In the Middle of Somewhere (Middle of Somewhere, #1)(44)

Anyway, I’d taken Buddy out behind the shop expressly because I was concerned that Truman would be getting to work soon. He was the only one who came from the south and used the alley behind the shop. I never found out why Colin came through there that day.

Suddenly, Colin was there and he was screaming at Buddy, “Get the f*ck off of my little brother, you f*cking pervert.” I was afraid Colin was going to kill him. Smash his head into the cement wall. At the same moment, though, I registered that Colin coming to my defense, calling me his little brother, was the most intimate thing he’d done in years. I stood up and grabbed at Colin, yelling that it wasn’t Buddy’s fault. Buddy ran off down the alley and never came back to the shop. I’m not sure what ever happened to him. The second he was gone, Colin rounded on me. He looked like he was going to puke.

“You…. You….” Colin couldn’t even find words bad enough for what he wanted to say to me. I was terrified of him, but with Colin, you never let him know you were scared or he’d eat you alive.

“Um, so, I’m gay,” I said. I was going for levity, but my voice was scratchy and thin.

“Don’t you ever f*cking say that!” Colin said, his voice low and intense, his nostrils flared. He came toward me like a bull, head lowered.

“It’s not a big deal—” I started to say, but that was all I got out before Colin hit me in the stomach. Then the mouth. I slid down the pocked concrete wall and retched on the ground, the vomit stinging my bloodied mouth. Colin turned and stalked back through the alley the way he’d come. So much for brotherly intimacy.

“He hit the guy so hard he knocked two of his teeth out,” I say to Rex. “And got in a couple hits on me. I told my dad and my other brothers I was gay later that night so they didn’t hear it from Colin. My dad’s not religious, but I think he was praying the ground would open up and swallow him so he didn’t have to say anything.”

Rex makes a strangled sound in the back of his throat and I look over to see that he’s squeezed his wine glass so hard the stem broke in his hand.

“Shit!” I say. “Are you okay?”

“I’m sorry,” Rex says, shaking his head. “I apologize,” he says to the waiter when she comes over to clean up the spilled wine and take away his broken glass.

He turns to me. “Listen,” he says. “Can we get out of here?”

“I—sure,” I say. “Did you want—” But he’s already standing up and throwing money onto the table. I fumble for my wallet as I stand, but he’s put down more than enough, and I jog after him.

His back is to me when I get out of the restaurant, shrugging my jacket on. His hand is on the back of his neck.

“Hey,” I say. “Did you cut yourself?” He shakes his head. I step in front of him, trying to look at his face, but his chin is on his chest. I reach out and squeeze his arm. “Are you okay?” I ask again. He nods, but still doesn’t look up.

“C’mere,” I tell him, and I tug on his shirt and start walking toward my apartment.

When I unlock the door, I sit him down at the kitchen table, since the only other place to sit is on my unmade bed. Got to add new sheets to my ever-expanding list of things I need to live in Michigan and interact with other human beings.

I look at his hand and see that he really didn’t cut himself. I’ve never seen someone break a glass like that, except in cartoons.

I pull up a chair in front of his and sit, leaning close to him.

“Rex, what’s going on?” I say.

He finally looks at me and his eyes look more uncertain than I’ve ever seen them. His jaw is clenched. Whatever he sees in my face makes his expression soften. He puts his hands on my knees.

“Sorry,” he says, shaking his head. “You didn’t even get to finish your food.”

“I don’t care about that,” I tell him.

“No, really,” he says, “I apologize.” He falls into this stilted, overly formal way of speaking sometimes. When he’s nervous? Or uncomfortable. I’m not sure. “I hate that your brother did that. I can’t stand violence.”

I almost laugh. The idea that Rex, who’s six foot four, built like a bodybuilder, held me up against a tree as he fingerf*cked me, and could probably take apart any guy I’ve ever seen hates violence seems, well, laughable. But then I remember how he fixed Marilyn’s leg the night we met. How he looked at my bruises and binder-clipped my pants. How he warned me about the weather and got upset with me because sometimes people die in the snow. How he made sure I was wearing my seat belt and cooked for me and stretched me so carefully in bed when I said it had been a while. How he held me in sleep, his arms heavy, but never crushed me. How he washed my hair in the shower and put a hand over my brow so shampoo didn’t get in my eyes. How, at the diner the next morning, he winced when I burned the roof of my mouth on my coffee and silently pushed my water toward me even though I barely noticed because I do it all the time.

Rex stands abruptly and opens my refrigerator. He shakes his head and I know he’s seeing my collection of takeout condiments and a stain from last week’s leftovers that leaked.

“You don’t have any food,” he says resignedly, and waves me off before I can make any excuses. He opens the freezer and takes out… something. He rummages through my cabinets and pulls out a can of beans and box of instant rice and starts fiddling with my stove.