Page 50 of Sublimate
“Me too,” Cadence piped up. “Oh, no.” She was now staring at her phone. “This is bad. My mom is really angry and she just said that she’s going to change the locks on our house!”
Dinner ended because Nolan put a large amount of cash on the bill tray and Cadence raced to the parking lot, sure that she wasabout to be put out on the street. Beau followed close behind and I went after him.
“I’m sorry,” I yelled, but he didn’t answer. By the time that Nolan arrived, their car was already slowly pulling away.
“I’ll drive,” he told me.
“I’m sorry,” I said to him, too. “I shouldn’t have done that at dinner. I hate when people fight over food. I mean, I hate when they try to grab it from each other and I also hate when you’re eating and there’s an argument. Either way.”
“Why did you start on Beau like that?”
“Because I think that he’s using you! And I think that I am, too, and I don’t like it. You deserve better than friends who take and take.”
“He doesn’t do that and neither do you.”
“Really? Speaking for myself, I actually do. I didn’t plan to go to your house for even one night, but I’ve been living with you for months! Livingoffyou,” I corrected myself. “Just like how you used to take Beau on all those vacations and you let some stranger bunk for half a year with you.”
“I don’t know why you think you live off me.”
“Well, there’s the obvious, like the bills that I don’t pay!” I exclaimed. “You won’t let me give you any money.”
“I don’t need it and I’m happy when I see you check the banking app on your phone. I like when you smile because the balance is going up. But more than that, I like how we go on runs together,I like how you want to taste the bread I’m making, I like how I have to make coffee because you can’t get the machine to work.”
“There are so many buttons on that thing.”
“You also supported me when we went to see my parents,” he continued.
“You only had to see them because I forced a connection with my paperwork problems,” I pointed out.
“No, I was going to have to show up sometime and it was much easier with you there,” he told me.
“Really?” It hadn’t seemed easy and I didn’t seem to have helped, but he was nodding like the answer was a strong “yes.”
He said it, too: “Yes. I’m glad you’re living with me. Otherwise, I’d be alone and that’s always been…”
“What?”
“Problematic,” he finished.
“Just as long asI’mnot problematic. Just as long as you’re not bothered by the stuff that your mom found out,” I said.
“You’re not problematic. You’re nice,” Nolan told me.
“Maybe. Can I see your phone?” He didn’t ask why, but I told him. “I’m going to text Beau and apologize. His business is not mine. I mean, I’ll mind my own business and not his.”
“I don’t know,” he answered. “It probably didn’t hurt him to hear that. Sometimes we need to get hit with the hard stuff.”
“And sometimes a near-stranger should keep her mouth shut,” I suggested. “I’m writing to Cadence, too, to see if she’s ok or if she really did get put out on the curb. That’s always hard.”
“She can come stay with us.”
I thought of how Nolan had a habit of walking around shirtless and how she might have needed CPR after seeing that. If you were someone interested in male bodies, you probably would have been very interested in his. Because, since I’d first seen him in the road last fall, he had been getting stronger and healthier. Personally, I was more interested in what that meant for his sobriety. I was interested in him having a long and healthy life, and if I was a part of that? Then good.
“Did you hear me say thank you?” I asked.
“Yes. Thank you, too, for sticking around. You don’t have to anymore.”
“I want to,” I said. I never wanted to go.
