Cider House Fools, page 10
I turn off the pitiful stream of water and wrap a towel around myself. The floor creaks in all the familiar places as I plod down the hall to my bedroom. By the time I’ve thrown on jeans and a sweater, and brushed my hair, I’ve got a plan.
I zip up my boots and sling on my coat. I grab my purse and step out of the back door.
Fuck. I don’t have a vehicle. I’m stuck in my past, a thousand miles from home, with no vehicle.
Cerulean blue eyes, peer out from my memories, goading me. I wonder how much the man they belong to has changed in the ten years since I’ve spoken to him.
I dig my phone out of the bottom of my purse and scroll through my contacts. There’s only a small chance the number I’m staring at could still be good. My finger stretches out, tapping on the contact and the green call button before I can change my mind.
“Hello?” The voice is like butterscotch, smooth as silk, a gourmet dessert more nuanced than I remember. It flows through my ears and spreads throughout my nervous system, caramelizing me. I close my eyes, licking my lips as I stutter into the cold.
“I…I need a ride,” I announce, wincing at how bitchy I sound. I hate that I have to ask. He chuckles, not offended in the least. His laugh sounds deeper, richer, effervescent at the start and ending with smoke. The sound of his laughter does the same thing it’s always done to me. Something is getting wet. It’s just not my face.
“Is that because your car is still parked on Main Street?” He purrs the question, lilting his words at the end. He’s keeping it light. I can do light.
“I’m not going to ask how you know that.” My heart is pounding. I close my eyes imaging he’s standing here, in front of me with his easy grin and eyes that are crinkled like he’s just heard the best joke. I always loved that about him. His innate ability to find the joy in every moment. Some folks judged him, treating like as a person who never takes things seriously, but I think of his ability to live life to the fullest as anything but flippant.
“Where do you want to go?” God I could listen to him speak nonsense all day every day. I swallow reflexively, holding my breath as I trying not to drown in the masculine syrup pouring out of my phone. I breath in steadily, then purse my lips as I exhale. My hands are shaking. He would make a mint as an audio book narrator or a phone sex operator. Don’t do it Bennett. Don’t say it. Give him a location.
“Back,” I whisper. “I want to go back.”
We’re both silent for a stretch. I wrap my free arm around middle as my knees knock together in a full body shiver. “That’s a long journey,” he murmurs, “but I’ll take it with you. Every step.”
I can’t say anything. The tears I was so desperate for in the shower show up, pricking and stinging.
“Be there in five Bennie. Be ready.” The phone disconnects. I remain on the snow packed cement, shivering, and this time it isn’t from the cold.
The snow crunches like fresh potato chips as the old, red truck rolls up the pull around drive. I wait, my breath curling in a white puffs under the velvet night sky as he rolls the window down. He whistles, taking his time perusing me as I stand shivering on Gran’s back steps. “Hey gorgeous. Get your fine ass in the truck.”
I pressed a gloved hand to my mouth as my eyes fill. The tears burn extra hot in the frigid air. “Balthasar,” I croak, over the lump in my throat. He smiles tenderly at me, as if I wasn’t the woman who left him with no goodbye.
“Bennett,” he deadpans. He jerks a thumb towards the interior of his vehicle. I cannot believe he’s still driving that thing. “Get. Your. Fine. Ass. In. This. Truck.” That’s all it takes. I hustle around the front, not wanting to walk through the noxious cloud of exhaust I’ll find coming out of the back. The handle on the passenger side sticks, and muscle memory kicks in. I yank hard, and the door pops open with a rusty groan. I scrabble over the cold vinyl seat, turning my body so I have the leverage to lift and pull hard enough to latch the door shut in one go. The victorious smile that comes with my small win over the ancient latch mechanism feels great.
“Buckle up.” He throws the truck in gear and hits the gas. The ass end of the truck slides out. The tires spin until they hit a wall of snow and bounce the truck back in line. The back tires find something to grip and pitch the old Dodge forward as Balthasar spins the steering wheel and hollers. “Fuck yes!” he shouts as the truck fishtails past the house and the barn and swings into a wide right turn.
