Best Friends Forever (FT) - Callin' In
Just a little bit more of the Missing You series...
The problem with playing hooky when you worked for your dad was that when you went to call in sick, there wasn’t some couldn’t-give-a-fuck-less secretary on the other end of the phone writing down that you had a stomach ache or a sore throat or the bubonic plague, it was your dad who would immediately launch into a thousand and one questions, like, “Do we need to come over?” or “Should your mom bring some soup?” or “Did you fuck Troy Barnett and now you can’t face the world?”
Ennis didn’t really think about any of that because it had been a long time since he’d called in sick and the last time had been because he’d actually had the flu and yes, he’d wanted his mother and soup and his last rites before it had all been over with.
So he didn’t really think of the ramifications of calling in when he didn’t really have a great story all lined up and he was already on everyone’s radar because of last night and he was a little off kilter because, hello, he’d sucked off a dildo that morning and that was just a little bit far out for him. And maybe he was a little hung over. Maybe.
But Jack was there, all sprawled out in their bed looking like seven kinds of heaven after Ennis had spent weeks in hell and all he wanted was more, more, more, so he had the speed dial pushed on his phone before his brain had shifted into official Dad Gear.
He was not even close to ready for Mom.
“Good morning.” She sounded like she was trying to sound normal, but he could hear the tension in her voice, a dead giveaway that she was actually pretty worried about something.
“Hey. What’s up?”
“Nothing. Just making breakfast. What’s up with you?” There was a clatter in the background. He could picture her standing at the stove stirring eggs and his stomach growled.
“Just calling to talk to Dad. You ok? Girls ok?”
“Yes Ennis. We’re all fine.”
Oh. “Well, ok, that’s good.” He faked a cough, which was such a waste of time he couldn’t even believe he’d tried, but it was early and his brain was not on board at all. “Hey, can I talk to Dad?”
“Are you in jail?”
“Jail?” Jack snorted behind him and Ennis wrenched around to glare at him. “No, of course not. Why would I be in jail?”
“I don’t know, Ennis. I was just worried. You know how I worry.”
“Jesus, Mom, no I’m not in jail. I’m at home.”
“Really?” She absolutely did not sound convinced.
“Uhhh… yeah, really.” He was starting to get a little annoyed at her total lack of faith in him. “Is Dad there?” Just then he heard his dad’s voice in the background, mumble grumble, and then his mother was whispering, “It’s Ennis, he sounds weird but he won’t tell me what’s wrong,” but she forgot to put her finger over the mouthpiece so he heard her anyway. Jack was watching him close, obviously wondering what the hold-up was, eyelids drifting low… yeah, they were definitely taking a nap before anything else. Assuming he ever got off the phone.
“Ennis. What’s going on?” his dad asked, brisk and serious, not his usual Friday morning just-getting-going drawl.
“Nothing. I’m just not feeling too good today, need to take the day off.”
There was a beat of silence, then his dad said, “Really,” in a tone just like his mother’d just used. And then nothing, ball back in his court, smooth and easy as you please, and while all the questions would’ve been annoying as hell, this actually seemed worse.
“Yeah.”
“Your mom says you’re not in jail.”
“Jesus Christ, no, of course I’m not in jail. What’s with you guys this morning? Why would I be in jail?”
“I dunno. Maybe because you went out with some jerk who probably wanted to get you drunk so he could get you in the sack! And if you finally got a clue before it was too late and tried to drive yourself home - which I’m assuming you did since I didn’t get a call, and believe me we were listening for one - then you coulda got your drunk ass throwed in jail.”
“Well, thanks a lot for all the confidence y’all got in me. I really appreciate the hell out of it.”
“Well, Christ, Ennis, you been walking around like a bear stuck his head in a hornet’s nest for the last two weeks. First time you even looked halfway like you didn’t wanna kill the world was last night when you were goin’ out to meet that guy. We hadn’t heard shit from Jack in over a week. What do you expect us to think?”
Ennis dropped his head, rubbed his forehead and wondered how his family could be so totally jammed up his ass still, at the age of thirty-two, that him going out to dinner with a man - a client, for God’s sake - had the power to make everyone crazy. They hadn’t even gotten this balled up when he’d started seeing Jack when he was seventeen.
Well, maybe they had, but only because they’d had to listen to them fuck.
Jack grumbled behind him, “This gonna take all fuckin’ day?” to which his dad growled, “You ain’t still with that guy, are you?” and he could hear his mother in the background, “What?? Did he stay over?” and he could only imagine the fallout if he didn’t get this stopped and soon.
“No. No, I didn’t. I’m at home. He’s at his hotel. Nothing happened. Seriously. Y’all need to get off this.”
“Nothing happened?”
“No!!! Nothing! Happened!”
