In Safe Arms (My Truth Book 2)

by Ann Grech

  Barely ten minutes later, I heard Trent exclaim, “Oh ho, now I’ve gotcha!” I jogged back to him and watched in wonder as his rod bent at an acute angle. He worked it, pulling the rod up and winding the reel as the tension let off. He’d only cast a hundred or so feet into the lake but the fish fought him for every inch of line. It was a good five minutes before he could get it close enough that we could see a flash of silver on the surface.

  I emptied the cooler of the remaining drinks and grabbed the net, readying to reach down and catch it as he reeled it in. “He doesn’t want me to bring him in,” Trent pondered as he handled the rod with practiced ease. In the last few feet, the fish tired, and I reached down with the net, bagging it. At just over a foot long, the beautiful rainbow trout would be good eating. Trent’s broad smile matched my own, and when he aimed it at me, my stomach swooped. I loved making him happy. His smile lit up the world around him, and my heart beat harder seeing it. His face was flushed. The sun’s reflection off the water had deepened his already tan skin, which was uncovered by his loose wife beater.

  “It’s a keeper,” he exclaimed happily as I held the net steady and he reached in for it.

  “Don’t cut the head off,” I instructed when he held the wiggling fish on the cutting board and pulled his paring knife from its holster. “Just clean it, and then I’ll cook the fish whole.” He didn’t hesitate, gutting and cleaning the fish before placing it on ice in the cooler. We packed up, gathering our things and heading back to my car.

  It was a few hours later when I was back at home that I got a Skype call from Papà checking up on how my apartment hunt was going. Gabriella was visiting him and soon overtook the conversation. “Sì, I have one,” I explained in Italian. “It’s three bedrooms in the same complex as Trent. Once the new timber floors go down, we’ll be able to move in.”

  “We?” Gabriella asked as Riccardo flopped down on the sofa next to me and asked the same question.

  “Trent and me. We’re going to be sharing the house.” I shrugged, trying in vain to downplay the magnitude of my decision. Gabriella knew about the complex, confusing torch I held for my best friend, but Riccardo was clueless. He’d heard Trent’s offhand insults before, and I’d begged him to leave it well alone, but he’d never forgiven him. Riccardo couldn’t understand why someone like me—queer—would be friends with a homophobe. I wasn’t exactly proud of the fact that I didn’t stand up to him, but I couldn’t walk away either.

  “Is that a good idea, Angelo?” Gabriella asked in rapid-fire Italian, and I knew she was referring to a whole lot more than Trent’s odd insult. I nodded, trying to assure her that I’d be fine, even though I wasn’t sure I would be when Trent decided to take up dating again.

  “You know you can move back here anytime if things don’t work out, right?” Ricky assured me, wrapping an arm around my neck and rubbing his knuckles over my hair. I pushed him away and laughed before running my fingers through my bangs again, pushing my hair off my forehead.

  “Thank you, but you and Mary-Ann seem to be going full steam ahead. Wouldn’t want to intrude.”

  He huffed out a laugh, but it held no humor. “You have nothing to worry about there.” He shook his head and pursed his lips. “We’re over. I came out to her, wanted to be upfront about partners and my orientation. We’ve only been together for a couple of months, but we were talking about being exclusive—not that either of us have been seeing anyone else—so before we made that move, I wanted her to know. You know, for it not to be a surprise if we run into a man I’ve dated before.”

  “She didn’t take it well,” Gabriella surmised.

  “No. Not at all. I don’t know what made it worse—the fact that I told her I’m pan, or that I’ve been with men before.” He blew out a breath. “She flipped out. Told me it wasn’t something she was comfortable with and then she got up and opened the door for me. When I asked her what was going on, she asked me to leave and lose her number at the same time.” Riccardo scrubbed his hands over his face and sighed. “Apparently, my being pan increases her risk of contracting HIV because I can’t make up my mind who I want and if I can’t do that, there’s no way I could stay faithful.”

  “Bitch,” Gabriella muttered, while I reached out and wrapped an arm around Ricky’s shoulders. He groaned and shook his head.

  “I liked her, you know?”

