The Single Dad and his Soul Mate

by Rebecca James

  When he’d gone, I sagged against the door. Had I just made a big mistake? I had to admit, it felt good having someone want me so badly they’d evidently pined over me for three years while trying to improve themselves. Running my hand over my face, I told myself what happened would happen, and worrying about it wouldn’t change anything. Then I set about cleaning the apartment from top to bottom because that’s how I distracted myself.

  ****

  “This is gorgeous!” Nick enthused, holding up a red and black plaid skirt that would barely cover his behind.

  “For a five-year-old, maybe.”

  Nick scoffed and poked me in the side. “Be adventurous.”

  “Cold—and probably arrested—is what I’d be if I wore that,” I said. “Anyway, aren’t you supposed to be buying gifts for other people?” The department store was crowded with shoppers sifting through displays and lining up at check-out counters. I’d dropped off Cooper at the church an hour earlier without a hitch. He’d run off with Tafari without even saying goodbye to me.

  “I give myself the best gifts,” Nick said. “Lord only knows what Jeo will come up with. A diamond butt plug, probably.”

  I looked at him. “Please tell me you’re kidding.”

  Nick laughed. “Only partly. I don’t think he’d shove something that expensive up my butt.”

  We moved out of the way of a group of older ladies who were regarding us with displeasure. I hoped they hadn’t heard that.

  “How are you and Matteo doing?” Nick asked.

  I picked up a leather wallet and turned it over, pretending to examine it. “We aren’t seeing each other.”

  Nick turned from hanging up the skirt. “You ended it?”

  “Yep.” I popped the p sound at the end, going for casual. I didn’t want any more pity from Nick or anyone else. “I have a date Friday night, though. Well, not a date, exactly. I’m going to see Aladdin with a friend. Someone I was involved with a few years ago.”

  Nick blinked. “Well, that was fast.”

  I moved toward a rack of shirts. “I’m not going to sit around pining over Matteo.”

  “I didn’t think you were.”

  “Hey, I almost forgot. Do you have Adam’s number?”

  “Adam? Yeah. Why? You want to go out with him too?” Nick took out his cell phone and sent me the contact.

  “Ha ha. Matteo mentioned Adam lost his job, and I need someone at the store part time. I thought I’d ask if he were interested.”

  I’d had second thoughts about it—I mean, was it a good idea to offer Adam a job after breaking things off with Matteo? But I already had a connection with the club through Nick, and if I could help Adam, I wanted to. I hoped he’d take me up on the offer, but if not, I’d put the job opening online.

  Before I knew it, it was time for me to pick up Cooper, so Nick and I parted. He was meeting Jeo for lunch. Talk about being in love—it was written all over Nick’s face. The sky hung low and gray, flurries falling as I drove to the Methodist church. When I got there, Cooper ran up to me, face wet with tears.

  “What’s the matter, buddy?” I asked, wrapping him in my arms. I looked up at April who was right behind him.

  “He got sad when Tafari’s mother came to get her a half hour early,” she explained.

  I kissed Cooper. “Well, Daddy’s here now. Let’s go home and have lunch.”

  Cooper sniffled and nodded.

  “Come get your coat from the rack,” April said. “And the picture you drew is in your cubby.”

  Cooper ran to do what she said, returning less than a minute later. We left hand-in-hand, Cooper happy now and telling April and Doug he’d see them next time.

  At home, Cooper showed me the picture drawn with bright crayon on a piece of manila paper. “That’s me, that’s you, and that’s Mad,” he said, pointing out each of the three figures. “And that’s Mad’s modocycle.”

  “Wow, you did a really good job,” I said, trying not to let my feelings show. I hung the paper on the refrigerator with a star magnet, bracing myself for questions about Matteo, but they didn’t come, and we had a pleasant lunch together. While Cooper napped, I called Adam. He sounded sleepy when he answered, even though it was early afternoon.

  “Hi, Adam, this is Flynn Bishop. Uh, a friend of Matteo’s and also Nick. We met at Dante’s on the Fourth of July.”

  “Yeah, hi, Flynn.” Adam cleared his throat. “I remember. What can I do for you?”

