57. Choking on red pills and grief
FIFTY-SEVEN
CHOKING ON RED PILLS AND GRIEF
“Why is Denny calling me in a mad panic?”
Tightening my lips, I focus on my computer and the project that’s due the day after tomorrow.
“Yo, bro?”
“I don’t want to talk about it, Pecan.”
“You might not but Denny clearly does.” He dips his face over my shoulder. “What’s going on? You okay?”
“Do I look okay?”
“You look how you’ve looked since she went to Europe. In dire need of a blowjob and a hug. I’m just not sure which order’ll work best. The hug I can do, but the BJ, nah?”
“Do I sense a question mark? Did breaking things off with Hailey make you question your sexuality?”
He shoves my shoulder. “Already questioned that. Got Neil Randolph to suck me off in—”
I spin around in my chair to gape at him. “Are you messing with me?! Neil Randolph?! I hated him!”
First Denny, now Pecan?! What the actual fuck?!
“Hey, we had that enemies to lovers vibe going on.” He shoots me a dopey grin. “One of the best BJs I ever had.” Then he elbows me in the head. “Now that I got you out of your funk, what’s going—”
“Why aren’t you answering Denny’s calls?! If she phones me one more time while I’m—”
Brows high as Callan verbally skids to a halt, Pecan prompts, “While you’re what, Cal?”
“Never mind that.”
“Did my bedroom become a meeting room or something?” I rock back in my seat so I can glower at them in stereo.
“Denny’s worried. Which means she won’t stop calling either of us by the looks of it because you’re not answering your cell,” Callan points out. “Which means we won’t get any peace until you answer her. Why aren't you answering her calls? Answer her damn calls, Zach!”
I tip my head to the side. “You look pink.”
“Pink?”
“Pink,” Pecan confirms, also studying him.
“Callan, what were you doing before you came barging in…?” I drawl, just to watch him blush.
Upon returning to school after the holidays, Callan decided that moving into our building was a great idea.
Pecan decided it was an even better idea to give him a key.
I swear to Christ—the universe is against me.
Callan sniffs. “I have three brothers. I know your game. Misdirection. Well, it won’t work. Now, what’s going on, or do I have to do a sit-in?”
I pinch the bridge of my nose. “It’s ridiculous and not her problem. I’m dealing with it. I told her I was dealing with it—”
“She obviously didn’t receive that message.” He sits on the foot of my bed. “What’s ridiculous?”
“Your fly’s undone.”
Callan glances down then groans.
Pecan cackles. “Made you look. Misdirection, my ass!”
We both scowl at him, but I just mumble, “It doesn’t matter.”
“Clearly not.”
“Yeah, dude.” Pecan ambles toward my bed too, tosses his arm over Callan’s shoulders, then plunks down beside him. “A problem shared is a problem doubled.”
“It’s halved,” Callan says dryly.
“That makes no sense.”
“How can it make more sense for a problem to be doubled when it’s shared?”
“Because we’ll take on the weight of his problem.”
“Jesus!” I growl. “If I tell you, will you shut the fuck up?”
Pecan beams at me. “Of course.”
And I’m back to pinching the bridge of my nose.
“I was video-calling her during lunchtime. This guy’s hovering behind her in some kind of bar and is literally staring down her shirt. Right in front of me—”
“Denny encouraged it?” Callan asks in surprise.
“Of course not. She’s under the impression she’s unattractive.” I roll my eyes. “Anyway, she’s talking to me and he…”
Pecan frowns. “He what?”
“Touched her.”
“Touched her?” Callan repeats.
“Touched her,” I confirm.
“Touched her?” Pecan asks.
“Yeah! He fucking touched her!”
They share a look.
“Her ass?”
“No.”
Pecan strokes his chin. “Her tit?”
My jaw works. “Her shoulder.”
They share another look.
I burst upright and walk off my fury. “I KNOW. I know it’s crazy. I know it’s irrational. You don’t have to say—”
“That you sound like a psycho?” Callan inquires.
I continue striding. “Well aware.”
“Never seen you be this possessive before.” Pecan flops back onto the mattress. “Probably because she’s the first woman you’ve ever given a fuck about outside of your mom and grandma and Mel and Ma.”
Neither man says anything.
Nor do I.
My pace falters.
My shoulders hunch. “She shouldn’t have to deal with my bullshit. It’s not on her. It’s me. My problem.”
“Denny doesn’t agree.”
“I told her I just needed some space.”
“Five thousand miles isn’t enough, huh?”
“Fuck off, Pecan.”
“I appreciate your logic, even if he doesn’t,” Callan mock-whispers, earning himself a glare from me.
“I’m scared, all right?” I burst out.
“Of what?”
For the longest time, I can’t get the words out. Then, I croak, “Losing her.”
