by B. G. Thomas
It was time to get out of the shower.
So he hung up, and then he let himself slip to the bottom of the tub and leaned forward and let the water fall on his head until it started to turn cold. Then he got out and dried and looked at himself in the mirror.
“Now what?” he asked.
NOW WHAT turned out to be that he needed to get down to Damview, Arkansas, and soon. So he called Katherine, and of course she was understanding. Told him to take as much time as he needed.
“You need to get one of your friends to go down with you,” Katherine said. She couldn’t. Taking him to the city for an HIV test was one thing, but both of them couldn’t be away from the store for days. Or more.
But looking in that mirror again, he knew the truth. There was no way that any of the Fabulous Four—gods, had he really given their little group such a silly name?—could go with him.
“I can’t even ask,” he told himself aloud.
And he didn’t.
He made some calls while he packed. When he told Sloan, his friend was stumbling over his words. There was no way he could go with Wyatt. Not for several days. Not knowing when he would even be coming back. The terribly important thing he was doing at work turned out to be that someone was flying in from someplace or other—he should have paid more attention but, holy shit, Wyatt had other things on his mind—to be trained to open the new call center. Sloan wouldn’t have to go away after all. But with that happening, he couldn’t very well up and head off to Arkansas the guy’s first week.
“It’s okay,” Wyatt told him. “I wasn’t asking.” He was feeling strangely strong at the moment, unsure just where the strength was coming from, and figuring he better not wonder too much. He might panic.
“No! It’s not okay,” Sloan told him. “Look. I’ll find a way. Shelia can do it.”
Wyatt let out a bark of laughter. “Shelia! Riiiiight! Your enemy?”
“She’s not my enemy,” Sloan said. But of course she was, and letting her take over Sloan’s new project would ruin everything Sloan had been working toward the last year. It would thrill the woman.
“You shouldn’t have to make the trip alone. You’re my best friend, Wyatt. I mean, jeez. And how many hours’ drive is it to Arkansas? And what about snow? And we don’t have any today, but you never know when it could start.”
“It’s about seven hours,” Wyatt said. Stifled a sigh. No guilt. He would not make Sloan feel any guilt.
Something clicked in Wyatt’s mind then.
Best friend.
That went both ways, didn’t it? Best friends didn’t only mean trying to do anything to help him no matter what. No. Best friends also meant not letting someone help you, certainly not, if it was going to hurt them (and Sloan taking off a week from work when things were finally, finally really going his way would hurt him).
“I need to do this by myself anyway,” Wyatt said calmly, assuring his friend. “I mean, come on, how would I explain you? You think they won’t think you’re my boyfriend?”
“Max will come with us.”
Wyatt laughed. “And really throw homo in their faces?” Wyatt shook his head. “I’ll be okay, Sloan. I promise.”
Sloan wasn’t sure, but he finally acquiesced.
“I just wish I had a GPS,” Wyatt confessed. It had been a long time since he’d been home, and even though Cactus Canyon was most of the way to Damview, he never remembered how he and Howard got there.
“Sweet pea,” Sloan said. “You’ve got a cell phone. You’ve got a GPS. I will just about guarantee it.”
“Huh?” Wyatt pulled the phone away from his ear and looked at it (as if he could tell if what Sloan was saying might be true from looking at his friend’s profile picture). He put it back to his ear and laughed. “I’ll look.”
“Stop by if you need to,” Sloan said. “I can show you real quick.”
“Sure,” Wyatt said, intending to do no such thing.
They talked for a few more minutes while Wyatt debated if he could bring even one of his T-shirts, gay or otherwise. Certainly nothing “witchy-woo-woo,” as Scott would say—or used to say. The unwanted image of his father standing over him, Wyatt wiping his mouth and seeing blood, came to mind. He shuddered.
Then they were signing off, and Wyatt was asking one favor. “Would you tell the guys?”
“I…. Sure, Wyatt. You aren’t going to ask anyone else to go with you?”
“No,” he said firmly.
