by TJ Klune
“Jesus,” I muttered. “He better not have driven all the way back there with how he is. I don’t—”
There was a sharp pounding at my front door. Wheels jumped up from his spot on the bed, his little barks echoing throughout the house as he rolled down his ramp and tore for the front door. “Hold on,” I told Darren.
Wheels’ barking turned into an excited yipping as I headed down the hall. His butt was wagging back and forth, the tires on his cart tapping on the tile. It seemed he knew who it was, and there were only two other people he responded to that way. I allowed myself to hope as I moved him out of the way, and then I flipped on the porch light as I opened the door.
Vince stood there, squinting against the light. His face was pale, his eyes clouded. “He’s here,” I told Darren. “I’ve got him.”
“So that’s what he meant by home,” Darren said, and for a moment, the world around me got a bit brighter before I pushed it away. Darren sighed. “Keep him there, will you? I’ll call you tomorrow, and we can figure out what to do then.”
“Sure,” I said before I hung up the phone and put it in my pocket. I opened the screen door. “Hey,” I said softly, as if anything louder would spook him and cause him to flee.
“Paul?” Vince said, sounding confused. “Where….” He shook his head. “Did you find me?” he asked in a gruff voice. “I was looking for you, but… how did you get here?”
“This is my house,” I said softly, my fingers aching to reach out and touch him. “You came over to my house.”
He nodded slowly. “I thought I might. I think I was trying to find you, but I got lost. I drove for a while, because I couldn’t remember how to get here.”
“Oh?”
“I’m tired, Paul.”
“It’s been a long day.”
He looked down at his hands and let out a shuddering breath. “Can I come inside and go to sleep? I know you’re mad at me, and I’m sorry, but I just want to go to sleep. I’m real tired. I would sleep on the couch, or in the other bedroom, but I can’t. I need to be right there with you, okay?” His face crumpled, his voice cracking. “I just need to get some sleep, and I sleep better when you’re there. Okay? Please say it’s okay, Paul. I need to sleep, and I need you to say it’s okay.”
“It’s okay,” I said, unable to hold back anymore. I reached out and took his hand in mine. He clutched at it with both of his hands, as if he’d float away if he didn’t grip me as tightly as he could. I pulled him through the doorway, shutting it behind us. He kept his eyes on our hands. Wheels twisted around his feet, but even he could see something was off, and he headbutted Vince’s ankle with a little growl. I shushed him quietly, and he followed us down the hall as I led Vince to my bedroom. I closed that door as well, as if to keep the outside world away.
Vince stood near my bed, like he was unsure about what to do next, like he’d forgotten the next steps. I came up behind him and wrapped my arms around his waist, laying my forehead against the back of his neck. He sagged into me with a low moan, and I gripped him tighter.
“She died, Paul,” he said thickly. “I was standing right there when she….”
“I know,” I said, because I didn’t think he wanted to hear an apology right then.
“I thought maybe she’d wake up again. That she’d bounce back and everything would be okay because that’s the way it should have been. I kept thinking that she’d open her eyes and she’d see me, she’d really see me, and everything would be okay and we’d laugh. We’d laugh like we did when I was a kid and she was just my mom. But you know what else I thought? You want to know what I thought the most?”
“What?”
“You,” he said, leaning his head back until it rested on my shoulder, my mouth near his ear, our cheeks brushing together. “You. I thought of you. I though how I wanted to be with you. I wished that you were there with me, and I wished you weren’t mad at me. I wished I’d told you everything from the beginning even though it was too much to put on a person, and I didn’t want you to have to deal with it. I didn’t want to bring it down on you because you were so bright. You were so clear and bright, and I didn’t want it to bring you down.” He shuddered again. “Darren said… he said you told him to tell me it’s real. Did you say that, Paul? Did you tell him that?”
“Yes,” I said, because it was the only answer that could be given. “It’s real.”
“Paul… I… I don’t….”
