“I got your text,” Jess said, and immediately closed his eyes in mortification. Of course he got the text. How the hell else would he have known to show up here?
“I’m glad,” was all Frankie said, and there was satisfaction in his tone, but there was something about his manner—Jess narrowed his eyes. He’d thought he knew every one of Frankie’s many moods, but this was a new one.
Frankie looked … at peace. In a high-strung, nervously tense way. He stood in front of the table, hipshot and casual in low-slung black pants that clung to his narrow hips, his checkered Vans planted firmly on the floor. His shirt was black, too, his favorite Ramones shirt with the punk band’s seal over the chest. That shirt had been washed and worn to near translucence; Jess happened to know it was softer than silk and had a hole under the left arm, but Frankie would never give it up.
“I want ’em to bury me in this shirt,” Frankie would cackle as they mock wrestled over it, rolling through the pillows lining their nest up in the Garrett. “I’m no quitter.”
He hung on to things, Frankie did—he didn’t like to give up.
Jess, apparently, was his big exception to that rule.
Swallowing down the pain he wasn’t sure he’d ever really learn to live with, Jess said, “So are we allowed to be in here, or did you call me over to keep lookout for the cops?”
“Nah, we’re all right,” Frankie replied. “If the filth show up, we’ll tell ’em we got the key from the Realtor.”
“And will that be anything approximating the truth?”
“You worry too much, Bit.” Frankie’s smile was lazy and slow, but something deep moved behind his heavy-lidded black eyes.
Jess felt his heart stutter. Covering, he stuck his hands in his pockets, raised his shoulders, and said, “So if I’m not your lookout, what am I doing here?”
“I asked you to come so I could tell you some things I should’ve been man enough to own a long time ago.” Frankie paused, rubbing his palms down the front of his pants in the only nervous gesture Jess had ever seen him make that didn’t involve a cigarette. “Now, as to why you’re here—that’s another question, one only you can answer. Half expected you’d ignore me, Bit.”
Jess snorted. “That’s one thing I’ve pretty much never been able to do.”
From the first time he saw Frankie, across a crowded kitchen—while Jess was in the middle of a job interview, no less—every second thought that passed through Jess’s brain involved the guy. “Obsession” wasn’t a superflattering word, but Jess thought it fit better than “ginormous crush.” And after a while, when Frankie seemed to like him back, neither one was quite right.
The way Jess felt about Frankie—he didn’t just crush on him or obsess over him. He felt connected to him, as tuned in to Frankie’s wild emotions as he was to his own. And when that connection was severed, it was like being cut off from everything good in his life. Like when Frankie backed away, he took all the fun and joy and excitement with him, and left Jess with nothing but pain, doubt, and bits of broken glass disguised as memories.
“I’m glad,” Frankie said again, his voice deeper, rougher. Jess felt himself swaying forward, but Frankie cleared his throat and stepped aside, breaking the spell.
When he shifted, Jess could see the table, which was covered with a dark purple and red paisley shawl he recognized from Frankie’s apartment. When they first got together it was late spring, and there were still some cool nights.
Back then, Frankie never used to let Jess stay over at his place all night. It bothered Jess at the time, although Frankie always explained it away as being to protect Jess from having his sister find out about their relationship—and by extension, Jess’s gayness—before Jess was ready. He’d always thought there was more to it than that, but he hadn’t wanted to push.
See what happens when you don’t push? You wind up standing still, never getting where you want to go.
Frankie fussed with a corner of the shawl, twitching it straight, and Jess remembered the wonder and discovery of those early nights, curled together in a welter of pillows, pulling that very shawl around them to ward off the chill.
He remembered how it always felt as if they didn’t have enough time, as if every moment was gone too fast, like images captured on film, the fleeting reality behind them over and done with, lost forever.
And how true that turned out to be.
His throat closed like a fist, and he stumbled backward. “I can’t do this,” he said. “I have to go. Sorry.”
Frankie stopped him with a word. “Wait.”
Actually, it was the naked need in his voice that made Jess pause, look over his shoulder.
