“How is she?” Brooke asked, stepping inside and doing her best to close the busted door behind her.
“Twelve stitches to her head. Cuts and scrapes all over her body. Badly dehydrated.” I laughed again, dryly. “Oh and she’s a raging alcoholic who can’t take care of herself.” That was the understatement of the year.
“Liv…” My childhood friend rushed to me, pulling me up off the floor. My shoulder blades were on fire; my skin felt too tight over my body. My stomach churned with emptiness, and all I wanted to do was fold into a ball and cry.
I dropped the blackened sponge from my grip and let her take me. “Come on, come sit down and talk with me,” she urged, pushing me gently into the living room and onto the couch. “Jesus Liv,” she said, covering her nose with the collar of her shirt. “Did you pour bleach all over the house?”
“Just about, yeah.” I’d been at it for hours after coming back from the hospital. Every pillow, curtain, piece of clothing, or any kind of fabric was either thrown away or shoved into the washing machine. The floors bleached, the refrigerator scrubbed, toilet bleached and scrubbed. “I’ve never seen anything like this before. I…I mean, you only see this stuff in movies or on the news.”
Her eyebrows gave a little raise, and she gave me a forced smile.
“Okay, Brooke. You’re a cop; maybe you see this crap all the time. But I don’t. And this is my mother. I mean, I knew she drank and…but this…her mattress was caked with…I don’t even know what…” My voice lowered to nothing, because there was simply nothing to say. “That woman gives new meaning to rock bottom.”
“Are they keeping her for detox?” she asked.
“Yeah, yeah, they are. At least ten days. Then I need to find a rehab center for her. One that she’ll stay in. One that I could afford,” I said, sighing.
She nodded, “How’d she take that news?”
“She threw something at me. Kept telling me not to touch her stuff,” I replied, having difficulty swallowing the lump in my throat.
“And so you came back here and touched all her stuff?” she asked with a polite smile.
I slumped back into the chair, and breathed in deeply. “Yeah, I did.” If this weren’t my life it would make for a great television series.
“Liv, ever since you were little, you’ve taken care of that woman. You’ve done everything you could, don’t give me that guilty look.” She dragged the coffee table closer and sat on the edge, just as her brother did that morning. “And how are you holding up?”
“I’m literally running on guilt and anger right now.” I needed to accept the fact that Audrey Rhys was never going to be a mother to me. I should have no guilt. I would never know what a family really was.
“I can imagine,” she said, scanning the bare room. “You shouldn’t stay here. Breathing in this bleach is not healthy, and that back door is a security issue.”
“Look at you being all cop-ish,” I smiled, at least I tried to—I’m sure it came out looking sour and bitter. “There’s no way I’m staying here. It still smells like burnt onions and vomit to me. In a few minutes, I’ll GPS the nearest hotel and get a room,” I mumbled, thoughtlessly.
“No way. Stay with me next door. I’ll order a pizza, and we’ll catch up,” she said, enthusiastically.
“You look more exhausted than I do,” I replied, touched that she wanted me to stay with her.
“I was on an arrest. So I just came off an eighteen-hour shift,” she shrugged, smiling. “Just another busy day, is all.” She touched my arm lightly, tugging on my shirt. “Come on, let’s get some air in here.”
Brooke helped me open all the windows, ripped screens flapping in the cold breeze. The shock of the sudden fresh air was dizzying, and my stomach growled loudly.
“Let’s go,” she said, putting her hands on my shoulders and gently shoving me toward the door. “Your stomach is screaming at me. You need food and non-toxic air.”
Outside, I took a few deep breaths, iciness ached in my lungs and a shiver wracked through my torso. I followed her across the lawn and onto her property, neither of us doing anything more than breathing in great big gulps of the clean air.
