There's This Guy

by Rhys Ford

  His chest hitched, and something in him broke, loosening the hold on his rib cage, but an unreasonable terror continued to claw its way through him. Drawing in a tar-perfumed hit of air, Jake mumbled around his heavy, swollen tongue, “I’m not gay. I can’t be gay.”

  “Honey—”

  “Yeah, thanks for the water.” He stumbled back, his heel catching on one of the tree’s roots. His feet couldn’t seem to find a flat surface to walk on, and Jake ran a chilled hand through his hair, slicking it back away from his face. “Um… tell Dallas to call the shop when the cops say we can get back into the building. I’ll…. Evancho…. Okay? Just… tell Dallas.”

  “Jake… wait.” Celeste reached for him, but Jake backpedaled quickly away.

  “I’m… sorry,” he stammered, his heart seizing up when she pursed her mouth. Regret and shame poured into the spaces he’d carved out of himself, reminding Jake of the emptiness he carried inside. “I’ve got to go. Just… I’m sorry. I’m just… not what you think I am. And I’m never going to be.”

  “GOD, AS sorry as I am for that man, I can honestly say I wish he’d died someplace else, because this has turned into a clusterfuck and a half, babe.” Dallas plopped down into the booth Celeste’d taken up as her second home. The coffee shop sat nearly empty, caught between lunch and dinner. Even the outside patio’s seemingly perpetual rotation of mediocre musicians was quiet, and Dallas sighed gratefully when the server dropped off an enormous glass of iced tea. “How the hell does it take seven hours to decide a guy’s dead when he’s all leaked out on the floor and his head’s all bashed in? And I sound like an asshole for even thinking it. Tell me I don’t sound like an asshole.”

  “You’re right. You sound like an asshole, sweetie.” Celeste tapped at her own glass in a rapid-fire flurry of blue-painted nails. “Kind of as much of an asshole as I sounded when I asked your pretty welder how the rest of the guys in his shop felt about him being gay.”

  “Jake isn’t gay. He’s… fucking gorgeous, yeah….” Dallas sucked air through his teeth, recalling the curve of Jake’s ass beneath his faded jeans. “But gay? I think that’s wishful thinking on your part.”

  “Dallas, sweetheart, as much as you like dick and ass, you should be a damned dousing rod for gay boys. That one there? All he’s missing is a little dog named Toto and a backup band of a scarecrow, tin man, and lion.” She slapped at his arm when he chortled a denial. “Honey, your man there might be so far in the closet he’s got radiation poisoning from the Fiestaware stored in the back, but he’s as queer as I am gorgeous.”

  “You’re wrong.” God, as if life wasn’t cruel enough to plop a sexy man who pushed all of Dallas’s buttons right in his lap, Celeste was now trying to break him with the idea Jake could be tumbled back into a soft bed and spread open for pleasure. “Shit, I had to explain to him what drag queens were. That’s how clueless he is.”

  “Clueless, yes, but closeted. Denying it with everything he’s got,” she continued with a flourish. “And you should have seen his face. Honey, I didn’t see that dead guy you have in the loft upstairs, but I’m going to go out on a limb and say he had more color in his face than our boy Jake. Someone put the fear of God into him about liking other boys. I’d put money on it.”

  “Come on. In this day and age? In SoCal?” Dallas looked around them, drinking in the lazy California sweltering evening from their safe perch inside the air-conditioned coffee shop. “For fuck’s sake, love, we’re a good stone’s throw from about twenty clubs known for their naughty back rooms. Why would he not be out?”

  Celeste leaned over, her hands pressed flat against the table. “Dallas, you of all people, talking to me, know better than to ask that.”

  The memory of Simon’s bloodied face and busted lip were never far from Dallas’s mind. There’d been old bruises under all the blood, knuckle marks and broken skin barely healed into scabs eager to be discovered when Dallas cleaned off Simon’s face with a wet napkin. His soon-to-be best friend shook when Dallas touched him, his body locking up and quaking in fear. Snot bubbled from one of Simon’s nostrils, and he’d struggled to breathe, his nose broken by the barrage of punches he’d taken.

