“Sometimes things happen. All you can do is do your best, right?”
“Right.”
“Now, get yourself some good dinner, and keep the receipts. Let me know in the morning how it’s going.”
“Okay,” Clay said, feeling his shoulders come down at least four inches. “Thanks, Leland.”
“Not a problem. Talk to you tomorrow.”
At long last, the hard part was over. Leland knew about the disaster that had befallen them, and now all Clay had to do was his best. Except for the part where now he had to keep Austin happy enough to not simply up and go home, wherever that was now, and then share a bed with a man he’d just met.
Pushing open the door to the motel room, Clay saw Austin was sitting on the bed with his back to Clay. He held his cellphone pressed to his ear like he wanted to crawl through it. His shoulders were hunched, his elbows on his knees, body curled so tight he was like a coiled wire.
“I miss you, honeybee,” said Austin, so softly and with so much love that Clay’s body shivered in reaction. But who was honeybee? Surely not the ex-wife. “I know. I know. But your dad has to be away for a while until Mom isn’t so angry.”
A little silence fell while Austin listened to his daughter on the other end of the line. Rain started to fall a little harder, creating a curtain of grey that curved around the open doorway, as though shielding the motel room, turning it into a cave.
“Oh, I don’t know about that,” said Austin, straightening up a bit. “I don’t think that’s possible—Bea. Please don’t cry. I can’t—I can’t see you right now. I can’t be with you. You have to stay with your mom.”
Austin scrubbed at his face hard, seemed to shudder and take a deep breath all at once, and Clay knew he was crying.
Here Clay had been thinking that a broken down truck and the future prospect of a lecture from Leland, as well as that slow head shake of his, which would tell Clay everything possible about how badly he’d screwed up, was the worst thing ever. He was in the doghouse already, so what was a bit more time there?
As well, what was an overnight stay in a small town motel compared with the trials of having to listen to your daughter crying on the other end of the phone without being able to comfort her? To have to tell her things she didn’t want to hear?
Clay had never been divorced, but again, it had to be the worst thing ever. What he needed to do was steady himself so he could help Austin.
He was about to step out of the room again, to give Austin some space, when Austin hung up the phone with his thumb and snuffled loudly, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand. Then, as if he sensed Clay behind him, he turned, his shoulder cutting a line in the shadows of the room.
“Hey,” he said, not quite looking at Clay but instead focusing his attention on some middle distance in front of him. “I apologize, it’s just hard. She’s only nine.”
“Is Bea your daughter?” asked Clay.
“Yes, it’s short for Beatrice, which Mona insisted upon.”
In that short reply, Austin had spilled all kinds of beans he probably didn’t even know he was spilling, like the fact that his ex-wife was sounding more and more like a royal bitch. The last thing he needed was Clay probing for more details, which would probably be painful.
“Hey,” he said, drawing Austin’s attention to him. “We’ve both had a shitty day, huh? Although I’d say yours was the shittier.”
“Everything’s relative,” said Austin.
He stood up, scrubbing at his face with one hand as he put his cell phone in his back pocket. His expression as he faced Clay seemed to indicate that he was fully prepared for his life to keep going on like it was, that he was fully prepared for Clay to dislike having so much of someone else’s emotions thrust at him.
“Well, I’d say we both deserve a treat,” said Clay, putting on his brightest smile. “Why don’t we check out someplace local to eat?” He paused to do a quick Google search on his phone. “Yes, this’ll be perfect. It’s called the Bison Breath, it’s only a block or so away,andthey have beer and cheese fries. What’d’you say?”
He held out the phone and took a few steps into the room. Likewise, Austin took a few steps closer until he could read what was on Clay’s phone.
“Bison Breath.”
Austin looked at Clay, blinking hard, as though he was surprised to find himself in a small, slightly run-down motel in the middle of nowhere in a rainstorm with a guy he’d just met and there was only one bed. As if his life had transported him from where he’d been to where he was at that moment, on the verge of willingly going into a bar called the Bison Breath.
“Why not?” he asked with a shrug, and Clay had to smile at his bravery.
7
Austin
The Bison Breath was one of those bars built long to tuck between two buildings, which were, in this instance, the Ault VFW and the High Plains Harvest Church. The bar had only a few windows and those were high up, letting in sharp rays of streetlights in the rain. The upholstery for the booths was black, the bar was blood red, and the floor was an oddly splotched beige and brown.
