Caleb

I kicked a man’s face in tonight.

He lost a tooth and I lost my girlfriend.

She said I should’ve apologized, that I should’ve regretted beating the smirk off a stranger who said he’d kissed her. But I didn’t, I couldn’t,  ‘cause he wasn’t a stranger to her. I would’ve walked away from a liar. Problem was, he’d only told the truth.

It was Hailey who hadn’t been. 

An hour ago, she’d had her eyes on the same guy sitting two tables down. I’d let it slide, ‘cause the girl I’d risked my life for wouldn’t do that to me.

She looked beautiful, like always, her pretty brown bangs swept across her face, faint blush in her cheeks, and her little pink lips pursed but still tempting enough to kiss like crazy. 

We’d made it a year together and I still could lose myself to her in seconds, but she was somewhere else, somewhere I couldn’t follow.          

    “You okay, Hailey?”

She snapped out of her staring contest with the stranger and shifted her focus back to me.

    “Yeah, I’m fine. I guess I’m just getting used to being out in the real world again, we haven’t eaten anywhere like this in a while.”

    “Do you wanna go home? We can get out of here if you want. I just thought we should do something special tonight.”

She slid her hand across the table and tangled her fingers between mine.

      “No, I’m glad we came. I’m impressed. You hate fancy restaurants.”

       “I do. But I’ve got a fancy girl so I figure I could treat her every once in a while.”

I reached into my pocket and fumbled a little blue box I’d spent the last couple months saving up to buy. Georgia and I had a long conversation about what I could get Hailey as an anniversary gift.

I was gonna make her a chair, but Georgia said girls fell in love with jewelry a lot faster than they would furniture. I took her suggestion.

     “I know you don’t like me spending my money left and right, but I figured now’s a good a time as any to get you something—“

I slid the jewelry box across the table and waited for her to notice, to smile, to laugh, to say something, but her eyes were somewhere else, on someone else, so I shoved her promise ring right back into my pocket.

    “Is he bothering you, Hailey?”

     “Who?”

     “That guy you keep—the one who’s been staring at you since we got here.”

She brushed her bangs out of her eyes and did that crazy blinking thing she does whenever she’s nervous. She shouldn’t have been.

       “He’s—“

       “If he’s getting to you, I can say something,” I said.

        “No, it’s fine, Caleb. Just forget it.”           

I tipped my head in his direction as a warning and he shot me a sideways smile before turning back to his drink.  He was too clean cut for his own good, a blonde-haired, snake-eyed, pretty boy slinking around like he was looking for a girl to talk into trouble. He could have any girl in the room—any one but mine.

         “I don’t like people making you uncomfortable, Hailey.”

         “I’m fine, Caleb. I’d tell you if I wasn’t.”

That was the first time since we’d gotten together that she lied to me point blank. She pinned on a political smile, the same one her Dad had plastered across his face in court.

I’d spent a good part of five years trying to forget about that day, trying to tell myself that the girl I loved and the man who brought her into this world were night and day different. But watching Hailey bury the truth behind a half-baked smile made the two of them seem one in the same.

          “Let’s get outta here. You’re too pretty for this place,” I said.

Her eyes swam south towards her silverware and her cheeks flushed pink in the low light. There she was.

           “You better have dessert waiting at home,” she said.

She brushed her foot against the inside of my leg under the table. We never should’ve left the house.

            “Damn right, I do. Ma’am, can we get the check?”

A snarky blonde waitress appeared out of nowhere like the sound of my voice was enough to summon her out of the kitchen. Before even handing me the bill she shushed me quiet.

I guess rich people didn’t make noise. Aside from the half-dead piano guy tickling the keys at the front of the restaurant, the place had been eerily quiet the whole night. I wanted to take Hailey to the best restaurant in town, she deserved the best, but Cracker Barrel was better than this.

Chances were, I’d probably end up spending my whole paycheck on a bunch of fancy dishes served on stupidly small plates just to leave hungry.

            “What’s the damage?” I asked.

Blondie raise her eyebrows so high they came close to hitting her hairline. Hailey shoved a forkful of fancy French potatoes in her mouth just to keep from laughing.

            “Excuse me, sir?”

            “How much do I owe, you?"

          “Nothing, the young man over there paid for your meal. He sends his regards to the young lady.”

            “He what?” I asked.

Hailey reached across the table and grabbed my hand to keep me from balling it into a fist.

        “He settled your bill, sir. I suggest you thank you him before you leave.”

        “And I suggest you stop making suggestions.”

     “Thank you, ma’am. We will,” Hailey said, hoping to put a stop on a snowballing situation. I knew that son-of-a-bitch was trouble.

Our waitress sauntered off to another table, while I tried my best not to jump outta my chair and settle more than just the restaurant tab.

        “Caleb, relax. Let’s just go home, okay?”

        “Go home? Some guy just paid for you in front of my face and you want me to go home? That’s bullshit, Hailey.”

        “It’s a free meal, Caleb.”

        “Do you know that guy?”