The man who, by his mere existence, had forced Jess to come to terms with who he was and what he wanted, stood there reaching out to him. And the look on his face was one Jess had never seen there before.
Like everything about Frankie, it was complicated—a fierce blend of need, terror, regret, and even … maybe … love?
“I know I don’t deserve it,” Frankie said, his voice wrecked. “But please. Give me a chance.”
Jess crossed his arms over his chest, fingers digging into muscle. Biting his lip until he tasted blood, he muttered, “Yeah, fine. But make it quick, okay?”
Jealousy flared in Frankie’s gaze, hot and darkly satisfying. “Why, you have a hot date tonight?”
“None of your business!”
Frankie’s mouth curled into a snarl, and Jess braced himself wearily for another fight, but in the next instant, the snarl relaxed into a rueful curve. “Sorry, Bit. Jess. Fuck me, I’m bollocksing this up. I’ve no right to throw a wobbly about you seeing other blokes. And if you want to leave, I won’t stop you. God knows, this conversation falls under the too-little-too-late heading—and now I come to think of it, the whole thing is likely more for me than you. Unburdening my soul, so to speak.” He shook his head. “You’re well out of it. No reason on earth why you should have to be weighed down with my crap now.”
Frankie attempted his usual cocky smile, but it looked wrong on his face. Jess’s defensive anger died a swift, certain death.
Taking a tentative step toward the table, Jess tilted his chin at the tray sitting on top of the shawl. On it were a couple of flickering candles, two glasses, and one of the white plastic carafes the Market line cooks filled with water and passed around during dinner service.
“What’s in the pitcher?”
Frankie shot him a quick, uncertain smile. “Ah, it’s sangria. Want some?”
Jess shivered. On Frankie’s birthday, Jess had planned a whole afternoon based on the Lou Reed song “Perfect Day”—they went to the Central Park Zoo and drank sangria on a blanket in the park, basking in the summer sunshine. When it got dark, they went home to the Garret. And Frankie’d looked right into his eyes and quoted the song, telling him it had been a perfect day—and he was glad he’d spent it with Jess.
He couldn’t help wondering what it meant that Frankie made sangria tonight. Was it his punk poetry way of saying good-bye?
Jess pulled his mouth into a smile. “Sure. I’ll have a little.”
The sangria was a gorgeous dark red as Frankie poured it out, bits of fruit and slices of orange and lemon floating to the top. Jess’s fingers brushed Frankie’s when he handed over the glass, and he had to glance away to hide the shock that went through him.
Sweet spiced wine coated his tongue with the taste of summer, the memory of one perfect day. Jess sipped and swallowed, eyes closed, lost for a second.
“You remember my birthday, don’t you?” Frankie said suddenly.
Jess started. “Of course. It wasn’t that long ago.”
It only felt like a million years.
Frankie shook his head. “I couldn’t believe it when you pulled out that blanket and the thermos after the zoo. You know, I didn’t get it until then—didn’t make the connection to the song until I saw the sangria.”
Jess took another gulp, hiding behind hi
s glass. “It was dorky, I know.”
“No,” Frankie said, the intensity of his response freezing Jess in place. “No. It was one of the most amazing days of my life. Best birthday I ever had.”
Lowering his glass slowly, Jess was at a loss for words. “Really? That’s kind of … I don’t know, sad. All we did was go to the park, see the penguins. Lie around on a blanket.”
Frankie gave him a look that suggested they were speaking different languages. “You gave me one of my favorite songs, brought to life. You knew me that well, planned it all out, made it so …” He shook his head. “It was perfect. You don’t even know. That song …”
“Yeah,” Jess said, fighting the cascade of emotion this conversation was pouring over his head. “I like it, too.”
“But I don’t think you quite realized, at the time, how on the nose it was. You still don’t get it—but that line Lou sings, about how the person he’s with makes him forget himself and think he’s someone else. Someone good.”
Frankie looked down, studying the fruit in his glass as if it were tea leaves and might reveal some hidden facet of his future. It hurt Jess’s chest.
