Readjustment (Restitution #2)

10

Caleb Straus

“Are you shaving?” Guadalupe’s accent rose two octaves over speaker phone.

“Yes.” I picked up the razor I’d just dropped, leaned toward the mirror and swiped it carefully under my chin. “I’m a detective, G. It’s part of the dress code.”

Silence stretched out on the other line, and that didn’t bode well for me.

“Why is he coming over at 8:30?”

Why did I answer her call? “Because we work together, duh.”

“Keep up the attitude, boy. I know where you live.”

“And we’re friends.” The condensation from my shower kept fogging the mirror. I swiped my hand over it and resumed shaving. “It was a frustrating day. We’re going to have dinner and vent. That’s it.”

“Is it? So, you’re going to pretend things never get out of control with him.”

“G…” I rolled my eyes and stifled a sigh. “Can we please not do this right now? It’s just dinner.”

“In your apartment. At night. And you’re shaving, mijo .”

This time the sigh broke through. “I really wanted a shower. And I’m serious. It’s just dinner between friends.”

“If you say so…”

I rinsed the razor and splashed water on my face. “I need to finish getting dressed.”

“Yes, please do.”

“I still want to see you,” I said. “Maybe this weekend?”

“Looking forward to it.”

I arranged my hair into respectable order, headed to my bedroom, and picked up the navy Peyton PD shirt I’d laid out. I paired it with dark grey pajama bottoms and stepped into moccasins just as Adam rapped on the door.

Dinner. Talk. Go to bed.

Adam held up a large, stapled brown bag with large grease spots in one hand. A six-pack of Blue Moon was in the other. Over the savory scent of seasoning salt and melted cheese, the cedarwood, lavender, and sage of his shampoo stirred my insides. He looked refreshed; his skin bright and hair in wet, messy tufts that brushed his forehead. There was something about his thin hoodie and black joggers that hit me harder than all his thousand-dollar suits combined. It accentuated the thick muscles in his chest, and the long lean lines that tapered to narrow hips and muscular thighs. I could almost feel them under my fingers.

Shaking myself back to the moment, I took the bag and unpacked it in the kitchen while Adam grabbed paper plates from the cabinet above the sink. “God, I’m starving.”

“Me too.” He pulled a beer from the six-pack and put the rest in the fridge. “I didn’t eat much last night.”

“Neither did I.”

“What? Four Eggos instead of six?”

“Just two PB and J’s, wise guy.” I swatted his arm with my plate, then ducked to grab a Coke before he could swing back. “Eggos were Wednesday night.”

After filling our plates and grabbing drinks, we settled on the couch. I grabbed the TV remote and flipped on the local sports network. The Blues were playing the Av’s and were up by three goals early.

“That’ll make Dunn happy.” Adam picked up a handful of fries and stuffed them in his mouth.

I swallowed down my bite of burger and dabbed some grease from my lips. “Still time for Bennington to implode though.”

Adam chuckled, and a comfortable silence settled in as we ate. I peeked over at him between bites. The hunch of his shoulders and the harassed expression were gone, and he was relaxed and natural. He leaned over his plate and wolfed down a second burger, relishing every bite.

“How’re you holding up?” He swirled a fry through some ketchup on his plate.

“Okay, I guess.” I held my Coke with both hands and slid my thumbs through the thin layer of condensation. “All the shady stuff with the Sheriff’s department is hard to deal with.”

“I get that,” he said. “I had a partner who took bribes to botch paperwork when I was with Major Crimes. IAB traced it all back to cases related to a particular gang, and he got busted. That was a real gut punch. I’d been to his house and eaten meals with his family. Never would’ve imagined.”

“Jesus…” I winced. “Did you deal with a lot of guys like Kershaw and Meyers up there too?”

“Bigots?” He raised a brow. “Yeah. Especially when I worked patrol.” He tilted his beer to his lips, then paused. “Just another thing that contributed to me being an asshole.”

“You’re not an asshole.”

Adam’s brows shot up; bottle still pressed to his lips.

“Well, not all the time,” I corrected. “I’m sure things are different in the big city. Makes your skin a little thicker.”

“It does.” He wiped some suds off his mouth with his palm. “But I’ve worked with more good cops than bad ones by a long shot.”

I sat back and draped my arm on top of the couch. “Do you miss working in Chicago?”

“Sometimes.” Adam grabbed another handful of fries. “We didn’t have to worry about OT approvals, and we had a Dairy Queen around the block.”

