Page 21 of Tangled Up In You
“Do you want a drink?” Corbin asked a few minutes after I’d walked through the door.
“No thanks,” I said, shrugging out of my jacket and draping it over the back of the couch.
“Well, I’m gonna drink,” he said before walking into the kitchen.
I stared after him a moment before following him in there. He’d clearly made a visit to the liquor store recently by the brand new bottle of Captain Morgan and the case of beer. He grabbed a glass and poured a generous amount of Morgan in it before adding in some Coke.
After taking a drink, he stared out the window.
It was dark outside, so I was sure he couldn’t see much, but still he stared.
“Do you remember that time we discovered the small door that led under the house, and we grabbed some flashlights and went exploring?” he asked before taking another drink.
I smiled. “Yeah, we were like ten, right? We crawled around under the house and pretended it was some adventure. Then that one time we brought food with us and ate down there like a bunch of weirdos.”
Corbin chuckled. “Gramps was so mad when he found out and he ended up putting a lock on the door so we couldn’t go back down there. ‘Gonna get snake bit,’ he said.”
“He had a point, though,” I stated, stepping up beside him. “Remember that one time Ididsay I thought I felt something touch my leg.”
“It was my hand,” he admitted with a sheepish grin.
“You ass,” I said with a laugh. “If we’re going down memory lane, I think Iwillhave that drink.” I grabbed a beer and popped the cap before taking a long pull from the bottle. I never drank, unless it was socially. But even then, I only had like a beer or two. I didn’t handle hard liquor well.
We went into the living room after that. Corbin sat on the couch, and I almost sat beside him, but ended up choosing the recliner on second thought. He scrunched his brow as I sat down but then he focused on his glass.
“Remember when we got lost in the woods?” I asked, wanting to distract him from whatever thought that’d visibly upset him. “We wandered around for hours, and then you found that piece of clothing stuck on a sharp branch. We scared the hell out of ourselves as we made up a story of how it got there, saying that someone had gotten kidnapped and murdered.”
It worked.
Corbin grinned and rubbed at his eyes with his free hand. “Oh, god. By the end of it, we were both crying and hiding under a tree. When we hadn’t made it home after dark, Gramps came looking for us.”
“Then you screamed when you saw his flashlight,” I said.
“I didn’t scream!” he lied. “It was a gasp.”
“A gasp of utter terror,” I pointed out, laughing. “You thought the killer was coming for us.”
More stories of our childhood were told, and the more we talked, the less awkward it seemed. It was as if the seven years hadn’t passed, and we were the same as we’d been before having our falling out.
There were a few times when we’d get to talking about Bill and we’d tear up, but we tried to stick to the happy memories. While we were still sad at his passing, we celebrated his life and how amazing he’d been.
“So what’s it like being a teacher?” Corbin asked after having several more glasses.
We’d done a lot of talking that night, but we’d stayed in the past instead of discussing our present. The change made me nervous.
“Pretty great, actually,” I answered, watching his face for his reaction. “My first day teaching, I had a kid backtalk me. It took me a bit to know how to handle it all.”
His brows shot up. “Wow. Do the kids still act like that?”
“No. There are some that I know can do better in class than what they’re doing, but for the most part, they’re an excellent bunch of kids.”
“Look at us.” Corbin grinned and studied his near-empty glass. “We’ve both done well for ourselves. You with the English thing and me with football.”
“Yep.”
“Want another?” he asked, nodding to my now empty beer.
“Sure.” When he stood, so did I, and we went back into the kitchen. He stumbled a bit as he got to the counter, and I quickly shoved an arm out to steady him. “Maybe you’ve had enough, though.”
