“Home. Now.”
AFTER THAT
morning, he’d seemed better. At least over the phone. He hadn’t responded to many of Reece’s texts, but his responses were sweet and funny and exasperated over work. The same when they talked. Reece had barely seen Angus after the first couple of weeks, but again work was blamed. He’d seemed distant and a little… gray, but he was Angus. At least in short bursts. Reece hoped he was slowly starting to get back into the swing of things.
He should have fucking known better.
It took a frantic call from Kathy, who’d loved Angus, to make him realize there was something very, very wrong.
Maybe Reece had known—he just hadn’t wanted to know.
Maybe he was the worst friend on the surface of the planet.
REECE CALLED
Cherry.
“Hey, what’s shaking?” Cherry asked when she picked up her phone.
“Sweetie, Angus needs our help.”
Reece explained what had happened, how under their noses Angus had gone from healthy to gaunt, lost his job, his apartment, and basically his will to do anything but lie in bed. Cherry gasped. Then she railed at Reece for a few minutes for being dumb enough to miss it. And at herself for being an equally big moron.
“Angus is smart, CP. He wanted us not to see it.”
“Does he want help now?” she asked.
“Of course not, but we’re going to help anyway. I need to get him out of town for a few days, somewhere every corner doesn’t remind him of dickface. Can you and Pey get his stuff into my house? He’s going to live with me for a while. I’ll pay if you want to hire someone.”
“Yeah, of course. We can take care of it. Where are you guys going to go?”
“I don’t know. Not here. You should’ve seen his face. It was like all the—” Reece broke off when he saw a newly showered Angus standing in the doorway. He looked skinny still, of course, startlingly so in regular jeans and a T-shirt that used to be formfitting. He also looked pissed.
“Who’s on the phone?” he grunted.
“Let me talk to him,” Cherry said. She wasn’t asking.
“CP, I….”
Angus held out his hand. Reece sighed.
He heard the sound of loud talking coming from the other side of the cell, which was exactly why he hadn’t wanted to give Angus the phone. She and Angus loved each other, of course, but she wasn’t the best for delicate situations, and if the current situation was anything, it was delicate.
Angus
was delicate. Bruised too. Reece had no idea how deep the bruises went, but he didn’t think Cherry was the best person to figure it out.
By the look on Angus’s face, Reece was right. He finally reached over and took the phone from Angus.
“Lemme deal with this one, okay, Cherry? You deal with the move?”
She took a deep breath, like she was about to fly off on another one of her tirades, and then sighed. “Yeah. Pey and I have it. What do you want me to tell the moms?”
“I’m thinking, right now, we’re going to have to go with the truth. I mean, how else are we gonna explain me and Angus taking off for however long?”
“We can’t.”
“Okay. Keep in touch. We’re going to take off.”
“You really think that’s the best answer to all of this?” She sounded about as skeptical as Angus had.
“Can you think of another one?”
“Therapy? A kickboxing class?”
“Angus isn’t you, babe.” Reece looked over to where Angus was slumped against the doorframe. His eyes looked glassy, and he didn’t even react to his own name. “I honestly think he and I need this. Together.”
Cherry made a squeaking noise that Reece decided to ignore and then breathed hard into the phone. “Then I’ll take care of hiring movers. I’m not going to lift all his stuff myself. I will pack it, though. Tell Angus to get rid of anything kinky. I’m his sister. I don’t want to see that shit.”
THEY LEFT
a couple of hours later in a rented Honda SUV—Reece’s own Explorer was on its last leg and guzzled gas like no tomorrow, and Angus’s Mini had always felt cramped and tiny for even short rides—packed with their suitcases and a few bags of nonperishable snacks Reece had picked up at the grocery store on the way out. He didn’t have a plan, really. Head south, for the most part. Angus hadn’t had much of an opinion. He was currently asleep with his head against the window. He had blue shadows under his eyes, and his eyelashes, which had always been heavy and dark, seemed like too much to lift for his thin, pale eyelids.
“Angus? You want to stop for some coffee?”
Angus propped one eye open. “I don’t want coffee.”
“What do you want?”