I wiped my chin and tossed the napkin on my plate. “What’s your favorite Blizzard flavor?”

“M everything I could think of to help, but my mind came back to the same place. What did Adam want to say, but didn’t? When Josh leaves, will he be able to say it then? Or will Josh muddy his thoughts, and he’ll lose the will? What gave him the power to steal that away? And why couldn’t Adam just tell me?

I got up to use the bathroom, but the sound of a choked sob halted me in my tracks. The TV was on again, so I followed the flickering blue light and found Adam on the couch with his head in his hands. He’d stripped off his hoodie, and there were wet spots on the front of his t-shirt. His head was down, fingers buried in his messy tufts of hair. An empty beer, and a newly opened bottle of Jack sat on the coffee table, which meant he’d slipped across the hall to get it. Over Peter Griffin’s voice on the TV, another one of his sobs broke through.

Before I gave myself time to think, I was beside him. “Hey.” I clasped his shoulder.

“Christ!” Adam flinched with wide eyes. Wet streaks shone on his cheeks.

“Sorry.” I pulled my hand away. “Didn’t mean to startle you.”

“I’m okay.” Adam used the neck of his shirt to wipe his face then looked away. “I…just go back to bed.”

Beside the whisky bottle, Adam’s phone was playing a video on loop. Josh was walking a different man than the one’s Adam had shown me earlier into a motel, then it cut to where they left together. I picked it up and pressed pause, then crouched down in front of him. “Talk to me.”

For a moment, he hesitated. His lips opened and closed, and he just stared at me. Like his mind was trapped between what was waiting for him in Chicago and what was here in Peyton. It was all playing out behind those unblinking eyes.

“I’m not sure what to say.” His voice was almost shrill, yet distant as he plunged his fingers into his hair. “It’s all so loud in my head and I can’t make it stop.”

On the TV behind me, a man’s voice was talking about Chia Pets making a great Christmas gift. (Order today for guaranteed delivery!) A plan sprung to mind, and despite the time, I rolled with it. “Then let’s do something.”

Adam’s brows scrunched in confusion.

“Not that .” I held out my hand and helped him to his feet. “Come on.”

Adam followed me to the storage closet next to the bathroom. “It’s one in the morning.” He turned away from the overhead light. “I should just go home—”

“I couldn’t sleep either.” I reached up for the green tote on the top shelf and carefully pulled it down. “And I’m tired of looking at the ceiling.”

When I handed it to him, his brows were scrunched even more, his curiosity overtaking the melancholy.

He got both arms around the thirty-five-gallon tote and stepped back. “What’s in this?”

“My Christmas tree.” I grabbed a shabby cardboard box and followed him into the living room. “Let’s decorate it.”

“Again, it’s one in—”

“It’s three feet tall and pre-lit. Won’t take long.” I nudged him towards the living room. “We’ll set it by the sliding glass door.”

He looked at me like I’d sprouted a second head, then sighed. “If you want.”

With the two pieces snapped together, Adam and I moved around the tree and spread the branches out. He worked tentatively at first, but then picked up momentum after a few strands.

“You always wait until a week before to put up your tree?” He straightened out the branch meant to hold the star, then stepped back to observe it.

“No,” I chuckled, “I’ve been meaning to for a few weeks. It sort of snuck up on me this year.”

“So, you always put one up?” he asked. “With just you?”

“G always comes over Christmas eve,” I kneeled and started working the from the bottom up. “If I didn’t have a tree, she’d drag it down herself and give me a lecture. You’re honestly saving me.”

“My mom was like that until Perry died. We never had one after that. She said it didn’t seem right.”

The dust tickled my nose, so I paused and scratched it against my shoulder. “If you’d rather we not…”

“No, it’s fine.” His mouth twitched into a fleeting smile. “It’s kind of nice.”

After we finished fluffing the branches, I grabbed some scissors from the kitchen and cut last year’s tape off the boxes of bulbs. They were red and white and came in assorted sizes and sheens. G bought them for me the year after I got sober, and I couldn’t bring myself to get new ones. Adam and I hung them on the branches, stepping back every few moments to check the spacing.

“I think I’ve got some icicles in here.” I dug through the ancient gold tinsel and found a small box that brought me to a standstill. It was red with dingy plastic covering, and it’d been taped heavily. A baseball ornament sat nestled in a plastic holder, and an explosion of grief pulled my heart to my stomach.

