It’s a crapshoot, trying to guess how Zac will respond to this. Not that he won’t help. Even if Zac’s pissed, Cal knows he’ll help. But Cal isn’t sure how much drama and confusion there will be through the process, and that’s what he can’t take right now.
Cal’s so tired. He wants to take a nap. But going back inside that echoing house and walking through the tequila fumes isn’t going to help. He’s never been desperate enough to lick alcohol from a cabinet before, but it seems like a stupid thing to risk.
He texts Anya: Can I come over?
She texts back promptly: If you bring ice cream.
He nods to himself. He has a goal. Buying ice cream will get him away from here. And maybe it’ll soften Zac up a bit.
* * *
He shows up at Zac and Anya’s big gray board-and-batten house with seven tubs of ice cream in three sacks. He knows Zac’s favorites—Moose Tracks and Mint Chocolate Chip—but not Anya’s, and he might have overcompensated a little.
He sits in the driveway for a minute to collect himself. With the engine off, summer is pushing against the windows within seconds, but he doesn’t mind. He never feels comfortable adding his opinion to the ongoing struggle that is the renovate vs. move debate Zac and Anya have engaged in since PJ came, but if Cal could choose, he’d want them to stay. He loves it here. They live on the east side of Venice, where the houses are a mishmash of styles and colors, and they have one of the few lots in the area that doesn’t have five neighbors living right on top of you. The property’s gorgeous—mature, leafy carrotwoods to deliver privacy, a solid stone wall to keep the more lascivious fans at bay, and even a pond in the back, although they don’t keep it stocked with anything more exotic than goldfish. The house itself is tall and dignified, an old Queen Anne with a large porch and an overwhelming number of narrow windows. It stands out from the usual blur of stucco, cement and adobe that overflows Southern California, which must have been a point in its favor when Anya and Zac were house hunting. Anya says it looks both vintage and elegant. Zac says it’s only a matter of time before they pick up a ghost or two.
Cal just thinks it feels like a home.
He uses his key and goes into the kitchen, setting the bulky bags on the counter with a wince, imagining their faces when they see how much he’s brought.
A kids’ television show blares from the living room, and it’s possible no one’s noticed him coming in. He’s tempted to hide in the kitchen. He has a balled-up, bloody napkin in his pocket that he grabbed from a dispenser at the ice cream place to clean up his cheek before he got in line. It’s not bleeding anymore, but it soaked through a few dozen napkins first. It’s deeper than he first thought. People at the ice cream store were staring at him.
He hopes nobody recognized him or took camera footage. He can picture the clickbait now: Hyde bassist caught with bloody face—the result of a jealous girlfriend? Is his already-dubious beauty destroyed forever? Is he buying ice cream for a secret, pregnant wife? If not, how much ice cream does this guy eat, Jesus? He’s almost forty. His metabolism has got to be something mythical by this point. Look at those ABBBBBSSSSS, boys and girls! Also, protein gets rid of belly fat! Our celebrity trainer breaks down Calvin Keller’s workout even though it’s little more than a guess because he’s never met the guy, let alone worked with him! Page 42!
He hears footsteps then, and the babble of a baby, and Cal’s chest tightens. A moment later Anya walks in, smiling until she catches sight of him. “Cal! What did you do to yourself?”
She gives him PJ to free up her hands and proceeds to grab his jaw, turning his face this way and that so she can stare at the cut on his cheekbone.
“It’s nothing, just a—I don’t want to make a big thing about—”
“Oh, you wouldn’t make a big thing if you cut your finger off. Shut up.” Her eyebrows do something scornful. He shuts up.
“Zac,” she calls over her shoulder. Then, to Cal, “He knows you’re here. We were talking when you pulled up. He went upstairs to pout, but I think we’re going to have to take you to get stitches, so he’ll need to suck it up.”
“I don’t need stitches.” He tries to duck away and give the baby back at the same time. Neither works.
“Zac!” she yells, voice sharpening. Then, to Cal again, she adds, “Yes, you do.” She pokes him in the cheek, not very hard, not even particularly close to the cut, but he feels it split open, and the blood flow isn’t exactly minimal. “See?”
“Because you poked me.”
“Life pokes you. If you don’t take care of the bleeding, that’s how life beats you.” She turns back toward the stairs. “Zac, stop being a little bitch, I need your help.”
There’s another riot of feet now, and then Zac’s snapping, “What, what is it? Is it PJ? Is it—? Fuck, man, what’d you do to your face?”
Zac’s brow furrows and Cal feels his cheeks turning red. Great. He read once that most people stop blushing by the time they’re twenty, and he’s had his fingers crossed ever since that this will be the year when his embarrassment reflex gets the message.
Anya peers at him critically, then makes a disgusted clucking sound and hauls him to the sink to wash the cut. He has to contort himself in order to hold PJ and lean over the drain at the same time. The soap stings, and he winces, immediately feeling stupid.
“Easy,” she murmurs, her gaze darting back and forth between the wound and his expression. “It’s okay, Cal. We’ll take care of it.”
When the cut is clean, she grabs some paper towels and presses them to his cheek.
He wishes she would take PJ. As long as he’s holding the baby, he’s stuck in this spot, letting her do whatever she wants. But maybe that’s why she won’t take the baby. He wouldn’t put it past her to be that Machiavellian.
“What happened?” Zac demands again. “Did you get in another car accident?”
Cal’s spine stiffens at the memory—his old Range Rover, the trip home from the hospital, June’s words hitting him like bullets, knowing it was deserved, every bit of it deserved.
“No. No car accident.”
“You were in a car accident?” Anya applies direct pressure to his cheek to stop the bleeding. “Was it bad?”
“Yes,” Zac says, at the same time that Cal says, “No.”
Anya raises an eyebrow. “When?”
“It was, like, seven years ago,” Zac tells her.
“Eight,” Cal corrects.
“Eight, yeah, whatever. That’s how he broke his nose.”