“NOTHING,” Tyler barks. “Get out of here. For fuck’s sake.”
I stride into the hallway, shaking my head as Andrew puts his hands out, palms to the ceiling, searching for an explanation. “They fucked,” I mutter.
Andrew mumbles an expletive under his breath and rubs his face in a way that screams frustration.
Rustling sounds emanate from the kitchen, but I have no idea what’s going on.
Have Tyler and Sandy made up? I doubt it very much. Tyler can’t talk about what happened to Jake, even to the people in his life who know and would never judge him. There is no way he’d open up that way with Sandy.
“Fuck.” It’s Tyler’s voice, laced with frustration and distress, and the urge to go back into that room and yank my friend out of the situation that is only going to cause him to hurt is so strong that I have to grip my hands into fists to control it.
Tyler was the one who brought me back from the brink. He visited me in jail as often as they would allow, and he was there, the last time, to collect me. He was the one who told me I was never going back.
“It’s okay,” Sandy says, her voice soft and soothing. At least she’s not freaking out at him, because that would make everything so much worse.
“Shit.” Andrew paces in front of me, his face constantly turning back to the kitchen door. He’s having the same trouble staying out here that I am.
“I could say that it’ll be okay, but I’d be fucking lying.” There’s a deadness to my tone that I don’t like. There was a time when that was the only kind of tone I used, but since we opened Deep Repairs and I’ve had a chance to see what normal life can be like, that side of me was put to bed. Now it’s back.
“I’m coming in,” I say, losing a grip on my control. I’d rather Tyler was pissed at me, and I had a handle on the situation.
“Stay the fuck out there,” Tyler growls, and I stop abruptly in the doorway. It’s Sandy who rounds the corner, her face twisted, her pajamas still disheveled.
“He’s gone blank,” she says. “He won’t look at me. He won’t let me touch him.”
“Shit.” Andrew puts his arm around Sandy, and she slips into his embrace so comfortably that I’m left with my mouth hanging open. When did he cultivate this level of familiarity? She’s hardly spent time with any of us.
“I’ll go,” I say. “You take Sandy back to Tyler’s room.”
Andrew nods once, and then I’m rounding the kitchen door, searching for Tyler in the darkness. “Hey, T.” I approach him slowly like I would a dangerous animal. It’s not that I’m worried that he might attack me physically. I have him by at least twenty pounds of muscle and ten years of violent experience. I’m the eldest in the group by a long way, the unofficial pop or big brother. It’s more that he’s going to be emotionally volatile, and I don’t want to antagonize him.
“Don’t ‘hey’ me, man,” he says. It’s muffled because he’s sitting with his face in his hands, curved over like someone with a ton of brick on his shoulders.
“How’d it happen?” I ask, leaning against the counter. Getting closer will just piss him off.
“I had a nightmare, and she was there, and I don’t know…it was like muscle memory. It was like it took nothing at all to slip back into what we were.”
“So you didn’t talk.”
Tyler shakes his head. “I’m done talking, G. I just want the ghosts in my head to shut the fuck up.”
“But Sandy isn’t a ghost. She’s a real person, and you’re probably going to need to have a conversation with her.”
Tyler clears his throat, glancing up at me through eyes that are pinched at the corners. “There’s nothing that I can say that will fix things.”
“Better leave them broken then,” I tell him. It’s not that I believe my words, more that I know Tyler isn’t capable of fixing anything if he doesn’t have the strength to tell me I’m wrong.
“If it was just me…” he trails off, eyes flicking back and forth as though he’s searching for something in the dark.
“If it was just you, what?”
“Then I’d leave it…but this is Sandy. I fucked up once. I can’t fuck up again, for her sake.”
“Can I give you some advice?” Tyler nods, his face open and his expression desperate. “Don’t do this tonight. Discussions never go well at night. Our minds can’t take the complex shit when we’re tired. Leave it until tomorrow.”
“But she’s upset,” Tyler says.
“I don’t think so. She was more worried about you. Andrew’s taken her back to your room.”
I’m expecting Tyler to be pissed about that. Sandy was his girl, after all, so it’d be understandable if he was territorial about her, but that isn’t what I see. Instead, he seems relieved.
“Andrew will look after her.” Tyler lets out a long breath and stands, pacing a little before he heads to the sink to fix himself a drink. “Andrew always knows what to do.”
He’s right. If I’m the big brother of the group with the wisdom that comes with experience, then Andrew is the conciliator. He always knows what to say when things are getting heated. Whenever we got into trouble as kids, he’d know just how to smooth things over. I avoided more than one bloody nose because of his negotiation skills. Most importantly, he can make all of us see a different viewpoint, and with that strategy, there are rarely arguments that can’t be solved.
“Maybe he’ll help her understand,” I say.
“Maybe he’ll fuck her too,” Tyler mutters. At least, that’s what I think I hear.
“What?”
Tyler shrugs, placing the empty glass on the counter and then turning to look at me. “What do you think of Sandy?”
I take a step back in surprise. No good ever comes from a man asking another man what he thinks of his woman. There are boundaries between men for a reason. Boundaries that you cross knowing no good will come.
“She seems like a great girl,” I say. That’s the line. No further.
“Pretty?”
“Sure. A real peach,” I say. “You were a lucky man.” Definitely no further.
He nods, a small and strange smile ghosting at his lips.
“I was.”
Nodding just once, I fold my arms across my chest. It’s a defensive move, but I can’t help myself. There is something about this conversation, about this whole situation, that doesn’t strike me as right. There’s a natural order to life, and when it’s broken…
“Thanks,” he says when I don’t reply. “I must have been making some racket for you and Andrew to come sprinting down here.
“We’re always here for you,” I tell him.
“And for Sandy?”
“Sure,” I say as he pauses in front of me. “Your friends and family are my friends and family,” I say. “Ride or die. You know that.”
“Good,” Tyler says. He flops back onto the sofa. “Night, G.”
“Night, man.” It doesn’t feel right to leave him when everything is telling me that he’s messed up and needs me. Everything is telling me except my eyes. My eyes detect something completely different.