Loose Cannon

by Sidney Bell

“Unless you ask me to leave, I’m not going anywhere,” Church said, because that was the one certainty he could give Miller in this whole mess. He knew that much about being good at least. He wasn’t bailing on Miller again. “Okay?”

  Miller’s exhale was quiet but quick. “Okay. I’m not asking you to.”

  “Okay.” Part of the knot behind Church’s breastbone unraveled. “Also, I’m sorry I put my hand in your pants. Since you seem to have mixed feelings about it.”

  Miller flinched.

  “Or maybe entirely bad feelings about it,” Church muttered.

  On the television, a woman was scrubbing her kitchen tile with her magical new mop. It had not only cleaned the tough-to-reach space behind the fridge, it had saved her marriage, listened to her deepest secrets and given her orgasms too.

  Judging from the way she was going on about it, anyway.

  Church sort of wished he could live in a commercial. Not the one with the mop, necessarily, but something sparkling and bright and cheerful would be nice. Maybe one of those car-insurance ones with the dude from 24. He seemed cool.

  Honestly, anything would be better than here right now.

  “You need to talk about it, right?” Miller’s voice sounded too deep and drawn against the background of the chipper TV noise, and Church grabbed the remote to turn the volume down, buying himself time to think. There were so many things crashing around inside him that he wasn’t sure what he needed. Yeah, he should say something about this clusterfuck, but Church’s words were land mines even on his best day, and all he could think was that he wanted past this. He wanted to skip to the end, where everything was fixed and someone better-qualified than Church had taken care of things.

  But since life didn’t work that way, he decided that talking about this was the worst thing they could do, regardless of what Church’s therapist might’ve thought. It wasn’t gonna change anything. Gay or straight or whatever, Miller was not someone Church could have, and talking about it was only gonna rub that in deeper.

  For once, Church’s sanity rested on keeping his mouth shut.

  Then he remembered his mother’s voice raised in fear and his father’s voice raised in fury, and Church had to ask, low and thin, “Did I hurt you? I mean, did I make you feel like you had to do something you didn’t want to do?”

  Miller jerked like Church had struck him. His body unlocked and he stepped forward. “No. You wouldn’t, you’re not... No, Church.”

  “Okay.” He repeated it to himself, choosing to believe: okay. That was the thing he’d needed to know, and the rest of it was better off far away from him. “Then I don’t need to talk about it.”

  Miller pulled his hands out of his pockets so he could wring them. Yes, he was actually fucking wringing his hands. “We can. I want to help you, I want to give you what you need to be successful.”

  “The only thing I needed was an answer to what I asked, man. If that’s not what’s happening here, I figure your head is your business.” He realized he was on the verge of breaking the remote when the plastic protested. He set the thing aside.

  Miller stood there blinking at him like Church maybe broke his brain or something, and then he turned toward the door. He pulled his keys out again, the metal making a clink as they banged against the knob. “That was all me,” he said quietly. “I wasn’t using you. At least, I don’t think...” He broke off, staring blankly at the doorframe, and the only word for the expression on his face was bewilderment. “I don’t know what happened.”

  Church’s heart, already aching, flopped over in his chest without his permission, and all of his irritation evaporated, leaving him slumped on the sofa like a puddle of human pathetic. He couldn’t be upset with Miller now. Not when he looked so damn lost.

  “I’m sorry too.” Church blew out a hard breath. “I guess that’s the problem with having two idiots in a friendship, huh?”

  Miller turned his head, and abruptly he was watching Church so intently that he wanted to fidget under it. “We are still, right? Friends? I can’t not be friends with you, Church. But I don’t want to hurt you, either.”

  “We’re friends,” Church told him. “We’re good, yeah?”

  “Yeah. We’re good.” Miller’s gaze wandered away again. “As long as...we’re good.”

