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John was avoiding going home.

He’d dodged a bullet, last Christmas. For whatever reason, nobody told Cary that John had been plowing Linette. While he wouldn’t have wished anything bad on Laney, her little incident had bought him much-needed time and distracted the ever-living shit out of Cary.

But at the time, he hadn’t known that nobody would find out. So he’d told his wife.

To his horror, Suzie’s response had been, “Well, John, we’ve all been there.”

“I’m sorry… what?” he asked, his eyebrows hitting his receding hairline.

“Everyone’s fucked a Hawton,” she said coolly.

“You… you’ve… who?”

“Don’t play stupid,” she’d snapped.

“Cary?” he asked incredulously. “You’ve… fucked Cary?”

“Of course I’ve fucked Cary,” she said nonchalantly. “And you fucked his mom. Aren’t we a pair.” She’d snorted two lines and then spent the weekend at her sister’s.

Things had been strained, since then.

“Don’t you need to get home to your wife and kids, or some shit?” Cary asked, tossing down his cards and letting John sweep up the pile. The rest of the guys had disappeared hours ago, and it was late.

“Yeah, soon, soon…” he said.

“Well, as much as I love your company John, I have an early morning and need to get to bed.”

“You? An early morning?”

Cary rolled his eyes. “Kim wants me to meet her mom.”

John chuckled. Kim and Cary made an odd couple, that was for sure. She was as straight-edge as they came, didn’t touch drugs, barely drank, wore a little silver cross and called her mama every week. She wore mom-jeans and always had her hair in a low ponytail with a scrunchie. She was as un-Cary a woman as he’d ever seen, and it had shocked every single one of them when he’d dumped Sarita for her.

John had lost a hundred bucks over that.

Jerry cleaned them out, the only one of them who’d bet that he’d start dating that Plain Jane for real.

“Alright,” John said. “I’ll close up the shop for ya. You go get your beauty rest.”

Cary winked at him, reaching in his pocket for his key. “Oh, shit,” he said, slapping his forehead. “I left my keys and my wallet in my car, and I let Robbie take it for the night. He doesn’t have his snow tires on yet…”

“You got a spare key kicking around here?” he asked.

“No,” Cary sighed. “There’s one at the other house, but Robbie’s got my car so… Guess I’ll just have to break my door in again.”

It was John’s turn to roll his eyes. “Don’t bother. I’ll just drop you off at your other house on my way home. Tell Kim to pick you up there, in the morning.”

“Alright,” Cary said, collecting his jacket. “Less likely Sarita will show up there, anyway.”

Sarita had come around a few times, making a scene. Apparently she’d shown up at Jerry’s as well, although she didn’t seem to be flat-out stalking Cary yet as he hadn’t heard anything about Kim being harassed and knowing Sarita, that crazy bitch would be quite happy to burn down Kim’s apartment.

They locked up the shop and stepped outside, at least another six inches of snow on the ground even though they’d just run the plow in the lot an hour ago.

“It’s really coming down tonight, eh?” John said.

“Yeah… I hope Laney is tucked up nice and warm, somewhere safe…” Cary’s voice was strange. Tight, and sad, and angry. John shuffled his feet, busying himself with brushing the snow off his car.

The way Cary talked about Laney had always made him uncomfortable. He’d rather sit in stony silence with his wife than watch Cary pine for that girl.