by Elle Keaton
Travis twisted around so he could see Rod’s face and Rod could see his. “I will do everything in my power to get you to believe I am for real. That we are for real.”
“What about your family? What about the farm? What about all those things that have been important to you for so long?”
“First, you’re one of those things that has been important to me for so long. I had it pointed out to me, quite bluntly, by Abs that you’ve always been there for me. So Abs is good. I’ve talked to my dad; believe it or not, he’s good too. We’ve got some stuff to work out with the farm, but I think things are going to be okay. Mom…” Travis shook his head, because no way was he going to tell Rod the kinds of things she’d been saying to him. “That’s probably about what you’d expect.”
“So you’re moving to Skagit? That’s what all this furniture means?”
“You of all people know how much I’ve wanted to get away from Walla Walla. Skagit is perfect. Similar size but closer to the big city. And the ocean. The real ocean down south that you can swim in without getting hypothermia,” he qualified.
“You’ve always wanted to go to the ocean. Remember that time you filled a huge bucket with dirt from your mom’s garden? I helped you drag it into the bathroom, and we poured the dirt into the tub and filled it with water. I thought Lenore was going to commit murder when she found us ‘surfing’ in the bathtub.” He laughed. “There was mud everywhere.”
“One of these days we’ll both get to the ocean, for real.”
Travis didn’t realize how much hope he was putting into those words until he said them out loud—how much he wanted to be sure that their future was together and the ocean would be a place they would visit not just once but many times, even when they were old and gray and couldn’t get it up anymore. Well, any more than once a day.
“When you said your mom was reacting ‘about as I’d expect,’ what exactly did you mean?”
Trust Rod not to let Travis get away with glossing over anything.
“And what happened with Lisa?”
Travis groaned. He did not want to talk about this.
“Tell me.”
“Do I get to kiss you again afterward? It’s very embarrassing and only highlights my general stupidity.”
“Trav.”
Travis made the best sad-puppy face he could. Rod rolled his eyes and laughed.
“Yes, we can kiss again. After you tell me.”
He let out a huff and pathetically slumped back against the couch cushions.
“After you left, Abs gave me a pretty good talking-to. I’m sorry for putting you through that. You promise we’re gonna make out? This isn’t pretty.”
“We’re not if you don’t tell me what happened.”
“I wanted to break it off with her, but gently, which is hard to do. I would say it’s probably impossible. Anyway, I took her home after dinner one night and she started talking about babies and how she wanted to get pregnant right away, and I pretty much told her no way, the wedding was off. It was bad.” He left out the part about the pepper spray.
“I’m sorry,” Rod said.
“Before she and her dad left on their trip, I apologized again.” Travis ran a hand through his hair. “We’re definitely not friends, and she’s not going to be visiting us anytime soon, but… I tried to make it better.”
“And then?”
“And then, what?”
“How come you’re here now?”
“No kissing yet?” He pouted again.
“I’m injured. You need to be very careful. Let me think…”
Travis couldn’t help but smile while Rod came up with something he knew would be ridiculous.
Rod pointed his elbow at Travis. “You can kiss me there.”
Travis wasn’t going to argue. He figured he’d probably get permission to kiss more if he was really really good. Gently grasping Rod’s biceps, he leaned in and placed a kiss right on the pointy knob. They’d watched Raiders of the Lost Ark plenty of times; Travis knew the script here.
Lifting his head, he looked at Rod, who pointed at his ear. Travis leaned closer in, kissing the shell of Rod’s ear and then licking it. Loving the sound of Rod’s gasp. He couldn’t help but nibble a bit before he leaned back and looked at Rod again.
And yeah, now he was pointing at his cheek, with a great big smile that made Travis’s heart pound with joy. He placed a chaste kiss on Rod’s whiskery cheek. Rod turned his head and sought Travis’s mouth, their lips pressing together lightly. Travis was going to pull back, but again Rod placed a hand on his neck, pulling him closer.
