Love in the Time of Hurricanes

by CC Bridges

  Lou and his dad stood in the living room, staring each other down. Lou’s cheeks were bright red, but he didn’t look away from his father. Mr. Martelli had one hand on his chest, which made me worry about his heart.

  “That’s not the point. You have responsibilities….” Mr. Martelli was in the middle of saying, but I didn’t know in response to what.

  “No, Papa, that is the point.” Lou ran his hands through his hair, nearly hard enough to tear out chunks. I winced. He had beautiful hair, and I did not want to find clumps of it on the floor. “Why is it my responsibility? Why not Gio?”

  “Gio has a wife and family and another job.”

  “I would like a family too, someday,” Lou said in this quiet, soft voice. I was this close to coming out of my hiding space and hugging him. “But I’m not living my life if I’m spending every day managing the restaurant. I only met Nick because he walked in to order food!”

  That seemed to surprise his father. “I thought you liked working here. That’s why you moved upstairs!”

  “I always thought I needed to be the good son. I had something to prove. I didn’t want to be just your gay son.” Lou ducked his head.

  I might have gasped, but luckily neither of them heard me.

  His father reached out with one hand and then let it drop. “Luigi, you know that—I never…. You’re my son. You have nothing to prove.”

  “I didn’t want to risk doing anything that—” Lou choked. “—would make you not love me.”

  “Luigi. You are my son.”

  When father moved to embrace son, I closed the door and slipped back into bed. A “meow” warned me that I’d nearly rolled onto Nibbles. “Hey, how long have you been under there?” I’d been so out of it, I hadn’t even noticed his furry body cuddled up next to me. I scratched his chin and closed my eyes, waiting for Lou to finish his conversation.

  I’d witnessed something personal. Something I shouldn’t have seen. Yet something inside me craved that closer connection. I wanted to know Lou, to understand what made him tick. We’d lost something after the hurricane, and I wanted it back.

  I could make a decision here and now to fight for us. I had to stop letting things happen to me. Clara had been right, but I hadn’t been ready to hear it. Now, I might not know what the hell I was doing, but I’d rather be making my own choices than letting everything get bottled up inside to the point that I ended up in the hospital.

  Nibbles started to purr as a result of my petting, and I grinned at him. “You approve, mister?”

  There was a gentle knock on the door before Lou opened it and poked his head into the room. “Hey. Uh, how much of that did you hear?”

  “I am clearly not stealthy in my eavesdropping.” I sat up, and Nibbles wandered off, affronted that I’d changed position. “I heard a bit.”

  Lou shrugged. “I was going to tell some of it to you anyway.” He did that hands in his hair thing again, and I wanted to grab his hands. Stop messing up that beautiful hair.

  I curled my fingers in the bedsheets to keep myself grounded. I didn’t know how to respond to that. “All right?”

  “Can I?” He gestured to the room.

  “Oh, come in, shit, you don’t need my permission. It’s your room.” I shifted over to make space, dislodging Nibbles yet again. The cat hopped off the bed, his tail raised in annoyance.

  Lou stepped inside and weaved his way around Nibbles to sit on the edge of the bed, nearly close enough to touch. “The thing is—you were right.”

  “Course I was. Right about what?” I tried to play off the sudden bout of panic his words inspired.

  “I was spending too much time down at the pizzeria. Now, yeah, I tend to work a lot of hours anyway, and at first, it was trying to make up some lost revenue from the hurricane, you know?” The earnestness in his eyes had me reaching out to take his hand—fuck my insecurities.

  Lou glanced down at our joined fingers and smiled. “Working that much wasn’t normal. Something had to give, and unfortunately what I let go of was you.”

  “To be fair, I haven’t exactly been a joy to deal with.” I rubbed my thumb in circles against his hand, aiming for soothing, but damn if I didn’t need the contact myself.

  “Well, maybe.” Lou smirked and I laughed in response. Then he got serious. “Thing is, this is a problem that didn’t start with you. I always let them take advantage of me. It got worse after I moved above the pizzeria. I was always here, so what was the problem with working so much?”

