Page 69 of Hidden & Held

“Hey! I can be chill. I’m like a penguin I’m so cool.”

“More like a polar bear,” I grumble.

“You want to see a mama bear? Keep messing up, putting work first, and mistreating a good woman. The claws will come out, son.”

I swallow, feeling like my collar is all of a sudden too tight. Linda Mercer may be a creative spirit, but she uses that creativity in ways that cause destruction to her boys. One time when I was six, she handcuffed me to the radiator for tormenting Jordan during dinner prep. The neighbors arrived while I was still attached.

“He wanted to act like a villain,” she’d said to the neighbors, unbothered. “So now he’s in prison.”

I still rub my wrists every time I pass by a chrome radiator.

“I promise, I’m doing my best. Got to go, hosting guys’ night.”

“Make sure to change out the hand towels and go buy an extra bag of ice for the cooler. Nobody needs gross towels or no fridge space for the drinks.”

My mom is the consummate hostess. “Yes, Mother, I will. I’m pulling into the store now, gotta go. Love you.”

“Love you too, sweetie.”

By the time I leave the grocery store, my cart looks less like poker night and more like a care package assembled by someone who has been paying very close attention to people who did not ask him to. Two bags of chips and three seltzer flavors for the table. The expensive goat cheese Becca likes for reasons I’ll never understand. Ingredients for Mack’s watermelon feta salad I made once at Phoenix’s request and she attempted to pass off as hers. And in the impulse buy section near the checkout, the dark chocolate peppermint cups Phoenix keeps hidden behind the tea in her pantry because she claims they’re for emergencies.

I know entirely too much about the preferences of women who would kill me if given legal immunity.

The duplex is quiet when I pull in, soft evening light stretching across the driveway. Phoenix’s side is dark except for the small lamp glowing in her sunroom office. For a second, I sit there with my hands on the steering wheel like an idiot.

Home.

I see the corner of the entry rug on Phoenix’s front step has curled upward again. Something she would ignore until she tripped over it while attempting to carry six things at once. Taking my groceries inside, I set them on the counter and pull the duct tape out of my junk drawer. Walking back to Unit B’s doorstep, I tear off a piece, roll it into a loop, and stick it on the corner to hold it down until I can come up with a better solution.

I check my Cartier Tank watch, two hours until the guys start arriving for poker night, which is coincidentally exactly thirty minutes after Zentrology night starts. I have some meals to prep.

Smoke curls up from the grill into the chill of the Cascadia air. Sam is arguing with Jared about whether bourbon counts as a sole marinade ingredient, while Daniel and a few other guys are mowing down on the snack table.

String lights glow dimly across the shared backyard of the duplex. Phoenix and I hung them up a few months ago. I apparently had done them crooked twice before she was satisfied. My arms were aching, which I kept to myself. She had put her hand on her hip, cocking it to the side, looking at the yard with a smile and I had thought—this. Whatever this is, this is what I was aiming for.

The lights are still slightly crooked on the left side. Neither of us mentioned it.

Somewhere inside Phoenix’s duplex, women are yelling over Fleetwood Mac. I spot Nessa through Phoenix’s kitchen, holding what appears to be burning cedar in one hand and a crystal the size of a baseball in the other.

“What the hell is she doing?” Jared asks, squinting his eyes.

Sam looks up from his cards momentarily before answering, “Space cleansing. Nessa says that Phi’s new place has ‘stress energy’ radiating from each corner.”

“That’s not a measurable thing,” Jared replies as if that fact would change the situation.

“Well, neither is moon water, and yet Becca had to put a jar of filtered water on our windowsill during the last full moon and drink first thing the next morning.” He shakes his head softly, setting a card down. “I’ve stopped asking questions.”

We hear Phoenix’s sliding glass back door open dramatically as Nessa surveys the backyard.

“This negative masculine energy must leave through an entry point,” declares Nessa with a flourish of the cedar in her hands.

All of the men’s eyes turn directly to me. Great.

The women file out with Phoenix crutching behind Nessa, carefully planting each crutch so it doesn’t catch in the grass. I stand, and a few of the guys follow suit, offering chairs to the women. Becca sidles over, perching herself on Sam’s lap as he instinctively drops a kiss to her temple.

“Fold, that’s a shit hand, don’t want to waste our money,” she supplies in a pragmatic tone.

Sam cusses under his breath before dropping the cards and folding, earning a snicker from the rest of the table.