For a Good Time, Call

by Anne Tenino

  As if he could read Seth’s mind, he continued explaining. “I meant to teach you that there are times when you have to tell the assholes to shut the fu—hell up.” He muttered something under his breath, then repeated himself. Sort of. “Shut the fuck up. Turns out I wasn’t even doing it, and in the end you’re the one who taught me.” He swallowed. “I’m sorry, Seth.”

  This had to be one of those times that straight guys could handle being touched in sympathy, didn’t it? He stretched as far out of the chair as he could, just enough to wrap his fingers around his father’s forearm and squeeze it. He would have hugged Grandma in the same circumstances, so hopefully that translated. “This—a divorce—is really what you want?”

  “Hell yes,” he responded immediately. “To tell you the truth, I’ve wanted one for years. You know I met her in college, and when I proposed I did it because . . .” He took a long, slow breath, then spit it out. “She seemed like a reasonable choice. I loved her, but not the way you’re supposed to love someone you want to spend the rest of your life with.” Ducking his head, Dad ran fingers through his hair harder, really messing it up this time before he clasped both his hands together and didn’t quite meet Seth’s eyes. “I waited so long to leave because I knew divorcing her would open a whole can of worms with my brother.”

  Of course it would. The issue none of them ever faced head-on. How much honesty was the man ready for? What the hell. “Why didn’t she just marry Kirk in the first place?”

  Dad laughed, eyes crinkling up, and fell back in the chair. He looked ten years younger in two seconds flat, even after he’d calmed enough to answer. “If she’d met him before I asked her, she probably would have. He went into the army after college, so he wasn’t around when your mother and I were engaged. By the time Kirk came home for the wedding—” Dad shrugged. “Too late. For all of us. Don’t ask me what makes a person—me—that clueless, but I kind of think . . .” He licked his lip thoughtfully. “When I was talking about what I was trying to teach you? I really did try. I watched how your brother and sister were turning out, and when you were born—I wanted things to be different for you.”

  Whoa. “So you were, like, what? Rebelling? Working the underground parenting resistance?” This conversation was going places he’d never imagined, and somehow it made him feel better than he had in days. He’d told Nate he’d decided he was happiest not meeting anyone else’s expectations, but it still felt good to find out someone was happy with how he’d ended up . . . Affirming. “Maybe I did turn out the way someone wanted me to.”

  Dad’s hand on his arm captured his attention. When he glanced over, his father was smiling. “I’m pretty damned proud of you.”

  Emotion prickled over his scalp, and Seth had to blink away the wetness in his eyes. “Thanks.”

  “Hey.” Dad shoved up from his chair and stood, stretching. “I took the whole day off tomorrow. I know you have to work in the evening—”

  He did?

  “Wanna go out in the boat in the morning? I’ve got more confessions to make. And apologies.” His ears went a little bit pink. First the hair and now the blushing. They were kind of alike, weren’t they?

  “Yeah, I’d like that.” He stretched and then stood too, feeling bolstered enough now that he could face his place alone. Maybe because of the whiskey, but he believed it was because of his dad.

  Smiling, Dad clapped him on the shoulder, then suddenly he yanked Seth toward him and gave him a hug, fisting his hand in the back of Seth’s shirt for a second. When he let go, he cleared his throat, grabbed the pile of clothes Seth had brought him, and left the room.

  The good feelings weren’t total protection against reliving the bad parts of his day, but lying in bed, the television filling his room with flickering illumination, he was calmer about it than he’d been earlier. Able to look at things a little more objectively.

  Not that his feelings weren’t still kind of raw.

  It chafed that Nate’s bulldozer “fix” had worked.

  They’d been making headway, but it would have taken them a lot longer without the mention of Finn Larson’s existence—Ugh, Finn Larson? If Kirk had managed to get a majority of the local family on his side . . . Although Seth was pretty sure he could count on most of the female Larsons to support them—women’s rights hadn’t traditionally been recognized by the male members of Fennimore’s descendants. Seth had seen resentments flare up over that more than once at family reunions. Great-aunt Beryl could really fling a pie in her day. Better than C work.

