing when he unlocked his apartment door.
The itching in his eye wouldn’t cease no matter how thoroughly he rubbed at it, blurring the faint silhouettes of his living room furniture into dark blobs.
Only the light of the moon and the city twenty-six stories below lit his way to the bedroom.
Home was an odd concept. He spent three thousand dollars a month on a place he barely saw the inside of.
Not intentionally. He didn’t mind his little place in Lincoln Park.
Especially the views it offered of the park and Lake Michigan.
Two balconies, hardwood floors, and marble kitchen counters weren’t exactly shabby.
Getting it right after graduating law school had been sheer luck.
Good thing too; he would have hated to impose on Eevee and Joel any longer.
He fell face-first onto the cotton sheets of his king-sized bed. The ninety seven cups of coffee he drank to keep his brain alive today swished around his growling stomach. He should eat.
But the hug of the memory foam mattress was too seductive to escape from.
Stripping off his suit required Herculean effort. He folded the fabric just enough to not cause permanent damage and dropped it to the floor. Tomorrow, it would go into the dry-cleaning bag. Tonight, sleep.
He nuzzled the thick pillow underneath his head…
Bzz bzz.
Baz ripped his eyes open.
This had better not been an emergency. If he was supposed to do another all-nighter, it would only be in exchange for a guaranteed promotion.
He pushed his hand over the navy sheets to the walnut nightstand, squinted his eyes against the brightness of his screen.
Eevee
Hi superstar!
Is it later yet?
The groan came from a primal place inside of him. Shit, he forgot. No guilt, please, just sleep…
You promised.
Him and his stupid mouth.
Well, he supposed he had plenty to share with her as well… once his brain was back to running at normal capacity.
Meet tomorrow?
Great! I finish at six thirty
Baz couldn’t remember the last time he had left the office before nine. But since whatever she wanted to talk about was urgent enough to follow up twice… What was another appointment?
I’ll be there.
At the beach?
They used to love hanging out at the beach by Jackson Park when Baz was in law school and Eevee worked at Student Services next door. But with his workload right now, the last thing he needed was to drive all the way to the South Side in rush hour traffic and back.
Can we do the Catfé?
Sure thing!
Great. He let his phone slip out of his grip. It landed on the nightstand with a soft thud.
A wide yawn overpowered his face as he tossed himself onto his other side and sank into the cool pillow.
The last remains of golden sunlight poked through dark-gray clouds when Baz arrived.
The Catfé was on the first floor of a residential building, nestled between a steakhouse and a CVS in the South Loop.
It had started out as a regular coffee shop, but then Eevee got desperate for some feline company, and their landlord didn’t allow pets, and, well…
Unlike Baz, Joel had never learned to say no to her.
Baz had dealt with the paperwork and applications for all their licenses.
As a thank you, Eevee dragged him to the shelter to pick one of the new residents; he’d chosen a black kitten with white paws, the runt of the litter showing an admirable will to survive, and the only one out of the seven kittens who hadn’t found a home yet. Lucipurr.
He had picked the name as a joke. Lucipurr had missed that memo, however, and proved herself as the biggest troublemaker around almost immediately.
Stealing food, taking a strange joy in hunting people and attacking their ankles, and, of course, her favorite hobby of all time: hissing at Baz when he walked in, yet following him around like a second shadow.
Today was no exception. Eevee still blamed him for having jinxed it.
The usually packed café was mostly empty as they approached closing time. Only a pair of older ladies was left to chuckle at Lucipurr’s antics.
“You made it!” Joel stepped out from behind the counter. Someone just got back from the barber; the fade up to the short, tight curls of his afro looked fresh. “Long time, no see.”
And the guilt continued. “Good to see you too.”
He accepted the brief hug Joel pulled him into. The allspice scent of his aftershave mixed with the smell of freshly baked bread tickled Baz’s nose.
“Eevee is running a little late, but go ahead and—”
The door swung open.
