by JA Huss
“No,” I say, in response to his question about wanting something from him. “No, dude, I don’t want anything. I’m thinking about maybe changing some shit up in my life, y’know? Like looking at what the rest of my life is gonna look like, and... I dunno. I guess I was just trying to see if a path forward might have you in it.” Again, shit is just coming out of my mouth that I had absolutely no intention of saying.
“I’d like that,” he says. “I mean...” He starts to say something else but chokes it off. He does this like three times before he finally just says, “Yeah. I’d like that.”
I nod a bit, making kind of clicking sounds with my tongue. “So what the fuck do we...?”
“Well, I mean, there’s an awful, awful lot to catch up on. You maybe wanna come over for dinner, and...?”
“You still living in the house?” I ask. He nods. “Yeah, then maybe not just yet. Not sure I wanna, y’know, see whatever you did with my old room and shit.”
“Oh, I—” But I put up another hand to stop him.
“Don’t wanna know. Doesn’t matter.”
“Fair enough.” He sucks in a breath. “I could come over to your place. Where you living?”
“Why don’t we just meet up somewhere?”
“Oh. OK. Frank’s?”
Frank’s is where we used to go grab milkshakes. Mom loved it. It’s just an old-school diner with vinyl seats and the open pass-through into the kitchen and all that shit. I don’t even think I realized it was still around. But, hell, if we’re going for nostalgia, may as well go all in.
“Sure. Yeah. We can do that.”
“Next week sometime?” he asks.
“Can we do it before the new year? I’m trying to... Can we just do it before the new year?” I don’t feel like explaining that I’m trying to start the new year fresh, because it’s nobody’s fucking business what I’m doing. If he and I are gonna... whatever... I just wanna put our past behind us now.
“Yeah, sure,” he says. “Um, I’m tied up tomorrow and the next day. Day after?”
“The thirtieth? Sure. Done. Time?”
“I dunno. Like... four o’clock?”
“Frank’s, four o’clock on the thirtieth. Super.”
I don’t wait around for the awkward goodbye, and God knows I’m not looking for a hug or a goddamn handshake or anything like that, so I just walk past him and head for the exit. But something... I dunno what, just something... is gnawing at me. So I turn back. “Hey!” He turns to look in the direction of my shout. “When you came looking for me. With Evan... It was just because it was Christmas?”
There’s a long, long pause. Too long, if I stop to consider it. And then, finally, he nods at me and says, “Yeah.”
I wrap my hand into a fist around my beard and stroke it a couple of times. “K.”
Then I nod briskly and head outside, pulling out my phone as I go so that I can request a car and catch myself another goddamn five-star ride.
Chapter Four - Maddie
On the way home from my old house, I swing by Plumeria’s office. I don’t know why I do it. I just… I just need someone to talk to, I guess. And even though I know she’s probably got clients and has no time for me, I figure it’s almost lunch time and, well, what can it hurt, right?
Her door is closed when I get there. She shares her office with other therapists, who all share a receptionist, and even though I don’t really want to wait, the receptionist is so certain Plumeria will want to see me after her current appointment, I relent and take a seat in the waiting room and thumb through an old copy of Cosmo.
Fifteen minutes later her door opens and she leads a patient out. She sees me but says nothing until her patient has left.
“Maddie,” she says, walking towards me once she’s free. “This is an unexpected surprise.”
“Sorry,” I say, standing up and fidgeting with the hem of my t-shirt. “I was in the neighborhood and—” But I sigh, then shrug, then tell her the truth. “Do you have time? I’d really like to have a chat.”
“Uh... sure. Have a seat in my office while I grab my lunch and we can catch up while I eat.”
I do as she says and a few minutes later she joins me, not sitting at her desk, but next to me on the long comfortable couch.
“So what’s up?” she asks. “Everything OK?”
