AllFreeNovel
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“Nah. People owe me some favors.” Cal handed him the Brigadoon. “You ever try the Mighty Macaroni?”
“At Melt?” Nick’s eyes widened. “Did you bring one?”
Cal laughed, striding toward the mirror on the far wall. “No way I’d let you eat one of those when I couldn’t have one.”
Nick realized he was holding two cups, and drained the one so he could start the other. “That’s just cruel, man. After all those apple fritters …”
“You just plowed through a plate of nachos bigger than your head.” Cal reached the wall and turned to face him. “You know, Hayley’s just as messed up as you are.”
“Really?” Nick tried to picture it. “You mean she’s out there with her parents, looking like …” Nick gestured with both cups. “No way she’s as messed up out there as I am in here.”
“She’s holding it together, but I can tell.”
“Yeah, sure—because you can read women like a book.”
“You think I can’t spot a woman putting on a good show on a bad day?”
Nick remembered where he was. “Oh,” he said. “Sorry.” He watched Cal reach his table and turn around to pace back to the mirror. “Cal?”
“Yeah?”
“What the hell are you doing?”
“Got to stay moving during a show,” Cal said. “Keeps me limber.”
“It’s kind of freaking me out.”
“Hey, I can go.” Cal strolled toward him again. “But if you want to tell somebody what happened …”
Nick sighed. “Like that’ll help.”
“You never know,” Cal pointed out. “And I’m avault, man. A bona fide, natural-born keeper of secrets.”
“Bona fide,” Nick said skeptically. “Natural-born.”
“Yessir. And a card-carrying friend of the music man.”
Cal grinned at him, and Nick raised a cup in a salute.
After a moment, Nick said, “You ever seeFree Willy?”
Cal stopped walking. “You two got emotional over that whale movie?”
Nick scoffed. “Nah, man. Had a girlfriend wholovedit, though.” He thought back. “This was middle school, soFree Willy,The Little Mermaid… anything to do with the ocean. She loved the ocean.”
“Do you?”
“I like towatchthe ocean,” Nick said. “But, ya know, I figured she’d work at an aquarium and I’d teach or something. We’d make it work.” He sipped from his cup. “It didn’t.”
Cal regarded the empty plate that had once held an epic amount of nachos. “Well, that sure explains a lot.”
Nick rolled his eyes. “She broke up with me in college,” he said. “From San Diego. ‘It’s over, Nicky. We’re moving in different directions.’ Didn’t know where we were moving, but I sure as hell knew we didn’thaveto be moving, because I could move where she was moving. I was gonna do that anyway. But no. ‘I won’t make you live a life on the ocean, hon.’”
Cal was strolling again, and looked from Nick to the walker. “Would that be a possibility?”
“Of course not.” Nick threw his empty cup; it bounced off the table and clattered to the floor. “Can’t spend your life scuba diving with a boyfriend who can barely stand on dry land.” He rubbed his eyes. “That hurt, man. Hurt a lot. The only good thing about Vicki breaking up with me was that I never had to get on a goddamn boat.”
“I’ve thought about dancing on a cruise ship,” Cal offered, bending to retrieve Nick’s cup. “But what if it sinks?”