On her front porch, a place we stayed almost every night of our youth watching the older kids play in the street, Dean sat with two other police officers, each holding a lit cigar. Their words were barely audible, but I could see the tense way they looked at each other that the conversation was anything but approachable. Again though, seeing Dean made my insides twirl and tumble, and I looked away quickly. There was no way I wanted to deal with old, dead feelings I’ve worked so hard to lock away. I was hoping I was just terribly hungry.
Brooke took one look at her brother and guided me toward the side door, “Let’s not get caught up in that tonight,” she said, under her breath. Dean’s attention never even turned our way. He just stood stiff, posturing boldly, in his heated conversation with the other men.
“Is everything okay with Dean?” I asked, unable to shake my concern or the increasing mountain of stomach butterflies. “He mentioned this morning about a funeral.”
“Yeah, Thomas. They were really close. Suicide.” Her voice was grief-stricken, and it made my heart ache.
“That’s…horrible,” I stammered, completely stunned into speechlessness.
“Dean had to give his eulogy. I heard he gave a nice speech, considering he’s been drunk as hell since he found him. I couldn’t get the time off of work to go,” she said, tightly.
Dean found him?
It was suddenly hard to swallow. My mother was an alcoholic. She’d either get better or she wouldn’t, but right now she was safe. Dean’s friend committing suicide, that wasn’t something easy to go through and to be the one that first walks in on it...
“I don’t want to be in the way here, if Dean is—”
“He lives in the apartment upstairs. I live downstairs. We hardly see each other. It’s not a problem, really. You’re welcome to stay here as long as you need to.” She looked up at me, concern etched across her features. “We used to be so close. I’m not going to let you stay in your mom’s house with that smell. Or waste your money on a hotel.”
I flopped onto one of her kitchen chairs, shoulders sagging, and let out a huge breath. I didn’t know what to say. There just aren’t any words to bring comfort to that situation. My mouth kind of opened and closed, but nothing, not one word of condolence came to mind. The silence was uncomfortably awkward for a few moments. I thought about bolting for the door and stopped myself thinking that stumbling out at a dead run into Dean and his grieving friends would be a heck of a lot more awkward.
Brooke made a quick call for pizza and slid her phone on the table. “What can I get you to drink? Is asking if you want a glass of wine in poor taste?” She asked the question with a smirk and a hand jammed up high on her hip.
I cleared my throat and laughed, actually laughed, and the strangeness of the situation seemed to instantly lessen. “I would absolutely love a glass of wine.” She always could make me laugh at the absurdity in life. I missed being close with her.
“Good, because that’s probably all I have to offer besides tap water,” she said, grabbing two glasses and a bottle of deep red wine. Next to me, her phone lit up and buzzed across the tabletop. She only gave it a small glance, ignoring the call to pour us drinks.
“So,” I said, as I reached for my glass. “Tell me all about being a police officer.” A nice easy question, I thought, something mundane and not too difficult to talk about. Something that was completely opposite of suicide or house fires started by lunatic alcoholics.
“I love it,” she responded, slowly, her hand fluttering down to her phone as another call buzzed through it. She tapped a finger on the screen and sighed, “It definitely changes you, though. Not just during the time when you’re working, but your whole outlook on life.”
“How so?” I asked, curiously.
She shrugged and smiled, “I have this hard edge
to me now. Sometimes I feel like I lost all my femininity when I came on the job. I now prefer all my accessories in gun metal gray.” Her smile was too quick. “People seem to forget you’re a girl, or how human you are. They expect you to not feel things or take things personally.”
I couldn’t really see it. She was always so girly to me when we were growing up. It was hard to picture her putting handcuffs on some criminal when I remembered us in pigtails singing and doing our nails to whatever boy band was popular at the time.
“Right now, the command is looking at some specific home invasions and vandalizing that have been happening in the area. Two of the places that were vandalized are places I frequent, so how could you not take it personally, you know?” She drummed her fingers over the table and smiled. “It’s a struggle. But eventually, I’ll learn to separate myself from it all.” Her expression tightened, and her face paled slightly.