He made a derisive snorting noise against the window but didn’t answer. No part of this was the Angus Reece had known for so many years. What the hell had happened in his brain the moment he saw that Facebook post? What the hell had happened afterward?
Reece drove through a Starbucks and got coffee for himself and a huge hot chocolate for Angus. Angus didn’t even look at it, just kept his forehead pressed against the window. Reece turned the radio on and drove. Green fields passed, hillocks and farms—all the trappings of northern Oregon.
“Hey, I was thinking we’d try to make it to San Francisco tonight? Maybe do some sightseeing tomorrow?”
Angus didn’t reply. Reece had gotten a hell of a lot more out of him back at the house.
“Why aren’t you talking to me?”
“What is there to say?” Angus shrugged. “My entire life disappeared, and I’m on a road trip. How does any of this make sense?”
Nothing in the past three months had made sense to Reece—his best friend pushing him away, less and less time together, this painfully awkward silence. Forcing them to be near each other in the silence of the car felt like the best thing Reece could possibly do. It was right to have Angus next to him, no matter how much of a mess Angus was at the moment.
“I think I’ll head to San Francisco,” Reece said, mostly to himself. He didn’t really expect much of an answer out of Angus anymore.
“Whatever,” Angus said. Then he put his head against the window again and closed his eyes.
IT WAS
after midnight by the time they got to San Francisco. It had been a long day of silence for Reece. Angus was probably hungover and messed up over Brad still, and Reece wished like hell he knew how to fix it. All he could do was drive.
Their hotel wasn’t anything special, but it was in a decent area. He’d stopped along the way and made a reservation—one room, two beds. He wasn’t letting Angus have his own room. Not a chance in hell. Reece parked the car in the hotel’s garage and dragged their bags out of the trunk. Then he put his arm around Angus’s newly thin shoulders and guided him into the hotel.
He was really tired by the time they got to their room. Angus collapsed onto one of the beds without changing or brushing his teeth, despite the fact that he’d been asleep most of the day. He closed his eyes and didn’t say anything to Reece. Reece was disappointed but not shocked. He went through his bag, grabbed a pair of basketball shorts and his shower stuff, and washed the road feeling off his body. Then he collapsed into the bed across from Angus and fell asleep.
THE MORNING
was rough for both of them. Angus looked like he was about to throw up, probably a culmination of weeks of hangovers and not eating a single bite the day before, no matter how much Reece had begged him to. Reece was just exhausted. After a few blissfully unaware hours, he’d spent the rest of the night barely sleeping, listening to see if Angus was still breathing. He knew that was dramatic, but hell. What was he supposed to think? He had no idea what to do to get through to Angus, to somehow get his best friend back.
“Hey,” he said.
Angus actually looked at him, which was better than a lot of their conversations had gone the day before. “Hey.” Angus closed his eyes but remained seated on the side of the bed.
“You want to go take a look around today? We’re not far from the Castro.”
“Seriously? You want to go sightseeing?” Angus shook his head and wiped at his eye sockets with a fist. The curtains were pulled shut against the early spring morning, but Reece still saw a thin stripe of pale, watery light splashed across the wall. Angus shied away from it like it was a laser in his eyes.
“You want me to drag you to the nearest counselor? Because we can do that too.”
“No.” Angus stared at the corner of the room.
“Then walking it is.” Reece figured fresh air and sun never hurt anything. Hell, it might even make things a tiny bit better. Worth a shot. He didn’t have a lot of options.
“Fine.”
“Why don’t we start with breakfast? I can go grab us something from that café we passed down the street last night, and you can shower.”
“I don’t want breakfast,” Angus grumbled. “Eating doesn’t sound good.”
“You’ve got to have something. Not even a croissant?” Angus had always loved croissants.
“Fine. I need coffee, though.”
“I’ll be right back. You’ll grab a shower while I’m gone? Then we can talk about what we’re going to do next, okay?”
“Yeah. Sure.” Angus slumped down. “Thanks,” he added quietly.
Reece felt like he’d finally
done
something. Didn’t know if it was going to actually have any effect, but at least he’d done it. The day before had been such a long, silent day. He hadn’t been able to see his best friend at all in the tiny shell next to him. He had been so scared. He was still scared, to tell the truth, but maybe coffee and a croissant was the first step in getting his Angus back.
