by Lanyon, Josh
“I know. I do realize that. I know him better than you think. But it doesn’t change the fact that he loves you and is worried about you. I’m not saying you should go back, I’m just saying you shouldn’t shut him out entirely.”
That caught him utterly off guard. “You’re not saying I should go back?”
Thomas shook his head. “I don’t think you should go back until you’re ready. But you do need to let him know where you are.”
Colin swallowed hard, almost afraid to believe this. “You didn’t tell him?”
Thomas gave another of those brisk head shakes. “I told him I found you, I’d seen where you lived and you were all right and that I’d talk to you. See if you were okay with letting him know where you were, but that I wasn’t going to reveal that information if you didn’t give permission.”
Colin opened his mouth, but Thomas added, “And I’d told him that before I ever agreed to have a look for you. There was no way — assuming you were okay — that I was going to get in the middle of your private war.”
“It’s not a war.”
“Sure it is,” Thomas said easily. “It’s your war for independence. And, believe it or not, I’m in favor of that.”
“If that’s true, then why didn’t you just tell me yesterday?”
Thomas sighed.
Colin flinched inwardly, remembering. Remembering too much. “Everything that happened between us was a lie.”
“No.”
“All those bullshit questions yesterday afternoon. You already knew the answers: that I was here painting, that I’d argued with —”
“That’s all I knew. It took me two days to track you down.”
“Fine. So it was a fact-finding mission. That doesn’t make it better.” He felt like such a fool. That’s what really hurt. One of the things that really hurt.
Thomas was shaking his head. “Your feelings are wounded and your pride is injured. I understand. I apologize. You must know I wouldn’t deliberately hurt you.”
He did know that. It didn’t change the fact that Thomas had hurt him. And not for the first time, either.
But seeing his hesitation, Thomas said, “Do you want to hear my side of this or do you just want to tell me the way it is?”
What was the point? Maybe Thomas’s motives had been pure. It didn’t change the fact that last night Thomas had been on the clock and Colin had been falling in love. Colin had made a fool of himself — again — and Thomas had encouraged him to do so. He said quietly, bitterly, “No, I don’t want to hear your side of this. I already told you that.” He bent, picked up his sketch pad, lunch bag.
Thomas’s hand closed on his upper arm. “You’re going to hear it anyway. You owe me that much.”
“I owe you?” Colin straightened, glaring. “Well, this ought to be good. Go ahead.”
“You think last night was just about you? You think I didn’t have a stake in what happened between us? That I don’t have feelings about what happened? Grow up!”
The unexpected heat in Thomas’s face and voice startled Colin. He said stiffly, “Okay. Sorry. What did you want to say?”
“What I wanted to say was, yes, I came looking for you as a favor to Mason, but I was already in this country finishing up a job. That’s the first thing I want you to understand.”
Thomas took a deep, steadying breath and Colin realized that this mattered to him, that the words were not coming easily. “I didn’t come hunting you. I was already here, and since I was already here and had a couple of days to kill, I agreed to have a look for you to put your grandfather’s mind at ease. And because I cared whether you were alright or not.”
“Yeah, you cared so much you never so much as sent me a postcard.”
“Colin.” Thomas raked a hand through his hair. “There’s a considerable age difference between us. It might not mean a lot now, but it sure as hell meant a lot when you were seventeen. Or even when you were in college. You think I wasn’t aware that I had an inside track to your…affections? I could have had you any time from the point you formed an attachment to me. I kept a distance for your sake as much as my own.”
“Your own?”
Thomas responded to the wariness in Colin’s voice with exasperation. “Yes, my own. If you haven’t noticed that I’ve got feelings for you then all I can say is you’re the first blind artist I’ve met.”
Colin didn’t know what to answer. Thomas said, “Okay. So mission accomplished by the time we finished our first glass of wine yesterday afternoon.”
Colin thought back to the previous day. “You went inside the café and phoned my grandfather.”
“Yes. And from that point on, I was on my own time.”
Colin was still rattled from his emotional high dive. He’d been so sure of Thomas’s betrayal, so convinced that he had made a fool of himself the night before — plunging from the giddy high of falling in love and believing it was even reciprocated, to splashing down into ice cold reality of Thomas’s real agenda.
Thomas added, “Last night was about you and me, and nobody else.”
Colin protested — and he could hear the childish, aggrieved note in his voice, “Then why didn’t you tell me — why’d you go on letting me think your running into me was just chance?”
“I was going to talk to you this morning. And I’d have done that if you hadn’t run out.”
“Why didn’t you tell me last night — before we slept together?”
“You want the truth? We had one night. I didn’t want to spend it talking about your grandfather or the past — let alone risk you freaking out. I wanted to…explore the present with you. See if there was maybe a future.”
Thomas held his gaze steadily until Colin had to look away. He stared moodily out at the gray green shrubs. Was he being unfair to Thomas? Being unfair to both of them maybe?
“I don’t know if that was selfish or not,” Thomas said, watching him. “I thought, I still think, that’s what you wanted too.”