Jack snorted. “Except for how he felt you up and sent you a picture of his dick!”
“Would you shut up?” Ennis hissed, but he’d forgotten to put his finger over the mouthpiece too, so his dad heard that.
“Then who the hell are you talkin’ to, and if you say me, I’m gonna come over there and kick your ass!”
“Jack, ok? I’m talking to Jack, the only person in the whole damn world more aggravatin’ than you two!”
“Jack’s home?”
“Yeah.”
“Oh.” His mother started chattering in the background, and Ennis could imagine bluebirds and butterflies suddenly flitting around their kitchen as the sun broke out of a leaden sky and maybe even a pretty pastel rainbow rose up out of the sink. Jack was home and all was right with the world.
“So. Everything ok?”
Ennis remembered why he was calling, fake coughed again. “No. I’m sick. I ain’t coming in today.”
“You’re sick?” The disbelief in his dad’s voice was over-the-top obvious and did nothing to soothe Ennis’s ruffled feelings.
“Yeah, which is what I was calling to tell you about before y’all started accusing me of being an adulterer and a drunk driver and all that mess.”
“Yeah, well you knew your momma was worried. You coulda at least texted her, let her know you made it in ok.”
There was a part of Ennis that wanted to snap back, say, “Mind your own business, I’m a fuckin’ adult,” but that was only the mean part, which was really small and almost never controlled him. Mostly he remembered what it was like the night that Kendall didn’t come home, and he knew that he wasn’t their only son, he was just the only son they had left. It’d been his choice to stay there, practically on their doorstep, and no matter how old he got, he was still bound to them and them to him and it would never be any different.
“Yeah, I would’ve, but Jack was here and so, you know…” His dad was as eager to get dragged into Ennis’s sex life as Ennis was into his, so he let the sentence tail off hopefully, and finally he and his dad were on the same page.
“So you’re really not sick, you just wanna take the day off and hang out with him, is what you’re tellin’ me.” He heard his mother blah blahing in the background, then his dad was back. “And just so we don’t ever have to talk about this again, you ain’t in trouble or about to get kicked back over here, are you, ‘cause your room’s got pictures of some fifteen year old boy in leather pants plastered all over it, and I hope to God that’d make you uncomfortable.”
“No, he ain’t kicking me out, Jesus, I told you nothing happened. And yeah, thank you for creditin’ me with a little integrity at last, I don’t like fifteen year old boys!”
Jack snorted again, but rolled over and wrapped his arms around Ennis’s waist and pressed his mouth to the bare skin of his back and started munching on him.
Great!” his dad said, all smiles and good cheer at last. “Your mother says bring his ass over for Sunday lunch!” and he could hear his mom yapping but she sounded happy too, and Ennis had Jack in his bed and the day off with plans to make up for too much lost time, so he didn’t really care what they said anymore.
* * *
Sunday lunch was a goddamned feast, pretty much everything Ennis had ever said he liked in the last ten years because his mother was feeling guilty for making him feel like they didn’t trust him. Whit though, he’d been walking around with a dick for fifty some-odd years and he knew that right there qualified a guy for being stupid and liable to fuck up, and while he had a lot of confidence in Ennis to do the right thing, he was still a guy, and Jack was gone a lot and that other guy… Jesus H!
But mostly he just wanted his family to be happy and Jack had been around for fifteen years and was as much a part of the family as he could be without sharing blood. If something ever happened to him and Ennis it would hurt them all down to the bone, even him, although Jack probably didn’t know that and Whit wasn’t about to tell him. He liked the relationship they had just fine, with Jack feeling just a little bit off center whenever he was around. All the rest of them loved him too damned much to see sense when Jack was involved. Somebody had to keep their wits about them where that boy was concerned and Whit figured it was him or nobody.
Which meant that it was just the tiniest little bit awkward when the two of them found themselves standing out on the front porch, waiting for Ennis to finish looking at something on Mallory’s phone while Rachel loaded down a bag with enough leftovers to feed him till Jack got back home. Jack was heading back out to finish his trip, leaving that afternoon for two more weeks and Whit sincerely hoped that he’d keep his ass home for a while after that so Ennis could smile and be happy and not be all grump-ass and surly all the goddamned time.
“Think you’ll be done traveling for a while after this trip’s over with?” he asked, figuring he might as well get a little more information while they waited for Rachel and the girls to come out, say their last goodbyes and wave them off like always.
Jack flinched a little, which he almost always did when Whit initiated a conversation with him. He’d usually relax some after they got the ball rolling, but he was always a little stiff at the beginning. Whit didn’t smile, just scanned the horizon, waiting to see what he said, pretending not to be too interested. “Not sure. My agent said one of the cable networks might be thinking about trying out a summer series with my story. I dunno. She’s gonna get back with me.”
