Chapter 31
TRIPP
Slipping into a fresh pair of gloves, I reach for the bottle of disinfectant waiting on my counter and give a generous spray to my table. The smell of alcohol fills the air and burns my nostrils, even though the label very clearly says ‘unscented.’
Across the room, Connor has a client on his table.
He bends his knees, dropping in front of them with an ink-tipped toothpick in hand, his focus honed in on the client’s eyebrow.
The tip of his tongue pulls his lower lip inward, and my head dips with a laugh and a shake.
Catching a glimpse of our other piercer, whose eyes are now on me, I straighten my expression and bring my attention back to my task.
There’s a small part of me that thinks the other guys here know. I don’t know that that part of me cares if they do, but I know it feels protective over what we have; and I don’t trust myself not to hurt someone for trying to fuck it up.
They’re mine.
Peeling off my gloves, I reach for the thigh bag sitting on my desk and pull a pack of cigarettes from its pocket, chuckling at the phone sitting on my desk. It’s now full of text messages from my wife, swearing up, down, and sideways that she’s never drinking again.
It’s a lie more to herself than it is to me. She’s only ever passed up two or three of Aislin’s karaoke night invitations; and she always regrets going in the morning.
Tapping the end of the pack against my hand, I slide one of the filters between my lips and light the smoke.
As I pull in a lungful of smoke, I can’t not think about the three times that Connor’s tried to talk me into quitting this week.
He even printed out a fucking spreadsheet to show me how much money I’d save and how many things I’d be able to do in X amount of years if I quit now.
When the ash finally meets the filter, I throw the cigarette butt at my foot, stomping it beneath my toe before pulling another from the pack and lighting it.
I narrow my eyes at the horizon, tugging at my jewelry with my teeth as something warm jitters down my spine. Not a pleasant warmth, not the kind that wraps itself around me like a blanket. Not the kind that feels like home.
Something…not right.
Something coming.
I’m bumped out of the way as Connor’s client shoulders past me. I grumble a complaint, but return to my task, my leg now bouncing in place.
Tossing the butt to the ground, I stomp it out like the last, shooting one last look down the street that houses the shop and letting out a hum as that warmth crawls down my spine once again.
With my arms moving with the melody, I belt along with A Thousand Miles, probably too loudly. My bike’s engine purrs between my thighs and I lean forward to roll back the accelerator, weaving between two cars with a wave to the one on my right.
This is the part of the day where Connor and I would be racing each other home; or I guess, I’d be racing and he’d be telling me to slow down.
Not today, though. We closed early, but I hung back for an extra fifteen minutes to close up the shop and keep questions from cropping up from the too-curious sets of eyes that we share space with.
I haven’t told him about the feeling that I can’t seem to shake. Not because I don’t think he would understand, but because he does the same fucking thing all the time, and he’d give me just as much shit for it as I do to him.
In another four songs from my playlist, I pull onto our driveway. Connor’s favorite bike, the lime green one that he rode today, is on the driveway. Mine crawls to a stop next to it before I pull off my helmet and head inside through the front door.
Julia is seated on the couch with a bottle of bubblegum-pink nail polish, her head bobbing to the music quietly playing from her phone’s speaker while she works to spread the color over her fingernails.
Connor is next to her, with Drumstick behind him, rubbing his head into my partner’s hair; which means that Koda must be playing out in the yard.
Or finding bugs out there to eat.
Kicking off my Chucks as I toss my phone onto the table, I pull in a breath and I search for that sickening warmth that crept its way into my bones; but it isn’t there. I can’t find it anymore. I’m grateful for that, because it’s not something that I feel often. Not like that, anyway.
The last time I had that feeling, Brody sat me down two hours later with a box of black-and-white cookies and told me that his cancer had come back, and that it was probably going to get scary again.
Before I even have a minute to think about how badly I don’t want to feel that again, my phone buzzes wildly on the coffee table, its movement and ringtone drawing my attention, and the trickle of that feeling that I had before becomes a gale force storm, taking over my senses.
Most people have their moms saved in their phone as ‘Mom,’ ‘Mama,’ or some other variation of the word. My mom is saved in my phone as ‘Abaddon.’
Spinning the ringing device between my forefinger and thumb, I wait until the ringer has nearly finished its song before swiping open the screen to accept the call.
“How’s it goin’, Molly?” I ask, my voice thick with feigned enthusiasm. “Things here? I’m so glad you asked. We’re doing really well. Had a few rain storms, but other than that, can’t complain. You know, we were thinking about taking the—”
“Your father is having a stent put into his heart, Tripp,” she snaps at me. “This is serious. You need to be with your family right now.”
“I need to be seen with you, you mean,” I counter. “You need photos of your perfect little family gathered together in a time of need; really pull at the peoples’ heartstrings. How much do you think you could get in the collection plate for that?”
“Your father needs you,” she urges, and a laugh cracks through me that I can’t seem to stop from coming out.
He needs me?
Where the fuck was he any of the times that I needed him?
Where were either of them?
Too busy washing their hands of me as soon as they threw me out onto my ass with fifty bucks to my name, so I wouldn’t sully theirs.
“If he croaks, let me know,” I tell her.
“Your brother is arranging a flight for you,” she says.
“Guess he’ll be out a couple hundred bucks then, won’t he?” I ask, lifting a shoulder in a shrug. “See you at Christmas, Molly.”
I don’t offer her the opportunity to respond to me before I end the call, tossing my phone onto the couch and pushing my fingers through my hair.
Jules and Connor look to me expectantly, their brows stitching together as their features beg me for answers to questions they aren’t asking.
“They’re doing something to my dad’s heart.”
Julia straightens, stepping closer to me to wrap her hand in mine.
“Like, surgery?” She asks.
“Sounded like it,” I say with a shrug. “He had some kind of ‘cardiac event’ when I was little. It shouldn’t be a surprise the old thing’s not holding up too well.”
My feet carry me toward the edge of the living room’s carpeted floor, stopping short as a low burn settles into my chest and my lungs grow heavy.
The last time Edie was in a hospital, it was because her husband was dead.
The last time Brody was in one, it was because he was dying.
I’m not sure Graham’s ever been inside of one, outside of the day he was born.
The last time I was in one…
Blowing out a breath, I reach for my keys, discarded on the coffee table, and I offer a nod to my wife and our partner.
“I’m making a smoke run,” I tell them.
Connor hoists himself off of the couch to take the keys from my hand and slide them into his own pocket before patting me supportively on the shoulder.
“I’ll get them,” he says. Gesturing toward the couch for me to sit, he adds, “You get the wrong phone call, and you’re riding asphalt, whether you think right now that it’ll bother you or not. It will.”
Jules offers him her quiet thanks as I shove my hands into the pockets of my jeans, my leg taking up a mind of its own as it starts to bounce in place.
I can hear myself, barely nineteen and shouting in the dining room that God doesn’t exist. I feel my leg pull up as I kick one of the carved wooden chairs onto its side.
I hear my mom screaming ‘blasphemer!’ as I throw my defaced Bible onto the table.
The one that I’d spent months combing through, highlighting and bookmarking every inconsistency and untruth.
Writing in the margins the questions they’d never given me the freedom to ask out loud.
In my memory, I look to my dad, standing at the opposite end of the table with abhorrence behind his eyes, and I wish him dead. I beg the God that I don’t believe in to strike him down right here, right now, and prove me wrong.
And in the real world, a fiery burn settles into my stomach.