And I never had.
“When you told us you were gay, our fear and concern for you immediately intensified.”
She rolls her eyes, exasperated. “Because, mijo, I love you, you’re flesh of my flesh, but there are hateful people in the world. People that hate everything that you are, and those people can be dangerous.”
I realize, maybe for the first time, that my mother, my parents, have been with me at every stage of my life, in my corner loudly cheering me on, but also carrying the weight of having a son in the military, a son who tends to seek out chaos and thrives in adversity. A son who is what some people call a mutt, an abomination or a genetic mutation.
I clear my throat, “I’m sorry—”
“Seth Theodore Cody, don’t ever apologize for being you.” She cuts me off with a hard voice. “Gay, straight, black, Mexican, tall, short, fat, skinny, I don’t care. You’re my boy and I love you whatever shape, color, sex you want to be.”
I drop the knife and stand, walking to the other side of the counter to hug my mom. After several minutes she pats my back a couple of times, but I can’t let her go. I feel like I’m five years old again and my mother has magical aloe vera lips that heal every scrape with a kiss and a Band-Aid.
She pulls back, looking at my face, studying my features with worry. “What is it, mijo?” she asks gently.
I take a deep, shuddering breath, licking my suddenly dry lips. “I’m still in love.”
She claps her hands together, a wide smile emerging on her face, making her look ten years younger.
I shake my head to let her know that no, it’s not great. “He . . . he doesn’t want to be with me. Not the way I want to be with him and it’s—”
“Who is this man?” she demands with pursed lips and a mother’s indignation. “Is it the blond? The pretty one from that band I saw you kissing in your hospital room? He looks like an angel from one of those renaissance painting.”
A startled laugh escapes my mouth. “Like a what?”
“You heard me.” She waves her hand dismissively in the air. “I knew I noticed . . . something more going on between the two of you.” She squints at me. “But you said it was nothing.”
“It wasn’t nothing, Ma,” I say with a sigh of frustration.
“And.” She pauses, shaking her pointer finger in the air, brows drawn down, eyes once again looking at the ceiling as she searches her mind. She snaps once; she gets it. “Adam. That’s his name. And Adam doesn’t want to be with you?”
“No . . .” But that’s not true. He definitely wants to be with me. He just doesn’t want anyone to know that he is.
“Yes . . .” I amend. “I think he does but he’s not . . .” My words drop way under her knowing gaze.
“Not what? Out? Gay? You’ve never been one to chase straight, so I can’t imagine,” she states plainly.
“No, Ma. I don’t.”
“So, what’s the problem? Does he think you’re after his money?” And those hackles that had almost relaxed fire up again, followed by the irritated flush staining her cheeks.
“Nooo . . . it’s nothing like that.”
“Oh, okay, then I don’t understand. What’s the problem?”
“He doesn’t want people to know he’s gay and that he and I . . . that we’re a couple.” I use the term loosely because I’m damn sure not going to say fuck buddy in front of my mother.
“Mmmm . . .” She runs the back of her hand across her brow. “Makes a whole lot more sense. When your dad first pursued me, I was the same way. We’d only have dates in places where I knew I wouldn’t see my friends or, God forbid, my family.”
“Really?”
“Yes, really. My cousin got raked over the coals for marrying a Cuban and he spoke Spanish. I was sure the moment my parents got an eyeful of Kyle, who not only didn’t speak Spanish but was also black, I’d be disowned. We went sneaking around until your dad finally said ‘Lucia, either you’re with me or you’re not.’”
“And you decided you were with him?”
“No, not at all. We went our separate ways. He gave me time to stew in my stupidity. He didn’t call or even acknowledge me when we ran into each other at the store one day.”
“Wow, I can’t imagine pop ignoring you.”
“He did,” she says, pursing her lips. “He ignored me for days. One night, after days of silence, I showed up at his dorm room in a trench coat and nothing else.”
“Really didn’t need that visual, Mom,” I moan, rubbing a hand over my eyes.
“Once upon a time I was young. How do you think you got here?”
