Contents
Foreword
1. Bad Timing
2. An Apology
3. Sexually (In)active
4. For Here
5. Try Me
6. Page Thirteen
7. Ethics Ladder
8. Proof
9. Cutline
10. Male Lead
11. Seventeen Years
12. A Favor
13. Working On It
14. Too Young
15. Mull It Over
16. Just Some Kid
17. Fine, Fine
18. Appropriately Aged
19. Yes, Daddy
20. Cheap Way Out
21. Hellmouth
22. Complicit
23. Ann Arbor
24. Letting Go
25. Hardball
26. Heather
27. Dying Flame
28. Michigan
About the Author
This is a work of fiction, Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
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Copyright © Crooked Hart Press, 2021
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All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form by an electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without permission in writing from the publisher, except by a reviewer who may quote brief passages in a review.
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First paperback edition January 2021
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Images © DepositPhotos – chayathon & Fotofabrika
Cover Design © Designed with Grace
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Copy Edits by Justin Williams
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Interior Formatting by Nikita Malone
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ISBN 9798663185646
For Justin,
who never missed deadline—including my curfew.
“We are all just coming and going in this life.
We are just a lost star. We are a spark on the horizon.”
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-Gregg Alexander
Closed.
The chunky block letters on the coffee shop’s door mocked Peter, urging him to defy its declaration. A glance at his phone indicated the time as 6:56, four minutes before closing.
Four minutes. If it had been four minutes until deadline at the newspaper, he would have a sliver of a window to submit his work. Why, within the same span of 240 seconds, was he denied a medium cappuccino with 2% milk steamed at 180 degrees?
Hands cupped around his eyes, he peered inside the shop. The track lighting illuminated two employees who were preoccupied cleaning. Peter did not recognize one of them. Sizing her up was a luxury his limited time could not afford. Kendall, his regular barista, worked alongside the new girl. Bulky headphones hugged the crown of her head, likely blaring some heavy metal nonsense.
Irritation bubbled at his core, begging him to find a nearby stone and bust the floor-to-ceiling glass windows. A caffeine migraine commanding the wrath of hellfire raged in Peter’s skull. The sludge they served at Town Hall made radioactive waste an appealing alternative. That tarrish muck would not cut it. He yearned for the real deal, for the rich, seductive flavor of espresso.
“Dammit.” Kicking the dirt on the sidewalk, Peter ran his tongue along the inside of his teeth.
He was en route to a city council meeting. Not that he cared about being late to such a boring assignment. As much as he loved being a journalist, the subject matter of the articles failed to ignite a passion within him. This disinterest did not hinder the quality of his stellar reporting. Even so, Peter possessed no desire to change the world through his work. That daunting task was better left to the Glenn Greenwalds of the world.
His objective?
Cruise through life, one miserable day at a time.
Upon rushing out of the office, the black brick exterior of his favorite coffee shop, ‘The Roast,’ had caught his attention. Peter’s disgruntlement reigned supreme at being hurried off to a meeting that one of his co-workers pussyfooted their way out of covering. Caffeine proved his only hope of surviving the nauseating, hour-long affair. But that hope departed in the face of the shop’s closed doors. The promise of a cappuccino vanished as quickly as this assignment fell into his lap.
“Hey!” he yelled, fists pummeling the glass storefront. His arthritic hands soon ached from the fervency of their motion. The startled employees searched for the source of the disturbance, their collective gaze flitting to but not resting on Peter. A white wire weaved around the new barista, implying the use of earbuds. It was a wonder either of the women heard his desperate knocking; pounding, rather. “What’s the deal?”
They regarded Peter for a nanosecond before returning to their tidying. Were they really going to ignore him, one of their most loyal patrons?
“Should we call the cops?” Ryleigh threw a soaked dish rag onto the nearest table. It landed with a wet ‘thud.’ A mean stack of psychology work awaited her at home. She had no time to deal with this hooligan.
“Call the cops on Peter, the coffee purist? Don’t worry about him. We’re cool. And the last I checked, he’s only capable of verbal assault.” Kendall steadied the mop she wielded, replacing it in the neighboring bucket of soapy water. The light refracted off the silver barbell anchored in her eyebrow. “He’s a regular. It’s by the grace of some weird stroke of luck that you haven’t served him yet.”
“I know you can hear me, Ken. Come on.” Peter paced in short spurts, a restless caged animal. Hands planted on his hips, he looked skyward and shouted a string of colorful obscenities that would have given the most foul-mouthed sailors pause.
Ryleigh resumed wiping the tables. A hundred rounds of handwashing would be mandatory to rid her fingertips of the stale water stench. “He seems a little high-strung.”
“I won’t lie to you. He can be a real dick sometimes,” Kendall said before turning to the bothersome man outside. “Dude, we’re closed. Go back to work.”
Peter slid his middle finger along the glass, producing a hair-raising squeak as he disappeared around the corner.