  “Won’t happen again,” Church promised, feeling sick and small. God, it would be so much easier to be angry. He almost reached for that dark, ugly part of him deep inside that constantly lurked, waiting to spring up at any opportunity, because anything would be better than this, but in the end he couldn’t make himself hide that way. It was progress, he supposed, to make himself live in the pain instead of getting pissed off about it.

  Progress felt like shit, though.

  “You’re okay?” Miller asked. “You were upset when you got to the store. Do you need to talk about that?”

  “No.” God, no. Right or wrong, that’d be the straw that broke the camel’s back at this point. “No, I’m okay, really.”

  “You can talk to me about anything.”

  Church kind of wanted to laugh at that, but he managed to keep it down. “I know. But I’m fine.”

  Miller studied him for a few seconds. Church worked on keeping his face blank, and eventually Miller exhaled. “All right. I’ve gotta get back to work. Dinner later?”

  “Yeah,” Church agreed. “Later.”

  Once Miller had gone and the sound of the truck had faded into the distance, Church stared aimlessly at the TV. He wasn’t going to cry or pout or hit anything, no matter how much the thundering mass of guilt and fear and hurt in his chest wanted to choke him. He was just going to sit here and listen to the stupid contestants shout out prices and not feel anything at all.

  Chapter Twelve

  Miller managed to put Shelby off, though he wasn’t sure how. He suspected he looked as raw-edged as he felt, because she backed off faster than she ever had in her life. The rest of the workday was like a giant, blissful cotton ball—busy enough to keep his thoughts occupied, not so busy that it added to his stress. Em’s presence after school contributed to the welcome relief. It was hard to think the world was ending when you had a teenager chattering nearby about any number of weird things.

  “What the hell is Instagram?” Miller asked at one point, making her burst into laughter.

  It wasn’t until he pulled into his driveway and saw the light on through the window that he realized he’d been afraid Church had taken off on him anyway. Miller wasn’t sure he would’ve blamed him, since Miller had pushed him against the wall, lost all control at the feel of that lean, strong body up against his own, and lost his head further at the reality of it afterward.

  Miller jerked his thoughts away from that and stared hard at his hands where they gripped the steering wheel. Get it together, he ordered himself. Nothing happened. It’s fine. Everything’s normal. You’re normal.

  He only needed some damage control. Even though Church had said he wasn’t going anywhere, Miller’s claim on Church was tentative at best, and that meant Miller needed to get them back to...well, normal.

  It helped that he walked in to find Church on his laptop watching highlights of a recent hockey game. “Washington?”

  “Holtby was insane,” Church replied, tipping the screen so Miller could see. “Look at this one.”

  Miller clenched his teeth and pretended he couldn’t smell the soap on Church’s skin as he leaned in to watch the goalie catch a filthy snapshot with his glove. “Hell of a save. What’s on tap tonight?”

  “Pittsburgh’s in Philly in half an hour.”

  “That’s a bloodbath waiting to happen.” He chuckled at the savage grin on Church’s face. “Pasta okay? It’ll be quickest.”

  “Sure.” Church closed the laptop and started getting plates out. “How’d you get into
hockey, anyway? Your dad?”

  “No, my dad was a football fan. He used to make me watch it with him when I was little. He was a big believer that sports helped make a boy into a man. It was my mom who liked hockey. She rooted for Edmonton. Well, who didn’t back then? Gretzky.”

  Gretzky had been traded to L.A. long before Miller was old enough to understand the sport, but he’d liked hearing his mom talk about “The Great One.” They’d followed Edmonton together until she’d died, and he’d been unable to look at those uniforms without feeling the sharp edge of grief. They’d spent so much time cheering together for Edmonton at McNichols Arena that the idea of rooting for the Avalanche there struck him as a betrayal. He’d decided—rather randomly, perhaps—to follow Chicago from then on. He’d always liked an underdog.

  Three Stanley cups later, underdog didn’t fit the team anymore, but that 2010 series had helped him get Church into the sport, so maybe it was fated. Having someone to watch hockey with again had been really good.

