by CC Bridges
When the kiss finally broke, Lou kept me within the circle of his arms, our foreheads touching as if he couldn’t bear to part. It made my heart thump loudly with anticipation, and I wished we weren’t standing in the middle of someone’s private beach in the middle of the night.
“Come on. It’s right over here.” His voice sounded raw. I’d done that to him. I smiled and let him take my hand. For once we didn’t have to worry about anyone seeing us or what they’d think. In the night, we were invisible.
He led me down the beach, past mostly dark houses, with nothing but the sound of the tempestuous wind and the breaking waves to accompany us. I had sand in my sneakers, but I didn’t care. And I sure as hell wasn’t going to stop and take them off. It was cold!
“Look.” He touched my shoulder and turned me in the right direction.
Instantly I could see why Lou loved this house. The builders had propped it up on pilings, making the house rise over the ocean and all of its neighbors. The very center had been constructed to look like a lighthouse, complete with widow’s walk. But the level below had walls of glass, even now lit up because these people were apparently home. I could see the past mixed with the future, and that summed up Lou—his love for old things but his embrace of the new.
“It’s beautiful.”
“Yeah.”
I grabbed Lou’s arm and held on, needing to feel his warmth. The night stretched out around us, and for a moment, it felt like time stopped and nothing existed but us.
And then I burped. Lou laughed, and we both made a run for it.
All in all, a perfect evening.
Chapter 7
SATURDAY MORNING Devon and his parents invaded in their truck, the back filled to the brim with plywood. My belly roiled in turmoil at the sight of them pulling into the driveway. Prepping the house for the hurricane made all of this real, in a way all the news reports on TV couldn’t.
I stepped out on the front porch and waved. Devon got out of the truck, and I grinned, pleased to see him. The jackass actually showed up.
Devon ran up the steps and gave me a back-slapping hug. “Nick, what’s up?”
I didn’t know how to sum up the past few months—meeting Lou, eating lots of pizza, playing too many video games. So I shrugged it off. “Nothing.”
His parents followed, and his father shook my hand. “Everything been okay with the house?”
Thank God I cleaned up last night. I didn’t want Mrs. Simmons stumbling over the dirty socks I’d found in the living room.
Devon, Mr. Simmons, and I got to work, while Devon’s mom went to the kitchen to sort out the sandwiches they’d brought. I ended up holding the wood while Devon used the hand drill to screw them in place. His dad went to hunt down a ladder to do the second floor while we worked. Devon put in the last screw, and we both stepped back to admire our handiwork.
I rubbed my hands against my jeans and decided I’d tell him about Lou. “I met a guy.”
Devon’s face crunched up in confusion before his expression smoothed. “Wait, you mean like a guy guy?”
“Like every time you tell me you met a girl, yeah.” And there had been plenty. Devon always was good with the ladies. They couldn’t resist that soft cushy center inside that giant six-foot-three-inch frame.
We’d been friends since grade school. I’d walked into the classroom terrified. Devon, the only black kid in the class, had grabbed on to my hand and led me over to his desk, babbling the entire time. I latched on to him and never let go, all the way through to high school. Of course he was the first person I’d told I was gay when we were fifteen. He never questioned it, accepting it as a part of me. He protected me from bullies and tutored me in math. I followed him to RU when he got his scholarship, since I didn’t care where I went. Accounting was the same at whatever college.
“It’s serious, then?” Devon wiped the sweat off his skin.
I snorted. “Like every time you told me about some girl it was serious.”
“You wound me, bro, you really do.” He put his hand over his chest and pretended to swoon. “Are you gonna tell me about him, or is this one of those conversations that requires me grabbing my dad’s secret beer stash out of the truck?”
I fiddled with the piece of plywood I’d picked up from the pile, trying to relieve the tension I felt creep up in my shoulders. Now that I’d started this, I didn’t know where to go with it. Devon never had a problem talking about his girls. It felt natural to want to tell him when I met someone. And I wanted someone else to know about Lou, someone from my old life. Otherwise it felt like I’d entered this beach world where nothing else was real. Like once I got back on the parkway, this place would disappear.
