A Package Deal

by Mia Kerick

  I was never afraid he’d hurt me physically, as so many had done before him. Robby was always incredibly gentle, although his body possessed the power to do whatever damage he wished. And I’d pretty much come to worship that powerfully muscled body. It was heavenly to run my fingers over all of those sculpted grooves, as well as to study every perfect inch of him with my eyes, knowing that he would only use his strength to love and shelter me.

  Why had I never allowed him to see me naked? Why had I withheld those very same pleasures from him? I shook my head, bitterly regretting my unwillingness.

  Ultimately, the question I needed to ask myself was not why he had left me, but rather why had I never fully allowed myself to be his? Why hadn’t I fully trusted Robby Dalton? Maybe it was because I’d been certain that he’d been holding something vital back from me. Maybe it had been because I’d been scared of having to deal with exactly what I was going through right now.

  Maybe it was because I’d been just plain scared.

  And since it had been almost twenty-four hours since he’d been expected to come home and hadn’t, I allowed myself time to cry.

  I needed to cry.

  Robby

  I WAS pretty sure they were going to mug me. And I suspected that after the fact they’d be damned disappointed with what they’d gained.

  Somehow, I’d managed to get cornered in a back alley, behind a big dark-green dumpster, by three gangly, but nonetheless tough-looking young men. Had I been in my element, well fed and well rested on the streets of suburbia, I had no doubt I could have taken at least a couple of them down without too much trouble. But I was not in my element, was I? These street punks had home-field advantage.

  “Ya wallet, man, cough up ya wallet.”

  “’Fore we have ta hurt ya, dude.”

  I automatically reached into my back pocket, again feeling around for my wallet. “I, uh…. I lost it, uh, last ni-night.” My voice actually had the nerve to crack like a teenager’s.

  “Fuckin’ hell. Ya sayin’ we have ta fuckin’ cavity search ya for it? If I find it, man, you is fuckin’ dead.” The largest of the three stepped forward. He turned me around like I was an eighty-pound weakling and shoved me hard against the dumpster. Then he proceeded to reach into each of my coat pockets and all four pockets of my pants. He patted my chest and ass, none too gently, ignoring the few coins in the bottom of my pocket, and then whipped me back around to face him. Out of his pocket he popped a small but sufficiently threatening blade. He held it to my throat and I saw my life flash before my eyes.

  Where the fuck had big, strong, athletic Robby Dalton gone? And who was this cowering loser who had just removed his wristwatch and was holding it out rather desperately to three skinny teenagers like it was some sort of a peace offering? “Take this. It’s all I’ve got.”

  The smallest of the three got right up in my face. “Shit—man, this ain’t nothin’—we oughtta fuck you up real bad.” Nonetheless, he snatched the watch that dangled from my fingers. “We want yer coat, yer belt, and that fancy-ass tie ya got there.” I didn’t even have to move; they helped themselves to what precious few belongings I had left. And after a couple of quick punches to my jaw and a few kicks to my gut for good measure, I suppose, the little gang made a stealthy exit onto the adjoining avenue.

  I sank down to my knees on the pavement beside the stinking trash receptacle. Immediately, I felt a sting as gravel came in contact with the open sores on my knees. A torrent of new terror engulfed me as I knelt there, the first and most primary being renewed fear for my safety, and secondly, a rather widespread sense of distrust for the world in general. But in addition to that renewed distress, I admitted that I felt shamed, even humiliated. I had proved myself to be a coward in the face of my fear. On the tall side and athletically built, I had easily forked over everything I possessed, without so much as a defiant word. I’d sunk that low in less than twenty-four hours.

  And this wasn’t even real life for me, was it? This nasty experiment could be over with the mere dropping of a quarter into the change slot in any phone booth. But these had been the facts of life for Tristan. Being on his own on the streets, as a skinny teenager no less, this had been his sole reality for nearly seven years. And he had survived. What’s more, he had risen above the scars that the streets had left him with; he’d grown into a sweet, loving, compassionate man who had chosen me to be the one he loved. And it was no fucking wonder that Tristan still struggled with the ability to trust.

