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Chapter Twenty-Four

Emma—Present Day

Oh. My. God. What the fuck happened last night? My eyes open, and I can only look up at the ceiling, trying desperately not to move. I am terrified that if I turn my head or move my arm, the retching will start again. That is the thing I remember the most. The endless puking. Countless dry heaves. Being put into the shower. And not by David.

Memories come flinging back at me, smacking me with their humiliation. I was shit-faced. Completely shit-faced. Of that I am sure. And David, he was mad at me, but not for long. It was a misunderstanding about Matt and the bathroom, and when it was over, we were okay. Fantastic even. I think I may have told him that I’m falling for him. Not with those exact words but in a different way. Jesus. I hope I didn’t fuck this up. I am such an ass.

I feel fuzzy and heavy at the same time. My head is pounding, and my mouth tastes unbelievably raunchy. My hair is still damp from the shower, and I am wearing someone’s T-shirt and nothing else. I remember laughing in the shower. Laughing about my blue panties with the black lace being all wet. Who put me in there?

Oh. My. God. It was Matt. Matt put me in David’s shower. Sweet Mother of God! I remember teasing him about his tattoo. About why he keeps it covered up at work. About why a grown man would want a tattoo of a cartoon rocket ship on his forearm. Oh, Christ almighty. I hate myself.

Work! Today is Wednesday. I am supposed to be at work. What time is it? I slowly turn my head to look at the clock, but I’m not in my own bed. Where is the fucking clock? I can see from the light coming in between David’s blinds that it is easily late morning. That I have missed my first day of work only a few weeks after I started. And it is because I was drunk as shit, taunting one of my coworkers who more than likely saw me in soaking wet underwear. What else did he see? Why was Matt even here? And where was David? Where
is
David?

I lift my head and look around the room. There he is. Sitting in his bedroom chair, looking at me. Fuck. I think he’s furious. But when he sees me looking at him, he shakes his head and smiles. Not a big smile, mind you, but it’s definitely a smile. Maybe I didn’t fuck this up. Maybe it isn’t as bad as I think. Maybe David doesn’t hate me.

“Good morning,” he says. I decide to save myself from the torture and cut to the chase.

“Just, please, tell me I didn’t fuck things up,” I say.

“Fuck things up?” he asks. “No. You didn’t fuck things up, Emma.
You
were fucked up, but
things
are not.” Thank God. Thank fucking God. “You were, however, one hell of an inebriated specimen last night. How much do you remember?”

“Not much. Just a lot of puking.” I don’t want to mention the shower. Maybe he doesn’t know about it. Maybe it’s better if he doesn’t know about it.

“Yes, there was whole a lot of that, as I understand.” Does that mean he wasn’t here when I was puking? Why wasn’t he here? Where was he?

“Sorry you had to see that,” I say, offering him a chance to answer my questions without actually having to ask them.

“I didn’t see any of it.”

“Oh.” Perhaps feigning innocence will save me. He looks almost disappointed that I don’t remember more.

“I had a job to finish last night, and I couldn’t walk away. Despite how much I wanted to.” He runs his fingers through his hair and leans forward on the chair. “You were completely fucked up. I should have been watching you more. I should have been paying better attention to how much you were drinking. I don’t know what I was thinking.”

“I’m a big girl, David. I should have been watching all that for myself. But I was having so much fun. I’m sorry if I embarrassed you or made things awkward between us. Or between you and your friends.”

“You don’t have to be sorry. Or embarrassed,” he says with a look of confusion on his face. “What
do
you remember?”

“I remember Matt.” There. I said it. It feels like a confessional.

David stands up and walks over to the bed. He sits on the edge and runs his fingers across my forehead and through my hair.

“Yeah? Well, he’s the one that got to see all your impressive regurgitation. He’s the one that brought you home.”

“What? Why? I don’t understand.” And I don’t. I am so confused. Last night I learned they know each other, but obviously they are better friends than I thought.