         “No.”

She tightened her grip around her wine glass and knocked back a mouthful a little too fast, enough to give her nerves away. The wine stained her lips darker than her lipstick. She wiped off the residue only to come away red handed.

         “Then why is he paying for you?”

         “—‘Cause it’s the friendly thing to do. Evenin’ Hailey. Sorry to interrupt, I just thought I’d say hi.”

         "Who the hell are you?” I asked.

          “I’m Sawyer, Hailey’s boss. Nice to meet you. And you are?”

          “Her boyfriend.”

Sawyer was a hell of a lot taller up close. He could be as tall as he wanted, it wouldn’t change the fact that I could take him in a fight. I spent my time in jail doing two things: reading, and bulking up.

I swore the second I got out that I wouldn’t let myself go back to being the scrawny kid Hailey was used to. She needed somebody strong to watch out for her, and God knows I’d put in the time to be.

So if she thought I was gonna sit still and let some square-jawed smooth-talker disrespect the two of us, she was dead wrong.

       “Boyfriend? I’m sorry. I didn’t know, she never mentioned you at work, ” he said.

       “You’ve got a big mouth for someone who doesn’t know who he’s talking to,” I said.

       “I could say the same for you, buddy. Looks like Hailey’s not the only thing we have in common.”

        “Sawyer stop—"

Hailey stood up from the table and stepped between us. Good thing she did, ‘cause if she’d been a second later, I would’ve knocked his pretty white teeth out.

I wanted to brush him off, to let every stupid thing he’d spewed about Hailey slide off my shoulders, but he talked like every word he’d said was truth. And the sound of that truth had me asking questions—too many questions— most of them about her.

      “Hailey, I like you too much to drag you into trouble like this. I’m sorry. I didn’t mean any disrespect to either of ya’ll. I just thought I’d do something nice  ‘cause you put in so much overtime at the office lately,” he said.

She’d come home late a couple times over the last few weeks, but I didn’t think anything of it. Usually, I get home after Hailey, but she’d said she had things to take care of at work so I let her do what she needed to do, and didn’t ask questions. I never asked questions, ‘cause if you trust someone you shouldn’t have to.

         “I appreciate the thought, Sawyer. But tonight’s not appropriate, okay? We’ll take care of the bill. I’ll see you on Monday.”

She sounded so small, like how I used to around Liam, but this was different. The way she dug her bright red nails into her tight black dress, curled her fingers till her knuckles turned white, turned my heart inside out.

She wanted to run, to get as far away from this situation as her legs could take her. I reached out for her wrist and pulled her to me, hoping that I was the person she wanted to run to, like always. But even though I tried to hold on to her, I felt her fighting to run away—not from Sawyer, but from me.

Hailey grabbed her purse, fished out a fistful of twenties and smacked them on the table before she breezed past me, and headed towards the door.

       “Good to see you’ve got a good man on ya’, Hailey. I was starting to worry that he wasn’t enough.”

The first punch hurt like hell. For a guy who looked like a goddamn poster boy, he had the jaw of soldier. Didn’t matter too much ‘cause he stumbled back into our table like he’d never taken a hit in his life. That’s how you know the real men from the fakers. Fakers turn soft the second they smell a fight.

All that “rich people quiet” exploded into chaos the second Sawyer started shouting for help. I didn’t give a damn who he was crying for, ‘cause all could think about was what he’d said about Hailey.

He talked about her like she didn’t have anybody at home waiting for her, like she was lonely, like he planned on being the guy to fix that. She wasn’t any of those things.

She had me and I had her, didn’t I?

      “I don’t want you talking to her anymore, you hear me? I love that girl. I’d die for that girl. Don’t give me a reason to kill for her,” I said.

He got to his knees while customers scrambled out of their seats and waiters ran in our direction to stop a fight I had no intention of backing down from.

        “You’re an honest guy, I can respect that. The question is; how honest is your girl?”

I threw my fist through air again, but stopped short against the sting of his palm.

         “I can trust her more than I can trust you,” I said.

        “If I told you I know what her lips taste like, and that everyday she came home late was ‘cause she chose not to go home, would you still believe that?”

I stopped the conversation after that. I stopped listening, I stopped thinking, I stopped talking, and I blacked out. I remember a crowd of strangers trying to stop me.

I remember the pull and tug of at least four or five sets of hands against my dress shirt. I remember seeing Sawyer’s blood on the soles of my shoes and watching him struggle to shout for somebody to call the cops through newly missing teeth.

I remember being walked out by the pigs, and seeing Hailey standing by the door crying charcoal tears ‘cause she’d heard the whole conversation. 

And I asked her one question, ‘cause there was only one question to ask.

            “Is it true?”

She covered her mouth, she closed her eyes, and she slid down the wall like she could sink forever, nodding and crying like I’d never seen.

And that was the first time she’d been honest with me the whole night.

And that was last time I ever wanted to hear the truth.

‘Cause the girl I’d risked my life for wouldn’t do that to me, would she?