Because he couldn’t. Asher and Peni hadn’t gotten home from Hollywood in the last twenty-four hours, and Wyatt thought they’d be there at least a week. And gods! He couldn’t imagine Asher and his father meeting! And Scott’s big court case wasn’t finished. Bringing Cedar would be a disaster. He might punch Wyatt’s father—even in a hospital bed. And old Daddy wouldn’t be able to resist saying something about Cedar’s fauxhawk.
No.
He was going alone.
And quite suddenly something from The Hobbit came to his mind. Or was it The Fellowship of the Ring? He thought the latter. Hadn’t Sean Astin used the line in the movie?
Something about how it was a dangerous business walking out your door. That once you took one step onto the road there was no knowing where you’d be swept off to.
Yet for some reason, it didn’t scare him.
It made him excited. Yes, he was going alone. No Samwise Gamgee at his side. Or Peregrin Took or Meriadoc Brandybuck. A fab-ulous foursome if there ever was one.
Didn’t Frodo make it on his own at the end? If you didn’t count Gollum that was…. He couldn’t remember exactly.
So he sat and checked his cell phone, and after a moment he had to laugh. It did have a GPS. A little bit of fiddling and he even figured out how to use it.
And less than two hours after his sister called him, Wyatt was on the road, not allowing himself one moment to wonder where he was about to be swept off to.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
THE DRIVE wasn’t so bad. At least that’s what Wyatt kept telling himself. He found he sort of wished that the GPS didn’t have a female voice, one that sounded oddly British—but not.
Didn’t these things come with men’s voices?
Wouldn’t it be hot to have one that sounded like Brad Pitt? Gooseflesh flashed up his arms. Or Chris Hemsworth? Oh, yeah! Sounding all Thor-ish. Shouting from his cell phone, “You! What realm is this? Elfheim, Niflheim?” Wyatt waggled his eyebrows at no one. Wyattheim?
Or Matthew McConaughey. Hugh Grant, maybe? Even if he did sound British—because there was nothing actually wrong with sounding British at all. In fact he found the accent kind of sexy. And his GPS did sound a little British. Something anyway. Not quite British. It was just… different. And if he was going to go with the United Kingdom, then how about Ian McKellen? Of course, he was really old….
Or Darth Vader! Not sexy so much as just fucking cool. He could hear it now! Like when he’d ignored his little electronic guide a while back and had to turn around? His GPS would have said something like, “I find your lack of faith… disturbing. Make a U-turn and go back….”
Wyatt laughed at that and hoped he would remember to tell Sloan about it.
No! Wait. He had it. Spencer Morrison! Spencer-fucking-Morrison. Spencer who showed his cock to Asher! Gods, his voice was soooooo frigging sexy.
He still couldn’t imagine why Asher hadn’t looked, even if he was in love with Peni. Wyatt didn’t care if Peni had the most beautiful cock on the planet! But then Wyatt loved celebrity nudes and had spent an hour one night freeze-framing Terminator 2 dozens of times trying to get that shot of Robert Patrick’s hanging balls during the scene where he first comes back through time.
It was with these kinds of thoughts that Wyatt passed the time as he took 71 going south, and then 44 east to Springfield. It was gratifying how he recognized where he was going—the familiarity of the way. He was surprised how much he actually remembered.
He decided to fill up on gas at the Kum
& Go while he was there—or the “Jerk & Squirt” as he and Howard had never tired of calling it. He was delighted to find all kinds of merchandise that he hadn’t seen before. He bought a big mug and a baseball-style cap and even T-shirts. Four, for each of the Fabulous Four. He considered getting them for Peni, Cedar, and Max—but the total had already come (or Kum?) to a pretty outrageous amount, and he just couldn’t afford it. He couldn’t afford what he was spending already, but after all, Sloan hadn’t charged him anything for rent yet. Which only made him start feeling guilty again. Hey! The gift of a shirt would be nice, then. A thanks. And wouldn’t the four of them all look fab-ulous out together at The Male Box in their matching shirts? If Asher would wear his now that he was about to become a famous movie star, that was.