His tears soaked against my cheek as I kissed them away. I told him to hush, I told him that it was okay, that I wasn’t mad, not really. I couldn’t be mad at him, I said, because there was nothing to be angry about. He twisted in my arms until he could look me in the eye, trying to see if I was telling the truth. I made sure he knew I was, and the wildness there receded a bit, the cloudiness parted, and a little light showed through. It was not happiness, though it was close. It was not arousal, though I didn’t expect it to be. No. It was relief, pure and simple. Relief that I understood what he was saying. Relief that I wasn’t upset with him, and I couldn’t believe that I had been in the first place.
It was this relief that allowed me to pull his shirt up and over his head and fold it on top of my dresser. It was this relief that allowed me to unbutton his jeans and slide them off. I led him to the bed and followed him in, pulling the covers up to our shoulders. Our knees bumped together as we faced each other.
He watched me, for a time, without speaking, his eyes bright and wet. He reached up and traced my face with his fingertips, memorizing the skin like he’d never seen it before and would never see it again. I captured his hand in mine, bringing it to my lips, kissing his fingers just once. He sighed and turned away from me to lie on his other side. Before I could even think about what that meant, he pushed his way back until he was flush against me. He grabbed my arm and pulled it over his waist. My nose and mouth were in his hair. He trembled, but soon he stilled. He breathed heavily, but soon it quieted. He held my hand tightly, but soon the grip loosened.
And then I thought he slept. I thought he slept because I would have never whispered what I did had I thought he been awake. It was not my place. It was too soon. It was not the right time. It was not what he wanted to hear. It was not what he needed to hear.
But.
I had to say it. To think it was one thing; to say it aloud was another. I thought it. I thought it badly. I had to say it out loud. I had to make sure it was real.
So I did. And it was.
“I love you,” I whispered in the dark.
Ten minutes later, just as the clock switched to midnight and it became the seventh day since I’d first heard his voice, he whispered back, “I love you too.”
And then we slept.
Chapter 21
Just The Way You Are
THE days that followed that seventh day were rough. I, of course, woke up with doubts ringing through my head, sure that I wanted to take back that initial I love you, sure that Vince wanted to take back his response. I didn’t show that fear, though, because it wasn’t supposed to be about me right then. Vince opened his eyes to find me watching him nervously, berating myself for being that guy, the creepy one who watches his partner sleep like it’s supposed to be romantic or something. I averted my eyes momentarily until I felt his fingers on my face.
“Paul,” he said, his voice rough with sleep.
“Yeah?”
“Thank you.”
I shrugged, trying to minimize everything. “You okay?”
He sighed as he dropped his hand. “I think so. Maybe. It’s weird, you know? I hadn’t spoken to her in months before this week, and I was okay with that. A little mad, maybe, but okay with it. Now she’s gone for good, and I’m… what am I? Sad? Relieved? Angry?” He looked away. “I don’t know what I am right now,” he muttered.
“She was still your mom,” I said quietly. “Regardless of what else happened, regardless of what she did later, she was still your mom.”
“Yeah.”
“Vince?”
“Yeah?”
I chose my next words carefully. “Everything always won’t be perfect, you know?”
“I know.”
“So you know you can’t pick and choose what to tell me, then, right?”
“Yeah. Look, Paul, I—”
I shook my head. “Don’t. I’m not mad at you for that. I’m sorry that I acted like a jerk. It wasn’t my place to. I should’ve respected your wishes and not gone behind your back.”
He was silent for a moment, then said, “I’m not ashamed of you.”
I was startled. “I never said you were. I never thought that.”
“Okay. I just wanted you to know that. If anything, I was ashamed of them. And jealous of you.”
I snorted. “What the hell do I have for you to be jealous about?”
“Everything,” he said seriously. “Your friends, your family. You. You have everything. You are everything.”
“Vince….”
“No, Paul. How can you not see it? Why can’t you see that you’re perfect just the way you are?”
