CHAPTER 31
To Jintae: Work is finally slowing down.
I’ve only got a few of Eden’s clients left, then no more twelve hour days.
Carey is here every day now and it feels like he always has been.
He’s nicer to be around than Shawn, but that’s not hard.
He’s redecorating the place, though it still feels empty without Eden and Reeze.
I want them back, even Reeze. All three of us together, how it’s meant to be…
I’m still here whenever you're ready to talk. No judgement. Please just let me know you’re safe.
Ihit send on my most recent weekly update to my brother and exit the back room.
I’ve still not heard from him. It’s mid January, we’re no closer to knowing if he’s alive or dead, and I’m starting to understand the appeal.
If I disappeared with Carey, then it wouldn’t matter what my parents thought.
There’d be no need to tell them. No need to worry about who might see us and run straight to my mother.
No need to stress over who might call Eden and tell him I’m fucking his brother.
We could live out of my van during the summer, traveling up and down the continent to wherever the waves were best, then get a cute little place where I could set up a shop in the winter time.
I’d miss the bustle and the banter of working with my best friend, but what I have with Carey brings me so much happiness I really think I’d be willing to throw it all away. To make my choice. To choose us.
But as I look up at him and Liv standing together on top of the side bench, rearranging the frames to fit more in, laughing, I know that can never happen. Carey needs a home. Somewhere stable. With his own friends and an actual family.
So I can’t be selfish. We need to make this work, right here in Broadrock. In Teken Ink. With Liv, and his brother, and—fuck it—Reeze too.
It doesn’t matter how hard I have to work to prove to Eden that the way I feel about Carey is more genuine than anything I’ve ever known.
But I’ll do it. I’ll pay whatever dues he charges.
But… that’s all for Carey. For me, for my parents, I’m not willing to try so hard.
I’m not willing to live inside their box anymore.
I don’t know how—or when—I’ll tell them, but when I do, I’ll make it clear that Carey Novak is my only option.
Either accept us being together, or don’t.
No ultimatums, no conditions, no you can come over on holidays but we won’t talk about it. It’s all, or nothing.
“What are you so happy about?” Liv asks when she turns around to see me smiling up at Carey.
“You mean other than his twelve o’clock looks like a no-show?” Carey answers her.
Liv digs her phone out of her back pocket. “At what point d’you consider the appointment forfeited?”
“You can wait till your appointment.”
“What? No! I’m already here. I need my dick shark.” She takes the framed sketch off the wall. “Then I’m gonna buy this baby.”
I roll my eyes. “They’re not for sale.”
Carey jumps down from the bench. “Why not?”
“Cause they’re shitty sketches.”
“That look amazing in frames.” He reaches out his hand and Liv passes it to him. “You could get some sucker to pay fifty bucks for this, easy.”
Liv protests, “Hey,” as she moves to sit on the bench. Her feet swing back slightly, and her pink slippers—the ones Carey bought her last week because she’s here so damn often now—tap against the cupboard doors.
Keeping some distance between us, Carey places the framed sketch in front of me. “It looks good.”
“It’s not worth fifty dollars.”
“I think it is,” Liv says.
“So you are a sucker?” I tease.
“How? That picture in ink on my ass is gonna cost me two-hundred. How is the same drawing by the same artist not worth anything?”
“She’s not wrong.” I look up at Carey, and he smirks down at me. Just a little, just the slightest tweak of his top lip. But my ears burn and my stomach flips, so I look away before he drags me out to the back room.
“Urgh,” Liv moans. “Just kiss already. Put me out of my misery.”
Carey snickers without shame, but I just stare down at the desk in front of me, because what the fuck?
Liv hops down from the bench and approaches the opposite side of the desk. “Seriously. I’m gay too, remember.”
Carey corrects her. “We’re not gay.”
“Whatever,” she sighs. “But girls aren’t gonna give a fuck about whether you like them too when they find out you’re both off the market.”
