Page 4 of Husband Skills

For some reason, that don’t sit right with me. The idea that she’s scared, I mean—not the squeaking thing.

Nope. I kinda like that.

Kicking off my boots, I wander to the refrigerator. It’s stainless steel and nearly as tall and broad as I am, because if there’s one thing I can do in life, it’s eat. I cook, too, not that anyone would expect that particular skill of me.

Right now, though, I’m not hungry. I pull out a beer instead, and pop the cap off using the edge of the granite counter. If my Ma could see me pulling that trick, she’d tan my hide—but she’s long gone now, gone somewhere my antics can’t hurt her anymore.

Besides, I paid for those counters. I can chip ‘em if I want, since it’s not like there’s anyone ever here to see.

Fuck, I’m maudlin tonight. Moping around in the gloom, sipping cold beer from the bottle. Trailing back to the windows to stare down at the street, my free hand shoved in my pocket. Wondering about Danielle for the hundredth time tonight.

Sometimes it feels like life, people, joy, all of it, areout there.Out through this thick plane of glass, unreachable to me for some reason. Always out of reach. And I’m up here in my fancy apartment that’s bigger than the trailer I grew up in plus our nearest three closest neighbors besides, trapped like a gecko in one of those vivarium things. The special heated tanks. My cousin Alf had one before his dad sold it for liquor money.

You don’t need to look far to see the devil’s work—not if you’re paying attention. Just look for the little kid crying ‘cause his dad sold his pet to get drunk.

I always swore to myself that if I ever had a kid, boy or girl, I’d get the kid a puppy. That’s whatIalways wanted and never had. And not a mean-looking creature with big teeth like folks would expect of me now, either, but one of those soft, golden ones they use to sell toilet roll. A family dog.

Tipping my bottle back, I savor the slide of cool beer down my throat. Then I swallow and gust out a sigh, staring blindly at the street below.

There’s no one out there anymore, but I’m not really looking anyway. Not really seeing. I’m trapped in my own head, chasing thoughts and tryin’ to grab them by the tail.

Thoughts like: I’m a grown man. Have been for a long, long time. I could’ve gotten myself that dog I always wanted years ago, but I didn’t. Why is that?

And even deeper thoughts, the shadowy ones hidden in the nether regions of my brain, like: I could have a kid too. Could try to find myself a good woman and settle down. Why don’t I dothat? What’s stopping me exactly?

The image of Danielle flickers across my mind’s eye, faster than a blink. Her long black hair, slipping over her pale shoulders. Her piercing blue eyes and the dusting of freckles on her cheeks. Her heart-shaped face and pointy little chin.

I cough and shake my head, banging on my chest as I fight to not inhale my beer. Where didthatcome from?

But the thought lingers long after the glass bottle clinks into the recycling. Long after I’ve washed up and loosened up with some stretches and sprawled in my big, lonely bed, chest bare in the moonlight. Long after I should be fast asleep.

I could be a husband.

I could be a dad.

Shit, Iwantto be those things. I do. So how does a battered old ex-con like me make that happen?

Three

Dani

Monday’s shift is easy as pie, with only a handful of regulars scattered around the bar. The Beaver Creek high school football coach is holding court at a booth in the corner, surrounded by serious looking fathers who nod along with his pronouncements like he’s the second coming. It’s kinda funny, but they’re really no trouble at all.

Gives Charlene and me plenty of time to chat between tasks. I won’t lie and saythisstuff comes easy to me—acting natural, trying to be funny and charming all day—but that’s why this job is so good for me. It forces me out of my bedroom-library-bicycle loop to meet people and make nice.

Mama’s always going on about how I’m too solitary. About how it’s unnatural, and if I were ever in a pickle that she couldn’t fix, I’d be sorry then about making no friends. As if I make her fix my pickles now!

Well, Ihavefriends. I always make Charlene laugh at least a few times during our shifts, and last week we went to see a movie together. So nyuh.

“The boss is acting weird today,” Charlene says now, bumping the cash register closed with her hip. That move looks slick, but Charlene’s always bumping stuff with her hip. She’s got this itty-bitty waist and then these wiiiiiide hips, and the men in town go crazy for her figure. So that must be nice, but she also forgets how wide she is and bounces off all the furniture.

I’m more straight up and down. Lord, IwishI had those curves, but no one’s cracking jokes about my figure in the men’s room, I can promise you that. I blend into the background.

“Weird how?” I ask, like I haven’t paid constant attention to Kingston Holt since he opened up for us this morning at eleven. It’s habit. Can’t help it. I track him with my eyes, and whenever he speaks in that low rumble, I’m hyper-attuned to his words.

Don’t think he’s being weird though. Scary, sure. Surly and quiet and frowny as ever. But weird?

“He keeps looking over here,” Charlene murmurs, barely moving her lips. When she tilts her head, a waterfall of red hair shifts against her shoulder. She’s real proud of her hair. Shrieked louder than a banshee last week when she found a few grays. “More’n usual.”

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