Destiny (Waiting for Forever) (19 page)

Adam’s chat window stayed open and green like he was online, but he didn’t send another message, and neither did I.

Later, as I sat watching the thunderstorm outside my bedroom window, it occurred to me that I’d probably ruined my friendship with Adam. He had come to terms with my decision to leave in order to find Jamie. He had hated it because he wanted me to return his feelings, but he had accepted it because my decision not to be with him was about a guy I had been involved with before Adam had come along. After our chat, I think he realized that even without Jamie, I still didn’t want to be with Adam. The change in my attitude toward him surprised me. When I had gotten on the bus in August, leaving Adam had hurt, but a few months later, I found I didn’t want to go back. I had started to carve out a life for myself in San Diego. That’s why my rapidly disappearing savings scared me. I’d seen the homeless shelters, and I’d seen the people Leo handed out blankets to. Going back to Alabama was a better alternative.

Ten

“H
EY
,
Brian, can I see you for a minute?” Kenny called as Mike and I walked to his Jeep. We’d just finished doing maintenance on a large apartment complex, and I looked forward to a long hot shower and some food. Curious, I looked up at Mike, but he just shrugged. It wasn’t like Kenny to talk to a guy alone unless his work had slipped, but he’d never had problems with me before. With a burst of excitement, I remembered that Kenny had promised to bump up my hourly after a few months. I only hoped it would be enough to cover my expenses.

When I turned to walk back to Kenny’s truck, I was surprised to see him slide into the driver’s seat. I opened the passenger door and climbed in. Papers, small pieces of equipment, and a few pieces of discarded clothing littered the floor of the extended-cab pickup. As the owner of a small business, Kenny probably lived in his truck. I knew it was not only his vehicle but kind of an office as well. I closed the door behind me and looked up at Kenny. Disconcerted, I realized his eyes were on the steering wheel. I got the feeling he didn’t want to look me in the eye.

“Brian, you know that the crew does a lot of work for APMC, right?” he asked, and, a little confused, I nodded. APMC was a property-management firm that managed dozens of apartment buildings and condos around San Diego. They split out their buildings among a couple of small landscape companies.

“APMC is a national company, they have offices all around the country, and”—he started using air quotes—“‘in an effort to streamline the expenses and get more competitive services’, they’ve opted not to renew our contract. They are going with a national company that can handle all of their properties. I mean, it makes sense, because that way they can get a high volume discount, but without their business, I… I can’t keep you, Brian.”

Kenny was firing me.

The sandwich I’d had for lunch a few hours before threatened to make a reappearance.

Too stunned to speak, I just gaped at him. He seemed to take that as an invitation to keep talking, to try to explain, but I didn’t want to listen to it. Angry tears glistened at the corners of my eyes, but I refused to let them fall.
Damn it!

“Here,” he said, handing me an envelope. “It’s two weeks’ salary, Brian. I’m so sorry. It’s the best I could do. I had to let Joey go, too, and I still have to pay the crew with almost half my business gone.” I didn’t say anything. I couldn’t, even if there had been anything to say. Opening the door, I stumbled out with the check clutched in my hand. My whole body felt cold; even the sweat that trickled down my back seemed to have frozen.

“Hey, what did Kenny want?” Mike asked as I crawled into the Jeep. I just sat there. I couldn’t tell him. I didn’t want it to be real. Then I looked down at the crumpled envelope in my hand and took a shaky breath.

“My life just ended.”

H
OURS
later, I collapsed into bed more tired and defeated than I think I had ever felt. The other guys had commiserated over the loss of my job, patting me on the head and telling me I’d find something. They didn’t realize I had run out of time. My bank balance mocked me each time I checked it. If I skipped the normal monthly bus pass, I could stay in San Diego for about a month with no income. At that point, I would no longer be able to pay my rent. Leo had been so incredibly kind to me, and I refused to hurt him or jerk him around. I would go quietly, right back to Alabama.

