by Marie Sexton
“I’d offer to host your bachelor party, but I don’t think you’d like my choice of strippers.”
He actually laughed at that. I’d never heard him laugh before, and I foolishly found myself thinking that it was the most wondrous sound in the world.
“See? I told you. You’re more fun.”
Chapter 9
A WEEK later, Matt knocked on my door just after five o’clock. He still had his uniform on. I was surprised to find him on my doorstep, but I sure wasn’t going to complain.
“Let’s go,” he said. “I’ll buy you dinner.”
I’d been in the middle of my usual dinner debate—ramen or frozen pizza—so I happily agreed.
“We’ll swing by my place on the way,” he said as he started the Jeep. “I want to change.”
I hadn’t been to his house yet and was curious to see how he lived.
It turned out he didn’t live in a house at all. He pulled up in front of a strip of apartments on the edge of town. Had it been bigger, it might have been called a condo. It was a long, narrow rectangle of white brick, containing four claustrophobic one-bedroom flats.
We walked in the door, and I was stunned by the sterile emptiness of the place. Most of the tiny living room was taken up by one of those giant strength-building home gyms you see on TV. In addition to that, there was one metal folding chair, an old wooden end table (being used as a coffee table, in front of the lone chair), and a TV sitting on a milk crate. It was also the cleanest bachelor pad I’d ever seen.
“Wow. Nice place. The prison cell motif is really working for you. Very feng shui.”
He gave me the pseudo-smile: cocked eyebrow and one side of his mouth twitching up. “Here I’ve been thinking you weren’t really gay, and then you go and use words like ‘motif’ and ‘feng shui.’” I had to laugh at that. “Make yourself at home,” he called over his shoulder as he went into the bedroom to change.
The cliché sentiment sounded ridiculous; nothing had ever felt less like a home.
Behind the living room, next to what passed for a kitchen, was a nook that couldn’t quite be called a dining room. It held a rickety card table and another metal folding chair. A huge bookcase stood against the back wall, its shelves full to bursting.
It surprised me for reasons I couldn’t quite pinpoint. I browsed the titles. They were crammed in every which way, but I soon realized they were sorted by genre and roughly alphabetical by author. Talk about neat and tidy. One shelf was law-related—police procedurals, and criminal justice textbooks. The next two shelves held nonfiction, mostly related to war and the military, but I spotted a few biographies too. Then rows and rows of fiction—mystery, horror, sci-fi, Westerns, and even a few graphic novels.
Matt emerged from the bedroom, dressed in his usual jeans and T-shirt. He stood beside me, tall and straight with his hands behind his back, looking at those books. I felt like I’d found a tiny window into his heart. Or a shrine, but I didn’t know to what.
“You never struck me as much of a reader.”
It took him a moment to answer. “I’m alone a lot,” he said quietly. “Sometimes it’s hard to fill the hours.”
Those words and the hint of tired resignation in his voice struck a chord inside me—they echoed my own loneliness so completely. “I know exactly what you mean.”
And in that moment, something passed between us. We didn’t speak, but I knew we both felt it. It wasn’t anything as trite or romantic as finding one’s soul mate. It was simply a silent recognition that we truly were kindred spirits. That we’d both been alone for a long time and maybe we didn’t need to be anymore.
“SO YOUR family doesn’t mind that you’re gay.” It was more a statement than a question.
We’d decided on Tony’s for dinner. Matt refused to go to Mamacita’s, where he risked running into Cherie. It wasn’t really much better here. I was sure we were the only table that had two waitresses rushing to serve us. He didn’t seem to notice.
