by Sammi Cee
It was inevitable living with him that the drugs crept into my life. He’d go for days awake, and there was no way for me to keep up with him. The first time he’d offered me a line it was just us in the house, but it was four am, and I was ready for bed. He’d wanted to go help his father on a house renovation he was doing, and since I’d done construction in the summers all the way through high school and college, he wanted me to come. That was the beginning of the end for me. The descent into being a full-blown meth addict was a quick downward slope that until now I’d never considered getting out of.
When the doors next open, a line of men enter and push their way onto the benches with us. Up until now there’s been no conversation, but these guys enter talking and laughing amongst themselves. They’re from general population, and they’re here to wait to go to court. “What time is it?” I ask the huge, tattooed guy who has taken a seat next to me.
“Eight o’clock in the morning. We have court at nine,” he says, suddenly taking an interest in my presence. By the way his eyes trace down my face, and his nostrils flare when they reach my body, I wished I’d kept my mouth shut.
Eight in the morning? But Phillip had to have left hours ago. He was out so quickly, why am I still here? My mind races thinking who to call. I can’t call Chuck. He hasn’t spoken to me since we ran into each other at the bar he’d left me at on graduation, and he’d found out I’d moved in with Phillip. He’d taken one look at my blown pupils, shaken his head, and walked out of my life. I’d only called my parents randomly since then, too. Scared of what they’d see if I went to visit them.
Feeling pressure on my thigh, I look down to see a big meaty hand squeezing it. Standing abruptly, I walk to the cell door and peer out. The minute I see my friend from high school I call out for him. “Can I make a phone call?”
“Who do you want to call, Julian? Because I have to be honest with you, I won’t be able to hold you here once they come back from court, and I don’t think your friend is coming back for you.” The disdain is clear on his face when he says friend while making air quotes.
“I need to call my father.”
Chapter Three
Vaughn
* * *
“Come on, baby brother. It’s time for you to find someone,” my older brother, Jack, says to me as we sit in the trailer waiting for our next applicant to come in for an interview.
“I’m not having this conversation with you right now. No way.” Giving him a stern glare so he knows how serious I am, I cross the room to pour a new mug of coffee.
“Vaughn, it’s been years since you and Priscilla broke up. I’m not even sure why you were together. She was never right for you. And you were never happy.”
“Sure I was. I didn’t follow her halfway across the country because I wasn’t happy,” I argue, averting my eyes so that my brother can’t see that I know he’s right.
“Listen, you’ve been home a year, and I’ve never heard about you dating at all. And you were gone for nine more years after you two broke up, without ever saying one word to me or anyone else about there being anyone serious in your life. Why didn’t you just come home?”
Sitting back down across the desk from my brother, I take a deep breath trying to figure out how to stall this conversation. There’s no way to explain the shame I feel from not coming right home from college because I followed a woman home, or the guilt I feel that the minute I came home I was welcomed with open arms and given my spot in the family business. A spot I didn’t feel like I deserved after ghosting them all those years ago. But my dad and brother both said whether I’d been here working to get it or not, I had earned my position on the job like my father had requested. I don’t know what I think about that, though.
Before I fully formulate a reply, there’s a slight knock on the door before it opens to reveal the most intriguing man I’ve ever seen. We work on a construction site, so it’s not the sight of his sizeable arms, or the bulging muscles in his thighs—which are my weakness—or even the fact he must stand over six foot. And though the green eyes that stand out in stark contrast against his tan skin are a plus, it’s the hesitation I see in them before they glint with determination, and he stands up straighter on the step. “May I come in, Jack?”
My brother immediately springs up from his chair to cross the room to the door. “Julian, come in. I was ecstatic when I saw you answered our ad. Why didn’t you just call me if you were looking for a job?” He shakes the guy’s hand as soon as he’s in the door, leaving the guy to let it close behind him with a thud. Although he’s returning my brother’s over-enthusiastic handshake, I see him startle at the sound.
Without letting this Julian’s hand go, Jack turns his head toward me. “You remember Julian, don’t you, Vaughn?”
Standing up to my own six-foot-four height, I reach out my own hand, forcing my brother to finally let him go and move to lean his butt against the desk. “I don’t believe we’ve ever met.” Julian’s handshake is solid, his grip firm, even though he seems slightly confused as he looks back and forth between me and my brother.
“No, we haven’t met. I heard a lot about you the summers I worked for Jack, though. The prodigal brother he was waiting to come home, right?”
Jack guffaws at the roll of my eyes. “Come in, Julian. Have a seat. This won’t really be an interview since you worked for me for years, but tell me what you’ve been up to.” Turning to me while Julian takes a seat, Jack continues, “I remember why he never met you. This kid here, and his best friend, Chuck, you remember him from last summer, right?” I nod. “I met the two of them when I went in to renovate Julian’s parents’ basement. The two knuckleheads were fifteen and followed the crew around for the whole job asking an endless amount of questions.” He grins fondly at Julian who offers a slight upturn of his lips in return, but appears to be slightly distressed. “By the end of the summer, I figured they knew enough, so I told them to give me a call the next summer if they wanted jobs. They did, and they continued to work for me every summer straight through college.”