“He’s hot,” I said finally. “And he likes to cook. His family owns a pizza place down here.”
“Something good came from you staying down here.” Devon whistled. He looked impressed.
“That and my GPA.”
“Now, see, I don’t buy that. You could’ve gone to county college at home.”
I started to position my plywood, mostly so I didn’t have to meet Devon’s eyes. “And live with my mom? Or even worse, my dad?” And hear him bitch every night that I wasn’t the math whiz he was? No fucking way.
Devon didn’t comment. This was why we were still friends. He came over and drilled in the plywood, four quick movements, getting each corner.
“When are you coming back to RU?” he asked as we finished the last board.
“I don’t know.” I wiped the sweat off my brow. The air felt oppressive, and the clouds hung low in the sky, signs of the storm to come. “And you seem to be getting on fine without me.”
Yeah, I was bitter about all the ignored texts.
“Dude. I have practice.”
He said it like it was obvious, and thinking about it, I really should have known. The only reason we saw each other at all during football season was because we’d lived together. I’d forgotten all of that, my sense of the rhythm of time all disrupted.
“You boys done back there?” Mr. Simmons called.
We ended up helping him with the rest of the windows before going inside for lunch. Mrs. S had washed all my dishes and cleaned the kitchen. Our sandwiches were laid out on plates around the table, where I hadn’t eaten a single meal since the summer.
“I’m glad you decided to live here, Nick. I really didn’t want to shut the house down for the winter,” she said after we sat down to eat. “Last year the pipes froze.”
“That was not my fault, woman.” Mr. S gave her a look. He then turned to me to explain. “Our last winter tenant skipped out without paying his bills. Everything got shut off right before a snowstorm.”
“And we are never letting that happen again.” She touched his hand briefly with her own, a quick bit of reassurance between the two of them. He smiled at her, and her eyes lit up in return.
To be honest, I’d always been a little jealous of Devon’s parents. Despite twenty-five years of marriage, they obviously still loved each other. It was the kind of thing I maybe wanted someday.
Was Lou that person? The thought struck me suddenly, and the bread in my mouth turned to ash. Shit, way to ramp up the relationship. Maybe I should worry about having sex first.
Mrs. S said something, and I had to ask her to repeat it.
“I asked where you were going during the storm.”
Her words hit me like a jolt of lightning. “What?”
“Well, you can’t stay here alone. There’s already voluntary evacuations.”
“Half the people will stay. Remember Hurricane Irene? ‘Get the hell off the beach’?” Mr. S shook his head. “That was a bust.”
I gulped down my sandwich, and it sat in my belly like a rock. What if this didn’t turn out to be a bust like Irene last year? What was I going to do? Pack up and leave? I couldn’t just drive up to one of my parents’ places. I had class! I couldn’t let that slide—I’d learned the hard way not to do that.
&nbs
p; “I’ll figure something out.”
My heart sank as I watched them leave. I had the instructions on how to shut everything down and the last piece of plywood for the front door when I finally left.
Once I knew where I was going.
I packed up all my stuff, except for my toothbrush and some clothes for tomorrow. Better to be prepared, right? I kept getting up to pace and stare at the lamp flickering. The air in here didn’t move, now that I couldn’t open any windows, so even with the ceiling fan going, it felt hard to breathe. That could be the pressure system moving in, the low-hanging clouds that pressed down on me from above.
Okay, I had to stop thinking about the weather. I sat on the couch, grabbed my phone, and called Lou. We always texted before bed, but tonight I wanted to hear his voice. He answered a bit out of breath, and I resisted the urge to tease him about what he could have been doing.
“Hey.” His deep voice rumbled through the phone, making my toes curl. “I just got in. We’ve been putting sandbags in the parking lot.”
“Sounds like a good time.”
“Not my idea of fun.”
