by Mia Kerick
Savannah was so bundled up with layers of clothes she looked like she was planning to climb Mount Everest rather than attend a baseball game in Boston. Tristan appeared as excited as a kid on his first trip to Fenway Park, which was pretty much exactly what he was. Wearing the Ortiz jersey I’d given him over his sweatshirt and a Sox cap to top it off, he stood on the sidewalk in front of his building with his hands stuck deep in the pockets of his jeans, waiting for my Jeep to pull up so he could jump in.
Yes, there he stood in front of his apartment—all flush-faced and foot-tapping—and if I hadn’t known how psyched up he was to be going to the game today, I would have thought he’d downed one too many cans of Red Bull. As usual, Tristan hopped in the back, allowing Savannah the front passenger seat. And on the short drive from Somerville to Kenmore Square, he must’ve asked me at least ten times how much farther it was. I was also very well aware that Tristan knew the layout of Boston like the back of his hand; he was just truly excited.
When we arrived, we didn’t spend too much time on Yawkey Way because my dates were eager to get inside the park to catch their first glimpse of the famous Green Monster. We wasted no time in finding the lines for the Fenway Franks, popcorn, and beer, and I got Tris a program so I could help him to keep track of the game on the scorecard inside it. Armed with our feast and Tristan’s precious program, I led the couple to our seats, which just so happened to have been pretty decent, down by first base. I sat in between them and turned to Tristan, ready to teach him the scoring shorthand.
“Awww! How fucking romantic!” I didn’t even have to turn around to know who the owner of that grating voice was. But nonetheless, I glanced up and saw that Mikey and his cousin/buddy were sitting about six rows behind us. “I see you took your two lovers to a ballgame, Dalton!”
I felt the stares of the people around us burning into my back. On both sides of me, Tristan and Savannah had suddenly become completely fascinated by the cement underneath their seats. “At least I’ve got a date, who’re you with up there, your boy, Eddie Martini, again?” Knowing poor Eddie, he’d probably just turned red as a beet, but I had to fight fire with fire.
“Well, we were good enough for ya last year, asshole!” Several parents sent him “watch your language” glares, so Mikey sat down.
But Tristan, ever the gentleman, stood up and turned around to face him. “It’s nice to see you again, Mikey,” he called. “I’d love a chance to buy you a beer today.”
Mikey jumped back to his feet. “It’ll be a cold day in hell when I drink a beer from outta your dick-fondling hand, you faggot!”
“Come on, loser! I didn’t take my kid to Fenway to hear your crap!”
“Yeah, man. Sit down and shut up!” The crowd seemed to know how to keep Mikey in line much better than I ever had. As they ranted at him, all I did was sit there with my head pretty much up my ass, steaming with fury.
“I guess I’ll leave you three to your ménage à trois. Have a ball, homos!”
Tristan blushed and then lowered his head, off came the ball cap, and before I knew it, his hand was in his hair.
Yes, Mikey and I were pissed at each other. He could treat me like shit until the cows came home, but Tristan had not done a fucking thing to deserve that kind of treatment. I gently pushed Savannah back and started to slide down the row toward the aisle. I’d teach that asshole some fucking manners! One more fistfight at Fenway Park wouldn’t be big news, anyways.
“Don’t do it, Robby.” Tristan immediately had his hand on my forearm, and he was pulling me back to my seat.
Right then I could only see red, and I wasn’t talking about anybody’s socks. “He insulted you.”
Savannah’s mittened hand was suddenly caught up in my own. “There was no harm done, Robby. Let’s get our minds back on the game. Look, the teams are coming out.”
“He called me and Tris gay—you heard the slur.”
Tristan immediately interjected, “So suggesting that we’re gay is a slur? Is that how you see it?” He stared at me as if he didn’t even know me, his eyes colder than I’d ever seen them. “I thought you were cool with, with things.”