“My car’s in town,” I screech, slamming my boots against the floor and flinging my arm against the back of the bench seat. My frozen bottom slides a few inches towards the center of the seat until my seatbelt locks me in place. He already mentioned he knows where my car is, so I have no idea why he’s heading in the wrong direction.
“Yep. But we aren’t going to town.” He jerks the wheel and trucks fishtails again.
I yelp in fear, recovering faster this time. I let go of the seat and swing my arm, smacking his as a burble of wild giggles escape me. “Okay,” I shrug. Fuck it. What else do I have to do tonight? Sit around Gran’s and cry in my coffee? Roll my sleeves up and deal with the mountain of work I need to get done packing up her house? I’m not ready for that. IF Balthasar wants to act like there isn’t ten years between us, I’m down. I settle in, scrunching down and gripping the edges of the seat. If he wants to spend the evening fishtailing the backroads, I’m in.
“Okay? That’s all you got?” He challenges, making a left, turning into the long drive leading to Ryerson Farms. My heart sinks a little that I’m not going to be doing something dangerous and fun. I shrug again. I can walk home from the Ryerson’s if he refuses to take me in to town and call a r ide share.
He glances over at me, his eyes lasers as they assess my lack of a reaction. “Bullshit.” The truck slides to a stop. The motor winds down as he throws the shifter in park and pulls the emergency brake. He’s out of his seatbelt and in my personal space before I can blink. His mouth is demanding, thirsty as he drinks me in. He kisses with far more power and skill than he did when we teenagers, drinking me like the first taste of cool water after a long desert trek. He tastes like hot cinnamon whiskey and apples, transporting me back to stolen kisses under his apple trees. My body responds before I can decide if kissing him back is a smart idea. Should I tell him about Smith? The words are right there, on the tip of my tongue, and I wonder if he can taste them. He ends the kiss as brutally as he began, grabbing a wrist in each hand and lifting my arms. He slams them into the back window of the truck as he swings a leg over me, all the while staring at me as if I might disappear.
I stare dazedly back, drunk on the pheromones crowding out the oxygen in the small cab. “I…I fucked Smith just like this in his truck at the lake today,” I blurt.
He smiles, his eyes a bottomless navy as they search mine. “Good.”
“Good?” I repeat, completely confused by his response.
He yanks on the door handle and swings his other leg over me, dropping out of my side of the truck like a gymnast. Reaching over my lap, he unbuckles me, grabbing my legs and swinging them over the side of the seat to dangle in front of him. He crowds between my legs, as if he’s always owned the space. Reaching up to runs a finger down the side of my face, he tucks an errant strand of hair behind my ear. “You should have been fucking him babe. And me. And Whittaker. But you left us. And now look at the mess we’re all in.”
My nostrils flare. I bite my lip, hard, but the pain doesn’t stop the hot tears rolling down my face. Of course, they come now, when I’m not longer alone and free to grieve the choices I’ve made. My ribs hurt as my jerking inhales force them to expand, and when my lungs are finally full, a whimper escapes. I lick my dry, tight lips. “Gran died,” I croak, sniffling hard.
He cocks his head to the side, making no effort to hide the sympathy that floods his face. He swallows, clenching his jaw, and my eyes track the muscles that ripple down the side of his face. He reaches up and brushes another trail of tears away, a soft smile crinkling his eyes as he leans into the truck and grips my waist, pressing his hard body into my thighs as he gently lifts me out of the truck. His hand slides to the small of my back as he guides me back and shuts the door of the truck. My breath curls out in puffs, drifting out into the cold night air, as he steers me up the walk to the same clapboard farmhouse he grew up in. “Where’s your mom?” I ask, praying the kind woman who gave me both Smith and Balthasar is inside.
“In a condo in Florida. She has a pink Cadillac golf cart and an entire crew of ladies she rolls with. She also has two boyfriends.” He reaches around me and opens the door for me, continuing to fill me in as I step in the house that still smells like apples and, if I inhale deep enough, the pipe tobacco his grandpa smoked when we were kids. “One of them is a retired contractor from Jersey named Vito Guidici. Guy looks just like Sylvester Stallone.” He reaches down and unlaces his boots, kicking them off onto a mat. “The other guy is a retired corporate lawyer. He bought her the damn golf cart.” He smirks, pleased when he sees his diatribe about his mother’s boyfriends has me smiling. I shuck off my boats and stand awkwardly as he unwinds my scarf and slides my coat off my shoulders.