“Seeing anyone?” I asked, trying to lighten the conversation a little.
She nodded, “Yeah, nothing too serious, but yeah there’s someone. It’s hard to make time to date on this job, but we try.” Her cheeks reddened with her words. “What about you?”
“I date. A lot,” I laughed, and shook my head. “Never anything serious, though. I mean, we’re twenty-five right? We’re supposed to be making all our stupid mistakes now, and that seems to be what I’m really awesome at.”
She sipped from her glass and smiled at me from behind the rim. “So, seriously, this is me you’re talking to. What are you going to do about your mom after detox and rehab?”
I couldn’t even answer. I had no idea what I was going to do. It was too overwhelming to wrap my head around—the fact that I had to try to put my mother away somewhere—that was how bad she had deteriorated—that was how bad she was on her own.
“I don’t know.” My voice cracked. “Maybe just take care of her. I don’t know how I’m going to swing anything from where I live now though.”
“Liv, you can’t put your life on hold for her when she’s never done anything for you. What was she even doing for work?”
Her phone flashed again. “Is that important?” I asked, hoping the heaviness in my chest would ease if I stopped thinking about my mom and talked about something else.
“No, not yet,” she murmured.
A loud banging knocked against the front door. I flinched at the sound, but Brooke just laughed and made her way toward the noise. Dean stood on the other side holding two pizza boxes and two full bottles of beer precariously in his hands. “You ordered pizza?” he asked, shoving through the door and walking past her.
“Sure, just come on in,” Brooke said, dryly, still holding the door open. He strode into the kitchen and tossed the boxes on the table, ignoring me and almost knocking over the wine glasses. I yanked them out of the way just in time.
“Great-I’m-starving,” he slurred, ripping open the top box. “What the hell is that? Are those vegetables?” A serious frown stretched across his face. “You are the only person in the world I know who could ruin a pizza.”
“Bottom one has meat,” she said, looking at her phone again. This time the phone pinged with text after text. Someone was really trying to get her. She rubbed at the back of her neck as she picked up her phone, her eyes quickly glancing at the words popping up—one after the other on the screen. I did not want her to take that call and leave me with Dean. I was seriously squinting my eyes and willing her to not take the call. “I’m sorry, Liv. I need to take this. It’s work,” she said, rushing out of the kitchen.
I didn’t even want to turn my face in his direction. I was filthy from cleaning vomit and other forms of bodily fluids and—
“You reek of bleach,” he said, devouring a slice of pizza in less than four bites.
I blinked, hesitating for a moment. I wanted to say something witty, something that might make him smile a little. “New perfume. It’s called Ode de Drunken Mom.” Then, I grabbed a slice of pizza before my rumbling stomach could come up with a more joke-worthy sound. One bite and I closed my eyes, sighing, forgetting for a moment about all the bad in my life. There was absolutely nothing in the world better than a slice of New York pizza. The cheese melted perfectly, almost too much of a struggle to bite off the slice, and the dough, oh God, it was heavenly.
“Your lips are like porn on pizza. How the fuck? You have pizza porn lips,” he mused drunkenly.
I stopped chewing instantly—pizza slice in midair—attached to my face by a long white strand of gooey mozzarella cheese.
What the heck was someone supposed to say back to that? I continued chewing and slowly swallowed, “Um thanks? I think.”
“Maybe you shouldn’t be thanking me. Maybe that wasn’t a great compliment.” He slung his head back and finished the rest of his beer in one long gulp. He slammed it on the table, making me flinch back awkwardly.
“You’re not going to find the answers at the bottom of that bottle,” I blurted out, idiotically.
“Yeah, well, how would I know that if I didn’t look?” He brought the bottle to his right eye and peeked inside, grunted, then clunked the bottle back down on the table loudly.
