by Gina LaManna
Anthony tested my other shoulder with his other hand. When I didn’t pull away, he cinched me in for a tight, breathless hug. “We’re together now. You don’t have to keep all these things inside. You can talk about it.”
“I don’t want to talk about it.”
“But I want to know about it. About you. About your past. What makes you tick, what makes you happy, what pisses you off until you get that little wrinkle above your nose.” Though I didn’t see it, I sensed his smile. “You’re cute when you get angry.”
“I’m not angry.” I wished I could joke along, but I wasn’t in the joking mood.
“I’m sorry,” Anthony said. “If you really don’t want to talk about it, I won’t make you, okay? Just know I’m here if you want.”
“Can we wait for now?”
“Of course. Now, put me to work. We’ve got some landscaping to do.”
Grateful for the change of subject, I smiled. “All right then, cowboy. Pick up those Dots and get to work making a garden out back.”
Anthony’s face creased in concentration. I worked on the front lawn, while he did the back. It was nice, both of us working on different tasks, but for the same larger project. I stole a few glances as he added some sprinkles and Sixlets to the garden. Maybe Mack was right. Maybe I should just blurt everything out and get it over with.
After watching Anthony’s face light up as he added a Gummi Worm to the garden, I had a quick pep talk with myself. I opened my mouth, digging for the courage to tell him that big ol’ L-word.
“You like it?” Anthony beat me to it, a boyish smile shining from his lips. “A worm in the garden. Get it? Do you get it, Lacey? A worm in the garden!”
“I get it.” I smiled. “And I love it.”
“Pretty creative, huh?”
“I’d never have thought of it myself.”
He crossed his arms, surveying the Gummi Garden with pleasure. Then, he set to crumbling an Oreo over the worm as dirt. “So, would you ever have a garden?”
“Probably not. I don’t have space in my apartment.”
Anthony didn’t make eye contact with me. He added a Tootsie Roll to the back porch. “But if you moved from your apartment. Do you think you’d like a garden?”
I blinked, watching the Tootsie Roll. Both of us fixated on the candy as if it were the most interesting thing in the world. “I’ve never thought about it.”
“Would you ever consider it?” Anthony asked. “Moving out?”
I swallowed. “Yes, I suppose. I…I mean, I tried it once when I moved into Mr. Kim’s apartment complex, but I got lonely living by myself. I missed Clay. Well, that and my apartment exploded.”
Instead of Anthony laughing like I expected him to, he looked up at me. “What if I could promise that you wouldn’t be lonely?”
I met his gaze, telling myself not to look away. “How can you make that promise?”
Anthony looked down again. “I’m just curious if you could ever see yourself moving from Clay’s place and in with…” he paused. “Someone else.”
“Yes, of course, Anthony. Of course I could.” I held my breath.
Anthony licked his lips, the motion both sensual and thoughtful, all at once. Then he nodded. Turning back to the gingerbread house, he cleared his throat. “If we frosted this cookie blue, we could add a pool, you know.”
I cleared my throat, as well. “A pool. That’d be nice.”
“What else would you like in your home?” Anthony asked.
“My gingerbread house?”
“Sure.”
I grinned. “I’m a simple girl. This here, it’s made out of candy. It has a pool. Just shove a coffee machine in there, and I’m set. Sugar and caffeine, what more does a girl need?”
Anthony laughed. “You forgot one thing.” He walked over to the counter, dug through a few cabinets, and returned holding a bag of marshmallows. He raised his eyebrow. “Yes?”
“Ooh, these are perfect!” I took a couple from his hand. “They can double as coffee fixings and a beanbag chair.”
We spent a few more minutes building an addition out back.
When I finished, I added a gazebo.
“Check it out. I’m building a fireman’s pole with this spaghetti noodle.” Anthony beamed with pride. “Neat, huh?”
“We did this when I was a kid,” I blurted. Something about Anthony’s eyebrows knitted together in concentration melted my resolve, and the words started to flow of their own accord. “My mom and Meg and me.”