“It bothered my dad a little. He thought, like you did, that I just hadn’t tried hard enough. He’d say things like ‘You just need to take one or two out for a test drive, son.’ My mom took it pretty well. But sometimes it makes her sad, because she knows I’ll be missing out on having kids. And she hates seeing me alone. Brian does his best to be cool with it, although it still freaks him out a bit, I think. Back when I came out, he was the one I was most worried about. I always looked up to him, and I was sure he’d hate me. I decided he had to be the first one I told. It took me forever to get up the nerve. Right after I turned twenty-one, I came home from college for the weekend and took him out for a drink. I had a couple of beers first, to get up my courage, and I finally said, ‘Brian, I’m gay.’ And, he laughed. He actually laughed, and said, ‘No kidding, kid? Did you finally figure it out?’” I laughed, thinking back on it. Of course Brian, who always kept his eye on me, had figured it out sometime between my Steve Atwater outburst, my infatuation with his best friend, and my twenty-first birthday. “It was all rather anticlimactic, but it was also a relief to know I hadn’t changed in his estimation. I couldn’t have handled that.”
“Do you have a, you know, a—um—friend?”
He seemed to stumble on that word, and I laughed at him. “I have one friend. My best friend, in fact. His name’s Cole. We met in college. He was dating my roommate. He lives in Arizona, but he owns a condo in Vail, and sometimes when he’s up here skiing, he’ll call and we’ll get together.”
“Friends.” Matt wrinkled his brow in confusion. “No, I meant—”
“I know. Cole and I are both.”
“How can you be both? If you’re best friends and you have sex too, isn’t that the same as being a relationship?”
“Not at all. We’re not really each other’s type. He’s too flamboyant for me, and I’m too small town for him. We’re friends first and foremost. The sex is occasionally mutually convenient, but it’s just gravy.”
He frowned. “Nobody else, though?”
“Other than Cole? No. There’s no one.”
“But how do you meet people? I mean, others like you?”
“I don’t. Not anymore. I used to go to the clubs sometimes. There’s one in Fort Collins and a couple in Boulder and a bunch in Denver. But, you know, it’s just like it is for straight guys. You might be able to get laid—well, at a gay club, it’s almost a guarantee that you can get laid, depending on your standards—but you’re never gonna find anything more than that.”
“Is that what you want? Something more?”
“Don’t we all?” That came out sounding way too pathetic. We definitely needed to change the subject. “So how’s work?” I could tell right away it was a bad question. His gray eyes darkened—no green visible at all—and his broad shoulders grew tense.
“Not great,” he said.
“What’s up? Is there a crime wave in Coda I haven’t heard about?”
He loosened up a little. “I’ve had to drag Dan Snyder away from Cherie’s house two more times. The first time, he was drunk and throwing bottles at her house. The other time, he was inside, and she looked bad. I don’t get it. She won’t press charges, but it was pretty obvious he’d been beating on her again. He’s a real piece of work.”
“Dan was always a fuckup. Even in high school.”
“Yeah.” He fell silent, pulling at the label on his beer bottle. “I’m getting a lot of shit from the other guys,” he said quietly. He didn’t look at me, and it took a second for me to figure it out.
“Because of me?”
A reluctant nod.
“Then what the hell are we doing here?” I asked, incredulous. I had to tell myself to keep my voice down. “You come to my house and bring me out to dinner—of course they’re going to talk.”
He just shrugged. “It pisses me off.” He didn’t sound pissed though; he sounded sad. “They don’t know what it’s like. They’re all married. The other night when I saw you here—that’s not the first
time. They’re always trying to set me up.” I wasn’t sure what to say to that. “I work with them, so I want to get along with them, but at the end of the day, they go home to their families.” And he went home alone to his prison cell of an apartment. He didn’t say that part, but I heard it.
Midway through our meal, Mr. Stevens, the high school band director, came through the front door of the restaurant. I waved hello. I figured he’d simply wave back, but instead he made a beeline for our table.
“Hello, Jared. It’s good to see you.”
As far as I knew, Mr. Richards was the only other gay man in Coda. He was in his sixties and well dressed. He seemed to always have on a bow tie. “Hey, Mr. Stevens. How’s life?”
