by Sloan Parker
Maybe he would never be able to lean on someone, to rely on them in any way. Maybe he’d never know how to truly accept help, but I had to try. He’d been there for me in so many ways.
“You went off with that guy for a week for us,” I said. “And you won’t live with me if I’m the one paying for it? That doesn’t make sense to me.”
He didn’t respond. Just kept his stare locked on the ceiling.
“We’ve gotta start somewhere,” I added. “And if I can get us into one of those apartments, there’s no way I’m not taking it for us.”
Another minute passed before he spoke. “You’re taking advantage of my big weakness here.”
“What weakness?”
He gave up on the ceiling and met my stare. “There’s nothing I wouldn’t do for you.”
I smiled. I couldn’t hold it back. “Does that mean you’re gonna live with me?”
He laughed. “We may be homeless, but we’ve already been living together for a year now.”
I rolled my eyes at that, but he was right.
“We’re family, Sean. That’ll never change.”
I bit my lower lip to keep the tears at bay and smacked him right in the middle of his chest.
He flinched. “Ow. What the hell was that for?”
“For being an idiot. You love me and we’re family? Then don’t start being an ass about money. We get a chance to get the hell out and we’re taking it. Together.” I stretched out on the bed again and laid my head on his chest.
He wrapped his arms around me and went back to petting my hair. “Okay. We’re taking it.”
* * * *
Even without a clock, I was very aware of the passage of time. The light of the muted TV cast an eerie glow across the bed, and us. I could tell whenever the latest show had changed to a commercial by that light alone. How many commercial breaks in an hour? In a day? In one week?
Even if I did everything the social worker had said, and even if she did set me up with the interviews she’d promised, we were talking weeks from now, months maybe. She’d mentioned a required deposit and a bank account for the apartment.
What did we do until then? I lifted my head. “I think I should go apply for some jobs while we’re staying here. I’ve got new clothes and someplace to wash up.”
Gavin nodded, then said, “Even if you find something this week, it’ll take time to save up enough cash to rent a place. And…”
“What?”
“Without that social worker’s help, I’m not sure what you’ll find.”
“It’s worth a try. We haven’t looked for anything in a while.”
“Yeah,” he finally said. “You’re right. We should try.”
I moved to lay my head on his chest again, but before I could settle into place, he sat up and leaned back against the headboard. He was deep in thought, working something out. “Did you ever have a boyfriend back home?” he asked. “Somebody you’d trust?”
“No.” I could feel the blood rush to my face. I pulled again at the loose threads from the weeds on the blanket. “Never had anyone like that. I mean, not even…”
He was watching me again, his eyebrows drawn in like he couldn’t believe what I was saying. “So before today, you hadn’t…”
I nodded. “I gave a couple blowjobs in high school, but yeah, you were my first.” Not really, but he knew what I meant. The first I hadn’t been paid for, the first time I’d been fucked by someone who loved me, someone I loved.
He reached out and caressed my face with an open hand. “Is there any chance you can go home?”
I gripped his forearm and stopped his hand’s movements. “What?”
“We’re not going back to the streets. No matter what.” His green eyes never looked so serious, and that was saying a lot. “We have to find a place to stay. I think…” He took a deep breath. “We need someone to help us until we can get on our feet.” I couldn’t believe he was actually admitting that, but…
“I can’t…” I shook my head and swallowed down the panic welling in my throat. “I can’t go back there. They hate me. They wanted to fix me and when that didn’t work…”
He pulled me into his arms.
I was shaking. So was my voice. “Even if they let me in, they’ll never let you stay with me.”
“It’s okay. We’ll think of something.”
I knew now, that’s what he’d been trying to do for weeks.
He tightened the embrace, and I held on to him in return. We sat there in the quiet, listening to the steady drip of water from the shower in the bathroom, like a clock counting down the seconds.
* * * *
I lifted my foot out of the water and used my toes to turn off the faucet. I didn’t want to move from where I was leaning back against Gavin’s chest, his long legs stretched out on each side of me and his arms wrapped around my chest. The steam-filled bathroom and the warm water surrounding us in the small tub felt like our own private refuge.
After our talk the night before, we’d stayed in bed, neither of us offering anything more about our futures before falling asleep in each other’s arms.
In the morning, I’d awoken on my stomach, my right leg tucked up and his mouth doing delicious things to my ass.
When I’d started moaning, he’d flipped me over and took my cock into his mouth. I hadn’t been on the receiving end since those rushed exchanges in high school, and when I came between his lips, I had tears in my eyes.
Despite the tub being nowhere near large enough for two people, leaning back against his warm, wet body—his hands caressing my chest, his lips sliding along my neck—was the most romantic moment of my life. I reached back and held his head in my left hand.
He kissed my skin again and again. His lips brushed along my neck to my ear. “I love you,” he whispered.
Who knew he’d be the one to say those words first and more often?
I caressed his outer thigh with my other hand and was about to tell him I loved him too when he changed gears on me.
He said, “The only reason either of us haven’t gotten really sick is fucking dumb luck. You know that, right?”