  It hadn’t been the first time Dallas rescued Simon, but it’d certainly been the first where there’d been blood. Up until that point, Dallas never worried about anything or anyone, secure in the oblivious fantasy he’d been raised in, a world where it didn’t matter who he loved or where he was when he kissed a boyfriend on the cheek.

  They’d shivered in the cold, spit freezing on their faces, until Simon broke down, tumbling into Dallas’s frozen arms, and sobbed, railing at the pain eating away at him… a pain put there by the two people who should have loved him the most and were responsible for his shattered face.

  It was the one thing they never, ever needed to talk about, and much like any tragedy, their minds drifted to its memory whenever its ghost lingered over their conversation.

  “God, I hate your family,” Dallas muttered. He did. He’d have loved to set the whole lot of them on fire, but Celeste refused to turn her back on them. “And don’t start defending them. Not now. Not here. Hell, not ever.”

  “They’re my family.” She shrugged, but the pain remained as a dark flicker in her face. “Just like you’re my family now. I can’t walk away from any of you, even when I probably should. I just can’t.”

  A plate of hot, steaming sweet potato fries joined them on the table, a drive-by drop-off by the gum-smacking server. She barely paused long enough to slide the dish between them and was off, doing a lap around the long coffee bar near the kitchen door. Dallas plucked one of the thick orange planks off the plate, blowing on it to cool it off.

  “So what are we going to do about the boy?” She took the fry from his fingers and smiled sweetly at him when he protested. “We just can’t leave him back there. Alone and unloved.”

  “You can’t drag someone out if they don’t want to be out.” It was a hard truth, one they’d both learned during violently, regrettably sad turns with former friends. Dallas went for another fry, popping it into his mouth quickly, then huffing in cold air to soothe his scorched tongue. He chewed, then swallowed and chased it down with a sip of iced tea. “Fuck, that’s hot. And yes, before you jump in, yes, so is Jake, but—”

  “He’s hurting inside, Dal. You didn’t see him.” She placed her broad hands over his, clenching his fingers. “Honey, someone broke something inside that boy. I looked at him and said shit, that could have been me if I hadn’t met you.”

  “We can’t save the world, sugar. Even if we want to.”

  If there was one thing he hated about Celeste, it was that she was invariably right. And righteous. She took up causes like most people changed underwear and threw herself into everything she did, including stirring up trouble.

  And right now, throwing Jake Moore into his face while they sat hunched over a plate of steaming sweet potato fries was stirring up a hell of a lot more than just trouble.

  He’d liked Jake, lusted after him if he was willing to admit it. There’d been a gentleness to the broad-shouldered man and a poignant something Dallas hadn’t been able to put his finger on until Celeste ripped back the curtain and showed him a closed door she was certain Jake lived behind.

  “Just think for a moment, okay? I’m not even one hundred percent sure you’re right, so don’t get that smug look on your face.” Dallas offered up what he thought was a plausible scenario. “Suppose he’s not gay and punches me in the face when I talk to him about it? I don’t want to piss him off.”

  “If he punches you, I’ll never speak of him again, but at the very least, he’ll have us as friends. And we’re awesome.”

  “And why exactly does it have to be me? Or us? Why do we have to save the world?”

  “I’m not asking you to save the world. Just one sad, beautiful hazel-eyed man with a great ass, fantastic shoulders, and a husky voice that made me clench when he said my name,” she clarifie
d softly. “And it has to be you because I put my foot in it. Also, I think he likes you. He blushed a bit when I talked about flirting, and it wasn’t my name he was stuttering when he was leaving. What’s the worst that can happen? Besides a broken nose or maybe falling in love?”

  “A broken heart?” There were scars left from another man’s carelessness, and Dallas did not want to put himself through the same soul-shattering experience. “Look what happened the last time I fell for a guy who wasn’t out. Truth? Jake… he’s Fireball Whisky on an empty stomach dangerous for me, Lest. He turns out to be gay and available, I’m scared I’m going to fall for the guy. And that’s just from looking at him.”

