“Not sure the twerp knew what he was saying. He was drunk off his ass.”
I smile and say mostly to myself, “Ah, youth.” I lean my head against the back of the chair. “How fast it all goes by.” My exclamation must age me twenty years.
“With age comes experience,” Philip says. “Something those young men don’t have.” He jerks a thumb in the direction of my neighbor’s yard. His voice drops to a whisper, as though someone might overhear us. I can smell his coffee breath and sweet cologne. I bite down on my bottom lip to control the restless urgency growing inside me. “Something good came out of tonight, though,” he says.
I say, “Not for Darth Vader.”
He smirks at the Huskie’s name. “I got to share a good cup of coffee with you. The station’s brew reduces me to tears. It may have contributed to my ulcers over the years.” He lifts his mug. “Please don’t tell Cora.”
We both laugh and drink our coffees in silence.
A few minutes later, I offer him another cup of my dark brew, but he declines, standing and pushing in his chair like a gentleman.
At the door I say, “I’m really worried about Darth.”
Over a smirk, Philip quips, “With a name like that, you have nothing to worry about.”
“I can’t report the incident to Bret’s mother until she returns home on Monday,” I tell him. “By then, I’ll be up all night worrying about the poor dog.”
As if he has had too much to drink, Philip straightens himself beneath the yolk-yellow porch light, shifting from one foot to the other, until finding a comfortable stability. Finally, he raises his eyes to me and holds my gaze. “You have my cell number. Use it. Call me, no matter the time. I’ll be up to my neck in petty crimes tonight. Cabbage Night.” He rolls his eyes. “Pranksters with too much free time on their hands.”
“Sounds like my neighbor.”
“Goodnight.”
I exhale a pent-up sigh and mumble, “Night.”
“If it makes you feel better, I’ll patrol the area until my shift ends at eight,” Philip says.
I swallow the hard lump in my throat. “I appreciate it, Sheriff…Philip.”
His lips split into a lingering smile. “Enjoy the rest of your evening, Chris.”
Chris. Not Christian, I observe, but Chris.
We’re no strangers to each other.
Amused, I think back to when I interviewed the sheriff for a double homicide on the south side of town during my second year of living in Milestone County. It was a hectic week at The Milestone Review and I was running around town questioning witnesses to the murders, trying to keep levelheaded.
Sheriff Philip Erickson and his young deputy were the official chiefs on the case and I had my hand on something more than a hot story during that busy afternoon. But I didn’t know it at the time.
Sheriff Erickson, a brooding, virile presence, put me at ease, answering my questions professionally and with straightforward candor. He treated me with respect. But it wasn’t until he asked me to join him for a cup of coffee down at the police station and thank me privately for my investigative reporting on the double homicide that I knew I felt differently about him. The way he winked at me and when he shook my hand after the interview, his handshake lingered for a tad longer than expected. But I squashed the silly idea because of my loyalty and love for my then boyfriend, Russ.
Philip’s voice jerks me out of my daze. “I lost you again,” he says taking a step over the threshold, back into my shut-in life.
I have to look up to meet his eyes. “Sorry. My mind is elsewhere tonight.”
The weight of his right hand on my shoulder reassures me. “Everything will be fine. You know where you can reach me, if need be.”
I nod and my movements feel stilted. What a dork I am.
“Even if you feel like just talking,” he says. “Call me.”
He removes his hand and I feel naked and alone. I watch him turn and stroll to his car at the foot of the driveway. His body sways lithely like he is dancing with himself in the dark.
When he reaches the end of the drive, he stops, turns, and says, “By the way, Chris, I enjoyed your book recommendation of Anne Perry’s new novel.”
His words transport me back to the time when he had waited in line for almost an hour at our local bookstore, The Book Nook, for a signed copy of one of my books. I had seen him staring at me from the back of the long line. And when he finally reached me at the table where my books were being displayed and autographed, our gazes locked. It felt like a familiar flicker of energy swelling through my body, as if we had known each other for a long time. We are not strangers. His smile was warm and pleasant. He was out of uniform, wearing a polo shirt and tight fitting jeans, worn-out at the knees and buttocks, and I noticed his hands were soft and clammy when he brushed my fingers as we passed the books.