I got up and walked around, finally opening the door to stand out on the front porch. I couldn’t take it inside with the windows all blocked up.
“I need to evacuate, but I don’t want to drive back up north.” I could get a hotel on the mainland, if any rooms were left. Dad’s credit card could handle that.
“You can come here,” he said. “We can ride out this bitch together.”
“Are you sure?” I didn’t want to push things too fast between us, but it wasn’t like I caused the fucking hurricane.
“Sure. It’ll be fun. We’ll paint our nails and do each other’s hair.”
“Shut up.” But he had me smiling and in a better mood. The clouds couldn’t bother me now.
“Seriously, I wanted to invite you over before. Never had the time.”
The pizza business waited for no man. Okay, I couldn’t put all the blame on Lou’s work. I’d been knee-deep in midterms all week, and now that everything had been turned in, I had a moment to breathe. And maybe take advantage of this forced lull if it gave me and Lou some extra time together.
“Okay. I’ll be there tomorrow.”
“See you then.”
THE EVACUATION order became mandatory that Sunday, which meant I couldn’t have stayed even if I’d wanted to. Not that I’d seriously considered it. I hadn’t even attempted my morning run on the boardwalk once I saw how nasty the ocean looked, the waves crashing angrily against the shore.
The roar of the wind sent prickles down my spine as I nailed in that last piece of plywood. It sounded awful, like a low moan or a wail. Like someone crying out in pain. The clouds had turned black and gray, hanging low and promising vengeance.
I did not want to stick around and see what the hurricane would dump on us.
I’d pocketed the extra nails and was about to head to my car when I heard a sound even with the wind being so loud. I stopped in midstep, my heart racing, because it sounded like a fucking baby crying. I turned around, listening carefully for the high-pitched keen over the wind that buffeted my skin.
There—it had to be coming from the little section of shrubs near the porch. I knelt down and found a gray kitten meowing at me.
“Where the hell did you come from?”
We stared at each other for a minute. Then he mewed, this little pathetic sound like he was lost. I couldn’t leave him here to face the storm alone.
“All right. Come with me. I sure hope you like pizza.”
Yeah, I knew cats didn’t eat pizza. That meant I needed to make a pit stop before heading to Lou’s. I scooped up the pathetic-looking thing—who, wow, really wanted to come with me, I didn’t even get scratched—and put him in the backseat of my car. There was plenty of crap back there to keep him company. I’d packed up all my clothes, my laptop, and my textbooks. Everything else in the house belonged to the Simmons.
I did take Devon’s red travel mug. That shit kept coffee hot for hours.
Seeing all the stuff back there reminded me of Clara. Leaving the kitten to snuggle in one of my sweatshirts, I got in the driver’s seat and hit my hands-free to dial Clara’s number.
She picked up after three rings, right when I turned onto 35.
“Hey, Blondie.”
I could hear what sounded like traffic in the background. “Hey. I never checked to see if you had a place to go during the storm.”
She laughed. “Well, that’s one of the advantages of not having a house to evacuate from.”
“Clara, seriously.”
“I am seriously driving my ass out of town. A friend of mine in Hamilton is willing to put me up for a few days. I’ll be safer than you are.”
Her words brought a chill down my spine. As I drove toward the bridge, I saw boarded-up windows, some spray painted with the words, “Sandy, be kind to us.” Seaside looked like some creepy ghost town you’d see in a video game. That combined with the zing in the air had the hair on the back of my neck rising.
“Take care of yourself,” I told her.
“I always do.”
I arrived at Martelli’s a bit later than expected and with a kitten and some new cat supplies. I’d had to fight off the hordes of last-minute shoppers to get them. After all that work, I hoped that Lou wasn’t allergic to cats or anything.
Wait. What if he was? Could I be with a guy who couldn’t be with a cat?
I pulled into the parking lot of Martelli’s, driving around the sandbags that had been set up around the perimeter. They weren’t fucking around, were they? Lou and an older man I assumed was his dad were having an intense… discussion, if you wanted to call it that. Both were flailing their arms, but that was how Lou talked normally, so it might just be his thing.
