Everything's Fine

"Oh, cut it out." I can feel her rolling her eyes even though I can't see them. "What do you even have in common anymore?"

"The same stuff we always had in common."

"Nothing, then?"

"I love him." I take a long drink of coffee. "Have for a long time."

"You're in love with a ghost."

"He's a real person, and he's actually fucking here."

I'm whisper-yelling, and I can tell that she's taken aback by the outburst. It's not something I would have done even six months ago, much less the last time I saw her. Wrinkles appear on her lips as she purses them.

"Is that all it takes?"

"Fuck you. You don't get to leave me here with all this..." I gesture at the air around me. "And then come back and lecture me about a goddamn thing - "

"It's not a lecture, I'm just saying that - "

"I don't give a shit, Londra, you're high as a fucking kite right now and I don't have to - "

"Of course you want to throw that in my face, always do - "

"Maybe if you'd fucking listen for a change, I wouldn't need to keep - "

"Whatever." She laughs bitterly. "Throw your life away. It's up to you."

"You sure have, so I don't know what the fuck you think you know about keeping your life together."

"I know Roscoe's bad news."

"It's been seventeen years!"

"I can count - "

"Life went on without you, Londra, we didn't all just freeze while you were galivanting around."

"If you say so, you're the expert - "

"He sees me." I spit. "Who am I now. Not just who I was back then. Which is more than I can say for you."

She falls silent. After a moment, she reaches into her bag and reapplies her lipstick, not bothering with a mirror. I rub my fingers in my eyes and take a few deep breaths. God only knows why I get so riled up; this is just how talking goes in our family. Thought I was used to it, but since me and him got back together, I don't know. Feels like it's all about to explode.

Kurt says I hide how I feel, but that's bullshit. Truth is, nobody listens.

"How's all that going, by the way?" she asks after a long moment. "The fire chief stuff?"

"It's going."

It's the same story all over town - people did what they had to do to make ends meet and hadn't had the money for professional work. Now, even with money flowing again, it's hell trying to bring them all into compliance. Everyone got used to getting by on a wing and a prayer and now nobody wants to bother doing things the right way. A lot of folks have left this town for a lot of reasons, and if we want to be the kind of place people stay, some stuff has got to change.

She snorts. "What about the politician part of it?"

People like to get intimate with public figures. They feel like you're some kind of therapist or guru when you have a uniform, and they want to tell you all about the problem with government and their marriage and the mold in their basement and all the other gay people they've ever met. I'd hated it at first, all these people who felt like I owed them because they paid my salary. But after a while I started to see things differently.

"People give a damn what I say," I tell her. "I matter to somebody."

A long moment passes before she replies. She starts and stops a few times before she sighs and pats my hand awkwardly before taking it in hers and squeezing.

"I'm glad," she says. A deep melancholy settles into her voice. "I'm happy for you."

She falls silent again, lets my hand go. Someone speeds past on a bike, narrowly missing a pedestrian. The barista shouts out names behind me. I want to apologize, but I stop myself. I got nothing to be sorry for. Let someone else make something up to me for once.

"You think you'll survive Thursday?"

She shrugs. "Survived everything else."

It's not that simple. He's making a lot of hay about this dinner, and neither of us knows the reason. I don't know what I'll do if something's wrong with him. What Londra will do.

"I asked around," I say. "Nobody's heard anything."

She nods.

*

It's Friday.

Kurt's place is nice in a fresh-out-of-the-box kind of way - new vinyl, new wood, new style. Whole neighborhood is like that, nestled between the boat club and a Christmas tree farm. The houses are ultramodern block-and-glass constructions that contrast sharply with the lush woodland around them. They make me think of knives.

I'm sitting on the rocking bench he has out front. It's cold. The whole property is covered in fallen leaves and pine needles; he tries to keep the slab of concrete he calls a porch clear by sweeping it every morning, but it's littered again before noon. The next house over seems mighty close, but Kurt doesn't mind. After so long with no real home at all, I think he likes having neighbors in sight.

I hardly hear him approach before his arms are looped around my neck. The bench groans under our combined weight as he leans over me, kissing me slowly on the cheek.

"Hi," he says.