“I’m here! I made it,” Eevee panted. A black turtleneck and red plaid skirt peeked out from under her green coat. Her hair was pulled into a messy bun. A rim of smudged mascara darkened her eyes.
“Hi.” She, too, hugged Baz before she turned to Joel, who put one hand on her waist as he leaned in.
“Hello, my queen,” he whispered before their lips met. Eevee blushed and smiled into the kiss. Seeing them so in love still warmed Baz’s heart. Not many couples could pull that off after fifteen years.
Back then, everyone but Baz had shoved them into the box of ‘high school sweethearts who wouldn’t last a day in the real world.’ Little did they know that the real world had sunken its cruel claws into Eevee long before she reached adulthood, growing up trans in a conservative household.
Fortunately, her I-think-I’m-a-girl crisis had set in right around Baz’s I-think-I’m-gay crisis—courtesy of Sharif Khan, the captain of the varsity football team who had been in no rush to get dressed after showering—so they had each other to freak out with.
And Joel, the boy next door who had persevered through it all.
Every night spent crying, every impossible situation they shouldn’t have had to handle at their age, they got through, together. How was Baz ever to compete with such a perfect relationship?
Easy, he wasn’t. The odds of finding a relationship that would measure up to their fairytale were next to nothing. Which was fine by him. The realization had been liberating, in fact, freed him from wasting his time on silly love stories.
Sure, sometimes, it was hard not to get swept up in the fantasy.
When Eevee and Joel were laughing and falling into each other’s arms, surrounded by a fluffy cloud made of trust and love, a part of him yearned for a connection as easy and familiar as theirs.
But those moments of weakness dissipated whenever he left their infectious bubble of affection, and his common sense took over again.
Most people never found that kind of love.
He wasn’t arrogant enough to think he could be one of the chosen ones.
No, Eevee had gotten all the relationship luck, and he had his career, and that was enough. He had never been good with people, anyway.
Eevee and Joel smiled like loved-up teenagers when they parted. To Joel’s credit, his smile didn’t falter even when he looked at Baz. It never did. Accepting the weird little brother had always been a part of their soulmate package deal.
Eevee led the way to the table in the back corner.
Long shelves and cat beds decorated the walls; an orange tabby was curled up in a see-through orb just above Eevee’s head, his paw beans pressing against the plastic.
And, of course, Lucipurr was on his heels.
She cowered under the table next to them, her bright yellow eyes unblinkingly focused on Baz. Stalker.
“So.” Baz folded his hands on the table. “What’s up?”
Eevee’s shoulders hitched up to her chin. “Uh. Nothing. Just wanted to hear how you’re feeling after your big win.” She peered at the door, waited until it fell shut behind the ladies Joel saw out. Her fidgeting fingers intertwined into a tight ball she hid in her lap.
Baz frowned. “What’s going on?”
“Maybe we should have dinner first,” she said. Deflecting. But why?
“What’s the matter, Eve?”
Eevee sighed out a long breath. “I spoke to Dad.”
A knife rammed into Baz’s chest and tore him apart. He waited for the punch line, anything that said I’m kidding it’s nothing that bad, but Eevee stared at him with these guilt-ridden, wide eyes.
No.
“Are you serious?” His voice came out husky.
Eevee nodded slowly.
But… What… Why? How? The words raced through Baz’s mind, desperate to find their matching pieces to form a sentence. His ajar mouth dried out.
And Eevee was still as silent as the grave their mother rested in.
“Why would you do that?” Baz pressed out.
“I don’t know. He kept calling, and I thought maybe something had happened.”
“And that would be bad why exactly?”
“I felt sorry for him! It’s been fifteen years since Mom died, and he’s been alone—”
“You felt sorry for him?“ Baz was on his feet before he knew it. The chair fell backward and crashed into the floor, sending three cats scattering. “He is the one who should be sorry after all he put us through! Especially you! Don’t you remember when he caught you in Mom’s heels and threatened you with eternal damnation?”