“You haven’t been my student for a long time. You know you can call me Bill.” He always told me this, but it’s hard to call any former teacher by their first name. “And I believe you’re our newest police officer?” he said to Matt.
“Yes, sir. Matt Richards.” He shook Mr. Steven’s slightly limp hand.
“Mr. Richards, it’s very nice to meet you. I’m so glad you’ve joined our tiny community. I hope you don’t mind me asking, but are you out with the department?”
I tried not to smile. It was obvious Mr. Stevens assumed Matt was gay. But it was equally obvious—to me, at least—that Matt had no idea what Mr. Stevens meant. I could tell by the look on his face that he was thinking, “out where?” But he nodded gamely and said, “Yes, sir, I am.” Now I was really having a hard time not laughing.
“That’s fabulous! I’m glad to hear that our department is so progressive.” Matt’s demeanor barely changed. Mr. Stevens obviously couldn’t tell how confused he was, and I realized I was becoming quite adept at reading his guarded expressions. “Well, I’ll leave you two alone. I want you to know that it makes me so happy to see you two together.” He winked at me. “It gives an old man hope.”
“Thanks, Mr. Stevens. You know I wish you luck.”
When he was gone, Matt looked at me and said, “What the hell? What was that guy talking about? And what’s so damn funny?”
“Don’t you remember me telling you about Mr. Stevens, the band director?”
I watched him as he thought about it and I saw the light come on. His eyes shifted from side to side as he replayed the conversation in his head, and a blush crept up his cheeks as the pieces fell into place.
“Finally figured it out, did you?”
“Shit.” He didn’t seem mad, so much as annoyed at himself. “Sometimes I’m such an idiot.”
“Well, I wouldn’t worry about it. Mr. Stevens knows all about discretion.”
“I guess that’s probably true.”
“Does it bother you that he thinks we’re together?”
“Does it bother you?”
“Not at all.”
“You and he never…?” I noticed he’d evaded my question but let it pass.
“Never. I don’t think either one of us has ever even considered it. There’s a pretty big age difference, obviously. And he was my teacher once, so that would be pretty fucking weird. And I don’t know for sure, but I suspect Mr. Stevens likes his men a little more feminine, if you know what I mean.”
His cheeks were bright red, but his gaze was level on mine. “And how do you like your men?”
And boy did that feel like the trick question of the month. Because of course, I liked my men just like him: tall and dark and muscular. The only thing I might have added was longer hair and tattoos—and I had to wonder if there were any under his shirt. But I couldn’t say it.
What I said was, “Filthy rich.”
He gave me the pseudo-smile. I had a feeling he knew the real answer.
Chapter 10
MATT BEGAN stopping by the shop at closing time on a regular basis, and we had dinner together two or three times a week. Every time I asked him if it was causing trouble for him at work. At first he’d just shrug, but by the third week, the question was making him blush. That confused me.
“I don’t understand. Does it cause problems for you or not?”
“Well, it did,” he said hesitantly. “But I’ve made some changes that have helped.” But he couldn’t seem to make eye contact as he said it.
“‘Changes’? Like what?”
“I, umm….” He fidgeted with the label on his beer bottle like he always did when I made him uncomfortable. “I started seeing Cherie.”
“What?”
He glanced up at me and gave me the pseudo-smile. “You heard me.”
“You’re dating Cherie?”
“No. Not dating.”
“But you just said—”
“What I said was I started seeing her. Not the same thing.” He said it like it was the most obvious thing in the world. He must have seen the confusion written all over my face, because he rolled his eyes at me and said, “Let’s just say we have an arrangement. Like you and your friend, Cole.”
“Ahh. I see.” Now I was having a hard time keeping a straight face. “Occasionally mutually convenient?”
He shrugged. “Well, convenient for me, at any rate.”
“I thought you valued your independence?”
“I do. But I’m not exactly a fan of celibacy either.”