“I know.” We’d both spent time at the free clinic for treatment of STDs and had been luckier than most that we hadn’t gotten something more serious than we had. But I wasn’t sure why he’d brought it up. He didn’t need to sell me on the reasons we had to change things. He’d already asked me to do the one thing I couldn’t—return to my parents’ house. What else could he be considering?
He reached over my shoulder for a wash cloth and soaped it up. He encouraged me to lean forward and set to washing my back in slow, sensual strokes. The tropical coconut scent filled the air around us.
“You have cousins, right?” he asked as he continued swirling the wash cloth over my shoulder blades. “Were your aunts and uncles like your parents?”
“Just have the one aunt. Her husband ran out on her when I was little. She’s a bitter, hateful person, worse than my mom.”
Gavin stopped the washing. He had a hand flat on my back, and I could feel the tension in that one touch.
“What are you thinking?” I asked. We’d come a long way in twenty-four hours. I would’ve never asked that before if he didn’t offer his thoughts on his own.
He still hadn’t moved. “That old guy in the SUV…”
The warm air of the bathroom no longer felt relaxing and safe. It felt thick and suffocating. I could barely breathe.
Gavin started scrubbing my back again, his hand working faster than before, like he had to keep moving, had to be doing something. “He wants to see me again. Wants it to be a regular thing.”
Now it was me who had to move or I might explode with disbelief and anger and panic. I surged up and stood, the water running down my body onto the floor as I stepped from the tub. On my way out of the bathroom, I found my jeans and tugged them on without underwear. The jeans got stuck twice on my wet skin and I yanked harder.
Gavin came
out of the bathroom, a towel around his hips.
I paced along the wall by the hotel room door. “I thought you said—”
“It’s good money.”
I stilled. “Why? What did he make you do?”
“He just likes to feel young, powerful.”
“What did he do to you?” But did it matter? It wasn’t anything I wanted him to do with someone else. I couldn’t fathom watching him get in that black SUV again. No matter what.
He shrugged and said nothing for so long I was convinced he’d never tell me. Then he said, “He tied me up. Hit me with a leather strap.”
My mouth dropped open. I hadn’t seen any marks on his body.
He continued like he could hear my thoughts. “Not hard. Barely enough to leave a mark.” I almost missed the next words he said them so low. “Had a scarf around my neck that he…” Gavin stopped, and I didn’t need to hear the rest.
I was back to pacing again, picking up speed the longer I kept at it. I couldn’t imagine him tied up or held down, or someone hitting him or fucking cutting off his ability to breathe like that. It wasn’t him, even if he was getting paid for it. He had lectured me enough times not to let myself get into a situation like that where I couldn’t walk away if I needed to.
Don’t ever go off with more than one guy, and never let him tie you up. A guy gets you tied up, and he’ll do whatever the fuck he wants and you could wind up dead.
I stopped and faced him. He was staring at that stupid dead-duck picture over the bed, his lower lip trembling. I moved toward him. “Gavin…”
He shook his head and took a step back. “It’s okay. He’s harmless. Just a lonely old man.”
“You can’t go back there.”
Gavin leaned against the wall behind him, the bed between us seeming somehow larger than when we’d made love there. He said, “I don’t want you hustling anymore.”
“And you’re not going to either. We’ll figure something out.”
He’d been right. We needed someplace to stay until we could get jobs and save up some cash.
But we had no one in the city. No family. No friends.
I could think of only one option, one place where I’d once been liked—loved even.
It was time for me to know the truth.
I sat on the bed and nodded. “How much money do we have left?”
He searched my face. “Why?”
“Is there enough for two bus tickets to Ohio?”
* * * *
Gavin’s eyes were wide as he took in the sight of all the Christmas lights and lawn decorations at every house we passed, a light snowfall coming down all around us. When we’d left the bus station twenty minutes earlier, the snow had started again. I wasn’t sure if that was a good sign or not.
We neared a church, and Gavin stopped in his tracks. “What the fuck is that?”
“Huh?” I followed his gaze. “Oh, it’s a live nativity scene. Tells the story of how they believe Jesus was born.”
He pointed at the snow-covered lawn before the church where several men and women wearing robes stood in a pile of loose straw under a thin wooden awning that didn’t offer much shelter from the falling snow. “Those are real people in costumes?”
“Yeah.”
He laughed. So hard I thought he was going to bust something. “Do they know it’s freezing out here?”
I laughed with him. “They do it every year.”
He jabbed a finger their way again. “That better not be a real fucking baby.”
“I think it’s a doll.” I turned to stand shoulder-to-shoulder with him and watched the live nativity for a minute, Gavin still chuckling beside me. “I guess,” I said, “it’s supposed to be a tribute to their faith or something.”
His laughter cut short. He was quiet as we watched the people standing perfectly still in the snowfall. He took a deep breath and said, “I’ve never believed in anything that much.” He turned my way. “Well, one thing.”
I took his hand in mine and squeezed. I wasn’t about to hold back, even here. If we couldn’t be safe and accepted by most people in this town, then we weren’t going to stay for long. Of course, we might not be staying anyway if the two most important people couldn’t accept us.