“No! No, that’s not what I meant, Tris…. Please, man, just listen to me. It was how he spoke that pissed me off!” At this point, I had completely turned my back on Savannah and was basically ready to fall to my knees to beg. I didn’t care who the fuck saw me do it, and for that matter, I didn’t even know what I was going to beg for. I just wanted another try to make Tristan’s day picture-perfect. I searched his face, but for the first time ever, I couldn’t read his expression. And that in itself really threw me. It seemed I had disappointed the person I most wanted to please.
“This is our very first Red Sox game, you guys. Let’s make memories we want to keep, hmm?” I heard Savannah’s calm voice behind me. She reached right across my chest and took the popcorn from out of Tristan’s white-knuckled grasp. “Now, could the two of you go and buy me another beer? I seem to have spilled mine in all of the excitement.” Her eyes meant business, so Tristan and I slid from our seats like two obedient children.
As we headed down the aisle, I placed my hand on Tristan’s shoulder; it felt stiff to my touch, probably from the effort it took for him to hold it so rigidly. “I’m sorry, man. I wasn’t thinking too clearly.”
He looked at me, his deep brown gaze softening slightly. “You think being gay’s a crime or something? Because I don’t.”
In his own reserved way, Tristan was as honest and direct as Savannah. And in order to deserve their affection, I knew I had to be the same. “God, no. No, I really care about you, Tris.” As soon as we got to the area near the concession stands, I pushed on his chest lightly and kept on pushing until I’d backed him into a corner. “I just didn’t like someone making what we have sound dirty, ’cause it’s not.”
Tristan nodded sweetly. I could already tell he understood.
“Meeting you and Savannah—however we end up fitting together—is the best thing that has ever happened to me.” I needed him to nod again, just one more time, so I knew he accepted my apology and everything was okay between us.
But instead of nodding, he walked over to the beer stand and bought three beers. When he returned to where I stood staring at him anxiously, still waiting for a sign that I was forgiven, he bent down to put a beer on the ground. Then he stood back up and handed me one. Tristan lifted his beer between us and I lifted mine in response. “Here’s to our first Red Sox game in Fenway Park, of hopefully very many.”
I thrust my beer against his and replied with relief, “Now, buddy, we’ve got a lot of work to do if you want to understand how to score a game. Let’s head back.” After Tristan picked up Savannah’s beer, I escorted him back to our seats, and suddenly Mikey DeSalvo was no longer even a factor for my consideration.
Chapter 20
Robby
IT MIGHT as well have been the height of the Cold War in the office of Robert Dalton Builders. I’d have liked to think of myself as the freedom-loving United States of America and Mikey as the tyrannical Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. In any case, my office hadn’t exactly been Group-Hug Central lately, and both of us had managed to avoid the place as much as humanly possible. I don’t know if it was also true for Mikey, but every Starbucks on the outskirts of Boston had been seeing a great deal more of my laptop and me since early October.
Thankfully, it wasn’t entirely necessary for us to do any cooperative strategizing in search of new work, as we already had four small jobs that would keep us busy enough until the spring. I less-than-courageously decided that interviewing for new jobs could wait until the big freeze between us thawed.
If the big freeze thawed.
It was the miracle of all miracles: Mikey had picked up his own cup of coffee this morning. Of course, he hadn’t stopped to get the boss a cup. Not much of a surprise there; I realized that he was in no mood to make any kind of a peace offering. He pushed through the office door, cof
fee and briefcase in his hands.
“Hey, we’ve to go over a few things on the renovations at the McPhee Nursing Home. You got a minute?” I looked up at him gravely as he closed the office door.
“Oh, so you’ve lowered your standards enough to talk to me now?”
I stood up and walked over to his desk. “Look, man, we work together. And if we want to keep it that way, we have to be able to get a few things done. You don’t have to be my best friend and I don’t have to be yours, but we need to at least be civil enough with each other to talk business.”
Surprisingly, my statement seemed to shock him. And hurt him. He glanced down. “So we’re not best pals no more, huh? Easy come, easy go, I guess.”