  “Yeah. I do,” I murmured. Trying to lighten the mood, I quipped, “At least she doesn’t think you’ve got a fetish for pots.”

  Riccardo barked out a laugh and playfully punched me in the side. “Shut the hell up. You know I prefer pie dishes.”

  We stayed talking like that for another hour until I was practically asleep on Ricky’s shoulder. He nudged me and told me to say goodnight to Gab while he locked up. Rubbing my eyes, I yawned and looked up at her. “You love him, don’t you?” she asked, although it wasn’t really a question.

  I nodded and pursed my lips. “I can’t help it, and I don’t know if I’m setting myself up to be destroyed, but the thought of saying no when he asked….” I shook my head. “I couldn’t. We’ll never have the relationship I want, but I can’t be without him either.”

  “Maybe coming home over Christmas and having some time apart would be a good idea.”

  I looked down, unable to look her in the eye when I made my admission. “He’s not close to his family. Never mentions them. I don’t think he talks to them at all. He was going to be alone over Christmas, and I couldn’t let that happen.”

  “You’re not cancelling your trip, Angelo,” Gabriella warned, but she didn’t have to.

  “He’s coming with us.”

  Her stunned silence would have been laughable under any other circumstances.

  “He’s your person. It’s not just puppy love. It’s the real thing, isn’t it?” The sympathy in her voice had me reflecting on what a sorry sap I was. God, I must have made a sight. I was pathetic, falling in love with not only a man I could never have, but one who’d spurn any advance I’d make with derision.

  “Yeah. Yeah, he is. You wanna know what makes it worse?” I huffed. “I want to have sex with him. I want to get naked and,” I waved my hand at her, “do everything together. I’ve wanted it for a while, but today I knew without a doubt.”

  “Jesus, irony is a bitch, isn’t it?” she sighed. “The one man you can’t have, and you’re turning into a horn bag over him.”

  I ignored her quip but couldn’t help my smirk. “I don’t think I’m asexual. I think I’m more demi. I’ve been thinking about him a lot. Dreaming of him too. Every time I do, we’re in bed. I thought maybe I was just lonely or horny. I tried to hook up again. I figured it might help. There’s this gay bar here and a guy hit on me. He was good-looking and he wanted it, but I couldn’t. His touch was all wrong.” My shoulders dropped and the hopelessness of my predicament hit me square on. “I’m fucked, aren’t I?”

  “I don’t know what advice to give you, Angelo. I want you happy, and he makes you happy, but he’s also hurting you and you’re hurting yourself. Moving in together just seems like a way to make it worse, and a secret like that will probably destroy your friendship, especially if he’s… intolerant.”

  “Yeah, I know. I’ll let you tell me you told me so when all this goes to shit.” I gave her a small smile and waved to her, wishing her goodnight. Gab blew me a kiss, and in that moment, I almost wished I’d never moved here. I was comfortable at home. Queenstown had been a roller-coaster of a ride so far, but the tunnel ahead scared me. I wasn’t sure whether it would branch off and become the adventure of a lifetime, my very own Eden, or whether I would descend into some nightmare. Maybe I was overreacting. Maybe it wouldn’t end badly. But even with the knowledge that I’d probably end up hurt, I couldn’t walk away. Having Trent as a friend would always be better than not having him at all. I just had to be strong. I had to make sure I never crossed that line, because losing our bond was a risk I wasn’t prepared to take.

  7<
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  Trent

  My life had changed so much in a decade that it was unrecognizable. I didn’t know if I was even the same person anymore. Sitting around a pub in a little village in the mountains of northern Italy on Christmas day, while snow fell outside and a fire blazed inside, was surreal.

  The only customers in the pub that day were Angelo, his extended family, and a select group of friends—Alfonso, the owner of the pub, Ford, who had just started working with Gabriella as mountain rescue on the nearby slopes, and me. But I felt like an interloper into Angelo’s close-knit family. As the matriarch of Angelo’s family, his mom, Palmira, ruled the roost with a heavy rolling pin and laughter. Wrong her or her family and you’d find yourself at the business end of the implement, but do something right and she’d cook you one of her traditional recipes that had to have been handed down over generations. Luckily for me, she was being generous and letting me hang around.