This was bona fide news. Whit was pretty sure it hadn’t got mentioned at lunch, because if it had, Rachel would’ve been shooting off fireworks in the backyard and the girls would’ve texted everybody in three counties and all that would’ve been hard to miss.
“Huh. So what’s that mean? You gotta move out there and supervise or something?” That would be the worst news ever, because Ennis would be worthless here without Jack and Whit would be worthless with Ennis in L.A.
“I don’t know. She’s not really sure what’s goin’ on. They haven’t made an official offer yet, so it’s just talk so far. I ain’t said nothin’ to nobody else about it yet.”
“Not even Ennis?”
“No. She texted me right when we were gettin’ here. I didn’t wanna mess up his lunch.” He was propped up against the porch post, staring out into the quiet of what had to be a boring place compared to where he could be, and Whit wondered, not for the first time, about the ties that bound this boy to his. Jack had always been wild and unpredictable, making Whit believe he’d eventually get tired of this place and move on to more exciting things. He never had, though. He wandered off from time to time, did his thing, got on TV and got to meet people Whit only ever read about in People magazine, but then he came back home and made Ennis smile and helped the girls with their writing assignments and hung curtains for Rachel, and honest to God, Whit couldn’t think about what it’d be like if he wasn’t there.
Which got him to thinking about Troy Barnett again. Ennis had never said how that fuck-up had played out at home, but he did know that Jack had come home early Thursday evening, so Jack had to have a clue that something had happened. Whit couldn’t help wondering if Jack really believed whatever line Ennis had fed him. Whit wasn’t even sure he believed it. He wanted to, but it wasn’t as easy as it probably shoulda been, maybe because he remembered what it was like to be thirty-two years old, coming up on fifteen years with the same person, and facing temptation.
“Yeah, I can see that messin’ with his appetite. He don’t like it so much when you ain’t around. Guess somethin’ like that’d take you away more you’re already gone, huh?”
“Probably.” Jack shifted, looked back over his shoulder towards the door. Whit couldn’t tell if he was hoping Ennis would come on, or hoping he wouldn’t, since it seemed like he almost wanted to talk. Nothing was stirring back there yet, which was no surprise to Whit because between the girls and his momma, Ennis could get locked up for a while.
Jack looked over at him and shrugged, said, “It ain’t easy for me either, you know,” defensive-like, and then turned back to stare out across the yard.
“No. Guess it wouldn’t be.” He flicked his eyes over at Jack one more time, then decided he might as well stare out at the yard too. Maybe the conversation would go smoother if they weren’t looking at each other. “Guess you run into all kindsa interestin’ folks out there in them big cities.”
“Yeah. Guess.” Jack shifted, put his foot up on the porch rail. Whit looked at his shoes, some kinda fancy loafer, no socks. City boy stuff. Glanced back up at his hands fisted on the top railing, saw his wedding ring glinting in the afternoon sun.
Whit cleared his throat, knew he was fixing to march right straight into a big No Trespassing Zone, but he was a bull-in-a-china-shop kinda guy, always had been. They were standing on the front porch of his house, he was gonna say what he wanted. Jack could always tell him to mind his own fucking business. “You wear that ring all the time?”
Jack’s head snapped around then and Whit got a dose of those eyes the girls sometimes talked about when they thought he wasn’t listening. This time they were sharp, searching him out, nothing soft or dreamy about them, not that Whit would know soft and dreamy on a guy if it bit him on the nose.
“Yeah. I do.” He swallowed and his jaw bunched up and Whit knew he’d hit a nerve. “He don’t though.”
“I know. I don’t neither. Can’t take a chance on rippin’ a finger off.”
“Yeah. That’s what he says.” Jack went back to his far-away gazing, but he let go of the railing, toyed with the ring. “Ring don’t mean nothing anyway if the person wearing it don’t back it up.”
“True.” Whit shifted, listened for footsteps but they must be watching every video ever made or something, because it was dead silent behind them. Whit took a deep breath, popped open the can of worms that had been churning around in his gut since Thursday. “So you guys doin’ ok with that? Bein’ apart all the time can be a bitch.”
The sharp eyes were back, digging into Whit like phantom claws, searching for hiding places and secrets. “I am.”
Whit twitched his mouth, a lame imitation of a smile, which was the best he could come up with.
After a few seconds, Jack said, “I know about what happened Thursday. You can say what you wanna say.”
“Yeah, ok. I figured you musta got in on some of it,” Whit replied.
“He said nothing happened. I heard him tell you that about five times on the phone.”
“I know.”
“How come you don’t believe him?”
Whit hadn’t spent many minutes regretting things in his life, outside of most everything that happened between him and Kendall the last year of his life. He was however, suddenly regretting really badly starting this conversation that could have no good end for him, no matter how it turned out otherwise. “Guess I’m just more pessimistic than you are.”