And there was music to help eat the miles. The luau/Samoan discs he’d made for Peni’s welcome-home party were just a taste of what Wyatt liked to do. He made all kinds of music collections, and of course he’d put together one with all of his favorite P!nk songs. P!nk was his hero. If he were a girl, he would be P!nk. How often had he stood on the big California-king-sized bed when Howard was at work (or wherever), shampoo bottle in his hand for a mic, singing his heart out to a crowd only he could see while the songs boomed out of the stereo? Especially when he was belting out his anthem, “Perfect.” The version with the F-bomb, because, as he had argued many times, he thought it was more powerful. He hit the Repeat button a half-dozen times on the last twenty minutes to Springfield.
He had nothing to hold for a mic today, plus he needed to keep both hands on the wheel, but that didn’t keep him from singing all about how he should raise his glass if he was wrong, but fuck you Howard, because if he was wrong, it was, as P!nk proclaimed, in all the right ways….
He sang “Raise Your Glass” over and over until his throat hurt and he finally had to stop.
He played her songs because they made him feel good. “Empowered” was the word that Scott would have used these days.
But he was also pressing the Skip button quite a bit. He just couldn’t listen to “I Don’t Believe You”—the song about having a lover say they didn’t love you anymore. Or “Please Don’t Leave Me.” And worst of all “Who Knew?” Oh gods, gods, gods—that one hurt too much. Because who knew when Howard said he would be there forever… that he would leave? Or make him leave. Who knew?
Nope. That song was right out.
It was the happy music, played loud, that helped him feel a little less lonely. The loneliness had been terrible. Ten years of being with someone and then suddenly being on his own was terrible. No matter what Howard had been, at least he’d been around. He had friends whose lovers seemed to be away more than they were actually beside the man they professed to love. At least Howard had spent time with him. Lots of time. They’d spent so much time together. It was part of what made being single so hard. He was so very, very single now. He found he even missed the mean Howard. The one that laughed at him. The one that told him that he only had friends because he was with Howard and people liked Howard. And that if the two of them ever split up, Wyatt would be alone forever.
Truth was, Wyatt had come to believe it.
And he was listening to those echoes that even P!nk could not drown out when he was struck once more by an idea that had been sneaking up on him more and more often of late.
What if there really was some kind of cosmic “love” balance that ruled over the Universe? He could almost picture it in his mind. Out in space, an immense pair of cosmic scales, shimmering blue-white, resting in the constellation of Libra. What if the gods had made these scales, a balance that only allowed so much love? What if him being with Howard for all those years had somehow kept his friends from getting love of their own? What if that balance had shifted in his friends’ favor, and now there wasn’t enough love left for him? What if there really was only so much wedded bliss to be divvied up? What if there wasn’t love left for him?
And then…. Gods. Had he ever really had Howard’s love in the first place? He had thought so. Those first years with Howard had been a fairy tale equal to any that Cinderella or Sleeping Beauty or Snow White had ever known!
Why, it was the reason why he’d held on to his relationship with Howard when things began to sour.
Wyatt winced at that last. “Sour.” There hadn’t been too many times when he’d been willing to admit to that, to give that word substance. To utter it.
“Sour,” he whispered while P!nk sang “Who Knew?” Who knew that love wouldn’t last forever?
It was with thoughts like those that he was pulled down into a whirlpool of memories….
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
WHEN WYATT’S little car had broken down in Kansas City eleven years before—and he’d been surprised the piece of shit had made it that far—he had no idea what to do. He had no idea what was wrong with his ancient Camry, but the horrible grinding noise and the black smoke that came out from under the hood told him it had to be bad. Wyatt didn’t know much about cars, but he did know that black smoke wasn’t supposed to come out from under the hood.
He managed to pull over and dropped his forehead against the steering wheel and just cried. His face still hurt where his father had struck him seven—eight?—hours ago? He could feel with his tongue where his teeth had cut the inside of his cheek.
