“Good. Off to a nice start. So, are you staying with Cecilia? Or moving closer to Rae?”
“I’m… not sure on that yet.”
“Which is fine. You got choices to talk through?”
I snickered. “Sure. I’ve got choices. I’ve always got choices. I can choose to stay with Cecilia in the apartment. Or I can move out and live in some downtown studio apartment close to Rae’s school and hopefully convince her to move in with me. You know, if she doesn’t already get a place of her own.”
“Has she been talking about that?”
“She’s been talking about everything. Mostly, how her former plans have gone to shit and what she’s supposed to do now. She hates the idea of a dorm room. But apartments by herself are too expensive. She’s all but said she wants to live with me.”
“But…?”
I shrugged. “But I don't know.”
“Why don’t you know?”
“I just don’t know, Mike. All right?”
My eyes fell out the window and I sighed. Finding a job around here hadn’t been nearly as easy as I’d figured it would be. Even with setting aside as much as I could to help Cecilia pay for bills and shit, I was running through money fast. Between treating Rae to some things and my father making this damn divorce as hard as possible, I was tearing through money.
And as of yesterday, I’d run out of things to sell.
“Taking Rae out of the picture for a second. What do you want?” Mike asked.
I sighed. “My own life.”
“Okay. Good start. What does your own life include?”
“A job I don’t hate. A studio apartment over a bakery or some shit in downtown L.A. I fucking love downtown L.A.”
“Well, that’s close to Rae’s school. Maybe the two of you could swing a place together.”
“Yeah, well. She’s making it seem like she can’t swing something like that until she’s got more money in the bank. Which is so weird to me, because I thought she was selling shit off, too.”
“What do you mean?”
“You know, that stuff my stepmom gave her? Back when Cecilia and I first moved? Rae told me she was giving some of it away, keeping a few things for herself, and then selling off the rest to really cushion this transition and do what she wanted. Now, she’s talking about not having money at all. And every time I ask her about it, she doesn’t fucking say anything. I feel like she’s lying to me. Or hiding something.”
“Is that why you haven’t made a decision yet?”
I shrugged. “The fuck am I supposed to do? I lived with a man who forced me to walk on eggshells my entire life. And now I’m doing it with my own fucking girlfriend. I won’t go back to living like that, man.”
“Have you told her any of this?”
I snickered. “You want to try telling me how to tell Rae that she’s lying to me and I don’t appreciate it because she’s making me miserable?”
“If it were the other way around, I’d tell her to speak with you immediately. So…”
“Yeah, yeah. I hear you.”
My eyes drifted out the window as traffic picked up again.
“Can I be real with you for a second, Clint?”
“Please. I’d appreciate it.”
“Downtown L.A. is expensive as hell. You’re going to need a decent sum of money just to make it through a year.”
I nodded. “I know. I’ve already run the budget. For six months, by myself, in a studio apartment where I’d like, with bills and groceries and shit, I’d need just shy of forty grand. And that’s without a car, just walking everywhere.”
“Exactly. Which means, splitting that down the middle, that’s still forty grand for each of you during the year.”
“So what are you saying?”
I looked over at Mike and watched him shrug.
“I’m saying that being together means compromising. You can have an ideal life, sure. Then, you have to come together with your partner and figure out a compromise that works for both of you. Both with money and with school.”
I paused. “And you think I don’t know that?”
He scoffed. “Says the guy who hasn’t told Rae he’s miserable yet.”
“I’m not miserable.”
“That was the word you used.”
“Well, I didn’t fucking mean miserable.”
“Might want to choose your words better when you talk with her, then.”
“Dude, this is why I didn’t want to have this conversation. Get off my nutsack.”
“You get off it first.”
I sighed as I leaned heavily into the seat. Sweat dripped down my back and I merely accepted my fate. I’d boil to death in this car before we got to the fucking boardwalk. Since when did things get so complicated? Since when did money drain this quickly? Holy fuck, I’d need a serious job if I wanted to keep living my life around this area. Especially around Cal State. Where Rae had decided to attend college for four. Fucking. Years.
