Defining Us: The Calvin & Eric Story (69 Bottles) (29 page)

I pull the phone from my ear and put Casey on speaker.
 

“What’s up?” Eric asks softly and I shrug. Unsure of what to think, I press the home button on my phone and click on the contacts button and over to missed calls.
 

“Oh fuck!”
 

“Calvin?” Casey and Eric say together, though I can barely register it. The sludge washes over me and I fall onto my ass as Eric takes my phone from my hand.

“CASEY, what the hell is going on?” I ask him as I look at Calvin’s phone. All I see is a number, no name but below the number it says ‘Iowa’.
 

“The number is flagged. We can’t get a hold of Mills to figure out why, we just know that it called Mills’ phone then turned around and called Calvin’s. Do you know who it is?”
 

“I can’t say for certain,” I tell Casey. “Look we won’t answer it, but I have got to attend to Mouse. Can we call you back?”
 

“Yeah, but we’re coming to you guys. Stay where you are.”
 

“That’s not…”
 

Rusty hops on the line, “No argument, stay there, we’ll be there in less than twenty.”
 

“Yeah, fine, whatever.” I click the red button and hang up the phone, dropping to my knees in front of Calvin.
 

I gently place my hands on his shoulders and he tries to shrug me off. “No, no, don’t. Calvin, come on, come back to me, what the hell is going on?” I say sternly and his eyes look to mine, though they’re blank, he’s completely checked out. Checked out the way he was this afternoon. “Come on Cal, I’m right here. Talk to me.”
 

“I…I can’t.” His eyes dart to one of my hands and then the other.
 

“I got you. I’m here, now I just need you to talk to me.”
 

“My…ffffaaa…”
 

“Your father?” Dread courses through me. Of all the times for that son of a bitch to call him, it had to be right now.
 

Calvin nods. His breathing starts to slow and the tension in his body starts to subside the longer I hold his shoulders. I start to rub my thumbs against his biceps, helping calm him. God, I hope I’m helping. It seems to be working the longer I work on bringing him down from his panic attack. “Breathe for me,” I tell him gently and he does, taking in a huge gulp of air and releasing it slowly. “That’s it, come back to me. I’m here, no one else, just me and you.”
 

Slowly the life and light return to his eyes, and despite the darkness of the beach I can see he’s coming back to me. “Hi there.” I smile. “Are you back?” I ask and he nods. “Welcome back. Can you tell me what happened?”
 

He shakes his head and I just let it go, giving him a chance to return. “We need to go,” he tells me.
 

I huff, “We can’t. We have to wait for Rusty and Casey to get here.”
 

“Why the fuck do we…”
 

I stop him with a stern ‘you know the drill’ look and he sags. “Please don’t tell them.”
 

“Well, they obviously know something about that phone number,” I tell him as I release his shoulders.
 

“Please don’t be mad at me.”
 

“Calvin, I am anything but mad at you.”
 

I sit next to him, “I gave the number to Mills, back when we hired them. The number was an emergency contact, but…” he sighs, “But I told him never to use it unless I was dead and the funeral was long over. I never told him who it was specifically that he would be calling, and well, I never thought he’d flag the fucking thing.”
 

“Well, I would imagine he would, given the circumstances. You know Mills, ever the paranoid one.” I try and laugh it off, but I seem to have lost my sense of humor somewhere tonight.
 

“With all the shit with Addison and then that garbage with Dex, I wouldn’t be surprised. Though I’m a little irritated that they’re monitoring our phones so closely.”
 

I give him a humorless laugh, “They don’t, unless it is someone that they know could potentially be a problem. Hell, I don’t even know if any normal numbers pop up or if it is just certain ones.”
 

“Hey guys,” Casey says from behind us.
 

Calvin jumps. “Jesus, that was fast,” I scold and stand up, facing Casey who has Rusty in tow. “Before we discuss anything about why you’re here, tell me something. Do you two fuck-knuckles monitor all our phone calls?”
 

Rusty laughs. “No, dickhead, we don’t. We have certain parameters set in place, like phone numbers, odd times for phone calls from specific numbers, like family.” He looks at Calvin, who still hasn’t stood up. “Wanted or unwanted family. Take Addison for example. If her mother is calling after the time Addison said she’s usually in bed, and she doesn’t answer, I’ll get an alert. Then if there are multiple calls, I can make a call to Talon or Kyle to get her. Things like that.”
 