“Immaculate conception,” I deadpan.
She laughs, swatting at my arm. “That night, your father turned me away from his bed. Told me if I wasn’t willing to be a part of his life, I didn’t have a place in his bed either. I was stunned. What man turns down sex, right? But he did. Because he didn’t just want sex. He wanted me.”
“How did he convince you to come back?”
“I didn’t do the convincing.” My dad’s deep baritone voice echoes as he walks into the kitchen directly to my mom. He wraps his long arms around her waist and places a kiss on her neck.
“She had to convince me,” he says.
“Good morning, mi amour,” my mother whispers, leaning back into his embrace. This is the picture I have always seen. My father, skin the color of nutmeg, stocky build, easy smile, a kind word for everyone. My mother, barely coming to the center of his chest, olive complexion, always quick with the jokes and even faster with the love.
To look at them now I would’ve never guessed that race had ever been an issue between them. If my parents could overcome that obstacle in the seventies when racial tension was even higher than it is now, maybe Adam and I could too.
Adam
“This is the right address?” the older man driving the Uber Black asks. He leans between the seats, looking at me with curious eyes. I know that look. It’s the one I get just before I’m recognized.
“Yeah, thanks, man.” I get out of the car before the inevitable question: “Has anyone ever told that you look like Adam Beckham?” comes out of his mouth. I walk the narrow path to Sin’s front door and ring the doorbell.
“Who is it?” a deep male voice yells at me through the door. Jake, Sin’s husband—I’m still not used to the new title—yanks the door open. He’s shirtless with his pajama pants hanging low on his hip bones.
“Adam?” He steps outside, holding the door cracked open behind him. “You know it’s almost one in the morning? And Sin is pregnant, right?” He stares at me hard. The muscle ticking in his jaw. He takes a deep inhale, his nostrils flair, and the inky brows sink into a deep frown over his eyes. “Are you fucking high?”
“I might a had a little Jack. Topped it off with a little dro.” I laugh but quickly sober when his frown settles into open hostility. “I know she’s not asleep. I just need to talk to her for a minute.”
“She has a phone motherfucker, use it.”
I thought we were past all the alpha male, beat-my-fists-on-my-chest-gorilla-style posturing. When Sin was mine to protect, I did my fucking job and I did it to the fullest. Which meant from the giddyap I didn’t like him.
God, he makes it hard to like his ass sometimes.
Not sure that we will ever be friends, but I trust him—at least with her, I do. I’ll be damned if he keeps me away from my niece or nephew when they finally make an appearance. He needs to wrap his mind around the fact that Sin may not be blood but she’s family.
“We’re really doing this. Again?” I take a step toward him and the door that stands between me and the only person who can make sense of the thoughts swirling around my skull.
“That’s my wife in there. My wife and baby. This isn’t some jealous shit. This is me saying you don’t get to show up here at one in the morning fucking blazed. Real talk, brah, that shit don’t fly.”
“You’re right.” I hold my hands up in front of my chest.
“I’m sorry, okay. Consider this a one-time thing. But I need . . . her.” If I thought his face was hard before, it’s marbleized stone now. “That didn’t come out right. I mean I just need to talk to her.”
“Jake, everything okay?” I hear Sin’s signature husky voice on the other side of the door. Jake’s eyes close like he’s praying for patience, but when they open the look says loud and clear, “The only reason I’m letting you in here is because she’d kick my ass if I didn’t.”
He all but growls, “Adam’s here.”
He injects a lightness into his voice as he steps to the side, holding the door open, and gives me enough space to step into the house. There are only a couple of lights on, but it’s enough to illuminate the foyer. I stop in my tracks as my very pregnant best friend takes the last couple of steps toward me. Jake closes the door, taking great care to twist all the locks and punch in the code for the alarm system.
His shoulder bumps mine, a little harder than necessary, but not the shoulder check I probably deserve, as he walks to Sin. He cups both sides of her face, his forehead briefly touching hers, as he drops a couple of kisses on her lips.