“Well,” I say. “Yes and no. I’m really not sure.” Even though there’s a lot I could tell her about Carlos, and Logan, and the whole undercover DEA thing down in Mexico, none of that is what’s troubling me now. So I don’t even bother. Instead I say, “You know how I was stuck?”
Plumeria is chewing her sandwich, nodding her head at me.
“Well… I feel like I’m unstuck.”
“That’s great,” she says, swallowing her food. “I’m so happy to hear that. What’s changed?”
“Tyler?” I say, unsure. “The guy I was holding responsible for Scotty, even though he had nothing to do with it. Mostly him.”
“So you’ve got a new guy?”
“Yeah, he’s someone both Scotty and I knew. You remember him, right? Tyler Morgan?”
“Yeah,” she says. “Sure. Went off to the military?”
“That’s him. Well, he and I are seeing each other now.”
“That’s great. Right?” She looks at me.
“It is,” I agree. “But…” I sigh, then take a deep breath. “But things are going well.”
“And?” she asks, after several seconds of silence from me.
“And I was living with these other girls, you know, while I was struggling.”
“OK.”
“And one of them is also doing well. She moved back to Kansas or Iowa or wherever she’s from. You know, to give her old life a second chance. But the other two friends, well, they’re kinda stuck, ya know?”
“So you feel guilty? Because you and this friend found something good and they haven’t?”
“Exactly,” I say. “Yes. I feel like maybe I don’t deserve all this sudden good fortune and I’m not better than they are, and yet… here I am. Tyler Morgan is a millionaire now.”
“Is he?” Plu says.
I nod. “Yeah. Like fuckin’ loaded.”
“Hmmm,” she says.
“What’s that mean?” I ask. “Hmmm?”
“Well,” she says. “You feel lucky.”
“Yes!” I say. “And luck, ya know… it’s just…”
“Luck,” she finishes for me.
“Exactly.”
“And that feels unfair. That you’ve found something good and your friends, who deserve luck just as much as you, haven’t.”
“Yes.”
“That’s called guilt. You need to appreciate that love happens to people who look for it. Who accept it. You went looking for things. Never content to stay still, never satisfied with your sadness. And even if you didn’t know it, you were making your own luck when you did this. Your friends need to do that too. The one who left town, to go give her old life a second chance. Where would she be if she never took that risk?”
“Here,” I say. “Stuck with them.”
“So she made her luck as well.”
“But nothing about me has changed, Plu. I’m still the same mess I was a few months ago. Now I just have a partner in crime, so to speak. Someone to be lost with.”
She smiles at me, like that was the exact right thing to say.
“It’s just luck,” I insist. “Tyler came home, we found each other by accident, and then… and then…”
“And then you both gave it a chance.”
“Is that all there is to it?”
“Sometimes good things happen, Maddie. For no fathomable reason. Just like the bad things. You just accept it and move on. That’s all you can do.”
“But what about my friends?”
“You want to help them?”
“If I can,” I say.
“Can you?” she asks.
Which makes me sigh. “I dunno.”
I nod, smiling a little.
“So whatever it was that made you change your mind… that’s what those friends need to find as well.”
“But I don’t know what that was.”
“Don’t you?”
“I mean, sure. It was Tyler. But—”
She shakes her head at me. “It wasn’t Tyler, Maddie. It was you.”
I think about that the whole drive back to Evan and Robert’s house, but it makes no sense. Love changed me. I can’t find love for people. I mean, sure, I did decide to give Tyler a chance, but that was because he and I truly are meant to be together.
So it still makes no sense.
But I have this feeling of dread hanging over me now. A feeling of foreboding. I’m sure that I can write some of it off to the fact that my life has been totally flipped upside down in the last couple of months, and I can write some of it off to the fact that I’m still really un-used to feeling safe. And happy.
But I think mostly it’s the feeling that I’m starting to get all the things I feel like I’ve wanted in my life – love, companionship, someone who really gets me – and I’m worried that the rug is just gonna get pulled out from under me again. Because that’s what happens to people, right? They get comfortable, and then they get complacent, and then, bam, the universe sucker-punches them.
