by Ashlyn Kane
On this particular day, Emerson had taken to passing the time by thinking of Jonah.
Things hadn’t been that great this past week, what with Jonah wanting to move in and Emerson resisting the idea, but last night had been good. The tension had broken, and they’d spent the evening making passionate, desperate love. Emerson could remember the bliss that crossed Jonah’s face when he finally pressed inside. Emerson had just felt intense relief to know that, despite their disagreement, they could still do this. That the sex was still as good as ever.
Emerson shifted his hips and couldn’t help but smile at the feel of that pleasant ache of the morning after. Emerson really did like that feeling. The reminder the day after of what they had done, of where Jonah had been and of how close they had pushed their bodies together, was something Emerson relished.
Emerson was in the middle of constructing a pleasurable scenario for the evening in which he pushed Jonah down on the bed, straddled Jonah’s lap, and went about renewing that achy feeling when the bell over the door rang.
Emerson jumped and looked toward the door to see—nothing. He frowned. The door had opened, he was sure, but…. He heard a giggle. Emerson looked down and grinned when he spotted the small boy walking through the aisles.
The boy was adorable. All round cherub face with hazel eyes and thick brown hair. He was giggling, and when he spotted Emerson, he held one chubby hand up to his face and made a loud shushing noise. Emerson grinned before lifting a finger to his own lips and nodding in return. He’d be quiet.
Emerson figured it would be easy to keep an eye on the kid today. The shop was quiet, so he could make sure the boy didn’t hurt himself or get into trouble.
Emerson was still smiling and watching the adorable child hiding behind a rack of postcards when the overhead bell rang again. The child let out another string of giggles. It seemed his caregiver had arrived. Too entranced by the adorableness of the kid, Emerson didn’t look up at first.
“Hm,” said a voice from near the door, and the child giggled once again. “Now I’m sure I saw my Gareth come this way,” the voice said again, and the child giggled even louder. Emerson grinned before looking over to see the boy’s mother standing in the doorway with her hands on her hips.
Emerson stared at her for a moment, wondering why she looked so familiar. He was derailed by the sound of more laughter from the child.
Emerson watched, grinning, as the mother conducted a game of hide and seek, loudly wondering where her child had gotten to before at last stumbling on the giggling child and scooping him up in her arms. The boy squealed as his mother planted kisses over his face.
When she was done, she propped the boy onto her hip and turned toward Emerson. “Thank you for keeping an eye on him; he snuck away—Emerson?” Her eyes went wide when she spotted him. “Oh my God, Emerson! It’s so good to see you!” She was smiling with delight now.
Emerson stared back. She did look familiar, but he couldn’t yet place her. She was tall with blond hair and blue eyes. She was quite startlingly pretty and very young.
“It’s the hair, isn’t it?” she said with a grin. “I’ve been getting that look a lot these past few days. It’s Deanna. Deanna Carlisle.”
“Oh.” Emerson stared at her. Deanna had gone to high school with him and Jonah. She had been well-liked, often the lead in drama productions, girls’ volleyball captain, and valedictorian. She had also, more famously in Emerson’s memory, been Jonah’s date to the prom.
Emerson realized suddenly that he was just staring at her. “Um, hi! Yeah, the hair did throw me,” he said, trying to smile.
Deanna smiled back, wide and brilliant. “So how have you been?”
Emerson shrugged. “Good. Going to U of T at Austin.”
“Ooh, wonderful. Are you studying art like you wanted to?”
He nodded. “Design. So, um, is this your…?” Emerson let the question hang, feeling awkward about making assumptions about the kid being hers.
“Oh yeah, he’s mine. Gareth is my darling boy, aren’t you, sweetie pie?” She leaned in toward her son to rub their noses together. The boy laughed, delighted.
“Wow,” Emerson said. There was a pause then, and Emerson was sure she could tell what he was thinking. He covered up the silence with an easy gambit. “So, are you going to be living in Hudson Bend again?”