“Of the two of us, I’m surprised you’re bein’ pessimistic about him. Figured it’d be me you’d be doubtin’ if one of us had to come under the gun.”
“Yeah, me too,” Whit admitted.
“Thanks,” Jack snapped back.
Whit figured he probably couldn’t do much more damage than he already had, and since he still felt uneasy about the whole thing, he plowed on. If he didn’t get anywhere this time, he swore to himself he’d leave off. “So you believed him.”
“Well, not at first, ‘cause he looked guilty as all hell, but I got up close to him and he still smelled like that fancy body wash Mrs. Rachel’s got in y’alls bathroom at the barn and nothin’ else, if you know what I mean, so he couldn’ta got up to much.”
Whit felt his heart unclench a little at that news. “You ain’t mad at him for goin’ in the first place?”
“Well, I was, but it ain’t his fault I’m gone all the time and he’s stuck here alone. He didn’t do nothing, and it ain’t ‘cause he was afraid of gettin’ caught ‘cause he had no idea I’d be anywhere around, and I’m pretty sure you wouldn’ta ratted him out if I hadn’t come home in the middle of it.”
Whit just sighed, didn’t answer but Jack was probably right. Ennis was his son and he wasn’t gonna throw him under the bus, at least not on the first offense.
“So I’m gonna ask you again, how come you didn’t believe him?”
Whit gritted his teeth but knew there wasn't nothing to do but spit it out. “Got a picture on my phone. Damn Barnett musta had our numbers grouped up or something. Just seemed like an awful personal thing to be sendin’ to somebody you ain’t gettin’ intimate with.”
“Jesus! You got that picture too?” Jack’s face had gone from tense to slack-jawed and flushed in about two seconds.
Whit imagined he didn’t look much better. “You saw it?”
“Well, yeah, Ennis showed it to me.” He started fidgeting, eyes shifting nervously, and it took Whit right back to when he was a kid and in trouble for something, which was a lot of the time.
This time, though, Whit felt the same way, chin-deep in a conversation that shoulda never happened but he was too far in to do anything but keep going and hope they got to the other side before his brain melted. “So, if he’s into that kind of thing, which I guess he must be considering,” and he let his eyes roam over Jack for an instant, “then I just find it kinda hard to believe he’d up and walk out on something that…umm…impressive.”
“So you ain’t never looked a set of bodacious ta-ta’s in the eye and said, ‘No thanks,’?”
Whit felt a little queasy with the direction the conversation was headed, way more personal than he wanted to get, but before he could even answer, a horrified look was glazing over Jack’s face. “You know what, forget I asked that,” he said, starting to move around Whit, off towards the yard and their car.
“No, Jack, that ain’t it. Get back here, boy,” he said, reaching out to stop Jack, fingers curling around his wrist and holding firm. “I never cheated on Rachel, so get that outta your head right now, but I know what it’s like to get tempted. That’s all.” He let Jack go, rubbed the back of his neck miserably. “Probably just been readin’ too much crap on the internet, how everybody’s cheatin’ on everybody else, nothin’s sacred no more, whole world’s goin’ to hell in a hand basket, then Ennis starts actin’ all weird and I get that picture.” He spat the word like it was dirty in his mouth, wished he could replay his life back to Thursday and do something different so none of this had ever happened.
Jack, though, he didn’t seemed riled or anxious anymore, stepped up kinda close into his space and put a kind hand on his shoulder. “You can read as much bad shit on the internet as your brain can stand, but it don’t have nothing to do with us, Mr. Whit. Me and Ennis hit a rough spot every now and then, we ain’t perfect, but we’re happy and we’re gonna keep on being happy. I promise.”
“Yeah, all right. Guess that’s what I was wantin’ to hear.”
Just then there was the clomp of footsteps in the hallway heading for the front door and Whit had a fleeting surge of hope that he might survive their conversation without getting permanently damaged, but he’d underestimated Jack by a long shot.
“And besides, if it makes you feel any better, Ennis may be shallow, but he’s never been much of a size queen. Give him a pretty face and a regulation-sized pecker, ehhh… ok, make that a little bit bigger than regulation,” he grinned, and there was one hundred percent devil in those blue eyes, “and that’s all it takes to make Ennis a happy boy. That Barnett dude? Total overkill. Kinda like Triple D hooters. Fun to look at, but anything more’n a handful or a mouthful’s just wasted. Know what I mean?”
Whit sputtered and gaped while Jack cackled evilly and elbowed him in the ribs, then jumped away just as Ennis and the women-folk trooped outside. It was time for the boys to go, ten seconds too late for Whit’s sanity but he figured that was the price he had to pay for ever thinking it was a good idea to talk about dicks to Jack fuckin’ Twist.
