|photo by Glenn Carstens Peters from Unsplash|

Content Warning: There's a lot of Josh in this scene—and therefore, quite a bit of unsavory language. *author grimaces, thinking of one reader in particular.*

The rain stops before I get to the club but the golf course is a wet, soggy mess so the head pro lets me go at 5:30. I hang out in the parking lot for another hour listening to music because Dad has a date tonight and I'm hoping to miss him. But when I open the garage door, his car's still there and the kitchen stinks of aftershave.

I hope to God that woman isn't coming over here.

"Dad?" 

"I'm here," he says from the downstairs bathroom.

"I invited Josh over."

Dad leans his head out the door. "Is that a threat?"

It's hard to know for sure, because of the toothbrush in his mouth, but it sounds like he's joking. "No sir," I say, polite, just in case. "It's more like a warning. It's not too late for me to un-invite him."

But I'd rather not. I'm still worked-up over my conversation with Ally and I need some high-def, post-apocalyptic, mutant-blasting therapy.

"No," Dad says. He finishes his teeth and comes out finger combing what's left of his hair. "We've been invited to a party down in The Fan." His eyes get all narrow and suspicious, like he's getting ready to remind me about the house rules. But then he takes a breath, exhales it quick and says, "How was your visit with Ally?"

And that right there is the question I was trying to avoid.

"Did you get out of the car?" he asks.

I nod once. Yeah, I got out of the damned car.

"Did she remember you?"

"No." I hold up my watch. "Shouldn't you be heading out?"

"Janice had to work late."

Perfect.

"Are you all right, son?"

"I'd rather not talk about Ally if that's okay with you."

"You'd rather not talk to me or not talk at all?"

Now see, that's a trap. Neither answer is acceptable.

"Not talk right now," I say. "It's been a long day and I want to take a shower before Josh gets here."

"Okay," Dad says. Then he nods and says it again, like there's a whole lot of agreeing going on inside his head. "So, which one of us is taking the old man shopping this week?" 

And there's the excuse I was looking for. "I'll do it. I'm off all day Wednesday."

"It sure would make life easier if you could talk him into moving in with us."

"What makes you think I can talk Gramps into anything?" I ask, sort of pissed now.

"I don't know. You look so much like my brother did at your age and Patrick had a way about him. He was just about the only person in the world who had any kind of influence over my father."

"If you're asking me to pretend I'm—"

"No, son, I'm not. I'm just looking for answers."

* * *

Josh brings beer from his garage refrigerator because nobody at his house ever notices it missing—unlike my house, where Dad takes inventory on an hourly basis.

"Is your dad out with the woman with the gloopy eyes?" Josh asks, holding his free hand in front of one eye and waving his fingers. I give him the quit-being-a-dumbass look, slide a beer out of its cardboard slot and head for the TV room.

"Oh, so it's like that, is it?" Josh says, with all kinds of attitude.

"Yep. And there's pizza on the counter."

"Guess who showed up at the pool bright and early this morning?" he asks, following me.

I sink into the couch and find the remote.

"Sweet little Lindsay came back to see if you were okay. She felt real bad about makin' you puke the other day," he adds, doing his shitty impersonation of my accent.

I clench my teeth and turn on the Xbox. Josh gets the controllers out of the cabinet and chucks one at my head. "I didn't let on," he says. "But I was right pissed when she told me you'd been goin' up to the treatment center. How come you don't talk to me no more?"

"Because you're a dumbass."

"Seriously, Dodge," he says, sounding pissed now. "What are you doing?"

"I asked you to come over here because I wanna blow shit up."

He presses the start button. We blow shit up for like five seconds and then he says, "Lindsay told me about Ally's memory."

He lets that hang out there. Like he's waiting for me to say something.

"She also told me the last thing she said before you blew Captain Chunks," he adds when I ignore him. "It kind of confirmed this idea I've been having—about you blaming yourself for something you had no control of?"

I circle my avatar behind Josh's and blast him out of the game.

