Calvin marched from the bathroom to the bedroom with a bag of toiletries.
The faster I pack, the less time I have to change my mind.
Roger watched from Calvin's bedroom door frame. "Hello, Benjamin."
The nickname nearly made him regurgitate his Big Mac. "Don't start. It's not like that between us."
"Is that why you're taking a Valentine's Day trip with her? Alone? To the City of Sin? For an entire weekend?"
Calvin shoved his toiletries and a clean pair of socks into a backpack. "She was going to make the trip by herself. I couldn't let that happen."
"What about Marlo? If he finds out about this, he'll fire us."
Calvin continued to pack, same rhythm, same speed, as if the name didn't ring a bell.
Somewhere in the silence, the message was clear: Let's not tell Marlo.
Roger stepped in and searched Calvin's face. "Who are you?"
He rolled his eyes.
"I'm serious. The Cal that I know would have stayed in on a Friday night, grading papers and doing his job."
Calvin's guilt glass overflowed, as did his tolerance jar. He knew he was going back on his word, but any reminder felt like the world's worst lie. "For crying out loud, Roger. Let it go, will you?"
Roger looked at him, stunned.
If Calvin hurt him, he didn't care. "When have I ever acted up? When have I called you drunk wanting a ride home? When have I gotten into trouble at all? Please, let me have this. Let this be my one reckless slip-up."
The sound of his yelling was unfamiliar to him. The old Calvin slowly crept out of the quicksand. He blinked away the confusion, sat on the edge of his bed, and rubbed his face.
Roger stood in front of him, looking down at him like he was going through puberty. "Are you in love with her?"
Calvin shrugged with apathy. "Absolutely not."
"Are you attracted to her?"
He stared for a moment, then looked away.
Roger sighed. "She wants something from you, Cal. I don't know what it is, but she wants something."
For the first time since his reconciliation with Genevieve, the thought that she could be using him came up. It made him sick.
"You need to find out what it is. It could be free love."
Free love? With Genevieve? Surely, he wasn't that lucky. "You think so?"
"Use this trip to find out."
His face released a laughter twitch. "I think she sees me as a brother, not a lover."
"Whatever you do, be responsible. You know what I mean?"
Calvin put his hand up to stop the awkwardness. "Ugh, yes, I know."
Roger cleared his throat. "Are you, um, taking something with you?"
Calvin's face turned a bright scarlet. "Stu, stop it. Please."
"I have some in my room if you don't have any."
Uninvited images of Roger and Cookie getting intimate entered his imagination. Calvin wanted to vomit.
"It's better to have them and not need them than—"
"—need them and not have them," said Calvin "Trust me, they won't be necessary. I'll make sure we keep our hands to ourselves."
Even though I'm dying to put my hands on her.
Roger shook his head. "Okay, fine. Treat yourself this weekend. Get it all out of your system if you need to, but when you come back, we need to get back on track. I don't want to lose my job."
Roger patted Calvin shoulder and walked out the door, leaving Calvin with his backpack and conscience torn open.
He wasn't one for casual rendezvous, yet another thing his father considered bad form. But could he deny Genevieve if she made an offer? Did she make one already that went over his head? He frowned in contemplation.
Calvin never saw himself as a man capable of producing intense sexual urges in women. Did Genevieve just enjoy teasing him, or was she waiting for him to make the first move? Pushing for answers could cost him his job.
Roger stopped halfway and turned. "Oh, and Cal?"
Please, Roger. Give me some wisdom. I'm about to lose my mind. "Yes?"
"It helps if you think of baseball."
***
They were an hour out of San Kolbe and Calvin was still sitting in the passenger's seat cross-armed as Genevieve drove. The highway was as deserted as they expected.
She went on and on about Vegas, what she thought Calvin would enjoy, and the secret to winning at craps.
"You've barely said a word since we put gas in the car. What, did your mother set a curfew?"
Calvin chuckled. Of all the distractions he could have asked for to keep his mind off sex, his mother's memory turned out to be the best one.
"Do you keep in touch with her?" said Genevieve.
He tried to smile, but failed. "She's, um, she's gone."
Silence.
"That's awful. I'm sorry," she said.
Calvin stared out the window at the pitch-dark night, relieved that she didn't ask for details. "Me, too."
Please don't ask. Please don't ask.
"What about your father?"
Damn.
As much as Calvin loved his mother, it was his father's passing that hurt more. He looked at Genevieve and said nothing, hoping she understood.
She looked at him with a pained expression.
The car couldn't have been more void of human noises.
Genevieve kept her voice soft, the softest Calvin ever heard since they met. "When?"
He cleared his throat, preparing himself. "My father, sophomore year of high school. My mother, five years later."
"You must get very lonely."
Calvin felt the symptoms of a lingering cold. He was allergic to the sympathy.
"Any siblings?"
The question shattered his sadness to bits. The little scientist in his head panicked, scrambling to find a lie or a vague truth, whichever he found first. "Uh, a half-brother, but I barely know him."
"Barely, huh? So you've at least met him?"
Lie. Lie! "Nope. Never met him."
"Is he older or younger?"
Lie again. "Um, older. By a lot."
You idiot. Why didn't you lie about that, too? Calvin looked out the car window. Lying was never his strong suit.
"How'd you end up with a much older half-brother?"
Okay, you can still salvage this. Just tell her you don't want to talk about it and— "When my mother first became pregnant at sixteen."
"Pregnant with your older brother?"
"With my brother, yes. She moved in with the baby's father, but they never married."
Calvin cleaned the inside of his fingernails. "After a few years, I guess she got fed up with the life she lived. From what I understood, they were always struggling financially, and she was disappointed with my brother, who was kind of a troublemaker."
Either start lying or stop altogether, but quit telling the truth! "So, on her thirty-first birthday, she packed a bag in the middle of the night and... left."
"She left?"
Calvin nodded. "She just left, leaving a note on the kitchen table saying she couldn't stand her family. She moved to Los Angeles and met my dad, who was almost fifty, but very rich, and still had it in him to conceive me."
He stopped to look at Genevieve, to make sure she was listening. Dominating the conversation was new territory for him.
She giggled at his last joke.
It was the only green light he needed to continue. "My brother tried reaching out to her, trying to convince her that he changed, that he wanted his mother back."
Calvin thought of Marlo, reliving the pain he must have gone through. "But she turned him away, saying she had the son she wanted now."
"That son being you?"
He nodded, causing tears to slip out of his eyes and unto his jeans.
"Why does that make you sad?"
His emotions let loose. After months of keeping them locked inside, they refused to be hidden any longer. He twisted up his face in a constrained sob. "I'm the reason he didn't get his mom back. I took her away."
Genevieve didn't correct him. She didn't tell him that it wasn't his fault. She didn't deny him anything.
He was free to feel whatever he wanted.
Calvin snorted tears back into his nose. "He went on to be such a success and my mother just tossed him aside. All the love and attention was for me and look what I've done with it. Nothing."
The guilt burned, more than ever before.
He didn't know why his left hand was warmer than his right one, until he noticed Genevieve placed hers on top of it.
Calvin fought the urge to tell her to turn the car around and take him home, but he was fighting another urge, the one to be close to her.
This was the kind of intimacy he was most afraid of.