We started walking again, and five minutes later we turned onto Oak Street and headed for the fifth house on the left.
Before we got to the driveway, I stopped short. I couldn’t move another inch.
Breathlessly Gavin let out, “Wow.” He kept going forward a few more steps, stumbling a bit like he couldn’t believe what he was seeing.
The picture of me on the lawn sign was huge and had been altered to advance my age a few years beyond the high school photo from my junior year I could tell it had started out as.
The words above my face read, Have you seen our grandson? Beside my huge-ass head was a description of me, when and where I’d last been seen, and a phone number to call.
I wasn’t even aware I’d started walking again until I stood beside Gavin at the sign. Gavin lifted a hand and touched the photo of me at the top of my left cheek. “Same eyes,” he said.
We kept on standing there in the snow, staring at the sign.
Eventually, he tugged on my arm and led me to the front door. He watched me for a moment, waited, then knocked.
There was no answer.
I couldn’t take my gaze off the clear plastic sleeve taped to the door, right at eye level. Inside was an envelope with my name handwritten on the front.
When the silence and my stoic stance continued on, Gavin asked, “That’s for you?”
“Yes.” That was all I could manage. How long had that envelope been on that door waiting for me? The plastic covering looked like it had been through years of wind and rain and snow.
Gavin carefully slid out the envelope and handed it to me. I read aloud from the folded piece of paper I found inside.
“Dearest Sean,
“If we are gone when you read this, please do not leave. The key to the house is where we always kept it when you were little. Go inside. There’s food in the fridge and a room upstairs waiting for you. We love you. Nothing about you and nothing you’ve had to do since you left will change that. Please do not leave until we can see you.
“All our love, Grandma and Grandpa.
“P.S. If you’re a burglar reading this, yes, there is a key hidden outside. We don’t have much but feel free to take a look if you’re so inclined, just please put the note back on the door for our grandson.”
Gavin stared at the paper. “Is that for real?” He sounded in awe.
“Yeah, I think so.” That last part was definitely my grandma. So polite, even to someone robbing her.
On shaky legs, I made my way to the planter with the hidden key and unlocked the front door. It was dark inside, but the picture window in the living room offered enough light for us to have a look around. We didn’t make it too far before we were stopped again. Boxes of papers were stacked beside the desk in the corner of the living room. I pulled one sheet out of the open top box. The same picture of me, with more details and the number where to call again.
“Look.” Gavin picked up a map from the desk. There were red circles and checkmarks across several states with handwritten notes in the margins. “They’ve been looking everywhere for you.”
Fort Wayne. Chicago. Columbus. Pittsburgh.
My hands trembled. Gavin set the map down and retrieved the flyer from me. He gave both my hands a squeeze. “It’s okay.”
I shook my head and stepped away from him. I moved farther into the living room, not sure where to go or what to do.
Gavin crossed the room and stopped at the Christmas tree in the far corner. Same fake tree with gaps between the branches. It had never looked better. Gavin pointed at the wrapped gifts underneath. “These are for you.” He faced me. “All this time, they’ve been waiting for you to come home.”
“I didn’t know…” I shook my head again and backed up
, panic surging through me. I couldn’t breathe. “I…didn’t…know…” That they’d accept me, love me no matter what. That I’d had somewhere and someone to turn to three years ago.
Gavin had his arms around me. “It’s okay.” He tucked my head against his chest and ran a hand over my back. “It’s okay.”
“Sean?”
At the deep voice across the room, Gavin and I pulled apart.
My grandpa stood at the open front door, his large frame blocking the light outside. He wore a flannel shirt, same as he had when I’d last seen him. He’d lost some weight since I’d been gone, and he’d aged more than seemed possible.
He stepped forward, then stopped like he wasn’t sure he should try to come too close or touch me.
For once since we’d arrived at the house, I could move without hesitation. I went to him, and Grandpa wrapped me in his arms. Even at this time of year, he smelled of wet dirt and the fish fertilizer. Like my childhood. I buried my tear-covered face in the flannel shirt. I could hear the tears in his voice.
“I’m so happy to see you.”
“I didn’t know.” I was shaking again.
He held me tighter. “Know what?”
“That you’d love me anyway.”
He patted my back. “We’ll love you always.”
When the tears had subsided and I could finally bring myself to step back, I gestured to Gavin. “Grandpa, this is Gavin.”
Grandpa held out a hand. “It’s a pleasure to meet you.”
Gavin seemed reluctant, like he had no intention of trusting my grandpa until he’d seen more proof that I was wanted—and loved—for who I was.
Finally, Grandpa gave a nod and lowered his hand. He looked to me. “Are you here to stay? In Angola?”
“I’d like to.”
He closed his eyes and sighed. When he opened them again, his expression seemed lighter. “We saved you a room upstairs.”
“Grandpa, Gavin’s not just my friend.” I glanced at Gavin, and he gave me a nod of encouragement. “He’s my boyfriend and we’re in this together.”