“Some already know,” Carey mutters while fiddling with a pen.
“That’s right. Word on the street says that you, Mister I don’t date anybody, is finally taken…
But by who?” She slumps forward on the desk, her chin on her fist. “Who, in this whole town, could possibly be the lucky lady?” She starts tapping her cheek with her index finger.
“Except… What if it’s not a lady at all? ”
I exhale. “You’ve made your point.”
“Have I?”
I can feel Carey’s eyes burning into the side of my head.
I’m not surprised that Brooklyn couldn’t keep her mouth shut.
Though by the state of me when I told her I was seeing someone, I am shocked she didn’t put two and two together.
I’d be lying if I said, at least part of me, didn’t hope she’d be the one to tell everybody so I didn’t have to.
I know most people don’t want to be outed by somebody else, but I’m starting to think it’s the kind of push I need.
Liv points at Carey. “I can tell this one doesn’t care, so what part of it has you so worried? The two guys thing? The age difference? Your… family?”
“All of the above?”
“Eck, boring.” She pulls a face, but it makes me laugh.
She’s so much like Carey it’s hard to not find her endearing.
“As far as I see it. The only real problems will come when his brother gets back. Your parents will accept it, or they won't. They’ll get over it, or they won’t.
You have no control over that. I went through it all with my family, and it can suck, but it’s your life.
You need to be willing to walk away if you have to in order to be happy.
But here...” She presses her finger into the desk.
“You share a business. And you’re fucking your best friends little brother.
Guy, or girl, it wouldn’t matter, you’re gonna be in the bad books…
Now, if you want my opinion, I think Carey is more than old enough to decide who he wants to be with.
And, the two of you together is hot as fuuuck—”
“I thought you were gay?” I tease her again.
“And I thought you’d have big enough balls not to hide this amazing guy away.”
“I’m not hiding him.”
“But you’re not showing him off either.”
“We spend every day together.”
“Hold his hand then.”
Carey doesn’t move, and I really need him to.
I want to prove Liv wrong, but she’s hit every possible nail on the head.
I’m still terrified of losing the shop and everything Eden and I have built together.
But if Carey moves first, I’ll follow.
I’ll hold his hand.
I’ll take that first step.
I’ll—
“He’s fucking someone else!”
Shawn’s shrill voice rattles off every surface as she throws open the shop’s door.
Liv twists around on the spot, still gripping onto the desk.
“How the fuck could he do this to me?”
With a deep, lamenting sigh, I get up and walk to her.
“Look at this.” She shoves her phone in my face.
It takes a few seconds for my eyes to adjust, but when they do, I see a picture of Eden, his dick, and someone small on all fours in front of him cut off at the waist.
“Lovely,” I say, swatting it away.
“He’s been snowed in for almost two months.”
I slump down into one of the chairs by the door. “And?”
“So he’s got someone there with him.”
“Maybe it’s from before.”
“Before when? He bought that cabin while we were together. So if that’s true, then he was cheating on me, too.”
I scoff. “He didn’t have any fucking time.”
“Then when is this from? The first week before the snow?”
Carey steps towards Shawn. “You mean after he broke up with you because you were cheating on him?" He twists her hand so he can see the picture. “That’s a guy.”
“What?” Shawn takes back her hand and stares at the picture.
“He’s small, but it’s a guy.” Carey looks me dead in the eye. “I’ve been with enough of both to know.”
Liv joins in. “Let me see.”
Shawn holds her phone against her chest. “Who the fuck are you?”
“Liv. Carey’s friend. Let me have a look.
” She makes a grabby hand until Shawn passes over her phone.
“Wow, dude’s packin'. Does that run in the family?” She slaps Carey’s arm and gives me a sly side glance that Shawn doesn’t notice.
“But, yeah. Sorry hun, that’s definitely a guy.