He left with a bounce in his step and texted Cherry that things were maybe kinda, sorta looking up. Then he walked out of the hotel and turned right down the street in the direction he remembered the bakery being. It took a little longer to find the bakery than he’d thought it would, and rustling up coffees took another fifteen minutes. By the time he got back to the room, nearly an hour had passed. He hoped Angus hadn’t fallen back to sleep.
WHEN REECE
got into the room, he realized sleep was probably the best thing he could’ve hoped for. Angus was drunk. Not tipsy or buzzed. Drunk off his ass. And he was sitting in the corner of the room, backed up against the wall, crying.
“Shit.”
Reece dropped the bags of food and coffee on the table and stalked over to the corner of the room where Angus was cowering. He was angry and scared and sad, but the only thing he could think to do was wrap his arms around Angus and hold on tight.
“I’m so sorry,” Angus said with a muffled whisper. “I didn’t mean to drink again. I don’t have a drinking problem….”
Reece wasn’t sure he agreed, but it was a fight for another day. “Where’d you get it?” he asked.
“I
don’t
,” Angus said with more heat than Reece had heard from him in months. “It just makes the feelings go away.”
“Where’d you get it, Angus? Where did the alcohol come from?”
“My bag. I put it in before we left yesterday. I’m just so scared.”
“I’m scared too, babe. What scared you?”
Angus shrugged and burrowed back into Reece’s arms. “I guess living. Living on my own without a man who loves me.
God
, that sounds like bullshit out of the fucking fifties, but I don’t know how to do it. I thought Brad and I were going to be together forever.”
Brad didn’t love you….
“I’m sure that is scary. But you’re tough.”
“I’m not. I’m a mess. You don’t remember how I was before Brad came along—I was always scattered, could barely take care of myself. I was….”
Reece wanted to growl and hit things. Maybe take a chunk or two out of the drywall. “You were creative and
brilliant
, and maybe a little scattered, yes, but you did take care of yourself. You were amazing.”
And beautiful and bright and a little wild. Angus had always had a touch of the wind in him. Reece envied it. Brad had spent the last ten years smothering the best parts of Angus, trying to shove him into a neat, self-conscious little shell.
“I don’t remember being amazing.”
“I do.”
Angus hiccupped and laid his head on Reece’s shoulder. “I feel like an asshole for doing this. I just can’t, like, make myself want to get up. I don’t care about anything. The only thing I feel is humiliated, and that’s only when I let myself feel it.”
“You’re sad, babe. And if this trip can help, if I can help, then I’ll be happy to do it.”
“I don’t want to be like this anymore. I hate feeling like this. I really do.” Angus scrubbed at his eyes. He was honest in a way that only a drunk person could be. The look in his eyes was painful and bloody and raw. Reece felt like crying, but he swallowed it down.
“Then why don’t we get you up, have breakfast and coffee and a shower, and see where we can go from there.”
“Yeah. Okay.”
Angus dragged himself off the floor, and Reece followed him up. He unwrapped the croissant breakfast sandwiches he’d gotten them, and the coffees, which were hopefully still warm. The sandwiches were chewy and melty with sausage, egg, and cheddar. They tasted real and homemade, and even Angus, who obviously hadn’t been eating much for weeks, devoured most of his.
“Feel a little bit better?” Reece asked.
“Yeah. A little.” Angus lifted the side of his mouth in the barest hint of a smile before it drooped again.
“Drink the coffee, and let’s get you into a shower.”
“Then can we go walk a little? I think fresh air might be good for me.”
“I think you’re definitely right.”
It was a small step, and Reece was perfectly aware things could go backward, but they had taken a step forward. And that’s all he could ask.
San Francisco
ANGUS FELT
like shit. He’d downed about fifty gallons of water, a coffee, and the breakfast sandwich Reece had brought for him. But it didn’t help enough. Days, weeks, of too much alcohol and not enough food or productive sleep had gotten to him. Angus knew he needed to pull himself out of the hole. He wasn’t oblivious. He just… didn’t know how to care to do it, like he’d told Reece. But he didn’t want to hurt Reece, or his family, any more than he already had, so he’d decided to try. At least on the outside.