Explained why Malcolm had been making frequent trips here to fix different things in the saloon and the trailer over the last few months. Nothing lasted forever.
He grabbed his coffee and tramped up the wooden ramp to the trailer’s front door. A ramp Malcolm himself had built last summer when Howie broke his ankle stepping into a pot hole in his own saloon parking lot. Howie had used one of those knee-walker scooter things for two months while it healed.
Malcolm knocked on the aluminum screen door then pressed the doorbell. He didn’t start to worry until the second press got no response, and he heard no creaks or movement inside the trailer. He hadn’t gotten the appointment time wrong, and Howie always met him here, not in the saloon.
Malcolm palmed his cell and called Howie’s. It rang inside the trailer, eight times before voice mail kicked in. Something thumped against the nearest window, the one in the living room. An old plaid couch sat in front of that window. Had Howie fallen asleep on the couch? Malcolm stretched out over the porch rail and knocked on the closed window.
Someone knocked back. Shouted.
Concerned jacking up his heart rate, Malcolm opened the screen door and twisted the storm door’s knob. Locked. Locked, and Howie couldn’t get off the couch to open it, or get up and answer his phone.
“I’ll fix the door, I promise.” Malcolm took two steps back, aimed with his right foot, and slammed it against the door, just left of the knob. Something cracked, so he hit it a second time. The slender door shot backward. Malcolm rushed inside.
Howie was sitting on the far end of the couch, a blanket pooled around his lap, a ratty yellow robe over his shoulders. His face looked…well, melted was the only thing Malcolm could think of. He blinked slowly at Malcolm, eyes hazy and just not there.
Jesus, did he have a stroke?
“Howie? Man, are you okay?” Malcolm sat beside him, already mentally preparing to call 911.
“Feel so weird,” Howie replied, his words almost muffled. Like his tongue wasn’t quite working. “Been sick. All night.”
“Do you need me to call an ambulance? Your face looks funny. Do you think you had a stroke?”
“No ambulance. Can’t afford it. Drive me? Clinic.”
“Not a chance, friend. I’m taking you to the hospital.”
“Can’t afford?—”
“This town can’t afford to lose you, Howie. You can barely sit up, you’re slurring your words, and your face looks like a nine-year-old’s art project. Hospital.”
“Okay. Saloon?”
“I’ll text Laurel later, once a doctor is looking at you. Until then, don’t worry about the saloon.” Laurel was a bartender, waitress, assistant manager—basically, the only other person Howie trusted to open or close the business. If they didn’t open today, they didn’t open.
Howie’s health was more important.
Somethinghard and cold buzzed directly beneath Iggy Donohue’s cheek. The disturbance wasn’t enough to drag him fully out of a somewhat fun dream featuring himself and the two hot bears he’d seen at the club last night, so he rolled onto his other side and ignored it. A few hours later, when the sun was in the middle of the sky where it belonged, Iggy rolled out of bed and stumbled into the bathroom.
He stared at his reflection in the oval mirror, hating what gazed back at him. Not because he was hideous or had a terriblepillow crease on his cheek. No, he knew better than to go out drinking after work, and then get so hammered he wasn’t completely clear on how he got home. At least his bed was empty and his body felt unmolested. Just the typical aches from hard dancing and the muscle fatigue of dehydration.
“You’re getting too old for this shit,” he told his unimpressed reflection. He was only thirty-four, but some days he felt eighty.
After flipping himself off, Iggy took a long shower, threw on whatever clean clothes he could scrounge off his rack—the studio apartment didn’t have a closet—and shuffled into the kitchenette to slug a sports drink. He had half the fake-grape liquid in his sloshy stomach when he remembered his phone.
Two texts from work friends, plus the missed call and another voice mail alert. He stared at the number, which had called him twice yesterday and left two other messages that Iggy had deleted without listening to. He was not interested in buying life insurance, a new mattress, or communicating with anyone he might have been dumb enough to give his number to last weekend.
The persistence of this caller was both impressive and astonishingly annoying. He deleted the latest message, and he was about to block the number when his phone lit up again.
Same number that only said Baltimore, MD.
Still thirsty and hung over, Iggy flopped down on the bed as he accepted the call. “What do you want, Baltimore, Maryland?”
“Um, Iggy?”
The male voice was both familiar and unknown to him, deeper than he remembered but still airy enough to carry a hint of constant humor. A voice that used to make his heart flutter simply by whispering his name in the dark. A voice he hadn’t heard in seventeen years and had told himself he never wanted to hear again.
“Monte?”