  I nodded.

  “But I never stopped to question it. It was a given that I’d be working the family business. I told you I took classes at the college? I stopped because there didn’t seem to be much point. I was going to be sweeping the floors and busing the tables the rest of my life.”

  “Oh, Lou.” That sounded horrible.

  “Stop. It wasn’t terrible. I like cooking. That’s my favorite part.” Lou looked down at our joined hands and squeezed. “Everything changed when you walked in my door, you know.”

  “Well, yeah. You met me. And I kept coming back.”

  Lou shook his head. “Every day of my life had been exactly the same. I’d given up even wanting anything else, and then you show up, with your taking a year off to find yourself and living at the beach….”

  “God, I hope I wasn’t that dramatic.”

  “In a good way. You made me realize I could want more.” Lou brought my hand up to his lips and kissed it, a twinkle in his eye. “And that’s the conversation I had with my dad. I’m going to work less at the pizzeria, and, um, I’m going to apply to culinary school.”

  “Lou, that’s fantastic.” I shifted on the bed to get a better angle to kiss him. I could feel his smile against my lips, and I reveled in it. I missed this—how he tasted, the feel of his stubble against my chin.

  “It’s a start.” He pulled away a bit. “But I need to know what you want, Nick. Do you still want to be with me?”

  “Yes,” I answered, immediately. There was no question of me wanting Lou, of needing him in my life. However, we still had to determine how. “It’s just… I don’t know where I’m going to be next semester. I’ve been freaking out because, because….” Time to lay it out, Nick. Don’t fucking pussyfoot around. “Things were tense, and I didn’t want to ask if I could live here another semester. And my dad wants me to go back to RU.”

  “What do you want to do?”

  I opened my mouth and then couldn’t answer. What did I want? I’d come down here to answer that question. Nothing had gone according to plan. Meeting Lou—and even Clara and Ana—had changed everything. Lou had shown me beauty, and so much of that had been destroyed by the hurricane. But that storm couldn’t destroy us.

  “I want you. Us. I want to make us work.”

  Lou cupped his hands around my face and rubbed gently with his thumbs. “Then we’ll figure this out together.”

  He kissed me, deep, as if he were trying to devour me. And I wanted to be devoured. I grasped onto his forearms, desperate for some kind of purchase. Lou bit at my lower lip, and I shivered. Fuck, that felt good.

  Desire coiled in my belly, flaring between us. I let him push me back, and Lou smiled down at me. “I do like how you look in my bed.”

  “It’s lucky that I like being here.” I wiggled my eyebrows, and he burst out laughing.

  I drank in his laughter, watching the way his face softened as he smiled down at me. I could look at his face forever.

  Lou shifted to straddle me before he lifted the hem of my shirt. I let him pull it overhead, lifting my arms so he could tug it off. He leaned down to kiss me again, and I fisted my hand in his T-shirt, unable to do more than hold on.

  I went on the attack this time, biting his lip, nuzzling his jaw, getting a taste for him. For once I felt like I could taste something deeper than the Italian spices that always flavored him. I tasted Lou, unadulterated. I wanted more.

  He pulled away long enough to pull off his own shirt. I
took a moment to explore his chest, the pert pink nipples, the hair that dusted his pecs and the trail that went down his abs to his navel. I felt like I was learning his body all over again, this time in the light of day rather than the candlelit night of the storm.

  I had to touch. I used my hands at first, delving into that soft hair. Then I followed with lips and tongue, biting hard enough to leave little marks. Lou gasped at that, and I loved the sound.

  We’d tumbled a bit on the bed, lying side by side while I explored. Naturally I followed the treasure trail all the way down until I got to the button of his fly. I popped it, glancing up at Lou to check his expression. His eyes were heavy-lidded with desire, and he didn’t need to speak. I knew.

  I freed his cock from his jeans and boxers, taking a moment to savor the weight of it in my hand. I ran my thumb across the head, gathering the precome that welled up at my touch.

  Lou covered my hand with his own. “Let’s finish stripping first.”

  “You plan on giving me a show?”