“Come on, Mikey.”
He dropped down into his seat. “I get it, D-man. You met some people who can give ya something I can’t. Don’t know just what the fuck that something is, but it seems like you’re happy enough getting it.” He raised his eyebrows, as if what I was getting from Tristan and Savannah was being given between the sheets. “I don’t have to like it to work wit’ ya.”
“When have I ever commented on your love life, Mikey? You sleep with girls like they’re going out of style; you tell me every fucking detail of what you do with them in the sack. Have you ever even considered that I don’t necessarily like everything you do?”
Mikey once again appeared shocked by my revelation. He looked at me strangely, as if he didn’t know who I was. “So sorry for sharing.”
“My point is, Mikey, I stay the hell out of that stuff. It’s your business—not mine to judge.”
“Whatever you say, big guy.” He allowed a big yawn, as if I was boring him with my useless chatter. “I can be civil. How ’bout you?”
I nodded and pulled out my iPad. It wasn’t going to be pretty, but it looked as if the two of us would be able to function together in the office, which was a huge relief because the last thing I wanted was to have to fire Mikey. But if I was going to be brutally honest with myself, firing Mikey was the second-to-last thing I wanted to do. Because the last thing I wanted was to do anything to hurt Tristan or Savannah. “So break out your notes from the last job meeting at McPhee. Any changes in the plans?”
Chapter 21
Tristan
“IF THINGS had been, like, say, different for you when you were a kid, I think you would’ve turned into quite an athlete.”
“Yeah? You think?”
Robby smacked my rear end kind of sharply the way real athletes did on TV as he passed by me on his way to where Savi sat on a bench watching us. I just stood there overwhelmed by my stupid and most likely underserved feelings of pride in how well I’d played. He didn’t look back at me, but I could still hear him yell before he spiked the football hard, “You heard what those guys said. They wanted to know what high school we played for?”
He was right; those two teenaged athletes, all dressed in their royal-blue-and-gold school jackets and sweatpants, had watched us toss the football back and forth for a while, and then had sauntered up to us wanting to know where we were from. And seeing how giddy I was at even the suggestion of having played on a real team, Robby had bluffed. “It’s pretty far away from here, in Rhode Island. You’ve probably never even heard of it, but this guy”—he’d given me another one of those butt whacks—“is the QB.”
For several weeks now, we’d been going to the park a couple of afternoons a week when I was off work and when Robby could manage to escape his office, for what he called “football boot camp.” It seemed I was his prize, if not his only, student. Savannah came to watch us whenever her class schedule allowed.
I glanced over at Robby and Savannah, sitting on the bench under a huge leafless oak tree, all wrapped up in a lively chat. Whenever I saw them together, laughing and teasing each other like they’d been friends forever, I couldn’t help but think, My family. But usually I wasn’t thinking in terms of specific roles within the family; right now as I approached them, they were beaming at me eerily, as if they were my proud parents and I’d just won the Student-Athlete-of-the-Year Award.
All excited, Savannah grabbed Robby’s hand, but she was still looking at me. “I didn’t know you had it in you, Tris.”
“That’s because he never had a chance before. But seeing as I’m nothing but an overgrown high school jock, he’s gonna get plenty of chances to be this threesome’s star athlete.” Savannah and I turned to stare at him, unsure of how to react. Robby had never referred to our relationship as a “threesome” before. “What? You guys think we’re not a threesome?”
I had absolutely no plans to put my foot in my mouth, so I said nothing.
Savannah, direct as always, cut straight to the heart of the matter. “You know, you’re right: we really are a threesome. So tell me, how do you feel about it, Robby? You know, being part of a voluntary love triangle?”
I couldn’t believe she’d asked him that.
Robby stood up, covered his even features with one large palm, and then wiped his other palm on the front of his sweatpants. “I feel better, happier, than I ever have before.” He dropped his hand from his face and began to study the way the toe of his left sneaker was digging into the dirt, so I still couldn’t see his eyes too well.
