Page 61 of Screwed (Dad Bod Contracting 4)
“Um.”
“I think my truck is still at the bar.” He digs in his pocket with one hand—a long, laborious process—and comes up with keys. “See? I stopped driving. Not a driving drunker. Drunker driver. Drive drunker. Whatthefuckever. Buddy in college killed a guy doing that and went to jail. Told his stupid ass not to drive. Tried to wrestle his keys away, but he was a boxer and he knocked me out. Lucky punch, but still. Tried to stop him and I couldn’t. Should’ve. Never drive drunk. Never never never.”
“You walked here?”
He nods. “Uh-huh. Walky walky walk.” God, he’s so silly it’s almost cute, but there’s a darkness to this, a heaviness masked behind the silliness.
“Why are you here, James?”
He blinks at me. “I missed you.”
I only just barely suppress a pained sigh. “You need to come in and sit down.”
He follows me in and stops just inside, looking around. “Looks fuckin’ great. Just like I pictured it.” He touches the island, comically missing it the first few times, but once his hand finds the countertop, his touch is professional, examining the workmanship of the island and the cabinets. “Franco did great on this. The cabinets too.”
I nod. “He sure did. The guys have been working their asses off.” I realize it sounds vaguely accusatory.
James looks at me—drunk as a skunk, but the awareness in his gaze is potent. “Don’t, Nova.”
“Don’t what?”
“Act like I don’t care.”
“I didn’t say that, and I wasn’t suggesting that.”
He abruptly misses a step and falters backward, stumbles, catches himself on the counter, and then slowly slumps down onto the floor. “Whoops. Guess I’m sitting down right here, huh?” He rests his head against the cabinet. “I care, Nova.”
“I know.” I have several cases of bottled water on the floor, and I take three, open one and hand it to him.
He drinks it all, crumples the plastic and twists the top on to seal it and opens another. “I drank a lot.”
“I bet.”
He shakes his head. “No. You don’t even know. My tolerance is dumb. The guys on my football team called me The Beer God.”
“How much did you drink, James?”
He holds up his hand, tries to count his fingers, only managing to touch three out of five. “One, two, three…ten. I drank ten.”
“Ten bottles?”
He shrugs. “I dunno. Maybe. Lotta lotta lotta beer.” He blinks at his hand. “I walked from there. I was gonna drive, but I couldn’t find the keyhole, so I said fuckit, let’s drink more. So I walked to the liquor store. I bought a whiskey.”
“How much whiskey did you drink?”
He stares at his hand again, as if the answer is written there. “A big guy. Really big guy. My ol’ buddy Evan. Big, big, big guy. A glallon.”
“A gallon?” I repeat.
He nods. “Uh-huh. I drank it all. Every last drop.”
“Oh shit. I think we need to take you to the hospital, James.”
He blows a raspberry. “Nahhhh. Not me. Not good ol Jamie. I stopped trying to get drunk, you know. I don’t drink all that much mostly, because it takes too much to get me drunk. Too esspensive. Takes too many drinks to make me not feel nothing.” He blinks at me. “You’re so pretty, Nova.”
I close my eyes briefly—it’s painful to see him like this. “Where are the girls, James?”
He rolls his head on his neck, as if trying to figure out where it’s supposed to go. “Disney World!”
“James. Where are Ella and Nina?”
“Tol’ you. Disney World.” He holds up his left hand, and my eyes widen: on his ring finger is his wedding band. “Every year I send Mom and Pop O’Neill with the girls to Disney World.”
“Every year?”
He nods, staring at his ring finger. “Every year. This weekend, every year.”
I’m starting to suspect what’s going on. “This weekend, huh?”
He twists the ring on his finger. “This weekend.” He glances at me—or, at least, toward me. “Don’t tell Jesse. He’ll be pissy. He wanted to drink with me tonight, but I dodged him. I esssss-caped him. He wanted to be a babysitter, because he knows. He knows, Nova. I mean, of course he knows. But…he knows.”
“What does he know, James?” I ask, grabbing a bucket that has dried drywall mud crusted at the bottom and set it next to James, just in case, and then I sit on the floor next to him.
He pokes the bucket with a huge forefinger. “You’re silly. I won’t puke. I never puke. I—I can hold my liquor. All the liquor. I licked the liquor, and then the liquor licked me. It licked me tonight, Nova. It got me.”
“Yeah, it did.” I rest my head against the cabinet and stare at him. “What does Jesse know, James?”
“He knows. It’s this weekend. It’s tonight.”
“What is, James?”
He stares at the ceiling, now. “Six years ago. Exactly six years ago today.” He looks around. “What time is it?”