I left the kitten in the car before going out to greet them. I didn’t want to meet his dad while explaining why I had a cat. The wind whipped my hair and tore into my jacket as I made my way to where they stood.
Lou looked relieved to see me. His shoulders loosened, and he gestured in my direction. “Hey. Nick, this is my dad. Papa, this is Nick.”
He put the accent on the second half of “papa.” How adorable. I bit my lip to keep from grinning stupidly at him. That would not make a great first impression.
“Nice to meet you, sir.” I shook his hand with my strongest grip, glad I’d wiped off my sweaty palm before reaching out.
I could see Lou in Mr. Martelli. They had the same eyes, and his salt-and-pepper hair did the same crazy wave thing. He appeared tense, but that probably had nothing to do with me. I hoped.
“Nick. Short for Nicholas? Are you Greek, son?”
I swallowed at being called “son.” Did that mean I met with his approval? “Ah, no. I mean, I guess I could be, but I always thought we were German, Irish, and Danish.”
He laughed. “A mutt, then.”
Lou ducked his head, and his cheeks reddened. “Not everyone is right off the boat like us, Dad.”
“Ah, he knows I’m kidding.” Mr. Martelli nodded. “You staying with Lou?”
“Um, yes.” For fuck’s sake, my voice squeaked like a fourteen-year-old. If I wanted to act guilty about it, I couldn’t have tried harder. “I live out on Seaside, and they’re evacuating the island.”
He nodded. “Move your car uphill. If Route 37 floods, you don’t want to be watching it float down the road.”
“Let him unpack first.” Lou grabbed my arm and steered me toward my Honda. His father went back into the restaurant with a wave.
“What were you arguing about?” I asked in a low voice as Lou reached for the door.
His head dropped. “Stupid shit, as usual. How late to keep the restaurant open tonight.”
I wasn’t the only one who had problems talking to their dad. Fuck, would we ever live up to their expectations?
“What is that?” Lou said, staring down at the kitten, who seemed upset to have his nest dist
urbed.
“It’s a cat.”
Lou gave me a look that said he damn well knew it was a cat.
“I hope you’re not allergic. I found him in my bushes this morning, and I couldn’t leave him there.” I tucked my hands in my pockets and rocked back on my heels, not sure how he’d react.
He shook his head and pulled me in for a kiss. “You are too sweet, Nick.”
“Shut up.”
Turned out he wasn’t allergic, thankfully. We argued about names all the way up the stairs to his apartment.
“I think Calzone is a perfectly good name for a cat,” Lou said.
“We are not naming him after food.” I lugged my duffel and laptop bag up the steps behind him. Lou had the cat supply bags and the traitorous kitten perched on his shoulder. “How about Nibbles?”
“I could be convinced.” He unlocked the door and stepped inside.
I hesitated a moment. This was a big step. I’d finally get to see Lou’s place for the first time. Unlike my rental, which was filled with the stuff the Simmons chose, this was his home. It would be like seeing a part of him that I hadn’t before.
Once inside I took a quick look around. The living area and kitchen were all one big room. Tucked away to the left, opposite the little kitchen, was a weight machine and a rack of dumbbells. I burst out laughing at the poster of Rocky on the wall.
“Sly Stallone? Really?” I set my stuff down on an ancient plaid couch and went to examine it. It seemed genuine too—a classic seventies movie poster in a black-bordered frame.
“It’s inspiration to work out.” Lou came up behind me and put his hands around my waist, then slipped his fingers between my shirt and the waistband of my jeans. I shivered at the touch. “And he’s hot.”
I laughed, but it came out a little forced. His touch always did something to me, and I felt myself growing uncomfortably hard. Fuck, his family was right downstairs.
“Is that a cat you’re carrying, or are you happy to see me?”
“The cat’s on the couch.” Lou’s breath was hot on my ear, his lips warm as he kissed down the side of my neck.