I stare openly at their intimacy, at the easy displays of affection, and I finally get it. This—all of this, the house, the right to protect, the desire to be close to another person who wants to be close to you. This is what Seth is talking about.
This is love.
“You shouldn’t be out here. What if it was someone coming to rape and pillage . . .” Jake whispers against her lips, his palm gliding across her hard belly in soothing circles.
“We live in Vegas, not medieval England.” She laughs into yet another kiss.
He groans. “Still love those fucking dimples.”
“The dimples? That’s it?”
“Get rid of your friend and I’ll show you just how much I love all of you, from these beautiful dimples”—he kisses first one cheek and then the other—“to your sweet pu—”
Her hand over his mouth traps the word behind his teeth.
“God, you’re nasty,” she whisper-giggles.
Jake pulls her hand from his lips, kissing the fingertips. “Don’t front. You like me nasty.”
Sin peers around his body, catching my eyes. The smile dies on her face, and all of a sudden, I wish I’d stayed away. I feel like a smudge on their pristine canvas. I want nothing more than to slink away.
“No, you don’t,” she says, pointing a finger at me, her gaze pinning mine. “We’re good, Jake. But I need a minute, k?”
He doesn’t answer but places a kiss on her temple before walking toward the back of the house.
“Come on,” she says, hitting a couple of light switches on the wall to illuminate her way to the living room. I follow, concentrating on placing one foot in front of the other. Every step is sluggish, weighed down by the liquor pumping through my veins and the smoke filling the space between my ears.
Sin’s family room is a study in opposites. The furry pillows and boho curtains, feminine and soft, should clash with the heavy mahogany shelves and extravagantly upholstered furniture but it doesn’t. It’s more yin and yang, opposing energies, that alone dominate but when placed together find the perfect balance. Jake and Sin carved out a custom place at the base of the Red Rock Mountains and, although, I can’t see them in the dark, I can picture the rust-covered mountains that loom over her backyard.
Sin settles on an overlarge royal blue sectional that takes up half the room. She takes care to tuck her legs underneath her frame. Her natural curls are big, framing her small face, and her deep brown skin is actually glowing and vibrant with health.
Don’t look like an asshole, Adam. Sit down, nice and easy. You already showed up uninvited to her house. Don’t make it worse by passing out on her couch or throwing up on her floor.
I try. I really do. I make a valiant effort to get my high ass on the sofa. I miss the cushion, tipping over, my ass hitting the hard-ass floor instead of the soft cushion. A startled laugh, loud and happy, bubbles up out of her mouth and I can’t stop the answering smile that pulls at the corners of my lips.
God, I’ve missed her.
The last couple of months I’ve been MIA. Sin needed the time to reconnect with her man, to get to the root of all the things that broke them apart all those years ago, and I needed space to adjust to my life’s changing landscape.
“Not funny, Sin.” I chuckle, pulling myself off the floor, settling into the cushion next to her, looking around the spacious room.
“Not bad for two kids from Pahrump, Nevada,” I say.
“Not bad at all. Did you ever think this . . .”—she turns her head slowly, looking up at the vaulted ceilings and across the guitars hanging on the wall with a sense of wonder—“would be our life?”
“Never. But I knew if we stayed together, we’d make it out.”
“We did more than make it, Adam. We succeeded.” Sin bites the corner of her mouth, her eyes glassing over. “But I don’t think you came here to reminisce. Soooo . . . what’s up?” She looks at me expectantly.
“Just going right in with it, huh?” I laugh nervously and tuck my hair behind my ears.
“Boy, if you don’t tell me what the hell is going on.”
“I don’t even know where to start.”
“At the beginning.” She leans forward, tapping her hand against my leg. “Start at the beginning and we’ll work it out from there. We always do.”
“Things went sideways pretty much when we got to Vegas for the residency and escalated from there. Our conversations are always some rendition of the same two or three topics. One: I don’t want to be a poster boy for gay men anywhere let alone the music industry. Um . . . Two: I don’t do boyfriends and my band is really the only relationship I need. Three: I’m not out. Not like that. Even at your wedding when we . . .”