  Christmas was apparently the only time of year everyone and their plus ones were together. Both Angelo and Ricky were ordered home and wouldn’t dream of disobeying. My invite had been more of an insistence by Angelo than a question, and the whole family had welcomed me into the fold immediately. But I still couldn’t figure out why. I must have done something right in a former life to deserve a spot at that table—it certainly wasn’t anything I’d done in this one. I was a fraud. These people thought I was a good person, but they didn’t know me. Not even the man sitting next to me, who I’d been drawn to from the moment I’d met him, really did. I was proud of who I’d become, but I’d also done the unforgivable. My stupidity as a teenager tore my family apart and sent me to hell. I’d clawed my way back, but I hadn’t really left purgatory. Saying I was gay was a mistake. An incredibly stupid one. I wasn’t. There was no way I could be, and I knew that now. My godfather was just helping me see the truth that night. I’d hated, no, loathed every second of what he’d shown me, and to do that, he’d had to become something he wasn’t either. He was so angry at my mistake that he’d taught me I was wrong the only way he knew how—by a hands-on demonstration. Whatever his intentions, his methods were wrong and not something I could ever forgive. I’d been scared and broken my parents’ hearts too. I’d left, walked away, never to go home again. It was inexcusable. What I’d done to them haunted me every day. I wished I could have gone home to see them even just one more time, but it was too late now. Too much water had passed under the bridge. They’d never want to see me again for what I put them through. But it was times like these—Christmas and birthdays—that I really missed them.

  Since I’d left, I’d spent every holiday at shelters, the first as one of the people receiving a meal, and the rest as a volunteer. I’d served tens of thousands of meals and handed out so many packets of essentials that I’d lost count. I’d never had family surrounding me, but as I watched Ricky and Ford clink their beer steins together, Gabriella pass a bowl of peas to Angelo, and Frank, Angelo’s father, kiss his ex-wife on both cheeks to say thank you for the meal, I wanted more than anything to be accepted into this one.

  The conversation flowed as the plates were wiped clean. Even second helpings barely made a dent in the mountain of food in the center of the table. Most of the talk was about people I didn’t know. Relatives perhaps, or family friends, people in the village possibly. I wasn’t sure, but it didn’t matter. Watching Angelo in his element made me smile. He spoke with his hands, using them to express himself as much as he communicated with words. And that Italian accent of his… even I could admit it was sexy. His million-mile-an-hour conversation with his father sounded like a heated argument when he spoke in his native tongue, but then they both laughed and Frank clapped his son on the shoulder. Angelo and his sister were close too, sometimes communicating with nothing more than a look between them. Ford caught my eye and nodded at me, a smile crossing his lips. “You wanna come to Bormio tonight, Trent? There’s a club that’s just opened.”

  I looked to Angelo to ask what he had planned for us, and a pang of disappointment shot through me when he encouraged me, saying, “You should go.”

  “You won’t come?”

  He shook his head and looked down. I wanted to reach out to him and lift his face to mine once more. To have those warm hazel eyes that sparked with life focused on me again. It sounded gay, but I loved it when he looked at me. It was like nothing else in the world mattered. As if I was the most important person in Angelo’s life when he did it, and seeing that made me feel a little more like I mattered to someone significant. So whatever he was feeling to make him look away like he was ashamed or sad, I wanted it gone.

  “You know me, I’m not really into the hookup scene,” he replied. “But it’s okay. Gab and I have a Christmas tradition too.” I saw the flicker of surprise cross Gabriella’s face before she schooled her features. Was she shocked that he’d mentioned them having a tradition? Or was it an excuse because he didn’t want me hanging around? We had spent almost every minute together for the last week since we’d left New Zealand. I supposed that he’d want to spend some time with his sister. After all, he hadn’t seen her in months. Maybe I should give him some space. I looked across to Ford and Ricky to see Alfonso nodding in agreement, and I plastered a smile I wasn’t feeling on my face. If I were being honest, I would have preferred to stay in the quiet pub all night, sitting on the sofas over by the fireplace.

  “Yeah, okay. I’ll go.”

