Heath deposited the heavy bag onto the table with a thud. “My father passed away some time ago. I shouldn’t allow his disdain to haunt me so. But I do.”
Austin went to the china hutch and came back with two heavy glasses. He pulled out a seat and sat down. Heath hesitated for a moment. He was letting his father’s hatred consume him.
“I understand. I’m almost thirty years old, and sometimes I feel the weight of my father’s hand. Whenever I did something he thought wasn’t manly enough. Or when I went into art instead of sports. I can’t paint worth a damn, but I love art and history and architecture. He’s never forgiven me for being a pansy-ass liberal intellectual. Yadda, yadda.” Austin opened the metal drinking vessel and carefully poured the contents into the two glasses. “Damn, it’s lost its head. Sit. Eat. Drink… wait, are you old enough to drink? I just assumed, but looking at you in the bright light of my kitchen you’re… oh, sweetie, you are so young.”
Heath had to laugh. He couldn’t help it. And he’d thought the same about Austin just a few days ago. “Twenty-two on my last birthday. Not so young. Old enough to vote, marry, go to war, and drink.”
“Well, three out of the four anyway, Thanks Obama,” Austin laughed, the sound a tinkling bell that made Heath smile. “You should smile more. It looks good on you.” He reached for the pot lid and snatched his hand back. “Still hot. That’s good.” He grabbed a linen napkin and lifted the lid off. Steam rushed out to fill the air with the glorious smell of food. Heath’s stomach growled. “Sounds like this is just in time. Sit. Come on. It’s still hot and Rory’s dad’s stew recipe is the best. Got me through college. And cornbread. Where’s the cornbread?”
A foil-wrapped package nestled just below the pot lid. Austin lifted it out and set it on a plate, a bit of stew clinging to the bottom. “I’ll get some bowls. And a ladle. If you’ll open the bread, please, I’ll be right back.”
Austin was off again. Heath pulled the foil package open to find several long bread shaped things inside. He’d never seen cornbread come shaped like actual corn before. Austin came back with bowls and a large spoon. He dipped a huge portion into a bowl and handed it to Heath. “Sit. Eat. Drink. Tell me about Heath.”
Heath took a cornbread stick and pulled out a chair. He was hungry. The room was warm. Rain pattered against the windows, and the wind howled. “I guess I’m staying. At least for a while, but I have to get home soon.” He took the food and the glass of dark ale and sat.
“I’ll scare up a rain jacket for you. Or an umbrella.” Austin ladled a heaping helping into his bowl and sat at the end of the table, his knee brushing Heath’s leg. He winked. Heath ducked his gaze, pretending he didn’t see. He didn’t know how to return that kind of attention. Not with a man. Not really. As much as he wanted to. And he had wanted… always from a distance.
“I’ll be fine. I’m not that far away. Just around the corner.” He dipped a chunk of the bread in the stew and it fell apart.
Austin drank from his ale glass; one long gulp and it was all gone. He seemed almost… twitchy. “Do I make you nervous?” Heath had to know. He was older, he would be more experienced. With his boyish good looks and innocent charm, he probably seduced young men everywhere he went.
It was Austin’s turn to pretend to be interested in his food and crumble the bread. But he didn’t flinch, he scooped it up with a spoon. “A little, yeah. I’m not good with…” he waved a hand airily. “Socializing. Not really. I’m sort of a… I could easily spend my life locked in a museum or library and never notice. Rory had to drag me out to meet people. I guess he… takes care of me.”
His stomach twisting strangely, Heath set his spoon down. “And Rory is like… you?” He didn’t know how to say the word. He’d never known how to say it. “Interested in men, I mean.”
Austin stopped chewing and raised his gaze to meet Heath’s. His eyes, shimmering in the firelight, were brown, a deep, rich shade, with no flecks now.
“Yes. We never had a thing. Never even thought about it. He dates girls too. I never did. He’s probably bisexual. I don’t ask. I was never interested in kissing him. Or sleeping with him.”
Heath could hear his upset. He knew the play of words was intentional. Like him. Not like them. “I’ve never lain with a man,” he confessed. The scent of the stew turned his stomach now. He’d botched this date. His first with… Austin.