The problem with playing hooky when you worked for your dad was that when you went to call in sick, there wasn’t some couldn’t-give-a-fuck-less secretary on the other end of the phone writing down that you had a stomach ache or a sore throat or the bubonic plague, it was your dad who would immediately launch into a thousand and one questions, like, “Do we need to come over?” or “Should your mom bring some soup?” or “Did you fuck Troy Barnett and now you can’t face the world?”
Ennis didn’t really think about any of that because it had been a long time since he’d called in sick and the last time had been because he’d actually had the flu and yes, he’d wanted his mother and soup and his last rites before it had all been over with.
So he didn’t really think of the ramifications of calling in when he didn’t really have a great story all lined up and he was already on everyone’s radar because of last night and he was a little off kilter because, hello, he’d sucked off a dildo that morning and that was just a little bit far out for him. And maybe he was a little hung over. Maybe.
But Jack was there, all sprawled out in their bed looking like seven kinds of heaven after Ennis had spent weeks in hell and all he wanted was more, more, more, so he had the speed dial pushed on his phone before his brain had shifted into official Dad Gear.
He was not even close to ready for Mom.
“Good morning.” She sounded like she was trying to sound normal, but he could hear the tension in her voice, a dead giveaway that she was actually pretty worried about something.
“Hey. What’s up?”
“Nothing. Just making breakfast. What’s up with you?” There was a clatter in the background. He could picture her standing at the stove stirring eggs and his stomach growled.
“Just calling to talk to Dad. You ok? Girls ok?”
“Yes Ennis. We’re all fine.”
Oh. “Well, ok, that’s good.” He faked a cough, which was such a waste of time he couldn’t even believe he’d tried, but it was early and his brain was not on board at all. “Hey, can I talk to Dad?”
“Are you in jail?”
“Jail?” Jack snorted behind him and Ennis wrenched around to glare at him. “No, of course not. Why would I be in jail?”
“I don’t know, Ennis. I was just worried. You know how I worry.”
“Jesus, Mom, no I’m not in jail. I’m at home.”
“Really?” She absolutely did not sound convinced.
“Uhhh… yeah, really.” He was starting to get a little annoyed at her total lack of faith in him. “Is Dad there?” Just then he heard his dad’s voice in the background, mumble grumble, and then his mother was whispering, “It’s Ennis, he sounds weird but he won’t tell me what’s wrong,” but she forgot to put her finger over the mouthpiece so he heard her anyway. Jack was watching him close, obviously wondering what the hold-up was, eyelids drifting low… yeah, they were definitely taking a nap before anything else. Assuming he ever got off the phone.
“Ennis. What’s going on?” his dad asked, brisk and serious, not his usual Friday morning just-getting-going drawl.
“Nothing. I’m just not feeling too good today, need to take the day off.”
There was a beat of silence, then his dad said, “Really,” in a tone just like his mother’d just used. And then nothing, ball back in his court, smooth and easy as you please, and while all the questions would’ve been annoying as hell, this actually seemed worse.
“Yeah.”
“Your mom says you’re not in jail.”
“Jesus Christ, no, of course I’m not in jail. What’s with you guys this morning? Why would I be in jail?”
“I dunno. Maybe because you went out with some jerk who probably wanted to get you drunk so he could get you in the sack! And if you finally got a clue before it was too late and tried to drive yourself home - which I’m assuming you did since I didn’t get a call, and believe me we were listening for one - then you coulda got your drunk ass throwed in jail.”
“Well, thanks a lot for all the confidence y’all got in me. I really appreciate the hell out of it.”
“Well, Christ, Ennis, you been walking around like a bear stuck his head in a hornet’s nest for the last two weeks. First time you even looked halfway like you didn’t wanna kill the world was last night when you were goin’ out to meet that guy. We hadn’t heard shit from Jack in over a week. What do you expect us to think?”
Ennis dropped his head, rubbed his forehead and wondered how his family could be so totally jammed up his ass still, at the age of thirty-two, that him going out to dinner with a man - a client, for God’s sake - had the power to make everyone crazy. They hadn’t even gotten this balled up when he’d started seeing Jack when he was seventeen.
Well, maybe they had, but only because they’d had to listen to them fuck.
Jack grumbled behind him, “This gonna take all fuckin’ day?” to which his dad growled, “You ain’t still with that guy, are you?” and he could hear his mother in the background, “What?? Did he stay over?” and he could only imagine the fallout if he didn’t get this stopped and soon.
“No. No, I didn’t. I’m at home. He’s at his hotel. Nothing happened. Seriously. Y’all need to get off this.”
“Nothing happened?”
“No!!! Nothing! Happened!”
Jack snorted. “Except for how he felt you up and sent you a picture of his dick!”