  “Well, this probably seems really out of the blue, but I’m looking for someone to work in my store part time. I usually ask people I know before posting a job, and Matteo had mentioned to me you’re out of work.”

  Adam was silent for a moment, and I cringed, afraid the whole thing sounded like a pity offer.

  “You said part time?” Adam finally asked.

  “Yeah. Probably three days a week. Maybe more down the road. Would you be interested? It would be waiting on customers, sweeping, keeping the shelves clear of fingerprints, stuff like that.”

  “Um, yeah, I think I would.”

  “Great! Can you come by the shop today before we close at six? Or in the morning would be okay. I’ll text you the address.”

  “Tonight’s fine. I’ll see you then.”

  I hung up smiling, glad I had decided to offer the job to Adam. Next, I called Joey to check on things, promising I’d take over in an hour when Coop was up from his nap.

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  Matteo

  After leaving Flynn’s, I’d spent the night driving around, finally stopping at the clubhouse and collapsing on the couch.

  I woke to the sound of voices in the kitchen. Getting to my feet, I shuffled in there.

  “Can you be any louder?” I grumbled.

  “Sorry, princess. I thought if the pea didn’t wake you, nothing would,” Tease said.

  “I hope that’s p-e-a, and not p-e-e,” I said wryly, and Tease laughed.

  “Piss isn’t the most likely bodily fluid you’ll find on our couch,” he said, and Blaze groaned from where he sat at the table.

  “No fucking on the couch!”

  Tease held out his hands as though to say he was innocent. I was pretty sure Blaze’s rule about not hooking up in the clubhouse had gone out the window when Jeo had moved out.

  “God, yes. Coffee,” I said, eying the pot. I fumbled a cup out of the cabinet.

  “Man, you look like shit,” Blaze said when I sat beside him and inhaled the steam from my cup.

  “Thanks.”

  “On a bender last night?”

  I shook my head and drank.

  “How’s your grandmother?”

  “When I left late yesterday, she was doing well. I’m going to see her as soon as I clean up.”

  Christ, I really felt as though I’d been on a bender, but I hadn’t had any alcohol. My head hurt because I hadn’t gotten enough sleep. I drank my coffee and listened to Blaze and Tease talk business. Tease had become really popular on the Hard Time site doing gay porn. I couldn’t figure out if he was gay for pay or what but didn’t want to ask.

  “I’m gonna shower. You got anything I can wear?” I asked Blaze as I rinsed out my cup.

  “Help yourself to my closet. Lake’s not here.”

  I went in the bathroom, used the toilet, and then stripped. As I stood under the piss-poor excuse for a shower, I couldn’t help but remember the phenomenal water pressure in Flynn’s apartment.

  Don’t think about Flynn.

  I quickened my movements and shut off the taps. Towel wrapped around my waist, I padded into Blaze’s room, tossing my dirty clothes on the chair and rustling through the closet. Blaze appeared as I was pulling out a shirt.

  “Classy,” I said, holding up the green button down.

  “Lake likes to dress me,” Blaze said, sitting on the bed. “Go ahead and wear it. It’ll look good on you. What’s going on?”

  I turned to the dresser and chose a pair of boxer briefs before dropping the towel. �
�Nothing’s going on. I mean, Nonna, but you know about that.”

  Blaze remained silent as I pulled on an old pair of his blue jeans and grabbed some socks. I sat down to put them on, and when the quiet finally got to me, I said, “Flynn says he doesn’t want to see me anymore.”

  “How come?”

  I shrugged. “Same old thing. I can’t commit. I won’t tell Nonna about us. We’re going nowhere. Only thing new is apparently I’m going break his son’s heart too.”

  I stood and shrugged into my leather jacket.

  “I was kind of surprised when you two started things up again,” Blaze said.

  “Yeah, me too. We probably shouldn’t have. Old habits, I guess.” More like an old magnetic pull of seismic proportions.

  “I’m putting my stuff in the wash. You got anything you want in there?”

  “Nah. I’ll gather it up later.”

  I headed down the hallway to the door to the basement. Before he moved out, Tony used the downstairs as an office. The guys still worked out down there. The punching bag hung from a beam over a mat, and an exercise bike had been added to the weight bench. In the corner by the washer and dryer sat a pile of dirty laundry that topped off almost to my waist.