Baz sure as fuck did. He remembered it all.
Eevee tearfully coming out to him. Her euphoria when Baz told her that he believed her when she said she was a girl, that it made no difference to him.
They had spent hours going through magazines to find her style, testing out names until she found the one she resonated with.
When he called her Eevee for the first time, she was the happiest he had ever seen her, glowing with an inner light like the angel she was—and all that changed the day Jack came home early and caught Eevee in their mother’s clothes.
The shock in his cold eyes had been the harbinger of the rage that exploded out of him, like lava out of a volcano.
In his police uniform, with his hand looming over the holstered gun, he had yelled at them to never touch Mom’s stuff again.
He all but ripped the top off Eevee and declared that “no son of his would be seen like this.”
Eevee’s sob-riddled declaration that she wasn’t his son had been met with Jack’s backhand across her face. The smack still haunted Baz’s nightmares.
Eevee had refused to step foot outside her room for days afterward. Skipped school, only ate what Joel brought her. All they clung on to was the dream of finally getting away from Jack for good.
Two years, they persevered. The day Eevee turned eighteen, they had packed their things, left that backward suburb to move with Joel into an apartment in Hyde Park, far away from Jack’s precinct, and never looked back.
He couldn’t fathom a single good reason why the hell she was now allowing Jack back into their lives.
“Of course I remember,” Eevee said. “But it’s been thirteen years.”
“And that makes how he treated us okay?”
“I’m not saying that—”
“Eevee, he is using you! Who knows what he needs that’s got him reaching out after all these years!”
“What harm is there in a simple conversation? He just wanted to hear how I’m doing.”
What harm? He had ruined their mother’s life, had made theirs hell for years too. The harm was long done, and it was fucking irreversible.
Hot tears prickled in Baz’s eyes, too stubborn to be blinked away. “We don’t need him! We never have. You and me, remember?”
“Of course it’s you and me. But people can change—”
“No, they don’t. Not Jack. You can’t fix him, Eve.”
Eevee pressed her lips into a tight line.
Why? Why was she doing this to them? They were fine, goddamnit! They didn’t need Jack. Why couldn’t she see that?
A gentle pressure glided along his shins. Lucipurr, rubbing her head over his pants—and hissing when their eyes met. Jesus Christ.
Baz ran his hand over his face.
Breathe. In and out…
“Look.” He forced his voice to be steady. “There’s a reason he called you and not me. He’s trying to take advantage of your kindness.” Baz would have ripped Jack a new asshole for daring to find out his number, and they all knew it.
“Yeah. Maybe.” Her tone was too cold for her to have believed him.
How could she not see what Baz saw crystal clear? Why the hell wasn’t Joel saying anything?
Baz marched to the counter to find Joel toweling a glass as if this were none of his concern.
“How are you okay with this? You saw how he treated Eevee!”
“And I’ll never forget it,” Joel said darkly, setting the glass down. “But we’re not teenagers anymore, Baz. Has no part of you ever wondered what happened to him?”
No, he hadn’t. Clearly, Baz was the only one here who hadn’t lost his mind.
Eevee’s footsteps echoed on the gray linoleum floor, her face pleading… Baz shook his head. No. No!
He would do anything for Eevee. Anything. But he would not stand by and watch her getting dragged back into the black hole that was Jack Hadley.
“If you’re desperate to subject yourself to his torture, fine. But I’m not gonna go through that again.”
“Baz, wait—”
He was already out the door and back in the biting cold of the evening. His nails dug trenches into his palm.
How could she do this to herself? To him?
Baz buried his face in his hands. His plan to spend the night working shattered into a thousand pieces, reflecting the haunted memories of a dead-silent house. What he needed was a baseball bat and a life-size mannequin of Jack. But he didn’t have that, so the next best thing had to do: alcohol.
Lots of it.