by Lane Hayes
I paused at the entry and called Liam’s name before stepping inside.
“In the kitchen, Tim!” a cheerful voice responded.
“Do not accept any offer of alcohol. We aren’t staying,” I hissed before leading Carter through the grand living room into a gigantic family-style kitchen.
I noted the two lantern chandeliers hanging above the island and realized I hadn’t been here in a while. I remembered my mom mentioning something about a remodel. It looked nice. The black-painted cabinetry was offset with white throughout the space and the adjoining family area. It was fresh and vibrant and looked very expensive.
“There you are! How was the game?”
“We had fun. Hey, uh…. Jordan, this is my friend, Carter. Carter, this is Jordan.” I stepped aside to observe the two men as they politely shook hands.
Carter had the other man by a couple inches and at least twenty pounds. Jordan was lean and fine-boned, with a mop of reddish-brown hair, green eyes, and a perpetual grin. I’d never seen him in a bad mood. He took everything in stride with a big, happy fucking smile on his face. Weird.
“Nice to meet you. Can I get you a glass of Chardonnay, beer, soda, water?”
“No, thank you. It’s been a long day. I think Tim is ready to—”
“Hi there. How’s it going? Long time, no see.”
Fuck.
“Hey.” I greeted the newcomer with a tight smile. “How was your trip?”
“Good,” he replied before turning to introduce himself to Carter. “Hi, I’m Rob. Liam’s dad.”
Carter hesitated for a fraction of a second before taking the outstretched hand. Heat coursed through my body. I was sure a fiery flush had turned my cheeks pink. I was grateful when Liam came bounding down the stairs and skidded to a halt at Carter’s side.
“You have to come upstairs. I’ll wreck it if I try to bring it down. It’s too big.” Liam tugged at Carter’s shirt. He used animated circular hand motions as though they might help to prove his point.
Carter gave us a bemused grin, then allowed himself to be led by the overzealous kid still jacked up from junk-food overload.
“I better go with your friend or he’ll never escape.” Jordan chuckled, setting a hand on Rob’s elbow before he followed them.
I’d spent years reading subtle signals. It’s what kids from alcoholic homes did. Gauge the weather by the time of day and proceed accordingly. Mornings were quiet, afternoons were anxiety-ridden, and nighttime was a fucking roller coaster. I’d learned to be sensitive to changing expressions. An eye twitch might mean trouble was brewing, which meant it was a perfect time to head to the garage and bang my frustrations out on my drums. Years later, I couldn’t shake the elevated awareness I felt around some people. Rob would always be one of them. Add the man he married and the man I was secretly seeing, and yeah… I wanted to find the exit. Fast.
Rob waited for them to leave before he made eye contact again. I gazed at my first real… important person and bypassed his brown hair, blue eyes, and square jaw to fixate as usual on his fit body. Rob had filled out nicely over the years. He was roughly my height, which made him a couple inches shorter than his husband, but he was muscular and had a commanding presence. Unlike Jordan, who spoke with a faint lisp and had a tendency to cock his hips along with his head when making a statement, Rob looked like a stereotypical sexy suburban dad. And the hint of a tattoo peeking under the collar of his blue button-down shirt made him look just that tiny bit more interesting.
I took a step back and tilted my head curiously. Yep. He definitely had something on his mind.
“What’s up?” I asked in a bored tone. “Li said you had a wedding to cater this weekend. You’re back early. I thought—”
“We weren’t working. We had an appointment with our lawyer yesterday and this probably isn’t a great time, but I want to give you a heads-up… I’m going to file for full custody of Liam.”
“O… kay.”
“Nothing will change as far as you or Gail are concerned, but this constant uncertainty with Kat is too unsettling.”
“Whoa. Did something happen?” I swiped my hand through my hair and paced to the far end of the kitchen island.
“Kat called the other day. She asked to speak to Liam in a calm, collected voice, but the second he got on the phone, she lost her shit.”
“What did she do?”
