Reflection
Last night’s stale beer still stuck to Liam’s tongue, and he lay flat on his back, staring up at the ceiling fan.
He and the guys—Mateo, Ant, Luke, and Benno—had stayed way too late at the J Spot. Over fifty now, they’d been inseparable since high school, a tight brotherhood built on divorces, separations, fatherhood, and bachelorhood. But Liam was the only one who went home to an empty apartment.
Above him, the fan blades buzzed. A thick layer of gray dust clung to the edges. I need to clean that, he thought, knowing damn well he never would.
He watched the blades chop through the morning light, casting rhythmic shadows across the ceiling. A faint, rhythmic ticking clicked with every rotation. Just spinning in circles, going nowhere. He rubbed his forehead, pushing back his blonde hair. He wasn’t deeply depressed—that only hit him once in a blue moon—but today, there was just a hollow space where a life was supposed to be.
He knew exactly who to blame. The women he dated were usually skinny, runway types half his age. Great for arm candy, but lousy for in-depth conversations. He was too picky, too selfish with his time, and he knew it. But lying there, he didn’t just want arm candy. He craved more. He wanted a home. Sometimes, when the apartment got too quiet, he could almost hear a kid laughing down the hall or catch the faint smell of dinner cooking in the kitchen.
Instead, there was just the fan.
His mind drifted back to when he was five years old. A wake. Relatives in heavy black clothes suffocating him with tight, tearful hugs. He remembered the smell of damp tissues, and then his father, Robert—tall and broad shouldered—placing a heavy hand on his head and weeping. That was the day they buried his mother. It was also the last day Liam ever saw his father cry.
After that, Robert became a serial dater, bouncing from one young girlfriend to the next, never settling down. Watch that routine growing up had set a pattern. Liam never quite figured how to break.
A tear slipped down his cheek. He wiped it away quickly as his phone buzzed on the nightstand.
He snatched it up, ready to be annoyed, but softened when he saw the caller ID: Mateo.
Liam slid it open. “Hey.”
“Yo!” Mateo’s voiced boomed through the speaker. “What’s up?”
“Just lying here, staring at the ceiling.”
Mateo laughed. “Why do you always stare at that damn fan?”
“I don’t know. Just thinking.”
“Well, stop thinking and let’s do!” Mateo cackled, his distinct, roaring laugh echoing so loudly Liam had to pull the phone away from his ear. It was the loud, unhinged howl that forced everyone else to laugh along with him.
“Alright,” Liam said, the weight in his chest finally lifting. “I’ll meet you guys there. Give me fifteen minutes.”
“Cool, cool. Don’t make us wait, brother.”
Liam hung up and swung his legs out of bed. Feeling still groggy, but he couldn’t do a single active thing without a shower first. It was a compulsion. Cleanliness was his reset button; taking two or three showers a day was the only way he ever really relaxed.
In the bathroom, he splashed freezing water on his face and checked his reflection. At fifty, his blue eyes remained sharp, and his hair was still thick. Keeping himself fit allowed him to keep up with the guys on the court. He rubbed his jaw, checking for missed spots. He’d always been quiet—not out of shyness, but because he was just reserved. The group usually felt like he was the hardest one to read because he could be such an introvert.
Ten minutes later, he was in his car. The second the engine turned over, the radio blasted his personal time machine: 80s retro pop. He was a latchkey kid who grew up on early MTV, and that era and the memories just stuck to him over the years.
Nolan Thomas’s “Yo ’Little Brother” filled his car, and Liam immediately started going along at full, unchecked volume. Stopping at a red light, he caught the eyes of the drivers next to him. A few people smiled; others just shook their heads. He didn’t care. The music made him feel twenty again.
To his right, two teenage girls were whispering behind their hands, laughing hysterically at the middle-aged guy rocking out. They looked so young and innocent, the way they whispered to each other and covered their smiles.
He tapped the steering wheel, kept singing, and rolled right through the green light. The rhythm of the highway took over, and Liam drove toward the courts to meet his brothers from another. Today is going to be a good day, he thought.