“Would you shut up?” Ennis hissed, but he’d forgotten to put his finger over the mouthpiece too, so his dad heard that.
“Then who the hell are you talkin’ to, and if you say me, I’m gonna come over there and kick your ass!”
“Jack, ok? I’m talking to Jack, the only person in the whole damn world more aggravatin’ than you two!”
“Jack’s home?”
“Yeah.”
“Oh.” His mother started chattering in the background, and Ennis could imagine bluebirds and butterflies suddenly flitting around their kitchen as the sun broke out of a leaden sky and maybe even a pretty pastel rainbow rose up out of the sink. Jack was home and all was right with the world.
“So. Everything ok?”
Ennis remembered why he was calling, fake coughed again. “No. I’m sick. I ain’t coming in today.”
“You’re sick?” The disbelief in his dad’s voice was over-the-top obvious and did nothing to soothe Ennis’s ruffled feelings.
“Yeah, which is what I was calling to tell you about before y’all started accusing me of being an adulterer and a drunk driver and all that mess.”
“Yeah, well you knew your momma was worried. You coulda at least texted her, let her know you made it in ok.”
There was a part of Ennis that wanted to snap back, say, “Mind your own business, I’m a fuckin’ adult,” but that was only the mean part, which was really small and almost never controlled him. Mostly he remembered what it was like the night that Kendall didn’t come home, and he knew that he wasn’t their only son, he was just the only son they had left. It’d been his choice to stay there, practically on their doorstep, and no matter how old he got, he was still bound to them and them to him and it would never be any different.
“Yeah, I would’ve, but Jack was here and so, you know…” His dad was as eager to get dragged into Ennis’s sex life as Ennis was into his, so he let the sentence tail off hopefully, and finally he and his dad were on the same page.
“So you’re really not sick, you just wanna take the day off and hang out with him, is what you’re tellin’ me.” He heard his mother blah blahing in the background, then his dad was back. “And just so we don’t ever have to talk about this again, you ain’t in trouble or about to get kicked back over here, are you, ‘cause your room’s got pictures of some fifteen year old boy in leather pants plastered all over it, and I hope to God that’d make you uncomfortable.”
“No, he ain’t kicking me out, Jesus, I told you nothing happened. And yeah, thank you for creditin’ me with a little integrity at last, I don’t like fifteen year old boys!”
Jack snorted again, but rolled over and wrapped his arms around Ennis’s waist and pressed his mouth to the bare skin of his back and started munching on him.
Great!” his dad said, all smiles and good cheer at last. “Your mother says bring his ass over for Sunday lunch!” and he could hear his mom yapping but she sounded happy too, and Ennis had Jack in his bed and the day off with plans to make up for too much lost time, so he didn’t really care what they said anymore.
* * *
Sunday lunch was a goddamned feast, pretty much everything Ennis had ever said he liked in the last ten years because his mother was feeling guilty for making him feel like they didn’t trust him. Whit though, he’d been walking around with a dick for fifty some-odd years and he knew that right there qualified a guy for being stupid and liable to fuck up, and while he had a lot of confidence in Ennis to do the right thing, he was still a guy, and Jack was gone a lot and that other guy… Jesus H!
But mostly he just wanted his family to be happy and Jack had been around for fifteen years and was as much a part of the family as he could be without sharing blood. If something ever happened to him and Ennis it would hurt them all down to the bone, even him, although Jack probably didn’t know that and Whit wasn’t about to tell him. He liked the relationship they had just fine, with Jack feeling just a little bit off center whenever he was around. All the rest of them loved him too damned much to see sense when Jack was involved. Somebody had to keep their wits about them where that boy was concerned and Whit figured it was him or nobody.
Which meant that it was just the tiniest little bit awkward when the two of them found themselves standing out on the front porch, waiting for Ennis to finish looking at something on Mallory’s phone while Rachel loaded down a bag with enough leftovers to feed him till Jack got back home. Jack was heading back out to finish his trip, leaving that afternoon for two more weeks and Whit sincerely hoped that he’d keep his ass home for a while after that so Ennis could smile and be happy and not be all grump-ass and surly all the goddamned time.
“Think you’ll be done traveling for a while after this trip’s over with?” he asked, figuring he might as well get a little more information while they waited for Rachel and the girls to come out, say their last goodbyes and wave them off like always.
Jack flinched a little, which he almost always did when Whit initiated a conversation with him. He’d usually relax some after they got the ball rolling, but he was always a little stiff at the beginning. Whit didn’t smile, just scanned the horizon, waiting to see what he said, pretending not to be too interested. “Not sure. My agent said one of the cable networks might be thinking about trying out a summer series with my story. I dunno. She’s gonna get back with me.”