“When did Mills flag his number?” Calvin asks, still sitting, facing away from them, toward the ocean, watching the waves.
 

“Uhm, shortly after we got the new tracking system. Why?”
 

“Did he give you a reason?” Calvin asks Rusty.
 

Rusty launches into a detailed explanation. “Other than the fact that there was obviously some bad blood between the person or persons on the other end of that specific number and something about emergency contact and that I wasn’t allowed to call the number, regardless of the situation with you. It was fishy, but I’ve been around Mills long enough not to question his motives or intentions. But the only reason it set off tonight was because this number called Mills first, then you, and then called Mills again, only to hang up after a ring or two. It tripped an alert.”

“Why not just block the number?” I ask Rusty.
 

“Because he won’t block anyone from calling anyone. That’s not his job. If Calvin asks for it to be blocked, we’ll block it.”
 

I hand Calvin back his phone, over his shoulder, and he takes it from me. “They left a message. Do you want to check it?” I ask him and he shakes his head, handing me back the phone.
 

“You do it. I can’t-” I see him hesitate and swallow hard.

“I got it.” I take the phone from him and click the home button, surprised to see his background image. It’s a shot of me onstage playing my bass. I click over to the voicemail button and pull up the Iowa area code’s message and tap it, bringing it to my ear.
 

“Hi Calvin,” it’s a female voice, “You don’t know me, and I’m sorry to have to introduce myself to you like this, but…my name is Mary Beth Pickens, you might remember me from…well, I was one of the members of the church here in town. Listen, I uh, I’m calling on behalf of your father. He’s not doing so well, in fact he’s real sick and he’s asking for you. Can you please call me back? I hate to leave all this information over this message, but…anyway I’ll be here, um…I live here, so please call.” The message ends and my heart sinks.
 

I turn to Casey and Rusty. “You guys can go, no one is out to pick a fight with Calvin.”
 

“Can we at least escort you back to your car?”
 

I roll my eyes but agree, “Yeah, fine, whatever.”
 

The two fuck-knuckles laugh and I crouch down next to Calvin. “Come on Cal, let’s go home.”
 

“What was on the message?” he asks without looking at me or moving.
 

“It wasn’t him,” I whisper into his ear.
 

“Then who-”
 

 
“Let’s talk about it at my house. Okay?” I interrupt.
 

He nods, but doesn’t stand up right away. I stroke his back and he flinches away from me. I let it go. Without knowing anything that the message said, he’s on the defensive and I don’t blame him for that. Not in the slightest. “Come on, let’s go home,” I tell him and he softens a little before standing up and brushing off the sand and we follow Rusty and Casey back to the restaurant and my car. We’d only made it about two hundred yards down the beach before the phone call came and I’m trying to figure out how to tell him about the voicemail. I’m completely unsure of how he will react to the news, but after his reaction to the phone number, I don’t see him going home anytime soon.

CATATONIC - that’s how I feel right now. I never knew seeing that phone number would be something that would literally knock me on my ass, but fuck me, it did.
 

It was like everything I fought before meeting Eric, all crumpled into a fucking phone number. The sludge, the darkness, the complete and utter despair I would feel when I would even think about being with a man.
 

I shudder in revulsion.
 

“We’re almost back to my place,” Eric tells me, and I hear him, but I’m not sure I can process it.
 

“Take me to my house. I need to be alone.”
 

“No, Calvin, that’s not the way this works.” His voice has an authority to it unlike anything I’ve ever heard from him before. “Being alone is the exact opposite of what you need right now. Besides, your car, your gear, it’s all at my house.”
 

“Why are you doing this?” My voice comes out more accusatory than I’d wanted it to.
 

“Doing what?”
 

I groan in frustration. “Making me deal with this shit.”
 

I catch him in a silent snort. “Because dealing with it is the only way you’ll be able to get past it. Dealing with it is the only way we can work this out.” He looks at me, pinning me with a hard stare and adds, “Together.”
 

“What is there to work through?”
 

“Why do you want to be alone?” he counters, obliterating any sense of argument I thought I might have to get him to take me home, though I could still get in my car and go home. He wouldn’t leave my guitars behind. I look at him skeptically. You know what? He just might do that out of spite for me leaving him.