He must see how utterly perplexed I am. “Matt is a friend, Emma. He has been for a while. I told you that last night, and I told you why I hadn’t mentioned it before. He’s the only one I could trust to get you home when I couldn’t. I called him, he came, and he took care of you. He told me how completely messed up you were.”

“What else did he tell you?” I can’t look at David’s eyes. It hurts.

“I’m not sure you want to know.” I’m not sure I want to know either.

“Please,” I say. “Before I see him at work, I need to know. That is if they don’t fire me for not calling off today.”

“Matt took care of it, so no worries there.”

“That’s way too nice of him. I don’t deserve it.” I wait a few seconds for David to tell me more about last night, but when he doesn’t offer it up, I ask again. “So, are you going to tell me or not?” He inhales sharply and looks as if he’s collecting his thoughts, deciding what he should, and shouldn’t, tell me. I still can’t look at him.

“Short story is you wiped the floor clean with your pretty ass, and I couldn’t get you back up. Carl was breathing down my neck to finish the game, so I called Matt and asked him to come get you. When he got there, we roused you, put you in the car, and Matt took it from there. I wound up with the rest of Carl’s money, finished my job, packed up the place, and came home at four to find Matt crashed on the couch and you in my bed.” He stops for a minute, pausing just long enough to put his hand on my chin and turn my face toward his. When I look at him I am wincing, scrunching up my face in preparation for the horribleness that is sure to come. I am dreading what he might say next, and my face is not squelching my feelings. I know he can read my worry like a book.

“When I woke Matt up to ask him how you were, he told me about the puking and about how he had to put you in the shower because you were covered in it. He said it was pretty bad.”

“Ugh,” I say, wondering how angry David really is, knowing that Matt put me in the shower and cleaned me up. He’s hiding it pretty well.

“I’m not mad at you, Emma, if that’s what you’re worried about. Everyone gets shit-faced sometimes. I’m not mad at Matt either. I trust that he didn’t do any of the creepy shit that my other asshole friends would have done with a drunk-as-fuck woman. When you see him at work tomorrow, you should thank him.” He is saying all this with a guarded face. I get the distinct feeling that I am missing something.

“There is something you aren’t telling me,” I say. “What is it?”

David sighs and bends down to plant a soft kiss on my lips. I try not to exhale because I don’t want him to smell my foul breath.

“I hated last night,” he says with both sadness and downright resentment. Oh, no. I suddenly want to kick myself for making him feel this way. “I hate that I watched you get so drunk. I hate that I couldn’t be the one to take care of you. I hate knowing that Matt probably saw you naked and now you have to work with him every day. I hate that I had to lie to you about knowing him. And I hate that the night after telling me about your warped-as-fuck stepfather, you were puking your guts out with no one but the douche bag to hold your hair.” Wow.

Where do I go from here?

“Well, if it makes it any better, I hate myself for making you feel all those things.” And I do.

“I wouldn’t feel all that, Emma, if I didn’t give a flying fuck about you.” That’s it! I didn’t tell him I’m falling for him. I told him I give a flying fuck about him. But somehow the realization does not make me feel better. “There is something about us together, Emma. Something so...irrational. It’s almost absurd. Last night was completely out of control.
I
felt so out of control. And that’s what I hated the most.” He looks troubled. Really troubled. I’ve never seen him so unsettled, and it hurts me to know that I am the cause of it.

“I’m sorry,” I say. “I’m really sorry.”

We are both quiet for a long time. He is brushing my hair with his hand, wiping it back off my face and neck. Smoothing it. Smoothing us. He lies down next to me, and we both fall asleep.

* * *

I spend Thursday and Friday at the office trying to make amends with Matt. He tells me over and over again not to worry about it. That I didn’t do anything wrong. Getting drunk and puking is not a crime, and he’s glad he could help out a couple of friends. He even apologizes that he couldn’t tell me about knowing David. I joke with him about what a jerk he was to ask me questions about David when he probably knows more about him than I do. I keep waiting for the ball to drop. For him to crack some smart-ass joke about it. For him to say something to the other guys at work. But he doesn’t. He keeps quiet about the whole thing. He doesn’t even comment on the shower situation. Nothing. Until the end of the day on Friday.