  “You aren’t leaving until we’ve had dessert and the rest of the presents are opened,” Palmira warned. “And you’d better be safe on those roads. It’s a long drive at night when it’s been snowing.”

  “Wouldn’t dream of anything else, Mamma,” Ricky crooned, getting up to kiss his mom on the head and pour her another glass of red wine.

  It was less than an hour later that the dishes had been cleared and platters of desserts lined the table. I couldn’t fit another thing in even if I tried, but I wanted to taste everything. It was something I didn’t think I’d ever get used to. The excess was so different to the modest meal I’d served so many years in a row. Every time I walked into one of the soup kitchens as a volunteer, I was grateful to have a home to go to when my shift ended and not be reliant on the food they were providing for my day’s meal. I’d been on the other side of the table, and that dinner was often the only one for the day. It’d certainly been like that for me for months.

  Sitting down on the sofas, relaxing after a meal unlike any other I’d ever had, I watched the flames dance in the stone fireplace. The fairy lights on the huge pine, decorated with tinsel and every sized bauble imaginable, twinkled. The tree, the fireplace, and the love of a family, even if it wasn’t my own, made me realize how content I was. I was at peace. I wanted to file this moment away forever and relive it over and over. Looking around, I caught Angelo’s eye and held his gaze, mentally thanking him for insisting I take this trip with him. He’d given me something I hadn’t had in a decade—family. I grinned, and he blushed, which only made me smile harder. He did that to me often; made me laugh more than anyone else. He looked away first, and I smiled wider, warmth flooding my chest knowing I’d made him happy.

  “Okay, we’ve all been patient long enough. Presents!” Frank clapped his hands together and rubbed them while Gabriella hopped off the sofa and kneeled by the tree, reaching under it to pass around the presents. One by one, they were unwrapped until she called out my name. I sat there, stunned. Angelo and I had agreed that it’d be painful to carry anything back with us, so we weren’t buying each other presents. Who else would get me one?

  I had my answer soon enough. A box, half the width of a shoe box but just as long, was tossed at me. The gift card, addressed from “your pain in the ass boss,” had me shaking my head at Ford.

  “What did you get me, dude?”

  “Open it.” His wicked grin had me more curious than nervous, but I felt the blood drain from my face and horror claw its way up my throat after I tore open the wrapping. Inside was a boxed
dildo—a giant, black, dick-shaped dildo. He knows. Oh fuck, he knows. But I’m not gay. It’s impossible. I’m not. It was a mistake. I’m not. Stars flashed before me, and my lungs burned. I gasped in a lungful of air, and the oxygen rush after holding my breath made me dizzy. My hands were clammy, and I couldn’t get that thing away from me quick enough. Pushing it away, my first instinct was to run and hide. But I lashed out instead, taking out every ounce of anger and hurt that I still felt a decade on out against my supposed friend. I was halfway out of my seat, grinding my teeth together and about to beat his face into a pulp, when Palmira’s hand landed on my arm.

  “Grazie, Ford! It was a stupid prank to play on Trent, but a nice thought for you to get me the toy I wanted.” I stilled at her words. A prank? It was for her?

  I looked at Ford, staring daggers at him, and his gaze bounced from Palmira to me and back again. “Ah, yeah,” he stuttered. “Just a stupid prank. Merry Christmas, Palmira.” He looked to me cautiously and added, “Sorry, mate, just a stupid prank.”

  I almost fell back into the chair, all the air leaving my lungs in a rush and taking my last vestiges of energy with it. I sat quietly after that, my thoughts overwhelming me. I was kidding myself if I thought that I was over what Ryan had done. Yes, he’d taught me that I was wrong in my assumption, but the way he did it was something I didn’t think I’d ever get over. In that moment when I’d opened the box, I’d been powerless to stop the rush of emotions attacking me. I was the victim again. The same one I was during the Friday night football match when I was sixteen, bloodied and bruised and being pinned to the kitchen countertop by a man I trusted as he emptied himself inside me. I’d frozen that time, scared of him, terrified for my life, but this time I didn’t. Like a cornered wild animal, I was ready to strike and protect myself. No one would ever hold so much power over me again.