Jess finally knew what to say, though. “You are good. I hate it when you talk like that.”
Frankie’s mouth twisted as though he didn’t know whether to laugh or cry. “That’s just the thing, Bit. You know me so well, in some ways, better than anyone ever. In other ways, you don’t know me at all. Because I never let you. I’m not a good man. I’ve done … Christ. Things I wish I could forget.”
“I don’t care what you did.” Jess knew he sounded impossibly young and stupidly stubborn, but he couldn’t help it. “Whatever happened in the past, before we met—it’s over now. It doesn’t define you.”
“God, I’d love to believe that.” Frankie spared a smile for the thought, but it didn’t stick. “The truth is, we’re all defined by our actions. The choices we make have consequences, and you can’t erase them by being sorry, or feeling worthless, or …” His throat clenched visibly as he swallowed hard, fear moving through his eyes. “Or by explaining that you didn’t mean it, because you were an addict, and it was the drugs made you do those awful things.”
The world ground to a halt like the carousel in Central Park, revolving in a slow circle that made Jess dizzy. He felt the past rewriting itself, everything he thought he knew about Frankie, about their relationship, taking on new shades of meaning.
“You … what?”
Frankie pulled himself up, squaring his shoulders in a way that told Jess he wanted nothing more than to slouch, hide, run.
But he didn’t.
“You heard right. I was a druggie, got meself kicked out of school and all. My dad and mum washed their hands of me, and who could blame them, so I picked up and crossed the Atlantic, like many disappointing young English sons before me.”
“How old were you?” Jess had a zillion questions, but caution held them back. He didn’t want to spook Frankie out of this rare, truth-telling mode.
“Younger than you,” Frankie said, mouth quirking. It was a shadow of his usual cocky smirk. “Sixteen.”
“God,” Jess said, appalled. Four years ago, when Jess was sixteen, he was living with his sister in upstate New York, going to high school and waiting tables for pocket money. He couldn’t imagine being on his own at that age.
“I got lucky.” Frankie shrugged. “A few months after I hit New York, I met Adam. His parents sort of adopted me, took me in. Got me cleaned up.” He smiled, a remembering kind of smile. “I owe them, owe him—I was a right mess. Nobody else would’ve stuck it out.”
I would’ve, Jess wanted to cry, but he bit it back. How did he know? Maybe if he’d met Frankie back then, he wouldn’t have known how to help him.
Well, for one thing, when Frankie was on his own in the big bad city at sixteen, Jess was a kid who’d just lost his parents. So, probably he wouldn’t have been a huge help.
But Jess wasn’t a kid anymore.
“And you’ve stayed clean since then, haven’t you?” he said, already sure of the answer.
Jess had noticed, of course, the way Frankie glossed right over those first few months before Adam’s family found him, but he decided to let that go. For now.
He wished he could be sure it was because he didn’t want to overload Frankie, who was already opening up further than he ever had before—and not because Jess was too much of a chickenshit to want to know what kinds of things might have befallen a scared junkie teen on the streets of New York.
Frankie shrugged and hitched one hip up on the table. His posture didn’t exactly scream pride in his accomplishment. “Yeah, mostly. Ain’t easy, and for a while … Christ, for a long fucking while, it was like a balancing act. Every day, on a tightrope over a pit of vipers, trying to keep myself from taking the dive. Convince myself it weren’t worth it.” He shook his head, brows low and heavy over his shadowed eyes.
“But it got better, right?” Jess was aware he sounded like a scared child, hoping desperately for a happy ending, but geez. Every time he blinked his eyes now he pictured Frankie as a gangly teenager, all rebellion and dyed hair and ripped clothes—well, really, like a slightly shorter version of the man right in front of him. But the idea of either version of that man alone and desperate, terrified, wrenched Jess’s guts into knots.
“Yeah, like I said. The Temples helped me, and when Adam started talking nonstop about food and cooking and whatnot, I thought, why the hell not? We’ve worked in four of the same restaurants together, counting Market.”