“Who is?”
He winked at me. “Exactly.”
“Why her? I mean, not to be a jerk, but she’s got, well….”
“A reputation?” He was back to picking at the label on the bottle.
“Right.” I was relieved that it wasn’t news to him.
He shrugged. “I wear a raincoat.”
That made me blush. “Well, that’s good, but that’s not what I meant.”
“She seemed like the best bet for a ‘no strings’ type of relationship. I have absolutely no interest in anything more serious.”
“And she’s actually in agreement with that?” I couldn’t claim to be an expert on women, but I’d always suspected “no strings attached” was a lot harder for them than for men.
“Look”—and I could tell he was getting a little annoyed that he had to explain it to me—“I’m not a total asshole. I have been completely honest with her. She knows we’re not dating. There will be no romantic moonlight strolls or anniversary dinners. I’m not meeting her parents, or buying her flowers, or moving in with her, or even meeting her friends. We fuck. That’s it.”
“She’s okay with that?”
“She says she is.” He shrugged again. “I’m sure she thinks I’ll change my mind over time. I won’t, and I’ve told her I won’t. It’s not my fault if she chooses not to believe me.” I couldn’t help but think Cherie might be right. I figured after a few weeks, he wouldn’t object so much to “dating.” I was pretty sure the way to a man’s heart was actually a little lower than the stomach. “She has requested only that I be ‘faithful,’ and not date or sleep with any other women while we’re seeing one another.”
“And that’s acceptable to you?”
“Absolutely. The whole point is to keep the complications to a bare minimum, and adding another woman to the mix would definitely qualify as a ‘complication.’”
“Yes, I suppose it would.”
“Plus, the arrangement has other benefits.” He had the pseudo-smile again.
“Such as?”
He almost smiled. “First, the guys at work are no longer trying to set me up. And more importantly, I am now free to hang out with you as much as I like without having to put up with annoying accusations.”
“So let me get this straight: you’re willing to have sex, no strings attached, with a hot bimbo, just so you can hang out more with me more?”
His green-in-gray eyes sparkled, crinkling at the corners like he was about to laugh. “It is quite a sacrifice on my part, I admit. Don’t say I never did anything for you.”
“Wow.” I couldn’t help but laugh. “You are a manipulative bastard.”
“I am. I can’t deny that.” His smile faded. “Are you thorough
ly disgusted?”
“By the idea of you fucking Cherie? A little. By the fact that you’re a manipulative bastard? Not so much. She’s a big girl, and if you really are being honest with her—”
“I am.”
“Then it’s just a matter of consenting adults.”
“Exactly.” He seemed relieved to have that out of the way. “So, what about your friend Cole? How often do you get to see him?”
“He’s only here during prime ski season, but I usually see him two or three times between December and the first of April.”
“So never between April and December?”
“Not often, no.”
“Wow.” He shook his head sympathetically. “That’s a hell of a dry season.”
“Tell me about it.”
Our food came then and put an end to that depressing topic.
“Are you working next weekend?” he asked as I started to eat.
“Yeah.”
“Can you get it off?”
Getting the weekend off would be easy. Since it was summer vacation, Ringo was able to work full-time. Plus, Lizzy was willing to take more hours than usual, because we both knew once the baby came in the fall, the tables would be turned.
“Sure. What’s up?”
“I’ll be working overtime on July third and fourth, but then I have a three-day weekend after that, starting Friday. I thought we could go camping. I bought a bike last week, too, so we could do some riding.”
Nothing could have made me happier. I always loved spending time in the mountains, but usually I had to go alone. Sometimes Brian and Lizzy would go with me, but between Brian’s job and the shop, it was hard for us all to get away together. The idea of having company, especially Matt’s company, was exhilarating. Still, I did my best to act casual. “That sounds great.”
“Should I pick you up?”
“Yeah. Come by early on Friday. We can get breakfast first, then get our gear together and head up.”