If he was realistic, yes. He had wanted Thomas to stop viewing him from the perspective of the past, to see him as a desirable adult rather than the traumatized kid he’d been. Last night he had wanted to pretend — wanted Thomas to go along with the pretense — that they were meeting for the first time.
Thomas said almost gently, “It’s not a black and white world, Colin.”
Colin looked back at Thomas who was watching him steadily, gravely. “You missed your flight.”
“This is more important.”
That helped. If Thomas was willing to stay, to try and talk things out, then it wasn’t just about the job.
Thomas added, “You’re not the only one with insecurities, Col. There’s a part of me that wonders if what you feel for me, or think you feel for me, isn’t just leftover hero worship.”
That startled Colin. The idea that Thomas might be uncertain too, vulnerable too? It hadn’t occurred to him. “No. Give me a little credit.”
“Sure. But that goes both ways.” Thomas rested his warm hand against Colin’s cold cheek. “I didn’t plan last night. I didn’t expect last night to turn out the way it did. I’m off balance here too.”
Maybe it was the sincerity in his voice. Maybe it was the tenderness in his touch. Colin took a deep breath and exhaled, let go of the anger, the hurt, the disappointment, and, yes, the fear. He tried for a smile although he felt out of practice.
“Where do we go from here?”
Thomas said, “I spent the last two and half hours searching for you. Let’s start with breakfast — or whatever they call it over here.”
“Petit déjeuner.”
“Right. Let’s start there. Where’s a good place to eat? Some place we can talk.”
Colin thought it over. He said, “How does fruit, croissants and petit pains with cheese sound? Or jam, or honey, or maybe nutella. Whatever you like. And good coffee?”
“I’m hungry,” Thomas said evenly, “but it’s not so much the food as the company I’m
interested in.”
“I was thinking I’d fix you breakfast.”
Thomas relaxed a fraction. He smiled, his eyes tilting in the old warm way. “Oh. Okay. Breakfast at home is good. Let’s start there.”
“We just have to make one stop on the way.”
Thomas raised his brows inquiringly.
Colin admitted, “I guess maybe I need to make a phone call.”
In a Dark Wood
In a Dark Wood
In a dark, dark wood there was a dark, dark house… Years ago I read on the Internet about this creepy old house in the eastern woods — there were even photos — and then when the idea came to write this story and I tried to find the page again, I couldn’t. Which seemed appropriately eerie. Anyway, Tim’s problems came as a revelation to me. I kept trying to write away from them, but they just wouldn’t go away.
“We’re lost.”
Luke came up behind me. I pointed, hand shaking, at the cross carved into the white bark of the tree. “We’re going in goddamned circles!”
He was silent. Beneath the drone of insects I could hear the even tenor of his breathing although we’d hiked a good nine miles already that autumn afternoon — and no end to it in sight. My head ached and I had a stitch in my side like someone was jabbing me with a hot poker.
I lowered my pack to the ground, lowered myself to a fallen tree — this time not bothering to check for ant nests or coiled rattlers — lowered my face in my hands and lost it. I mean, lost it. Tears…oh, yeah. Shoulders shaking, shuddering sobs. I didn’t even care anymore what he thought.
“Tim…” He dropped his pack too, sat down next to me on the log. He sounded sort of at a loss. After a minute he patted my shoulder. Awkwardly.
I turned away from him and tried to wipe my face on my shirt sleeve.
Feeling him fumbling around with his pack, I watched him through wet lashes. He pulled out his canteen, unscrewed the top and offered it to me.
I took the canteen, swallowed the warm stale water, handed it back. Wiped my face again. Perfect. My nose was running. Not that it mattered. It wasn’t like I had a shred of dignity left.
First dates. You’ve got to love ‘em.
But I mean, what kind of fucking sadist chooses camping for a first date?
Fast forward to the end of this one: we’d shake hands at my brownstone door — assuming we got out of this field trip into Hell alive — and he’d promise to call, and with equal insincerity I’d say I looked forward to it.
I’d never see him again — and that was the only bright side to this whole — literally — walking nightmare.
Luke pulled a cloth out of his pack and wet it with the canteen. “Here, look at me.”
I looked at him. He wiped my face with the wet cloth, shocking me into immobility. His own face was serious, his hazel eyes studied me. I closed my eyes and he gently swiped my eyelids, washing away the sweat and tears.
“Better?”
I lifted my lashes, got my lips steady enough to form words. “Oh, sure. Great.”
“I thought you were a travel writer?”
“I’m not an explorer! I write about comfortable hotels with clean sheets and hot water. My idea of roughing it is a two-star restaurant!”
The corner of his mouth tugged as though, against his will, he found this just a little bit comical. What the hell could be funny about any of this?
“Listen, we’re not lost.”
I opened my mouth and he said, “I don’t mean I know where we are. But I can get us out of here, if that’s what you want. I’ve got a compass and we can start walking east and be back to civilization within a few hours.”
I swallowed hard. First off, there was no place in New Jersey that even remotely qualified as “civilization,” but that was beside the point.
Luke said, “And, for the record, we’re not going in circles. Look again at that carving on the tree. It’s not a fresh cut. Look at the edges. They curl, but they’re worn. It’s not your mark. At least, it’s not the mark you made today.”