I don’t know. I feel like I’m thinking too much. Maybe being around Tyler is rubbing off on me in ways I didn’t expect. Or maybe it’s just that, like I told Plu, I still feel guilty.
How do I help my friends? How do I make them keep climbing? Keep hoping? Keep looking for whatever it is that’s missing in their lives?
I dunno. But they helped me. They might not know it, but they did.
So I’m gonna figure it out. I owe them that much, at least.
No, I feel good. I do. I know I do.
I just don’t know why my knuckles are white as I grip the steering wheel.
Chapter Five - Maddie & Tyler
MADDIE
“Thanks,” I tell the delivery girl as I take the food from her. Tyler’s over by the open accordion doors that turn Evan and Robert’s place into an indoor/outdoor space, trying to fan the smoke out of the house. I walked away for five minutes while we were making dinner so that I could take a call from Mom and Dad, and when I walked back into the kitchen, the whole range top was on fire.
I don’t know how he does it.
So we ordered some Chinese food, using an app on Tyler’s phone. The delivery girl is extra-sweet, so I give her five stars and a big tip. Then as I’m closing the app, I glance and see why she was extra-sweet. “Dude, do you have any idea how much money you’ve spent on delivery from this place in the last year?”
“No. Why?” he says, waving what looks like a very expensive, crystal serving tray around to fan the smoke.
“Because,” I say, jogging to him and taking from him the priceless glass smoke-blower he’s about to break, and handing him a brown paper bag filled with a container of sesame noodles. “It’s more than most people pay in rent.”
“Really?” he asks, looking at the floor.
I put the tray down on the dining room table, then take the bag and put it down as well. Stroking his arm, I say, “Hey. Hey, I’m just fucking with you. What’s wrong?”
He doesn’t say anything for a moment, just bobs his head. Then, “Saw my dad today.”
That’s an attention-grabber. “What? You did? Where?” I pull him to the outside part of the indoor/outdoor space and sit him in a lounge chair. I sit across from him, but I don’t let go of his hands.
“At his work. Went to see him.”
“Wha—? Why? I didn’t know you were going to do that.”
“I didn’t either. I mean, I did. I just didn’t necessarily plan on doing it today. I was going to talk with you about it. Like, get your thoughts and figure out exactly what I was going to say, but then Evan told me that he came looking for me while you and I were...on vacation...” He moves his shoulders around like he knows this should be funny but can’t bring himself to laugh, so I laugh for him. It makes him smile. “And I just, I dunno. Decided to go see him.”
“Why didn’t you tell me before?”
He shrugs. “Dunno. Figured we’d make dinner, sit, eat, talk about our days like normal-ass people.” Then he mumbles something that sounds like ‘new-look Tyler,’ and sighs out a huge breath.
“Hey,” I say, bending my head down to make him look me in the eyes. “Hey, look at me.” He does. “We will never. Ever. In a million years. Be normal-ass people. Not as long as you’re involved in the conversation. And I’m so fucking glad about that.” I smile, and it makes him smile again. “OK?” He nods. Then, “So now what?”
“I dunno.” He cuts me off. “He and I are sitting down in a couple of days though.”
In the little bit of time we’ve been back in each other’s lives (although it seems MUCH longer), I have seen Tyler in a lot of different states. I’ve seen him sad, angry, despondent, intense, romantic, sexy, and (my favorite, especially when we’re naked together) happy. Right now, he is something I’ve not even glimpsed before: scared.
It’s not a shuddering, simmering kind of fear. It’s tinged with nervousness. Anxiety. But it’s a brand of fear, nonetheless. I hold his hands tighter.
“Do you... want me to go with you?” I ask.
He shakes his head, but says, “Maybe.”
“OK. OK. You’ll let me know, yeah?”
He nods.