It was everything he’d ever imagined about the perfect kiss. It was exactly how a kiss between them was supposed to feel. Mindful of Rod’s leg and other injuries, Travis slipped his free hand under Rod’s T-shirt, needing to feel his bare skin. He caressed Rod’s abs and let his hand wander upward to his furry chest and across one nipple. Rod groaned into his mouth, sucking on Travis’s tongue. Travis felt himself getting hard. As much as he didn’t want to stop, he knew they had to.
He leaned away, and Rod let his hand slip from Travis’s neck. He missed the touch already. They stared at each other for a long moment. Rod’s lips were puffy and slightly open in a seeming invitation. God, he wanted to kiss him again, to keep going until they were both satisfied. Travis didn’t know what Rod was thinking, but Travis was thinking four weeks of “very light activity” was going to mean a lot of cold showers. Surely in four weeks they could at least give each other hand jobs? Maybe the physical therapist had meant to use four weeks as a guideline—and maybe sex wasn’t included? His heart leapt at the thought.
“This sucks.” Rod flopped backward.
“No, it doesn’t, but I bet it can if we are very careful.” Travis was going to have a chat with Rod’s physical therapist.
“Still feels unreal.”
“I guess I’ll just have to keep proving it’s real, then.”
13
Rod’s lips tingled from the kiss. Reflexively, he raised a hand to run a finger across them as if he could feel its echo. Holy cow. He could still feel the weight of Travis’s breath against his own, how good it had felt when Travis put his hand on Rod, how quickly his body had reacted regardless of the low-level ache of bone and tissue healing. Just thinking about it was making his cotton boxers tighter.
Rod tried to think of something unpleasant to calm himself down. He probably should call his parents. That did the job.
“Do you think we could replace my phone?” he asked as Travis lugged a box from the living room into the kitchen.
“Of course! We should have done it earlier. I’ll be back in a jiffy.”
Rod snorted. What self-respecting guy said stuff like, “back in a jiffy”? Travis, apparently, and Rod didn’t want him to change.
“Don’t get me anything fancy.” He narrowed his eyes at Travis to drive home his point.
Travis left, not bothering to acknowledge Rod’s instruction. Rod heard the deep rumble of Travis’s truck as it started up, then a roar as he gave it some gas before backing out the driveway. Show-off.
Travis was back in under an hour. Rod had spent the time alone turning over the day’s events in his mind, trying to make sense of them. Of the kiss, trying to convince himself it was nothing.
“Don’t argue with me,” Travis said as he dropped the bag on the couch next to Rod.
“What do I need this for? The damn thing could probably control the space station,” Rod grumbled as he took the cellophane-wrapped box out of the bag and turned it over in his hands.
“Look, I added you to my account; it was not a big deal. Quit trying to pick a fight. I’m really not going to argue with you about it.”
“Fine.” It wasn’t as if he could return it under his own power, and he needed to make some calls. Pressing the power button, he updated the phone and familiarized himself with the interface. Eventually there was no reason to procrastinate any longer. He tapped in his dad’s cell n
umber and counted seven rings before he started to wonder if his dad had changed the number and not told him. The thought that one or both of his parents would fade permanently from his life had occurred to him before, there was so little binding them together.
“Hello?” The warm rumble of his dad’s deep voice caught him off guard.
“Hi, Dad.”
“Rodney, how are you? You have a new phone number?”
Rod’s chest clenched. The sound of his dad’s voice hit him somewhere dark and secret that still wanted to be his dad’s boy. Rod hadn’t realized he missed him… even if he did hate being called Rodney. He and his dad had never been super close; there weren’t any father-son camping trips as a teen, but Rod had early memories of laughter and sunshine. As he grew older, it seemed like the three of them—himself, his mom, and his dad—had been awkward intruders in their own lives, play-acting at what a family was supposed to be like. He still didn’t understand why they’d waited until he was in college to split up.
