“What?”
He didn’t look at me. I figured he found it easier not to. He stared at the ground instead. “We were seven. Maybe eight. It was Christmas. We knew there were Transformers in the back of our parents’ closet. Optimus Prime and Bumblebee. Optimus Prime was his favorite. He used to draw pictures of him and tell me stories he made up about him. Then we pissed our dad off, and three days before Christmas he made us take them out of the closet and get them out of their boxes, and then he smashed them up in front of us.”
“Jesus.”
Cash shrugged. “I cried, but Chase didn’t. He said, ‘I didn’t even want it anyway.’ That’s the only way he could pretend it didn’t hurt.”
“Jesus,” I said again. “I’m so sorry.”
Cash ran a thumb over a crease in his jeans. “You’re Optimus Prime.”
For a second I wished I was, because I had the urge to transform into a massive robot and beat the living shit out of their father. Probably blow some things up for good measure too. But that wasn’t what Cash meant, and I knew it.
“You make him happy.” Cash darted another quick look at me. “Well, not rightnow,obviously.”
I couldn’t help the tiny laugh that escaped me, because it turned out Cash had a few sharp edges of his own. “Maybe, but he’d rather die than admit that.”
Cash hummed his agreement. “But if you wanted to give him a second chance, maybe he’d take it. I don’t know, but maybe. He really does like you, Lee.”
God, I wanted that to be true, but even if it was, it wasn’t as though I could force Chase into changing his mind about our relationship. To call Chase stubborn as hell was underselling it. If you told him he’d cut off his nose to spite his own face, he’d tell you to go fuck yourself, he never even had a nose to begin with.
“Was it really bad?” I asked, trying to catch a glimpse of what had made him that way, to understand him. “Growing up?”
Cash hunched over. “Yeah. Sometimes they were okay, our parents. But mostly they weren’t. And when they weren’t, it was bad.” He shrugged. “Meth.”
“I’m so sorry,” I said, my throat aching.
“Yeah.” He shrugged again and shoved his hands into the pockets of his jacket. “I told Chase not to let our dad win. So who knows? He might listen.” He glanced over at me and then fixed his gaze on the porch again. “But it’s Chase. He might not listen either.”
Something about the way that even his own twin didn’t know made me feel… not better maybe. But not as frustrated. It wasn’tjust me who couldn’t get a handle on Chase. It was the entire fucking world, including Cash. Maybe even Chase himself.
And then it occurred to me how very lonely that had to be, in Chase’s shoes.
We sat there for a while longer, but it seemed as though Cash had finally run out of words. Eventually, he stood up, hands still balled in the pockets of his jacket, and nodded in the direction of the road.
“Thanks for coming,” I said. “I really appreciate it.”
Cash nodded again and then slipped out into the darkness, leaving me sitting alone on the porch swing wondering what the hell the morning would bring.
I stoppedin for gas before work the next morning. It was quiet as hell, and the guy behind the counter barely stirred as I filled up the tank and then headed away again. I thought of all the times I’d gone inside before, bracing for an argument with the acerbic asshole who made such terrible coffee and how much I’d weirdly looked forward to it, never once imagining that the guy could bruise my heart. The universe sure did love its jokes, didn’t it?
I turned off the highway toward Goose Run, familiar with every curve and bend in the road by now. The town was still sleeping when I pulled into the parking lot behind Gobble de Goose, but Tyler was already waiting at the door.
We got inside and got to work as morning slowly dawned.
Chase turned up just before seven, glaring at me suspiciously as he brought us our coffees.
“Hey,” I said, thinking of everything Cash had told me last night. I wanted to hug him, to tell him how shitty everything thathad happened to him was, but I knew better. That fucking wall of his.
“Hey.” He backed out of the kitchen again.
Tyler sipped his coffee. “You guys gonna be weird around each other forever now, or…”
“Probably,” I admitted. “You gonna shut up about it, or will I put you in charge of frosting every fucking cupcake we ever bake?”
He gave me a salute and a shit-eating grin. “Shutting up, boss.”
Still, the day was slightly better than yesterday had been. So I decided to take it as a positive. It got busy behind the counter at one point and Tyler was up to his elbows in bread dough, so I helped Chase out serving for a bit. He didn’t murder me, so yeah, things were looking up.
