Forced Out by Stephen Frey

long."
    As far as Jack knew, Cheryl had never gone to Bobby's apartment. She'd sworn to Jack just last week she'd never been there when he asked.
    "I have to take care of my father," Cheryl murmured.
    "Just for a little while," Bobby begged. "Please."
    "It's just that I have to--"
    "I did pay for everything tonight. The tickets, the parking, the beer. And I tried making friends with him like you wanted."
    She kissed him. "Yes, you did," she whispered, pulling back, "and it was really nice of you."
    "I'll have you back in an hour. I just don't want to say good night yet. I miss you a lot when we're not together."
    "Well...I guess I could come over for a few--"
    "Where's the aspirin?" Jack yelled.
    "Oh, Lord," she muttered. "I gotta go, Bobby. I'll call you first thing in the morning." She hurried inside, pulled the door shut, then trotted to their small kitchen and a drawer beside the refrigerator. She grabbed two capsules from the bottle of aspirin, filled a glass with water, then headed back down the hall. "Here," she said, holding out the capsules in one hand and the glass of water in the other.
    Jack was just coming out of his bedroom. He grinned and took a sip of scotch from the leather-cased flask he'd retrieved from his nightstand. "The aspirin are for you."
    "What?"
    "Yeah," he said, hobbling past her. "I figured you might need them." He caught sight of himself in the hall mirror and froze. God, he'd aged so much in the past few years. Strange how he'd never noticed it before. Maybe simply facing the day in the morning was such a grind he didn't see it in his bathroom mirror. Maybe the light was different in there. Or maybe he was simply looking harder right now. He leaned toward the mirror so his face was close to the glass. His hair seemed grayer than it used to be, much more salt than pepper. The lines at the corners of his eyes and mouth were more pronounced, too. And his face seemed thinner, not as strong as it once was. At least the light blue husky eyes still burned bright--more so after tonight.
    "You should go straight to bed," Cheryl recommended when she'd swallowed the second aspirin.
    "Yeah, I hear you." He hesitated. "But I need your help with something first." He straightened up, pulled his shoulders back, pushed his chest out, and sucked in his gut. There; that was better.
    "You're still very handsome," she murmured reassuringly, squeezing his broad shoulders from behind. "What do you need help with?"
    Cheryl had a computer with Internet connection in her bedroom. Though she'd often tried to get him to use it, he hadn't. Truth was, he didn't know how to use it, and he didn't want to look stupid. Asking for help with anything was a challenge for him. Always had been. Just as it had been for his father. Of course, this had to do with technology. This was different. This wasn't like asking somebody for directions or something. He took a long swallow of scotch. And it might save his life. Literally. Might ultimately show some people they'd done the wrong thing firing him. He could damn well get past his pride for a chance at that.
    "I want to go on the Web for a while," he answered.
    "Really," she asked, surprised.
    "Show me how, will you?"
    She motioned to the flask. "If you stop drinking."
    One of the images in the mirror Jack had tried to ignore was the spiderweb of tiny blue veins spreading out from both sides of his thin nose into his cheeks. That and the fact that his nose and cheeks seemed to be getting redder and ruddier by the day. He'd told himself the Florida sun was to blame, but maybe it wasn't. If she only knew how much he was drinking. But how else was he supposed to make it through a workday? He'd decided early on in his grocery bagging career that it was never meant to be done sober.
    "Okay," he agreed, setting the flask down on the hall table beneath the mirror. "Done." As he followed Cheryl into her room, he noticed a heap of freshly washed panties and bras on top of her dresser and quickly