“It started with teary promises to take him to Disney World and ended with her sobbing and wailing like a banshee. Less than five minutes on the phone with her and she had him shaking and crying and—it took hours to calm him down. She isn’t capable of being a parent right now.”
“You can’t take that chance away from her, Rob. He might be the only person who can reach her one day,” I insisted angrily. I was immediately pissed when I realized I sounded exactly like my mother.
“Tim, she’s mentally unstable. Liam is my number-one priority. It’s my responsibility to protect him. I can’t have her around him or even calling if she’s like this. I’m not a monster. You know I’ll always be fair to you and your mom and even Kat. If she’s well, I’ll make it work. But no more games. You know as well as I do that another stint in rehab isn’t going to cure anything.”
“You have to believe in her.”
“No! I don’t. I believe in Liam. And Jordan. I believe in my family. I have to keep them safe. Look…. Jordan and I have been talking to a surrogate. We want to grow our family, and I—I can’t have her fucking with my son and—”
“Maybe you should have thought of that before you fucked her in the first place,” I growled fiercely. “I’m outta here. Tell Carter I’ll be in the truck.”
I heard Rob call my name, but I was moving too fast to change direction. My head was aching, my heart was pounding, and fuck, I wanted to run. Just… run. The gentle summer breeze felt incongruous with the emotional turmoil racing through my brain. Fuck this shit. Fuck him. Fuck my sister. Fuck this family. I was over this crap.
I pulled open the truck door and stopped. I glanced up just as Carter appeared in the doorway. I couldn’t read his expression from where I stood, but it didn’t matter. Something in his steady gait settled my spiraling hysteria to a manageable dull ache. I climbed inside the truck and started the engine as he opened the passenger door.
“I take it you’re ready to go,” he said sarcastically.
“I was born ready.”
I didn’t look at him. Once he’d buckled up, I turned up the volume on the radio and let the White Stripes blast through the interior while I focused on the road. I beat on my steering wheel with the sides of my hands to “Seven Nation Army” like a lunatic. When the track changed to another up-tempo song, I continued. I probably looked ridiculous, but I didn’t give a fuck. I needed release. I needed my out, and if this was all I got, I’d take it.
9
The second I pulled into the garage and turned off the engine, the silence came to swallow me. It was vicious and hateful. A perfect breeding ground for doubt and malcontent. There was no music to drown my thoughts now. No rhythm, no harmony. Only silence. I shivered in spite of the cloying warmth before heading inside. I was aware of Carter near me, but he didn’t speak… or I couldn’t hear. Poor guy got way more than he bargained on when he hooked up with my sorry ass in LA. I wouldn’t blame him if he made a beeline back to the Big Apple now. There was plenty of crazy there. No sense going out of your way to clear a space in your closet for a daily dose of someone else’s bullshit.
I pulled a cold beer from the fridge and bumped into a solid block of man when I turned around. Carter plucked the bottle from my hand and moved to lean against the counter a few feet away. I sighed heavily and grabbed a second beer. My mind was whirling too fast for me to attempt thinking in a straight line. I needed to play. I popped the cap and carelessly let it fly somewhere near the sink. Then I lifted my beer in a mock toast and opened my mouth, only to have Carter intercept me before I could come up with an excuse to be left al
one.
“What’s going on?”
“Nothing, Cart. Just good fucking family fun,” I snarked.
When he grabbed my elbow, I yanked myself free and moved toward the stairs. I kept a drum pad in the second bedroom for Liam to play when he came over. It was a sorry substitute for the real thing, but I was desperate.
“Stop!” Carter yelled.
I was caught off guard by his sharp tone. If I wasn’t so strung out, I might have actually been turned on.
“Hey. It’s no big—”
“Shut the fuck up and tell me what happened. And while you’re at it, explain why you didn’t tell me Liam’s father was your former best friend. Your lover. Didn’t it occur to you that might be… oh, I don’t know… significant?”
“It’s not significant. It’s coincidence.”
“Bullshit!”
My nostrils flared in frustration, but I pulled it together and even managed a bored sigh. “Relax, Cart. That story is old news. We were over ten years ago, and I’ve never looked back. Ever. It doesn’t matter who he is or who he’s with now, because he’s nothing to me. Get it?”
