Cortado Time

He could manage most emotions well enough to function. But anger. There wasn't much he could do about that. He felt a lot like Achilles. Perhaps that's why he often found himself at expensive cafés, nursing bitter cortados, reading The Iliad. 

He remembered wanting to play in the NBA. He spent hours as far back as he could remember sinking buckets from all angles of the basketball court. He was no doubt the most skilled individual player in his school, but that's where it stopped. Dexter, the poor bastard, had never developed team-player skills. His parents had offered to put him in basketball leagues, but he didn't like being called a ball-hog (which he was) or working with others. On the rare occasion that he did join a pickup game, he felt a general confusion. He had no passing, rebounding, or stealing abilities. He'd never run plays or set picks or developed that intuitive sense that comes with regular, team practice. So while all admired him, none wanted him on their team. 

He took another sip of his cortado. 

He remembered college. How he'd tried to become a team player in one last desperate attempt to get noticed by recruiters. How his coach had even given him private lessons. But it was all a lost cause. His bad habits ran too deep. And after he'd graduated, he started working immediately at Marble Slab. He had to work 10-hr shifts to cover his half of the bills, which left him no time for basketball.

And at his pickup games now, reserved for weekends, he couldn't even sink a free throw. The ball wouldn't go in. 

This had been going on for three weeks now.

Ever since...

Another sip. His hands trembled. Sing goddess, the rage of Achilles.

Perhaps he was being punished. Only the gods could know what he had done. He had taken great pains to hide the body. And the whole town was in a rage about it. Their beloved Kristin Wess. Missing. Dexter's... ex, he supposed?

The cops pulled up to the café. He had an alibi that his mother had promised, reluctantly, to give him. But everyone loved sweet Kristin. 

Dexter went to the bathroom to at least give himself a few more minutes. He sat on the toilet and locked the door. He remembered it all so clearly.

"Dex, I'm home," said Kristin. She shook off her flip-flops in the annoying way she did and threw her pile of new clothes on the counter. 

"Did we really need to spend more money today?"

"Don't start." She opened the fridge and pulled out spaghetti leftovers. It was all Dexter could cook but he was good at it. She filled herself a heaping bowl, nuked it, and slurped. Gross. 

Then she brought the bowl closer to him and sat down at his side. He was trying to watch the Jazz and Lakers game. She knew. She fucking knew how much he needed this.

She turned off the TV and scooted even closer to him. Kristin took a rolled up wad of spaghetti on her fork and held it to his mouth. In his effort to shoo her away, some of the sauce spilled on his shirt.

"What the fuck." It came out quietly. That's about as much as Dexter could do to control his anger. He could make it quieter.

"I'm so sorry, oh my god. Don't give me that look, baby." Dexter reached for the remote but Kristin moved it out of reach. "Baby just talk to me. You need to chill."

"I am chill." But he felt an acid turmoil bubbling in his stomach. "Just let me watch my game."

"Stop it." Kristin slapped his face trying to be playful, but it was harder than she intended. "Baby I didn't mean to hit you so hard..."

Dexter's anger boiled over and he shoved her when she tried to hug him, a little too hard, and she was at that angle... She hit her head on the edge of the coffee table and blood sputtered in bursts. 

But he'd had the carpet removed, buried the body in a nearby forest, and his mother had (reluctantly and only after Dexter had told her everything) agreed to say that Dexter was at her house the day before, that Kristin must therefore be missing for some unknown reason. In a rare moment of self-reflection, Dexter wondered if he'd grown up spoiled.

As soon as he'd buried the body, he realized he probably could've said it was all an accident. But now that it was buried, digging it back up, washing it, etc. would probably look suspicious.

And now he couldn't sink a free throw.

"Dexter Adams," said the cop. "Come out with your hands where I can see them."

Dexter flushed the toilet, hands shaking, and exited the stall. 

"We found the body," said the cop. 

"I figured," said Dexter. 

"Your mother couldn't—"

"Yeah I'm sure," said Dexter. "Let's just get this over with."