Now, I cock my head to the side and stare at him in the dazzling light of my front porch. The burden I’ve been feeling lately suddenly lifts like fog. I recall the recommendation I made in the book column I write every month for our local newspaper, The Milestone Review, along with the occasional front-page feature story.
With that, I wave and thank Sheriff Erickson for his house call.
“Get some sleep,” he yells back.
And before I close the door and slip between the flannel sheets for a good night’s rest, I get the impression Philip wishes I had offered dessert with coffee.
He’ll never know, but our thoughts are one and the same.
* * * *
At 10:45 P.M. I lurch awake, gasping for breath. My heart hammers in my ribcage, and a clammy perspiration feels like glue on my skin.
Another nightmare. I reach for the lamp on my nightstand and am surrounded in a warm glow. I rake fingers through my hair and pull back a hand saturated in sweat. When I lift my eyes, I see my reflection in the floor mirror twenty feet across the room. My face looks haunted, spooked by flashing images of Russ.
I gulp from the half-filled glass of water on my bedside table. It is when I place the glass on its coaster that I hear a faint, far-off noise. I’m immediately aware that my nightmares are not my worst problem at the moment.
The sound of a door being opened stirs every nerve in me. Then glass shatters, crashing to the hardwood floor in the foyer. Shuffling of feet, creeping to the edge of the stairs.
My heart is thrumming. My palms are greasy. My impulse is to call Sheriff Erickson. But my body is paralyzed in fear, too frozen to move.
A mixed-bag of sleet and rain hits the windows all around me, like birds falling from the sky. A jerk in my leg prompts me to reach across the king-sized bed for my cell in the pocket of my jeans. I dig inside the front pocket and, with hands shaking, dial Sheriff Erickson’s number from memory.
As the phone rings, I hear the thudding feet climbing the stairs. My right hand quivers and I almost lose the phone in the disheveled sheets.
At the sound of the sheriff’s gruff voice, I toss the sheets off me and climb over the edge of the bed to the floor, peering up at the closed bedroom door.
“H-hello?” Philip’s voice sounds different half-asleep.
I yank the lamp cord out of the wall and whisper into the mouthpiece, “Philip—this is Christian.”
And before I can murmur another word, my bedroom door bangs open, smashing into the dresser behind it. In the moonlight streaming through the windows, I see the scarecrow silhouette of Bret Hicks in the doorway. He wears a Halloween pumpkin mask too big for his head. He looks bizarre.
My worst nightmare: an intruder.
His breath is rigid and hurried from climbing the stairs in his drunken condition. When he speaks, his words are slurred, disguised by alcohol, underneath the latex mask. I deduce he is trying to say my name, but it comes out sounding like Christ instead.
Slowly, I reach beneath my bed for Russ’s signed Derek Jeter baseball bat and grip it with my free hand. The touch of the weapon steadies me.
Bret st
umbles toward the bed, as if he has perfect night vision, and falls face first into my balled-up comforter. What comes out as a muffled “sorry,” sounds like “soirée” in the jumble of bed sheets.
I hear Sheriff Erickson on the line, his voice blaring, “Chris, are you all right? What’s happening?”
“Can you please come over? I’ve got a drunk stranger in my bed.”
* * * *
Sheriff Erickson arrives ten minutes later. He looks dapper even in his wet Oxford raincoat and frizzy hair. I had managed to half-carry Bret into the living room where he sits propped up in one of my wing chairs by the window like a marionette doll. His head sloped to the side, eyes closed, he snores.
The air in my house is thick with the smell of marijuana.
Sheriff Erickson examines the dazed youth. And it is the first time under the lamplight that I notice two dimples etched deep on either side of the sheriff’s cheeks. I feel lightheaded and my face feels flushed.
He waves a veiny hand at Bret Hicks. “This is your drunk stranger?” He winks at me.
I pull my bathrobe closed, feeling as if I’ve exposed enough to the sheriff tonight. I feel embarrassed that I called him. “That didn’t come out right when I said it on the phone.” I grow quiet.
