—28— Diego
Diego
“Wait, they’re still doing Tumbleweeds Tuesdays??”
I’m in the break room about to clock out after a tiring day. My phone’s hanging in my grip as I stare at the calendar on the wall, feeling numb. Joel is going off after hearing where I’m headed. I’m not even here, can’t even listen to him or respond, fucking dead to the world.
“Think I’ll stop by with you,” he goes on, practically talking to himself. “Mindy won’t mind. And I’m in no hurry to get home. It’s Disney night. Again. Fuckin’ every Tuesday, man. Can only watch Frozen so many times before I’m ‘bout to let it go.”
“Fine,” I mumble, finally pocketing my phone, unable to bear one more thought today, then clock out at the computer.
“You okay?” He tucks his lunchbox under an arm. “You get a weird text or somethin’? You seem pissed. Like, more than usual.”
“I’m fine,” I repeat, heading off. He clocks out fast and hurries behind me to keep up.
He talks my ear off the whole way there, second-guessing if he should just go home, if he might be tempted to drink too much at the bar, if he should shoot his wife a text first. I couldn’t care less. All I want to do is see Wyatt’s face and have this day turn around.
Except I’m not sure Wyatt’s face alone can do that.
Awful lot of pressure to put on him.
And the last thing that guy needs is more pressure.
I don’t want to be a problem in his life. I want to be something he counts on, not something he deals with. In my short month in this town, I’ve seen him put up with too much already. And I’ll be damned to be just one more thing.
Tumbleweeds, a popular bar on Main Street that doubles as a steak-and-potatoes restaurant apparently, is already too crowded for my taste when Joel and I approach the front.
But I promised Wyatt I’d swing by, and didn’t I just get done saying I’m not gonna let him down again?
The second I step inside, it’s just noise. Laughter at the bar. Every booth and table filled with groups of friends and families shouting over the music.
And on a nothing middle-of-the-week school night?
“Two-for-Tuesday,” Joel explains, as if answering the thought in my head. “People go fuckin’ wild for any deal around here. Oh, hey, there they are. Yo, Lance! Wyatt!” He heads off ahead of me. I pull back, still unable to see them.
Then two heads move aside, and between them, Wyatt comes into view.
And suddenly I’m alright.
I see him laughing at something. Then leaning in to respond to someone. Lance, from the look of it. More laughter. He shakes his head and takes a sip of his drink, looking charming and happy. He points at Lance’s drink and asks something. He says something back. Wyatt chuckles and nods.
The longer I look, the more I see it.
The moment of blankness in his face each time he listens to whatever Lance says.
The tightness of his lips between speaking.
His empty smiles.
Something’s not right.
Then Wyatt flinches, like he’s telepathic and literally senses me over here, then glances my way, searching for me. He finds me through the crowd.
And I see a real smile.
My day’s instantly better.
I come up to him like I’m in a hurry. Probably knock into a server and send mugs of beer scattering for all I know, I’d barely notice. The only thing that matters is reaching Wyatt and getting my arms around him.
Only when we finally reach each other, both of us freeze.
“Hey,” he greets me softly.
Even in the noise, I hear him crystal clear. “Hey,” I say back.
“You alright?” he asks.
“Yep,” I answer quickly. “You?”
“I’m fine,” he answers as fast. He gestures at everything. “It isn’t usually this, uh …”
“It’s fine,” I tell him and mean it, staring into his eyes.
He observes me for a second. “You seem to be more and more fine with this town lately.” Another real smile happens on his face, thanks to my presence, I’m cocky enough to think. “You know … I’m starting to get this totally crazy idea that you might actually like it here.”
“Don’t get ahead of yourself.”
“Ahead of myself is where I live.” He smiles. “Want a drink?”
If I have a drink right now, I’m gonna have twenty, and Wyatt doesn’t need to see me like that. “I’m fine.”
“Probably for the best, since Lance and Chad wanna play pool against us. You good with sticks and balls?”
I look at Wyatt, surprised he’d make a joke like that. Then I wonder if it’s a joke at all. “You tell me. Am I good with yours?”
“Expert level,” he says.
“Let’s take ‘em on, then.”
We head over to the pool tables, only to realize all of them are taken.
Lance and Chad greet us, then Lance starts going on talking about a fashion show or something he’s organizing in Brookfield, hoping to make “a big fat buck or two on the richies” in his words.
Then Chad asks him if they’re still gonna be able to do something they’d planned with the Kings, Lance is sidetracked, and the two get lost in a side conversation.
That’s when Wyatt looks at me and asks, “What’s wrong?”
I lift my eyebrows. “Huh? Why?”
“I can just tell something’s a little off.”
“Speak for yourself,” I say right back. “You looked stiff before I arrived. Like someone peed in your flowerbed.”
He bristles. “No one peed anywhere.”
“So what’s the deal with you?” I ask. “Why was your first real smile when I showed up?”
“All my smiles are real,” he says back, firm, “and I said nothing happened today.”
“Actually you said you’re fine when I asked earlier how you are,” I correct him. “Not that nothing happened. So did something happen today?”
“Nope. And you?”
“No.”
His face tightens.
Mine, too.
Then Joel pops up out of nowhere. “Hey, guys! Just checked in with the wifey. The guilt was eating me alive. Apparently Disney night is taking a pause and making room for Pokémon. Since when have my kids been into Pokémon? When’d that happen?”