  Fucking Nate. What kind of a jackass didn’t give him a heads-up about something that monumental?

  Maybe the kind of jackass that wanted to help someone he cared about deeply, even if it meant breaking things in the process. A sudden mental image of Nate blundering around inside a china shop nearly made him laugh. It was so easy to imagine the expression on his face—intent, determined and . . . protective.

  That word again. Tonight, when Kirk had bordered on going too far with Grandma, Seth had completely understood that urge, to protect someone you loved.

  Does he love me?

  He wanted me to work on Wolf’s Landing because he assumed I’d go where he goes. Assumed they’d be together, which was exactly what Seth wanted, and he knew he loved Nate, so . . .

  God, Nate had even planned ways for them to be together, trying to find him a job . . . Oh no, he was back to the sweet thing, where his heart went a little gooey around the edges knowing that love was what motivated Nate. Probably.

  God knew it motivated Seth in regard to Nate. Made him want to go to the guy right now and work things out.

  Except he didn’t want to be his parents. So he had to do what his father hadn’t. Take the time to be certain before fully committing. He’d been the good-time guy for so long, if he was going to dive into becoming the commitment guy, he wanted to get it right the first time.

  Figure out what he needed to be with someone, whether it was Nate or another guy down the road.

  A long ways down the road. Because if he and Nate were incompatible, he couldn’t imagine ever getting over him.

  In the days since Seth had told him he needed more time, Nate must have checked his phone a minimum of once every three minutes. At work, Morgan had given him the side-eye, but hadn’t confiscated it again. She’d also refrained from commenting—which must have meant his state of mind was obvious, and freaky enough that even Morgan, who had no boundaries where Nate was concerned, wouldn’t mention it.

  This morning, the weather matched his temper: chill and gray and misty. Even Tarkus wasn’t his usual exuberant self, slinking out to do his business before coming back inside to curl up on his bed with his back to Nate. No doubt he shared the opinion of everyone else in Bluewater Bay about Nate’s screwups, as if he’d watched Nate crash and burn on some canine live-streaming site.

  Great, now I’m anthropomorphizing my dog—and giving him an internet habit. On the other hand, dogs were pretty intuitive—maybe Nate should take lessons, since he seemed to be a total failure in that department.

  He grabbed Tarkus’s grooming brush and sat down cross-legged on the floor next to the dog bed, running the brush down Tarkus’s spine and along his side, although it was tough to do with the dog curled up like a hedgehog.

  “Hey, buddy. Sorry I’m such a stupid-ass bastard.” Tarkus’s ears twitched, but he didn’t uncurl. Nate worked through the thick fur of Tark’s ruff. “Maybe later today we can go—”

  Nate’s cell phone rang from where he’d left it on the counter. Seth! He dropped the brush, gave Tarkus a haphazard final pat, and heaved himself to his feet. As he rushed across the room, he caught his little toe on the leg of the coffee table and pain shot up his leg.

  “Son of a bitch!” Gritting his teeth, he staggered the last two steps, scrabbling the phone off the counter. “Hello?”

  “Nate?” The tentative voice on the line wasn’t Seth, but despite the agony in his foot and over three years of dist
ance, he recognized it immediately.

  “Jorge.” He didn’t have it in him to put any welcome in his tone. The pain in his toe was negligible compared to his crashing disappointment.

  “Are you—are you okay? You sound a little peculiar.”

  “I’m fine,” he said between gritted teeth. “Why are you calling?” Ow, damn it, ow. He forced himself to look down at his bare feet—the little toe on his left foot was sticking out at an angle. Just fucking fabulous.

  “I—I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have bothered you. I—”

  “No. Jorge, it’s okay. I just . . . I was expecting someone else.” And I think I just broke my damn toe. He couldn’t complain about that to Jorge of all people. When they’d been together, before the accident when Jorge had still been dancing, his feet had been so beaten up sometimes they’d looked as if someone had taken a mallet to them.

  “Oh. I won’t keep you, then.”