Philip stands next to me and I can smell Irish soap and a sweet scent of earth and sweat on his skin. I quiver when he plops a hand on my shoulder. It feels faintly familiar, but it is not.
I say, “I think he came over to apologize.”
Philip makes a small noise in the back of his throat. “He picked a bad time to do it, in his state of mind. What did he say?” He wipes his damp skin with the heel of his hand. He pulls out a white handkerchief from the front of his coat pocket, and pats his face. I notice the handkerchief is monogrammed with the initials PE in the bottom corner.
Philip Erickson.
He sees me staring at him.
I turn and look over at Bret snoring to the heavens. “Sorry, but he scared the bejesus out of me.”
He shakes his head. “Sorry? That’s it?”
I nod.
He scratches his nose, places his hands on his hips and eyes Bret incredulously. “Idiot kid.”
“Idiot is one word for it.”
We grow calm like a married couple, contemplating the rest of our lives. We stare at my neighbor as though he might wake up any minute. I imagine the sight of the sheriff scaring him stupid.
I bring a hand to my mouth to mask a childish grin.
Philip notices and nudges me in the side playfully as though our teacher has caught us passing a note in the back row. “What’s so funny?”
I wave him off jokingly, saying, “I’m glad you’re here.”
“Thanks for calling me tonight.” And that is all he says, until a few minutes later, when thunder crashes through the sky, “Are you going to press charges?”
I am quiet. Rain needles the windows.
I think of glass breaking and feet stumbling up the stairs to my bedroom. A dark figure invading my house, and a mumbling, stuttering voice asking for an apology. Then I say, “I’m thinking about it.”
His screwed up expression becomes one of concern. His eyes are wide and curious. “It’s not much to think about.”
I wave him into the kitchen. “Follow me. I’ll put on a pot of tea.”
Over tea and a half-eaten box of Oreos, Sheriff Erickson and I sit at my kitchen table. He dunks one of his cookies too long and is surprised that part of the cookie is missing when he pulls it out of the dark liquid.
“This is a sign,” he tells me.
I stare at Philip over the rim of my mug, a blank expression on his face.
He gazes into his cup, as if looking for answers. “I’ve lost a lot of my life, Chris.” The words fly out of Philip’s mouth like an exploding grenade.
I set the mug down in front of me and fold my arms across my chest. My brows pull together in question. “I don’t understand.”
He grabs me with his stare. His voice cracks. He turns away, but I see his eyes fill with tears. He loses control of the other half of the cookie and it plops and splashes into the dregs of his cup.
Then I know exactly what he is trying to say.
Until now, I was unclear about the sheriff’s sexuality. Do I fight the urges or embrace them?
We sit in painful silence for what feels like hours.
I finally say, reaching across the small space for another Oreo even though I am not hungry, “These past two years of my life have been lonely too.”
He lifts his head.
We stare at each other. I watch the resilient law-and-order man in front of me turn soft, like a rose losing its petals. He wipes his eyes with the end of his thick index finger. Then, before I realize what he is doing, the sheriff reaches between us and brushes my tear-stained face with a gentle stroke of his hand. It is like the time in the IGA when the sheriff reached across me for an apple, his hand slightly bumping into mine, innocently. Or was it?
I close my eyes. But when I open them again Philip’s face is in mine, and the taste of his sweet cinnamon tea breath finds my mouth. I do not pull away when his lips graze mine. He lingers long enough to lose his balance and stumble out of his chair. I try to break his fall, but he is rock solid and I cannot hold on to him.
We fall to the floor and he tumbles beside me. But I think that is his plan.
Something awakens in my fleeting thoughts of the sheriff and his newfound freedom, and I crawl on the floor with him. His fingers find the opening to my bathrobe, and they fumble along the belt, loosening it. I shrug the robe off. I lay over him, now bare-chested, as if I am going to do push-ups, and I reach down and pop open buttons on his dress shirt, revealing a firm structure of muscle and sinew beneath. I notice a tattoo of a thorny rose encircling his upper right arm. He grips the back of my neck and pulls me into him.
His tongue tastes savory. Our erections grind into each other beneath the fabric of our clothes. Shortly, we are naked and rolling across the hardwood floor. En route, we slam into the bar island where I stash expensive liquor for when company visits.
