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He didn’t stop, didn’t pause, just kept pummeling the bag. If I got too close, he might accidentally hit me so I kept my distance until I couldn’t anymore.
Peyton saw me, knew I was there. His eyes flitted to mine then back to the task at hand.
I slowly approached him, gently touching his flank to get him to stop. “Pey, you’re bleeding.”
He grunted in response.
“Stop,” I told him.
He kept going.
“Peyton, enough!”
His fists quit flying; his arms coming to lay heavy at his sides while his chest rose and fell with labored breaths. Sweat slid down his brow. His bare chest was covered with it too. He only had on a pair of shorts. Blood dripped from his hands onto the mat beneath his feet.
On the shelf on the far wall was a stack of clean white towels. I grabbed one, fully intending on throwing it out once I was done getting the bleeding to stop.
Taking his hand in mine, I blotted the blood from his knuckles, applying pressure to get it to slow, then moved to his other hand. “Why did you do this? You know better than to beat the shit out of the bag without the proper protection.”
He didn’t answer, so I finally lifted my gaze to his. Peyton was looking at me in a way I couldn’t decipher, not sure I wanted to. This was a man I could read like the back of my hand. Who I knew as well as I did myself. Yet, in that moment, I felt a chasm open between us. Something had changed, shifted. What that was, it was anyone’s guess.
“Let’s sit down,” I said gently, leading Peyton over to the bench.
He took a seat, and I crouched in front of him to keep the towel on his hand. One knuckle was worse than the others. He didn’t need stitches, just to take better care of himself.
I should have been paying attention to him. He needed a friend and I’d been too wrapped up in my own shit to realize he was suffering.
“I’m fine,” he said eventually.
“You’re not, but I won’t push you to talk. No more punching tonight though. Promise me.”
He nodded.
We stayed like that for a while. Me not knowing what to say while Peyton kept his eyes on his hands, seemingly miles away from here. He was my best friend, and I couldn’t figure out what was going on or how to help him if he wouldn’t talk to me.
My phone ringing in my pocket was what pulled me away. A reminder I couldn’t keep putting off the problem the company was in. So, on the way to the kitchen to grab an ice pack for Peyton, I fired off a quick text.
Me: I’d like to meet with you.
6
PEYTON
An object came at me from the side, knocking into my head before I had time to react. I wasn’t awake enough for this. I swung around to find Greer there with a tennis ball in hand, while another one bounced on the floor at my feet.
Reaching down, I picked up the ball and rolled it in my palm, letting the fluorescent green fuzz rub against my skin. Fucking Greer and his tennis balls. He had them stashed all over the house, in his SUV, in his office at work, and even in my desk. It was his thing; his way to alleviate stress. Currently, it was how he was trying to get my attention. It wasn’t the first time one of them bounced off my skull.
I let the ball fly in Greer’s direction. He knew it was coming and dove out of the way, hiding behind the kitchen island. The ball bounced off a cabinet then hit the counter before dropping to the floor. My back was to the windows in the breakfast nook.
Another ball came sailing my way, quickly followed by four more in rapid succession.
In high school, Greer, Perry, and I had snowball fights every time it snowed. We’d painstakingly each craft a wall of snow to hide behind then packed as many snowballs as we could in five minutes. My mom set a timer. Perry was slower than us, only making about half the number Greer and I did.
At the five-minute mark, it was game on. We pummeled each other until we were out of ammo. Perry though, he didn’t throw like my brother and I did. He hoarded his snowballs. He waited until we were done before he scooped them up and came charging for us, reveling in the fact we were empty-handed. He hit us good. It was when I realized he was a strategist. He had played the game with us enough to where he predicted our moves and went in for the kill when he knew he’d win.
I’d loved Perry before that. But seeing him grow, mature, being who he was destined to be—a powerful man like his dad—I couldn’t help but fall deeper. Too bad I didn’t have the courage I needed to tell him how I felt, then or now.
Twenty-five years I’d known him. Twenty-five years of wishing he’d one day see me as something else. Perry was straight. If the string of one-night stands he went through in college didn’t drill that into my head, nothing would.