His earnestness was catching. I’m a sucker for earnestness. And bike shorts. Put those things together, and watch the fuck out. “I’m pretty sure your definition of perfect is skewed,” I told him. “You may have a bit of a bias here.”
He looked satisfied, as if I’d agreed with everything he’d said. “A very big bias,” he assured me. “But it doesn’t matter. Even if I didn’t, I’d still see it. I just didn’t want to put any of this on you. It wasn’t fair. We’d just met. Hell, you would have probably run screaming, your arms flailing in the air.”
“I would not have flailed my arms,” I said, slightly affronted.
He smiled weakly. “A bit,” he said, sure of himself. “Probably would have written in your diary all about it.”
I rolled my eyes, glad to hear him joke, but also hearing the sadness in his voice. I brushed my fingers over his face. “You can tell me anything,” I said. “At least, you should. It’s how these things work, Vince. You have to know that.”
“I just didn’t want you to see pain,” he said. “I didn’t want you to know sadness. I didn’t want you to see me like this. I just wanted you to be happy, every day, all the time.”
“And what about you?” I asked him. “If you knew this was coming, why didn’t you think about what you wanted?”
“Because I was just thinking about you,” he said like it was the most obvious thing in the world. “You were the person who helped me through this, even when you didn’t know what was happening. You were the guy who made me happy when everything else was going to shit. You were like this light in the dark, Paul. You are my light.”
I groaned. “Sandy’s never going to let me hear the end of this. I’m a motherfucking lighthouse.”
“I don’t know what that means,” Vince said, confused.
“Shit,” I muttered. “We’re really going to do this, aren’t we?”
“You talking about me and you?”
“Yeah?”
“You bet your ass we’re going to do this. There’s no way I’m going to let you go. We got the hard part out of the way. The rest is cake.”
“The hard part?”
He leaned over and kissed me. I didn’t even make mention of how much I wished he’d brushed his teeth before doing that. It seemed like it would spoil the mood. “The love part,” he whispered. “I love you, so the rest will be easy.”
“Oh sweat balls,” I said, feeling a bit dizzy. “Are you sure?”
He nodded.
I mumbled something back.
Wheels snorted at me from his spot between us. Jerk.
“What was that?” Vince asked, a small smile on his face.
“I said I may be thinking that I might possibly entertain the idea of loving you too,” I said, my face on fire.
He chuckled. “I figured as much.” But then the humor slid from his face. “I think,” he said, the words coming out in a choke, “that I’m about to be sad.”
I curled up against him, pressing his face into my neck, wrapping my arms around him tightly. Wheels crawled on top of us, doing his impression of a dogpile. He laid his head down on Vince’s thigh and watched us. “You didn’t get to hear all of what she said to me, did you?” I murmured as he started to quake.
“No,” he gasped. “Only the end.”
“Now, you know I didn’t know her, right? I only knew what I saw of her on TV and in the news.”
A quick nod. A sharp breath.
“Well,” I said, “she loved you, Vince. She loved you because you were her son. She loved you because you belonged to her. She may not have always told you, and she may not have told you in the right way, but she did. Even when you were apart, she did. I don’t think that a day went by that she didn’t think about you, and I don’t expect a day will go by for you now where you won’t think of her. And….” I stopped, considering.
“And what?” he whimpered, starting to break.
“And I think she knew,” I told him. “I think she knew that I would take care of you. I think she knew that you would need someone after she was gone, but that she’d leave you in good hands. I think she needed to meet me to realize that. I think I needed to meet her to understand that.
“So you cry,” I whispered, my chin on top of his head. “You cry because you’re allowed to. You cry because she’s your mom. You cry because she’s your family. But… you have a whole other family now too, if you want it. You have another family that wants nothing more than to take you in and love you just the way you are. If you want to. If you let us.”
“Okay.”
“Okay?”
“Yeah. I want it. I want it bad. Paul, please. Please. I’m going to cry now, and I’m going to hurt now. Please don’t let me go.”