Anthony’s hands froze, the noodle dangling stiffly from his fingers. After a moment of silence, he continued building. He didn’t look in my direction, didn’t ask questions, didn’t say anything at all.
“Christmas can be hard sometimes. I miss my mom a lot during this season. She loved Christmas music, presents, the whole shebang.”
I set to work building a hot tub, an attempt to keep my hands busy. And then I explained to Anthony how she worked such long hours to buy presents, how I’d hardly see her at all during these weeks, and how it made me bitter about Santa’s presents in general. And he listened. And he raised a candy cane flag pole. And he listened some more. Anthony was a great listener.
“She usually worked Christmas Eve and Christmas Day, though I don’t know who was going to TANGO on the holidays. Lonely men, I suppose.” A bit of sadness mixed with frustration laced my words. But as I began to speak about her, my voice softened. “Every year on Christmas morning, we’d build a gingerbread house.”
Anthony sprinkled a batch of coconut flakes as fake snow on the front lawn.
“And it was special because we’d daydream. We’d build our dream home on those mornings, saying that someday we’d build the real thing. And just the three of us would live there – Meg, her, and me.” I paused. “We continued to build these huge, extravagant gingerbread estates even when I became old enough to understand we’d never have the real thing. But that wasn’t the point. The point was that we never stopped dreaming.”
Anthony gave up all pretense of building now, and distractedly moved the coconut flakes from one pile to another.
“I once asked my mom why we didn’t have a real house, back when I was little.” I licked my lips, pausing before continuing. “Why we didn’t have a dad and a mom like most families. Why I didn’t have a sister or a brother.”
Anthony looked up, his hand reaching across the table to hold mine.
“She said life isn’t fair. That’s what she said all the time, except for once. And that one time, she told me that she fell for the wrong person.” I looked up, my lips tilted in a frown. “What does that even mean? Anthony, who the heck is Jackson Cole, and where did he go? Why would he leave my mom?”
We stood in silence for a moment, the two of us trapped in a question that neither of us could answer. And then, there at five a.m. in the morning, someone else cleared a throat in the doorway to the kitchen.
“Did I interrupt something?” Clay asked, stepping into the room and waving a stack of papers. “Because even if I did, you need to put your home improvement project on hold. I found him, Lacey. I found your dad.”
CHAPTER 25
I sat on Clay’s bed, Anthony’s body pressed to mine, his arm tight around my waist.
“What’d you find?” I looked up at my cousin. “Did you plan on telling us, or just dragging us up here for dramatic suspense?”
“I’m getting there,” he sniffed. After Clay’s announcement in the kitchen, my cousin had insisted that Anthony and I accompany him upstairs to his room, where he had his computer for support.
“Where, Clay?” Anthony asked. “Where’d you find him?”
“The where is not important.”
“Simple question, Clay,” Anthony said. “Where is he?”
Clay’s face took on an annoyed twinge, but this time, he answered. “At home.”
“You found him at home?” I stared at my cousin. “At his home, the one we’ve been to almost every day?”
“Expert detective work,” Anthony muttered wryly. “I would never have guessed the man might be at his house.”
I raised a hand to Anthony. “In Clay’s defense, Jackson Cole hasn’t been around lately. We’ve checked.”
“Yes. So to monitor while we were away, I set up a small camera, a motion sensor, to go off if the garage or front door opened. Both went off about thirty minutes ago,” Clay said.
“Huh. That doesn’t sound like a man in hiding,” I said.
“So you’re telling me, Jackson Cole came home, parked in his garage, and went through the front door of his house like a normal person?” Anthony asked. “That sounds like a man on vacation, not a man in hiding.”
“So what does this mean?” I asked.
Clay shrugged. “I was only supposed to find him. I don’t know what happens next.”
“I suppose I could just knock on his door when I get home,” I said. “But that’s a little risky, since we still haven’t figured out why he’s looking at photos of Anthony.”
“Yes, that’d be a risk,” Clay said, his eyes flicking to my boyfriend. “Since there’s a chance he might recognize you.”