Wyatt was freaking out. What was he going to do? It was dark. It had to be after ten o’clock. He didn’t know anyone in Kansas City. His friend Barry (one of the few) had run away to Los Angeles a few years before, and when Wyatt had jumped in his car and left his home, it was with some crazy idea of trying to get to California to find him.
That wasn’t going to happen now.
So he’d somehow gotten ahold of himself and climbed out of his car and spotted a bar across the street. The Watering Hole, the sign said. Why the fuck not? If they checked his ID, they’d throw him out; he was only eighteen. But maybe they would let him have a Coke. Although it was certainly not money he should be spending.
It wasn’t until he got inside that he was struck by the fact that he had somehow—through some cosmic joke or accident or maybe miracle—walked into a gay bar. His eyes had popped, and he gawked in wonder at the sight, his mouth fallen open as if his jaw had come unhinged.
The rainbow beer signs with their flickering neon lights—he knew what the rainbow colors meant.
The posters on the walls of “half-nekkid” cowboys. Cowboys weren’t really the kind of guys that put lead in his pencil, but Jesus bald-headed Christ. Those jeans were so low he could see their pubic hair!
Oh—my—God! Look over there! Two guys kissed while something baseballish happened on the big flat-screen TV—right there in front of the whole world!
And finally the bartender, wearing impossibly tight jeans and a ripped tank top, who stretched (making muscles pop and revealing sexy hairy armpits) and then sidled up to Wyatt’s end of the bar and asked him what he would like to have (and even though Wyatt was small-town naïve, he couldn’t help but hear the innuendo dripping from that question).
There hadn’t been one word about an ID.
Of course, all he’d asked for was a Coke. A Diet Coke.
The bartender leaned on the bar, an actual toothpick sticking out of his mouth, and looked at Wyatt with heavy-lidded eyes. “You sure you don’t want something in that, sugar bear?” Wyatt could see a hairy chest at the low neck of the wifebeater. It looked soft. He wanted to touch it.
“I….” Don’t say you’re not old enough, a wise inner voice advised. “I can’t really afford it.”
A brow shot up, and the bartender gave Wyatt a suspicious look. “Can you afford the Coke?”
“Oh! Oh, y-yes!” Wyatt pulled some singles and a couple of fives out of his pocket. His on-hand cash. He had more hidden in his car (his piece-of-shit car). He’d stopped at an ATM and cleared out as much cash as he could from his account, but it would only let him take out so much per day. He’d hit it again tomorrow.
Wyatt gulped. He had no idea. The only time he’d had anything was with this one boy who wanted blow jobs but always had to sneak alcohol from his parents’ stash to give himself the nerve to go through with it.
Say something! Anything!
“Rum and Coke?”
“You got it, sugar bear.” The bartender stepped away.
A drink? I’m having a drink? He hadn’t even had anything to eat! Would this be a big mistake? It didn’t take much to get him drunk, and he really didn’t like how it made him feel. Except that sometimes it made the world hurt less.
The bartender was back and asked if he wanted a lime.
“I don’t know?” Wyatt asked more than said.
“We’ll leave it out, then,” said the bartender. “I’m Buck. What’s yours?” He held out his hand.
Wyatt took it and told him his name.
“Like Earp?”
Wyatt rolled his eyes. “Yeah. I know. Dad wanted me to be a man’s man.”
Buck’s eyes twinkled. “Are you a man’s man, Wyatt?”
He blushed furiously. “I guess I am,” he admitted and blushed all the more.
“Good. What do you do?”
Do?
“I worked in a grocery store before I came here.”
Buck chuckled. “That’s not quite what I meant, but okay. Where you from?”
Now he was blushing again. Did he tell the guy Damview? He’d laugh. “Mountain Home,” he lied. Because it wasn’t too bad a lie. Damview was fourteen miles from Mountain Home, where he’d gone to school. Of course the road had so many twists and turns it took at least twenty-five minutes to drive at least, if you were lucky and some old person wasn’t putting along in front of you.
“Never heard of it,” Buck said. “Where’s—”