Brian was driving around aimless coutry roads in the silence of the cab of the truck, thinking about Leighanne and everything Molly had said. Beside him, on the passanger seat, sat his entire untouched breakfast in a styrofoam box. He gripped the wheel tightly as his tires spun across the dirt.
Ever since the night with the bottle of Jack after visiting Maryfield Farms, Brian had been thinking of a particular conversation with Leighanne. Her voice was echoing in his head. He could still smell her perfume, still see the low cut, lacy black camisole she'd been wearing in the heat of summer, her skin-tight jeans slung low on her hips... Her hair was wet from the shower and she smelled warm, like laundry fresh from the dryer. She'd sat across from him at the table, held his hands in hers, and asked him if he'd ever considered the fact that they'd never had wills made up.
"So what?" Brian asked, raising an eyebrow.
"So what happens if something happens to one of us?" Leighanne asked frankly. "What happens to Baylee, what do we do with our assets?" she paused. "Don't you want to plan and ensure, legally, that every base is covered?"
"We don't need wills to ensure that," Brian answered. "Even if I dropped dead, you'd still be here for Baylee."
"What if we both drop dead?"
"Those odds are so slim..."
"What if we're in a car accident and we'd both killed in impact?" she demanded.
"Leighanne, that's not going to--"
"You don't know that."
Brian pulled the car to the side of the road and turned off the ignition. He was parked in the middle of no where, but he'd found a field that stretched off almost as far as the eye could see, and he stared out the window at it. The grass rolled along off into the distance. It felt strangely comforting.
Brian touched his mouth, practically able to feel the heaviness of her lips on his mouth. He sat quietly like that, his fingers hovering just off his skin. He felt a shiver slither down his spine. He hadn't wanted to hear it then, and he still didn't want to hear it now. He closed his eyes.
Suddenly, his cell phone rang. He reached for it off the dashboard, and looked at the caller ID. Tate's Creek Elementary & Middle School.
Brian groaned.
Baylee was sitting in the principal's office, his arms folded across his chest, with angry tears in his eyes. He looked up when Brian entered the room, nearly forty minutes after the principal had called him. The other kids' parents had already come and gotten him. Baylee felt like he'd been forgotten, or worse - overlooked. He shifted his weight to indicate anger at Brian, and stared at the corner of the ceiling.
"Baylee," Brian's voice was stern, "What is going on?" he asked.
Baylee shrugged.
The principal's office door opened and Nick came out, looking sick to his stomach. When he spotted Brian, his face drained of all color. "Um hey," Nick said sheepishly.
"What the hell happened?" Brian demanded.
Nick looked at Baylee, then back to Brian. He could feel his throat swelling. He wondered if it swelled all the way if that could be considered a medicial need and Brian wouldn't be able to be pissed at him anymore. Nick reached for his throat, about to put the drama into effect, when the principal stepped out of her office behind him and said, "Baylee was in a fight this morning."
Brian's eyes widened. "A fight?" he asked, spinning on his heels to look at Baylee, who had turned to glare at the wall. "What were you fighting for?"
"He and another boy had a disagreement," stated the principal.
Baylee whipped around, "They said you killed mom," he yelled at Brian. "He was teasing me saying you got away with killing her because you're famous."
"What?" Brian demanded, "Who would even say that?"
"All the stupid kids here at school," Baylee answered, "All the people here. You're too busy thinking about that cancer girl to even notice that this whole town is stupid and thinks you killed my mom. I hate it here," Baylee added.
Brian turned wild-eyed to look at Nick and the principal. "What is he talking about?" he demanded.
Nick shrugged, clearly clueless, but the principal's cheeks pinkened just a tad. "Well there has been a - a rumor," she answered quietly.
Brian felt his heart start racing. "A rumor?" he asked.
Nick's eyes widened in shock, "You people think B-Rok killed her?"
The principal sighed, "I don't, but there's a rumor."
"She was in a car accident," Brian snapped, "She was in a head-on collision with a truck -" Baylee's face crumpled as Brian spoke. "She didn't have her seat belt on right, and she flew through the windshield. They wouldn't even let us see her --"
"Daddy stop it," Baylee whispered.