Of course, I’d love to see Richard and Carolyn. Even if Adam hated me, I’d still have Kyle and Sensei. Maybe I could even go back to work at the dojo. Since I’d graduated, I wouldn’t have to deal with school. I could talk to Mike and the guys over the Internet. Trying to stay positive, I told myself it wouldn’t be so bad just to keep from screaming.

Someone knocked on my door.

I rolled over to face the wall, ignored the knock, and hoped they’d just go away. Since moving here, I’d started sleeping naked, and I didn’t feel like getting dressed again. Luck just seemed to be eluding me today because they knocked again. I sighed and looked at the door to see that I’d locked it when I came in.

“What?” I barked, beyond my limit for patience.

“It’s me,” Mike said, his voice muffled by the wood.

“I’m not really in the mood for sex tonight,” I said, my voice heavy with sarcasm, but made no move to get off the bed.

“Open the goddamned door, Brian,” Mike growled in frustration. I waited a minute, trying to decide if I really wanted to open it. After all, pity parties were solo affairs. In the end, I rolled off the edge of the bed and walked to the door, not bothering to put my jeans back on. Standing naked in front of the door, I unlocked it and threw it open. Mike’s eyes bulged as he stood unmoving in the doorway. I started to push the door closed, but he apparently found his focus and blocked the door with his body. He pushed past me into the room, and I closed the door behind him.

“What?” I asked, standing there with my hands resting on my naked hips.

“I wanted to see if you were in here pouting, and I see that you are,” he said, mimicking my stance, only his hands were on hips covered in denim.

“What is wrong with you?” I asked, ignoring the shocked look on his face. “Without that job, I don’t have the money to stay here, Mike. I’m going to have to go back to Alabama. I’m screwed.” Going over to my dresser, I pulled out an old pair of cutoff sweats and threw them on.

“No, you’ll find something,” Mike said, but his face had gone pale.

“No, I won’t. I don’t have time. Without that money coming in from Kenny, I can stay another month, maybe two if I push it. Then it’s back on the bus and back to God’s country.”

Mike’s mouth opened and closed a few times, almost as if he were choking on what he wanted to say. Finally, he just closed it and stared out the window for a long moment.

“I’m sorry, Brian.”

“Yeah, I’m sorry too. I finally found a place where I fit in, where I have friends, and I have to leave.”

“Hey,” he said, suddenly brightening. “A couple of us are going up to San Francisco for the weekend. Em’s got a job up there. Come with us!”

“Have you heard
anything
I’ve said? I’m broke, Mike. You want me to go out partying with you guys?” I asked, my voice rising and breaking with strain. “What the hell, man?”

“I’ve heard
everything
you said, and maybe I want to spend some time with you before I never see you again!” He pushed me, and I went to push him back, but he caught me in a hug instead, pulling my head onto his shoulder. I struggled for barely a second before the whole day caught up with me and I clung to him.

“It will be okay, Brian, I promise,” Mike whispered, stroking my hair. “I promise, baby.” I didn’t see how that could be true, and I tightened my grip, burying myself in his warmth and his promise, trying not to let everything fly apart.

T
WO
days later, on Thursday morning, Mike, Emilio, and I packed our bags into the back of Mike’s Jeep. Emilio shoved two bags on top of each other with a sheepish grin.

“Lord, we’re gonna be back on Monday, man,” Mike said with a low chuckle. “You really need two bags of clothes?” Smirking at Mike, I put my single duffel next to Emilio’s bags.

“Yeah, Em, I came to California with one duffel of clothes and I’d planned to be here for more than four days,” I said, but then remembered I’d soon be going home with that same duffel, and the laughter died in my throat. With a sigh, I picked up the cooler we’d brought road snacks in and got in the back seat. It would take a little over ten hours to get to San Francisco, and while we’d stop for dinner along the way, Mike argued that snacks were essential.

When Mike opened the driver’s side door to get in, he flipped the lever to put the seat down and leaned into the back seat where I sat. He put his hand on the back of my neck, pulled me forward, and then whispered in my ear.

