by Terri Garey
Evan was staring at me, tear-stained and shell-shocked. I stared back, just as shell-shocked, though for different reasons.
“Let’s go,” I said, giving myself a mental shake. “It’s gotta be five o’clock somewhere.”
CHAPTER 16
Luckily, in Little Five, you never had to look far to find an open bar. We locked up the store, and ten minutes later Evan and I were sitting in a back booth at Marley’s, an ancient dive that reeked of spilled beer and cigarettes no matter what time of day it was.
We were uncharacteristically silent until after the first shot; vodka for Evan, Jack Daniel’s for me. I hadn’t had whiskey in a while, and it went down like fire.
“What are we going to do?” Evan looked miserable, and despite my own drama, my heart went out to him.
“Why don’t you call Butch,” I suggested gently. “Talk to him.”
He shook his head, getting teary again. “No.” Blinking them back, he picked up his second shot glass. “First Rule of Evan—someone cheats on me, it’s over. Talking just prolongs the agony.” A second shot of vodka followed this statement, making him gasp.
I was familiar with the Five Rules of Evan, though at the moment I could only think of three. No cheating, no drugs, no white socks with dark pants. He’d dumped more than one guy in the past for cheating, and a few for displaying poor fashion sense, but I had the feeling that Butch was the first guy who really mattered.
“Maybe it was a mistake,” I said, wondering if it could possibly be true. They seemed so good together. “Maybe you just took the message the wrong way.” A misunderstanding would be nice; Butch’s muscle-bound exterior and teddy-bear personality were the perfect fit for a high-strung drama queen with a heart of gold.
Evan picked up Butch’s cell phone, which he still carried, and punched in some numbers without saying a word. Then he handed it to me and looked around for the waitress, signaling her for more drinks.
Listening, I heard a man’s say, “Butch, it’s Jared. Great to chat with you yesterday, and I’ve got fabulous news!” The voice was obviously that of a gay male; straight men lack inflection. “Stop by at lunchtime, and I am going to make you the happiest man alive. You’re going to be thrilled,” he gushed, “I promise.” And then he hung up.
My heart sank, but I tried to be optimistic anyway. “Well, so he knows a guy named Jared. Big deal.”
Evan gave me a deadpan stare. “In the eight months we’ve been together, he’s never once mentioned anyone named Jared. It’s a date, Nicki. He changed the password on his computer, being secretive about his calls—I think he’s been chatting up guys on the Internet and made a date with one.” Rubbing his hand over his face, he went on, “He’s been keeping secrets from me. I told you he was losing interest.”
“But—”
“No buts.” Poor Evan. “When I asked him about it, he got all nervous and defensive, and he yelled at me.” No yelling was the Fourth Rule of Evan. His chin trembled. “He’s never raised his voice to me, not ever. He’s lying, and that’s all there is to it.”
I didn’t know what else to say, so after a moment, I reached for my second shot and downed it, letting the burn take me. By the time I could breathe again, the waitress was putting down two more apiece for each of us.
“Let’s talk about something else,” he said. “Tell me what happened back there in the office. What was that phone call all about?”
I closed my eyes briefly, wishing I didn’t have to tell him. Wishing I didn’t have to throw myself into a big, muddy puddle of emotional issues that had nothing to do with me.
But I knew I had to. Crystal Cowart’s dysfunctional family dynamics were not only standing in the way of my happiness, they were sucking Crystal’s soul into the darkness, and risking the same fate for her little sister.
Do unto others as you would have them do unto you, Styx. “I have to get rid of the ghost who’s been possessing me. I have to put her to rest. She’s causing trouble for Joe at the hospital, and I just can’t have that. He could lose his job.” I shook my head, fingering my shot glass. An image of the first time I’d seen Joe—serious, intent, focused on the crisis at hand—flashed into my brain. “I mean, he’s a doctor, you know? He saved my life! I wouldn’t be here if it weren’t for him…and how many others will he save? Has he saved? What if he hadn’t been there that night?”