  “Jake’s not Kevin. That asshole was married with kids and a user,” Celeste huffed. “Jake’s… I don’t know, sweetie. I just… think he needs us. Needs you. Like I needed you but… different. Take it from one damaged, fucked-up kid—we recognize each other. I can feel him hurting, hidden where he thinks no one can hear him cry. I don’t want that for him. I don’t want that for anyone.”

  “I don’t either. And I swear to God, this goes bad… I get hurt—” He cut himself off, biting down on his words. He’d fallen for Jake Moore the moment he’d seen him, standing in the shadows of a rolling metal door, a lean portrait of insouciance and sex framed in mystery and Dallas’s damned curiosity. “God, I spend one afternoon with the guy and I’m picking out china patterns and curtains. What the hell is wrong with me? I’m not like this. I don’t date. I don’t do relationships. Serious isn’t… me. I am so getting punched in the face over this.”

  “He hurts you, punches you, or even farts in your general direction, I will kick his ass,” Celeste declared fiercely, then ruined everything with a soft little murmur Dallas could barely hear under the clink of coffee cups and the barista calling out for a pickup. “Well, as soon as I buy a new pair of shoes to do it with. Ass kicking requires some serious shoes.”

  Four

  “MOTHERFUCKING USELESS piece of shit!”

  Jake ducked, but the edge of the piss-filled plastic container caught him on his cheek, scraping down into his skin deep enough to draw blood. The sting made him cautious, and he circled in closer to the bed, unsure of what else his father had hidden beneath his covers.

  “Dad… stop.” It was a useless argument. One he’d had countless times before, but the old man in the bed, the withered shell of the blustery, abusive father he’d feared, was past the point of listening. All Jake could do was pick up the pieces of his father’s destruction and wipe any crap off the walls before the attendants saw it.

  White foam speckled the old man’s jutting chin, a thin brush of white hair bristling along his jaw. He hadn’t been shaved in a few days, but judging by the fierce disgust souring his father’s face, he hadn’t been willing to let anyone near him. His faded green eyes scanned the room, narrowing slightly, and then confusion filled his expression for a brief moment and guilt dug into Jake’s chest.

  “Stop what? What are you talking about?” He looked about the room. “Why am I here? God, this place fucking stinks. And they’re rude. No sense of damned manners, calling me Ron like they’re family or something. My day, you got to be a certain age and people talked to you with respect. These idiots act like I’m sitting down in their damned front room and visiting.”

  It never got any easier. If anything, the mood changes were hitting fast and hard with each passing day. The room certainly didn’t help. There was little he could do to mask the dull institutional green-gray room for what it was: a place to wait for death to come knocking. A ventilator stood at the ready beside his father, as well as a few other devices he’d already been on and off of more times than Jake liked, and the curtains separating the two hospital beds in the room were thin in places, the fabric patched with brightly colored thread as if the uneven Xs would bring a bit of cheer.

  The man who’d been in the other bed slipped off quietly a few days ago, alone and much too young. They’d chatted a few times before the pain took his senses. Then there was nothing to do but watch the drugs dull his body until he could no longer fight the diseases ravaging him. The gaunt, ashen man never spoke of his illness, but the snap of gloves on the attendants’ hands every time they came into the room to take care of him was… dehumanizing and tragic.

  “You’ve got a new roommate.” Hoping to distract his father, Jake nodded to the snoring old man in the bed next to the door.

  “Fucking loser. Look at all the machines he’s hooked up to,” his father grumbled. “Going to be beeping, and all those damned lights? It’ll keep me up at night, that’s what that asshole’s going to do. Can’t even talk to him. Just a goddamn vegetable they put in here to get him out of the way. This place’s crap. Why the fuck can’t I go home to die? Like a fucking man?”

  “You’re here just until you get better, Dad,” Jake lied, his stomach dropping. Another fight they’d had before and the one Jake hated the most. “Doc said you’ve got to stay here until you heal better.”