I lapsed into silence.
Clay turned to his computer, then back to me. “What would you like me to do?”
I looked to Anthony, asking his opinion with a silent gaze.
Anthony tilted his head to the side. “That’s up to you. You can leave him be until we have more information, or you can march up to his door and introduce yourself. I’ll support either option.”
“But you probably think one is smarter than the other,” I said, trying to read his mind.
“Maybe, but this is about your father. Or potential father. I’ll support whatever you decide, babe.” Anthony crossed his arms, his face not giving anything away.
“Well, since I’m here with Lizabeth through tomorrow night, and after that is Christmas…” I sighed. “Let’s stick with the original plan. Clay, can you try to keep tabs on him until after the holiday? I want to get in touch with him, but I have to figure out the best way to do it. And I won’t put Anthony at risk, either. We need more information first.”
Anthony leaned over, his lips meeting mine in a soft kiss. I returned it, knowing that I couldn’t do anything to hurt Anthony, even if it meant leaving Jackson Cole a mystery for the rest of my life.
“Gross,” Clay said. “Stop making out on my bed.”
I smiled, my lips still pressed lightly against Anthony’s. “Turn around, if you don’t want to see it.”
Anthony reached for a pillow behind us on the bed, lifted it with one arm, and used it to shield our faces. Then he pressed his lips against mine hard, and it was lucky that Clay couldn’t see the things happening behind that pillow, because that kiss was good enough to twirl my hair into curls and make my face turn all shades of pink.
“Hold your horses, Clay, it’s running.” A metallic, computer-sounding voice erupted from the opposite side of the room. “Are you ready for it? Your soul mate awaits, my friend.”
“No!” Clay shouted. “Stop it, Horatio, now!”
Anthony dropped the pillow, a confused smirk toying at his mouth. “What’s happening?”
Clay’s computer screen, which had previously been black, flickered to life, and with it came Horatio’s grinning face. His chubby cheeks took up most of the screen.
“Oh, howdy, Lacey. Anthony.” Horatio looked over my cousin’s shoulder, where Clay was pressing buttons frantically on the keyboard. “I didn’t know you’d be here for the big reveal.”
“What sort of reveal?” Anthony’s smirk morphed into a smile which grew brighter, the harder Clay struggled to silence his friend. “This sounds interesting.”
“Horatio, shut up!” Clay shouted. “Stop talking. Stop the program.”
“There’s nothing to be embarrassed about,” Horatio said. “There’s nothing sinful about searching logically and algorithmically for your soul mate, Clay. I admire it, actually.”
“Soul mate,” Anthony murmured. “Verrry interesting.”
“He’s set up a program to calculate his perfect life partner,” I said in low tones. “You know, like a Match.com or something, except it spits out only one name.”
Clay banged a few keys. “This was supposed to be private!”
“I can’t stop the program once it’s running, since you didn’t build in an Abort button,” Horatio explained patiently. “The photo will show up in five…four…three…two…”
“Close your eyes,” Clay shouted wildly, abandoning the computer. Instead, he launched his body towards us, grabbing the pillow and flailing it in our faces, pressing hard. “Don’t look, don’t look! I will hurt you, Horatio.”
“You’re smothering me,” I yelled into the pillow, my voice coming out muffled. “Anthony, help!”
In the next second, Anthony had Clay cowering in the fetal position on the bed. “Don’t you dare smother my girlfriend,” Anthony said, his voice low as he walked towards the computer. “I don’t appreciate that much at all.”
“Me neither,” I added. “I like breathing. One of my top five favorite things about life, right behind ice cream.”
“Ready…blast off!” Horatio shouted. “Please direct your attention to the screen to see the image of Clay’s ideal mate.”
The three of us fell silent, waiting as a staticky screen took over the spot where Horatio’s face had been moments before. A line flashed across the screen, the word Rendering pulsing brightly. When the progress bar hit ninety percent, Clay lunged for the screen. Anthony held him back with a single finger.