“We’re gonna have a good time this weekend, right?” I pulled back a little and looked at him as he smiled gently.

“I promise, no moping. We’ll have a fantastic weekend, just the three of us,” I said. Leaning forward, I kissed him and heard a low groan from the passenger window. Emilio stood just outside the door, watching us kiss.

“If you guys are going to keep doing that, I’m not going to make it to my shoot,” he said and then looked up at Mike. The fear in his face surprised me, but Mike just shook his head and told Emilio to get his ass in the Jeep.

Brutal traffic slowed our road trip to a crawl as we made our way out of the city. We passed the time by talking about random things from television to cooking to what Emilio wanted to wear when we went out that night. Mike said we were going to hit a few bars, and when I protested, Emilio dug his wallet out of his back pocket.

“Brian, meet Braden Schneider,” he said and handed me a laminated card. I flipped it over and my mouth fell open. It was a California driver’s license with my picture and the name Braden Schneider. It accurately reported the month and day of my birth date but backed the year up, making me twenty-one.

“I… I can’t use this! Don’t they put people in jail for impersonating someone?” I asked, but didn’t hand the license back.

“Uh, no,” Mike snorted as he looked back at me in the mirror. “That’s only if you impersonate a doctor or a cop. If you get caught, they’ll just take it away, don’t worry. And if you get totally loaded, we made the name close enough to your real name that you wouldn’t screw yourself.”

“When did you do this?” I asked, still amazed by the card.

“It took a while, it’s true. We were going to give it to you anyway. It just happened to be ready before we left,” Emilio admitted with a smile.

“I can’t believe you guys did this for me.” I would miss them so much when I went back. I refused to call it home, because my home was with them.

Mike drove for most of the trip as we flew up Highway 5 through Los Angeles and toward San Francisco. Last night when Mike had mentioned the trip would take a little over ten hours each way, I had thought we’d be bored senseless, but we weren’t. I sat wide-eyed in the back seat, my eyes nearly popping from my head as we drove into LA. Mike muttered something about traffic in the city, but it gave me time to look around. My eyes tried to be everywhere at once as I stared, first at the cars that surrounded us on the highway, then at the city around us. Cars were packed on the highway, almost like interconnected Lego blocks, except that they weren’t touching. All different colors and sizes of vehicles came together to make one huge mass of metal and glass. Even in San Diego, I’d never seen so many people. I felt a little dizzy and claustrophobic, so I opened the cooler and took out a Sprite. Whenever I felt off, the sugar and carbonation in soda always made it better.

“Hey, toss me one of those,” Emilio said when he heard the pop as I opened the can. I pulled another can out of the cooler and handed it to him between the front seats. When he looked up, his brow furrowed.

“Are you okay, kid?” he asked quietly, and Mike used the opportunity of unmoving traffic to turn and look at me too.

“Yeah, there’s just a lot of people,” I said. “I’m just not…. I don’t know, I’m not good around a lot of people. Sensei called it PTSD, but I’m not sure I believe in all that,” I said without thinking. Emilio’s mouth fell open.

“Baby,” he said, and rested his hand on my knee. “What happened?” The soft quiver in his voice meant to me that it wasn’t a question that came from a gossip-like curiosity but because he was honestly concerned about me. I kind of gave him a half smile and told him about Brad Mosely. Traffic started to move while I talked, and the story carried us into the heart of Los Angeles.

Late that afternoon, we decided to stop for dinner. Thrilled to get out of the car for a while, I stretched for several minutes and worked the cramps out of my legs. The bar and grill Mike had found overflowed with people, and a really hot blond guy took Mike’s name and put us on a list. When Mike also gave him his phone number, we moved up several notches on the list. Emilio wanted to wait out on the benches just outside the front doors. The weather was beautiful, so we agreed and followed him outside. The sound of Mike’s name over the loudspeaker a few minutes later surprised us, and I looked over at Mike, who just smirked. Emilio rolled his eyes and threw his arm around me as we walked back inside.