“I won’t,” I promised him, promised myself. “Do what you have to. I’ll be here.”
And he did.
And I was.
THE funeral was a big thing, a messy thing, with lots of local news coverage. I’m sure there were plenty of people hoping for some kind of delicious drama to occur between Vince and his dad, but nothing happened. As big as it was, it was still a quiet affair, with bowed heads and whispered prayers.
The only thing that could have raised any eyebrows was that Vince did not sit next to his father or the rest of his family. I’d encouraged him to do so, but ever since the morning after his mother had died, he’d taken my words to heart.
I shouldn’t have been surprised when Mom called and asked what time she and Dad and Nana would be picking us up on the day of the funeral. I shouldn’t have been surprised when she told me she’d hear none of what I was saying. They were going, and that was final. Family is family, she said, and she would be there to support Vince. When he’d heard these words, Vince had gotten such a look of wonder on his face that it had taken my breath away. He’d reached out and grabbed my hand, refusing to let go even when my mother insisted on talking to him herself. I could feel the heat from his hand, the bite from his grip as he said things like, “Yes, ma’am, I mean Matty,” and “Thank you, Larry, I’d appreciate it,” into the phone. After saying, “Say hello to Johnny Depp for me, Nana,” he hung up the phone and stared at it for a moment.
“What?” I asked.
“It’s like they’re mine too,” he said in awe.
I snorted. “Like nothing. They are yours too. You better hope this is what you wanted because there’s no way in hell you’re escaping them now. They’ve got their hooks in you, and even if you tried to get away, they’ll find you wherever you go.”
He eyed me. “And what about you?”
“What about me?”
“Is that what you want too?”
I shrugged, trying to play it off. “I found you first, didn’t I?” I mumbled at him.
That got me a sweet kiss that turned slightly dirty. I was okay with that.
So we went, then, to support one who wa
s becoming our own: my parents, my grandmother, my best friend Sandy, and Vince’s brother Darren. Vince didn’t want to sit next to his father because he didn’t think he was wanted there. He’d told me the night before, as we lay in bed, that all he’d ever wanted was to be wanted. And since he had that, he wasn’t going to waste any more time trying to pretend that everything between him and Andrew Taylor was going to be okay. I thought about pushing the issue, telling him that he couldn’t just write off his dad like that, because no matter what, Andrew would always be his father. But I caught the look in his eye, almost a defiant thing, like that was what he expected me to say to him, like he knew what I was thinking. Vince was grieving, yes, and it hurt him greatly, but he was also showing me that he was stronger than I’d first thought. He was greater than what I’d seen.
But it was still a sight to see, especially when I realized that he was mine. He’d been right, of course, when he said we’d gotten the hard part out of the way and that the rest would be easy. I didn’t tell him (though I thought it quite often) that falling in love with him had been the easiest thing I’d ever done. I think he knew that, anyway.
So the guy in the front preached about God and Heaven and about how those we love are never really gone, just as long as we can remember them in our hearts. Many people came forward and said nice things about Lori Taylor. Songs were sung and prayers were said. We stood when we were told rise, and we sat when we were told to be seated. The whole thing was very surreal, the church large and airy, the voices echoing throughout the building. Vince looked handsome in his charcoal gray suit. I looked like a sweating beaver in my black suit. I sat next to him the whole time, his hand in mine, ignoring the glares we received from his father from across the way. It wasn’t about that. It wasn’t about him (and, to be fair, Nana glared right back enough for all of us; there was a moment when the Tucson Boys Chorus was singing the gorgeous hymn “Abide With Me” that I was pretty sure my dad had to keep my grandmother from launching herself at the mayor after a particularly nasty look he shot Vince. You could tell Dad had a split second when he seriously considered letting his mother-in-law launch herself at one of the highest ranking people in the room. I almost motioned to let her at him, but then I realized I still didn’t know if mayors had Secret Service protection and was thankful when he pulled her back. I reminded myself to ask Vince later to see if he knew).