Laid Out

by Sidney Halston

  She pulled away from him for a second as tears streamed down. She touched his face, his neck, his chest. “You’re here. You’re safe,” she whispered almost reverently.

  “I’m here,” he whispered back. She slid slowly down his body and wiped the tears away. Then she pulled back her fist and punched him on the shoulder with all her strength. “You didn’t even tell me you were leaving. You just left, you stupid jerk!”

  Chapter 2

  Cain clutched his shoulder and rubbed.

  Shit. That actually hurt.

  Realizing they had an audience, he took her hand and pulled her to the side. Now that she wasn’t pressed against him, he looked her over, then drew her against him again and held her tight. He’d missed her. He always missed her. She felt so good against him. “I guess I deserved that.”

  Cain smelled her hair and felt the soft curls against his hands. They didn’t speak for a few moments until she pushed away and said, “I know we haven’t been as close lately as we used to be, but at one time we were inseparable. I think, at the least, you owed me a call or an explanation. Something. You don’t just leave without calling me. Without telling me anything. What if you hadn’t come back?” She swiped at her tears with the palms of her hands and then looked down at her shirt. “I’m so mad at you I don’t even know what to say. And why are you all wet? Now I’m all wet.”

  “It’s raining,” he told her.

  She looked at him—really looked at him. He seemed to be taking her in as well.

  “You’re all dressed up,” he said.

  “Don’t change the subject, Cain. You left for a long freakin’ time. You didn’t even bother to call.” He’d never seen her so mad. “I should get the hell up and leave and never speak to you again. I swear, I don’t know why I put up with your shit!” Her arms were crossed and her chest heaved with emotion. She had even cursed, a rarity.

  “I’m sorry.” He ran his hand down his face. “I’m so sorry. Please. Don’t be mad.” She just stood there, her eyes shooting daggers at him. Another rarity. “You look very pretty,” he said, trying to placate her.

  “I’m dressed up because I’m on a date.” Suddenly she went from being upset to contrite. “Oh, man! I’m on a date. A blind date. JL’s going to kick my butt—this can’t be good.” She wiped her face again but this time with his shirt, which made him chuckle. She had black shit smeared under her eyes and her lipstick was gone. She sniffled and then cautiously looked over her shoulder at JL, who stood at the bar with a scowl, her arms crossed. Next to her stood a confused-looking man, who Cain inferred was her date. Violet put a little distance between her and Cain.

  “You’re on a date?” Cain asked.

  Before Violet had a chance to answer, they saw JL whisper something to the man as they both looked at Violet and Cain. Then the guy stomped out of the bar, looking upset. JL gave her a final glare and a scolding shake of her head before she turned her attention to a customer who’d just sat down.

  “Was,” she said wryly, her eyes still on the door. “Apparently I’m not on a date anymore.” She sighed and then looked back at Cain. “Why are you looking at me as if the thought of me on a date is the most preposterous thing you’ve ever heard of? I can date.”

  “That’s not it.” He pulled her to a corner table away from everyone and they sat. “You look tired, Vi. What’s going on?” His eyes bored holes into her.

  She closed her eyes for a brief moment and then almost immediately blurted out, “Daddy died.”

  Cain didn’t say anything.

  When the silence had lasted too long, she said, “I know you’re not much for talking, but this is the point where you say, ‘I’m sorry to hear that, Violet. Are you okay, Violet?’ ”

  “Jesus Christ.” He ran his fingers through his hair. “I am so sorry, Vi.” He reached for her hand across the table and squeezed. “How are you holding up? How did it happen?”

  She pulled her hand free and wrapped her arms around herself. “Massive heart attack.” Her voice cracked as she spoke. “Go figure. He was always hassling me over my weight, and then it turned out he had high cholesterol and his arteries were clogged.”

  “Fuck, Violet. I’m so sorry.” He slammed his fist down on the table, briefly startling her. “I should’ve been here.”

  “Yeah, you should’ve been here. It happened just a few days after you left.”

  The words stung, but she was right.