Evan reached across the table and took my hand, squeezing it. He hated to talk about that night. Poor guy had been the one who found me, unconscious, and the one who’d been pacing the hospital waiting room when I died.
Luckily, by the time he found out about it, I was alive again. Same old Nicki, only different.
“You don’t have to tell me what a great guy Joe is.” His chin trembled. He looked away, briefly, and I knew he was thinking of Butch. “How are you going to put this girl to rest? What’s this about a sister?”
“Crystal was molested when she was thirteen by a jumped-up preacher named Jimmy Boyd,” I said flatly. “Her mother didn’t believe her, and still looks to this guy for spiritual guidance. He came to see me, if you can believe it. He’s the one who told me about Amber Marie.”
Evan’s eyes widened in horror.
“You were talking to a child molester?”
“I didn’t know it at the time.”
“How did you find out?”
Ooo, now came the hard part. “Sammy told me.”
All color drained from Evan’s face. I expected him to explode or pitch a hissy fit or maybe even faint, but all he did was pick up his third shot and down it, fast.
“Oh, my God,” he wheezed. “He’s not going to go away, is he?” He looked dazed, by more than just the vodka. “We’re screwed.”
“Not yet.” I answered automatically, thinking of Sammy’s seduction attempts.
“What else could possibly go wrong?” He leaned back in the booth, bracing both hands on the table. “This has been like the worst week ever.” He took a deep breath, listing lightly to the right; the vodka was kicking in. Evan had never been good with hard liquor—he usually stuck with a glass or two of white wine. “My dearest friend in the world has been dealing with ghosts, devils and child molesters, and my heart”—his face crumpled in on itself—“my heart has been broken.”
“Aw, honey,” I murmured, reaching across the table to squeeze his fingers. Then I was struck by a memory.
No, no, no…how stupid was I to even think it?
“I’ll never get over him, never,” Evan declared, crying openly now.
Pretty stupid, apparently. Caution reared its ugly head, but I remedied that problem by reaching for my own shot glass.
Candy is dandy, but liquor is quicker.
It hit my stomach in a spread of warmth. “I may have a solution for you,” I said, wanting only to help him feel better. “But it will require a couple more drinks, and a taxi home.”
“You don’t need a pink candle, you need a blue one,” I insisted, shaking my head and immediately wishing I hadn’t. The room was already spinning without extra help from me. “You’re a boy, Butch is a boy, and there’s no pink in that equation.”
“The spell says we need a pink one and a blue one,” Evan whined. “I want to do this right.”
I looked at him blearily, pulling two blue candles from a drawer in the kitchen. “Trust me. I know what I’m doing.”
We both burst into laughter at that, because it was such a lie and we both knew it. That’s what made it funny.
Of course, just then, everything was funny.
Evan staggered toward the couch, giggling and clutching the scrap of paper that held the “mend a broken heart” spell. “Do we have angelica root and dandelion powder? I don’t have to drink it, do I?” He plopped down, scanning the instructions in more detail. “Oh no,” he groaned, “it says we need clay. We don’t have any clay.”
A momentary setback, until I remembered the bag of stuff I’d bought at the discount store for the children’s corner a
t Handbags and Gladrags the week before; moms shopped longer when the kidlets were occupied. With a flourish, I whipped out a can of Play-Doh. “Ta-da!”
His eyes got big. “It’s like it was meant to be or something,” he breathed.
“Good Lord,” I said, coming toward him with the blue candles and Play-Doh. “You’re drunk.”
“So are you.”
“Am not.”
“Are too.”
“Liar.”
“Meanie.”
“Okay, then,” I said, glad to have that settled. “Now let’s see what we’ve got here.” I sat next to him on the couch, leaning over to read the paper in his hand. His warm, comfortable shoulder kept me from falling over.
“Create a sacred space and light two candles,” I recited, “one pink, and one blue.”
“See?” Evan whined again. “I told you so. And how do we create a sacred space?”
I rolled my eyes, then reached out and pushed a stack of magazines off the coffee table and onto the floor. “Voilà,” I said, and plunked the two blue candles down right where they’d been. “Sacred space.”