Shit.
“What kind of jobs have you been looking for?”
I shook my head. “No.”
Mike paused. “No, what?”
“No, I’m not talking anymore with you.”
“Oh, come on. We’ve moved on from Rae.”
“And I’m done talking.”
“Just answer the damn question. What kind of jobs?”
“All kinds of jobs, Mike! Mechanic, part time cashier, a fucking sub sandwich maker. Gas station attendant. Construction. Internships. Fucking internships, dude! And no one gives me anything. No callbacks, other than people telling me We’ve found our candidate, thank you for fucking applying.”
“Do they say ‘fucking’ or…?”
I growled. “I’m going to slit your throat.”
He chuckled. “Hopefully you don’t list that as a skill.”
I reached over and tried to fist his shirt, but he caught my wrist. He tossed my hand back into my lap before shooting me a look. Traffic slowly rolled down the block. Inching us closer to the boardwalk before we came to yet another standstill.
Then Mike put his car in park again.
“You can be pissed all you want, Clint. But we both know the only reason you’re this angry is because Rae doesn’t have her shit together, so you can’t. And you won’t get your shit together until you talk to her. Until you have a firm foundation with her again. Or at least a firm enough foundation to tell her whether or not you actually want to follow her to college or strike out on your own again.”
I shrugged. “I mean, her college is only an hour away. And that’s with traffic.”
“Yeah, well. Look at this traffic. We were fifteen minutes away from the boardwalk. And we’ve been sitting in this damn car for forty-five.”
Point taken. “I mean, if we really wanted to--”
“Dude, quit being a pussy.”
“I’m not being a pussy.”
“Yes, you are. You don’t want to piss Rae off so close to all of us splitting, so you’re hoping that if you ignore it the issue is going to go away. But you know that isn’t how it works.”
I sighed. “Yeah. I know.”
“So boss up and bring up the conversation. You don’t have to do it today. But you need to do it soon. Rae needs a firm plan of action on your end in order to work through what she’s going to do on her end.”
“And what if I need the same from her?”
“That’s why you sit down and fucking talk about it, dude.”
He sat back down in his seat as the song on the radio changed over again. As some Van Halen ballad filled the SUV, I let my eyes fall closed. While most of me was thankful I didn’t have to put up with school anymore, part of me was disappointed. Even if, by some miracle, I wanted to go to school, I didn’t have the option. Decisions I made in high school ruined my odds for that sort of thing. And Rae hadn’t been happy with me when I decided not to apply.
In fact, it sparked a fight between us we still hadn’t recovered from.
And that damn fight was four months ago.
My best bet at this point was to find a job with room for growth. With room for me to pull a decent-enough salary that helped support a lifestyle in this expensive-ass state. Otherwise, I’d fall behind. I’d forever be destined to scrape by with nothing but scraps underneath the table for hard labor twelve hours a day. Which was a life I didn’t want for myself. I wanted to prosper. I wanted to be proud of myself. I wanted to be able to provide Rae with what she needed instead of her constantly worrying about things and checking her bank account and hiding things from me like she’d been these past few weeks.
I felt like I was on the verge of losing her. Losing Rae. Losing the love of my life.
And I had to find a lifestyle that made sure that didn’t happen.
3
Raelynn
I looked beyond Allison’s shoulder after much too long of a silence. And when I saw Clint emerge from the throng of people pushing their way to the beach, I sat up.
“Oh, thank fuck.”
Allison turned around. “What? What is it?”
Michael waved and Clint started jogging for us. I smiled as I stood up, steadying myself on my rollerblades. He picked me up and swung me around, peppering my cheeks with kisses. I smiled as Michael and Allison embraced, watching him dip her back for a deep, passionate kiss.