Total pages in book: 120
Estimated words: 114211 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 571(@200wpm)___ 457(@250wpm)___ 381(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 114211 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 571(@200wpm)___ 457(@250wpm)___ 381(@300wpm)
“Does it really matter who saved who?” grunts Anthony.
Everyone turns to him.
I didn’t realize he was listening.
“What?” Cody grunts back, almost as surprised as I am.
“Or if one of you recalls it differently, whatever actually went down back then.” Anthony takes another bite while Cody and Pete wait, stewing in their own tension, as he chews and swallows. He’s still buzzed. How much did he drink before coming here? “Think of it this way. Everyone’s got their own version of every stupid thing that happens around this town, right? And everyone is kinda right, everyone is kinda wrong. Pete, I don’t know you at all, but Cody here’s been talkin’ his head off about you since I was literally in high school. He loves you as much as a man can without bein’ in bed with him. Listen …” He slumps forward, blinking drunkenness out of his eyes as he tears his garlic bread in half, then uses one half in the air like a professor’s pointer as he speaks. “People used to be afraid of this guy. Even my mom fed me crazy stories about Cody when he came back to town from the Army and Trey was forced to be his nurse. Hey, Cody, you damn near lost function in your arm and leg, right? Then had some surgery where they, like, Frankensteined you back together usin’ your own nerves and shit? Shrapnel’s no joke. Now look at you, all fixed up. But that ain’t the point. Trey’s dad hated you, thought you were evil with a foul-ass mouth tryin’ to drag his son straight into Satan’s godless arms …”
“Wouldn’t go that far,” Trey puts in quietly.
“Kinda half right,” mumbles Cody, earning a look from Trey.
“But Cody’s got his own way of dealing with what happened,” Anthony goes on, turning back to Pete, “and I’m sure you’ve got yours. Point is, don’t matter what happened, just that it brought y’all together, forever united. And ain’t that beautiful? I envy that kinda connection with someone. Shit.” He makes a snorting sound, almost laughing at himself. “Lord knows I don’t got anything like that. You’re each other’s hero, no matter how you see it. And now look at you two, brought here under the same roof again, enjoyin’ a tasty-ass Italian meal made by the reverend himself. Hey, as far as I’m concerned, Trey’s a hero, too, knowin’ how to toast garlic bread without burnin’ it halfway to Hell.” He shoves the half he’s been pointing into his mouth and moans, eyes closing as he chews. He pops open an eye suddenly. “No offense, for the ‘Hell’ thing.”
Trey smiles. “None taken, of course.”
I stare at Anthony across the table, finding myself taken aback by the sincerity in his words, despite the slurred speech.
I wonder suddenly if I know Anthony at all.
Trey quite suddenly redirects the attention. “Saving Bridger in the restaurant the way you did, Pete … That was something! Did you ever train in the Heimlich Maneuver? You reacted so fast!”
It takes Pete a hot second to shake off whatever’s on his mind before he answers Trey, and the conversation is steered back into something more pleasant. Even Cody seems to snap right out of it, laughing at something his husband says, then jumping into some other tangent that has Pete back to cackling.
Anthony is back to stuffing his face, oblivious to wherever the conversation’s gone.
Or maybe he really is still listening to it all and just has a great poker face. Or feels guilty, knowing he’s the reason for Pete having to perform the Heimlich on me at all.
I keep catching myself looking at Anthony across the table, now and then forgetting my own plate. And the lingering thought still circling my brain after dinner’s over has nothing to do with who’s a hero or how pristinely Trey’s garlic toast came out.
It’s that I still can’t figure out why Anthony kissed me.
“Really? He kissed you?” Pete asks me later.
We’re on the back patio. Anthony and Trey are in the kitchen cleaning up—Anthony volunteered to help out, surprisingly. Cody is “likely busy exploding the bathroom”, according to Trey, which is a bit more information than anyone needed to hear. Crickets are going nuts out in the dark, and a battalion of moths and June bugs are having a party trying to fuck the light bulb on the porch.
And I just told Pete about my church rendezvous last night. “Likely sleep deprived and out of his mind, that was it,” I go on, my arms crossed, leaning against a post.
“Doubt that. Maybe the guy’s closeted and saw you as a way to finally express himself?”
“Guy looked like he’d been wrung ragged for days.” I shake my head. “Couldn’t even change a single light. I don’t know why Trey hired him.”
Pete shrugs. “Maybe it wasn’t for his abilities.”