Then the status bar hit one hundred percent.
I held my breath.
Clay let out a weak, hissing sound like a deflating balloon.
Anthony didn’t move a muscle.
And then a photo appeared.
A nice, big picture.
“That’s…that is wrong. That is so, so wrong. Horatio, is this a joke? The program is broken, I swear. That’s just wrong,” Clay whimpered, his face shooting so far past red it went to blue, and then green. “That’s wrong. Anthony, that is a faulty result, I promise.”
I couldn’t help it. I snorted. And then laughed. And then snorted again. Finally, when I managed to get my laughter under control, I turned to Anthony. “What’s with pictures of you cropping up everywhere these days? First Jackson Cole has them plastered all over, and now Clay?”
Anthony remained as frozen as an icicle.
I reached out a finger and gently poked him on the shoulder. “Are you okay? You know not to take this seriously, right?”
Anthony turned to Clay. “What. Is. This?”
Clay’s greenish shade morphed to white. His cheeks had flicked through more colors than a rainbow in the past few seconds, which couldn’t have been good for his complexion. “Horatio, what did you do?”
Horatio’s image appeared on the screen once again, replacing Anthony’s photo. “I didn’t do anything.”
“You were supposed to double check all the settings yesterday, before you let me run the program.” Clay leaned so close to the screen I wondered how he could see anything.
“I did. I checked everything.”
“Not everything.”
Horatio scratched his chin. “Oh, crap, that’s right. I did check everything, but I got distracted for a second while going over the gender button. I must have hit the wrong one.”
“You got distracted?” Clay threw his hands up. “No kidding! That’s irresponsible, Horatio. I thought I could trust you. I told you I wanted the program to run perfectly the first time. Not the second, not the third, the first.”
“What was I supposed to do?” Horatio shrugged, his face turning defensive. “My brother called. I answered. It’s not like we chat often. And anyway, it was just a little mistake, what with the gender button. That’s easy enough to fix; check it out, I already flipped it to female. Run it again.”
�
��Run it again?” Clay threw his hands over his chest. “You’re playing with my emotions, Horatio, I can’t just run it again. I’m emotionally sensitive right now.”
“Actually, you can just run it again,” Horatio said. “Want me to hit Go?”
“Hang on a second,” I said, stepping up to Clay’s shoulder, giving Horatio a wave from behind the screen. “Hello, there, Horatio. Did you say your brother called?”
“Yeah, what about it?”
“The same brother who stayed with us awhile back?” I asked, using the term “stayed with” lightly. It was more like he’d been imprisoned by Carlos after taking a chunk out of Meg’s rear end with a wildly shot bullet. “You’re talking about Oleg?”
“Yeah.”
“After Halloween, I asked if you’d heard from him,” I said, my eyes narrowing. “You said no.”
“That was true then, and it was true until late last night.” Horatio tilted his head sideways, crossing his arms. “That’s what I’m saying. I wasn’t just distracted for no reason, Clay. Oleg called out of the blue; it’s not like we hang out all the time, so I had to answer and make sure he was okay. And I clicked the male button instead of female while we were talking, it’s no big deal.” He shrugged. “Anyway, it’s not like Anthony’s a bad catch.”
“You know, I’ll agree with that,” I said, casting a quick glance over my shoulder, where Anthony stood with a livid expression still on his face. “Anthony is one heck of a catch, but he’s my catch. Regardless, I’m more concerned about Oleg than Clay’s love life at the moment – no offense, cousin.”
“What did Oleg do?” Horatio sounded worried. “He said he’s been following the rules. I promise I would’ve said something to your family if he’d sounded dangerous, but he didn’t want anything at all.”
“Nothing?” I frowned. “Not one tiny thing?”
“He was just checking in, seeing what I was up to these days.” He shifted uncomfortably across the computer. “Said he’s been working at the mechanic shop and going home. I’m not his babysitter, I don’t know more than that.”
I wanted to reach through the screen and give Horatio a shake. “Do you know where he is now?”