But Savi wasn’t finished with her little fact-finding mission. “We haven’t been sexual, beyond a kiss or a hug or a touch. This must be strange for you.” It was one of those statements that was really much more of a question. I wondered if Robby would take the bait.
He shook out the big plaid blanket that he’d stuck in the back of the Jeep, laid it down on the grass, and then he plunked his backside on one side of it, stretching out and inviting me with his eyes to lie down next to him. I hesitated, unsure as to what was coming, but Savi grabbed my hand, led me to the blanket, and sort of pushed me down between them.
“It’s not strange. Well, maybe at first it was a bit confusing. But I think I’m figuring out how we fit together.” I noticed that my partners caught each other’s eyes over my head. Then Robby looked right at me. “Tristan, can I kiss you?”
I sat up quickly and instinctively checked all around me to see if anyone was within earshot, or even eyeshot. And we were alone. Not a single soul was at the park, just the three of us. Savannah gently but insistently pulled me back down.
“Robby asked you a question. Aren’t you going to answer him?” Her voice was smooth, cool. Unsurprised.
I turned to Savannah, my lifeline; I was completely panic-stricken. But she was smiling at me as if everything was okay. Then I turned to Robby. He didn’t appear as freaked out as I figured he would be, since what he was suggesting was kind of groundbreaking for all three of us, in more ways than one. His blue-eyed gaze was so soft and hopeful, and I realized quickly that I’d never been looked at in precisely that way before.
“Only if you want to, Tris.”
If I wanted to?
Nothing sexual had ever happened to me by my choice.
Did I want to?
In the past with Savannah, I’d desperately wanted to make love, but I just couldn’t make it happen. Between us there hadn’t been fear, and there had been love, certainly, and a level of attraction, too, but it had all been there except this. This certain something, maybe you could call it a fascination, or maybe more an infatuation, that existed between Robby and me. But until now, it had always been so very easy to blame my lack of drive, I guess you could call it, on impotence resulting from all of the unresolved sexual issues left over from my messed-up childhood.
This was now, though, and the person who wanted to kiss me was Robby. It was time to figure out what I wanted, wasn’t it? Not that I didn’t already know that I wanted to kiss Robby, because I did, beyond a doubt. But this one small kiss would change things, and I didn’t know what those things would be changed into.
What about Savannah? What was she supposed to be doing when I was locking lips with our boyfriend? And what about the easy-going, no-pressure, happy-go-
lucky relationship we’d built? “What do you say, Tristan, baseball or football this afternoon?” “You up for a game of Monopoly or Clue, Savi?” “You choose, Robby, Die Hard with a Vengeance or Rocky II?” “Chinese or Italian, you guys?” Until now, those had been our only concerns.
It was truly amazing how many thoughts passed through my mind in what amounted to probably no more than a couple of seconds. And somehow I managed to hold myself back from making excuses as to why I couldn’t kiss him. I didn’t come up with any manipulations to convince Robby he shouldn’t kiss me, either.
Instead, I said, “I want to.” Did I just say that? What I really should’ve said was, “You can’t want to kiss me—I’m all used and ruined.” But no, I’d just proclaimed out loud to these two people, individuals I cared about more than myself, that I wanted to kiss one of them.
Thankfully, what happened next unfolded very slowly. Slow enough for me to be able to deal with it. Savannah sort of pushed on my shoulders so that I was lying on my side, facing Robby. And she did not let go of me; her small hands remained firmly pressed to my shoulder and the side of my neck, each of them rubbing just a little bit. And then Robby reached, and I’m talking as slow as a sloth, for my hands, which were definitely shaking at that point. First, he lifted them to his lips, as if he was sampling what it was like to kiss another man’s skin. I watched as his lips touched the back of my hands, and his eyes closed like he was concentrating. Then his hands let go of mine and they rose gradually to my face, where one of them somehow joined up with the hand that Savannah had pressed to my neck, and Robby leaned in for a kiss.