Cold Summer Nights (6 page)
Read Cold Summer Nights Online
Authors: Sean Thomas Fisher,Esmeralda Morin
Chapter Six
Nick spent Monday and Tuesday letting his thoughts shuffle from work stuff to the nursing home to Amy’s kiss to
Summer
and the dead remote, finally coming to the conclusion that the remote was defective. Just like his grandma and Amy.
“Come on!” he yelled at the maroon Ford Taurus in front of him. “Green means go!” He drummed his fingers on the wheel and sighed, somehow managing to resist the urge to honk.
The Taurus finally woke up and started moving. Nick tried not to tailgate but it was impossible. The only thing he could think about was
Summer
coming over tonight. They were going to order Chinese and he wanted to get home and grab a quick shower beforehand. It had been a long day at the office with the hours dripping by like cold molasses. Only two days had passed seen he’d last seen her but it seemed like two weeks.
He rolled his eyes and shook his head. “Man, they will give a license to anyone these days,” he muttered, whipping around the slow poke Taurus and getting into the gas.
The old lady behind the wheel stuck her middle finger into the air without so much as a glance over as he sped past.
“Hi,”
Summer
said, smiling warmly.
“Hey you,” he said, feeling like she could smell Amy’s designer perfume all over him even though that was three nights ago and he had just taken another shower. Relief washed over him when he saw the overnight bag slung over her shoulder. He hadn’t been sure if she was going to spend the night or not.
“Whew, it got cold out!” she said, filling the room with her strawberry scent.
“That’s
Spring
for
ya
, huh? Supposed to hit seventy tomorrow.”
“Really?” she said, setting the bag down.
“Think I’ll lay out on my lunch break and catch some rays.”
She raised an eyebrow at him. “It’s not even April yet.”
“Almost,” he said, going into the kitchen. “Chardonnay sound good?”
“Sure,” she said, taking off her scarf and coat and draping them over the back of the leather armchair.
“I put this in the freezer when I got home from work so I hope
it’s
cold enough,” he said, closing the freezer door and jumping when he found Summer standing on the other side.
“Whoa!” he gasped, stammering backwards and nearly dropping the wine bottle.
“I’m sorry,” she laughed.
“Man,” he said, placing his hand over his chest. “You about gave me a heart attack.”
She laughed even harder. “Why are you so jumpy?”
“I don’t know but we
gotta
get you a bell or something,” he said, grabbing a wine glass from a cupboard and a wine opener from a top drawer.
She took a deep breath and rubbed up against him like a friendly cat. “I just wanted to see if you needed any help…before you booty called me again.”
He stopped screwing mid cork, embarrassment flushing his face. She was never going to let him forget that. “That’s funny.”
“Oh, I bet you booty-called all the girls like that after Amy.”
The cork popped when he pulled it out. He turned to her, his eyebrows pulling together. “Amy?”
Her eyes thinned. “Yeah, after you two broke up.”
“Oh,” he said, a little too relieved. “Actually, I was always more of a booty-
texter
,” he said, the golden liquid making a pulsating gurgle as he poured it into the wine glass
“I bet you were,” she said, poking him in the ribs.
A grin spread across his red face as he handed her the glass. “Bunch of grenades though compared to you.”
She took the glass and slapped him on the arm. “You better say that.”
“Oh, like you’ve never booty called anyone before.”
She grinned and took a sip of the chilled wine.
“Only real estate agents.”
He laughed and swapped the wine bottle for a beer in the fridge.
“You hungry?”
“A little,” she said, with a slight shiver.
He twisted the top off the beer and stared at her. “Are you cold?”
“No, I’m okay.”
He nodded. “I’ll turn up the heat.”
“Maybe some hot coffee would be good.”
Nick stared at the empty beer bottles and Chinese cartons littering the coffee table and decided he was too tired to clean any of it up tonight. He was too tired to even brush his teeth. He grabbed the remote, hesitated, and pointed it at the TV where a handsome gray haired man on a mountain range was trying to convince Nick that he couldn’t go wrong with
Cialis
, whether he needed it or not. The flat screen shut off with one push of the button. He snorted and turned off the light. In the bedroom, he found
Summer
stretched out across the bed, buck naked and grinning from ear to ear. Suddenly, he caught his second wind.
