Chapter 40
743 Words
Without any discussion whatsoever, the guys went back to Dean’s place. While Dean was in the shower scrubbing off Emma’s blood, Jim called the tattoo parlour and said that he and Dean wouldn’t be in at all and then – despite the fact that it wasn’t even nine o’clock in the morning on a workday – he went to the convenience store on the corner and picked up three cases of cold beer. Dallas arranged for one of his team to replace him on duty; Chris called the garage and said he couldn’t make it to work that day.
They sat around Dean’s living room, drinking beer and not saying anything much. They just waited for Dean to talk, if he wanted to.
If he didn’t talk, they were sure as hell going to get piss-drunk with him in almost complete silence, and then lug him to bed to sleep it off, if that was what he preferred.
After his third beer, Dean started to lose that hit-over-the-head look and opened his mouth.
“I knew something was wrong,” he said. “She was so tired, and she was losing weight, and I just didn’t believe her when she said it was from work stress. She disappeared for days at a time, and came back looking like she’d been through a f*****g meat-grinder. She had all those bruises that couldn’t be explained… she was so clearly sick, and I knew it.” He hesitated. “I just – I didn’t want to hear it. I didn’t want to know the truth.”
“We all knew she didn’t look good, man,” Jim said. “We all saw something was wrong.”
“Yeah, but not all of you were sleeping with her.”
“Stop beating yourself up,” Chris said. “Even if you knew something wasn’t right, it wasn’t your relationship with her to get involved in her life, or her in yours. It’s always just been casual and about s*x. You can’t forget that now, just because you feel bad.”
Dean took a drink for courage. “It’s not just s*x, though. Not anymore.”
They looked at him, disbelieving.
“Come on, man,” Dallas said. “Look, I’m sorry the girl is sick, OK? We all are. We all like Emma a lot, but there’s no sense rewriting history or pretending anything. It was damn obvious to everyone that you cared about her way more than you’d admit to, but what we’re talking about here is a whole different thing.”
“What thing are we talking about?” Dean said.
“She’s sick, man, really sick, and that means a whole different kind of relationship, a deeper and way more permanent one. You don’t have to say you have those kinds of feelings for her when you don’t just because you feel like you should. You’ve got nothing to feel guilty about. Like Olivia said, you’re off the hook.”
“What if I don’t want to be off the hook?”
“OK,” Chris sighed. “What are you saying here? What happened between you to make you talk like this?”
Dean stared into his beer. “Last night… I told Emma about her. About Kimberley.”
That was the first time Dean had said that name out loud in over three years. The men went very still.
“You what?” Chris said. “Why?”
“I – had a nightmare. Woke up shouting. Emma was here.”
“What did she do?” Dallas asked.
“She – she held me. Listened to me. I was – a mess. She was sweet and soft.” He shrugged, embarrassed. “She helped.”
“Yeah?” Jim said. “And after you finished talking, you had s*x, right?”
Real anger flared in Dean’s eyes. “Don’t say it like that, man. It wasn’t like that. It was – different. I felt… I don’t know. I felt close to her. Like, emotionally.” He dared to look at them. “I haven’t had that in a long, long time. I liked it.”
“OK, Dean, OK.” Jim leaned back and sighed. You f*****g suspicious bastard. Give it a goddamned rest, would you?“That was way out of line, I’m sorry. I get what you’re saying.”
“You want to hear something else?”
They nodded.
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