“You’re lying. Why?”
I could feel myself begin to unravel. My head pulsated to a nonexistent beat as my equilibrium shifted, leaving me with a hopeless feeling of spiraling head over heels through space. “Give it the fuck up, Carter. There’s nothing to tell.”
“I can piece it together myself, but I don’t want to guess. I want you to tell me how your sister and your ex….”
The room was spinning. I could practically hear electricity crackle through my crappy condo, ricocheting off the walls, spreading the seeds of pent-up sorrow and agony like fairy dust. I had to distract him from speaking the unspeakable. He was still talking. Maybe he’d said it already. I could see his lips moving, but I couldn’t hear a word. All I knew was it had to stop.
I growled furiously before pulling my arm back and chucking my beer bottle as hard as I could against the far wall.
The ensuing silence was thunderous. I made an effort to calm myself before I spoke.
“You really wanna know?” I asked with a menacing sneer. “It’s not a pretty story, baby. It’s so far removed from Fifth Avenue, Cristal champagne and caviar, you won’t know what hit you. Look around you. This cardboard palace is high fucking living where I’m from. And parents who scream bloody murder at each other all damn night with the windows open… yeah, that’s just part of the soundtrack.”
“What are you—?”
I roared with frustration, angry he couldn’t just figure this out without me having to retell a horrible chapter in my life. I rounded on Carter, pointing like a madman at something beyond my front door. Some place far away where terrible things happened.
“My sister slept with my boyfriend. She got pregnant and then went nuts.”
“Oh my God.”
“Yeah…. Oh. My. God. That’s about right. Of all the fucked-up BS in the world, that one is right at the top of the list.” My voice shook with emotion as the memories poured out from some unlocked channel in my head.
I closed my eyes, hoping to block out the veritable kaleidoscope of mental snapshots coming at me relentlessly. When I opened them again, Carter was standing closer with a look of profound sorrow and more curiosity than he probably thought was polite.
“Why did they do it?”
“Why does anyone have sex? It feels good.”
“Don’t be glib. Your brother-in-law is gay, so—”
“First of all, he’s not my brother-in-law. There was no marriage. Hell, there was no real relationship. It was all pretend. Don’t you get it? Rob was at my house all the time. Kat caught us making out in my room when we thought we were alone. She was cool about it. She swore she’d never tell a soul. Even better… she offered to be our beard. And I agreed. My dad had just shown up after a year-long absence, and the last thing I wanted was to get outed. It was the same for Rob. We were seniors in high school. We weren’t ready. Honestly, I don’t think either of us was convinced we were really gay or bi. We told ourselves we were just… experimenting or something. Then one night—everything changed. Too much alcohol and too many lies.
“People see what they want. No one wants to ask hard questions because they don’t want to know the real answers. They assumed the reason I wouldn’t speak to Rob after Kat found out she was pregnant was because I was pissed he knocked her up. Well, gee… yeah. That kind of bugged me. But when he came out after Liam was born, they figured I was disgusted he was a fucking faggot on top of it all. I actually had someone come up to me at a construction site I was working at after I graduated and ask me if I’d heard the news he’d come out. The guy offered to help me kick his ass for dishonoring my sister and turning into a goddamn queer. As though his honesty was somehow dishonorable. If they only knew… the truth was so much juicier.”
“Jesus, Tim,” Carter said with a sigh.
“Yeah. No wonder I have trust issues. And guilt issues.”
“Why would you feel guilty? You didn’t do anything wrong.”
“I didn’t do anything right either. I watched it all go on around me with a weird degree of separation… almost like my life was a TV show. If I sat back and observed, I wouldn’t get hurt any more than I already had. Maybe that doesn’t make sense now, but it’s how I survived living with my ex’s baby screaming his lungs out in the room next to mine, demanding attention that my sister was incapable of giving. That house was a living hell. Dad left again, my sister dulled her pain in drugs and alcohol, while Mom did her best to keep the peace and take care of her grandson while pretending it was all so fucking normal. The scary thing is after a while, your nightmare becomes your new version of normal. You adapt and move on. Work, take some college classes, and play in a band. If Rand hadn’t bullied me into coming to New York a couple years ago, I’d probably be in the same rut, doing the same shit I always had.”