“Yeah, my old phone got kinda bashed up.”
As he sat on the very comfortable new couch, watching Travis move in and out of various spaces rearranging boxes and furniture, Rod told his dad about the accident and what he was looking at in terms of recovery.
“The doctor says as long as I follow instructions I should heal pretty well.”
In the background of the call there were family noises: the clatter of dishes, a kid or teen yelling something, a dog barking. Rod knew his dad’s wife had a couple of kids, but Rod had never met them. The wedding had been at a time Rod had found inconvenient, so he hadn’t bothered to go. Now he wondered who he’d been punishing, his dad or himself. Yeah, his dad had been weird when Rod came out, but it wasn’t as if he’d publicly shunned him or banned him from his new life.
“So ya know, Dad, Travis and I have moved in together.”
“You two have been friends for a long time. He’s in Skagit with you now?”
“We moved in together, as in together-together.” Even if it had only been today, and his heart of hearts was suspicious as to whether Travis was truly staying or not, Rod was willing to trot that out to his dad.
“You’re both gay?” The sound in the background stopped, and Rod wondered where his dad was and who might have been listening.
“Travis is bi, not that it makes any difference.”
“No, I don’t suppose it does. Together, huh?” His dad was quiet.
The horrifying realization crossed Rod’s mind that he had never once told his dad about any guy he dated. No wonder his few boyfriends gave up on him; they had been mere placeholders, not even meriting mention to his parents.
His dad started to say something, and then there was a muffled rustling sound, his dad probably putting his hand over the mic. Rod waited, wondering what kind of bomb he’d set off this time. Surely his dad understood that if Rod was gay it meant he would be with a man? There was sound again, but this time a different voice came over the line.
“Rod?” He didn’t recognize the woman’s voice, although he had a good idea who it was. “I hope you don’t mind, I wrestled the phone from your dad. This is Meg; we’ve never met, but I’d really like to meet you. We’d really like to meet you.”
“Um, sure?” He wasn’t sure how to respond to this unexpected overture. As far as he knew, Meg wasn’t a charter member of PFLAG. Of course, since he hadn’t bothered to get to know her at all, how would he know?
“We all would like to meet you, Rod. Morgan and Alex and I.” There was a pause; Rod heard voices that must have been Morgan and Alex in the background fighting over something, but Rod couldn’t tell what. “One of the few things your dad and I have disagreed about is you. I’ve been bugging Will to reach out, but he was being stubborn. He thought maybe you didn’t want to talk to him.”
“We haven’t talked in a while; maybe we never talked, I don’t know.” God, he sounded like a dick. There had been so much silence in his house growing up. Maybe that was why he’d gravitated to Travis’s, where there was always noise and activity. He heard the dog bark in the background again and felt a stab of jealousy. He’d never been allowed to have a pet of any kind: goldfish, puppy, kitten, pet rock… the answer had always been no.
There was some whispering, then silence as the phone was muffled again, and then Meg’s voice was back. “We’d like to come visit one of these weekends, if that would be okay. Will is terrible at expressing his feelings—understatement of the year; I’m sure the only reason he said yes when I asked him on a date was from pure shock—but he’s missed you.”
Had he missed his dad? It’s hard to miss something you never thought you had. Rod missed the idea of family, not the real thing. “Really? I find that kind of hard to believe.”
An almost inaudible sigh. “Your father’s story isn’t mine to tell. He’s standing next to me nodding. I’m going to hand the phone back over to him. I hope to meet you soon.”
There was a pause, and the sound of a deep breath. Rod wondered if his dad was nervous. And then his voice.
“Rodney—Rod, I forgot, you prefer Rod. Um, a phone conversation isn’t really the way I imagined this, but I suppose, Band-Aids and all. Your mother and I, well, it wasn’t until after you started school that I realized how bad a match we were, how little we had in common. I tried to talk to her, but she refused to consider divorce, and I was brought up to believe that we don’t always get happiness—that sometimes you need to live with the hand you were dealt, so I did.