After she left for work the next morning, Nick was just about to leave himself when he picked up the remote and hit the power button. The TV remained dark. He tried it again.
Nothing.
He shook his head and went out the front door with his laptop.
That night, he was watching a rerun of
The Office
when his phone rang. He
paused
the TV and picked up the cell. “Hey, what’s up?”
“This has gone far enough, Nick!”
Rusty barked.
“That’s what’s up!”
Nick blinked. “Huh?”
“I know it’s you, Nick!”
Nick listened to the heavy breathing coming from the other end and chuckled. “You know
what’s
me?”
“I know it’s you who keeps calling me and acting like you’re choking on a piece of steak!”
Nick opened his mouth to speak but Rusty cut him off.
“It was funny at first but it’s getting kind of old now, don’t
ya
think?”
“What are you talking about?”
“Oh come on, man! Don’t play dumb.”
“Dude, I swear to God I have no idea what you are talking about.”
Rusty’s breath came hard and fast.
“You swear on your mother’s grave?”
A thunderstruck silence shook the line as Nick’s eyes narrowed. “Okay, now you’ve gone too far.”
“Oh, I’m the one who’s gone too far? That’s a good one!”
Nick got up and went into the kitchen. “Just tell me what is going on.”
“I’ll tell you what’s going on, someone’s driving me fucking nuts
is
what’s going on!”
“Someone’s been crank-calling you?”
“You think?”
he yelled, coughing into the phone.
Nick winced and held the cell out. “It’s probably just Dallas,” he said, opening the fridge.
“Trust me, it’s not. I practically tortured the kid to get the truth.”
Nick snorted, staring into the refrigerator. “What’d
ya
do? Make him watch
Glee
?”
“This isn’t funny, Nick!”
“Alright, let’s just take a minute to figure this out,” he said calmly, grabbing a bottle of blue Gatorade.
“A minute?
I’ve been trying to figure this out for the last four days!”
Nick’s brow folded. “Four days?” he muttered, shutting the fridge door with his foot.
“Since Sunday night,”
Rusty said, sounding winded.
“Well, what are they saying?”
“Nothing!
That’s just it. They just sit there and cough every single time.”
Nick took a drink and swallowed. “Cough?” he repeated, hitting play on
The Office
and rewinding it ten seconds and
pausing
it again so it wouldn’t burn the screen. He wasn’t sure if the urban legend about pausing stuff for too long on a flat screen was true or not, but he wasn’t taking any chances. Not with this forty-two inch sweetheart. It was bad enough the remote was on the fritz. “What’s your caller ID say?”
“
Unkown
.”
Nick frowned. “You don’t know what your caller ID says?”
“It says ‘unknown’, moron!”
Nick cleared his throat.
“Oh, I gotcha.
Well, I don’t know what to tell
ya
, chief, except that it’s not me.”
The silence grew between them like weeds through a cracked driveway. Nick could almost hear the wheels turning inside Rusty’s head.
"This is bullshit!"
Rusty yelled, launching into another round of wet sounding coughs.
Nick held the phone away from his ear again. “Maybe it’s Paul.”
Rusty sighed. “It’s not Paul. Sophia doesn’t leave his side long enough for him to pull something off like this.”
“Listen, I’m sure whoever it is - probably some chick you dragged back to your apartment one night and never called back - will get tired of it soon.”
Rusty’s heavy breathing continued to storm the line.
Nick squinted. “We still on for lunch tomorrow at one?”
Rusty didn’t answer.
“Hello?”
“I’ll meet you there,”
he said dully.
“Cool. We’ll hammer it out then.”
Rusty let out a short laugh.
“Oh I can do better than a hammer,”
he said, hanging up without saying goodbye and setting the phone down next to a black nine millimeter lying on the chipped up coffee table. He leaned back into the couch, staring at the phone with glazed eyes, and started coughing again.
Chapter Seven