I blinked at him stupidly.
He said, “I think it’s your mark from twelve years ago.”
* * * * *
Flash back four days ago to a dinner party at my best friend Rob’s place in Manhattan. Rob’d gone all out: Chinese lanterns hanging over the table, shadows bobbing against the wall, all of us fumbling around with chopsticks, and the Peking duck from Chef Ho’s, exquisite. I’d had three cocktails too many and Rob was egging me on.
“Tim, tell the story about the skull house, come on!”
I laughed, shaking my head.
“Come on,” Rob urged. “Luke wants to hear it. Luke! Tell Tim you want to hear about the skull house in New Jersey.”
Across the table and two faces down there was this very attractive guy, a few years older than me, with dark hair and crinkly, hazel eyes. He gave me a rueful grin.
This was Luke, the cop who Rob kept trying to fix me up with. “A cop?” I always said doubtfully. “I don’t know.”
“He’s a detective, not a beat cop,” Rob always replied. “He doesn’t give speeding tickets.”
Speeding tickets being kind of a sore subject with me. “I’m not really into cops,” I always said.
“You’re not into anybody,” was Rob’s standard answer. “And nobody is into you, which is your problem. One of your problems.”
And that’s where the conversation ended, except that night Luke was present and could speak up for himself.
“Sure, Tim,” he said. “I’d like to hear.”
He had a nice voice, not at all the voice cops use when they’re slapping a parking ticket on your windshield or asking you to pull out your vehicle registration. He had very white teeth and a very nice smile. Did he know Rob wanted to set us up? Er — fix us up, I mean. He probably did, and he’d probably been resisting just as hard as me. He’d certainly kept a polite distance all evening.
I gave Rob a look that promised all kinds of retribution that I wouldn’t remember once I sobered up. He just laughed and poured me another scorpion.
“Come on, Tim,” someone else urged.
Someone else I didn’t know. Rob knew everybody and everybody knew Rob. Most of them didn’t know Rob as long as I’d known him, which was since we were the two most unpopular guys in Trinity School.
I gave in to peer pressure — not for the first time — with a sigh.
“I was thirteen and I was staying with a friend in the Pine Barrens for a couple of weeks during the summer. There wasn’t a lot to do. Mostly we went swimming in this little lake and we spent a lot of time prowling through woods.”
I glanced over at Luke. He set his glass back down, but his lashes lifted and he caught my eye. I couldn’t look away. He didn’t look away either. It was like tractor beams locking on. People were going to notice. My face felt hot, but that was probably the spicy sea dragon bass.
Managing to tear my gaze away, I said, “Anyway, one day we wandered farther into the woods then we were supposed to go. We get really turned around. Totally lost. Oh wait, I’m forgetting. There was supposed to be this house, see, where — I don’t remember what the exact story was now — the Boogey Man or somebody like that was supposed to live in the heart of the woods. And when hikers or nosey kids like us disappeared, The Forester was supposed to have grabbed them.”
“The Forester?” Luke asked. Everyone else chuckled, reaching for glasses or forks. Only Luke was paying close attention.
I focused inward. “Uh, yeah. I think that’s right.” Weird. I’d forgotten that he was called the Forester.
“So, anyway, we wander around, lost. We’re afraid we’re going in circles, and it’s getting dark. I start marking the trees, making a little cross with my penknife in the bark, which is all white and shimmery that time of evening.”
My heart started to thud against my ribs as it came back to me: the deepening shadows, the ghostly trees, the creeping chill of the woods closing in on us. “And then
all at once there’s a house right in front of us. Two stories, really old, falling down. There’s a tree growing out through a big hole in the roof.”
I gestured with my hands trying to make them see this creepy old house being claimed by the woods. “It has an ornate portico thing and little gable windows. Some of the other windows are broken, some of them are still there. The front door is hanging off its hinges…”
I stopped. For a moment it was like I was back in the woods. The smell of moldering house and weird animal scents and…the woods. The hush of evening — even the crickets were silent.
Too silent.
Rob laughed. He’d heard the story before — always when I was drunk. I don’t tell this story sober. I couldn’t help stealing another look at Luke. He wasn’t smiling anymore; his brows were drawn together like he was studying me from a distance and not sure about what he was seeing.
“I took a step forward and something crunched under my foot. When I looked down it was part of a skull.”
Laughter, some expelled breaths. Luke still stared, still frowning. “Skull or a bone?”
“Skull.”
“Human?” someone else asked.
“I don’t know,” I admitted. “At the time we thought so, but we kind of wanted to think so, you know? I don’t think it was.”
I did think it was human, , but I sure as hell didn’t want to admit it.
“So what happened?” a woman asked. The light from the blue lanterns bounced off her glasses and made her look blind. A blind lady insect.
“Nothing. We freaked out and ran home.” I laughed. It wasn’t a convincing laugh, but everyone else laughed too.
Everyone but Luke. “Did you tell anyone?”
I shook my head. “We weren’t supposed to be there. We were afraid…”
We were afraid all right, and getting into trouble was only a little part of it.
“Did you ever go back?” the woman asked again.