The Anti-hero (The Goode Brothers)

Adam winces, sucking in through his teeth as I dab at his knuckles with the alcohol again. The skin is broken on every one of his knuckles, but they’re so swollen and red it’s hard to tell what’s bone, cartilage, and skin.

“How many times did you hit him?” I ask to distract him from the pain as I rewrap it with clean gauze.

“I lost count.”

I bite my bottom lip to keep from smiling. We’re sitting in my bed, still naked from the amazing sex we had less than an hour ago. I caught his hand trembling and I knew he needed it looked at again.

“All because he hurt me?”

He turns his head and looks into my eyes. “Yes,” he replies confidently. I nearly lose my breath for a moment.

“Are you going to break the faces of everyone who hurts me?”

“Yes.”

After his hand is clean and bound, I hold his aching fist against my chest. Then I lean forward and press my lips to his. It feels good to kiss him, for real.

“Want some aspirin?” I ask.

“Yes, please.”

“Be right back,” I reply as I let go of his hand and climb off his lap. When I open the medicine cabinet in the bathroom, I see the extra-strength pain reliever. After dropping three into my palm, I go to the kitchen to get him a glass of water. Then I sit next to him on the bed, watching as he takes them.

Staring at him for a moment, I think about how much he’s changed since I met him. He was the church boy do-gooder. Mr. Perfect. But he was also lost and confused. He didn’t even know who he was. And now…

Adam seems free. He looks…like himself. The version he was always meant to be.

There are still so many things that separate us. Things we might never overcome. Not entirely.

And these changes won’t last forever. It would be stupid of me to assume they would. Nothing ever does.

After the water is gone from his glass, I crawl into his arms, and we lie together on the bed, staring at the plaster on the ceiling.

“Can I ask you a question?” I whisper.

“Of course,” he replies, his lips against my head.

“Do you believe in God?”

He tenses, pulling away to look down at me with a guarded but scrutinizing expression. Almost as if he’s afraid to answer. Finally, he softly whispers, “Yes.” Then he stares at me a moment longer and I wonder if he thinks I’m going to get up and leave based on that response.

“I’m not like my father if that’s what you’re implying.”

Hearing the coarse tension in his voice worries me, so I turn onto my stomach and stare at him. “I know you’re not like him. I was just curious. How much of that was really you and how much of it is you now?”

His brow furrows, but I can tell he knows exactly what I’m asking. As he rests his head on the pillow, his eyes locked with mine, I place my head on his arm and stare into his eyes.

“I don’t know,” he whispers. “But I still believe in something bigger than myself. I was never really like Truett, but I used to believe that if I could stand where he stood, I’d be closer to God somehow. That I’d be worthy.”

I touch his face, running my fingers through the short-cropped beard. “You are worthy.”

“I was never good enough for my father. But I believed that if I was a holy, righteous man, I’d be good enough for God. Now…”

“Now what?” I lean forward, pressing my lips to his for a brief moment. His pain is written on his face, and although I know this is part of his transformation, the change he so badly needs to endure to be happy with himself, it’s hard to watch. Like I’m growing to care for him more than I’m ready to.

“Now I just want to be good enough for you.”

It feels like all the air in the room has been sucked out, and I stare into his eyes as tears spring up into mine. “Do you really?” I whisper.

He nods.

“Then let’s stay here. Let’s not go to their galas or dinners. Let’s not even go to the club. Fuck the whole plan, Adam.” As I blink, my throat stings with emotion. “Fuck them.”

“Okay,” he says, and a smile cracks across my cheeks as I take his face in my hands and kiss him hard.

“You’re good enough. You’re more than good enough,” I mumble against his lips.

I don’t even know what time it is when I finally emerge from my apartment. After the talk this morning, Adam and I showered together, had sex again, and then he drifted off to sleep. Since I couldn’t sleep myself, I climbed out of bed and cleaned my apartment for a while, scrolling the app for updates on our videos.

I said we were done faking it, but I hope this doesn’t mean we’re done posting videos. There’s a part of me that really loves that part, and now that we get to do it for real, it should be even better.

The sound of voices coming from the front of the Laundromat makes me pause as I close the stairwell door behind me. It’s a man’s voice, and he’s speaking loudly. For a moment, I pause.

Then I hear Gladys and Mary break out in laughter and my shoulders melt away from my ears. It takes me a moment before I recognize Dan, one of the regulars, telling an animated story like he always does. Walking through the rows of washers toward the front, I smile as I reach the crowd gathered there.

At the front of Gladys’s Laundromat is an eight-foot white folding table covered in food. Around the table are mostly regulars and a few newcomers, quickly devouring the meals in front of them.

For many of them, this might be the first warm one they’ve had in months.

“Hey,” Gladys calls when she sees me coming. “Come get some enchiladas. They’re delicious.”

“Sure,” I say with a sleepy smile as Mary hands me a plate. Waving to the guys and one girl sitting around the table, I lean against the counter and take a bite of Mary’s famous chicken enchiladas. When one of the guys gets up to offer me his seat, I shake my head and insist he take it.

While I eat, they continue their conversation, and I feel Gladys’s eyes on me.

“You okay?” she asks, turning her back to the conversation.

“It’s been a long weekend,” I reply with honesty.

“Adam’s treating you right, I hope.”

As I take a bite, I nod at her with a smile.

