Page 80 of Storm Bound
“Okay, Dad, I’m going back to the B&B. I’ve got the night shift,” Mel said when we’d reached the top of the stairs already.
“You’re the boss, Mel. You know you don’t have to do night shifts, right?”
Luke closed my bedroom door behind us and sat with me in bed.
“Do you need anything? Some water? Some booze?” he asked.
“Some painkillers would be great,” I said.
He got up and left the room, and my phone rang.
“What do you mean ‘don’t bother?’ You don’t want me there?” Benji cried out in my speaker, and I immediately pulled the phone away from my ear.
“Don’t raise your voice, please,” I told him.
“What happened? Why don’t you want me there for your birthday? Is it your boyfriend? Is he jealous of me?” he asked.
My boyfriend! Huh! That was a funny one. He was never my boyfriend.
“It’s not that. I just… I’m probably going to come back,” I said.
As soon as I said that, I knew that was what I wanted to do. Benji was my best friend, and he was the only one who knew how to make me feel better. And it helped that Detroit was miles away from Cedarwood Beach.
“Why?” he shouted again. “What didhedo?”
My face spasmed, and before I knew it, I was crying again, and Benji was trying to get an answer out of me.
“Oh God, what happened now?” Luke said when he returned.
“Hello?” Benji yelled.
My brother gave me the pills and the water and took my phone out of my hand.
I tried to stop crying for one moment and take the pill, but it was harder than I anticipated. My mouth was so dry, and my muscles ached too damn much.
Luke told Benji what happened and then put him on speakerphone.
“Charlie, honey, I’m not letting you fly on your own. Okay? And we’re not letting that ass clown ruin your birthday, okay? I’ll get the first plane and get there ASAP, and then we’ll fly back home after your birthday. You hear me?”
“Uhm… what do you mean ‘fly back?’ You’re not moving back to Detroit, are you?” Luke asked.
“Of course he is. He’s got a life here,” Benji said.
“And his family is here.”
“And so is the ass clown.”
“But family trumps clowns,” Luke yelled. “There’s a sentence I never thought I’d say.”
“Guys, guys,” I mumbled. “Shut up. I can’t… I can’t have this conversation right now.”
“Okay, honey, I’m looking at flights right now. I can be there tomorrow afternoon.”
“What about work?” I asked.
“I already took a week off. I was going to go to… meet a guy, but I’ll cancel him.”
Which was code for trying out a new daddy. He’d really come a long way. I couldn’t let him ruin his life just because mine was crumbling to pieces.