  I threw the damp towels that were sitting in the washer into the dryer and then tossed in my shirt, jeans, socks, and underwear on a quick cycle. While they washed, I stretched out on the bench and lifted weights. I hadn’t worked out in a while and the effort calmed me.

  When the washer stopped, I threw my stuff in the dryer and folded the dry towels, the rhythmic motions of the mundane chore gradually relaxing the tension that had been building in my neck and shoulders. My emotions had been all over the place since leaving Flynn’s. At first, I’d been stunned, then incredibly sad. Hearing Flynn crying had killed me. Then, sometime later, the anger had set in. Now I felt defensive. Why the hell did Flynn have to ruin a good thing? Why did he expect me to disappoint an old lady just because he felt like he needed validation? Why couldn’t he understand? We had a good thing. That wasn’t easy to come by, didn’t he get that? Nonna wasn’t going to live forever. Couldn’t he just wait?

  Guilt niggled at me for even thinking about Nonna’s life that way—like I was waiting for her to die so I could be with Flynn. I loved my grandmother. She was the only blood family I had.

  But I couldn’t blame Flynn for wanting what everyone in this fucked up world wanted. Hell, even I wanted it sometimes. To have him. And Cooper. To be a family. To let the entire fucking city know it and to be proud of it. Hell, in this day and age the whole world was coming out, and here I was stuck in the closet waiting for an old woman to die.

  Stop. That’s wasn’t what I was doing. Worry over Nonna quickened my movements until I had my laundry finished and folded in a plastic bag.

  While I’d been working, occasional footsteps had sounded overhead, but when I reached the ground floor, the house was quiet. I peeked into Adam’s room, but it was empty, the bed made. I shoved my feet into my boots and spent a while playing with Pepper, the club’s dog, then took her for a walk up the street until she turned some snow yellow and dropped a couple deuces that I kicked into the sewer because I’d forgotten the poop bags. God, Flynn would tear into me for that if he saw it. Hell, he wouldn’t even appreciate the plastic poop bags. Wonder what the hell he’d do with dog shit? Compost it? Well, you’ll never know now, I thought sourly. You can kick turds into the sewer for the rest of your life without interference.

  Fuck, I was losing it. Back at the clubhouse, I checked Pepper’s water and food, grabbed a banana from the kitchen, and took off.

  At the hospital, I bought a cup of coffee from a machine and rode the elevator to the fourth floor. The coffee tasted like ditch water, but I drank it anyway. When I entered my grandmother’s room, Nonna was asleep and a nurse was checking her vitals.

  “How’s she doing?” I asked.

  The nurse recognized me from the day before and smiled. “She has a bit of a fever. The doctor’s worried about infection.”

  Fear gripped me. “I thought you had her on an antibiotic?” I checked my cell phone and saw I had a message from the hospital I must have missed on the ride there.

  “We did, but it was mild. The doctor put her on something stronger. She’s resting now, if you want to have some lunch and come back.”

  Uneasy, I lingered outside Nonna’s door for a while before finally heading down to the cafeteria. I’d thought Nonna was going to be all right. She was old—a fever could kill her. As I scrolled through my phone, forcing myself not to google the elderly and fevers, I noticed I’d also missed a text from Maria asking how Nonna was doing. I answered, telling her what was going on, then finished my chef salad and went back upstairs. Nonna slept most of the afternoon, and when the nurse woke her up to take her vitals, she seemed muddled, not recognizing me at first. I asked her doctor about it when he made his rounds.

  “Mrs. Costa is in her nineties. A little muddled is par for the course.”

  “She’s usually very sharp,” I said.

  “We’re treating her with a strong antibiotic for MRSA. Her body’s reserving strength.”

  But I couldn’t help but worry. The day before, Nonna had been fine. Now she was sick and acting strange. Unease trickled down my spine. My grandmother was a strong woman. She always had been. But she looked small and weak lying in the hospital bed. I paced the hall outside her room, unable to get rid of the nervous energy I’d built up.

