Best Gay Romance 2014

by R. D. Cochrane

  There’s a gentle rap on his bedroom door. He shoves the folder deeper into his suitcase before answering.

  “It’s almost time.” Julie’s voice is very professional. Clinical, as if she’d turned off some emotional switch. “If you have anything to tell her, you’d better tell her now.”

  “Thanks.”

  Still professional, she adds, “I can’t stop you from saying anything you feel compelled to say, but remember who this is about.”

  He nods his understanding, and then walks down the hall and opens the door to his mother’s room. Frankie Lymon sings ‘Goody, Goody’ from the iPad.

  “Mom?”

  The old woman’s eyes open slightly.

  “There’s something I need to tell you.” He senses his sister’s presence in the doorway. Watching him. Wanting to know if he’s going to say it.

  Carver looks at his mother’s gray face. She’s sixty-three years old and looks forty years older.

  “Mom, I’m—” He glances over his shoulder at Julie. She frowns.

  He tries to swallow, but his throat is too dry.

  “Mom,” he starts again, but his will is broken. “Mom, I love you. And I’ll see you again in heaven.”

  His sister sits next to him on the three wooden steps from the driveway to the kitchen door, no doubt happy he finally made a decision she agrees with.

  Dr. Hamilton arrives in a car driven by his comparatively youthful seventy-year-old assistant and goes directly to their mother’s bedroom.

  Within the hour, Lois Howe DeMaris is dead.

  After her body has been removed and they’re alone, Julie lights another cigarette. He wouldn’t think of stopping her. She deserves it.

  “You know what?” She taps the fragment of an ash on the asphalt. “We’re orphans.”

  A sad smile creeps across Carver’s face. “Goody, Goody.”

  “Yeah.” She leans back. “Goody, Goody.” Julie looks at the cigarette in her hand. “The first thing I’m going to do after I’m done with this drama is delete that fucking song from my iPad.”

  Carver looks out at the small garden and wonders who will now tend the marigolds. A life has ended, but he’d rather focus on the imminent demise of the pretty things left behind.

  ***

  Carver DeMaris is wearing a black pin-striped suit, tailored to a perfect fit on his lean body. His tie is a vivid yellowish orange. That morning he’d wondered if he shouldn’t opt for more somber neckwear before deciding against it. He’ll claim the tie honors his mother’s beloved marigolds if anyone questions its appropriateness. The truth is that he just likes the tie, so he’s going to wear it.

  He’s still in the black suit and marigold tie when he drives to Gus’s a few hours after burying his mother.

  As Carver checks his reflection in the car window, he sees Tom watching him from inside the mini-mart. He pockets his sunglasses and walks to the front door. The chime announces his arrival.

  Carver manages a smile. Tom doesn’t. This strikes Carver as strange, since he’s the one who’s come from his mother’s funeral and Tom has only been selling gallons of unleaded and cases of Coors.

  “You didn’t think I’d come back, did you?”

  “Always good to see you.” Tom picks up a plastic donation jar for the Lions Club and holds it with one hand while dusting the surface with the palm of the other. Without looking up, he asks, “Are you okay?”

  Carver shrugs. “Okay enough. All things considered.”

  “Good. Be strong, man.”

  “I will.” Carver’s smile fades. “It was a nice service, except the minister kept getting her name wrong.”

  Tom snorts and sets the Lions Club jar back on the counter. “You’re kidding.”

  “Wish I was. I think the church meant more to her than she meant to the church.”

  “Yeah, well…” Tom’s eyes wander to anything that isn’t Carver. He stammers before finally managing to get some words out. “Can I help you with anything?”

  Carver stares at Tom for a long time, trying to read him. Every time he thinks he sees Tom from high school inside Tom the adult—strong, handsome, gentle Tom, the teenager he ran away from—the image shifts and he’s looking at a stranger. He knows he brought this on himself. He’s not happy about that.

  “Can I help you with anything?” Tom asks again. It’s an open-ended question and Carver has one answer he won’t verbalize.

  “I’m good,” he finally says. “I just wanted to see you again before I head back to New York.”

  Tom’s smile is sad, but it’s a smile. “Take care of yourself.”

  Carver walks out the door. The chime makes more noise than his departing footsteps. When he backs the rental car out of its parking spot, he sees Tom standing in the window. Still watching.

  It’s two A.M. and Carver can’t sleep. Every time his head hits the pillow, his mind races. To calm himself, he sneaks back to the kitchen, where a large bottle of merlot sits on the linoleum countertop. He’d bought it earlier, figuring he might need it. He does.