“He showed up here last night looking like a mess. I tried to tell him you weren’t home, but he just sat in the stairwell for over an hour and waited.”

“Yeah…I know.”

For a moment, she just watches me, and I wait for the nugget of wisdom I know is coming.

“He seems like a good guy,” she says.

To which I immediately reply, “He is.”

“But…”

I glance up at her, not quite understanding why there has to be a but. When she doesn’t say anything, I realize there’s a big but I’ve been harboring. Aside from everything Adam has been going through and this whole fake dating scheme, there is still a lot that’s keeping me from saying, Yes, this is the one.

I set my plate down and turn toward her. “He and I are so different, Gladys. We come from different worlds. And I know. I know…love conquers all—and I’m not saying that’s what this is. But…eventually, the honeymoon period will fade and reality will set in and all the things that separate us will be insurmountable.”

Pressing her lips together, she nods. Then to my surprise, she agrees.

“You’re right. They will.”

“Wow, that’s encouraging,” I joke.

“But it’s true, Sage. Those differences will never go away and love will not make them any easier to ignore. I was married to Walter for forty-seven years. He was in the Navy for twenty of them and I burned my bra and went to Woodstock.”

I laugh, biting my lip at the image of a young Gladys running around high on everything she could get her hands on.

“There were fundamental things we could never agree on. Things we were raised to believe that would never change. Good things and bad. He could be a stubborn, pigheaded asshole, and so could I. But I loved him more than anything in the world.”

Tears moisten her eyes as she speaks, shutting them for a moment as she gets lost in a feeling.

“How?” I whisper. “How could you get past all of that?”

“Because,” she replies, “we built a life together. A life we loved. And underneath all the bullshit and all the things out of our control, we agreed on the things that mattered. And no one had to change.”

Reaching out, I touch her hand. “That was beautiful, Gladys. Thank you.”

“Sage, baby. You deserve all the happiness in the world, whether it’s with him, someone else, or all alone.”

“I love you,” I whisper as she pulls me in for a tight hug.

Just as we part, I look up and see Adam emerging from the stairwell. He’s dressed in the same bloodied clothes he wore last night because he doesn’t have anything else at my apartment.

As soon as he sees me, he smiles. Then he crosses the room with his disheveled hair and sleepy eyes.

“What’s going on?” he asks, running his hand over his head.

“Mary made enchiladas,” I answer as I scoop a bite from my plate and lift it to his mouth.

“Who are all these people?” he whispers before wrapping his lips around the fork. Immediately, he makes a satisfied face as he chews.

“Just…people in the community,” I reply.

“We had extra food, so we’re sharing,” Gladys adds.

His eyes are on my face, and his expression is warm. Something like surprise and pride radiates off of him. “You do this a lot?”

I look at Gladys and we both shrug. “I don’t know. Like…once a month or so.”

His smile grows. Then, it slides away like melting wax, as if he’s retreating into a memory.

Before he can start to beat himself up, I tug on his shirt. “You need to get out of these clothes so we can wash them.”

Then I pull him toward the back of the long room. “Where are you taking me?” he asks mischievously.

“Getting you something to wear.”

That wrinkle between his brows deepens, watching me as I open the large closet behind the industrial dryers. Inside, we have a folded array of clothes. “This is almost as bad as your bedroom,” he mutters, and I laugh. “What is all this?”

“Oh, just clothes that got left behind over the years. We keep it all clean and folded here in case anyone needs something.”

I pull out a dark-blue T-shirt and hold it up to his frame. When he glances down, he lets out a chuckle. “You must be joking.”

“Hey, it fits,” I reply, stifling my own laughter. Then, I pull his bloodstained polo over his head, watching so as not to hit his bad hand. Then I slide the blue T-shirt on, running my hand down the front and over the words World’s Best Grandpa.

He holds his hands out, letting me admire his new look. I’m trying not to grin too much as I nod in appreciation.

“Okay, unbutton those now,” I say, gesturing to his pants.

Laughing to himself, he shakes his head as he does. As he pulls them off, glancing around the corner to make sure no one else is coming to see him in his boxers, I riffle through the closet, looking for a pair of pants that will fit.

When I find a pair of green joggers in what I assume is his size, I pull them out and hold them up for him. He laughs again but doesn’t argue as he snatches them from my hand and slides them on.

Once he’s fully dressed in a stranger’s clean, lost-and-found clothes, I wrap my hands around him and reach on my tiptoes for a kiss. He presses his mouth to mine and gently slides his tongue between my lips. Before I know it, it’s getting heated, and I have to peel myself away to keep from doing something very illicit in the back of Gladys’s Laundromat.

“Gladys should be able to get these stains out,” I say, picking his dirty clothes up off the floor. Then we walk hand in hand out to the main area of the Laundromat, and I catch Gladys staring at him in surprise.

“I hardly recognize you,” she says with a laugh.

“Thanks for…uh, letting me borrow these,” he stammers.

“Anytime,” she replies, patting him on the back.

“Hungry?” Mary asks, already busy making him a plate.

“Very,” he replies before taking it from her with a smile. “Thank you so much.”

Then he takes the newly empty seat at the table, smiling at the man sitting next to him. The two of them strike up their own private conversation, and I can’t seem to tear my eyes away as something swells inside my chest at the sight.

Adam wanted to feel closer to God, and I can’t help but wonder if he realizes how close he is now.