Brian's voice caught in his throat at the sound of Baylee calling him daddy again. It'd been awhile.
Nick was staring at his sneakers.
The principal's voice shook just a bit, "I'm sure the rumors are -- unfoundeed..."
"To say the least," Nick hissed.
"...but Baylee still shouldn't be fighting on the school grounds."
Brian looked at Baylee. "No more fighting, buddy, okay?"
Baylee nodded.
"Problem solved," Brian snapped at the principal. "C'mon, Baylee, let's go."
Baylee got up and grabbed his backpack from the floor and hurried to Brian's side. "C'mon Nick. I have some bones to pick with you, too, about this." Brian motioned for Nick to follow. Nick's feet felt like led as he did so.
Lauren's face was pale when Brian recounted what the principal had said about the rumors. "That's crap," Lauren answered, shaking her head, "Good God is that crap. You're like the last person in the world ever that would do something like that."
Brian shrugged, "Tell the entire town of Lexington that, apparently."
"That's ridiculous."
"You should write an article about it or something," Nick suggested, "In the paper, to detonate the rumors."
"Detonate?" Brian asked.
Nick shrugged, "I dunno, whatever word I meant."
Lauren turned on Nick, "And you," she said, furrowing her eyebrows, "You taught Baylee how to fight?"
Nick's lips puckered out in a thoughtful way. He hesitated, "Erm, well. Yes."
"What in the world were you thinking?" she asked.
"Well he was getting picked on because his scalp looked like a giant pube and..."
Lauren rolled her eyes, "Oh my God, so the answer to bullies is fighting?"
Nick shrugged. "That's what I did to get by."
"You also spent more time in the freaking principal's office than the principal did. I've heard the stories." Lauren let out an agitated sigh.
Nick's face fell and he looked at the floor, clearly abashed. Brian sighed, "Just don't teach him anymore moves, okay?" he asked, trying to diffuse the situation. "It's fine, he just needs to learn that fighting isn't the answer, that's all. Think you can handle telling him that, Nick? Since you're the reason he thinks otherwise."
Nick nodded solemnly, then trotted up the stairs with a salute, as though on a mission.
"I'm sorry he's such a frickin' idiot sometimes," Lauren apologized when Nick was out of hearing range.
Brian sighed, "Honestly, I have bigger things on my mind than Nick's idiocy and Baylee fighting." He turned and wandered into the kitchen.
Lauren followed, and when Brian opened the fridge and grabbed a beer, she pushed his hand back into the ice box. "You don't need alcohol to deal with things," she reminded him. She steered him toward the kitchen table's chair. "I'll make you hot chocolate." Lauren walked by him and started pulling ingredients together. "So what's on your mind, Brian?" she asked as she poured milk into a small sauce pan.
Brian grabbed hold of the placemat on the table and spun it slowly. He looked up at Lauren, at her brown hair swishing as she moved, adding chocolate and sugar into the pan and stirring it with a whisk. She glanced over her shoulder at him, her dark green eyes flecked with gold and worry. She raised one eyebrow.
"I think I'm going to have to marry Emma Harris," he said quietly.
Lauren almost flipped the pan off the stove in shock. She righted it and turned around to star at Brian, wide-eyed and disbelieving. "What?" she demanded.
Brian recounted the whole story about what Molly had said at the diner. The entire time, Lauren's eyes grew wider and wider and more and more surprised. "What a nerve," she gasped at the end of his tale. "That takes a lot of balls to ask you to do something like that..."
"She cares about her friend," Brian answered quietly. "I'd have asked Nick to marry Leighanne if it would've saved her."
Lauren's mouth curved into a frown and she turned to look at the stove again. She sighed. "He wouldn't have done it," she said quietly.
"What?"
"Nick, he wouldn't have married her."
"Why not?"
"Because he's a jackass," Lauren answered.
Brian sighed. "I'm just using it as an analogy."
Lauren poured the hot chocolate into a mug and turned around, placing it in front of Brian. She poured the rest into a second mug and lowered herself into a chair, too, and stared at Brian for a long moment. "Are you going to do it?" she asked.
Brian took a long mouthful of the cocoa. He lowered the mug and stared down at the pattern in the swirling foam. "I can't very well let her die," he said quietly, "Can I?"