“But you have with girls?” Austin stopped eating as well and set down his spoon. He reached for the second glass of ale and downed it.
Heath nodded and crumbled his napkin. There was so much to confess. And too much to hold dear. He pushed his chair back and stood. Austin placed his hand on Heath’s, he didn’t hold him, his touch was gentle. “Yes. I have with girls. One girl… woman… she’s… not part of my life now.”
Austin nodded, there was a flicker of pain in his eyes. Heath didn’t understand why something so trivial would matter. “Did you love her?”
Heath’s knees no longer wished to hold him up. He sank onto the chair and turned his hand, palm up, beneath Austin’s. “Not as much as I feared my father.”
Austin nodded. He squeezed Heath’s hand briefly before letting it go. “Thank you for telling me. I seem to have drunk your share of the Guinness. I’ll get us something from the fridge.”
He left Heath sitting at the table and disappeared into another room. Heath didn’t understand why this had gone so wrong.
He thought of her and felt the clutch of guilt in his stomach. He felt ill. And trapped. He’d made a mess of this.
Austin didn’t return immediately, and it was long past the time he should have been home.
Cold swept in through the doorway, the raging storm scarcely a nuisance hampering his retreat.
He’d stop to explain… one day.
Chapter Four
“Two weeks, Rory. Do you know how long that is?” Austin leaned over the bar to whisper to his friend. His glass of Guinness clutched in his hand.
“Let me guess… fourteen days?” Rory calmly dried glasses while Austin’s world was falling apart.
“Fourteen days. Exac…exac...etally.” He hiccupped to punctuate his words. “I need another Guinness.”
“Nope.” Rory reached over the bar and took away his unfinished drink.
“I was drinning that.”
“It’s empty.” Rory set a white mug on the counter. “It’s not even five yet and you’re drunk. On Guinness. On four Guinness.”
“I’m not driving. I live across the s… what’s the word for street?” Rory smiled, his eyes twinkling. “You have the prettiest eyes. Why did we never… Not as pretty as his eyes. They were blue. I think. He’s twenty-two. Is he too young for me?”
“You just said you never wanted to see him again.”
Rory placed a bowl of stew on the bar in front of him. The scent of it sent his stomach to flipping and flopping. “How could you be so cruel?”
Rory laughed. Heartless bastard. “You just turned twenty-nine a month ago. It’s a six year plus a few months age difference. And you’re drunk, Austin. I’m not being cruel. Eat something. Drink some coffee. Or go in the john and puke. Those are your choices. I have no sympathy for drunks, even if they are best friends and the only people I know in this godforsaken town.”
“He just left, Rory. He didn’t even say goodbye or kiss my ass or anything. I went to get a couple of beers and… he was gone, and you know what was weird as shit… the door was still locked. I slid the bolt. I remember doing it. The wind sometimes blows the door open. And the bolt was still… I think I’m going to throw up.”
Rory sighed and came around from the bar. His shoulder fit perfectly under Austin’s armpit. They were perfect for each other. They always had been. And Rory could cook. Or at least he owned a pub that cooked food and kept him fed. “Let’s go, Romeo. Before you tell me you see dead people.”
“There’s a dude sitting at the end of the bar. Seriously. He’s been watching us for hours.” Lo
oking again, Austin blinked rapidly. The guy held up a menu that read TODAY’S SPECIAL. He wore a leprechaun hat. Austin blinked again. “Dude, there’s a leprechaun on your bar.”
“We’re not open yet, Austin. There’s only you and me and that ugly ass statue Dad sent up yesterday. He wants to do a big St. Patty’s day thing here. Green beer and everything.”
“Y’all never make green beer. I would kill for some corned beef and cabbage.” Austin’s stomach clutched, and he covered his mouth. “Toilet.”
“Getting there.” Rory kicked in the men’s room door and shoved Austin into the only stall in the narrow room. “Good thing we just mopped in here, isn’t it?”
“Oh, god, shut up.” Austin leaned over the toilet, but nothing came up. He could feel Rory standing behind him, holding the stall open and being judgey. “I only asked him if he’d been with a girl.”