I cut across the room to the window and stare at the snow that’s gently tumbling to the ground. I love snow. How quiet it is. How silent the world is when the white’s all-encompassing.
I have so many good memories of snow, even if they’re few and far between because I grew up in the sweaty ass crack of the US. But there’s no comfort in it now. Building snowmen with Mom when we went to visit Grandma. Traipsing through it to sleigh down the hill on the land behind Gran’s house…
“I know getting too possessive will push her away. I know it’s a vicious cycle. I’m trying to break it.”
“By ignoring her frantic calls?”
“I told her I was okay and that I’d ring her tomorrow, Callan,” I snarl.
“She must have figured out you were lying. Wouldn’t be too hard. You look like you could headbutt a concrete wall and expect it to fight back.”
Pecan snorts. “I like the imagery.”
“Why do you think you’ll lose her?” Callan rubs his temple. “As far as I can see, she’s crazy in love with you. Plus, she’ll only be gone another two weeks. It’s literally been a month since you last saw her. How is this even a problem?”
“She never said it, all right?!”
Pecan makes a face. “Never said what?”
I grit my teeth, but with them both staring at me, I cave: “That she loves me.”
Callan snorts. “Of course she does.”
“Duh.”
“She’s never said it!”
“Because you’re both new!”
Pecan rolls his eyes. “Never, my peachy butt. She told me she loved me last week and I mostly irritate her!”
“That’s different,” I shout.
Callan sighs. “Zach, just be patient—”
“I can’t be, dammit. I fucking love her and it’s taking over me and…” My shoulders slump. “It’s driving me crazy.”
“Lemme see if I can summarize this using my fluency in Zachlish. Zach’s missing his mom but because we’re choking on red pills and dudes aren’t allowed to cry, he just keeps beating shit up and/or fucking anything with a snatch.
Then, in rolls Denny. The one woman who’s seen him break down, but even though he’s allowed to be vulnerable with her, podcast bros keep telling us that’s no bueno.
With her away, he can’t fuck his problems into her or his feelings, so his head’s slowly loosening on the screw that attaches it to his neck.
“So, instead of sitting down and talking to her about how it hurts losing the one parent who had his back and didn’t give a fuck if he quit hockey or if he never amounted to anything on the ice and who loved him—with or without saying the words—despite his assholish tendencies—”
“Thanks, Peeks.”
“—he just gets jealous and possessive. Because she’s new to this shit,” he steams on like I never interrupted.
“D thinks it’s hot. But Zach has enough emotional capacity, despite being a Neanderthal, to know that that won’t last for long.
D’s independent as fuck and won’t let a brother tell her how to live her life or who to talk to.
“So, Zach had a meltdown and decided to give himself some space because he’s also a moron and thinks that he can avoid said patriarchal BS by ignoring Denny, i.e.
, the one person he actually feels safe enough with to grieve his mom because he won’t do it in front of me, the person he’s second closest to, because we’re bros.
“As a result, Denny’s upset, Zach’s upset, I’m upset, you’re upset, and all because Denny hasn’t said the words. That about sum it up?”
“You mean you can speak in paragraphs and I have to trawl through your five-word sentence essays?” Callan bursts out, rounding on Pecan like the menace he is.
Pecan’s nose wrinkles. “That’s your take?”
“Well, no. But you’re annoying, fucker.” He clicks his fingers at me. “He’s also right.”
“Yeah,” I rasp, slouching on my desk chair, elbows on knees, hands covering my face.
“We won’t say anything if you cry, man.”
“I don’t want to cry.”
“Big ask, Pecan. We build up to that stuff.”
“Hey, I cried in front of him when Benji Kliowski’s blade swiped over my pants two years ago. If I hadn’t been wearing my jockstrap, my cock would have been a goner.”
“And what does that have to do with grieving mothers?” Callan huffs. “Look, you don’t need breasts to understand that it hurts losing someone you love.”
“Breasts help.”
He shoves Pecan in the side. “Shut the fuck up. Someone who can articulate what you just articulated and be right needs to stop playing up the moron act. There’s more in that skull of yours than you’re comfortable with, and you helped Zach but this isn’t.
So, back down with the hockey gorilla he-man shit and just be Peter. Zach’s friend.”
Curious, I drop my hands and look at Pecan, whose mouth opens and closes a few times at being called out.
He clears his throat. “I loved Jo.”
“What was she like?” Callan asks, scooting back on my bed and falling onto my pillows.
“Toss me that purple one,” I order him.
He does with a raised brow.
I’m not about to tell him that’s Denny’s pillow.
Maybe because that’s more of the red-pill shit.
“Jo was… kind. And she read between the lines a lot. She seemed to know what was what without making you feel like a douche about it.”
“Explain.”