Matt and I are riding down in the elevator together. I know that David is waiting for me at his car because, except for working hours, he hasn’t let me out of his sight since I got the dog tags from Michael. Matt is looking up at the changing digital numbers above the elevator door.

“Tuesday night was pretty crazy,” he says. Oh, no. Oh, no. Oh, no.

“That it was,” I say as calmly as possible.

“Do you remember everything?”

“No, but David has filled me in on some of the more embarrassing details.”

“Oh, I doubt that,” he says with a heaping pile of innuendo, “especially since he wasn’t there to see most of them himself.” He turns his head toward me, and my eyes shoot to his. Panic rises in my throat, but I decide to make light of it all. I don’t know if he’s joking or not. Either way, teasing me about it is a complete dick move.

“Yes, I’m sure you got an eyeful. Are you going to share?” I say.

“I didn’t tell him everything that happened, Emma. Because if I did, you and I wouldn’t be standing here right now.” I am mortified. “I would be dead in the gutter, and you and David would be screwing on some beach in Cozumel.” What?

“What the hell are you talking about?” We are nearly to the lobby now, and I do not want to have this conversation with anyone else in earshot. When the elevator gets to the lobby, I press the door close button and hold it down tight.

Apparently Matt is not joking. I must have put on quite the show. “I’m talking about all the stuff you don’t remember. You were pretty fucking hysterical, Emma. Going on and on about how much David likes the blue panties you were wearing. You took all your clothes off so you could show them to me. You danced around in them for me. He would kill me if he knew I didn’t stop you.” He is right.

“And the whole time you were prancing around, you were talking about David and how bad you have it for him,” he continues.

Ugh. “Thanks for not telling him all this. It’s a little humiliating.”

“I’m not trying to humiliate you, Emma. I’m trying to enlighten you. He
never
would have dreamed of bringing a woman to poker before—and he sure as shit wouldn’t have sat outside her office building waiting to drive her home after work every day.” Matt’s eyebrows go up, and his mouth moves into a soft pucker. It is a look intended to hammer home his point.

“Oh,” I sigh, unsure of what else I should say.

“Look, I’m just saying that I think he’s got it bad for you, too. I think you guys fit.” This is not how I expected our conversation to go. I feel relief. But also trepidation. I am reminded of my conversation with Matt about David looking like a man with food poisoning versus a man in love. Did Matt know something even then? What had David already told him? I want to ask him, but there is no way in hell I’m stepping out on that limb.

I lift my finger from the elevator button, and the door opens. We step out of the building together and into the courtyard. David isn’t waiting by the car. He is sitting on a bench opposite the building’s front door. When he sees us come out, he gets up and walks over. Just before he reaches us, Matt grins at me and tells me to have a nice weekend. I smile back at him and tell him to do the same.

“Thanks,” I say, “for Tuesday night and today.”

“No problem, Emma. See you Monday.” Then he turns to David and says, “Hey.”

“Hey,” David says to Matt in return, with a lift of his chin.

“She knows, dude. I just told her. You can thank me later.” And with that, Matt turns away from us and runs like hell toward the parking garage.

Chapter Twenty-Five

“What was that all about?” David asks. “Should I be running after him right now?”

“No,” I say with a laugh. “Just let him go.”

“What did he tell you?” He looks a little worried.

“That you’ve got it bad for me.”

“No news there.” Inside I am jumping up and down like a schoolgirl.

“And that he thinks we fit.”

“Is that right?” he says with a grandfather-like inflection. “I was unaware that Matt is such a good judge of relationships.”

“Yeah, well, it was kinda nice to have a neutral third-party’s opinion on the whole thing. Truthfully, I wasn’t really convinced until I heard it from him.” I am teasing him, but he looks almost chastened.