As soon as Jack pauses for a breath, Julian asks, “Chuck worked for you last summer, too? But I thought he had a teaching job.”
“He did get one for the fall, so he wanted to make some money before it started. Plus, he said he seemed to be out a best friend and had a lot of time on his hands,” my brother concludes with a lift of his eyebrow.
“Yeah.” Julian sinks in the seat a bit as he rubs the back of his neck with one hand. After closing his eyes and taking a deep, steadying breath, he pushes back his shoulders and sits up straight. “I want to be totally transparent with you, Jack.” Then his eyes shift to me and back to my brother again.
Jack nods in my direction. “Vaughn and I are running the company together now, so anything you need to say to me, he’ll need to know, too.”
Julian meets his eyes for a moment before shifting in his chair to include us both. “Last year wasn’t a good year for me. It started the day I graduated college, and the next nine months were… rocky. I spiraled out of control, dating someone I had no business being with. I lost not only Chuck’s respect, but his friendship in all of it. I ended up getting into some trouble which is what pulled my head out of my ass. I’ve been in rehab the last three months at a program down in Florida. I’m completely clean and have no desire to start up with the drugs again, but I did decide I need to study and take the CPA Exam, and I need money while I’m doing it.”
“How are you feeling?” Jack asks gently.
Julian lets out a shaky chuckle. “Better than I have since this time last year. Healthy. Strong. The program I was in not only had counseling, but there were different activities you could get involved with to refocus yourself. I spent a lot of time in the gym and cooking.” (That explained all the muscle on someone who’d been on drugs for months before that.) “I feel good, but I want to work. I got home last week and decided that sitting around while I study for the test is the last thing I should do, so
I started looking through the ads and saw yours. I knew if I came to talk to you, I’d have to tell you the truth about what’s been going on with me, which is embarrassing, but I think the hard work will be good for me. Help me sleep at night, you know?”
Jack nods at him while saying, “You always were a hard worker. I never once regretted making that job offer to you and Chuck.”
Julian’s face flushes happily, piquing my interest even more. I don’t want the guy to think his story is making me not want him to work here, but I’m not sure hiring him on as an employee is going to beneficial for me personally given my level of interest.
Before I can ask any questions, or say anything at all, Jack asks, “So you’re staying with your parents?”
“Yeah, they’re letting me stay in the basement apartment. The last tenant had moved out while I was living with… well, anyway, Mom had never leased it again hoping I’d come home. Once they got me situated in rehab, she kept it available for me to come back. That’s another reason I want to work. They don’t expect me to pay to live down there, but I know what they were charging, and I’d like to pay rent. It’s not fair for them to lose out on the income because my life went off the rails.”
An unusual warmth blooms in my chest watching Julian’s earnest expression talking about his parents. He needs to get his life in order, and my sudden fascination in him isn’t enough to turn him away when we can help. I’ll just have to keep my interest—and my lust, if I’m honest with myself—tucked away.
“Good,” Jack says. “Well, I’m happy to have you back. You need anything I want you to tell me.”
“Um, there is one thing,” Julian says softly. He waits for both Jack and me to nod at him to continue. “For right now I’m going to NA a couple times a week. I can make one of them Saturday morning, but I’d really like to go once during the week if that’s okay. I know sometimes we have to put in longer days—”
For the first time since the introductions were made, I speak. “Julian, we want to see you succeed. If a day runs over and you need to leave, just let the foreman of the job you’re on know that you have our permission to go.”
A grateful smile takes residence on his face. Both the hesitancy and the steely determination evaporate, leaving a hopeful, handsome young man. I groan inside as I realize it’s my favorite look, yet. When I turn away from him toward my brother, I catch the smirk on his face before he schools his features and turns back to Julian to talk schedules. Son of a bitch, no one knows me like Jack, and he knows that between Julian’s looks and his story, I’m hooked.
Julian shakes both our hands after we finalize the details of where he’ll be on Monday morning and walks back out of the trailer, careful this time to hold onto the door until it clicks shut behind him.
Sinking back into my seat, I hear my brother laughing. “What?” I throw my hands up at my sides, completely annoyed.
“When I suggested you start dating, I didn’t expect you to listen to me quite so fast,” he says with a snicker.
“I’m not dating anyone. And besides, he’s an employee now. It’s not even an option.”
“Wellll...”
“What do you mean, ‘well…’ do you want us to get sued?”
“Well, I did meet my wife here, remember? We’re known around town for being LGBT friendly, so a lot of the guys are gay, or even bi like you. Then you’ve got the fact we’ve been hiring more and more women over the years; our employee handbook is written carefully. No sexual harassment is going to be tolerated, but we couldn’t take the chance of having to lose good employees because people fell for each other. And if you hadn’t noticed, we do have plenty of people dating around here.”
“I noticed,” I mutter.
