Page 69 of Stupid Dirty

The deepest, darkest part of my paranoid brain keeps spinning an insane narrative for me. One where his extreme need for physical intimacy combined with his pathological fear of knocking someone up by accident, creating very specific extenuating circumstances where the only solution was to sleep with a man. Even if it was something he’d never normally do.

Nothing makes sense right now.

I keep staring at my phone, holding a mug of cold, untouched coffee in my hands and listening to the birds wake up around me. My fingers are gripping the mug so tightly my knuckles are white, but I couldn’t unclench my body if I tried.

The sound of an engine breaks me out of my intrusive thoughts. Gravel crunches under wheels, and I look up to see a car pulling up the long, bumpy driveway.

It’s some kind of vintage Mustang. Huge, ostentatious and probably worth a lot of money, even though it’s not in the best shape. Powder blue, with a black racing stripe running down the middle.

The kind of thing that car nerds probably cream themselves over, and it couldn’t possibly look more out of place out here in the woods at the ass crack of dawn. I’m not even surprised when I look through the windshield and see Tristan behind the wheel. Of course, this is what he drives. He’s such a drama queen.

But I do feel a pang of something like jealousy when I see Cade and Sky in the car. I was supposed to go get him; I was waiting for his call. That’s what he said last night. Instead, he left me sitting here all morning like a chump, while he woke up his work buddy to collect them both at ass ‘o clock.

That’s my job. I’m his family. Or at least I thought I was.

The car shudders to an uneasy stop. Cade gets out first, then opens the door to the back seat and pulls Sky out and straight up into his arms. Shoving my hands in my pockets, I hurry to meet them. They both look sleepy and rumpled, giving me the urge to wrap them up tight, but I don’t know where we stand right now, and it feels like it’s tearing me in two.

Sky is resting her head on Cade’s shoulder, her eyelids at half-mast and her face pale. I smile at her and she smiles back, but it’s small. Cade isn’t smiling. He’s barely looking at me. His face is vacant in a way that terrifies me, reminding me too much of how Kris looked right before she left us to drink herself half to death for a week. And while Cade won’t look at me, Tristan is studying us both with an intensity that makes me squirm.

The tension mounts between us, and I’m desperate to find the right words to dispel it, but the only thing that comes out of my mouth is silence. Cade ends up speaking first.

“Thanks, bro. Go get some sleep.”

Tristan nods from inside the car, giving me one last long, appraising look before shifting into reverse and turning around to leave.

Once the sounds of his metal beast are finally gone, the woods seem unnaturally quiet. I’m staring at Cade, willing him to talk to me, but that vacant expression is still in place. Eventually, he murmurs something about putting Sky to bed, and I can only nod.

It isn’t clear whether he expected me to follow, so I linger on the porch. This is it, basically. This is my life right now. One foot in his world, one foot out, with the thought of if I’m welcome constantly shifting like sand beneath me, making it impossible to find my footing and just exist for a minute.

Seconds tick by, then minutes, then more. I can’t bring myself to go in without an invitation. A voice inside my head is warning me that this could be the moment it all comes crashing down around me. If he tells me to get out, I’ll crumble. I know it.

But my indecision is rewarded when Cade eventually stumbles out of the house and rejoins me, pulling the other chair until it’s flush with mine and then collapsing into it with a sigh.

“Thank you for cleaning,” he says, after a silence that stretches on long enough to make me scratch nervously at my scalp.

I nod, not looking him in the eye. Words are hard sometimes.

“This family assessment is going to be a fucking nightmare. Strangers coming in here, poking around to tell us everything we’re doing wrong with our lives, so they have an excuse to take the girls away. I can’t…” He blinks furiously, looking away from me for a minute. “I can’t stand the thought of it. It’s been running through my head all night. At the hospital, I felt likeeveryone was watching me, waiting for me to do the wrong thing and fuck up. But all I do is fuck up.”

“Hey,” I whisper, reaching out to tilt his face back towards mine. It’s the first time I’ve touched him all day, and it makes me feel so much more real. He’s not crying, but his eyes are red and his skin is blotchy, like the threat of it is lurking. “No one wants to take the girls away. I know you have this thing about social services, and I get it. You’ve heard a million horror stories from your mom. But I’m sure an under-funded government agency doesn’t really want to take kids away from homes if they don’t have to. That’s gotta be way more paperwork. They just need to do their checks and fix things they think need to be fixed. Hell, maybe this will be a good thing. Maybe this’ll be the final kick in the ass that gets Kris to go to rehab.”

Cade snorts, but he doesn’t tear his face out of my hand, so I take it as a good sign.

“I don’t know how I would have gotten through last night without you, Silas.”

My heart stops beating for a few seconds. When it starts again, I feel the faint spark of hope for the first time all morning.

“Really?”

His lips are parted slightly, and his eyes are locked onto mine. “Of course, baby. You’re my rock. I was waiting for you to run screaming from the room any minute, but you never did.”

“What?” Whatever confused expression I make at him makes him laugh, the sound warding off the chill that’s been seeping into me all morning. After a brief moment of happiness, Cade looks at me again with a somber face.

“Come on, Silas. I don’t know a lot of guys who want to be saddled with an insta-family at twenty-two. Especially ones who already missed out on the oat-sowing portion of their teenage years. Having you with me for this stuff means more than I canput into words, but I don’t want to rely on it too much. I know this can’t be it for you.”

I feel like I’ve been poured out and I’m now a puddle of melted butter around Cade’s feet. But I can’t explain that to him, so instead I scrabble at his hands, pulling him as close to me as possible and doing my best to explain to him how fucking wrong he is about everything.

“Fuck your oats, Cade. I want this. I was going crazy at the hospital, not being able to touch you or be there for you like I wanted. The whole time I just wanted to wrap you up and tell everybody else to fuck off. I feel like that all the time. But I don’t want to freak you out, or move too fast, so I’ve been trying to be normal. And I think you’d be the first person to admit that’s not where I excel.”

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