  “I’m okay,” she went on. “It was a shock, but I’m getting by. We’d grown kind of distant. He was a hard man to love, but I did, I loved him. He was my dad, ya know?” Violet swiped a finger under her eyes and shrugged. “So, are you going to tell me where you were?”

  “In Libya.”

  “Libya, seriously? That’s dangerous. Maybe it was best that I didn’t know. I’d have worried.”

  “Nah. I’m not out in the field much. I work with IMC, mostly doing computer kinds of things for them.”

  “What, you’re a military IT guy now?”

  Cain chuckled. “Yeah, something like that.”

  “But you were still in Libya, so you could’ve been hurt. It’s still dangerous.”

  He shrugged. “Maybe. But I’m careful.”

  “As opposed to everyone else? Come on, Cain, who do you think you’re talking to? I was raised right there with you at the base—I know how it goes. One crazy wearing a vest in the market and you’re as good as gone. What if you hadn’t come back?”

  She was worried—he understood that. But the problem, really, was the heavy unspoken words—what she hadn’t said. What neither ever spoke about. The constant undercurrent of their relationship.

  Jeremy.

  The space between them filled with a palpable sense of sadness and discomfort, making Cain suddenly unnerved.

  “I need a drink.” Cain stood, walked to the bar, and ordered a beer and a Coke from JL. She glanced over his shoulder at Violet, rolled her eyes, and poured the drinks. He returned to the table and slid the Coke over to Violet.

  Violet looked at the soda, then at Cain. “I could’ve used a cocktail or another glass of wine, especially after the night I’ve had.”

  “You’ve had enough,” Cain said as he drank his beer.

  “Excuse me? You don’t even know how many drinks I’ve had. You just got here.”

  “I don’t want you driving home drunk. Your eyes are glassy.” He reached over and touched her lips with his thumb. “And your lips are stained pink. Trust me, you’ve had too many drinks.” His fingers on her lips felt strange. Intimate. He pulled back as if he’d been shocked. Luckily, she must’ve not felt it.

  “Have you lost your mind? You can’t just walk back in here and again start telling me what I can and can’t do. Before you left, you were a jerk and we were bickering constantly. That’s not something I’m used to. I don’t bicker with anyone and especially not with you. Since I moved to town, I’m like this person you hate. I don’t want it to be that way again. My father died, and you’re the closest thing to family I have left, and you left. I don’t know if I can forgive you this time.” She stood up and grabbed her purse.

  He held her wrist. “Don’t go, please.”

  Violet pointed over to the other side of the bar, where their friends were playing pool. “Go hang out with the guys. My date’s gone. I ruined it just like I ruin every date. I don’t want to get into it with you now. I just want to go home.”

  “Let me drive you.”

  She pulled her hand away. “You know me, Cain. You know me better than anyone else. I am forgiving. Maybe too forgiving. But this time I can’t just brush it off like nothing happened. I’m going to go and you’re not going to drive me or follow me.” She marched to the bar, said something to JL, and left without so much as a single glance back at him.

  Chapter 3

  “I can’t believe you just left,” JL said the next morning, sitting on the counter and eating a donut.

  Violet took out the orange juice and
eggs. “Yup. For once I was the one that stormed out. And don’t act so surprised.”

  “No offense, Vi, but you’re not exactly the poster child for backbones.”

  Violet waved the spatula. “I am not a doormat either.”

  JL put her hands up in surrender. “Holster that spatula, Bruce Willis.”

  Violet looked down at the utensil in her hand and brought it back down to the pan.

  “I know you’re not a doormat, Vi. But you are very forgiving. It’s a great quality to have, don’t get me wrong. But sometimes you have to step back and look at things with a different perspective. This guy keeps hurting you.”

  “So, what? I should never talk to him again? You know I can’t do that. It’s not in me.” Violet began to crack eggs into a bowl.

  “No, that’s not what I’m saying. What I’m saying is that maybe if you stand your ground a little longer and he sees he can’t just squash your emotions with his caveman ways, he’ll actually break down and finally voice his feelings. If he actually learned how to talk, that is.”