“And it upset you that he’s probably bisexual. Which, since you asked, is probably the reason we never. Because you’re a bit of an asshole about it. I’m not gay enough for you.” Rory sounded angry.
Austin gave up trying to empty his guts and rolled onto his ass and leaned against the wall. He looked up at his friend and could have sworn he saw the damned leprechaun over by the sink, watching them. He blinked, and they were alone when he opened his eyes again. “Well… did you want to fuck? Is that what we need to do? Because… I thought we were friends. And we agreed that sex would be weird. Or did I miss something?”
“Friends fuck all the time, Austin. You’ve fucked guys who were friends and stayed friends with them. It’s not about being friends. It’s because I like girls. It’s because you thought I was cruising guys for kicks. It’s because you wanted to know I was with you because of what’s in your noggin and not your pants. We’ve had this conversation so many times. I would have slept with you years ago. And if we had ended? We would still be having this same talk in this tiny piss-soaked room. You’re the judgey bitch. You judged him. So he left. And you’re a lightweight when it comes to booze, that thermos held at least two full glasses of Guinness and you drained it in seconds. That’s why you thought the door was locked.”
Austin banged his head against the cold brick wall and closed his eyes. All he could smell was urine, and he was sitting on the floor in a toilet that was probably around before his grandparents were born. That urge to vomit returned, hitting him hard. He managed to aim it into the toilet. Warm hands stroked his back through his shirt. He was too ashamed to push his friend away.
“I’m sorry, Austin,” Rory said a short while later.
“I’m sorry too. I’m being an ass.” Austin wiped his mouth and leaned over the seat hoping he was finished. “I don’t mean to be. I just. I don’t know. I don’t want to be…”
“Hurt.” Rory supplied the word he couldn’t seem to come up with. “I know, babe. I’ve known you for a long time. I love you. Just so you know.”
“But not like that,” Austin added for clarity.
“But not like that,” Rory agreed. “Like the brother I never had.”
“You have a brother.” Austin pointed out.
“Yeah, but I don’t like him. You’re the brother I would have picked if they let me have the choice.” Rory hooked his hands under Austin’s pits and dragged him to his feet. “Come on, let’s get you home so you can sleep it off. I’ll come check on you later and bring you a corned beef sandwich.”
“You’re just saying that.” Austin turned in his friend’s arms and wrapped him in a bear hug.
“About the brother part, or the corned beef.”
“Would you lie to me about corned beef?”
“No.”
“Then the brother part.”
“Wouldn’t lie about that either. Come on. Let’s go. It’s getting dark out, and you’re in your cups. I thought I taught you to drink better than that.”
“I’m not Irish, Irish. I’m a basic bitch. I need something with pumpkin spice in it. Would you put pumpkin spice in beer?”
“Do you want Mick Callaghan to come up here and kick your ass, English?”
“He can try. I ain’t asceered of your daddy. I’ll…” Austin tried to ball his hand into a fist. “Rory, there’s a leprechaun ghost in your toilet. I swear to god. He’s wearing a bowler hat and a green striped scarf.”
“Yeah, yeah, come on, Aus, let’s go. You need to sleep it off.”
Cold air hit him in the face when Rory maneuvered him out of the pub onto the street. The sun sinking in the west was so bright he had to shade his eyes. He stumbled as Rory forced him to walk across the street to the courtyard gate. The large shadow of a man with his shoulders slumped against the wind seemed like a dream. He blinked again to clear the sunspots from his vision.
“Wait,” he said once they stepped onto the curb on the other side of the street. People scurried out of their way and into their path. “Wait,” he shouted, yanking his arm free from Rory’s clutch. “I think that’s him.”
Standing in the awning’s shadow over Maggie’s ice cream parlor, Austin turned to face the sinking sun; he squinted. The slumped shoulders were so familiar. He turned the corner just as Rory grabbed him again and held him up. “It was him, Rory. I swear it was him. He said he lived just around the corner.”
Rory followed his gaze down the street into the sun. “There’s no one there now,” he mumbled, but Austin could hear pity in his voice. “And besides, there isn’t anything around that corner, except the cemetery.”
Austin felt his knees give out. His world went blurry and Rory grunted under his weight.
