New Winslow S8E22
Roman picked up his ringing phone, his mind still mostly on the shop’s order for tomorrow. “Hey, Charlie,” he greeted, finishing the sum he’d been in the middle of as the phone rang. “What’s up?”
“Hey, boss,” Charlie said. “Hey, um, Noah didn’t show up for work tonight.”
Fuck. Roman put down his pen and took off his reading glasses, setting them on the table. “No?”
“Yeah,” Charlie said. “He was supposed to be here about half an hour ago. Iris Davies actually just called to let me know he was sick at her house.”
Roman didn’t like the way he doubted that. Not that Iris would lie, but still. As much as he loved Noah and knew he was serious about his recovery, Roman had seen enough guys relapse and had relapsed enough times himself to see the signs. “He was sick?”
“Yeah,” Charlie said, “I guess he was over there and started not feeling good. I don’t know, she didn’t say much about it.”
Okay, that was possible. Roman had been afraid he’d shown up drunk at Iris’s shop. Possibly on his way to show up drunk at work. Neither of which were good situations, but only one of which required anything official from Roman.
“Do you have enough coverage if he doesn’t come in?” Roman asked.
“Yeah,” Charlie said. “Kennedy is on til close. And we’ve got enough people in-house that if delivery gets busy, either I can take it or one of them can go on the road.”
God, he was so lucky to have Charlie as an assistant manager these days. He needed to give him a raise, that place would have fallen apart without Charlie and Tatiana helping Celine out. “Great,” he said. “Hopefully Noah’s fine.”
“Yeah.”
Something in Charlie’s voice made it clear that he knew more than he was trying to let on about Noah’s issues. But Roman wasn’t going to say anything else about it and he knew Charlie wouldn’t either. “Call me if anything changes.”
“Got it, boss. Thanks.”
Charlie hung up and Roman set his phone down. A worry headache was settling in. Noah was a grown man, he was going to make his own decisions. But Roman knew him and he knew how badly Noah wanted to stay sober. Even if he was sober right now, or had been when he got to Iris’s house earlier, he was under enough strain lately that Roman wasn’t going to be surprised when he got the call about another relapse.
And he’d be there for him, of course he would. But Roman wanted so much better for Noah.
The room’s door creaked open and Jamie walked in. “Hey bud,” Roman said.
“Hey.” Jamie stopped and looked at him. “You alright, Dad?”
“Yeah, kiddo, don’t worry,” Roman said, shaking his head. “ Just some stuff I need to deal with.”
He looked over at Jamie. It didn’t make sense that Jamie would have grown up even more overnight, but he looked like he had, at least to Roman. “Mom’s down in the garden with the babies,” Jamie said, before Roman could ask.
“Good,” he said. “How are you doing, kiddo?”
“Fine.”
He looked away from Roman as he said it. “Fine?” Roman confirmed, hoping his skepticism sounded as gentle as he meant for it to.
From the slight smile Jamie gave, he could tell it had. Then Jamie sighed and sat down on the edge of the bed. Roman got up from the table and joined him. The room was crowded, with two currently folded cots tucked up against the wall and suitcases tucked wherever they could safely fit. “It’s just this whole magic thing,” he said. “I’m not sure I like it.”
“I don’t blame you,” Roman replied. “It’s a big deal.”
“I just have so many things planned,” Jamie continued. “And I know I said I want to do what Mom does and I do, I swear I still do. But this wasn’t what I had in mind. I’m going into senior year and what if I can’t control it? And I, like, accidentally set something on fire? Or my friends find out and they think I’m a freak?”
“Then they’re shitty friends,” Roman said.
Jamie looked up at him in surprise and Roman shrugged. “Look, I’m not going to say it’ll be easy,” he said. “You couldn’t pay me enough to go back to my senior year of high school and I wasn’t going in with what you have. But you’ve got a good group of friends and if any of them were going to ditch you over that, especially in New Winslow and especially when it’s not like your mom’s abilities are exactly a secret, I’d be stunned.”
He wasn’t lying. Jamie did have a good group of friends, a handful of girls and boys that had been in and out of each other’s lives over the past decade. A couple of the boys had been more consistent. Robby and Dan, a couple of good-natured goofballs that Roman couldn’t see doing anything more shitty than seeing if Jamie could get them all beer with his magic. But Jamie had a good crew going into senior year with him.
“You’ve got the rest of the summer to work on controlling it,” he continued. “And if there’s an incident at school, we’ll deal with that when the time comes. But I don’t think there will be.”
Jamie nodded. “Mom said I’m already doing pretty well,” he said.
“And Mom’s known for lying, right?”
Jamie laughed and Roman put an arm around his shoulders, giving him a quick squeeze. “You’ll be alright, buddy,” he said.
“Do you mind if I go down to the library for a little while?” Jamie asked.
“No problem.”
Jamie hugged Roman, then darted out of the room. Roman watched the door close behind him, then looked at the phone sitting on the table. He went back over, picked it up, and dialed Noah’s number, hoping against hope as it rang on the other end.