” After handing the phone back, Liv mutters something along the lines of, “So if they’re both fucking dudes then that should make everything easier,” to Carey as they stroll away from Shawn towards the window.
“What the actual fuck, Tek?” Shawn falls into the seat beside me. I don’t know why she thinks I’m the person to give her comfort or sympathy.
“This isn’t my problem Shawn.”
“Did you know about it?”
She’s not even listening. “Know about what?”
“Him seeing someone else.”
“It’s a picture. It could have been taken the first night he was out there. God knows he deserves to fuck whoever he wants after what you did to him.”
“I wasn’t the only one involved.”
“But you were the only one in a relationship.”
Her face falls into her hands. “He won’t talk to me.”
“Why would he want to?” I glance towards where Carey and Liv are watching an old lady walk out of Watersons’ with her arms loaded with bags.
“I made a mistake. I want to apologize… I want him back.”
I laugh. It’s rude, but I can’t help it. “Are things over with Reeze already?”
“They have been since before Christmas… He got distant as soon as I moved into my new place."
“You’re a lot to handle, Shawn.”
“Is that such a bad thing?”
“It shouldn’t be. But if you get with a guy just because your boyfriend caught you cheating with him… That’s not really the basis of a great relationship.”
“I know.” She hangs her head. “I’m just so lonely.”
I scoff again. I’m not trying to be a dick, but what does she expect? “You brought this all on yourself.”
“Eden had been pulling away from me for months. He’s never been a workaholic, then six months ago he started taking on extra clients. He stopped wanting to go out. He didn’t take me to the last convention. All we did was have sex and fight.”
“Don't you have friends you can tell this to?”
“No one will talk to me. I’ve tried Anaise so many times but she won’t answer the phone.”
“That’s 'cause she’s our friend.”
I watch tears start to fall into Shawn’s lap, but they still don’t dredge up any sympathy.
Even though I’ve come to accept that I would never have gotten with Carey if she hadn’t fucked everything up, I still can’t feel sorry for her.
So what if Eden’s sleeping with someone else?
Did she expect he’d turn celibate without her?
They didn’t know each other's names the first time they slept together, five years in a relationship with her wasn’t going to change the person he is.
Shawn is spiteful, but Eden is an asshole.
Every single cell in his body is a real piece of shit, so I’m shocked he only sent her one picture.
Shawn sniffles, and I wish she’d just leave. I want to shut the shop for the day and take Carey somewhere.
“I’m gonna go help her,” I hear Carey tell Liv, then the door bell chimes as he steps outside.
The day is sunny, the street is mostly clear of snow, and I watch from the corner of my eye as he approaches the crosswalk then jogs across it.
Carey meets the old lady in front of the Emerald Dragon, and even from here I can see her surprise morph into gratefulness.
She hands most of her bags off to the sweetest man I’ve ever known before gesturing back over the street.
“Do you have any tissues?”
My head flops back towards Shawn. “You know where they are.”
She glares back at me, and I see her. The real her. The heinous bitch that’s always lying just below the surface.
“How did we all deal with you for five years?”
Her lips quiver. “That’s so mean.”
“Is it because as long as you were getting your way, you kept your shitty personality at bay?”
“Fuck you—”
“No, fuck you, Shawn.” I slap my hands against my thighs, and stand. “I’m done here. I’m not your friend. You can show yourself out.”
As soon as I turn my back to her and take one step towards the desk, the screech of tires tears through the air—
Liv shrieks.
There's a loud thud.
I spin back around.
A silver sedan, diagonal on the crossing.
Groceries spilled on the asphalt.
I can’t see the old lady.
I can’t see—
“Carey!” I scream.
My lungs burn.
I can’t breathe.
I can’t stay still.
I hear the shop's door bell, then the glass rattle in the frame.
My vision is a tunnel as rage bubbles inside me.
My skin feels like fire.
There’s a pounding like a hammer against my skull.
I won’t go through this again.
This time I won’t allow someone to take my world and get away with it.