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“What are you doing here, Cain? Ethan’s not here, and I’m not going to tell you where he is. He’s done with you.” Stacey stood in the door, hands on hips. Phone in one hand so she could call the cops.
Cain ground his jaw, sure Abel was in there, because where the fuck else would he be, but Abel would never come home if he just punched this bitch in the mouth. “Need a recipe,” he said finally, glaring.
“For what?”
“That fucking pie Abel brings home from work, the fruit one.”
“Are you fucking kidding?”
“No, I’m not fucking kidding, just give me the goddamn recipe.”
“And then you’ll go.” Not a question, an order. Like he had to take fucking orders from this bitch.
Cain tried to look past her, see if he could catch a look at Abel peeking out from somewhere, but the apartment was quiet. “Yeah, I’ll fucking go, just fucking give it to me.” He was going to fuck Abel so hard as soon as the little slut came home, for making him go through all of Abel’s shit looking for the recipe and now dragging himself over here to get it from Stacey.
She eyed him up and down, then turned and slammed the door in his face, the fucking sanctimonious bitch. Flipped the deadbolt behind her.
Fuck. Cain ground his teeth so hard it hurt, thought about kicking the fucking door down, but she’d just call the cops and then he’d have to explain why he was standing outside some bitch’s apartment for some goddamn pie with no one to post bail for him this time. He’d just have to go through Abel’s shit again and hope for it there. He turned to go back to the car before Stacey decided to just call the cops anyway.
“You change your mind?” she called as his foot was hitting the top step.
Cain looked over his shoulder at her, standing in the door with a little index card and a frown. Went back and grabbed it from her. “I, uh,” he started. “Thanks, Stacey,” he managed finally, not looking at her.
“You don’t deserve it. You don’t deserve him,” she said, and really did slam the door in his face this time.
Fucking peaches. They fell apart in his hands and coated the kitchen with stickiness, turning to mush with little chips of the fucking pit mixed in it. He did the recipe, but Stacey had probably copied it wrong, setting him up to look like a goddamn idiot with a pie that looked like shit and tasted worse. It was too fucking sweet, nothing like when Abel did it, so he put some lemon in to cut it, take some of the awful syrupiness out of it, the peaches practically swimming in the bowl.
The fucking crust came out all lumpy and dry, and fell apart when he tried to get it into the pan, big chunks of butter making his fingers slip as he tried to press it into the corners, so he floured it up again, spilling it everywhere. Abel always looked so fucking good when he did this, his ass framed by the sissy little apron he brought home from work and flour smeared over the front of it and on his cheeks, but he managed to look fucking cute instead of like a goddamn idiot with flour in his hair and all over the floor.
And then it set off the fucking fire alarm, the upstairs neighbor banging on the ceiling as Cain tried to fish it out of the oven with smoke rolling in his face and hot peach syrup spilling over the sides of the black crust.
It was a fucking mess, just like the rest of his goddamn life. Burnt top, bitter, liquid filling. Abel would laugh his pansy ass off and then tell Cain to go to hell.
Fuck.
Four grocery stores and every other damn bakery in the city, and he couldn’t find one with a peach pie that tasted right, just his fucking luck. He waited outside Abel’s work, ducking down to smoke and wait until Abel finally left the register to go in back, and about fucking time, down to the last two smokes in the pack and making himself sick with too much nicotine and worrying that Stacey would see his car and call the cops.
Didn’t have to worry about that very long, the bitch standing at the register with the phone in her hand as soon as he walked in the door. “Cain, get the fuck out of here before I call the cops again, you can’t see him.” He glared at the couple of customers who gawked at him from their tables, but he pushed himself to the case where they kept the pies. Abel was probably in back, little apron tied on him, making a couple more for the dinner rush.
Stacey glared right back, but didn’t dial yet, just watching him.
“Need a pie.”
“Yeah? What happened to the one you were going to make? Or are you just too fucking lazy to even try to do something nice for someone?”
“Just, fuck, Stacey, sell me the goddamn pie, my money’s as good as anyone else’s. Why the fuck do you care what it’s for, anyway?”
Stacey gave him a long look. “Because at least one of us should care about Ethan. What kind do you want?”
She took her goddamn time wrapping it up, putting it in a pink carry box and tying it up with a little green bow, probably dragging it out to give Abel time to come out to the front again and see Cain crawling and groveling for his fucking bitch friend.
Of course he ran out of smokes right when Abel’s shift ended, standing at the register of the place across the street buying another pack just as Abel came out. He threw a twenty at the kid behind the counter and left without getting his change.
“Abel! Abel, get back here—“ Cain yelled after the little blond, trying not to run and scare Abel off. Abel’s back stiffened but he kept walking, and Cain hustled to catch up with him.
“Abel, come on, I just want to talk—“ This wasn’t how it was supposed to go, the pie sitting back on the front seat of the car, useless after everything, Abel just walking away.
“We’re done talking, Cain. Just go home,” Abel said without even stopping.
Cain caught up to him finally, and put a hand on Abel’s elbow. “I made you a pie,” he said, just as Abel threw his hand away and turned to glare at him.
Whatever Abel was going to say was gone, Abel’s mouth hanging open for a second until he closed it to glare harder. “A pie. You made a pie.”
Cain shifted on his feet, too far in now to back out. “It’s, uh, in the car,” he said, and turned to go back to it, hoping Abel would follow.
He made it all the way back without looking to see if Abel had followed, not able to pick out the sound of him over the noise of traffic, but Abel was right there behind him when Cain opened the passenger door to get the box out. Abel stood just out of reach, frowning a little as Cain put the box on the hood of the car and stood there like a moron.
“I made that pie,” Abel said, not moving.
“I, uh, fucked up the other one. Set off the fire alarm.”
Abel frowned and walked right back into the cafe, Stacey standing in the window with the phone in her hand.
Cain sat on the hood of the car next to the pie and put his head in his hands. They’d call the cops, and he’d just wait to let them haul him off this time because there wasn’t anything else left that he could do to make Abel happy. He looked up as someone came to stand in front of him, probably the fucking manager telling him to get off the property.
Abel stood there with two plastic forks and a blank look on his face.
Cain watched him push himself up to sit on the hood of the car, the pie carefully between them, and Abel started to take it out of the box. Stacey still watching through the window.
He watched Abel balance the tinfoil piepan on his knees, taking a dainty little bit out of the middle with his fork. “You going to eat any or not?” Abel asked, passing him the pie and a fork.
Cain wasn’t hungry, his guts too twisted up from the nicotine and looking for the pie and waiting for Abel, but he took the fork anyway. Took one bite, digging a big hole in the middle because he couldn’t get anything to stay on the fork as easy as Abel had. It was sweet-tart, a little spicy, the way it tasted when Abel brought home leftovers from work and they ate it in bed in the middle of the night or first thing in the morning after fucking on the kitchen table.
“Did you really try to make a pie?” Abel asked, not looking at him.
“Yeah. Fucked up the kitchen pretty good.”
“I’m not cleaning it up,” Abel said, taking the pie back and digging another bite out. “Did you do the laundry?”
The fucking laundry, the stupid fucking fight that had started this in the first place. He hadn’t done the laundry, too busy fucking around with the pie, but he’d sure as fuck do it now. “Yeah,” Cain lied.
Abel picked up the pie and went to get in the car. Cain got up and followed.