  “Only if you provide the music.” Lou shimmied off the bed, leaving me to watch as he hooked his thumbs in the waistband of his jeans and very slowly lowered them down his legs. Then with a wink, he turned his back to me and pulled down his boxers, giving me a very fine view of his ass.

  I laughed, but it came out half-strangled. I got up and put my hands on his firm buttocks, kneading the flesh there. Fuck, I wanted to get inside him, to know how he felt everywhere.

  Lou turned to face me. “You’re wearing too many clothes.”

  He was right, and these were the jeans I’d been wearing since yesterday. Yuck. It felt good to kick them off, but I felt a little self-conscious realizing that. “Maybe I should shower.”

  “Let me get you nice and dirty first,” Lou said in a low growl. His eyes narrowed, and I felt like his prey as he pushed me back onto the bed. The room smelled of musk and sweat, and we’d hardly begun.

  He straddled me again, cock to cock. I hissed as our bodies made contact. I felt hypersensitive and swollen everywhere. Lou wrapped his hand around both of us, and I arched my back, coming up off the bed in shock. It felt good after going without his touch for so long.

  “Easy.” Lou leaned down to kiss me. “Don’t want you to hurt yourself.”

  “Yeah, I don’t want to explain that we had to return to the ER due to a sex-related injury.”

  “If you can talk that much, I’m not doing this right.”

  And then he mouthed down my jaw and neck, and I squirmed. I didn’t know what to do with my hands, so I placed them on his shoulders and held on for the ride. He seemed to be everywhere, kissing my lips, then grazing my nipples, brushing down my belly. But not where I needed him to be.

  “Lou,” I gasped.

  Taking pity on me, he moved to straddle me once again. This time I was ready for it when he touched my cock, taking it and his own in his large hand. He began to stroke, and I couldn’t speak, or make a joke, or do anything but feel.

  We came at nearly the same time, with a shout from Lou and a moan from me. I still held tight to him, and I was pretty sure I left some bruises on his arms. Our seed mixed together on my belly, and after the glow of my orgasm faded, I looked down at myself and grimaced.

  Lou chuckled and kissed me, showing no signs of being grossed out. “Shower now?”

  “Oh yeah.”

  We hit the shower together, and though it was a tight fit, it felt good to take the time to slowly clean each other up. I felt like I could go again, but it was a low hum in my belly, a pleasant thrum reminding me of what we’d done and could do again. I liked being with him under the spray of warm water.

  Lou spoke with his hands, and I mean that beyond the gestures he made when animated. His touches meant something, how he drew his fingers down my arm, and the way he rubbed circles with the washcloth on my belly.

  It soothed me into this almost meditative state. And, of course, that was when the solution hit me. I knew exactly what I wanted to do. I thought back to everything that had happened since I got down here—meeting Clara and hearing about her situation but helpless to do anything about it; the hurricane that drove people out of their homes; the locals who poured into the pizzeria looking for a connection after the storm.

  “I want to help people,” I blurted, the water from the shower running over my face and down my chest.

  Lou nodded, as if of course I’d say this, like we’d continued our conversation from earlier uninterrupted by sex.

  “All right. Let’s make that happen.”

  And that was when I fell in love.

  Chapter 13

  OF COURSE, it wasn’t quite that easy.

  It took the rest of the week to get things figured out, and by the time the Wednesday before Thanksgiving rolled around, I wasn’t 100 percent sure it would all work, but at least we had a plan. It turned out Lou was incredibly single-minded, and when he had a goal, he gave everything to achieving it. It was one of the things I loved about him.

  “Drive safe, okay?” He fidgeted as I put my laptop bag in the backseat of my car.

  “I’ll be back before you know it.” I shut the door and held out my arms for a hug.

  Lou obliged, wrapping me up in his embrace like a giant warm coat. I breathed in deeply, memorizing his scent. It would have to hold me the entire trip up to North Jersey.

