by R. K. Lilley
He quickly set my mind at ease. He was a strange old coot that wore a top hat in the middle of the day and large white framed glasses that matched his wiry hair.
He was a large man, and in his seventies was heading in the direction of overweight.
I was on my semi-built stage, showing the architect I’d been working with just what I needed for the spot directly below our feet, when Tony came striding into the theatre.
He took one look at me and started laughing. “Let me guess. This is going to be some sort of act where they make you take your shirt off a lot. No doubt about it, I’ve been outclassed.”
My mouth quirked up in a grin, and I hopped down to shake his hand.
“I made them put it in my contract that I wouldn’t go shirtless more than twice a night,” I joked. “Had to put my foot down somewhere.”
He clutched his big belly while he laughed. “And you can take a joke. Outclassed indeed.”
I scratched my head, trying to find the words to broach an awkward subject.
“Don’t worry, my boy, my retirement was voluntary. I’m old, I have a bad heart, and it’s time I started taking better care of myself. I’ve just come to welcome you to the team, and to let you know that my door is always open, if you need any advice. Hell, I’d love to help. I’ve been in the magic game for fifty years. I’d hate to think I was letting go of it completely.
I was inordinately pleased by this. Tony Biello offering his support was all that I, who’d been practicing tricks from the first time I’d gotten my hands on a deck of cards, could ever want. It was a surreal, dream come true kind of moment. “Thank you. I’ve been a fan of yours since I was a kid. That means a lot to me. I’m sure I’ll be taking you up on that. Also, I wonder if you could make some guest appearances, if you’re up for it.”
He grinned his jolly grin. “Now that’s what I’m talking about.”
He came by almost every day after that, watching the work being done, giving advice, and asking a million questions about the show I was planning.
I tried to stay busy twenty-four seven, but unfortunately, there was always downtime, while I waited for contractors to show up, or found myself at loose ends. Still, I avoided downtime like the plague.
Of course, the time that I did spend dwelling was more agonizing than ever now that we worked in the same damned building.
The art gallery was made of glass, placed high above the ground of the casino floor, designed to be a piece of art itself. Watching someone inside of it and not letting them know that you were watching them, well, it couldn’t have been more perfectly designed for just that.
There was a small indoor courtyard there, just some tables and chairs attached to a coffee shop. It was set below and at an angle to the glass gallery. I could sit there and stare for as long as I wanted, and she never saw, never took notice.
I did this a lot.
This was pure masochism, but I couldn’t seem to stop.
Every break I had, every time I came or went I stopped at that little spot. I’d grab food from somewhere else and bring it there. I put in time at that torturous little spot.
This was all particularly unfortunate when she started seeing some motherfucker in a suit.
He must have worked in the building somewhere, because he started showing up often to take her to lunch.
It took every ounce of self-control, every minute of anger management and therapy I’d participated in, to keep from going up there and wringing his neck the first time I saw him wrap his arm around her waist, but I did it.
I walked away.
She’d smiled at him, looked genuinely happy to have him touch her.
No one deserved happy more than Danika.
Certainly not me.
My recovery had felt solid at the time, all of my twelve steps right where they should have been, but that night I very nearly had a relapse. With what felt like my last ditch effort, I called my sponsor, and he effectively talked me down. It wasn’t the first time, or the last, that I knew I owed him my life.
It was a mercy when she moved to L.A., and still I hated it.
I fell back into old patterns.
I started sleeping around. At first, it felt good. Abstinence was a bitch, and I’d been damn near a monk for two years.
It took a few months to realize that this was triggering the addict in me. I began to crave alcohol more than I had since my rehab days.
I went off sex cold turkey again, then tried something in between.
I was in denial at first, for months in fact, that it was a relationship, but those things had a way of sneaking up on you. I broke up with the poor girl immediately, trying to be as gentle as I could about the whole thing.
It was difficult to sleep with only one woman and not give her the idea that it was something more than friendship, something more than comfort.
I started dating. Not just sleeping around, but dinner, the whole deal. It was a new experience for me, and spending a bit of time with a woman before fucking seemed to be a necessary component for me. The other way, with one-night stands and one clear cut agenda, hadn’t worked.
I became good at it, at seeing a woman for two to three months, and then ending things in a friendly way. No real emotions were involved in it, but I didn’t feel like I was using anyone, so it seemed to be the best solution for me, all things considered.
Sex with Danika had been mind-blowing for me. Incredible. Amazing. The best. It had been so good, my need to give her what she needed became so strong that I’d developed another level of kink from the experience. Still, it was never the same. Not even close. Domination felt like a silly game when it wasn’t with Danika and the restraints were a cheap imitation.
What we’d had together; it was beautiful. Nothing else had ever come close, and a day didn’t go by that I’d forgotten that.
But I couldn’t have that again. I’d lost the privilege.
And life moved on.
CHAPTER THREE
TRISTAN
I’d barely gotten out of my car before a screaming Jack was jumping into my arms. Grinning, I lifted him high, then threw him higher, catching him. He was a fearless little guy, not a bit scared.
