Page 96 of Thicker Than Water
“I followed him.”
No sense denying it. I don’t want to be like Jason, so caught up in his own reasons, his own needs, that he couldn’t hear his son, whowas brave enough, back at the hospital, to call his actions what they were: stalking.
“Jesus, Si. We talked about this. We made a deal—an alibi in exchange for leaving him alone.”
I note his word choice. “Analibi. But it wasn’tthealibi, was it? Because I checked with Home Depot; they said he wasn’t working that night. So, what—did you lie to me?”
He bites the inside of his cheek, focusing on my collarbone instead of my eyes. His silence gives him away.
“Wyatt,” I continue, “you lied to me on the same night you were asking me to be open and vulnerable with you again, to tell you everything I was feeling, and I don’t get why you’d—”
“BecauseIwas his alibi,” he cuts in. “Part of it, at least.”
My arms unknot, one of them falling to my side. “What?”
“I was with him the night of Gavin’s murder. First at a… meeting. Then at a diner for a few hours. He’s been having a rough time lately. You know about his run-in with Gavin, his arrest. His wife recently left him, and he’d heard from a former customer that Gavin was making the same deals he’d reported Henry for—which now we’re looking into at the department. So he and I had waffles while he talked things out, and then I drove him home.”
“Wait, go back.” I skip over the confirmation that, at least in some small way, I was right, Henry did know about Gavin’s deals; that doesn’t matter anymore. “What meeting?”
He gives me an expectant look, as if waiting for me to figure it out.
“The same one you saw us at yesterday,” he says.
“Okay, but—what meeting is held at the community center?”
Wyatt blows out a frustrated breath. “It’s AA, Si. Alcoholics Anonymous. I was protecting Henry’s privacy. I figured if I told you he was at work that night, you’d drop it. But clearly you didn’t.”
My head rears back. “Wait, what? You’re in AA?”
My mind whirls through images: the beers we used to drink after sex; the IPAs that were always stocked in his fridge; even One-star Bartender, our favorite game. Still, enjoying alcohol isn’t the same as having a problem.
“You’re not an alcoholic,” I add.
“I didn’t think I was,” Wyatt says. “But as soon as I tried to actually quit drinking, I… had trouble. I’d come home from work and feel like Ineededa beer. Not wanted. Needed. I’ve been going to meetings for a few months now. They’ve really helped.”
His explanation only confuses me more. “You quit drinking? When?”
He slides his hands into his pockets, eyes strained with pain and shame. “A year ago. Pretty much the moment I woke up in a stranger’s bed.”
My breath sputters out, a quick puff of surprise. If it weren’t for the wall behind me, keeping me in place, I might stumble back.
“I— I never asked you to do that,” I say.
“I know. But if something can affect me so much that I’d betray the one person I—that I’d betrayyou, then that thing is toxic for me and it has to go. So I cut it out, immediately.”
I stare at him, dizzy with this revelation. Wyatt quietly quit drinking—not as a ploy to keep me, but because drinking had made him lose me.
“When I met you,” he says, “you’d already been torn apart because someone got beyond wasted and did something inexcusable. And then I got beyond wasted. I did something inexcusable. I hurt you too.”
My lips part, air draining between them. Somehow, I never made this exact connection between Wyatt and Clive—two drunk men on their drunkest nights, completely upending my life.
“So, yeah.” Wyatt shakes his head. “Never again.”
He steps away from the wall, closer to me, and my skin prickles with the nearness of him. He extends a hand like he might touch my arm, and even though my body responds, tilting toward his palm, he stops himself. My heart stutters, drumming a clumsy beat, and my eyes, fastened to Wyatt, are unable to blink. My arm aches where he didn’t touch me. My mouth throbs from not being kissed.
“Anyway, I’m sorry I lied to you,” he says. “I just… believe in the program, and I take people’s privacy seriously.” He clears his throat. “I’m sorry about Jason, too. I heard about his arrest. I can only imagine how you’re feeling.”
It takes me a moment to speak, to switch gears from how I’m feeling about Wyatt to how I feel about Jason. “Well,” I finally say. “He did everything they arrested him for. So.”