This was bona fide news. Whit was pretty sure it hadn’t got mentioned at lunch, because if it had, Rachel would’ve been shooting off fireworks in the backyard and the girls would’ve texted everybody in three counties and all that would’ve been hard to miss.
“Huh. So what’s that mean? You gotta move out there and supervise or something?” That would be the worst news ever, because Ennis would be worthless here without Jack and Whit would be worthless with Ennis in L.A.
“I don’t know. She’s not really sure what’s goin’ on. They haven’t made an official offer yet, so it’s just talk so far. I ain’t said nothin’ to nobody else about it yet.”
“Not even Ennis?”
“No. She texted me right when we were gettin’ here. I didn’t wanna mess up his lunch.” He was propped up against the porch post, staring out into the quiet of what had to be a boring place compared to where he could be, and Whit wondered, not for the first time, about the ties that bound this boy to his. Jack had always been wild and unpredictable, making Whit believe he’d eventually get tired of this place and move on to more exciting things. He never had, though. He wandered off from time to time, did his thing, got on TV and got to meet people Whit only ever read about in People magazine, but then he came back home and made Ennis smile and helped the girls with their writing assignments and hung curtains for Rachel, and honest to God, Whit couldn’t think about what it’d be like if he wasn’t there.
Which got him to thinking about Troy Barnett again. Ennis had never said how that fuck-up had played out at home, but he did know that Jack had come home early Thursday evening, so Jack had to have a clue that something had happened. Whit couldn’t help wondering if Jack really believed whatever line Ennis had fed him. Whit wasn’t even sure he believed it. He wanted to, but it wasn’t as easy as it probably shoulda been, maybe because he remembered what it was like to be thirty-two years old, coming up on fifteen years with the same person, and facing temptation.
“Yeah, I can see that messin’ with his appetite. He don’t like it so much when you ain’t around. Guess somethin’ like that’d take you away more you’re already gone, huh?”
“Probably.” Jack shifted, looked back over his shoulder towards the door. Whit couldn’t tell if he was hoping Ennis would come on, or hoping he wouldn’t, since it seemed like he almost wanted to talk. Nothing was stirring back there yet, which was no surprise to Whit because between the girls and his momma, Ennis could get locked up for a while.
Jack looked over at him and shrugged, said, “It ain’t easy for me either, you know,” defensive-like, and then turned back to stare out across the yard.
“No. Guess it wouldn’t be.” He flicked his eyes over at Jack one more time, then decided he might as well stare out at the yard too. Maybe the conversation would go smoother if they weren’t looking at each other. “Guess you run into all kindsa interestin’ folks out there in them big cities.”
“Yeah. Guess.” Jack shifted, put his foot up on the porch rail. Whit looked at his shoes, some kinda fancy loafer, no socks. City boy stuff. Glanced back up at his hands fisted on the top railing, saw his wedding ring glinting in the afternoon sun.
Whit cleared his throat, knew he was fixing to march right straight into a big No Trespassing Zone, but he was a bull-in-a-china-shop kinda guy, always had been. They were standing on the front porch of his house, he was gonna say what he wanted. Jack could always tell him to mind his own fucking business. “You wear that ring all the time?”
Jack’s head snapped around then and Whit got a dose of those eyes the girls sometimes talked about when they thought he wasn’t listening. This time they were sharp, searching him out, nothing soft or dreamy about them, not that Whit would know soft and dreamy on a guy if it bit him on the nose.
“Yeah. I do.” He swallowed and his jaw bunched up and Whit knew he’d hit a nerve. “He don’t though.”
“I know. I don’t neither. Can’t take a chance on rippin’ a finger off.”
“Yeah. That’s what he says.” Jack went back to his far-away gazing, but he let go of the railing, toyed with the ring. “Ring don’t mean nothing anyway if the person wearing it don’t back it up.”
“True.” Whit shifted, listened for footsteps but they must be watching every video ever made or something, because it was dead silent behind them. Whit took a deep breath, popped open the can of worms that had been churning around in his gut since Thursday. “So you guys doin’ ok with that? Bein’ apart all the time can be a bitch.”
The sharp eyes were back, digging into Whit like phantom claws, searching for hiding places and secrets. “I am.”
Whit twitched his mouth, a lame imitation of a smile, which was the best he could come up with.
After a few seconds, Jack said, “I know about what happened Thursday. You can say what you wanna say.”
“Yeah, ok. I figured you musta got in on some of it,” Whit replied.
“He said nothing happened. I heard him tell you that about five times on the phone.”
“I know.”
“How come you don’t believe him?”
Whit hadn’t spent many minutes regretting things in his life, outside of most everything that happened between him and Kendall the last year of his life. He was however, suddenly regretting really badly starting this conversation that could have no good end for him, no matter how it turned out otherwise. “Guess I’m just more pessimistic than you are.”