  Yes, it was time to think this through. I was ready.

  Tristan

  “I DIDN’T expect you, Savannah. Why are you here?” I stood in the open doorway, gazing blankly at her as if she was a complete stranger, rather than the person on whom I’d built my entire adult life.

  “Well, aren’t you going to invite me in?” She squinted up at me, looking more or less perturbed. Okay, more perturbed.

  “Oh, Savi, y-you don’t need an invitation, honey.” I led her inside and helped her remove her jacket. “This is your home always, right?”

  She didn’t answer. I trailed behind her as she plodded down the hall. “What’s going on, Tristan? Tell me what’s wrong.” She dropped heavily on the couch beside Runaway and glanced around her. “Where’s Robby? I thought you told me that both of you were taking the day off from work today.”

  Not sitting down, I grabbed my own coat off the coffee table where I’d dropped it earlier. “I’m starving. Want to go get an early dinner somewhere?”

  In response, I got another harsh glare. “I asked you something. Where is he?”

  Time for the truth. “I—I don’t know.” Shaking my head, I flopped down beside her on the couch. “I don’t know where he is.”

  The most ferocious expression I’d ever seen on a woman twisted her pretty features. But somehow she managed to hold her tongue.

  “It’s okay, honey. I’m okay….” I realized I had nothing more to say on the subject.

  Savannah huffed noisily. “Well, I thought it was strange that neither of you picked up your cell phones all day. I just knew.” She popped back to her feet. “I found someone to cover for me at the group home tonight. So, that means I’m all yours until tomorrow night, Tris.”

  We sat staring at each other for a few awkward seconds. Then she said, “I haven’t had a home-cooked meal in two weeks; what are you gonna make me, huh?” She stood up and tugged on my arm until I got to my feet too. “I’m having a big time craving for crêpes. So maybe you should start….”

  “Your wish is my command. Crêpes, it is!” I supposed that the first step in genuinely smiling was making the shape with your lips, so that’s what I did. And it wasn’t easy to do because, yeah, I was super confused. And scared. And I was starting to feel a little bit angry as well.

  But what it came down to was that Robby had made a choice and I had to learn to live with it. And learning to live with it did not mean begging and pleading with Savannah to give up on her own dreams so she could run home to babysit me. She’d sacrificed her goals for far too long already. So if keeping her on her current path meant faking a smile, that’s what I’d do.

  Robby

  IT WASN’T perfect, but it was the best I was going to get right now, so I settled into a corner booth at a fast-food joint, hovering over the precious cup of coffee that the woman at the counter had allowed me to buy with my thirty-two cents and some additional change from her tip jar. Her generous action brought to mind the sad smile she’d sent me as she’d dipped her hand silently into her tips to subsidize my purchase. I guess it was more or less a “been there, done that” kind of smile, if I had to label it. And she reminded me so much of Tristan. Compassionate, in a quiet way.

  Streetwise, but somehow still so pure of heart.

  Tristan…. My father…. Tristan…. My family…. Tristan…. My way of life…. Tristan.

  It all came back to Tristan, didn’t it? A man so beautiful that he’d literally stolen my breath away from the very fir
st time I’d seen him. A man so selfless that he always thought first of others. A man who completed me as no one had before—sexually, as well as emotionally.

  A man who held back his trust from me since no man had ever earned his trust. And still, still no man, myself included, had ever walked the walk for Tristan Chartrand. My actions had proved that he’d been right in his decision to hold back his trust from me. That thought stung the lining of my brain.

  Taking tiny sips of my small coffee so as to make it last, I spent a few minutes reviewing the slow course of our romance and how it had shaped my life as a whole. That meant first thinking of Savannah and how devoted she’d always been to Tristan. For him, she’d opened her heart and her life to me, which couldn’t have been easy for someone with a personal history such as hers. I recalled the promises I’d made to her to take care of Tristan, to love him, never to hurt him.