  The house was long gone, sold to pay for his father’s mounting bills, and what little they’d gotten for it was eaten up quickly. Healthcare programs helped, but there were still expenses, money pits Jake couldn’t avoid, not while his father slowly deteriorated. Small wounds were slow to heal, and his dad picked at the lesions on his arm, bored and restless in the prison he’d grown in his mind. He struggled to breathe, fighting long-smoked packs of cigarettes and breathing in whatever chemicals he’d worked with when on the job. It was a race between the dementia taking him down in its final stages or the cancers chewing up what was left of his body, but either way, Jake was trapped in the poisonous molasses crawl toward his father’s inevitable death.

  A matter of time, the doctors kept saying, and as much as he hated admitting it, Jake was tired of counting off the seconds until the old man breathed his last.

  Jake wondered if he would breathe his first after the old man died or if he’d soon follow, slipping away into the nothingness left behind.

  He’d been late, too late to help the attendant feed his father, but from the pungent whiff he caught from the leftovers in the segmented dinner tray on the rolling bed stand, it’d been some kind of fish. His father would eat three-day-old liver but turn away anything with fins. Anything but fish, Jake’d filled in the food order time and time again, but like clockwork, he’d find mealy slabs of low-grade filets buried under lemon or dill sauces sitting uneaten on his father’s tray.

  The day threw more than a few curveballs, and Jake sank down into the hard-padded chair next to his father’s bed, weary down to his bones. With the rolling table tugged closer, Jake picked at the food, wondering if he could convince his father the flaky light gray meat was chicken, not tilapia. Too many meals left uneaten and his father would weaken, forcing the staff to increase his care.

  Or kick him out. It wouldn’t be the first time, and there weren’t many other places who would take the dying old man with a hot fist and even hotter temper.

  “See the fucking cat food they feed me here? My wife wouldn’t dare put that on my plate. I’d have knocked her clear across the room.” His father’s eyes were uneven, squinting in on the left and blown out on the right. His hands kneaded in and out, forming shaking fists. Spittle foamed at the corner of his mouth, and any other time, Jake would have dabbed it off with a napkin, but not now. Not when the man was ramping up into a full-out fury. “She’d have known better.”

  “Yeah, I know you don’t like fish.” He dug through some of the food, wishing it were at least hot. “There’s potatoes and green beans. You need to eat. You’ll get sicker if you don’t. I’ll talk to them about the fish.”

  “Fucking son should be in there talking to them. Son of a bitch dumped me here and took off. Boy turned out to be a faggot, you know?” His father ignored the food Jake poked at. “That’s what you get when you let your wife coddle a kid. Taught him good, though. Caught him pulling his dick over one of my bodybuilder magazines and I beat
the shit out of him. It’s what you’ve got to do to queers. Only way to fix them, but my wife, she was always protecting the little bastard. Went queer anyway. You got kids? You and your wife?”

  It was always a shock when his father forgot him. Jake’d been a pinpoint target for all of Ron Moore’s rage and violence, the one constant his father focused on nearly every waking moment he was home. Nodding mutely, Jake worked a fork into a mound of cold scalloped potatoes, hoping to get his father to eat even a single mouthful.

  “No, no kids.” There never would be. Not if he could help it. There was too much bad in his blood, a wicked cruelty flowing straight from his father’s veins into his. “No wife either.”

  “Yeah well, you’re young. Some hot young thing’ll catch you. Same as me. Mind you, did the best I could with that kid. Just too fucking… queer.” His father chewed around the forkful Jake slipped into his mouth when he’d opened it to talk. Swallowing, he nodded toward the water glass, waving at Jake with the limp fingers on his left hand. “Give me some of that water. Bastards here won’t give me a beer.”

  Jake held the straw tightly while his father sucked on its end. Smacking his lips, he pushed Jake’s hand away, jostling the water glass. Another mouthful of potatoes at the ready, Jake kept his voice steady and calm, keeping his attention on the man’s slackening fists.

  “She trapped me, you know. The wife,” the older man muttered, eyeing Jake. “She’d gotten pregnant before, but a few good kicks and I took care of it. It’s a woman’s job to take care of a man. Wasn’t going to have her distracted by a kid, but the bitch didn’t tell me the second time, not until she was well past showing. Hell, thought she was just getting fat.”