“When you what? Had sex?”
“It was so much more than that, Sin. I’ve never felt anything like that. But I woke up and he wasn’t there,” I say in a stilted monotone, like if I make my voice devoid of emotion it’ll erase all the hurt that I’ve caused.
“Are you surprised that he left? Why would you say that stuff to him? That’s awful,” she asks, almost in a whisper.
“I know it’s awful but at the time it was true.” I keep my eyes downcast, watching my fingers make lines through the plush blue upholstery covering the sofa.
“I’m calling bullshit on that. From what I saw and what I heard, yes, I had the pleasure of hearing the two of you go at it nightly for months.”
“What?” My eyes snap up to her laughing face.
“His room was right next to mine. You’re not that slick. I recognized your voice on the other side of the wall that night in Brazil. I started sleeping with headphones on to block out the two of you. You with your downright filthy mouth. Never pegged you for a dirty talker, by the way. And Seth with the ‘ooooh, baby, right there’ and ‘get it.’” She does her best to imitate his voice.
“I had no idea you heard all of that.”
She shrugs. “Because it wasn’t a big deal. I was happy you were finally letting someone in.”
“I let you in.”
“That’s different. I’m your friend. No offense, but as much as I love you, it doesn’t hold a candle to what I feel for Jake.”
She’s known about my relationship with Seth for a while, but I go into the sordid details anyway. I need to get it all off my chest and confess like a man seeking absolution. Details come out in long jaunts and even longer pauses. She listens. No heat. No judgment. She quietly assesses me and doesn’t interrupt once. I talk until my words naturally fall off and there is nothing but the silence of my ignorance.
“Say something,” I whisper. She blinks at me a couple of times. Worry lines crinkle the skin in between her brows.
“Sweetie, that is . . . I . . . I don’t know what to say. I’ve seen you two together; even at the wedding, you went after him like a heat-seeking missile.�
� I did. I’d watched Seth silently leave the reception without seeking me out.
I got no hello.
No fuck you.
No go to hell.
All I’d gotten was long stares that I don’t even think he realized he was giving. I had to follow. I had to answer that what-if? What if I came out? What if we could be together like he wanted? What if I put it all down and chose him? The night of the wedding I did just that. I gave him everything and it was hands down the best night of my life. But when I woke up the morning after, he was gone. That was two months ago and my what-ifs have turned to whys.
Why leave when, since the first time since we met, we could’ve been in perfect harmony? Why leave without saying good-bye? And the hardest why, the one that slithered into my psyche, an insidious belief born in my mother’s rejection, and in the hundreds of faces that looked me over, that never chose me to be their kid, their son: why didn’t Seth want me anymore?
“It’s crazy.” I cover my face with my hands. “I know what I should do. I’m not stupid. He deserves better than me, but I can’t . . . won’t let him go.”
“I don’t think you want to hear this, but you have to. Seth is right, you can’t have him and stay in the closet. You don’t want to come out. That is absolutely your right. But to ask him to be in a relationship and then publicly pretend you’re not together? That’s bullshit and you know it. Especially because he’s already out. If you can’t come out, if you’re not comfortable making that leap, you gotta let him go.”
Let him go? I tried that. It didn’t stick. I don’t know how to give up the only person who . . . who gets me. He gets the fame and glamour, the guilt and shame. He takes the loneliness away. When I’m with him I feel stronger, like I can handle hearing my mother died from a stranger on the phone, or I can be everything to my sister who had no one else.
I know he cares about me. I see it every time he looks at me and feel it in the adoration of his hands when he touches me. Deep down I hope it’s more. I think it is. When I fell asleep in his arms the night of Sin’s wedding, it felt like love, like he was in love with me. Not the Adam Beckham, but me. The fucked-up foster kid from Pahrump, Nevada. The dominating ass who’s been a big brother to Sin, Dan, and Miles. The lonely musician who wants something real. The rejected gay man afraid to fly his true colors. And I can’t walk away from that.
Exquisitely Hidden: A Sin City Tale Page 23