"Mm hm," he says. "Thought so."

"Josh, just..." Dammit. "Find your balls and get in the game."

He smiles and taps out a finger-beat on the sides of his controller. Anything and everything is a drum to Josh Porter. "What do you want from me?" I ask him.

"I want you to say the words. Get it out before you explode. You should see the veins bulging out of your head right now. Go look in the mirror."

"Are you playing or not?"

"Not."

"Dammit, Josh, can you just—for one time—can you shut the fuck up long enough to get through a mission?"

"Huh, I don't think..." He makes a show of scratching his scruffy cheek, like he's in deep thought. "Nope, that's the first time I've ever heard you say the word fuck. It's even worse than I thought." He drops the controller and leans forward, grabbing the coffee table for leverage so he can hoist himself out of the man-eating coach. "Does your dad know you haven't been going to practice?" he asks on his way to the kitchen.

Dad hasn't asked. Probably because I made sure he's seen me carry my gym bag to and from my car a couple of times.

"I give it a week," Josh says. "You hold it all in for one more week and boom! Your dad will be wiping little chunks of your brain off the walls."

I lob a grenade at his newly regenerated avatar. My cell phone buzzes my back pocket in sync with the vibrating controller. I glance at Josh to make sure he's preoccupied before I take out my phone because I have a feeling...

Yep, it's Ally.

Thank you for visiting me this morning. My friend Grace helped me "hack" into Allyson's Facebook account tonight. I didn't have time to read very much (because I'm going to her birthday party), but I started at the beginning and I wanted you to know that she liked you a lot too. : )

"You are one pale motherfucker right now."

Josh is standing in front of me holding a paper plate stacked with pizza.

And then the plate is on the table and my phone is in his hand and I'm not sure if he took it or if I handed it to him. Either way, I don't object. My temples are throbbing and the pressure is building and I can't shake the image of my head going off like that grenade.

Josh moves his thumb over my screen, scrolling back to the start of the conversation. His forehead is all I see now that he shaved his head. And right now it's nothing but horizontal lines of wrinkled skin. Dumbass. 

"You went inside," he says.

The surprise in his tone is genuine and it sort of pisses me off.

"How'd she look?" he asks.

"Great."

"But she talks about herself in the third person."

Now his tone says that's weird as shit. Which is a relief. I really don't know what to do with the third-person thing. It seems a little...

"When are you going back?" he asks, but his eyes are narrow, like he already knows the answer. "You're thinking about not going." He closes his throat around a sigh to make it extra loud and shakes his head, judging me.

No, the dumbass is analyzing me.

Josh's entire family went to see a psychologist a few years back after his dad moved out. It all worked out—and that's great for them but it sucks for me. Now Josh thinks he can solve everyone else's problems by talking the shit out of them.

"You're thinking that if Ally keeps reading, she'll find out that you're the one who started the rumor," he says and I give him a nod. "She'll find out you're the reason dickheads like Dillon Van Cleave thought it was okay to get up-close and personal with her ass every time he walked past her," he adds.

I drop my head back against the couch because I wasn't thinking about that, but I will now—all damned night. 

"The shit's gotta come out, man. That's what shit does. It comes out." 

"That's real profound," I say, lifting my head. "Thank you, Dr. Phil."

Josh gives me the finger and tosses my phone in my lap. "You need to crash that party tonight." 

"No."

"Yes. You need to be the one who tells her."

"It's not gonna make a difference."

"Dude, she was ready to forgive you before you saved her life. Go tell her your side of the story. Don't let her read it on fucking Facebook."

I roll my eyes and Josh says, "Don't give me that stupid look you stubborn piece of shit. I've been listening to you cry about that girl long enough to know you're not walking away from this."

"I'm supposed to go back Wednesday."

"Yeah, stick with the too-little-too-late plan. That's always worked out so well for you in the past."

Author Note: I'm a little embarrassed by the lack of description in this scene. But I'm too lazy to do anything about it. lol