A swell of nausea overwhelmed Ryleigh as she trekked through the main corridor of Victory Hills High, navigating the crowd of students bolting in competing directions. Anyone else would have ducked into a bathroom and ralphed away their stress. Not her. She had a perfect attendance record to uphold, which, by a recent mandate, included tardies.
Each locker-lined hallway represented a new gateway to her recent academically induced anxiety. Make no mistake, school kindled the flame of her existence. Ryleigh received every ribbon, won every award; she was that girl.
The shifts at the coffee shop had disrupted the impeccable rhythm of her studies. The result? She drowned in readings, fell behind on packets, fumbled with presentations.
If a roaring social life had contributed to this academic decline, it would be an easier pill to swallow. Ryleigh Branson was a boyfriendless virgin who preferred the company of Langston Hughes to the living, wheezing likes of her idiotic male peers.
Her commitment to the part-time position had thrown the rest of her life out of whack, which extended to failing to dress herself properly. Ryleigh glanced down at the awful outfit she wore: a graphic t-shirt, dark-wash skinny jeans, and checkerboard slip-ons.
Utter disaster.
Emitting a groan, she ducked into her biology class. Andrea, her best—and only—friend, sat at one of the lab tables lining the rear of the room. Ryleigh chucked her mustard backpack onto the spotless black countertop and perched on one of the metal stools.
“I didn’t know we wer
e doing a middle school throwback look today. You should’ve texted. I could have broken out my plaid vest,” Andrea teased, eyeing the horrendous outfit. As an ‘it girl’ of Victory Hills, she was qualified to give the fashion diagnosis. The unofficially elected position required that she always be put together, fully made up and wearing a stylish new boot or en vogue blouse. Ryleigh contracted a migraine thinking about what lengths her friend must go to getting ready each morning.
“Laundry day.” The lie escaped her lips as if it had the priority clearance of a breath. The tiniest of white lies did not sit well with Ryleigh. Why had she delivered this mouthful of deceit? The acquired dishonesty was an unlisted perk of her new job. She excavated her biology notebook from her bag, along with a pen and highlighter.
Andrea placed a palm on her cheek, resting an elbow on the table. “Homecoming is Friday, in case you forgot. I know you’re swamped lately, and that’s why I took it upon myself to ask around and secure some date options. There are some worthy candidates who are very interested in taking you.”
Never had there existed a friendship more diametrically opposed. Social functions were the pinnacle of one's existence, loathed and avoided by the other.
Ryleigh flipped through her notebook, turning the pages with unnecessary force. Under which circumstances did she think a celibate bookworm would be interested in attending such an obnoxious event?
“Andy, I’m not going to that dance. I think it’s great you’re on the court for a second year. I helped you with your campaign posters; I am fully supportive of your involvement with this. So, as my best friend, I would appreciate it if you support my decision to not attend after-school social gatherings.”
“If you would give one of these guys a chance ...”
“Look around this room,” Ryleigh urged, lowering her voice. “These are not guys. These are not men. These are boys. I have no interest in spending an evening with any of these immature dweebs.”
Ryleigh never understood the allure behind boys their age. Holding a conversation with one guaranteed the loss of precious brain cells; a full-blown relationship would surely have dire consequences. If anyone were to come along and sweep her off her feet, he would be an older, sweater vest wearing, sonnet reciting, foreign film watching gentleman.
“You know, I hate that I won’t be around to witness your exploration of older men once you’re at UMich. You’ll have banged your way through every professor, from anthropology to sociology, by the time you graduate.”
“That’s seriously disgusting.”
Andrea tapped her foot on the stool’s inner ring. “My thoughts exactly.”
Peter devoured a microwave meal in front of his computer screen, hunched over the keyboard. Had anyone walked in on the scene, they might have likened it to Quasimodo raiding the dumpsters of Notre Dame for edible scraps. The frostbitten, mushy alfredo penne glued to the plastic tray paled in comparison to the sight and smell of his coworkers' homemade fare.
An unkind purgatory welcomed those who were single in their mid 30’s.
His tenure at The Harris Chronicle spanned 13 years, during which time he had not once eaten in the staff lounge. He avoided this room like the plague, uninterested in interacting with his colleagues anymore than necessary through collaborative efforts as they pieced the paper together each night.
He ate in silence, hands flying across the keys between heaping forkfuls of spongy pasta. Peter’s typing speed had not waned much despite the terminal stiffness of his crippled digits. Arthritis, carpal tunnel, and eye strain had not been in the job description when applying to this publication. A disclaimer should have come attached to journalism.
Warning: chronic pain and loneliness lie ahead.
A couple of overnights needed his immediate attention and hardwired concentration. Peter spared no room for mediocrity. The events he reported on were starved of excitement and intrigue, but he wrote about all of them as if they were the Academy Awards. He could not pick up a woman in a bar or tell you how many innings were in a baseball game, but he could write the hell out of anything thrown his way.
