Page 14 of Surface Scratch
Was it just because he got kicked around once by Vincent and suddenly that meant he was something to be played with? Was that some weird way of letting someone know you wanted to hook up with them with zero emotions? It certainly wasn’t resulting in zero emotions on his end of things. He dug his nails into his palms. What the hell was he going to do the next time he saw Marcus?
“You sure you’re okay? You’re quieter than usual.” Andrew shook his shoulders a little to get his attention as they reached the back entrance to Ophelia’s bar.
Caleb sighed. “Yeah, I think I’m just having a bad night.”That’s a huge understatement. The only thing that could possibly make him feel worse would be if Vincent were to show up right in the middle of the hallway in front of them.
“Ugh, I feel that. Are you sticking around tonight? Because I’m going to get drunk. You want to get drunk with me?” Andrew asked.
Caleb didn’t even bother to mention he wasn’t old enough to drink. “Yes.”
Chapter Six
There had to be a word in the English language for how truly awful his head felt, but it wasn’t coming to him yet. His face felt hot and sticky, particularly under his eye, as though he had been sweating all night on just that one area of his face. He groaned and turned on his side to face the back of his couch and get away from the sun pouring into his living room through the broken blinds. There was a beam of light burning his bare back, but throwing a blanket on would only make his sweating worse.
His head throbbed and his bladder felt like it would burst any second. As badly as he wanted to try and sleep away the ache in his skull, he needed to get up and get some water and food in him. He groaned again and forced himself up, a painful throbbing wrapped around his head like an unrelentingly tight cap. He rubbed his eyes, stars shining behind his eyelids and dancing in his vision when he opened them. At least he was waking up in his own house. He recalled Tariq teasing him about waking up at any number of his coworker’s houses—or, more specifically, in one of their beds.
He spotted a sports drink with a sticky note on the lid at his feet next to his abandoned work shirt and leaned down to grab it. He unscrewed the lid and gulped down half the bottle, not even tasting it before he stopped to take a breath. He glanced down at the sticky note.
“Try not to die. See you tomorrow. Andrew and Tariq.”
A smile crept onto his face and he took another swig. So, they were the ones that got him home. It only made sense they’d both helped him. After all, they were the ones feeding him drink after drink once they learned he had never tried anything with alcohol in it before. After a while, the burning of the drinks had stopped and his memory became fuzzy, but he remembered coming out of his sour mood enough to enjoy the company of his coworkers. Even the large bouncers he never interacted with before had joined in on the gathering.
He stood up, patting his pockets. Keys, his thin wallet devoid of cash, and the envelope containing his first paycheck. He scanned his fuzzy memory, landing on the vague notion that Ophelia had distributed the checks at the end of the night. It seemed like everyone there knew about her underage status and didn’t care, which was probably why no one batted an eye at him when Tariq told him to knock back a shot glass full of something that was cold and minty and awful.
He slipped out of his work pants and the one remaining sock that he hadn’t kicked off in his sleep. He needed a shower and something for his head.
Caleb wandered into his kitchen first, empty containers of single-person microwave dinners still stacked on his counter because he’d been too exhausted to take out the trash. He grabbed the bottle of ibuprofen from his counter and shook two of the reddish-brown pills into his mouth, dry swallowing them as he stepped away from the messy kitchen. It was making him feel nauseous.
He rubbed his face with both hands. What else had they talked about last night? He remembered not speaking as much as he’d just listened and laughed. A lot of laughing. He smiled, somehow making his headache worse, and went into the bathroom. After relieving himself, he switched the water in the shower on, letting the cold droplets hit his hand before he turned away from it. It would take forever to heat up. It always did.
Caleb stepped out of his boxers and moved in front of the mirror to assess the damage from his first night of drinking. There were dark circles under his eyes, but that wasn’t anything new for him. He always looked vaguely under-slept, even when he did get enough sleep. His curly hair was tamped down against his head, lopsided and slick with sweat, but when he was clean, he thought it looked okay, if a bit long for what was considered trendy.
He leaned closer to the mirror, his fingers trailing down his scar. Sometimes it still burned like when he was still healing right after the accident, but today the area was numb.
“Maybe this is the reason,” he muttered aloud to himself, his mind drifting to Marcus. If it wasn’t for the scar on his face, he would look like a normal man his age. He might have even been considered good-looking. The scar had been much worse in the first year after the accident—bright red and purple, angry and weeping at times. Between the round-the-clock care his mother needed and his own crippling insecurity, he hadn’t thought he’d ever be able to leave the apartment again.
But who wanted to look at a big ugly scar next to them in bed or on a date? And then there was the scarring on his throat, shoulders, and down his arms and back. Most of the scarring was superficial at that point, only slightly raised and discolored, but the patches on his shoulder where he’d needed skin grafts were raised and web-like in pattern, a swirl of reddened skin and pale patches that looked barely alive. Those were probably as bad as his face scar. Paired with his small frame and lack of muscle definition, he seemed to be the exact opposite of what was considered attractive.
Maybe being so up close and personal with him had completely turned Marcus off. Seeing his damaged body in combination with knowing how easily he’d had his ass kicked that first night on the job could be the reason he was constantly being rejected.
Or maybe it was just because of the massive age gap and the employee-employer relationship.
The edges of the mirror became hazy with steam. The water was finally hot. He turned away from it and stepped into the shower, more than ready to let the hot water wash away the alcoholic sweat and his deep sense of insecurity.
* * *
Caleb yanked up the lumpy cushions of his couch, his hair still beaded with water from the shower and dripping in front of his face as he searched for his phone. Had he left it at the club? It wasn’t even two in the afternoon yet, so he doubted there was anyone there who could let him in to check, and he still needed to head down to the place he cashed his checks so he could get rent to his landlord before the bastard showed up with an eviction notice.
He pulled back the remaining two cushions, flinging his makeshift bed of blankets and pillows to the ground, and stared at the tattered but empty inside of the couch.Shit. He stood up, his hands on his hips as his teeth found the inside of his cheek, staring up at the ceiling as though the bumpy texture would tell him exactly where he’d left it.
A vague memory ran through his mind from the night before of Tariq and Andrew trying to help him to the bedroom when they first brought him in, before he told them that he slept on the couch. Well, he didn’t tell them, he laughingly slurred it at them. He would have felt embarrassed if not for the familiar ache in his chest that surfaced whenever he thought about that empty room.
He ran his hand through his wet hair, forcing the moisture still clinging to the springy locks to drip down his bare back.Just go in and check really fast, then get out. Don’t touch anything. He wiped his damp hands on his black jeans and blew a breath out through his nose.
He really needed that phone.
Caleb made his way down the short hall, each step making the ache in his chest grow. God, he hated going into that room. To him, it still smelled like illness and death.
The door was open. He peered in, holding his breath so he wouldn’t have to smell the room. The hospital bed still sat in the middle of the room, the head of it level with the floor from when he had attempted CPR on his mom. Two IV poles sat on either side of the bed, empty saline bags hanging dried and limp from their hooks. Along the adjustable bed tray and the dressers were both unused medical supplies and the containers of the supplies that had been used.