  Church didn’t look over, but he smiled, a soft, almost sad smile. “You still miss her, huh?”

  “Yeah.” Miller focused on filling a big pot with water, letting it distract him from the decades-old pain that always rang when he remembered her. “Do you think about your mom at all?”

  “Sure. Who doesn’t think about their mom?”

  Miller pulled down a box of spaghetti. “I thought maybe it hurt too much.”

  “It used to.” Church fiddled with the edge of the cardboard box. “For a long time, I couldn’t stop thinking about why I wasn’t enough to get her to leave him, you know? Moms are supposed to love their kids more than anything, so I guess I felt screwed over when it turned out she didn’t love anything enough to take that kind of risk. But that’s life, right? Not everybody’s made of tough stuff.”

  “I’m sorry.”

  “Nah, I’m over it.”

  Miller paused in opening the sauce to glance at him. Maybe it would be best to let it go, since they’d had their fair share of heaviness today already, but Church’s comment had rung a little false, so he asked, “Are you? Really?”

  Church leaned back against the island, crossing his arms over his chest. Miller’s gaze only caught on the shape of his biceps under the cotton of his T-shirt for a second before he tuned in to Church’s words. “I don’t know. I hate him, but her? I don’t know.” He seemed both very young and very old at the same time as he continued, “This one time, he came home late smelling like some other woman. Mom didn’t say anything. It was obvious, and she didn’t blink once. So I got pissed. Like I do.”

  He glanced up at Miller wryly, who acknowledged, “Like you do.”

  Church made a small noise that wasn’t quite a laugh. “I let him have it. It wasn’t that he cheated. It was that he didn’t even care enough to try to hide it.” He scratched at the countertop with a thumbnail. “I don’t remember him hitting me. I think I might’ve gotten a concussion on that one, because I lost track of stuff. By the time the fog cleared, he was gone and she was sitting next to me on the floor, stroking my head and crying. I remember thinking maybe this would finally be enough. Instead, she said, ‘Why do you make him do that?’”

  Miller grimaced. “That sounds like conditioning, Church. It doesn’t mean she doesn’t love you.”

  “No, I know. That’s years of abuse talking. I get it. But that was the moment when I realized nothing was gonna get through to her. He could beat me to death in the living room, and it wouldn’t make a dent. She’s broken. He broke her.” He swallowed. “When I was little, she’d tell me stories about what it was like growing up in Puerto Rico. I used to wonder why we couldn’t go live with her family. They sounded warm. Like they loved each other. Nothing like living here with him. I don’t understand the point of having a family just to hurt it.”

  “I don’t either.”

  “I’d like to see her. I mean, she’s my mom, you know? But I can’t have her without going through him, and he brings it out of me like nothing else, so it’s best if I don’t go anywhere near that.”

  Miller’s chest throbbed once. “You’re not like your father, Church.”

  “I sure didn’t get my temper from her.” He shifted away so Miller couldn’t see his face. His shoulders curved inward, like part of him had sagged inside. Back when Church had been a kid, this was where Miller would’ve tugged him close and ruffled his ridiculous hair and tried to unearth some long-buried skill at finding the right words. Even yesterday he might’ve done it.

  But after what had happened earlier in the... No, he couldn’t touch Church right now. So he stood there, helpless, as Church cleared his throat. “Shit. New subject. What was up with your sister this morning? You said you upset her?”

  Miller didn’t want to get dragged into the stuff about his own dad, so he said, “Shelby thinks we should look into opening a second store in Aurora. Em’s talking about MIT in a couple years. They could use the money.”

  “But you hate the idea with the fire of a thousand suns.”

  “I really do.”

  “So tell her no.”

  “I can’t.”

  “Because that would mean you’re thinking of yourself instead of her?” Church lifted an eyebrow. “Or are you scared you’ll make her mad? You scared of her?”

  “Har har. You’re scared of her too.”

  “Not even.”

  “Even.”