This overachiever aura bit him in the ass when his prehistoric boss, Mr. Roberts, took special interest in him. Now, he had higher expectations for Peter than anyone else. Knowing someone believed in him created a peculiar sort of comfort. He had given up his own high expectations for himself long ago.
"Peter?"
He dropped the fork and craned his neck to get a glimpse of the guest. Mike Corso, a fellow staff writer, loomed in the doorway.
"What can I do for you?" Peter generally steered clear of small talk. He had no energy to waste on nonsense.
“I’m stuck with homecoming court coverage.”
Mike was an unmarried, balding man in his early 40’s. His unwed status became a lot less mysterious when one factored in all of the inappropriate comments he aimed at the unsuspecting women around the office. Of all the riff raff working at the Chronicle, Mike landed at the bottom of the totem pole.
“I don’t like where this is going.” He minimized the seven running browser tabs and spun around to face the nuisance invading his office. Peter’s chair screeched as he lurched forward. He steepled his fingers, a weak suppression of annoyance. “Look, I helped you out Monday by covering that godforsaken meeting. Don’t expect me to give you an out all the time.”
He had been late reporting to Town Hall due to the unfortunate debacle at the coffee shop. Peter had not returned to the cafe since the incident, as a means of protest. But he could only resist the charms of espresso for so long.
Mike shuffled his dress shoes against the tacky seaweed carpet. “You know I hate covering high school shit.”
“Not my problem, Corso.”
Slackers were unworthy of his sympathy.
“What if I sweeten the pot? A trade. I’ll take one of your assignments.”
“I can roll with that.” Peter scribbled something which ticked the box of illegible on a sticky note and slapped it in his co-worker’s hand. “Protest at Planned Parenthood. Have fun.”
He groaned, turning to leave the office. Peter wanted to gloat, to drink in this glorious moment of defeat, until—
“Hey,” he prompted, halting Mike in his tracks. “Which school?”
“Victory Hills. Friday night at seven.”
The pervasive aroma of bacon wafting throughout the Bransons’ home marked Friday’s arrival. This day guaranteed three things: the heartiest breakfast of the week, the commencement of the weekend, and a chance to play catch-up with school assignments. Ryleigh followed the delightful smells all the way to the kitchen, bag slung over her shoulder.
"Morning, sweetie," her mother chirped as Ryleigh claimed a seat at the table.
Her mother pulled three prepared lunches from the fridge, setting them on the expansive island. She moved about the kitchen in her scrubs with purpose. Every second mattered, much like at the ER. In keeping with the same philosophy, their home was organized to run at its highest efficiency. Nothing was ever out of stock or out of place. Charlotte Branson made sure of it.
"Morning." Ryleigh’s backpack strained as she hooked it onto the back of the chair. A thick tome of William Carlos Williams was to blame; a collection she would have loved to rip out and read from while devouring her savory breakfast. Beautiful poetry lurked behind her, inaccessible.
Prior to the start of this school year, chapbooks were no strangers to the Bransons’ dinner table. But her parents had drawn up an executive order banning books of any kind from mealtime. Yet, her father read The Harris Chronicle every morning. The hypocrisy left her seething. Who read print news anymore, anyway?
"Work today, Ry?" her father inquired without tearing his eyes away from the unbanned newspaper he held dangerously close to his face. Dexter had needed reading glasses for several years but refused to acknowledge his diminishing sight. A typical man defending his typically impenetrable pride.
"Yeah, I’m closing."
Rylei
gh had almost forgotten about that afternoon’s shift. The weekend would have to wait.
"Seems I'll make it home before you then." He smiled, folding a corner of the paper to gloat at his only child.
Dexter tortured children for a living under the guise of pediatric dentistry. He owned a private practice, a small office on the edge of town. Suffice to say, they were the house that handed out pencils at Halloween. Receiving pencils as a treat was much scarier than the cheap thrills elicited by their neighborhood’s DIY haunted houses.
"Don't antagonize her, darling," Charlotte chided, refilling her husband's coffee. A dusty blonde wave broke loose from her hand-constructed ponytail. Her mother always pulled her hair back with her fingers, never bothering with a brush. Charlotte’s tired eyes twinkled in sync with her smile. "We’re so proud of you, honey. I'm sure you're doing a great job. They’re lucky to have you.”
Ryleigh’s concern did not lie with where she stood at work. This job was impermanent. Her slipping performance in school, on the other hand—her parents would give her an earful if they caught wind of that development. Rising from the table, she chugged the rest of her coffee. “I have to go.”
"Drive safe," Charlotte offered as her daughter swept out of the kitchen. An edge of apprehension dimmed her chipper tone, something that often accompanied these posthaste phrases; the concerned voice of a mother who was too hard on herself.
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