  “No, wait.” Nate took a deep breath and tried to compartmentalize the pain, his dejection over Seth, and the residual hurt from Jorge’s abandonment—only to discover that the abandonment didn’t need to be compartmentalized at all. He’d actually let it go. Hunh. Who’d have thought? “Don’t hang up. I’d like to talk to you.” He limped to the sofa and sat down sideways, propping his foot on a throw pillow. “How are you doing—and that’s not a platitude. I really want to know.”

  “I was—” Jorge’s deep breath was clearly audible “—worse for a while, but now I’m better. Getting better every day. This call is, well, a part of my therapy—facing the things in my life that I most regret. Franklin says—”

  “Franklin. He’s your husband, right?”

  “Yes.” How could one syllable convey so much contentment and joy? “He’s a counselor—not mine, because that would be weird, but he’s my support system. Anyway, I wanted to let you know that I’m sorry for how our relationship ended. I should have handled it better.”

  “Maybe, but I get it.” Nate shifted his foot on the pillow, trying to get comfortable. “You weren’t getting what you wanted from the relationship.”

  “It wasn’t that. In a way, I was getting almost too much from you.”

  What the hell? “Sorry, but that means . . . what exactly?”

  Jorge heaved a giant sigh. “You may not realize it, Nate, but your expectations are pretty hard to live up to.”

  “My expectations?” Not this again. “But I didn’t ask you to do anything you didn’t want to do. Did I? I mean, I know I might not have initiated sex often—” or at all “—but did you think I wanted you to do more?”

  “Not in bed, Nate, but out of it. After my—” his voice faltered, and he took another deep breath “—my accident, you kept bombarding me with options, things I could do since I could no longer dance, when dance was the one thing I was good at—the thing that attracted you to me to begin with.”

  “But—”

  “I’m not a fool, Nate. I know how rare that attraction was for you. But I couldn’t live with you for six years and not realize that you value competence—scratch that: excellence. I mean, your own mother can’t even measure up, and she’s world famous. How could I ever manage, once my claim to fame was gone?”

  Nate’s stomach plummeted. “I didn’t care about that, I swear. But you were so happy when you were dancing. I wanted you to have that again—to find something else that would give you that spark.”

  “Exactly. I was happy when I was dancing, and I’d never be able to do it again. I was mourning. You, with your relentless efforts to find a replacement, didn’t let me do that, and it made it worse.”

  Nate let his head fall back on the sofa cushion. God, he’d been an asshole, blaming Jorge for leaving when Nate had driven him right out the door and into Franklin’s arms. “Sorry,” he whispered. How many times could he say it—and it probably still wouldn’t be enough.

  But Jorge chuckled. “You know, that’s the cliché—the one that women are always trotting out when they talk about communication problems with men. They just want to talk about their emotions, work them out so they can feel better; men wade in and try to fix things. You’re a champion fixer. At the time, I didn’t want to be fixed. I wanted someone who knew I was broken and didn’t care.”

  “I . . . It didn’t matter to me. That you couldn’t dance.”

  “That’s not how it seemed to me. What I got was you essentially saying, ‘Right. Time to get back on another horse,’ when all I wanted to do was recover from the shock.”

  “I’m sorry. That I didn’t see that. I wish I had.” At one point, the wish would have been for his own sake, since the breakdown of their relationship had led to years of isolation. But now, he wished he’d paid more attention for Jorge.

  “I didn’t call to force you to grovel, Nate, really. I just wanted to let you know that I’ve moved on.” He chuckled again. “You’ll never guess—I’ve got a part in a TV series.”

  It couldn’t be. “Not . . . not Wolf’s Landing?”

  Jorge laughed outright this time. “Oh hell no. It’s about a dance studio. I play—wait for it—a flamenco teacher.”

  This time, Nate joined the laughter. “Perfect casting. I truly mean that. You’ll be great.”

  “In a way, I have you to thank—your dad got me the audition.”

  Nate clutched his phone tighter. “He did? He never said anything.”

  “I told him I wanted to tell you myself. He’s a great guy, you know? He didn’t have to go the distance for me, not after I treated you the way I did.”

  “Well, his heart attack gave him a different perspective.” He’d sworn never to hold a grudge again—anger and resentment put too much strain on his heart. It was why he’d urged Nate to finally reach out to his mother.