Evan made a sound of impatience, but I ignored him, pulling open the little drawer on the coffee table where I always kept a lighter; candlelight was flattering, and scented ones kept the house smelling good, so the lighter got a lot of use.
“Knead the clay into the shape of a heart,” I read, and looked at him. “I think that’s your job.”
He opened the can of Play-Doh and peered inside. “It’s green,” he said, frowning. “Hearts aren’t green.”
I gave an exaggerated sigh of frustration. “Work with me, would you?”
“You know I never like to do things half-assed,” he grumbled, dumping the Play-Doh into his palm.
“I know, I know. You always prefer the whole one.”
“Always.” Within a few moments, a chunky green heart began to take shape between Evan’s fingers. “Don’t rush me,” he said, reading my mind. “It’s my heart, not yours.”
True. Thank goodness. A teeny part of me was relieved; Joe and I were still good (as far as I knew), and I hoped to keep it that way.
So I waited, watching as he shaped the lump into nearly perfect symmetry. He laid it down on the table and shaped it some more, using his thumbs to smooth and his palm to flatten. And there it was, a little green heart, flanked by the flicker of two blue candles.
“Should we turn out the lights?” he asked, eyeing the arrangement doubtfully.
I gave him a look. “If you think I’m going to do this in the dark, you’re nuts.”
“Yeah,” he said nervously. “You’re right. Lights are good. We like lights.”
Evan’s nervousness defeated the purpose of this ridiculous little exercise, which was to keep him occupied and maybe even make him feel better.
“Okay,” I said briskly. “Next step.” I checked the paper. “You have to read this out loud.”
He took the spell from me and started to read. “What once was whole has now been broken, words of pain have now been spoken.” His voice quivered a little on that one. “It says I need to tear the clay heart into two pieces,” he whispered, as though someone besides me could hear.
“Do it,” I said grimly, on a mission.
A drunken, stupid mission, but whatever.
He picked up the heart and tore it into two chunks, then laid the pieces back down on the table, next to each other. Consulting the paper again, he asked, “Where’s the dandelion powder and angelica root?”
I dug around in the stupid basket that some stupid person had left on my stupid doorstep, and handed Evan the stupid bottles full of stupid herbs. He uncorked one and sprinkled it on the left half of the broken heart, then did the same with the other bottle and the other half. Dandelion powder on the left, angelica root on the right.
Somewhere along the way we’d both become solemn—neither of us was laughing anymore.
“Let the earth relieve my pain, and make my poor heart whole again.” Evan picked up the two pieces of the heart and mashed them together, herbs and all. In less time than it took him the first time, he kneaded and shaped until the heart was back in one piece, looking only a little worse for wear.
“Now what?”
“It says to let the candles burn down all the way, and to keep the heart in a safe place.” He put it back on the table.
I eyed the lumpy, splotchy bit of green Play-Doh doubtfully. “Where are you going to keep it?”
“Where I should have kept my real heart,” he answered morosely. “Locked up tight. Maybe I’ll put it in my safe-deposit box at the bank, where nobody can ever touch it again except me.”
“And me,” I said. “I have a key.”
Evan slumped backward into the couch. “You’re the only person I trust with a key to my heart, Nicki.” He was slurring a little, but that was okay—poor guy had been through the emotional wringer. “Fifth Rule of Evan,” he mumbled, closing his eyes. “Never trust anyone but Nicki.”
I smiled, though he couldn’t see it. “That’s not the Fifth Rule of Evan.”
He sighed, without opening his eyes. “It is now.”
A knock at the door brought us both upright. We looked at each other.
“Crap,” I said. “You get it.”
He shook his head. “I’m not getting it. You get it.”
I wasn’t up for visitors. It was barely dark outside, but I’d been hoping for a nap; I wasn’t used to drinking in the afternoon.
“Go see who it is.” He nudged me. “Look through the peephole.”
I slipped off my sandals and padded to the door, not wanting whoever was there to know I was home. Luckily for me, my car wasn’t in the driveway, and neither was Evan’s—I’d been serious about that cab.