He giggled and clutched me around the neck. “Unca Twistan, I missed you!”
“I missed you too, buddy. It’s only been a few weeks though. How did you grow so much in just a few weeks?”
“I ate my bwoccoli, just like you told me to. I’ll be as tall as you soon.”
I patted his head, carrying him to the single level condo where his smiling mother waited for us in the doorway.
I hugged Dahlia, and she kissed my cheek. I pulled back as soon as it was politely possible.
I was well aware of how she still felt about me, and I did my best not to encourage her.
She had cut her streaky blonde hair into a pixy cut. It made her look like a sweet kid, which was how I’d always think of her. I knew she’d celebrated her twenty-second birthday recently, but to me she looked about sixteen. She’d been my sister-in-law at one point, my kid sister by extension, and she’d never fill a different role for me. No matter how much she pressed me, that just wouldn’t change.
We watched Jack play on the slide, climbing over the top like a monkey, not an ounce of fear on his grinning face even when he’d reached the top. It jarred a memory, of another perpetually smiling blond boy that feared nothing, the man who, now dead, had left behind the very image of himself as a child.
The holidays had always been tough for me. I’d been the older, bastard boy in the house, and Jared’s dad had never let me forget it.
One Christmas, when I was ten, I’d run off to the neighborhood basketball court in a fit. Jared’s asshole dad had been tearing into me again, calling me a punk, and worse, and I’d reached my limit. Sometimes I thought the only thing that kept me in that house at all was Jared.
I was feeling particularly sorry for myself; the boy without a dad, and I’d even worked myself up into a r
are bout of silent tears when I saw the skinny form of Dean running my way like someone was chasing him.
He grinned when he saw me, sprinting straight to me. The entire left side of his face was red, one eye swollen closed. It looked like someone had taken a bat to it.
I quickly wiped away my tears. Dean was the smallest in our group of friends, but he was always the most relentless with the teasing. If he’d noticed me crying, I doubted I’d ever hear the end of it.
He had noticed, but he shocked me by just patting my shoulder as he took a seat on the bench next to me.
“Jared’s dad is an asshole,” I explained. Though to two ten year old boys, there was never a good excuse for crying, it was the best I could do.
“Yeah man, he’s a jerk, but at least he’s nice to Jared.”
That was true.
He elbowed me playfully until I looked at him. He pointed to the battered side of his face. His eye was swelled nearly closed. “Don’t worry about never meeting your dad, man. It could be worse. He could show up every once in a while, beat the shit out of you, and do much worse things to your mother, right in front of you. Trust me, I’d trade places with you in a heartbeat.”
I held up a fist. It was a big fist. I was oversized for my age. I towered over our group of friends, and was bulky enough to take any and all of them on. “Want to go kick his ass? Is he big? I bet the both of us can take him.”
Dean shook his head, but he patted my shoulder again. It was a rare gesture of affection from him. “Naw. He’s already gone. He ain’t that big, but he carries a gun, so we should steer clear of him anyway, yanno?”
I nodded solemnly. “You know I’m here though, if you ever want to try.”
“I know you are, man. That’s why you’re my best friend.”
How had that smiling, fearless boy turned into that stranger of a man that had deceived me so easily? I’d never have the answer, but the question haunted me nonetheless. If I hadn’t been so blind to what he’d become, so many horrible things could have been avoided.
I knew Dean had fathered Jack, no one could look at the boy and not see it, but we’d never talked about it directly. Considering what I knew he’d done to Danika, though, I had my suspicions.
Finally, painfully, one day I had broached that dreaded subject with Dahlia.
“Did Dean…I mean, what I mean to ask is,” I stammered. I couldn’t help it, the very question still horrified me, thought I’d had years to stew about it. “Was whatever happened between you consensual?”
I couldn’t even look at her when I asked it. What may have happened right under my drugged out nose made me ashamed.
I felt responsible enough for the boy already. From the day Dahlia had called me and told me she was pregnant and that the baby had no father, I’d taken her and her child under my wing. A sense of duty drove me in that. She was, after all, my kid sister by law. Divorce hadn’t changed that for me. That divorce hadn’t changed any part of my heart, except to break parts of it. As the baby had grown into a little blond boy that I couldn’t fail to recognize, my sense that this was my responsibility had only grown stronger.
“He drugged me. I wasn’t sleeping with anyone when it happened, so you can imagine my shock when I found out I was pregnant.”
I flinched. “I’m so sorry for that. I wasn’t myself at the time, but I would have tried my best to prevent that, if I could have.”
“I know. You did try. Every time you saw him so much as talk to me, you took him to task. I’m grateful that you tried to protect me. No one besides Danika has ever done that for me before.”
“Well, I failed, and I’m sorry for that.”
“But you tried, with the best of intentions, and I needed that, needed someone to be protective of me. It meant a lot. Tristan, I—“
I stopped her, because I knew what was coming, and some things were better left unsaid. “Dahlia—“
She ignored the warning in my voice, plunging ahead. “I’m in love with you. I’m sure you already knew that, but I needed to say it out loud. And what you’ve done for Jack, how you’ve been there for him, helping us financially, how you come to visit without fail, it means so much to me. To us.”