  The parkway sucked, as usual. I had to white knuckle it a few times as I raced around dicey curves with cars that got way too close to me. It was a relief when I finally was able to get on the turnpike. I felt like I could breathe once I hit those much wider lanes, and I didn’t have to weave around cars with out-of-state plates that didn’t understand tollbooths. My ears popped once as the elevation changed, and it reminded me that I was heading to another world.

  I spent Wednesday night with my mom and her family. We’d done this since my parents divorced, since Dad had gotten the rights to the big holiday in the settlement. I didn’t know why we still did it that way, since I was technically an adult now. We’d gotten into the habit and never stopped to think about it.

  Like I’d gotten into the habit of going along with what my dad planned for me. Time to break it.

  “You look happy.”

  My mom had come up behind me as I was dishing up some more of my aunt’s stuffing. I had to take what I could get before my cousins claimed the leftovers.

  She’d worried a lot about me being happy. Sometimes her idea of how to fix that didn’t always match up with mine. I knew she cared, though. It was that she didn’t always understand.

  “I am. I met someone. Down the Shore.” I’d told her about staying with Lou, but I hadn’t really explained the boyfriend part. “I think it’s the start of something great.”

  “Oh? Tell me all about him.”

  And I did. It felt good for once, sharing stuff with my mom. The past few months had really happened, and talking about all of it made it seem real. She agreed with me about changing my major, and I would need that support when I broke the news to my dad tomorrow.

  “Don’t do something you hate for the rest of your life.”

  If only my dad would agree.

  I stayed at her place that night, in my old bedroom with the Wonder Woman poster on my closet door. I’d always loved her, ever since I was a kid. Lou had his embarrassing collection of vintage stuff, but he still had no idea about my comic book obsession. Yet.

  I got up from the bed and took the poster down, careful to remove the old pushpins I’d used like ten years ago. Luckily they hadn’t rusted to the door or anything. I rolled it up and tucked it in with the rest of my things. Lou’s place could use some redecorating.

  I PULLED into my dad’s driveway a little before one on Thanksgiving. He lived in a McMansion about twenty minutes north of my mom. My older Honda looked kinda shabby parked behind his Volvo, but you know what? I wouldn’t trade that old thing for the world.

  My stepmother opened the door and greeted me with a smile.
“Hello, Nicholas. Happy Thanksgiving.”

  I let her kiss my cheek. I didn’t dislike Sarah, really; it was that I didn’t know her well. Every time I came to visit, it was like she had this porcelain mask, like she had to be the perfect wife. Did that justify my dad leaving my mom for her?

  I handed over the bottle of champagne I’d snagged on the way over. She took my coat and led me to the dining room, where everything was already set up on the fancy table, set with fine china and crystal glasses.

  Dinner was catered like this every year. Turkey cooked to perfection, with fancy gourmet sides and bakery-made pumpkin pie. Dad liked to show off. I preferred Mom’s family’s home cooking—though, let’s be real, it was nothing like Lou’s cooking. I was really looking forward to going home and eating with Lou’s family.

  Wow, when had the pizzeria become home? That was one heck of a change from when I wasn’t sure of my welcome. But now I knew it was exactly where I belonged.

  “Nicholas, did you ever go find out about returning to RU next semester?” Dad had the good manners to wait until we were eating before interrogating me. At least he hadn’t started in before I had a chance to get something in my stomach.

  “As a matter of fact, Dad, I did. And it looks like I will be going back.”

  “That’s excellent news.”

  “But not until next fall. I got an internship during the spring with the Shore Heroes Foundation. I’m going to be helping restore the Shore.”

  Dad almost dropped his fork. It was good to see a bit of emotion there. He was usually pretty stoic. I remembered how Lou’s dad had gotten emotional, how he’d hugged his son with tears in his eyes. I would never get that kind of reaction from my dad. Well, screw him.

  “How is that going to help your career?”

  “It’s going to look fabulous when I switch my major to social work.”

  “And why the hell would you do that?”

  At first I wanted to give the flippant answer. I wanted to tell him off, to tell him that finally I was going to do what I wanted to do for once in my life. That I fucking hated accounting. That I failed that class because I needed an excuse to stop, just stop.