One More Time (13 page)

My dad called at ten while I was cleaning up my kitchen. Being bored and not knowing what else to do sometimes led me to cleaning. It wasn’t something I enjoyed doing, but it had to get done so I did my best to stay on top of it and not get distracted by all the thoughts currently swirling through my head.

“Hey. You doing okay?” he asked as I put him on speakerphone. “It’s going to be a tough day for you.”

I knew it was and didn’t love the reminder, but I did love my dad for calling to check up on me. “I know.”

“You need a ride? I can take you if you want.”

I shook my head and kept cleaning the sink. “Caleb and I are going down in a few hours. We’ll be there overnight and be back tomorrow morning. Just as friends,” I tacked on in case he got any ideas.

“I didn’t think anything else. Though I do like Caleb, from what little I’ve seen of him. He has a clean arrest record and only a few parking and speeding tickets from California too. But he needs to get those tags updated.”

I groaned and put the sponge down so I could wash my hands. Of course my dad had checked him out.

“I loved Simon too, you know. He was a good guy.”

I appreciated that my dad talked about Simon like he was already gone, because to me he was, and it was something I’d asked him to do a few years back when I’d been really ready to let him go. At the hospital, saying good-bye to Simon’s body? That was just a formality. My Simon had been gone for years.

“Yeah, he was,” I agreed as I dried my hands on a dish towel.

“Don’t let what you had with Simon get in the way of what you could have with Caleb,” my dad told me in his sternest voice.

I stopped and stared at my phone for a moment. “We’re just friends,” I reminded him.

“Yes, and you look at every single one of your friends that way. Don’t lie to me, boy. Lie to yourself all you want, but not to me. I know that look. Your mom used to look at me the same way. Like she could stay with me forever, like I made everything better. Doesn’t matter that Caleb is a man. It’s the same look. You care about him.”

“It’s been two weeks,” I told him as I rolled my eyes.

“Your mother was pregnant with you within four days of us knowing each other.”

I’d heard that before, but it still made me groan. “I don’t need to know that, Dad. Really, I don’t. That’s not something people tell their kids.”

“When their kids are being stubborn, absolutely it is. My point, Trent, is that you don’t have to worry about anything here. Let it flow naturally. Don’t get held up on time and how long it’s been or hasn’t been. If you like him, then you like him. I don’t want you to stay in love with Simon forever, not when he’s not here to love you back.”

My dad was right, and he was smart, but he didn’t have any idea what he was talking about. Not really, anyway. “I’m not still in love with Simon,” I reminded him. I just didn’t want to lose another love of my life. One was too much for one lifetime.

At four o’clock I was parked in front of Caleb’s house, but I couldn’t make myself get out of the car because when I did, well, that would be one more step toward seeing Simon. As much as I’d already said bye to him, as much as I’d given up on ever seeing him awake again, I didn’t want to see him officially gone. I thought it was just going to be a formality, but I sat there knowing that if I went to get Caleb, and if we went down to Denver, after his family took him off life support, there would be nothing left of him at all, anywhere.

I realized I was crying only because I suddenly couldn’t see. I ran my hands over my eyes and sighed loudly. I had to do this, because if I didn’t go see Simon, then this was going to happen without me anyway. And I didn’t think I would ever forgive myself for not being there with him one last time.

Forcing myself to get out of my car was the first part. Going up to Caleb’s house came next. It didn’t become easier with each step I took, like I hoped it would. Instead I stood there just staring at Caleb’s door wondering what I should have done differently. Simon loved to ski, loved to be outside, and had climbed more mountains and been scuba diving in deeper caves than I had even before meeting him. He was wild and invincible. He didn’t need my influence to get him there. But his sister, Cassandra, likely still thought I’d been the reason for his accident.

With a shaking hand I knocked on Caleb’s door. He opened it a few moments later, gave me a once-over, and then backed up.

“We need to get going,” I told him weakly, even as I followed him inside the house.

He shook his head and opened one of the cabinets under the island. “This will only take a minute, and you look like you need this.” He put a bottle of bourbon on the island then poured a little into a glass. Before he handed it over to me he poured a little water into it from the sink.