She smiled. “Nah, we’re just up for a visit.” She stepped closer to the counter and deposited the boy onto it. Then she smiled at Emerson and said, “It really is good to see you. I was hoping to catch up with old friends.” Her smile widened then, and she asked, “So how’s Jonah doing these days? You two still best friends?”
Emerson blinked at her. “He’s good. He, um, spent a few years traveling. He’s living in Austin again.”
She smiled at that. “Well, maybe I’ll drop him a line, see if he’s up for lunch. It would be good to see him again. Wouldn’t it, baby?” she asked her son, who was starting to look bored. Once again, she rubbed their noises together. “Wouldn’t it be a good idea to see Jonah?” The boy giggled in delight. “I knew my Gareth was a smart boy,” she praised, then kissed the top of his head.
Emerson froze. He felt like his veins were filled with ice, and his heart began beating too fast. Gareth. Why hadn’t he noticed before? She’d given her son Jonah’s middle name. Her son who looked so much like a tiny Jonah and who must have been conceived while they were still in high school.
Dread filled Emerson’s stomach. He recalled then how excited Jonah had been before prom. How he had rented the tux and the limo. Emerson had used his wisdom teeth being extracted as an excuse for not attending. Jonah had been insistent, and Justin had kept hinting at going, and Emerson had been on the verge of caving and buying a ticket under Jonah’s watchful glare, fully intending to get a well-timed twenty-four-hour flu on the night of the event, when he had visited the dentist.
The dentist had offered several options for which day to pull them out, and Emerson hadn’t hesitated when he saw the day before prom listed. He told Jonah he hadn’t had a choice in the date. Fortunately, Jonah was too good-natured and oblivious to be suspicious.
Unfortunately, he had still left Justin bitter. Justin had kept giving Emerson suspicious looks, as if he had known Emerson didn’t want to go just because he didn’t want to see Jonah having fun with a female date in a heterosexual wonderland. (Emerson later suspected that this was exactly what had been going on with Justin.) Justin had cattily informed him the next school day that Jonah and Deanna had never shown up to the dance. Emerson’s imagination had been able to fill in the blanks.
So, Deanna had a son who was the right age to be—
“Anyway, I just stopped by to pick up some summer squash. This guy loves the stuff so much he ate through mom’s home-grown stash.” She ruffled her son’s hair.
Emerson jerked. “They’re, uh, just behind you, one aisle over.” He always knew the state of their summer squash inventory, since it was the first thing Jonah went for when he came over.
“Awesome. Could you watch him for a sec?” she asked with a smile, and Emerson automatically reached out with one hand to curl it around the boy’s waist.
She came back with the squash, and Emerson tallied up the total. “Anything else?” he asked her on autopilot.
She smiled again. “A promise to go out for a drink with me before I leave Hudson Bend?”
Emerson jerked in surprise. “Um, sorry?”
Her smile dimmed a little, but she repeated herself. “I mean, I don’t do too much partying, what with this monster around, but it would be good to go out for drinks with old high school friends.”
Emerson tried to give her a smile back. “Yeah, sure. Um, maybe? We’ll see how things go.” He tried not to say anything that would commit him or sound too rude. After all, he might be seeing a lot of her in the future.
He took her money and bagged the squash. He watched as she scooped up both child and groceries before waving goodbye. “
See you later, Emerson. It was so good to see you again!” Then they were gone.
Emerson stood still, staring after the woman who had just walked out carrying a boy who was eerily familiar.
Oh God. Was that…? Had that been Jonah’s child? Had Deanna gotten pregnant on prom night—what a cliché!—and moved away while still pregnant? Had her parents sent her away? Did parents still do that?
The boy had looked so much like Jonah and had even displayed Jonah’s sense of humor and love of summer squash. Staring at him had been like seeing Jonah as a baby.
Did Jonah know? Had he known that he had a kid for all these years and not said anything? No, that didn’t sound like Jonah. Maybe he didn’t know he had a kid? But then that didn’t sound like Deanna either, to keep something like that hidden. He had never figured her to be the type of girl to keep such a thing quiet, to never tell a man he was a father.
