“Done what differently?”
Marston knew he was confusing Kell, talking in cryptic code, as though he and Kell had known each other for years and Kell was just supposed to know how to untangle what Marston was trying to say.
“Courted you,” he said, taking a long, slow sip of beer.
That first swallow wasn’t as good as it ought to have been, but it was about as bitter as it should have been. It being cheap bodega beer, he should not, in any universe, expect it to taste any different, but he did. So close to the ranch, to the valley, the magical valley, it should have rivaled all the Pilsners in Germany, even Outlaw Pale from that bar up in Chugwater, but it didn’t. It was just shitty old rotgut beer, and too good for the likes of him.
He finished the swallow and grimaced, wiping the traces of the bad taste with the back of his hand, almost spilling the beer he held.
“Courted me?” asked Kell, his voice sweet and soft, but with worry sifting behind both words.
“Like a besotted mooncalf,” he said, his throat closing up. “Brought you flowers. Held your hand. And, if nothing else, taken it way slower. Not treated you like some back alley hookup.”
Bringing the beer to his mouth, he prepared himself for that next long swallow, the one that would eat at the back of his throat, the one that he would tell himself hit the spot, but that would land in his stomach, a tumbril of aches radiating out from it like spokes from a poisoned wheel.
“I’ve never been courted before,” said Kell, even more gently than before. “You’re my first. You’ll always be my first.”
Marston wanted to bury his head in his hands and weep, for being so stupid, for taking Kell’s virginity and not even knowing it. Flinging it about like it meant nothing.
“I’ve ruined everything,” he said, taking that second gulp of beer, at long last, swallowing it with a grimace, his eyes hot as he glared through the windshield at the sun that refused to set, refused to cloak him in darkness so he could get drunk in fucking peace.
“You haven’t.” Kell paused, as if he was nodding, and there was noise in the background, a cacophony of voices, as if a sudden cocktail party had started up all around him. “In that shower? You made me feel special.”
“Well,” said Marston, replying to this with a little laugh that, to him, sounded more like a cough. “Nobody has ever made me feel the way you do, that’s for sure. And nobody will again, I guess.”
“They better not. You have me.”
Marston blinked at this, not understanding it. There wasn’t enough beer in the world to help him understand it.
“Come back to the valley,” said Kell, strong and sure, the cocktail party growing a little quieter. “Let’s drink that beer together.”
“I can’t.”
He couldn’t go back, that much he knew. This was how it felt last season. Something had brought him down, a spiral into a deep, dark place from which there was no climbing out. No matter how hard Kell was reaching for him, Marston couldn’t reach up to find his hand.
“Well, if you’re going to drink, then tell me where you are and I’ll come to you. I’ll drink half so you don’t have to do it all alone.”
If he told Kell where he was, then Kell would come and drink half the beer and make himself sick on shitty beer and even shittier rum in the process. Nobody deserved to feel that way, especially not Kell. Bright-faced, sweet-smiled, looking at Marston like he hung the moon. Which had never happened to him before. All of which was permanently marked by Marston’s own carelessness. As usual.
“Gabe says he knows right where you are,” said Kell, the words strident and quick. “I’m getting in that truck and coming to you. Wait for me.”
With a click, Kell hung up, leaving Marston holding the now-silent phone in his palm, looking at it like it was going to tell him what to do.
He was standing at a crossroads, and no direction seemed the right one.
He could leave that very minute, drive north into darkness until the beer ran out and the rum ran out and the road ended.
He could wait where he was, beer in hand, and get himself drunk as a skunk by the time Kell arrived.
Or. He could just cast himself into the wind, arms spread, and see what fate had waiting for him. This would mean putting the half-drunk beer back in its thin cardboard carrying case, starting the engine, and driving back to the valley to meet Kell halfway.
All that he needed to do was one tiny thing different, make up his mind inside half a second that he was going to go home, and get on his knees and say sorry over and over. Not until Kell believed him, because he knew that Kell already did. He needed to convince himself that feeling bad and trying to fix it was going to matter, was going to mean more, than simply driving north to the edge of earth’s horizon.
Numb all over, he slid the beer back in its case, a thunk of it landing, driving foam to the mouth of the bottle. Then, without looking at what his hands were doing, eyes focused on that foam in case it really spilled over, made a mess, left the scent of beer behind, he started the truck. Gunned the engine a time or two, just to make sure, then pulled out of the gravel lot like he did this every day. Drove around with an open bottle of beer in his truck while swallowing that last taste of beer.
As his truck nosed down the two-lane blacktop going over the bridge, leading out of Torrington, it wasn’t quite twilight, but it was getting close. Puffy clouds had thinned and arranged themselves like the bunting around an old-fashioned movie screen, ready to present in wide panorama the most amazing sunset anybody had ever seen.
He kept driving along Highway 313, his mind numb, his heart thudding like a stone in his chest. The twilight seemed to be growing, inching along like a reluctant child who doesn’t quite understand, or fears, what will happen when the sun finally sets.