“You seemed happy whether I was there or not, so I spent as much time away from home as I could, taking every promotion, every travel opportunity. It wasn’t until I met Meg that I understood how unhappy I was.”
The words were rushing one over the other in a torrent. How long had his dad wanted to say this, Rod wondered. He didn’t remember his grandparents except as a much-older couple who had little time for children; they were to be “seen and not heard.” His grandfather had always worn a button-down shirt and tie, his grandmother a demure skirt and sweater set when visiting. They were shadowy, stern figures who’d never joked or laughed with him. While the mood in the Beton home growing up had never been jovial, his grandparents’ visits had been repressive. In hindsight it explained a lot about his dad.
“When I insisted on divorce, you of course had already left for college. It’s hard for me to believe I let myself, all of us, be miserable for eighteen years.” A rueful laugh. “I didn’t know it could be different. Anyway, I’d lost my chance with you. I vowed to do better with Meg’s kids. One day I told her that and, well, Meg has a temper.” Another chuckle. “Anyway, she helped me to understand that I owed it to both of us to at least try to fix things with you. I know it’s too late for T-ball and whatnot, but if—I’d like to prove myself a better father to you.”
“What about me being gay?”
“Rod, there is nothing wrong with love. Whether it is same-sex or heterosexual, the important thing is to love without holding back. This is what I have learned. I’m sorry I did such a poor job of it while you were growing up. But if you love someone, you have to love them fiercely enough to fight for it. I never did with your mother.”
“But you do with Meg?”
“Yes, and I know I haven’t proved it to you, but I love you too.”
To love without holding back. The words ricocheted around. Rod half listened to his dad while he tested himself against that standard and concluded he had never loved without holding back. Loving honestly meant being open to hurt, and he had always guarded his heart.
Something needed to change.
As they ended the call, Meg interrupted again, wrangling his new address out of him with a promise that he would be seeing them in the next few weeks. He clicked off, feeling a bit like he’d been hit by a car. Again.
Rod called his mother next, but she didn’t answer. He left a message. The conversation with his dad resonated. He wondered if his mother had found a better way to love or if she had
just moved on to the next person she found.
Travis returned from the back of the house, where he’d been doing something that involved muffled swearing. His hair was messy and he looked sweaty. Rod wanted to climb him like a pole. Damn his stupid leg. Damn Travis’s timing, damn Rod himself for being wary. Damn him for not knowing how to lower the wall he’d built around himself without ever being aware it was happening.
Part of him was celebrating like mad, wanting to toss caution aside and accept what Travis offered with complete abandon. The distrustful half of himself had spent too long watching Travis with other people. The men he chose when they were away from town, and the women when he was home. That dark side kept whispering that this wouldn’t last, that Travis would prove to be fickle and drop Rod as soon as a difficult decision came up or other real-life things interfered. Like Rod’s dad and stepmom coming to visit.
“Wanna come see?” Travis asked.
“See what?”
“The bedroom. Come on, I’ll help you.”
As Travis half carried Rod toward the back of the house, Rod wondered, not for the first time since they arrived that morning, where all the boxes had come from. He’d only moved a few months ago, and all his stuff had fit into the back of his truck.
“How come there’s so much stuff?”
Travis glanced around but kept them both moving toward the short hallway. “My dad dropped off most of my stuff yesterday.”
Rod tried to stop their forward momentum, but Travis was an unmovable force—or maybe a moving one.
“Your dad was here?” His voice squeaked. Everything that had happened since he’d been released from the hospital continued to make Rod’s mind boggle.
“Yeah, he says he’ll say hi the next time he’s in town. He didn’t want to intrude, and he had to get back anyway. He’s a little worried Mom is going to do something wacked. To be honest, I was worried she might drag everything of mine out the back patio and pour gasoline on it.”