  Church scowled. “Well, she’s really mean sometimes.”

  “It’s okay. I know.”

  Miller stirred the sauce while Church watched, his mouth sulky. Finally, he said, “Dude, you have to tell her. Because otherwise you’ll go crazy and run off to join a nudist colony in Bangladesh where you’ll only eat raw fruit because you’ll decide that processed foods give people glaucoma. Then the store’ll go under because Shelby can’t run it alone, and when she and Em starve to death in an alley, you’ll only find out about it five years later when you finally get her letter begging for help.”

  “Five years later,” Miller repeated.

  “Because the Bangladeshi Postal Service is super slow.”

  Miller tried his damnedest not to laugh, because that’d only encourage the punk, but judging from the grin on Church’s face, he wasn’t pulling it off. “There’s something seriously wrong with you.”

  Church shrugged. “Eh. The point, though, is that there has to be a middle ground between Bangladesh and a store in Aurora.”

  “It’s probably someplace in the Pacific Ocean,” Miller mused. “But I’m open to more figurative suggestions.”

  Church’s face screwed up into an expression of such childlike deliberation that Miller had to look away. As a teenager, nothing about Church had been controlled. Not his mood or his mouth or his limbs, and especially not his features, where his emotions were as impossible to submerge as a cork in a pool of water. He’d been incapable of secrets, blurting the truth as he’d seen it with his fists and words, regardless of the target.

  As an adult, he’d learned a measure of caution and concealment. He held his tongue and thought things through in a way he never had before. He was a better man for it, even if moments like this one, which hinted at the old, reckless Church, left Miller grieving a bit for the honesty of that raw boy, self-destructive though it had been.

  “What about that sideboard?” Church said, and Miller yanked his thoughts to the present.

  “The one in the workshop? It’s for Mrs. Evanston. It’s a wedding present for her daughter. Why?”

  “What are you charging her?”

  “Cost of lumber. It’s a favor.”

  Church stuck a finger in the sauce to test the temperature, then slurped the excess off his skin while mumbling, “Maybe it shouldn’t be. You’re good, Miller.”

  “So?”

  “
So instead of opening a new store in Aurora, maybe you add a workshop to the store you’ve already got. You could sell stuff like the sideboard. One-of-a-kind crap. You already have a ton of regulars at the store. They’d want lots of stuff. You could do made-to-order saunas or decks or, hell, newel posts in the shape of dragons barfing fire or something. I don’t know, dude, you’re the creative one.”

  Something deep inside Miller lurched forward in one mighty gallop of yes. At the same time, another part of him scoffed at the idea for being too flighty, too selfish, too artistic. He wasn’t creative, not really, but he was too busy being struck dumb to protest Church’s words. It didn’t even occur to him to smack Church’s hand when he double-dipped from the sauce with that same finger.

  “I don’t think I could make enough money to compete with what an expansion could give us.”

  “Oh, you could. People pay out the ass for stuff like this. Plus, there’d be less risk and less up-front costs than opening a new store from scratch. Matvey’s always talking about keeping his overhead down.” He paused, considering. “No other employees to pay would help with that. You already have most of the equipment that you’d need. You could ship things all over the country, so your client list would be bigger.”

  “I’m not sure where you got the idea that you’re stupid.” Miller stared at the boiling pasta. He was terrified by how big the idea had already gotten, but Church made it sound so reasonable, like it was obvious to anyone that this was okay. That it would work.

  Church blinked. “Oh. Well, I don’t really know stuff.”

  “You went to an underfunded school in a bad neighborhood, Church, and you missed class all the time because of a shitty home life. That’s why you don’t know stuff. You’re smart.”

  Church’s cheeks turned bright red and he looked away. “Um. Thanks?” He poked at the sauce a couple more times, getting the stuff everywhere. “But look, people would buy your chairs. You make good chairs, Miller, I remember.” He licked red flecks from his hand. “Whatever happened to that rocking chair you made? It was really comfortable.”