“Where was Rob?” Carter’s forehead was creased with consternation. I couldn’t tell if he was disgusted or disheartened by my revelations, but it hardly mattered. Now that I’d started talking, I couldn’t seem to shut up.
“School, work. He was a teenage dad coming to terms with the fact he was a gay man too. Not bi after all. Just before Kat’s first trip to rehab and my dad’s exit, Rob came over one day in between class and his first shift. I remember thinking it was kinda funny that less than a year ago he’d come for me and now it was to see his son. Whatever. He was holding Liam… rocking him gently, like he knew what he was doing, ya know? My mom was at the market and Kat was passed out in the basement. We were alone for the first time in forever. It was awkward, but there was something still there. I didn’t want to continue where we left off, but I couldn’t help feeling a grudging respect for him. The guy worked his ass off all week, but he always made time for his kid. I told him so… and he took that as a sign of a tentative thaw. Then he told me he was done lying. He was ready to come out and he wanted to know if I was too.”
“You weren’t.”
“No way. It may have been part spite, part fear, but I definitely didn’t want to get back together with him. Or raise my nephew as my son, for fuck’s sake.” I huffed a humorless chuckle and shook my head in disbelief before continuing. “We don’t talk about it now. No one who knew us then knows the story. They all think it was our family’s version of an after-school special televising the dangers of teenage partying and unprotected sex. No one knows I got screwed too. There’s no point in telling it. It happened. It’s over. There’s no going back, and as fucked-up and hideous as that time was, I wouldn’t undo it if it meant there was no Liam.
“The teenage Rob who slept with my sister in a moment of drunken weakness has since turned into a paragon of virtue. He came out, worked two jobs while he went to school for a degree in business and marketing, and then got his master’s. He met Jordan five years ago, got married two years ago, and bought a beautiful home in the suburbs. He’s a great dad and
an upstanding citizen, Cart the Fourth. Kinda like you. And nothing like me.”
“Maybe his honesty freed him,” Carter commented in a soft tone.
“I’m sure it did. He still thinks I hate him. I don’t. Most of the time. The truth is I’m torn between admiration and… jealousy. Don’t get me wrong. I don’t want his life in the ’burbs, but I wish I had the same sense of conviction that allows him to deal with the past at arm’s length.” I swiped my hand over my scruffy jaw and let out a deep breath.
“The lies we told were supposed to protect us from shame. But that’s all I feel. Shame. I wonder if I would have been better off telling the truth ten years ago too.”
Carter closed the distance between us and set his hand on my cheek. He stroked my face before cupping my neck and pulling me against him in a warm embrace. He nuzzled my nose, and then kissed me tenderly. I didn’t know what was going on in his head, but I wasn’t about to push him away. I needed this. I needed him. I needed to not have my past buzzing in my brain, warring with a future I didn’t feel like I deserved. I didn’t expect Carter to have any answers. It was enough that he was here to lean on, if only for this moment.
“You’re a good man, Tim.”
I pushed at his chest and gave a derisive snort. “How do you figure? I’m the idiot in the middle who can’t make a stand because I can’t decide what’s right or wrong. It’s just… fucked.”
“It doesn’t seem like there is a stand to make. What’s done is done.”
“Of course there is! You have to stand for something to be someone. You can’t go around agreeing with everyone or backing down when shit gets real.”
“I get that, but that doesn’t mean you should take responsibility for things you didn’t do.”
That stopped me. “I don’t do that.”
“You do. You said yourself you feel guilty. Why should you feel guilty? Is it because you weren’t honest about who you were at eighteen? Do you really wish you’d have come out before ‘shit got real,’ as you put it? If you aren’t ready to be out now, you definitely wouldn’t have been ready then.”