“No, thanks.”
“The woman who drank my entire frat under the table is abstaining?”
“Yep. It makes me…horrible. But as an authority on the subject, I will tell you that if you take one more sip, I will probably have to take you to the hospital for alcohol poisoning where the entire staff will fawn over you and smother you with love. Is that what you really want, lots and lots of love from hot nurses?”
He holds out his arms and touches his nose with each pointer finger. “I can recite the alphabet backwards too, Detective.” He picks up the bottle again and drinks. “I’m barely buzzed. Me and my freak metabolism. Can’t even drink myself into unconsciousness. I sure as hell am going to try though.”
We just sit and watch the ocean crash for a minute while he chugs the whiskey. I can practically feel the anguish coming off his body. It seeps into me like an itch I can never scratch. “Do you remember that summer before you went to college? We tried to learn to surf?”
He smiles after another swig. “Aunt Lucy hired that, I don’t know what the hell he was, a stoner, hippie Martian or something. What did he want us to call him?”
“Buddha Moon, but we just called him B.M.”
“Right,” Justin chuckles, “and before we could go into the ocean we had to thank mother Gaia and father Poseidon for creating the waves we were about to disturb.”
“Well, you did something to piss off Poseidon because he kicked your ass. I don’t think you ever were upright on that board.”
“I guess I’m not a water person.”
“Understatement of the damn year.” I tick his shoulder with mine.
“What? Like you did much better. At least I didn’t laugh my ass off every time you fell like my best friend did.”
“I had just never seen you fail at anything. I was so overjoyed to find you were actually human.”
“That’s up for debate,” he mutters as he swigs. We’re silent for a few seconds, all the mirth gone again. I wait for him to speak. “I was going to teach Daisy to swim this summer. It was to be my first official act as her step-father. I even read a book on the correct approach.”
My heart clenches. “She would have loved that. She adored you.”
He shakes his head. “At first, I was so scared around her. What did I know about four-year-old girls? That lasted all of a second. It was like I looked at her and I knew. With both of them, I guess.”
“Knew what?”
“That they were for me. That I was supposed to love them. To care for them. To be there for them. That I’d lay down my life for them. Same thing happened when I saw you.” He pauses and chokes back a sob. “And I failed. I failed. Oh, fuck!” He leaps up, and then almost falls back down. “I have to get out of here,” he says as he stumbles away.
“Justin, where are you going?” I ask as I follow.
The alcohol is working now as he can barely walk. “I—I don’t know. Not here. I can’t breathe here.”
“Okay, but I’m coming with you.”
“No! I need to be alone. Why do you even want to? You should stay away from me. I’m useless. It’s never enough. All I do and it’s never enough.” He’s talking to himself now. My best friend is drunk for the first time in his life. “Why do it? What’s the point?”
I grab him by the arms. It’s worked on me. “Justin, stop it!”
His face crumbles until he’s near tears. “I can’t go back up there.”
I put his arm around my shoulder to help him walk. “You don’t have to.”
We go up the stairs and sneak him around the side of the house to the garage. Getting upstairs for my purse and car keys is harder. Five people stop me to ask after Justin. The one person I tell the truth to is Lucy, who promises to cover for us. Justin is nursing the bottle by the Cobra convertible when I get back. Geoff steps in behind me.
“No! Not him!” Justin shouts. “He can’t come!”
“Sir—”
“Just follow behind us,” I whisper.
I get into the driver’s seat and Justin plops into the passenger’s. “I can keep you safe,” he mutters. “I saved you once, I can do it again.”
“I know you can.” As can the snub-nose .38 in my purse, but I’m not telling them that.
“He wouldn’t dare come after me,” Justin mumbles. “I want him to, so he won’t. Coward.”
I start the car, the Cobra’s engine roaring then purring like a lion. We peel out and I drive down the coast. Justin gazes out at the ocean in silence, holding the bottle to his chest when he isn’t drinking it. I know him well enough to not engage in conversation right now. When he wants to talk, he will. Until then, I enjoy the wind blowing through my hair and the forward momentum. It’s freeing. There’s no destination. Just the ocean, setting sun, and us. I don’t think about anything but the road in front of us. Not Harry. Not Rebecca. Not even Justin. My body settles, and for the first time in days I’m not on edge. Last time I felt this way was that last night at Harry’s, just laying in his bed in my nook and listening to him breathe. I push the image away.