It's not even noon. He works construction so his hands are covered in sawdust and all kinds of other grime. He smells like freshly cut wood, oil, metal. I just got done showering so I probably smell like dish soap, which is what I used since he was all out of body wash.

"Hi."

"You smell nice." It's more of a groan than it is a set of words. "I ever tell you that?"

"You don't have to." He runs his tongue along the outside of my ear; I lean into it. "Everybody loves the smell of Dawn in the morning."

He chuckles, but there's strain in his voice from bending over. His back and shoulders give him a lot of trouble. "They sent us home early. Lumber's late coming in."

"Mmm." A bird calls loudly somewhere behind us; there's no answer. "Wondered what the hell you were doing here."

I turn and kiss him on the mouth before standing up. He huffs a complaint as I pull away from him and slip back into the house, the floor cold under my bare feet.

There's not much in the way of décor. He's never been one for the kind of art that goes on a wall, so they're bare except for the taupe paint the house came with. There are tools everywhere in all kinds of bags and boxes and containers; I don't know what half of them are for, and I'm pretty handy. An enormous sectional takes up too much of the living room; we almost have to climb over it to reach the patio door. The one time I had the gall to suggest getting a smaller one he said we were done if I ever mentioned it again.

The television is massive, too, almost seventy inches, and Kurt loves every single one of them, watching movies and soap operas and Netflix shows at maximum volume even when I'm trying to sleep, shaking my leg when a house explodes or someone gets betrayed, wide eyed and joyful talking back, like he and the actors are making the movie together. Right now there's a slideshow playing, a grinning Kurt surrounded by people and places I don't recognize.

"That's Kentucky," he says. On the screen there's a picture of a truck in the side of a highway; behind it there's a mountain covered in trees. "Fall. Favorite drive in the country, hands down."

Arms snake around my waist as he pulls me back against him, kissing my shoulder, my neck, my ear. The picture fades into another, this one of Kurt posing with two diner waitresses in front of a booth. He looks happy.

I place my hands over his, not sure what else to do with them. "You've been so many places."

"Hmmm." He's nibbling on my ear now. "Been through a lot of places, a lot of different times. Not quite the same."

"Better than me," I mutter.

"How do you figure?"

"You're telling me you'd rather be stuck in a place like this?"

"Are you stuck here?"

"I..." I bite my lip and try to keep my breathing regular, even as my eyes start to sting. "I don't know, I - "

"You're not." He's resolute. "We can go anywhere you want, Caleb. You could have gone anywhere you wanted to, anytime. But I don't..." He sighs. "I don't think you wanted to, baby."

I scoff.

"You don't need to be ashamed of that."

"Yeah. Right."

"You are so fucking hard on yourself." He squeezes me tighter. "I don't pretend to understand it. We're different people. But you wouldn't be so miserable if you weren't always...measuring yourself. You know?"

"I'm not miserable."

He sighs. "Maybe miserable is too strong. But you're unhappy a lot of the time. And I thought at first it was because you were still mad that I'd ditched you, and maybe it is because of that, a little bit. I just wish I knew what to do."

"It's not your fault." I take a deep breath. "It's just...everything."

"What's everything?"

I shrug. "I don't know."

"Yes you do."

"It's stupid. None if it is even that big of a problem, not like other people have - "

"Again with the measuring."

"It's true - "

"Don't worry about how big of a problem it is. Just say it."

I chuckle and rest against him, glad we're not facing each other. "Things used to be better. Or seemed like they were better."

"Better how?"

"Simpler." I bite my lip. "Around the time we met. We were hanging around together, so that was exciting. My family, we were...we all still lived together. Saw each other every day."

"Okay," he says. "What else?"

"Just seemed like...I was more sure of things. Felt like I knew what was gonna happen to me, or what could happen, at least. I knew where I was going, who might be coming with me."

"And now?"

"Now...I lost you. Lost Londra. My parents are gone - "

"Oh, they are not gone, Caleb."

"Not physically."

"And what are you gonna do about that?" he says shortly.

"I don't know."

"I'm back now," he says. "You got me, and I ain't going nowhere again. Might take some time for you to believe that, but still. Here I am, every day."

"Yeah..."

"Your sister has her own shit to deal with, might not be around for a while yet. You can't control that, so stop fretting over it."