Balthasar was always the shortest of the four of us, but when I tip my head back to look at him, I realize he gained some height after I left. He still has a narrow waist, but he no longer qualifies as gangly. He holds his arms out and I step into him, turning my head to lay it against his chest as he folds his arms around me. A big hug is exactly what I need. Sinking into his warmth feels as natural as breathing. We fit, molding together, our shared history and loss bridging any distance that could come between us. “Want a drink?” he asks. His voice rumbles from inside his chest directly into my ear. It’s surprisingly deep, but mellow, still infused with a constant edge of cheekiness and mirth.
With a sigh, I lift my face off his chest. “Fuck yes I do. No one is willing to give me any alcohol. But how are we going to get my car if we’re both hammered?”
He’s dead serious when he answers. “We aren’t getting your car tonight. We’ll get it in the morning. We have a lot of catching up to do tonight.”
I stiffen. I’m not ready to talk about things. I don’t understand why we can’t wait until I can get a little distance from losing Gran. It’s too much. “I…I don’t know if I can do that. Not tonight,” I plead as his mouth flattens and the crinkles around his eyes disappear. He walks over to the countertop and rips open a cabinet door. Glass clinks as he slaps two tumblers against the counter. He slams the cupboard door shut and bends, yanking open a lower door and grabbing a bottle of alcohol. The liquid sloshes violently inside the bottle as he spins the cap off and tips it haphazardly over the glasses. He bangs it down and snatches up a glass, shoving it at me.
He tips his back and empties in one swallow, immediately pouring himself another. “You owe me. I know you had it out with Smith, and even though that asshole didn’t have the balls to fight for you, you still said goodbye to Whittaker. But me? You treated me like an afterthought Bennett. You gave everything you had fighting Smith and begging Whit, and you didn’t bother to save anything for me. I feel pretty fucking crass doing this right after Gran died, but we’re all tore up over that, so I guess the playing field is as level as it’s ever going to be. You owe me a God damn conversation, Bennett, and we are having it, got it?”
Moonlight streams through the window over the sink, lighting him up like an avenging archangel. Our shadows stretch across the room, standing close, looking far more comfortable with their proximity. Balthasar’s thick auburn hair is dark in the unlit kitchen, and his blue eyes almost black as they glitter through narrow slits. My fingers twitch, longing to reach up and spin a swatch of his hair. He leans against the counter, swirling his drink, his breathing slowing as he waits for me to respond.
My heart spasms, hard, the loss fresh again as I realize Balthasar has grown all the way up and I don’t know him anymore. His angry stare is a serrated blade sawing through the easy reconnect we had on the way over here. Who am I kidding? That was easy because he made it easy. He did that on purpose, to show me what we could have had. He’s not going to gloss over ten years of resentment because Gran died and I’m hurting. We are all suffering her loss. I can’t bury my head under my blankets and avoid the hard conversations I knew would be coming when Franklin dragged me back here. My mouth opens and closes multiple times as I struggle to find anything I can deny in what he said. My shoulders slump. “You’re right,” I whisper. I throw back the drink and give in.
He waits patiently as I take the few steps between us and hold up my glass for another, my fingers clenched tight around the tumbler so I don’t drop it. The air between us crackles, stinging my face and my fingers. He’s right. I did leave him without a word. It’s obvious he doesn’t know why, and that pisses me off. Balthasar is smart enough to have figured it out.
He picks up the bottle, his hand trembling just enough to splash the fiery liquid on the side of the glass. “I did do that. And I had a good reason. Smith tossed me aside like I was nothing, and Whittaker made it blatantly clear I was a second-class citizen to his precious farm. I knew your heart. Asking you to choose me after that wouldn’t have left you a choice. You would have given me anything I asked for after that no matter what you really wanted, and I wasn’t going to do that to you. You were the best one of the four of us. Asking you to give up your dreams for me at such a young age would have been the ultimate act of selfishness. I couldn’t do that to you.” I tip the glass back and swallow the burning liquid, coughing and gasping as I set the glass down. “What if I had? What if I had asked you to give up everything for me? Can you imagine the resentment? You’d hate me now.” I end on a whisper, suffocating under the alternate future I’ve conjured.