  Promises I’d clearly broken.

  I thought of Mikey and how he’d wronged me and, far more importantly, how he’d hurt Tristan. And then I remembered the way Tristan had been so eager—without a doubt more eager than I’d been—to preserve my friendship with Mikey, because he considered friendship a precious gift. I realized I’d probably hurt Mikey, too, by replacing him so easily.

  Then there was my family. That was where the real problem lay. Well, actually, saying “my family is a problem” was a lie, a cop-out, in that it was an overgeneralization. Lindsey, Brandon, and Madison—they would love whoever I loved, as long as he was a kind and decent person. Lindsey had already told me as much. And if it weren’t for my father, I was fairly certain that my mother would just be happy if I was happy.

  So, that left my father. Just Dad.

  God knew I had tried to please the man for the entire duration of my life. When I was young, I had thought I could satisfy him in the sports arena. After all, I was reasonably athletic. Hell, I was a damned good athlete! But no feat had ever made me worthy. No awesome play had ever been enough to make him smile at me. No win had been sufficient to induce him to brag about me. Never had I heard a shouted “Good job, Robby!” or a “Thattaway, son!” as I’d raced up and down the courts and fields of my youth.

  Dad had pretty much chosen my college for me, and I went where he told me to go without a single question, assuming my obedience would make him proud. It hadn’t. And I didn’t think I could have selected a career that would have met the rigorous criteria for what it took for my father to call me a success, as I was now fairly certain a career such as that didn’t even exist. Because if I was going to call it as I saw it, our entire relationship was formed on the notion that I could never be good enough. No matter how much I tried.

  Whatever I did, it had always been wrong. At the very least, it had never been enough. And it never would be. I had sacrificed my heart, Tristan’s heart, and most probably Savannah’s, in a futile effort to please a man who could not be satisfied.

  But that wasn’t even the worst of it. I was ashamed to admit it, but I had never even questioned whether or not my father possessed the right to mold my life in his own image, to judge my every move. Until Tristan and Savannah came along, I had lived my entire existence on a sort of autopilot, thoughtlessly doing what was expected of me. Never questioning anything. Playing by someone else’s rules.

  Those days were gone.

  I rubbed my bristly chin with a dirt-caked, scabbed-up palm, tucked in my now-filthy yellow Ralph Lauren button-down shirt, and got to my feet. With an upward tug to the beltless waist of my pants, I headed for the exit, winking a thank you at the waitress who had helped me out in my desperate pursuit of coffee. I made a mental note to return to this very restaurant one day soon and thank her (and tip her generously.) I knew what I had to do now—no, no, that wasn’t it at all. I knew, probably for the first time in my life, what I wanted to do.

  And I headed off to do it.

  Chapter 38

  Tristan

  IT HAD been quite a while since Savannah and I had sat alone together at the kitchen table for dinner. And trying to avoid the topic of Robby Dalton was like trying to ignore the elephant in the room.

  “So, tell me about the group home, Savi. What are the kids like? What kinds of backgrounds do they have?”

  Unfortunately, Savannah was distracted and, therefore, not feeling particularly chatty. “Like us, Tristan. They are kids like us. Kids with everything set against them and nobody in their corner.”

  I recognized her life-isn’t-fair attitude; I’d seen it on her many times before. “Well, do you feel like you’re making a difference by staying with them?”

  “Maybe a little bit. But most of them have been through so much. Too much.” I hadn’t seen Savannah so visibly hopeless in a long time.

  “Hey, honey, hey….” I placed my hand on the side of her face, and in a heartbeat she was crying. “What’s the matter? It can’t be all that bad, hmm?”

  “What’s the matter? You are asking me what’s the matter?” She shook her head as if it would help her to make sense of me. “Tristan, Robby left you—he left us!”