I couldn’t believe he took me literally. There wasn’t even a hint of a tease or smile; he actually was looking for an answer in the bottle—he was that inebriated. And God, he looked a mess, worse than me, and I’d been scrubbing knee-deep nastiness for hours. “It was a rough day, huh?” I asked, after a few silent beats.
“What'd you say?” he asked, crumpling up a napkin and throwing it toward the garbage. It bounced off the edge and landed in the corner on the floor.
“Did you have a rough day? You're slamming everything around. Missing the garbage from less than a foot away. Looking into bottles for answers.”
He shrugged.
“What, no one ever asked you that before?” I asked, curiously.
“No, it’s not that. It’s that it doesn’t matter if my day is rough.” He twisted the top off another beer and watched me with somber eyes.
“Of course it matters—” I began.
“No it doesn’t,” he cut me off with a laugh, instantly disregarding me with his eyes.
I watched him take his holster off. He slid the gun off and onto a cabinet above Brooke’s refrigerator. I watched his movements. Tired and lumbering, the weight of the world was heavy on his eyes and on the corners of his lips. “Do you wear one of those bullet proof vests?” I asked, quietly.
His eyes flashed back to me as if just remembering I was still there. He hesitated a moment before he spoke, “Yeah, most of the time.”
“Most of the time? But…that means that sometimes you don’t?”
He looked up at me and stilled. “Worried? Watch out Liv,” he smirked. “I might start thinking you still have a little crush on me.”
Chapter 5
Dean
We had two more hours on the clock, and we were lying low until the end of shift. No matter how many aspirin I downed, I still had one hell of a hangover headache. We all did. And it didn’t help that the new transfer hadn’t stopped talking all damn day.
“She spit on my dick. I’m not joking,” he said, his face completely serious. “What kind of a woman spits on a guy’s dick?” His name was Ryan Cage, and I had no clue yet if I could trust him. The only thing I knew was that he wasn’t Thomas.
“A nice one?” Jack asked, rolling his eyes.
“Nah, man. I’m telling you; it was savage. She was too eager, you know? It was almost unnatural. She even broke my damn zipper,” Ryan said in a high voice. “It was like she had never operated one before.”
Never operated a zipper or a dick? I wondered, but thought better of asking, the conversation was too stupid to begin with.
“Broke your zipper?” Jack asked, completely enamored with Ryan’s telling of his blowjob from hell. “She wanted it that bad, huh?”
“Jack, man. I’m not kidding. She had my dick and my nuts in her mouth. At the same damn time
!” Ryan laughed. I didn’t even like the way he laughed. My head throbbed more.
Jack’s brow furrowed. “You do understand that I’m married? With a kid? A kid who is on the spectrum? I can’t even remember what a blowjob feels like,” he sneered, throwing a pen on his desk. “There are no such things as bad blowjobs. The only bad ones are the ones that don’t happen.”
I laughed, because that was mostly true.
“What are you packing down there? Maybe you’re the size of a baby carrot, and she was just trying to do her best with the crap she was given,” Callie teased, chiming into the conversation.
“Callie, babe, I wouldn’t mind showing you if you really wanted to know…”
“Fuck off, Cage,” she laughed.
“If you wanted to watch that too, it could be arranged,” he said, throwing a wink in her direction.
Everybody was trying desperately to pretend there wasn’t a dead friend and teammate to grieve. What time did we have for grieving anyway? It wasn’t like we’d get time off. We had to keep working, keep making sure everybody else was safe and taken care of. Just do your job, they said.
So we did.
We stayed upstairs in the squad getting square with all our paperwork, listening to Ryan Cage go on and on about his thoughts on inferior blowjob applications. “She just sat there, with a mouthful of dick and balls, not moving. Just making these horrible slurping noises.” He slapped his palms down on Thomas’ old desk.
It was still Thomas’ desk in my head—always would be. “It was starting to get tighter and tighter in there…so tight my asshole was puckering up, you know? And I kept thinking, is she breathing? I mean how long could someone stay like that? Jammed full like that…”