Like now, two years later.
Now Philip is on top of me, and the weight across my chest feels right.
He nuzzles into my neck with his moist lips. I release strange noises from my mouth, mostly out of a hankering for Philip as he traces the map of my body with his tongue.
When he comes up for air, he gazes into my eyes. “Ten years is too long to pretend.” He kisses me.
Without thinking, I whisper, “I like this.”
“Me too.”
I freeze. Close my eyes. A chill in the air prickles the ends of my curled toes.
I hear him say, “We could stay here forever.”
I shake my head. “At least for another few minutes.”
To my dismay, he heaves himself off me.
I grunt. “Did I say something wrong?”
As he bends down and grabs his crumpled uniform, I check out his chiseled butt. He disappears around the corner to the bathroom.
When he comes back to the kitchen a few minutes later, he is fully clothed. As am I, wrapped tightly in my blue bathrobe, sitting crossed-legged at the table. “I reheated your tea,” I tell him.
But he walks around the table, and at first I think he is heading for the front door. He stops and looks down at me, leaning against the back of the chair for support. His face is hard to read.
Shrugging, I sip from the steaming mug.
He looks around the room, deep in thought.
I cross and uncross my legs and say, fiddling with a loose thread on my robe, “Was it a mistake? It seemed right.” My voice sounds shaky. I do not make eye contact with him.
He comes around to my side and kneels in front of me.
I look down at him. His skewed smile is refreshing. He takes my hand in his. His touch is smooth, warm, kind.
“I haven’t been living for the past ten years, Chris. It’s time we did something abou
t that.” His hands crawl up my legs to my knees, and stop. “I’m not getting any younger.”
He shifts between my legs and drops his head into my lap, as if he has passed out, and I have the urge to bury both of my curious hands in his full head of hair and tell him…what?
But he lifts his head and stares at me with his hypnotizing blue eyes. “Do you remember when we first met?”
Like it was yesterday. I nod shyly.
He pulls himself up to his knees and his gaze reminds me of the time when Russ lured me from across the dance club into his arms. And stayed for two years.
Philip pulls me back to him. “This may be too much to bear right now, but I couldn’t stop thinking about you the day you signed your book for me at the local bookshop.”
I recall the first year Russ and I moved to Milestone County from Dayton, Ohio, Russ’s home state. I had seen Sheriff Erickson in the crowd during my lecture on the uncertain future of books and the rapid rise of e-books. But at the time, I thought Philip was just a voracious reader.
His revelation floors me. My eyes fall to my trembling hands in my lap.
“Chris?” His voice is strangled with regret.
Or is it loneliness?
But before I have time to respond, movement from the living room rattles me out of the moment. I lift my head to see Bret Hicks staggering into view.
Philip turns his head to my night visitor.
Bret mumbles, pointing a finger our way, “I c-came to say…s-sorry.” He grips the back of a kitchen chair to keep from falling. “I’ve been, um, uh—” A burp bubbles up in his throat. “A r-real jerk.” He wags a hand at me. “S-sorry, Christ.”
Philip turns to me and shakes his head. He uses the edge of the kitchen table to get up.
I stand and go over to Bret. I tuck my shoulder under his arm and help him out my back door to his front porch.
* * * *
Light from his front stoop stretches across the narrow path leading up to Bret’s house. At the edge of the yard, I hear Darth Vader barking incessantly in the kitchen where he is kenneled.
I help Bret inside, lay him on the couch, and cover him with a heavy afghan. Then I let Darth out to do his business, and when he is done, we meander back into the house. Before he ambles towards his doggie bed, I sneak in a few scratches behind his ears. But before he crawls into his kennel for the night, I whisper to him, “I think you deserve an apology, my friend.” I wander into the living room with Darth at my side. I squat by the corner of the couch next to Bret. I gently touch Bret’s arm and rouse him. His eyes flutter open and he looks at us, wide eyed and spooked. I say calmly, “Bret, I think your best friend here deserves an apology tonight.” He mumbles, rubs at his heavy eyes, and looks over to where Darth sits obediently beside me, his tail thumping against the floor.
The Light Between Us Box Set Page 2