“Of the two of us, I’m surprised you’re bein’ pessimistic about him. Figured it’d be me you’d be doubtin’ if one of us had to come under the gun.”
“Yeah, me too,” Whit admitted.
“Thanks,” Jack snapped back.
Whit figured he probably couldn’t do much more damage than he already had, and since he still felt uneasy about the whole thing, he plowed on. If he didn’t get anywhere this time, he swore to himself he’d leave off. “So you believed him.”
“Well, not at first, ‘cause he looked guilty as all hell, but I got up close to him and he still smelled like that fancy body wash Mrs. Rachel’s got in y’alls bathroom at the barn and nothin’ else, if you know what I mean, so he couldn’ta got up to much.”
Whit felt his heart unclench a little at that news. “You ain’t mad at him for goin’ in the first place?”
“Well, I was, but it ain’t his fault I’m gone all the time and he’s stuck here alone. He didn’t do nothing, and it ain’t ‘cause he was afraid of gettin’ caught ‘cause he had no idea I’d be anywhere around, and I’m pretty sure you wouldn’ta ratted him out if I hadn’t come home in the middle of it.”
Whit just sighed, didn’t answer but Jack was probably right. Ennis was his son and he wasn’t gonna throw him under the bus, at least not on the first offense.
“So I’m gonna ask you again, how come you didn’t believe him?”
Whit gritted his teeth but knew there wasn't nothing to do but spit it out. “Got a picture on my phone. Damn Barnett musta had our numbers grouped up or something. Just seemed like an awful personal thing to be sendin’ to somebody you ain’t gettin’ intimate with.”
“Jesus! You got that picture too?” Jack’s face had gone from tense to slack-jawed and flushed in about two seconds.
Whit imagined he didn’t look much better. “You saw it?”
“Well, yeah, Ennis showed it to me.” He started fidgeting, eyes shifting nervously, and it took Whit right back to when he was a kid and in trouble for something, which was a lot of the time.
This time, though, Whit felt the same way, chin-deep in a conversation that shoulda never happened but he was too far in to do anything but keep going and hope they got to the other side before his brain melted. “So, if he’s into that kind of thing, which I guess he must be considering,” and he let his eyes roam over Jack for an instant, “then I just find it kinda hard to believe he’d up and walk out on something that…umm…impressive.”
“So you ain’t never looked a set of bodacious ta-ta’s in the eye and said, ‘No thanks,’?”
Whit felt a little queasy with the direction the conversation was headed, way more personal than he wanted to get, but before he could even answer, a horrified look was glazing over Jack’s face. “You know what, forget I asked that,” he said, starting to move around Whit, off towards the yard and their car.
“No, Jack, that ain’t it. Get back here, boy,” he said, reaching out to stop Jack, fingers curling around his wrist and holding firm. “I never cheated on Rachel, so get that outta your head right now, but I know what it’s like to get tempted. That’s all.” He let Jack go, rubbed the back of his neck miserably. “Probably just been readin’ too much crap on the internet, how everybody’s cheatin’ on everybody else, nothin’s sacred no more, whole world’s goin’ to hell in a hand basket, then Ennis starts actin’ all weird and I get that picture.” He spat the word like it was dirty in his mouth, wished he could replay his life back to Thursday and do something different so none of this had ever happened.
Jack, though, he didn’t seemed riled or anxious anymore, stepped up kinda close into his space and put a kind hand on his shoulder. “You can read as much bad shit on the internet as your brain can stand, but it don’t have nothing to do with us, Mr. Whit. Me and Ennis hit a rough spot every now and then, we ain’t perfect, but we’re happy and we’re gonna keep on being happy. I promise.”
“Yeah, all right. Guess that’s what I was wantin’ to hear.”
Just then there was the clomp of footsteps in the hallway heading for the front door and Whit had a fleeting surge of hope that he might survive their conversation without getting permanently damaged, but he’d underestimated Jack by a long shot.
“And besides, if it makes you feel any better, Ennis may be shallow, but he’s never been much of a size queen. Give him a pretty face and a regulation-sized pecker, ehhh… ok, make that a little bit bigger than regulation,” he grinned, and there was one hundred percent devil in those blue eyes, “and that’s all it takes to make Ennis a happy boy. That Barnett dude? Total overkill. Kinda like Triple D hooters. Fun to look at, but anything more’n a handful or a mouthful’s just wasted. Know what I mean?”
Whit sputtered and gaped while Jack cackled evilly and elbowed him in the ribs, then jumped away just as Ennis and the women-folk trooped outside. It was time for the boys to go, ten seconds too late for Whit’s sanity but he figured that was the price he had to pay for ever thinking it was a good idea to talk about dicks to Jack fuckin’ Twist.