Boot(s)

18- Boot

Bobby O'Callahan

It was week three, and Peter had made no indication he was going anywhere any time soon. Even still, every time I went to pick him up at the inn, my heart pounded six times its normal pace until he was safely in my line of sight. Some nights I had dreams—nightmares, really—that when I went to pick him up, his room at the inn was cleared out, his crutches gone, not a single Boot in sight. 

It was Tuesday. We had just picked up Bella and brought her home to my place. Peter was already grabbing pretzels from my cabinet and shoving them at his face by the fistful, passing the bag off to Bella who took a handful and popped them in her mouth even though she was in the middle of telling him a story. Her words were jumbling and coming out in all the wrong syllables, but Pete was nodding along, butting in when necessary, completely understanding her word-for-word.

I was about to take a seat at the counter with them when my phone rang. I glanced at the caller ID. It was a client.

"Hi, Mrs. Patterson." Bella stopped talking. Both her eyes and Pete's zeroed in on me and my phone call. I turned my back to them and walked away a few paces. "Of course I can. Sure. Not a problem at all, Mrs. Patterson. I'll be there soon. Bye."

I sighed a deep, cleansing breath, then turned around. Bella was already giving me her raised eyebrows. "You know what mom would say right now so I won't even say it."

Mrs. Patterson was an older client and a paranoid one. She was always convinced her ceilings had leaks or her floorboards weren't screwed in tight enough or someone could easily pop open the screens on her windows and come in at night. Every time I went over, all I did was "check out" whatever anxiety her brain conjured up and then convince her everything was okay (always, it was.) Jessie said I fed into her delusions and that she took advantage of me. It was a hassle sure, but it rarely took longer than an hour and if it put her mind at peace, even for a little while, it made me feel better.

"Hush, Bella," my eyes drifted between the two of them, staring at me. Pete very seriously shoved another handful of pretzels in his mouth, his stare on me unwavering. I bit my lip to keep from smiling at him, pretzel dust all over his face. "You two alright for an hour or so?" I usually brought Bella begrudgingly along with me to any emergency client calls during our dates, but Boots was here... She'd be fine. They'd be fine. I would only be a ten-minute drive up the road. Fifteen, max.

"Course we're fine," Pete passed the bag off to Bella again. "Who's Patterson?"

"Bella will explain," I told him, grabbing the truck's keys off the hook by the door. "I'll be back soon. No more than a half-hour, forty-five minutes. Don't start dinner without me."

Peter gave me a very professional salute, but he smiled when he said, "Sir yes sir." I tried not to crumble by the door. He was quite quickly becoming everything in my heart like he used to be. He never really left, but it was always dull, achy, and it ebbed and flowed. Some days went by when I didn't think of him. Other nights I spent sobbing uncontrollably, his face the only thing I could see.

But now, he was home. I picked him up on Tuesdays and Thursdays at 2:55. We had lunch on Wednesday's at the deli by the inn, which we met at. Sunday's I picked him up at 6:00 for family dinner. Once, last Friday, we got a drink at a greasy old pub in town. He taught me how to properly throw darts.

Now, his presence in my heart most certainly did not ebb and flow. It wasn't dull. It didn't ache. It was so entirely consuming that most nights, I didn't fall asleep for hours because I couldn't stop obsessing over our conversations in my head: what I said, how he laughed, the way his tongue darted out to wet his lips after he drank a sip of beer. Did he look at me for a second longer than normal, in the car, on the way to school? Why was he wearing aftershave? I felt stupid, like a teenager. But I couldn't stop myself.

Every decision I made, from the way I dressed in the morning to the new cubby I built at the Lee's for Bella's backpack, everything I did was done with a piece of him; for him. None of it was dull. It was a fucking nuclear explosion.

--

I had been two hours longer than I said I was going to be. It was dark by the time I got home. I jogged up the front porch steps, kicking my boots off by the door. When I stepped inside, Boots was sitting at the kitchen table. Bella was standing over him, a paintbrush in her hand. Two half-eaten burgers and a bottle of ketchup littered the table in front of them. They heard me come in, but neither of them moved.

"Bo, come here," Bella motioned me over with the hand that wasn't painting Peter's face. "Come see this."

"Oh god," I muttered, hanging up the keys. My eyes glazed over the kitchen. It was spotless; no dishes were left in the sink; countertops were wiped down. My heart skipped several beats. "Alright," I crouched next to Bella to stare at her creation. "What do we have here?"

Three black lines dusted across each of his cheeks. The tip of his nose was gray. Peeking out from his hoodie on his neck was real black ink, but I still hadn't seen what it was. I desperately wanted to see what it was. "I'm turning Pete into a cat." I felt myself start to smile, but then, Pete winked at me, and it was like the muscles in my face forgot how to work.

I had to grab on to the back of his chair to keep from completely falling over. This was a horrible idea in hindsight because I only got closer to him. To his cute little kitty whiskers. His green eyes flashed wide.

"Well, meow to you too, Bo."

I pulled back from the chair like it was scalding hot, only able to manage a "Meow motherfucker" very quietly under my breath due to a lack of oxygen and absolutely no idea how to respond appropriately to something that made my legs jelly. As I turned around, he slapped my ass—hard.

"Peter!"

He was snorting with laughter. "Watch your mouth O'Callahan. Oh, and burger's in the fridge."

Bella gasped. "Watch his mouth? Bo cursed and I missed it?!"

I shook my head, pointing a finger at Peter. "I'm watching you. Burger doesn't change that."

Later, after Jessie picked up Bella and Pete and I each had a beer in our hands and football was playing on the TV, I muted the announcer and turned to look at Pete. He was curled up on the sectional, a gray woven blanket covering his lower body. His Heineken dangled over the arm of the couch. It took him a second to rip his eyes off the game to look at me.

"What's up?" his attention periodically drifted back to the Dolphins. When I didn't speak, he pressed me. "Hmm?"

I slugged another sip of beer and placed the empty on the side table next to the chair that I had suddenly taken ownership over. I was more of a couch guy, but Pete had sat in my spot on his first day here, so I let him be.

"I was thinking about something," I swallowed back the grizzly husk in my voice. "Don't just say yes because you feel bad saying no. This isn't for me, it's for you, so I won't be hurt." I had been thinking about this for three weeks, since the time I first picked him up from the inn.

His attention had been on the game, but after I spoke he turned his shoulders towards me. He nodded. "Okay. Shoot."

"Take one of the spare rooms here," I told him. "I've got so much space. And you can't stay in that inn forever. I won't let you."

I had rehearsed this line about 600 times in the past three weeks as well. Casual, but concerned. Not too pushy, but still, incessant. I had assumed he was going to put up a fight, so I had about three more counter-arguments in my back pocket. In my head, they were lined up like index cards on a podium.

But when all he did was shrug his shoulders and say, "Yeah. Sure. That makes sense," then turn back to the Dolphins game, I couldn't help but gape at him.

He saw this, out of the corner of his eye, and he chuckled lightly. "What, you thought I would say no?"

I blinked twice. "No. No, I just... No. That's, uh that's settled then."

"Jeez, Bo, don't be so weird," he shifted, propping himself up a bit more. "I'll bring my stuff over later this week."

"Yeah," I turned around to face the game again. I was glad he couldn't see my stupid smile from back where he was sitting. "Sounds good."

The next morning, I called my entire construction crew over. We had some work to do.