———-
Cleo liked to think she was smart. So why had she just shut off her entire brain and kissed Edie as they got in the door, seconds after getting home from tour? Even after everything, after nearly three months since the breakup and two months since they’d left, it just felt like the most natural thing in the world to give them a hug as they came in. And maybe that would have been fine, but she’d had to go and kiss them. And for a second, they definitely kissed back before they both realized what was happening.
“I’m so sorry!” Cleo exclaimed, resisting the urge to wipe her mouth like a fourth grader.
“No, I’m sorry,” Edie said, looking just as stunned. “Um, hi.”
Edie’s hair was shorter than it had been when they left, a sexy pixie cut with streaks of blue in it. Cleo wanted to run her fingers through the strands and was so close to giving in to that temptation when Edie stepped away. Their smile was tired, but warm as they hung up their jacket by the door and pushed the suitcase to the side. “I’m going to get my drums in a minute,” they said.
“I’ll help.”
Edie didn’t refuse the help, so Cleo followed them down the stairs to their car, waving at Davi from the front walkway as he watched the parts of the kit go up the stairs with undisguised interest. He offered to help, but was sitting with his grandmother on their balcony, so Cleo turned him down with thanks.
Once everything was in, Edie collapsed onto the sofa. “So?” Cleo asked, sitting down beside them.
“So what?”
“So how was it?”
She thought they were going to refuse her attempt at conversation, but instead, they smiled again. “Incredible,” they said, head back against the squashy blue cushion of Cleo’s extremely dated sofa. “Absolutely incredible.”
They started detailing the route the tour had taken, going through Germany, the UK, and Spain in a bizarrely nonsensical path that had clearly been planned by someone who had both never been there and had no access to a map. But the clubs sounded fun and when Edie mentioned a show in Glasgow, their mention of Sophie’s name reminded her of the festival.
“She called me the other day,” Cleo said. “I’m going to go in January for the festival.”
“Excellent,” Edie mumbled sleepily, eyes now closed as they leaned against the back of the couch. “I wish we could go, but we already committed to some shows here that weekend. She’s got some amazing ideas. The whole crew over there was really great.”
They kept going, talking about an old pub they’d played at. Edie obviously hadn’t been drinking there, but the others had. About halfway through a rambling story about Ryan and his fiancee, Edie trailed off, their head sliding down the cushions and falling onto Cleo’s shoulder. Cleo held her breath, but Edie didn’t move as they fell asleep there, breathing softly against her neck.
She should get up for both their sakes. This was only going to hurt when she had to face reality. But Cleo couldn’t bring herself to do so, eventually falling asleep there too.
She woke up alone on the couch early the next morning with a blanket gently tucked around her.
——-
Cleo hadn’t been expecting a lot of conversation with her mother, but she’d been silent since Cleo walked in the door half an hour ago. She’d left the apartment shortly after waking up. Edie was still asleep and Cleo didn’t dare wake them. But she also didn’t want to be lingering around the apartment, waiting to see what would happen next. So, for the few hours before she had to be at work, she’d decided to stop in and see her mother. Mom had been fine with it over the phone, but once Cleo arrived, she’d been silent and withdrawn in the corner of the room, looking out the window and not answering any of Cleo’s questions.
Cleo glanced at her phone, where there was another message from Andrew. He’d updated her on what happened with Noah yesterday and it had taken all of Cleo’s willpower to not drive to New Winslow and smack Noah herself for scaring them. She knew he was hurting. He wasn’t in the best mental state, and things were getting worse over there. But he needed to put a stop to this himself.
“Who’s there?”
Her mother’s voice interrupted Cleo as she was typing a response and debating whether her presence would help things in New Winslow more than it would help her mother. Cleo looked up to see her mom’s back was rod straight as she continued to face the window.
“What?”
“Who’s there?”
She sounded scared and Cleo had to force her answer through a lump that had quickly formed in her throat. “It’s just Cleo, Mom.”
“Why are you all here?” her mom demanded, flipping from scared to angry as she spun around. “All day, it’s just people in and out of my fucking house! Who are you?”
Maybe there was some truth to that, though she knew her dad hadn’t been by that day or yesterday. But they’d agreed to this visit on the phone. Cleo reminded herself this was all part of it, this wasn’t something to take personally. “I’m your daughter,” she said, keeping her voice as calm and friendly as she could. She stood up and walked a little closer. “Cleo.”
“I don’t have any children, go away.”
There was a knock at the door and Cleo turned to answer it. But as she did so, her mother stood up and threw an orange Cleo hadn’t seen before in her general direction. It splattered on the floor about a foot away from her as the nurse opened the door.
“GET OUT!” her mother screamed.
Cleo hesitated, but the nurse put a hand on her arm. “I’ve got her, honey,” she said. “This happened last night too, the physician on duty was going to come talk to you after her rounds.”
Cleo nodded rapidly, then turned to her furious mother. “I love you, Mom,” she said.
She didn’t answer, just stared at the orange on the floor.
Cleo hurried down the hall, avoiding eye contact with the staff and other residents as she made her way toward the door. The doctor could call her or her dad when she was ready to talk, but if Cleo couldn’t be in her mother’s room, she wasn’t going to hang around and wait.
Edie was still asleep when Cleo got home. So she tiptoed into her own tiny room, closed the door, and went back to bed.
———-
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