A thin shaft of light broke through the swirling mess of emotion Jess was flailing around in. He felt like if he could just break the surface, he’d push his head up into fresh, clean air, and a new understanding would be waiting for him.
“Whenever Adam moved jobs, you followed him.”
“Dynamic duo,” Frankie said, and there was the pride, tilting his angular chin up. “Then later, there was Grant, too. We make a good team.”
“Because you trust each other,” Jess said slowly. “You balance each other.”
Balance. That was the key to everything, wasn’t it?
“Adam helped you find your balance,” Jess said, his mind racing. “His friendship, and working under him—it gives you the boundaries you need to feel safe. To forget about the past and stop worrying that you’ll slip, fall back into that pit.” He licked his lips, his mouth suddenly dry. His eyes burned, he hadn’t blinked in forever, but he didn’t want to take his gaze off Frankie for even a second. “And anything that threatens that balance, like taking on more responsibility, or leaving Market …”
Frankie raised both hands and fisted them in his crazy shock of hair, making it stand straight up. He looked at Jess from under his sooty lashes, breathed out slow.
“It’s bloody terrifying, Bit.”
Jess swallowed, the click of his throat loud in the deserted restaurant. “That includes me, doesn’t it.”
Dropping his hands to his sides, Frankie stared at Jess, his beautiful, sculpted face completely open, for once. “Bloody hell, Jess. Especially you.”
There was a weird noise in Jess’s ears, like somebody’d kicked a dog. Jess took such a quick step back, he stumbled and spilled sangria all over his hand. He’d forgotten he was even holding it. Numb, he stared uncomprehendingly at the dark red liquid running down his arm. It looked like blood.
There was that noise again, that funny little whimper, and with a shock of horror, Jess realized it came from him. “Sorry,” he gasped. “I didn’t mean to …”
“Here, it’s all right,” Frankie said, lifting the tray and whipping the shawl out from under it. He came right up to Jess and started dabbing at the wetness on his hand, but Jess clenched his fingers in the material and took another step back, dragging the shawl with him.
“No,” he said, staring down at the cheerful, old-fashioned pattern draped over his wrist. “I mean, I’m sorry for …” His voice died out. “Well, for
everything else.”
“What do you mean?” Frankie’s brows drew together.
Jess tried to smile. “It’s funny. You know, I always thought if I could just get you to open up, if I could only understand what was holding you back, keeping you from being happy with me, I could fix it. Pretty cocky, huh?”
“Bit—”
No wonder Frankie had fought so hard to keep his life from changing. When every change felt as if it might be the end of his world? Well, Jess didn’t have to make things worse. Maybe he couldn’t fix it, but he could do that, at least.
“It’s okay,” Jess said, trying again with the smile thing. Any minute now, he was going to get one right. “I get it. And don’t worry. There are a million restaurants in this city; I’m sure I can get another job waiting tables.”
Frankie’s eyes went dead as coals gone cold after a fire. “You’re leaving Market,” he said dully.
“Isn’t that what you want?” Jess cried, hanging on to control by the slimmest thread. “You said … when I’m around, I knock you off balance, make you afraid you’re going to fall back into the pit.”
“I didn’t tell you all that shite to make you go away,” Frankie said, starting to pace.
This must be what a yo-yo felt like. “Then why?”
Mouth firming as if he’d made a decision, Frankie strode across the distance that separated them and grabbed Jess by the shoulders. Jess stared up, trying not to yell or cry or any of the other ridiculous things he was afraid he might do, and then they both froze at a loud clatter from the dining room.
Chapter 30
“What the hell was that?” Jess said, clutching at the Ramones T-shirt. Not that he was pissing himself with fear, exactly, but this restaurant was supposed to be abandoned, and it was the middle of the night. “Oh, crap, do you think it really is the cops?”
“Stay here,” Frankie said, manhandling Jess around behind him.
Fuck that. Jess followed him to the kitchen door, which was actually more of a big, gaping hole because they’d taken the door off its hinges when they were moving stuff out.
Just One Taste Page 27