  “I’m glad he’s on the mend. Franklin and I check in on him now and then. Invite him over for dinner—heart-healthy, I promise.”

  Tears prickled in Nate’s eyes. His dad wasn’t the only one who knew how to forgive. “Thanks. That means a lot to me.”

  “It’s my pleasure. It was . . . good talking to you, Nate. Next time you’re in LA—”

  “I’d love to get together.”

  “Great. Take care.”

  “You too.”

  Nate lay back on the sofa for a moment, his phone on his chest. Jorge. He’d never expected to hear from him—and certainly had never expected the call to turn out this way. He lay there until the throb in his toe forced him upright to limp into the bathroom and dig out the first aid kit. After he taped up his toe, strapping it to its neighbor with a bit of cotton padding between, he wiggled it a bit. Ow! Shit!

  Thank God it was autumn and he could wear boots with no comment. After icing it for a bit, and an Advil or two, he could disguise the limp and nobody would ever know he wasn’t one hundred percent—as long as he didn’t break out of a slow amble.

  As he hobbled out to the living room, his thoughts returned to Jorge and his dad. They both had reasons for rage, and both had chosen to put them aside—far different from Nate’s past behavior.

  To spite his mother, he’d abandoned a career that he seriously loved—because it was something she wanted for him. Then, after Jorge had left, he’d trashed ninety-nine percent of his industry connections when the rage bottled up inside him had popped. One public meltdown—okay, seven—and he’d been unemployable until Levi’s call. Sure, he’d cleaned up his act, especially after his dad’s heart attack, but the damage had been done in Hollywood. He’d needed a long stretch of drama-less dependability to rebuild his reputation, and he’d found it here.

  In Bluewater Bay, he’d made a name for himself as the go-to guy. As long as he pretended he was okay, hid the pain, retreated to his self-imposed isolation, he’d be good.

  Who the fuck are you kidding?

  He was not good. He might be able to hide a fractured toe, but when it came to hiding a broken heart, he sucked.

  I can’t screw up this gig too. I can’t depend on Levi or my
dad or anyone else to pull my ass out of the fire. I’m thirty-seven fucking years old. It’s time I learned to handle my own shit.

  So what did that mean, and why did letting go of anger hurt more than its cause, like rebreaking a bone to set it properly? Maybe he needed some emotional ice packs to numb his feelings.

  No. No more numbing. No more avoiding. Just deal with it, because the world is not all about you.

  First step? Let go of his oldest grievance.

  He sat on the floor next to Tarkus so he could take comfort from the dog’s presence. Then he took a deep breath and sent a text.

  Hey, Mom. I heard you’ll be in town soon to meet with Levi. If you’ve got time, I’d like you to come over for dinner.

  Less than ten seconds later, he got a return message: I will always have time for you, my dear.

  Guess his mom didn’t hold a grudge either, despite Nate behaving like a spoiled brat for fourteen years. God, he didn’t deserve her. Didn’t deserve any of them. But he’d damned well try—and the person he most wanted to deserve right at this moment was Seth.

  But after Nate had poleaxed him not once, not twice, but three times, why would he bother to ever come back? It had taken a hospital-bed plea from his father before Nate had reached out to his mother that first time. What would it take for Seth to be willing to reach out to Nate—or to let Nate reach out to him?

  Tarkus stood up in his bed, turned around three times, and settled again, his head on Nate’s thigh. “What am I going to do, boy?” He scratched Tarkus’s ears. “I don’t want to be an island anymore.” Tarkus whined and waved one paw feebly in the air. Nate caught it, chuckling. “I’m the one with the injured foot, not you, you faker. I should talk to Levi about putting you in his next show at the Playhouse. He could keep with the classics and stage Lassie Come-Home.” He ruffled Tarkus’s fur. “You wouldn’t mind doing a little drag, would you? You could definitely pull it off. Look at the way you snowed Seth the other night. Maybe you should give me some pointers, because he sure wasn’t buying what I . . .” Nate’s hand stilled until Tarkus nudged his knee with an imperious nose to remind him of his petting duties.