“Come on, Vaughn. The happiest I ever saw you was when you were dating Bailey in high school. I know you two decided to go separate ways for college, but you’re still great friends. Can you say the same happened after your relationship with Priscilla?”
Rolling my eyes at my brother again, I say, “I don’t think that has anything to do with one being male and the other female. Priscilla ended up being a whole other thing.”
“You ever going to tell me what that thing was?” I immediately tense up. It makes me nauseous to even think about what happened between me and Priscilla. She stole my dignity and ruined my self-esteem; I’m not sure I’ll ever be ready to tell anyone what happened. Before I can lash out at my brother for making me uncomfortable, I feel his hand on my shoulder. I don’t even know when he crossed the room. “It’s okay. You never have to tell me unless you want to. It’s been good having you home the last year. And I think it’s been good for you. You’ve settled in and I want you to be happy, that’s all. No pressure. But if you need me…” His words trail off as he squeezes my shoulder. Letting go, he crosses back to the desk and starts talking about the next applicant. Gratefully, I bury the old, painful memories back down where they can’t touch me.
Chapter Four
Julian
* * *
After shutting the door to the trailer behind me, I begin to cross the construction site back to my car. That went so much better than expected, even with Jack and his brother knowing everything. It’s still humiliating having to share what I allowed into my life, how low I dropped, but every time I do, it reminds me that’s not my life anymore. That I’m beating it.
I’m so lost in my thoughts I don’t realize anyone is in front of me until I hear Chuck’s voice, and it stops me in my tracks. “Julian.”
“Oh, Chuck.” Realization dawns on me, it’s almost summer. “Oh, crap. Were you coming back here to work for the summer, again? I can make sure Jack doesn’t put us on the same site together, or shit, would you rather me not work here at all? I can keep looking for something else.”
Chuck frowns and he looks… hurt? “When did you get home? I thought you were going to call me when you got back from rehab,” he accuses me as he crosses his arms across his chest defensively.
Not understanding why he cares, I avert my eyes to the side and shuffle my feet. “I know you didn’t really want me to call. You know, you were my first call to apologize from rehab. Before my parents even, so I appreciate you forgiving me. And you telling me to call you when I got back home really gave me something to hold onto. But… I know you need me to have my crap together before I come around. It’s unforgivable how I turned on you and threw our friendship away.”
“No, what’s unforgivable is my best friend not calling me the minute he got home from rehab so that I could be there for him while he gets his life back together.” And before I know it, I’m enfolded in my best friend’s arms. Tentatively, I reach up to wrap my arms around his waist and hug him back. “It’s been us against the world since we were nine, Julian. Did you really think I was going to throw that away because you went through a bad patch?” Pulling back from me, he lightly grips my biceps. “I told you graduation night to let me know when my best friend was back, and I meant it. And you did, you called me from rehab.”
Tears spring in my eyes as I look into the eyes of my oldest and dearest friend, where there’s nothing but love and acceptance. Hanging my head in shame, I say, “I’m sorry I didn’t call, but...thank you. I could really use a friend.”
Throwing his arm around my shoulder and squeezing my neck into the crook of his elbow, he says, “Me too. Life hasn’t been the same without you.” He drags me with him as he walks back toward the trailer I just exited. “Let me check in with Jack and Vaughn. The year just ended so I want to see where they want me next week.”
“Oh, you’re out for the summer already?”
“Yes, thankfully. Summer vacation started yesterday.”
Shaking loose of his arm, I stop to look at his face, bursting out laughing at the pure relief reflected back at me. “Dude, I don’t know if you ever looked that happy when we got out of school for summer break as kids.” Laughing even harder, I choke out, “Those kids ate you for lunch this year, didn’t t
hey?”
“You have no idea! Holy shit. I started the beginning of the year irritated at the teachers who were grumbling about certain kids a couple weeks in. They kept telling me, ‘You’ll see,’ and I still didn’t believe them. But after Spring break, the kids all lost their f’ing minds. Even my favorites were terrible.” He throws his arms up in the air as he talks like he’s always done when he’s frustrated.
I immediately stop laughing, narrowing my eyes at him. “What? You had favorites? Chuck, I’m shocked at you. You always swore you’d never favor any of your students. You told me I didn’t understand how awesome you’d be when I said it wasn’t possible.”
Chuck shoves my arm causing me to stumble back a step. “Shut up, Julian. I promised I’d never treat anyone like a favorite. But some of those kids are little shitheads, they make it impossible to not want to—”
Chuck is cut off by the opening of the trailer door and Jack’s voice. “I thought I heard you two knuckleheads out here going back and forth. How in the hell have you two been friends your whole lives? You’re always giving each other crap.”
A sense of peace blankets my mind. Jack’s right. Chuck and I had slipped back into the easy dynamics of our relationship like no time had passed at all. Of course, I knew he was going to have kids that got on his nerves, or ones that he favored, but the whole time we were in school he swore that would never be him, that he’d be one of those cool teachers who loved all his students. There had been no thought just now of what to say or how to act, it had been natural to tease him.