To my relief, it was Joe’s handsome face I saw through the peephole. He knocked again, just as I opened the door.
“Hi, baby!” I smiled, thrilled to see him, but my smile faded when I saw who stood beside him.
“Where’s Evan?” Butch asked, shouldering his way into the house.
I stumbled back a little, grabbing for the door, but he was already in.
“Evan? You have to listen to me—”
“Get away from me!” Evan’s frantic tone should’ve warned Butch away, but it didn’t. He kept coming, even when Evan shot from the couch and stood behind it, hands raised. “I have nothing to say to you, ever!”
“You’ve got the wrong idea, Ev,” Butch’s pleading sounded sincere. “Jared was doing me a favor—”
“I’ll bet he was!”
“—he was taking care of something for me—”
“Exactly!”
“—don’t be like this, baby. Give me a chance to explain.”
I turned to Joe, stunned to see a second man standing there, a man I’d never seen before.
“Hi,” he said, all bright red cheeks and awkward grin. Chubby, dark hair, midthirties. “I’m Jared.”
Oh, great.
“Where’ve you been, Nicki?” Joe stepped in, bringing Jared with him. “Your cell phone isn’t turned on, and the store was closed.” He was frowning. “I’ve been trying to get hold of you for hours.” He shut the door behind him with a click.
It sunk in that I might be in trouble. “I—”
“You brought him here?” Evan’s tone had progressed to a shriek. He spun on his heel, headed for the back of the house, but Butch darted forward, grabbing his arm.
“Listen to me, sweetheart,” Butch was still pleading. “He’s just a friend—he’ll tell you himself.” He shot a desperate look in our direction. “Won’t you, Jared?”
“Please,” Evan said, trying to snatch his arm from Butch’s brawny hand and failing miserably. “Take your little twink and go.”
“Stop this.” Butch towered over Evan by a good three inches, but I noted how gentle he was, despite not letting go of Evan’s arm. He propelled him firmly toward the couch. “You are going to sit down on this couch, and
you are going to listen to what I have to say.”
The teddy bear had a stern side, it seemed. Which might not be a bad thing for a drama queen softie.
Good feng shui.
“Have you been drinking?” Joe’s question brought me back to him. “Butch has been calling me all afternoon—worried sick, I might add—and you’ve been out drinking? You know the added stress that too much alcohol can put on your heart, Nicki.”
Guilt hit me. “I—”
“Jared works at Bridgerton’s,” Butch said, settling Evan on the couch as he spoke.
“Lah-dee-dah,” snipped Evan, poised to flee.
“Sit,” Butch said, his voice deepening, “and listen. I mean it.”
Evan subsided, reluctantly, onto the couch.
On the one hand, I was surprised to see him so docile, on the other, not so much.
“I’ve had something on order, and Jared was just leaving a message on my cell phone to let me know it was in.”
Beside me, Joe sighed with impatience. I hadn’t given him any answers to his questions, but I couldn’t seem to focus on anything but the drama at hand.
Jared stepped up, stammering, “It’s true—I hardly know him.”
Evan shot him a filthy look, and I almost felt sorry for him.
“He’s just a customer. A friend of a friend.” Ill at ease and blushing, Jared glanced our way and shrugged, obviously in search of some support. “I already have a boyfriend.”
Butch ignored all of us. He got down on one knee in front of Evan, clasping both of my friend’s delicately boned hands in one of his big, brawny ones.
“Evan Alexander Owenby,” he said, not wasting a moment more on explanations, “I have done nothing wrong. You have my heart, and have since the moment I met you.”
Evan’s eyes were big and locked on Butch’s.
“I have never lied to you, although I admit to keeping a secret.” Butch’s other hand came up, and in it was a small box. “This is what Jared ordered for me, and this is why I got angry when you spoiled the surprise.”
Evan’s eyes filled with tears, but he was silent. For once.
“So if you take this box”—nice how Butch made it seem like Evan would choose otherwise—“you have to be willing to believe me when I tell you that you are the one for me, and that I will never, ever leave you.”