“Try it,” he said.

I looked down at the amber-colored liquid and hesitated. “I don’t normally drink bourbon, or whiskey, or whatever it is.” I looked back up at him and tried for a smile, but it didn’t really work out that well.

He shook his head and pushed the glass toward me with one finger. It sloshed a little up the sides, and I watched its movement for a moment, letting myself get lost in the ripples before I was pulled out of it by Caleb as he moved around the island toward me. We may have been friends, and I thought we were, but as he walked around me, it was like he was trying his absolute best not to come close enough to touch me. Regardless of the sex, of how much I wanted him, of how hot it had been to have him under me as I ground my hips against him knowing he could feel every single movement… aside from all of that, I wanted my friend to give me a hug right then because I desperately needed one.

I didn’t feel right asking him for one, though, so instead I took the glass between my fingers and tilted it against my lips. The bourbon burned, like it always did, and I was instantly reminded of why I didn’t usually drink anything heavier than beer.

I gasped as I put the glass down, then managed to get it into the sink, mercifully without coughing enough to show Caleb just how inept I was with the heavy stuff.

“Better?” Caleb asked.

I shrugged and leaned forward over the island. “Do you usually drink bourbon?” When I’d seen him drink, it had only ever been with beer. Not many people I knew drank bourbon, and I didn’t even think the grocery store carried the brand he’d pulled out.

“I’m from Kentucky. We have thoroughbreds and bourbon, among other things, but that’s what I really remember from living there. This stuff I had to drive into downtown Denver to get. I figured you might need some for today.”

I tried for another smile and actually managed it this time. “You figured right.” My smile quickly fled, and I was back to wallowing somewhere between wanting to go back to bed and knowing I needed to go to downtown Denver. “Did you get it last night after we talked?”

He shook his head. “This morning, actually.”

“You didn’t have to do that. Just for me….” I frowned. It was a bit of a drive to go downtown, especially for a bottle of alcohol. And here I was asking him to drive down with me again so soon. Most people in town hardly ever went into Denver. There were closer places to get the things they needed, or people made do without.

Caleb smiled at me, just a little. “I didn’t do it just for you.”

“You didn’t?” I had a hard time believing that.

With a sigh Caleb shook his head. “I like you, a lot, even though it’s only been a few weeks since we met. And you are in love with someone else….” I was about to tell him that he was wrong, that I didn’t still love Simon, but I couldn’t make myself say the words. So I said nothing and let him believe what he wanted to for the time being. I wasn’t up for arguing with him right then. “I wanted to have it handy, in case I wanted some.” He shrugged and started heading toward the door. “We should go.”

“Caleb….”

At the front door he turned around and held his hands up to me. “Just… don’t. Not right now, Trent. I want to be friends, and that means at this moment I’m going to drive us into Denver, and I’m going to be there for you when you need me today. But I’m hurt, and what you did, how you didn’t tell me about him, that wasn’t okay. So let’s get going.”

I nodded and followed him out of the house. “I can drive.”

Caleb shook his head. “I’m driving. You get to relax and direct me to wherever it is we’re going.”

I was thankful, and relieved, that I didn’t have to focus any more than that. It wasn’t that the bourbon was getting to me, though that may have been part of it. I felt a little better, though, with the decision of going being taken away from me.

“I don’t still love him,” I told Caleb again as we headed out onto the main road.

Caleb didn’t say anything, and I turned my head to look out the window instead of arguing with him about something I wasn’t absolutely sure of yet myself.

It didn’t take us long to get into Denver, only about an hour and a half with traffic, which was pretty decent for the afternoon. Going back tomorrow morning would be faster I was sure. “Take I-25 south for two more exits, then a left, and three blocks up, the entrance to the hospital will be on your right,” I told him. I wasn’t great at directions, especially to a place I hadn’t been to in a long time, but the place where Simon lay alive but not really was a place I couldn’t easily forget either.

Instead of dropping me off in front, like I expected him to do, Caleb parked across from the entrance. “Do you want me to come in with you?” he asked as he turned off his SUV.