  “Feelings? What feelings would that be?” Violet reached over and wiped some powdered sugar off JL’s cheek with a napkin. “I know that look, JL. What is it?”

  “Thanks, Mom,” JL said, brushing a few crumbs of donut off her shirt. “Has it ever occurred to you that maybe Cain has feelings for you?”

  Violet looked at JL completely dumbfounded.

  “I think it’s sufficiently scrambled.” JL smiled and pointed to Violet’s hand.

  Violet shook her head and looked down at the viselike grip she had on the egg, which was now broken and dripping down her arm. “Shoot!” She rushed to the sink to wash up. “He doesn’t have feelings for me. Well, he does have some feelings for me, I’d hope. We have been friends for twenty-eight years. But not feelings feelings. Not the way you mean. No way.”

  “You’re rambling, sister.”

  She shook her head. “He was Jeremy’s best friend,” she said, as if that should explain everything.

  “And?”

  “And? And now he barely tolerates me most days. He probably has a sense of obligation toward Jeremy to look out for me. Plus, the fact that he’s known me forever.”

  “You already said that.”

  “Well, it’s true. It’s friendship. Nothing more. Nothing less. He’s not even nice to me most of the time. Except for last night. For the most part he was nice last night.”

  “You know how when you were a little kid and the boys who pulled your hair and threw sand on you were the ones who really liked you? Same thing. But he’s too old to be pulling your hair or throwing sand at you. So he just acts like an asshole.”

  “Asshole. Asshole.”

  Violet groaned and pointed at her parrot. “Hush, Bird! Why does it only repeat the bad words?”

  “I fucking love that parrot!”

  “Fucking love. Fucking love.”

  “JL! Oh my goodness, stop cursing. Bird! You too. Stop it,” Violet scolded them. JL just laughed, and Bird ruffled his feathers.

  “Don’t deflect,” JL said.

  “You’re nuts. I was engaged to Jeremy. Cain and I can never be more than friends. He’s my very hot friend, that’s all. No way—you’re reading it all wrong.”

  “Aha! So you do find him hot!”

  “That’s not really a secret. You’d have to be blind not to find him hot. But that’s all it is. He’s an attractive friend.”

  “An attractive friend you want to hump.”

  “Jamie Lynn!” Violet snorted. “He’s just my friend.”

  JL rubbed her hands together. “Oh, my little grasshopper, I can’t wait to see how this plays out. I hope I have front-row seats to that show.”

  “Oh, shut it, JL.”

  JL chuckled. “You’re going to stand there and tell me that you don’t have any feelings for him? You counted the days he was gone. I think I saw you the other day ripping flower petals off roses.” JL mimicked the gesture. “He loves me. He loves me not,” she said in a teasing, high-pitched voice.

  “Stop that,” Violet huffed. She turned back to the pan. “Did I ever tell you about the day of his first deployment?” Violet asked, and JL shook her head. “Well, he kissed me. It was my first kiss. It was…” Violet involuntarily touched her lips. “Magical.” She sighed. “He gave me this mind-blowing kiss. Didn’t say anything afterward, just gave me this devastatingly sweet smile that I stupidly interpreted to mean something special, and then he left.”

  “You and Cain kissed? Why didn’t I know this before?”

  “Nothing to tell, really,” Violet said, knowing she was lying through her teeth. There had been so much more to that kiss. At least that was what her sixteen-year-old delusional self had thought. “I thought we’d talk about it when he wrote me. I don’t really know what I expected. I was giddy and so naive. From the beginning Jeremy wrote me almost every week—both of them had promised to write me as often as possible—but it took Cain two months to send me that first letter. I know it was just a kiss, but I was sixteen and thought it meant something. Maybe love, maybe not. He was a complete jerk, though. He actually wrote in that first letter that he was sorry he kissed me. That he felt bad for me since I was so desperate for a first kiss. It was a pity kiss, JL, and I was completely devastated.