“What makes you think Matt is a neutral third-party?”

Oh. “What makes you think he isn’t?”

“He knows more about me than you might think,” he says. “Plus, he put you in the shower and saw you half naked.” It makes me wonder what Matt knows about David that I don’t. But I decide that now is not the time to ask.

“Well, regardless of the extent of his neutrality, I’m putting a great amount of faith into his opinion.” His brow raises in question. “And actually, what you just said makes his vote carry even more weight in my book,” I add.

“Is that so?”

“Yes. It means that either he must think you’re an okay guy, even with all the horrible things he supposedly knows about you, or that I am horrible enough myself to deserve to be with the likes of you. And frankly, I’m okay with either of those. Plus, he must not think I’m ass-ugly. I’m sure he wouldn’t want his mate to be seen with a hideous skank. Big relief there, that’s for sure.”

“First of all, I didn’t say that what he knows about me is horrible. And, secondly, he did not refer to your body as ass-ugly.”

“What
did
he refer to me as?” Hmm. Matt said he didn’t tell David about my panty dance, but clearly they talked about the fact that I was half naked. It makes me wonder why David isn’t making a bigger deal out of it.

“Are you trying to make me feel covetous again?” He looks at me coyly, trying to read my face. I’m guessing he thinks we are treading on thin ice. I, on the other hand, am having a ball.

“Damn straight, I am. Spill it.”

He looks cautious, as if whatever he is about to say might somehow hurt him. “You don’t need to
make
me feel that way, Emma. I already do. I feel that way every second of every day, whether you are with me or not.” My lungs draw in a rush of air, and I smile, knowing that I have never heard a better string of words roll out of someone’s mouth. “Let’s just say the man is lucky I cut him some slack for taking care of you. If the words that he said had come out of another man’s mouth, you would have had to pry me off his beat-to-death body with a crowbar.”

I pause for a second and then leap at him, throwing my arms around his neck and kissing him.

David takes me to a restaurant down the street from my office building. As we are eating, he asks me if I’d like to go to the firing range again tonight. We decide to spend an hour or so there and then go out for a beer. I’m definitely getting the hang of shooting the gun. I do much better this time, hitting the target a dozen or so times. David, on the other hand, is a great shot.

When I ask him why he’s so good at it, he tells me that he once had a girlfriend who was “a gun hound.” She taught him how to shoot and even bought him his first gun. An S&W revolver that he tells me he still has. I wonder if Anna Spaight is the ex-girlfriend he’s referring to. The thought of a gun in the hands of someone so unstable is a sobering thought. As is the thought of David having other ex-girlfriends. I shut both ideas out of my head.

I ask how many guns he has now, and he tells me just those two. Any more than that would make
him
“a gun hound,” something he does not aspire to be.

“I really just keep them as protection,” he says. “I didn’t grow up around guns or anything. I just feel better having them around. They make me feel like if all hell breaks loose, I can keep shit under control. You know? And I definitely like knowing that you can load and shoot this one. Even though you’ve got a lot of room for improvement.” He grins at me with his noise-canceling headphones resting on top of his head, and it makes me feel all mushy inside. Gag.

“I’m trying,” I say quietly, “but my teacher keeps distracting me with his charm and good looks.”

“Charm?” he says brightly, as we walk out of the target area and into the lobby. “Wow. I’d watch out for that guy if I were you.”

“Oh, I’m watching,” I say. “His every move.” I’m making myself want to puke.

David reaches up, I think to touch my cheek, but instead he takes off my safety glasses and headphones and places them on the counter. The range safety officer is looking at us as if we are a pair of pandas at the zoo. As if he wants to gut us and hang our pelts on his family room wall. I think for a second David is going to kiss me right in front of the guy, but he doesn’t. Instead he takes the empty magazine out of the gun and signs us out in silence.