~
All his days ran together. Up before dawn. Work. Home. Repeat. It was to the point that he didn’t remember much about anything that didn’t involve working. His routine must be kept. He had a schedule. There were debts to pay and mouths to feed and the children needed shoes.
His journey took longer every day because it took longer to wade through the crowds in front of the coffee and ice cream shop. The pub across the street was usually closed when he came by. They didn’t open until after dark now. The sign said they would open for lunch in the New Year.
Were they so close to the end that a new year loomed?
He saw Austin from afar most days. He stayed away. Using time as an excuse. His heart heavy every time Austin and the equally pretty publican crossed the street and disappeared down the pathway that led to Austin’s home. The friend that took care of him… would take care of him in a way that Heath could not. As it should be.
He tried not to think of that stormy night when he’d almost tasted normal. He avoided the stores in which Austin seemed to frequent, but he did so needlessly it seemed. Austin wasn’t around on his daily trek now.
The manor house, though, seemed to be alive again. There were lights visible in the windows now. The exterior, fully restored it seemed. He stopped to admire the work while he had time. He was early today. The sun still high enough to cast shadows. Not so low as to cause him to hurry when he wanted to dawdle.
A tall sparkling tree dominated the front window. Wreaths were placed upon all the front-facing doors.
Had so much time passed that the holiday season was upon them?
“You’re never wearing a jacket.” The sound of the man’s voice should have alarmed him. He’d avoided him for so long. The tremor in his voice pained Heath. He’d caused him pain.
Heath turned to find the young man standing beside him. He wore a thick sweater with a knitted scarf draped around his neck. He held two paper coffee cups in gloved hands. He offered one to Heath. Heath took it to be polite.
“It’s hot chocolate, drink… it’ll warm you up.” Austin had lost the spark Heath had admired. He shifted from one foot to another. He drank from his own paper cup, slowly, the look in his eyes… aloof.
Heath couldn’t very well refuse after he accepted the cup. Hot chocolate sounded so much better than coffee right then. He didn’t feel the cold as much, but sometimes it seeped into his bones. Like,
now. He felt so cold. He lifted the plastic lid to his mouth and placed his mouth over the slightly raised slot and took a sip. The liquid was hot. And sweet and creamy. He closed his eyes and tilted his head back, letting it wash over his tongue before he swallowed.
His throat contracted, the ache he’d felt there for so long complaining at the long-denied pleasure. He took another sip and held it on his tongue. He could taste chocolate. Oh, how he loved chocolate. And something spicy.
“If that’s how you look when you drink hot chocolate, man, I gotta tell you, your O-face has got to be fantastic.”
Heath spewed the mouthful of chocolate. The laughter he heard over his embarrassment sounded like bells to his ears.
Austin patted him on his back while he coughed and sputtered. “Sorry, Heath, I shouldn’t have, but you looked…” Austin stopped touching him and stepped away, the laughing light dying in his eyes. “It’s good hot chocolate, yeah? I think they put cinnamon in it. Or nutmeg. It has something I can’t quite put my finger on. But they won’t tell me. I only know that when I tell them not to add whatever it is, it doesn’t taste half as good.”
Heath wiped his chin where the chocolate turned sticky in the cold air. “What is an O face?” He’d never heard that term in all of his days on this earth.
“Are you serious?” Austin snorted out a laugh that quickly turned into a cough as Heath glared at him. “Oh, you are serious.”
He smiled, a wicked glint twinkling in his eyes now as he stepped into Heath’s personal space and stood on tiptoes. His mouth was so close Heath could feel his breath on his chin. Heath leaned down when beckoned. He didn’t know what he expected. Austin angled his face, a slight smile tilting the corners of his lips, and Heath braced himself for the kiss he hadn’t known he wanted so desperately until this moment. He closed his eyes. The warm cup shook in his hands. He wanted to drop it to the sidewalk and place his hands on this man. But the kiss never came. Instead, the caress of a stubbled jaw grazed his own. The warmth of Austin’s skin, sending a shiver through him. He held the cup as if his life depended on it. Austin’s warm breath washed over his ear; his mouth so close Heath could hear him swallow.
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