It’s quiet now. He’s lost in his thoughts, and I don’t feel like I want to pry too much more. The one thing I know about Tyler Morgan is that when he wants to talk he will talk and when he doesn’t, he won’t. So I do what a good partner does. I change the subject.
“How are your ribs there, killer?”
He looks at me with surprise.
“Oh, come on. You’re worse at hiding things than I am. And I’m terrible.” More smiling. We’re both giving a stab at happiness all we’ve got.
“I’m fine,” he mumbles out.
“Yeah? Well, you know what I think we should do?” I ask, getting up out of my chair to kneel between his legs and putting my hand on his crotch.
“I think I have some idea,” he says, an evil smirk dancing on his lips.
“I think we should get in the hot tub and give that aching body some love.”
He looks half disappointed and says, “But we’ll still fuck, right?”
“Yes, Tyler. We will still fuck.” I sigh. I fuckin’ love this guy.
Completely.
TYLER
She stretches up and kisses me. Or I lean down and kiss her. Whatever. We kiss. I fuckin’ love this girl. Completely.
She takes me by the hand and leads me over to the hot tub, which is lit up and steaming, mist floating up into the night sky. She unzips her jeans and shimmies them down her legs, pulls her t-shirt up over her head and stands there in a dark green bra and thong.
“Holy shit,” I say. “Christmas never ends.” She closes her eyes and grins. I continue, by doing what everyone knows is the worst thing you can do to a joke. Explaining. “I’m saying, because your hair is red and your underwear—”
“Yeah, I got it, babe.”
She nods towards me, which is my cue to disrobe as well. I also unzip my jeans and let them fall to the ground. I’m now standing there in just a t-shirt, my cock already at full mast.
“Let me help you. Don’t want you to stretch too much.” She glides over. I wonder if she knows that her regular walk looks like she’s gliding down a runway at all times. Runways of Paris, runway of Pete’s. Doesn’t matter. She has this beautiful, effortless stride that makes her impossible not to notice.
She grabs the hem of my t-shirt and pulls me toward h
er. One hand on my dick, one hand on my chest, she draws me in for another kiss.
“Babe,” she says, her voice a whisper, her lips barely touching mine.
“Hmm?” I hum back.
“When are you gonna shave?”
I wouldn’t call that a buzzkill, but it’s definitely a buzz-assault.
“Why? You’re really done with it?”
“I dunno,” she says, all coy and shit, her fingers on my lips. “You’re just talking about making a fresh start and... You know. It’d be nice. To feel skin”—she takes my hand and plunges it down the front of her panties, so that I can feel her dampening flesh—“on skin,” she whispers in my ear.
“Yeah, OK, you got it, I’ll shave. Should we see if Rodney’s in now?”
She laughs. At my sudden agreeability, I guess. But she also tips her chin back and asks, “Who’s Rodney?”
“You remember Mustache? From Thanksgiving? The salon guy?”
“Oh, yeah. The one who clearly wanted some of this.” She squeezes my cock harder and I moan.
“Mmmm, yup. That’s him.”
She starts stroking me back and forth with one hand and forcing my hand to stroke her clit with the other. “Yeah, I think maybe we’ll just call Rodney in the morning. Let’s give the beard a proper send-off tonight.”
I pull us close together with my free hand and execute the patented Tyler Morgan one-hand bra release. She gasps, then giggles, then steps back, bending me forward and pulling my t-shirt off so that I don’t have to lift my arms over my head.
Once the shirt is off, she stays back a step and works her panties down her legs. We stand, naked, facing each other, as the steam from the hot tub floats in the air around us.
“You’re beautiful,” I tell her.
“Ditto, mister,” she says. “C’mere.” We join hands and descend into the warm, bubbling water. I sit and go to bring her down into my lap, but she stops me, says, “Unh-unh-unh, Adam,” and turns to face me.
Screwing up my face, I ask, “Fuck’s Adam? Did you just call me Adam? Do I have to kill somebody else?” (That’s a risky punchline, but I think she’ll appreciate it.)