We leave the firing range and head to a nearby bar. After downing a couple of beers, our conversation turns to Matt. David tells me they met at a construction site. Matt was consulting with the design team about the electrical setup, and David was interviewing for a carpentry job. He got the job but ended up not taking it because he thought the gig with Carl was a better match. He and Matt ran into each other at a bar a week or so later and traded contact information, initially because of potential work opportunities. When David and his other friends began to organize regular poker nights a few months later, Matt got one of the first invites.

“When the game first started, we used to hang out quite a bit, but these days we’re both so busy that we don’t see each other much outside of poker anymore. But he did text me after he first saw you and me together. I think he about shit his pants when I kissed you in front of your office building that day. Part of me wanted to punch him in the face when I saw him come out the door with you. I don’t know how either one of us kept our mouths closed. He was aiming to get in your pants until he saw that kiss. I know it.” It makes me wonder if the primary reason David kissed me like that was to send a clear signal to Matt. I squish down the thought, especially because every kiss David and I have had since then has been just as rowdy.

“Uh, I really don’t think so,” I say. “He’s made it pretty clear to me that he has no interest in my pants. Or what’s in them.” Any money says my comment is going to open up a giant can of worms.

“What do you mean?” Just as I thought. The worms are out.

“He told me as much. One day at work he asked me about you, and we ended up having a little chat about how I am not a great conversationalist and how he doesn’t want to be the-guy-at-work-who-never-shuts-up. We decided to meet somewhere in the middle.” David looks as if he doesn’t believe a word I am saying. “I believe his exact words were ‘I’m not making the moves on you.’ I was kind of being a bitch, and he shut it down. In a nice way.” I know David was thinking my previous comment had something to do with what happened at his place on poker night when he wasn’t around. I still don’t think he believes me.

“What did he ask you about me?” Oh. His question is not the one I expected. Maybe I’m wrong.

“He just said you seem kind of intense and asked me what you do for a living.” I shrug my shoulders and take another sip of my beer. “Maybe he was trying to find out if I knew about the whole poker thing.”

“Maybe,” he says, seemingly placated, but I think he has more to say. And then it hits me.

“Wait a second, you said Matt was aiming to get into my pants until he saw us kiss. Did he tell you about me? Did he mention a new girl at work or something?” I’ve got it now. David is rolling his eyes at me and trying his best to look innocent. “And did you tell Matt about me before then, too? Did he know you were fucking someone, but he just didn’t know it was me?” Oh, this is good! Priceless even. They were both talking—or bragging?—about me without knowing I was the same person. David looks trapped.

“Emma, he was there when I wiped the floor with Brad’s face. He knew I was hot for whoever’s shoe that was. He knew I had it bad for you even then. But he didn’t know who you were. I never mentioned your name.”

“And?” I ask. He looks uncomfortable.

“And, he was the one that drove me home that night. The night I slept on your floor. That’s when he told me about the new hottie at work. I didn’t even know where the hell he was working, let alone that it was you.” I am feeling so fucking high right now. Part of me wants to squeal like a giddy middle schooler, knowing that these two men were crushing on me at the same time, but I know that David would not find it very amusing.

“That’s pretty funny,” I say, reining in my enthusiastic internal response.

“I’m sure you’re thrilled,” he says flatly. “But you’re stuck with me now because Matt knows better. He knows that I will take him down if he even so much as looks at you starry-eyed. Like I said, you would have to pry me off his beat-to-death body with a crowbar.” No wonder Matt didn’t tell David about my panty dance.

“And like
I
said, he isn’t interested,” I say. And then stupidly I add, “At least not anymore.” David’s eyes narrow, and I smile a full-on, gleaming teeth, shit-eating grin. “Plus, the only man I give a flying fuck about is you.”

* * *

It is nearly midnight when we walk into my apartment. As soon as we open the door, David seems a little nervous. He is talking too quickly. Saying something about how I should tell Carl he needs to change the hallway carpet because it is so old and shitty. I have never heard him talk like this before, and it’s weirding me out. I tell him that I agree that the carpet is crappy, but that I’m not saying a word to Carl about it. I’m just happy he managed to get David to fix my kitchen. I don’t want to push my luck. David agrees and then starts telling me about how he should just change the carpet himself without even asking Carl.