I could still feel Ethan’s fingers as he handed the box to me in the locker room our senior year. Physical training for baseball had already started, and we were the only ones left that day. He’d tried to wrap it, but two of the edges from the original box poked through, so he covered them with two silver bows that took up the whole space. The tag had said, “Our first Christmas 2009!”

Seven months later, he was dead.

My eyes stung as I brushed loose pine bristles off the top, but I still couldn’t help but smile. It’d survived all these years, even with all its cracks. And so had I.

“Caleb?” Adam joined me and peered at my hands. “What’s that?”

“The last thing Ethan ever bought for me.” I held it up a little higher and swiped at my eyes.

“Shit.” He bent in for a closer look. “Did it get broken?”

“N-no.” I swallowed down the knot in my throat. “I was so angry after he died that I uh, smashed it one night. It took me forever to put it back together. It’s…not great, but I couldn’t bear to throw it away.”

“Do you want to hang it?”

“I’d…” I stared down at it and debated. “Yeah, sure.”

“You don’t have—”

“No, it’s a good idea. He’d have liked that.” I carefully slid the ornament free from the box. “I couldn’t find all the pieces, so there’s a gap in the back. But if I tuck it in,” I nestled it between two branches where it wouldn’t sway, “I can pretend it’s all together still.”

“Sounds like my marriage.” Adam grimaced. “There’s been a hole in it for so long and…well, now I’m relating it to a broken ornament and making things weird again.”

“It’s alright.” I kept digging for the icicles and found them buried in the bottom. “I’m sorry you feel like that, though.”

“Why?” Adam lifted the bulb to get a closer look. “It’s my fault. I’ve let him control me so long that I can hardly tell when he’s doing it anymore. How I let him convince me he’s not part of the problem. It’s just my drinking, my temper, my desire to be miserable…that’s why things are like this. Not that we’re pretending there hasn’t been a giant hole in our foundation from the beginning.”

“I’m sure it’s more complicated than that.” I stepped forward and reached out to rub his shoulder. “He’s gaslighting you, and you shouldn’t have to put up with that.”

Adam just shook his head. “I want to believe that. Hell, some days I even do.” His voice quivered, and he looked away. “Eighteen fucking years…how could it all end up being for nothing? How does someone move past that?”

“That’s a lot to deal with.” I rubbed the stiff muscles of his shoulder in small circles.

“I hate him, Caleb.” His voice grew as tense as the muscles under my fingers. “I hate him, and I hate myself for staying, but what I hate most is that I’ve put you in the middle and you deserve so much more than that. You’re the greatest man I ever met…the only place I find peace…” He tented his hands over his nose and mouth, and though his voice got muffled, the message was loud and clear. “I’m so tired of fucking everything up. Every good thing in my life gets sucked into this black hole, and every time I’m ready to leave, Josh pulls me back in. Turns me against myself.”

“Hey,” I squeezed his shoulder, “You’re amazing, Adam. And you’re stronger than you think.”

He turned away and shook his head.

“You give me peace too.”

Adam stilled, but didn’t look back at me.

“Turn around.” I laid my hand on his shoulder, but he didn’t move. “Being with you is the first time I’ve felt like my real self since those summer days wearing my baseball jersey. When all I knew was life, and happiness. And…since Ethan.”

He finally tuned to face me, jaw slack with amazement.

“You helped me believe I’m good enough, and…” Before I could get the nerve to say I was tired of the universe stealing everything I’ve ever loved, including him, Adam took one of my hands between his and hope billowed to the surface.

“This town doesn’t deserve you.” He ran his thumb over my knuckles. “Neither do I,” he whispered, his breath ghosting over my chin, “but I’m so glad I found you.” He cupped my jaw, and his fingertips brushed over the heat blossoming in my cheeks. The emotion in his eyes was so strong it took my breath away. The slight part of his lips. The care in his touch. I was safe. Loved. Complete.

I leaned into his touch. Everything I ever wanted was in front of me, but he belonged to someone else. And yet, when his fingers moved up and through my hair, I didn’t pull away.

Because if this was all I was going to get, at least it was something.

Adam traced my ear with a finger. “I swear, one day—”

I crushed my mouth over his until the last shreds of reality had dissipated, along with my doubts. Adam kissed me back with feverish intent that quickly morphed into something far more than lust. With one hand cupping my head, the other at my waist, he nudged me to the wall behind him, and I went willingly, not breaking away from his lips until my brain sent a signal for air.

“You’ll be the death of me, Adam Dawson,” I whispered in his ear. “But what a way to go.”