"That's - "

"Your daddy's been begging to talk to you for a while, says your mama wants to see you, too. Looks to me like you're the one who's in your own way."

"I hardly know my mom, and dad just wants to get rid of you." I close my eyes. "That's the only thing he's interested in, his image in this town. Doesn't care about me at all."

"You care about your image, too" he says with a laugh. "It ain't just your daddy."

"What? No I don't, I - "

"Baby, it's not a bad thing."

"I am not like that - "

"You're a small-town fire chief. You saved a kid from a fire when you were just a trainee - hell, you been running around checking smoke detectors in folks' houses! People like you, respect you. It's okay to want that."

"That's not how it is." I turn my head and speak over my shoulder. "It's not who I am."

"No wonder you two fight all the time - "

"I wouldn't be dating you if all I cared about is what other people think of me," I bite out. "But I guess it's good to know you think I'm so shallow."

"Are you even listening to me? It's not shallow to take yourself seriously. It's not shallow to want to make a difference. I like it - "

"Sure." I shake my head. "Sure you do."

"You're not sixteen anymore, Caleb." His voice is stern. "Enough pouting. Things aren't the way you want 'em and they're never gonna be the way you want 'em if you don't make it happen. We're not that young. We're all gonna be dead one day, you know that?"

The silence swells between us; he finally gives a dismissive snort.

"It hasn't always been easy to look back over stuff I've done and said to folks I love." His voice catches. "And the stuff and haven't done or said. But you can't go back, you can just go forward and try to make the life you want now."

"You been in therapy, too?" I mutter.

"Not exactly," he says. "But maybe you should consider it before mouthing off about it. Seems like you could use a little perspective in your life."

He lets me go. I hear him pad his way up the stairs and close a door.

*

Our first shower together was at the town pool. Kurt got the keys from somewhere - he had a knack for getting things he shouldn't have had - and told me to meet him there after school. I was close to graduating and he had dropped out, and everything felt so dangerous, so wild in the best possible way. It was only a few weeks before Andrew's fire, and my whole world was Kurt. Seemed then like that was all my life ever would be made of, which sounded fine to me.

The water pressure was a joke and there was hardly space for the two of us in the stall, but there was light from high windows and the door was locked. The world was ours. It wasn't the first time we'd had sex, but it was the first time we'd been so intimate, and in my memory the orgasms hardly register beside my caressing of his wide back, the shape of his hip, the corded muscles of his lower legs. He studied my collarbones and my hands and my jawline like he'd never seen them before and might never again. He stood back and asked me to get under the shower, meager as it was. Said he wanted to watch the water run over me.

Now the shower in the hall bath is running. I'm peering in through the cracked door, watching his blurred form move behind the frosted glass. He's covered in soap.

I walk in and peel out of my clothes. He doesn't like the water as hot as I do - never has - so I know I won't get scalded when I climb inside. He's facing the showerhead. His back is meatier now, softer, less chiseled than when we were young. There are scars there I haven't yet asked about; he grunts when he has to lift his arms too high. He leans with his hand pressed against the wall to his right for balance while he reaches for the Dawn dish soap. Water beads up in the hair on his shoulders.

"Are you really going to use that?"

"You did." He adjusts the pressure from the showerhead, slowing it. "Besides, I've used worse."

My hands graze his hip, his ass, the flesh of his waist. "Like what?"

"Used that soapy steel wool one time," he says. Chuckles, then gasps as I reach around the front of him. "Didn't feel like getting out of the shower to grab the regular soap under the sink."

"Lazy." I sound drunk. His cock is soft under my hands. "Must have cut your skin up."

"Mmm." He sighs as pull him against me, my cheek resting against the top of his shoulder. "Well, exfoliating is good, ain't it? I was just ahead of my time."

The hair in his thighs is coarser than the hair on his chest and catches my nails. The skin underneath has the deep and permanent redness of repeated sunburns; his muscles are taut and unyielding.

He caresses my forearm, fingers the large shiny patch on the underside.

"Does it hurt?"

"Not anymore," I tell him. "And it wasn't too bad. Small price to pay."

A sewing shop caught fire a few months ago - electrical - and I'd been burned dragging out the woman who owned it. I wasn't in full gear. She lived above the store, took some sleeping pills and so didn't hear the alarm. I hadn't noticed my burn until the fire was out and we were back at the small station. I was trying to slip out of my undershirt and I couldn't seem to get my arm out of it. The sleeve was burned to my skin.