  I had already suspected that concern over me was at the root of her distress. That’s pretty much the way Savannah operated. But it sounded to me like Robby’s hasty exit had hurt her as well. “It’s okay. We’ll be okay.” I had already questioned myself, my value as a person, my worth as a man; I had already cried. I’d even gotten a little bit angry.

  But I knew it was now time for me to start living as my own man, and that meant I had to accept what was left of my life since Robby’s retreat. And I had to help Savannah through her own feelings of abandonment and rejection. “You don’t have to come home from the group home. Nothing has changed. You and me, we’re big kids; we’ll get through this.”

  She stared at me in disbelief but didn’t offer me her thoughts.

  “Robby did what he had to do, Savannah. And that is what each of us is going to do as well.” I pulled her off of her chair, dragging her right onto my lap. “You are going to keep on helping those kids and I am going to continue to serve the finest food in Boston.” I smiled at her sunnily, although inside I was still fighting back my tears. “And no matter where we go, Savi, we are each other’s family.”

  “You are so good, Tristan. Such a good man. Robby’s lost so much.” I noticed that her tears hadn’t slowed. “He’ll never know how much.”

  “The man’s a fool to let you go as well, honey.” I wiped my palms across her cheeks to brush those tears away. “Now, this most certainly is not the reaction that I was hoping to elicit with my gourmet banana and Nutella crêpes, Savi.” Picking up my fork, I fed her a small bite. “If you don’t smile, I’ll have no choice but to assume that my crêpes suck.”

  She finally gifted me with a reluctant smile. “I love you, Tristan. You deserve better than this.”

  I nodded. “You’re right, I do.” I’d never admitted anything like that before, but the time had come when I needed to start looking out for myself. For both of our sakes. “We deserve better.”

  What it boiled down to was one simple fact. All I really knew for certain about what went wrong in my relationship with Robby was that he and I had each been running from our own personal demons. And we’d been running for so long we’d stopped recognizing the fact that we were actually even in motion. I’d been running from my fear of closeness to a man, so I’d never given Robby what he’d needed from me: my complete trust. Robby had been running from any urge to please himself that ran contrary to what his father wanted, so he’d denied his sexuality. And he’d denied me.

  Both of us deserved a partner who was able to stop running.

  There was a soft knock on the front door. Just one single knock. And I’m pretty sure we both knew in an instant that it was Robby.

  Without a moment’s hesitation, Savannah was off my lap and out of the kitchen. And she didn’t look back at me once as she made her way to the front door. I couldn’t have stopped her if I’d wanted to; anything could happen no
w.

  But no matter how this meeting went, my running days were over.

  Chapter 39

  Robby

  SAVANNAH opened the door and the look she gave me…. Christ, all I can say is I felt one of my extremities, in particular, wither measurably beneath that glare.

  “So here you are, huh?”

  “Better late than never.” I shrugged.

  “Not funny.” She grabbed the doorknob. “And speaking of being late, I think you may be too late. He’s over you, Robby. He deserves better.”

  I reached out my hand and stopped her from achieving the satisfying door slam she so desired. “You’re right. He does deserve better than me. And so do you, but please let me in, Savannah. Just let me explain.”

  I seriously thought she was going to try to force the door shut despite the fact that my hand was in the way, but after apparent reconsideration, she just spun around and started down the hall, mumbling something to the effect of “By the way, you look like crap.” I could always count on Savannah for an honest opinion.

  I stepped into the hallway, knowing beyond a doubt that I’d lost my right to be there. By running for the hills like a coward, I’d thrown away my right to be their family, to share their lives. And I wanted to kick myself hard in the ass for what I’d done, for what I’d thought I could do, but nonetheless, here I was, peering nervously into the kitchen. Tristan sat alone at the table, eating slowly, almost delicately, his eyes fixed on his plate.

  I stepped through the doorway. “I’m sorry.”

  He looked up at me, his dark eyes huge and wary. “Don’t be. You’re just doing what’s right for you. And that’s what I want.” His eyes moved back to the plate. “Savannah, uh, she… I made Savannah crêpes.”