But Jonah wasn’t the type of guy not tell anyone that he had a kid. Unless…. Emerson thought about the timing. Thought about how Deanna probably would have done the confessing around the same time that Jonah had run away from home. He wondered if she had told him just before and if that was one of the reasons Jonah had left. Or maybe she had sent an e-mail that Jonah hadn’t ignored.
If Jonah had learned in those first few months before he had written to Emerson…. It wasn’t exactly the kind of thing that Emerson would have welcomed hearing about when Jonah had first started writing to him. And then after that it would have been easy to fall into a pattern of wanting to tell but not knowing when and getting more reluctant to reveal the secret the longer it was kept.
Oh God. Emerson was involved with a father who hadn’t told him he had a son!
§
NOW
DESPITE Zack’s prodding to open up about what had happened, Emerson stayed close-mouthed. He wasn’t entirely certain as to why he was so wary about telling Zack about it, though he was pretty certain that Zack would have a few choice words about how Emerson had come home to pick a fight. Also, he wasn’t entirely sure that Zack would take his side on the whole Deanna thing. He could be wrong, but he didn’t want to take the chance that Zack would tell him off too. This way, at least Emerson knew Zack would take care of him while he wallowed.
Zack was still persistent, though. Two days after the fight, Emerson had returned to his bedroom to find Zack sitting on his bed and examining Emerson’s latest drawing.
“This is some strange shit, Emma.”
Emerson grunted and ignored him. He settled himself on his bed again, resettling into his cocoon.
“Seriously. Did you draw this yesterday?” Zack held up a half-finished drawing. Emerson had picked up a pencil and paper yesterday only to get halfway through a drawing filled with pain and regret before he’d got sick of the picture, sick of himself, and thrown the sketchpad and pencils onto the floor before burying himself under the blankets once again.
“So?”
“So? It’s fucking depressing, that’s what. Christ, Emma. Why won’t you just tell me what happened?”
Emerson picked at the weave of his blanket.
“Emma….”
“I don’t want to talk about it,” he mumbled. “Can we just… not?”
“You owe me.” Zack’s voice was stern. “After all the times I’ve let you cry on my shoulder, don’t you think I deserve to know why you’re being a mopey bitch?”
He looked up at Zack, surprised. That was a low blow. Emerson knew that he’d always been kind of a mess and that ever since he’d met Zack, he’d looked to the other man to help him pick up the pieces, but Zack had never sounded like he minded before.
“Shit. Don’t cry,” Zack muttered, and he shifted over. He settled on the bed next to Emerson and let their shoulders press together. “Alright, fine, so I suck at the tough love thing. I think we both already knew that.”
“Only sometimes,” Emerson agreed.
“When you’re ready to talk, you’re going to tell me, though. Don’t think you won’t.”
Emerson nodded and tilted to rest his head on Zack’s shoulder. “Yeah. I know.”
§
THEN
WRITTEN inside a birthday card filled with dirty jokes written on four different-colored sticky notes, predominantly in old-fashioned, spidery handwriting and signed by all the writers’ workshop members, complete with a photograph of the whole gang:
Dear Emerson,
Happy birthday! Hope you enjoy the jokes. When I told her it was your birthday, Roberta insisted. The others might have chipped in a little on the tamer ones.
I debated for ages on what to get you, but eventually an opportunity arose that I couldn’t pass up. I don’t have your eye, but I attached a couple of samples (had to make sure it worked, of course). Don’t worry, it’s not as extravagant as you think.
Jonah
Emerson laughed as he read the letter and then turned to the box. As quickly as he could, he peeled away the paper. Inside was a slightly battered SLR camera. Emerson stared. A camera. Jonah had gotten him a camera.
His fingers trembled as he worked to get it free from the box. A camera.
Suddenly, Emerson was swamped by his feelings for Jonah. He was filled with love and adoration for a boy several hundreds of miles away, a boy who, despite the distance, knew Emerson better than anyone else. Which was the problem, wasn’t it? It had been his problem for years, really. Jonah did know Emerson best and always managed to do just the right thing to keep Emerson ridiculously attached and in love.