I didn’t answer him at first while I thought things over. I could use him there, since I didn’t know how I’d really be able to manage what I knew was coming, but at the same time this was something I had to do, and I didn’t know if it was fair that Caleb had to be there with me.

“Do you want to?” I finally just ended up asking him, because I still hadn’t decided what the right answer was.

Caleb shrugged and leaned a bit over the steering wheel as he looked up at the tall tan-colored hospital. “I want to be there for you. You’re my friend.”

I didn’t like that word coming from him so much, because I knew that to him I wasn’t just a friend. It hurt, a bit, that I couldn’t be more for him since I wanted him just as much as he wanted me. “I’d like you to come up,” I said after a few moments. He wouldn’t be able to come farther than the waiting room on the floor Simon was on, but having him there, knowing I had his support; I thought that might be enough for me. I hoped so at least.

“Simon’s little sister though…. She can be a bit of a mess. She blames me for what happened to him, and I don’t know how she’d handle seeing us together.” I felt like I had to warn Caleb in case Cassandra went ballistic or something. It was already a lot to ask of someone I’d only really just met to come up with me. Dealing with Simon’s little sister would probably prove to be too much for most people.

But Caleb just gave me a little smile that stretched his lips but didn’t reach his eyes, as he said, “I’m just there as your friend. I won’t hug or kiss you.”

I nodded. That plan might work, I decided, as Caleb started to get out of the SUV and I followed after him. My steps were slow and my movements were jerky as we walked inside, but I managed to get us through the front door, past the chapel and the pharmacy, and up to the main elevators. The elevator was crowded, but after the first three floors where most people got off, it was a lot less so, and by the time we got to the tenth floor, only Caleb and I were on it.

The elevator doors opened and for a moment I was frozen there. Nothing had changed since the day Simon had been transferred there from the ICU on the first floor. The walls were still the same unsettling color of baby-puke green and a familiar landscape of ducks swimming in a mountain lake hung behind the desk where a woman stood to greet us. I didn’t want to go out there. I would have been perfectly fine letting the elevator doors close on us and riding it all the way back down to the first floor where I would get out and go back to Caleb’s car. I could buy him Mexican food from the place down the street to thank him for driving me down to Denver, and we’d be back in Thornwood by the time the evening news came on.

Only I couldn’t do that. I knew that. I wanted to, but I had to officially say good-bye to Simon because if I didn’t make my feet move, if I didn’t get off the elevator, if I never went to his room and held his hand again… if I didn’t get up the guts to do that today, then I knew I’d never have this chance again.

So I stepped out of the elevator with Caleb directly behind my right shoulder. He wasn’t pushing me forward, but he was there, blocking my way out in case I decided to run. That might have been intentional, but maybe it wasn’t. I didn’t get a chance to ask him about it, though, because I saw Laura walking toward me.

She’d always been pretty, my once-upon-a-time future mother-in-law, but it looked like she’d dressed up especially for the occasion. Her sleek black dress, high heels, and chunky silver necklace made her look like she was entertaining clients at her law firm, not saying good-bye to her only son. I felt extremely underdressed in my faded blue jeans and Thornwood Police shirt, but I couldn’t do anything about that now. She hugged me before I could even open up my arms and then kissed my cheek. She even went so far as to smooth my hair back from my face.

“Look at you. Still as handsome as ever. Thank you for coming, Trent.”

She kept her hands on my cheeks, and I wondered how she stayed so warm in such a cold, sterile-feeling hospital. I pulled slightly out of her reach so I could bring Caleb forward.

“And you brought some support. That’s wonderful,” she said before I could begin to introduce him. I saw her gaze go from me to him, and I figured I had a pretty good idea of what she was thinking. But she was classy and didn’t say anything about me bringing a boyfriend to Simon’s death.

I briefly touched Caleb’s shoulder, but I would have much rather taken his hand and held it. I didn’t want her to see me do that, though. Simon had been gone for five years, but this was still his mom and she’d always treated me well. “Laura, this is my friend Caleb. He drove me here since I didn’t think I’d be able to drive myself. Caleb, this is Simon’s mom.”