  When I saw Maria walking down the hall, I nearly ran to her, it was such a relief to have someone there with me. I’d told Blaze that morning that my grandmother was doing well and hadn’t let him know otherwise. I knew if I had, he would be there with me now, but for some reason, I hadn’t made the call.

  Maria smiled at me. “Hi. I brought you this.” She handed me a Starbucks coffee and a bag. Inside, I found a cheese Danish, still warm.

  “This smells really good,” I said. “Thank you. The coffee here is awful, and I haven’t had anything since a salad a few hours ago.”

  “Coffee from a machine is always bad,” she said, eyeing the culprit near the nurses’ station. “How is Isabella? Any better?”

  “They said she’s developed a staph infection. She seemed off to me when I last talked to her, but the doctor seems to think it’s normal for her age.”

  Maria touched my arm. “I’m sure she just needs rest.”

  I ran my hand through my hair, messing it up. I probably looked like hell. “What if she isn’t fine?”

  “There’s a chapel downstairs. We could go pray,” Maria said.

  “I’m not much for that,” I murmured.

  “Your grandmother would appreciate it.”

  I sighed. I was sick of looking at the walls outside Nonna’s room anyway. “You’re right. Let’s go.”

  The hospital chapel was quiet, impersonal, and carefully void of any indication of a denominational preference. Maria took two strands of rosary beads from her purse—because evidently good Catholic girls carried an extra—and together we knelt and made the sign of the cross. Most of the words came back easily, but they tasted like straw in my mouth. Halfway through the Apostles Creed, I trailed off, picking back up with the Lord’s Prayer only to leave off again during the Hail Marys.

  My father had been a rigid Catholic, even worse than my grandmother. He’d insisted that I never miss Mass and that I attend a Catholic school. Confession had been a terrible experience for me. When young, the anonymous man behind the partition asking for my sins had frightened me. As I grew older and realized I was attracted to the same sex, I knew I couldn’t possibly admit such a thing to the priest, so I carried the burden of never being wholly cleansed when I left the confessional. My teachers were strict and isolated me when I was bad—which was a lot—and my father used the belt on me at home when he heard about it.

  My grandmother didn’t interfere with my father’s parenting, but, unlike him, she saw the good in me. She told me I ha
d the light of God in me and that she was proud to call me her grandson. Her approval meant everything to me, and I would have rather jumped off the roof of the church than have disappointed her in any way.

  I suddenly realized Maria had fallen into silence, beads lowered and head bent in silent prayer. I followed suit and tried to ask God to heal my grandmother, but years of resentment against the church wouldn’t allow the words to materialize in my mind.

  And that filled me with panic. I was letting Nonna down by not properly and reverently praying for her. Then Maria lifted her head and smiled serenely at me, and I remembered she’d been doing it for me.

  I smiled back.

  Once upstairs again, Maria slipped into Nonna’s room to see my grandmother before telling me goodbye.

  “She’s still asleep,” Maria said when she came back out, softly closing the door behind her. If you need anything…anything at all…call me.” She squeezed my hand, and I saw something in her eyes.

  Temptation flared. Nonna was asleep, most likely for the night. I could leave with Maria. Take her home and to bed. Fuck her until she let go of that good Catholic girl facade and screamed my name. Fuck out my worry for Nonna and my heartache and anger over Flynn. Fuck out my need for him and replace it with a need for her.

  If only I could.

  But I knew bedding Maria would only be about bringing me release along with the satisfaction of breaking her, and even I wasn’t that fucking twisted.

  I said goodbye, watched the glimmer of hope die on her face and then her slow steps down the hall to the elevators. I let myself into the darkened hospital room, got as comfortable as I could in the vinyl recliner by the bed, and listened to the beep of the heart monitor and the occasional call over the loudspeaker in the hall until I was finally able to fall asleep.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

  Flynn

  As Cooper and I had done every year since he had been born, we spent Christmas at Gloria and Jessica’s. They had already done Christmas with Gloria’s folks, and Jessica’s family lived in Japan. I loved the warm feeling of their home, the big tree decorated with glass ornaments, the smell of cookies, and the carols playing on the expensive sound system. I’d never had Christmases like these growing up. I was sure there were foster families out there who truly wanted to make a difference in a kid’s life and weren’t just out for the money, but I’d never met any of them.