  “But Jeremy, on the other hand, wrote me weekly and called me whenever possible. From the first letter, it was obvious he had feelings for me, and before that stupid kiss from Cain that left me stupidly confused, I had also felt something for Jer. By the third letter he admitted to having been too shy to ask me out in person, and he told me how much he wanted to go out with me as soon as he came home for leave. After six months I was probably half in love with him and couldn’t wait to see him, and by the time I did see him, I was completely over Cain. Jeremy wrote the most amazing love letters.” Violet sighed as she recalled waiting by the mailbox every Monday in hopes she’d get a letter. “Cain and I never spoke about the kiss again, and by the time they were back home for leave, I was over being mad at Cain and we went back to being great friends. So, trust me, I won’t be making that remarkably embarrassing mistake again.” She remembered his exact words: Grow up, Vi. It was just a kiss. I felt bad for you.

  “Well, damn. I don’t know what to say.”

  “Nothing to say. It was twelve years ago, and it’s not in me to hold a grudge. I mean, I was hurt for a while, but I quickly got over it. His rejection was actually the best thing that could’ve happened to me, because in time Cain and I went back to being friends and eventually I fell head over heels in love with Jeremy. All’s well that ends well,” Violet said with a smile that even she knew didn’t really reach her eyes.

  Did everything really end well? Jeremy was dead. Her heart was still broken and she couldn’t seem to have a normal relationship. Still, she wouldn’t change the time spent with Jeremy for anything—even though he’d died and the pain still lingered.

  “That kiss was, what? Twelve years ago, Vi? A lot has changed. His feelings could’ve changed.”

  “That’s exactly it. It was twelve years ago, and a lot has changed. I’ve changed. And he’s obviously changed too, and not for the better. He wasn’t always like this. I think he’s still hurting over losing Jeremy. I wish you could’ve met him before that. He was so sweet and so much fun.”

  JL snickered. “Sweet and fun? Yeah, no, I don’t think so.”

  “No, seriously. With me he was always great, and we used to have so much fun together. The three of us were always getting into trouble. He had his moody moments, of course, and he’s always been on the quiet side, but nothing like he is now.”

  “I don’t know, Vi.”

  “Look, your question was whether I have feelings for Cain. The answer is that I love Cain. He’s my friend. No, I’m not in love with him and I’ll never be in love with him. Did I count the days he was gone? Maybe. But it was because I was worried about him. Also, he knew my dad and understood our relationship; him
not being there when my dad passed away made his absence feel that much greater. Do I find him attractive? Heck, yes. He’s probably the most gorgeous man I know. I’m not going to lie, but if this ever leaves the confines of this kitchen I’ll kick your little behind. Okay?” When JL nodded, Violet continued. “He may not talk much, but when he does talk and says those ridiculously hot inappropriate caveman things, oh God, my girly parts get all tingly. I may be a little tiny bit in lust with him.”

  JL threw her head back and laughed. “I still think you’re wrong, but I’ll stop talking about it…for now. I wouldn’t want your tingly girly parts to drip onto the floor. How would I explain it if I slipped on the puddle?” JL hopped off the counter.

  “Oh my God, you’re disgusting, JL.” Violet laughed as JL looked over Violet’s shoulder.

  “I’m starving. How are the eggs coming along?”

  “You just had a bag of donuts. Are you really hungry?”

  “You know I am, and don’t act surprised. There’s no way you were going to eat that much food. You made most of it for me.”

  “Your metabolism should be studied,” Violet said with a wry look as she portioned the food onto plates, most of it going to JL.

  “Why are you up so early, anyway?” JL asked.

  “Because Chrissy needs me in today. We’ve been so busy lately we haven’t restocked the supplies in a month. The way the guys at WtF Academy come in, I can’t believe we even have Band-Aids left.”

  “She was smart to open her medical practice across the street from the Academy. Just working on them is a full-time job.”

  “You’re telling me! Last week alone, your brother came in three times. Chrissy had to stitch up a gash on his cheek, do an X-ray on his ribs, and clean up his knuckles. I couldn’t get more nursing experience anywhere else.”