“Beginning of the summer,” answers Wyatt. When Joel looks at him blankly, he says, “Ask Mindy.”
“I swear, the gay men in town know my wife better than I do.” He looks at each of us. “What’re we talking about so intensely over here? You guys look like you’re plotting shit.”
“Who’s plotting shit?” asks Lance, cutting in. “Love me a good little plot. I’m all in. Who’re we fucking up?”
“Wait a sec,” comes in Joel, looking at me. “Is this about that rich customer we had the other day?” He chortles and shakes his head. “Dude, I thought Diego was gonna chew him up and spit him out on the floor, but he kept his cool.”
“Rich customer?” Wyatt’s eyes snap to mine.
“Forget it,” I grunt.
“Mr. Bellamy came by the auto shop?”
Joel snaps his fingers. “Shit, I forgot! That guy mentioned you, Wyatt! It’s what almost set Diego off!” He laughs. “Nothing bad. He just said somethin’ about—”
“What’d you say to him?” Wyatt asks me, cutting him off.
I frown. “What makes you think I said something to him?”
“Everything I know about you.”
“I didn’t do shit but fix his car. And I fixed it right. Better than he’d have gotten it fixed anywhere else.” I frown. “You think I’d sabotage his car or something?”
After a second, Wyatt shakes his head. “Of … Of course not.”
“You hesitated.”
“You’d never do something unethical like that. I know. I … But you …” He frowns. “You had to have done or … or said something. You wouldn’t have just been nice to a guy like him. I know you.”
“Do you?”
He steps back, looking me over. For a second, he looks hurt I’d ask that. Then indignant. Then confused.
Joel, looking desperate to diffuse the tension, puts a hand on either of our shoulders. “Listen, pals. If there’s anything I know, all it takes is one rat bastard in our lives to make us all fight for days. We’re here to play pool and take a load off, right?”
“What’d you say to Grant?” asks Wyatt calmly, ignoring Joel.
I frown. “Nothing disrespectful.”
“Diego.”
“I asked him a question.”
“What question?”
“If he respected you.”
His face scrunches up, confused.
Even Lance looks confused, his face reading like he’s thinking, That’s it? Joel’s eyes nervously inch back and forth between us.
“The guy spent ten minutes kissing my ass ‘cause I had grease on my hands,” I go on. “Then he had the balls to bring you up and talk about you like a kid he was training. All I did was ask him why he didn’t treat you with the same respect as he did me, a stranger he just fuckin’ met.
That’s all. That’s it. Kept my fists to myself. ”
Wyatt looks down, appearing at a loss.
Lance shrugs. “That doesn’t sound so bad.”
“Right?” agrees Joel, then adds, “And I was there, Wyatt. I can vouch for your man. He was nothing but respectful and—”
“I don’t need anyone’s vouching,” I cut him off.
Wyatt looks at me. “Diego …”
“You still don’t trust me? You think I—” Suddenly it hits me. The way he’s acting tonight. His forced smiles earlier. “Did he do something? Did he come by your shop today?”
“No.” Wyatt looks away.
I lower my voice and get closer. “What’d he do?”
He closes his eyes. “He terminated our agreement.”
For a moment, I don’t know how to react.
Whether to feel guilty. Fucking proud. Angry and fuming.
Misunderstood.
All I know is that Lance and Joel have nothing to say for once, and Wyatt, maybe for the first time, isn’t hiding anything from his face. No plastic smiles. No insisting he’s okay.
“Good riddance to that asshole,” I finally say.
Wyatt’s eyes pop open. “What?”
“Fuck that guy. You’re better off.”
“Better off? Do you have any idea—?” He lets out a dry, bitter laugh. “You had no right.”
“To what? Ask a dickhead to respect you?”
“To involve yourself!”
“He’s the one who involved me.”
“You still could’ve stayed out of it, Diego!”
“You’re the one who just thanked me last night for standing up for you!” I spread my hands. “So which is it, Wyatt? Am I a man you can rely on to watch your back? Or just the guy you’re fucking next door?”
I don’t realize by this point that the jukebox has gone off.
That no one’s talking in the bar anymore but us.
He sputters, takes a step back, shakes his head. “Standing up for me … doesn’t mean deciding what’s good for me.”
“I’m kinda sick of being the only person in this town willing to speak up when you’re being taken advantage of,” I say quietly.
Whole damned bar can hear every word anyway.
“And also being the only one you get mad at for saying so. That just makes me the asshole, right? Well, if that’s the price for you opening your pretty eyes, so be it.
I’m the asshole. But isn’t my heart in the right place? Doesn’t that count for something?”
Wyatt’s shaking.
His arms. His hands. His lips.
I’m hurting him. No matter what I do to help. No matter how I try to make him happy. I just fucking hurt him.
I’m just another asshole in his life he needs to be rid of.
“You’re right.”
Wyatt looks at me.
“Should’ve stayed out of it. Not gotten involved.” I look away. Joel. Lance. The bar. Half the town crammed in this room. “Doesn’t matter. Never belonged here in the first place.”
“What does that mean?” asks Wyatt.
“Got a text just before I left work.” I look at him. “House sold.”
The words shut up whatever else he was about to say.
I nod at him. “I’ll be outta your hair by morning.”