He turns in my arms and looks me in the face, the wrinkles around his eyes and mouth catching water. "I love what you do, but I don't like that part," he says. "I worry about it. About you."

I rest my chin on his shoulder. "Hardly the worst squeeze I've ever been in."

"Not making me feel any better, here."

"You know how important it is." The water is hitting me straight on and it's impossible to keep my eyes open. "To the town. To me."

"You're what's important to me."

"Your job is dangerous, too. You gonna quit?"

He grumbles something I can't hear.

"Eventually," he says finally. "Hell, it ain't gonna be up to me. Shit's rough on the body. Already look ten years older than I am. Feel twenty years older - "

I pull his head toward me and kiss him, hold on hand against the curve of his skull and slide the other around his waist, up his back. One of us opens his mouth and there aren't any more words, only kissing, groping, stroking. He turns to face the knobs and shower head again, leaning against the wall. We don't have any lube in hear, but precum can be enough if I use his too.

It's slow going, hard to hold back listening to the sounds he makes while I'm entering him, but when I'm all the way in he makes this sound like he's crying and starts fucking me back, using the wall for leverage. He lifts a leg and puts his foot on the soap holder so I can get in deeper, and our grunts and cries echo around the bathroom, and with my arms gripping him and all the steam around us and my cock being squeezed so tight I think I might pass out from the pleasure of it. Like our hearts might stop dead in their tracks and send us floating away.

*

Kurt has glowing stars on his ceiling. Says he always wanted them when he was a kid, and now that all the money he has belongs to him, he'll do what he wants with it. They're only faintly glowing because he forgot to open the window so they could get sunlight, but I can still see them. He's laid across me, cheek against my chest.

"I don't care that much what people think," I tell him quietly. "I just want people to respect me."

"Mmmm."

"And that's not the same as him. He wants full-on approval. Applause."

"I understand," he says. "I'm sorry I said that. Before. That you were like him."

"Yeah, well...still might be a little like him. Just not the same."

He plants a loud kiss on my chest then lays back down. "We all turn into our parents in the end, maybe. At least a little bit."

"You're not like your parents."

He snorts. "I'm just like my mama," he says. "Reckless. Less than I used to be, but still."

"I don't think you're that reckless."

"You think all these scars I got came from following the rules? The other guys learned early on to steer clear of me when I'm swinging a hammer or a saw or something."

"Bold. That's what you are."

"Yeah." He shifts. "I like that, that makes it sound better."

The roar of insects floats in through the open window.

"What about your dad?"

"What about him? Never met him, you know that." He laughs. "My mama was reckless, remember."

"That doesn't bother you? You don't care?"

"Caleb..." he sighs. "I never saw much good in worrying about shit I can't change. I won't say I never wondered about him, but he ain't here. This is the life I got. I'll do what I can with that."

"Wish I was like that."

"Everybody can't be like that," he mutters. "Wouldn't be any soap operas if they were."

"I guess."

"And maybe..." Hesitation, then a sigh. "Andrew might have turned out different. If there was somebody given to fretting in our house."

I stroke his hair.

"Guess we'll never know."

My phone is alight on the table beside the bed, charging. The unanswered calls from my parents, mostly my father, piling up, condemning me every time I pick up the thing. Kurt sees me looking.

"Getting down to the wire," he says.

"Yeah."

"What do you want to do?"

"Can't we just go to your mom's house?"

"My mom's gone, went to visit her people in Tennessee."

"We can go there, then!"

"Caleb."

"I want to go." I sigh deeply. "Not sure if I should."

"What are you so worried will happen? Worst case you're in the same place you are now."

"They weren't there for me when I really needed them." I try not to sound as bitter as I feel. "Not just the Andrew stuff, even after that, they just...I never get what I need. Don't want to bring all that up again."

"Do they know what you want from 'em?"

"It's obvious."

"Still."

"I shouldn't have to tell them, they should know."

"They should," he says. "But maybe they don't."

"So...what? I just go beg them to love me right?" I bite my lip. "Hope they'll be gracious enough to pay me the favor?"