“Dahlia, I’m in love with your sister,” I said, my tone flat. It was best to handle this once and for all, now that it was out in the open. “I always will be. I’m very sorry. You will find someone, someone that can love you back, but it is not me.”
She threw her arms around me, held on tight, and kissed me, her skinny body rubbing against mine.
I held perfectly still, letting her carry on for a solid minute. All the while, I felt nothing. Not a stirring, not even the vaguest tendril of interest. This is what it’s like to have your sister kiss you, I thought.
Finally, she pulled back, panting. I could see by her hurt eyes that I’d made my point. There’d been no clearer way to show her that I could not be interested in her, of all people.
“You’re a beautiful girl. Sweet and kind. You need to let go of this idea. It will never be what you want it to. It’s holding you back. I’m here for you, as a brother, as a friend, and you know I’m here for Jack. I love that boy like he’s my own blood. But I can’t be more for you. I hope you understand now.”
She nodded, her lips trembling. “How can you still love her so much? She won’t even talk to you.”
“Because that’s how love works. It doesn’t die, even when you don’t feed it. That’s just the way it is. I wouldn’t change it, even if I could. Loving her has become a part of who I am.”
“It’s so unfair,” she said sullenly, taking a big step away from me.
That it was.
I found myself calling Adair that night, though the thought never fully formed of what I was doing before it blurted out of my mouth. “You know Dahlia’s kid, Jack?” I asked him without even a greeting. I hadn’t talked to him in ages, and the band had been broken up for years.
“Dean’s kid,” he mused back, unfazed by the rude start. “Nice to hear from you, Tristan. I was just talking to Kenny the other day. We talked about the four of us meeting up again, seeing if we still had it.”
That gave me pause, but I continued. “I’ve had my suspicions, but I just found out that Dahlia wasn’t a willing participant in the conception. Did you know anything about this?”
“God, no!” he answered quickly and with conviction. I believed him instantly. He was a good guy, though he suffered from addiction, as well. He’d done his own stint in rehab about a year after I had. As far as I knew, he’d stayed sober, too. “That fucker. I should have known, but I honestly thought he’d suckered her into hooking up with him. I didn’t know he was a rapist, man. I wouldn’t have worked with him if I’d had a fucking clue, you can be sure of that. I always knew she was too fucking innocent for him. Fuuuuck, that messes me up.”
“Yeah, it’s hard to take, that we were there and didn’t stop it.”
“Yeah, it is. I can guarantee Cory and Kenny were clueless, too. None of us would have let a thing like that slide. You have to know that.”
I had. I’d just needed to hear it out loud. “Ignorance is no excuse. We owe that poor girl, Adair, and that kid doesn’t have a father. The least we can do—“
“I couldn’t agree more. I’ll call her today. I just, I don’t know, I thought there was something between the two of you. I know she always had a thing for you, right from the start. Didn’t want to step on your territory.”
“She’s like a kid sister to me. I have no claim there. Not my territory.”
“So you don’t mind if…?”
“You can ask her out. But treat her right. I would take it real personal if you put her through more pain that she’s already been through. You understand?”
“Yes. I’m not how I used to be, man. I’ve grown up. I’ll treat her right, if she’s interested, I swear.”
That suited me fine. Dahlia needed to find a new focus for her infatuation.
THREE YEARS AFTE
R THE ACCIDENT
DANIKA
The stars had aligned, and Bev threw a huge neighborhood BBQ in her backyard during one of my business trips to Vegas at the same time that Dahlia was visiting her least favorite town on the planet.
I got to spend the afternoon in the pool with Mat, Ivan, and little Jack. It was a charmed day, and so rare that I knew to savor every second of it.
The boys were nine and eleven now, and I still saw them often, but every time I set eyes on them again, I couldn’t believe how much they’d grown and changed.
They hadn’t seen much of Jack, but they went out of their way to be nice to him, and spend time playing games with him. They were darling boys, and they loved me almost as much as I adored them, and since Jack was my family, they treated him like their family. Bev and Jerry did it too. It was heartwarming.
Dahlia hung back a bit from it all, but I knew that it was rare for her to get a break from caring for Jack, and so she enjoyed an afternoon of sunbathing, headphones keeping her from even so much as hearing the loud pool party going on around her.
I didn’t mind a bit. I was only too happy to get in all the time I could and grateful that she trusted me to care for Jack amidst the chaos.
I played pool games for hours with my three boys and several of the neighbor kids. I was still good in the water. Better than I was at walking, in fact. My knee, with all of its lost cartilage, was lighter there.
I had a blast with those boys. More fun than I’d had in ages. And all the while, I had to keep my mind from agonizing over the fact that I’d never get to have any of my own.
I’d always loved kids, always had such a knack for caring for them. I tried not to rage against the unfairness of it all.
The dark thoughts never lasted long, as the boys were always pulling me back into their games.
It was such a wonderful day, but it was ruined by the most unlikely source.
Bev and Jerry’s relationship was stronger than ever, and very occasionally, they had random moments of PDA.