A derisive laugh leaves him as he grabs my upper arms and yanks me forward. “What dreams? What dreams Ben? This farm? These fucking apples?” He grabs my chin with one hand, pinching my cheeks hard, making my lips pucker as he turns my face one way then the other. He eases his grip as he drops his forehead to mine. He rolls it against mine, back and forth as he groans out a confession of his own. “I fucked Whittaker three days ago.”
My heart swells a little, and I find I’m glad to hear they’re still connected that closely. I laugh a little, eagerly grasping at the bit of relief his confession brings me. “That makes me happy. If you thought I was going to feel some other kind of way about that, then you never knew me at all.”
His lower lip juts out, his breath lifting a lock of hair off his forehead as he blows out a sigh. “Let’s go in the living room. I’m not standing at the sink all night.” He grabs the bottle. I grab the glasses and follow him through the kitchen, down a short hall, past the bathroom, and into the living room with the vaulted ceilings. I always loved the large room with the vaulted ceilings. It used to have three floral couches and two green velvet chairs clustered around the large fireplace, but now the couches are brown suede. One chair is red, the other gold. He leans over and turns on a lamp, setting down the bottle on a gorgeous wood coffee table with a river of chocolate epoxy running through the center before crouching in front of the fireplace. I lower myself into the corner of the couch and set down the glasses, pouring us another round.
“It didn’t take me long to learn that physical distance wasn’t enough to outrun any of you. You’ve been my constant companions since I left. I could explain that further, but you’ll think I’m nuts.” I clear my throat, watching his back work through the thin T-shirt he’s wearing as he builds the fire. “I’m sorry ‘Sar. I’m truly, deeply sorry.”
The apology hangs in the air between us. It doesn’t feel like enough at the same time it feels like too much. There is so much more nuance to the decisions I made, but I’m not sure if he’s ready to hear all of that. So I wait and let my simple words that are too much and not enough soak in.
He stands and grabs a lighter off the mantle before squatting back down to light the fire. A small flame wooshes to life as he turns, “Thank you. I appreciate that. But don’t go thinking I spent much time pining for you Ben. I learned quick to enjoy trying to fuck away my feelings and damned if it didn’t become a habit.” He grins and I’m struck by how absolutely charming and yet feral his grin his. I stare at his mouth, not wanting to look at his eyes. I can feel the things his grin hides burrowing into my skin. It does strange things, heating up my core and my chest with a twisted combination of lust, pride, and jealousy.
I lean over the arm of the couch and swing my legs up to tuck underneath me. “So you’re the town slut?” I snort and grin back, choosing to not volunteer what I’ve done with my time away from him. The alcohol is pleasantly warm, and I say a silent thank you to the fermentation gods as tendrils of heat unfurl from my belly and spread down my limbs. The alcohol is numbing my ever-present grief and shrinking the gulf between Balthasar and I.
He stands and holds his palms up, facing each other, before pulling them apart. “Think bigger.”
The whiskey is relaxing me. The laugh comes easier, with more control. “County? Wait. Peninsula?”
His chin tilts up as he considers my question. His eyes are back to twinkling in the low light, the corners of his mouth remaining tipped up in his patented grin. He’s comfortable discussing his sexual history with me, choosing to lean on the rock solid friendship we had in order to avoid the messiness that comes with focusing on the love we shared. I know the anger isn’t gone, that one evening isn’t going to fix the fact that I cut and run all of those years ago, but his outburst in the kitchen seems to have been enough of a release to give him back control. He wanders over to the end table between the two chairs and picks up a remote, pressing a few buttons before tossing it back down. Music comes on, playing quietly as he walks to me and holds out a hand. I lay my hand over his. “This conversation is not going to be just about me.” He warns, grasping my hand and pulling me up from the couch. He lifts the glass out of my hand and sets it down. “Dance with me Bennett Vanderberg. Just like we used to.”