I throw my bags on to the table and turn to David. He’s looking everywhere but at me. His face looks anxious. I am starting to feel tense myself. What is going on?

“David,” I say, unwelcome alarm rising in my mind, “what’s wrong?” I try to line my eyes up with his. He doesn’t say a word but grabs me by the hand and leads me down the hallway and into my bedroom. He goes in first and switches on the light. I immediately notice a small box sitting on the center of the bed. My heart drops in my chest. Christ. Is that another fucking package from Michael? Why didn’t David tell me about it before we got here? Shit. Maybe he doesn’t know about it. Maybe he’s as surprised as I am. If that’s the case, how did the package get into my bedroom?

But a second later, it is clear that David knows about the box because he lets go of my hand, walks over to the bed and picks it up. As he hands it to me, his eyes finally meet mine.

My heart is a lump in my throat. “Is this another package from that fucker? I swear I am going to shoot him in the goddamned face.” I am frantic now. My skin is on fire. I throw the package back down on the bed and start walking in circles, like a stressed-out animal. “What the fuck am I gonna do? Who the fuck does he think he is? I want to...”

“Stop, Emma,” he says, grabbing me by the arm. “The package isn’t from Michael.” Oh. Then where did it come from? “It’s from me.”

“What?” I scream at him, eyes narrowed and hackles raised. “You scared the shit out of me. You couldn’t tell me that right out the gate? Jesus, David. That was Grade A asshole right there.”

“I’m sorry. You just flew off so quickly. I didn’t know what to say.” He gathers up the box. “It’s from me,” he says again. Is this why he looks so nervous? Is he nervous about whatever is in this box?

He is staring at me like a deer in the headlights, his bird-cloaked arms holding out the package. He looks both startled and nervous as shit. For some reason, it makes me feel a little lost. I take the box from him and sit down on the edge of the bed.

David sits down next to me and mumbles again that he is sorry. Then his hand is on my back, running up and down my spine, soothing me. The box is light, and I slide my finger under the lip to fold it open. Inside, in a nest of cotton fluff, is a new set of dog tags. I lift them out by the chain and see that they are an exact replica of my father’s, only they aren’t cut into pieces. Both tags are engraved with my dad’s name, social security number, blood type and the word Christian. One of the tags is held on to the chain by a shorter piece of chain. My father once told me they are designed that way on purpose—so that one of the tags can be removed quickly if the need arises. I hold them in my lap, staring at them.

“I don’t know what to say,” I tell David.

“Just say you aren’t mad,” he says quietly.

“I’m not mad.”

“Good,” he says. I put my head on his shoulder. “I was worried how you would feel about me having them remade. The old ones are in a bag in the bottom of the box.”

“I’m not mad,” I say again. We sit like that for a long time. His hand keeps moving up and down my spine. I am thinking about my dad’s funeral. About how my mother wailed with agony. About how much they loved each other. About how much I loved them. Both of them. And my brothers—I used to love them, too. Before Michael swallowed them whole. Part of me wants to cry, but I’m not sad. Not really. I lift the dog tags up and put them over my head, tucking them inside my shirt, against my heart.

“Thank you for these, David. I love them.” I pause for a second. And then I add a single word. “Love,” I say quietly.

I kiss him, wrapping my hands around his head. It feels as if I am dissolving into him. As if he is taking the breath right out of me. As if we are melting together. His tongue slips against mine, softly at first and then with force. I need him to wash everything away.

He gets up off the bed and bends over me, kissing my mouth and sliding his hands up and down my thighs. I swallow back the last possibility of sadness as the unspoken meaning of his gift sinks into me. He cares about me. He wants me to stop hurting. He wants to fuse all
my
broken pieces back together. With his affection and adoration and kindness. It is sweet.
He
is sweet.