A camera.
God, he hadn’t felt this giddy in love since that hot August afternoon on the beach when Jonah had reached out one long-fingered hand to smooth sunscreen on Emerson’s nose. They had been laughing and talking, and Jonah had pulled out the sunscreen to “reapply—Jesus, Em, don’t you ever learn?” He had poured enough into his hand so that he could smear the greasy substance all over Emerson’s nose. Emerson had stood there trying to stifle his laughter and watching Jonah’s oh-so-earnest expression as he worked to re-cover Emerson in sunscreen. Jonah’s brow had been furrowed, his eyes serious, and Emerson had thought that Jonah was kind of awesome and wonderful. It had been then, standing on a beach with Jonah’s fingers running over his nose, that he suddenly thought to himself, I love him. Emerson’s heart started beating too fast, and his stomach filled with a thousand butterflies. I love him. Like, want to spend the rest of my life with him love. Oh my God! I’m in love with my best friend!
He had continued to stand there, letting Jonah slather sunscreen on him without arguing. Emerson couldn’t move. He was stunned by the revelation. God, he was in love with Jonah!
The panic over being in love with a straight boy—and his best friend!— had come later. At that moment in time, Emerson had simply reveled in the light sensation filling his whole body at the knowledge that he was in love.
It felt a lot like that first moment when he held his new camera.
God, a camera. Jonah bought him a camera. Emerson bit his lip as he stared at it. No one knew Emerson better than Jonah. No one.
He wondered…. All those months ago when Jonah had confessed to having a boyfriend, Emerson had wondered about the possibility of them like he never had before. When he had thought Jonah was straight, it was easy to limit those what-ifs to accidental thoughts during jack-off sessions, but after he found out Jonah was interested in men, the what-ifs had become much more difficult to keep at bay. And now—Jonah sent him letters all the time, and Emerson found himself often thinking of Jonah and wondering what Jonah felt for him.
Now, looking at the camera that Jonah had sent him, hope bloomed in his chest. Maybe Emerson wasn’t so stupid to still be in love with Jonah after all this time. Three years was a long time to be in love with a boy who didn’t love you back, but if he did… three years wasn’t that long to wait for somebody.
Emerson allowed his heart to beat double time. He would push things—no, not push, but… things would move forward, he w
as certain.
Grabbing his camera and his coat, Emerson hurried out the door, eager to try out his new present.
Several hours later, Emerson and Hayley were sitting on Zack’s bed while Emerson uploaded all the pictures onto his laptop. There were several hundred of Hudson Bend and Austin and everything in between, and he wanted an empty memory card for his birthday party.
“He gave you a camera?” Hayley was holding it and turning it this way and that. “An expensive gift for a best friend.”
Emerson blushed. “He said it wasn’t that extravagant, and it looks beat up. He probably got it second-hand.”
Hayley arched a brow. “Even second-hand, it would cost.” She set the camera down. “So… loverboy send you another letter filled with unresolved sexual tension?” Emerson kept his gaze locked on his computer screen. His usual denials about the letters not being from a lover or filled with sexual tension of any kind didn’t form. Not today.
“Ooh! I know that look! Lemme see!” Hayley made grabby hands. Emerson caved and handed over the letter.
Hayley cackled when she found the dirty jokes. Emerson had just unplugged his camera when suddenly his hand was being grabbed, and he was being dragged down the stairs and into the kitchen.
“Jonah sent jokes!” Hayley called to get Greg and Zack’s attention. Then she proceeded to read out all the jokes one by one and then post each one on Emerson’s Cork Board of Communication. The board had been instituted when messages to Emerson had repeatedly failed to reach him. After he had made a meal for three people only to discover that Zack and Greg had picked up a last-minute gig, it had been a must.
Then Zack was pressing a beer into Emerson’s hand and telling him to “start drinking, Emma.” Within a few hours, Zack and Greg’s house was filled with anyone that Emerson might classify as a friend. There were classmates and fellow Peter fans, and he was pretty sure he saw the girl who sold him coffee once a week.