  He refills his glass and considers toasting his dead mother before remembering she’d die all over again if she knew he’d brought alcohol into her home.

  The clock ticks off another minute. Crucified Jesus watches him from the wall.

  Carver decides to toast Jesus. At least he appreciated wine.

  He has an inspiration. It has more to do with merlot than Jesus, but he’ll give him the credit.

  When Carver wakes up, it’s only minutes before it’s not morning anymore. He immediately remembers and just as immediately regrets what he did in the middle of the night, but regrets won’t do him any good at this point.

  He pulls on a T-shirt and cargo shorts. Stubs a toe against the floorboard that never quite fit back into place after he’d pried it up with the butter knife. Grasps the injured toe. Curses. Even though she’s dead and buried, he senses his mother’s disapproval.

  In the kitchen, the empty wine bottle taunts his foolishness. A marigold is stuck in the stem, which rattles him until he realizes Julie must have posed the flower.

  She’s sitting on the steps off the kitchen, smoking.

  “You smoke too much.”

  “You drink too much. Or so says the huge empty bottle on the kitchen counter.” She blows smoke directly at his face. “Don’t even try to judge me.”

  They stare at the marigolds and don’t speak.

  Later Carver sits at the kitchen table and taps on the laptop keyboard. When his mother was alive they almost never used the living room or dining room, and now that she’s dead, he and Julie continue the family tradition of avoiding half the house. They only use the kitchen and their bedrooms.

  Julie has relaxed. She’d made it clear she wasn’t in the mood to be judged, but that storm has passed.

  She looks over her brother’s shoulder. The screen displays the mock-up of a fuselage.

  “Whatcha doing?”

  Carver stares ahead at the screen. “Checking in for my flight tonight.”

  He finishes and closes the laptop, then turns toward her. “I hate that my life was a secret from Mom.”

  She considers that. “She wouldn’t have approved. She wouldn’t understand.”

  “Maybe not. But no more secrets, okay?”

  She can read him, and he can read her. That’s their sibling connection. He knows she senses more drama is coming, despite her many protestations over previous days.

  Julie groans. Flips her hair. Closes her eyes. Reopens them. “I think I need another cigarette.”

  This time Julie lights up in the kitchen. No more mother, no more rules.

  Carver clears his throat. “I want to be with Tom.”

  “Tom?” She’s lost until it clicks. “Tom Melvin?” He nods. “Are you telling me Tom’s gay?” Clearly she’d never considered the possibility. Just as clearly, she’s seldom thought of Tom in any context.

  Carver doesn’t directly answer her. “I should have done t
his a long time ago. I’m just feeling bolder right now.”

  “Would you be this bold if Mom was still alive?”

  “Probably not. Patience is both a virtue and a very small town.” He trails off, wondering how committed he is to baring his secret. Committed enough, he decides. “There’s something you don’t know.”

  Julie taps ashes into the sink. “Do I want to know?”

  He thinks she probably doesn’t, but that won’t stop him. No more secrets, after all. “Back in high school, Tom and I, we—we sort of had a thing.”

  “Seriously?” She seems legitimately shocked to hear her little brother wasn’t a virginal teenager. “You mean you two—?”

  He nods. “For a few months.”

  She taps ashes into the sink again. “Well, damn, you’re full of surprises today. So what happened?”

  “I couldn’t handle it. I just—” Words fail him and he takes a deep breath to collect his thoughts. “I was afraid that people would find out I was gay, and I couldn’t let that happen. So I blamed it on Mom. Told Tom that she figured things out and said we couldn’t be friends anymore.”

  She shakes her head disapprovingly. “You used Mom as an excuse?”

  He knows he was wrong but can’t help feeling defensive. “She wouldn’t have approved, Jules.”

  Julie stubs out the cigarette next to the drain and leaves the butt in the basin. Judgment is heavy in her voice. “True, but she didn’t know. Why didn’t you just tell Tom the truth?”

  Carver’s feeling of shame swells. “Look, I’m not nominating myself as a profile in courage. I was flawed. Still am. But now I want to make things right. And I want to be with him again.”

  Her voice assumes the tone of the Wise Older Sibling. “Then you’ll have to tell him the truth.”

  “I already did.”

  “When?”

  More shame. Carver wonders if it’s limitless. “Back in high school, I wrote him a letter. Told him everything.”

  She looks relieved. “Okay, so he knows about your lie. That makes this a little better.”

  He wants to end the conversation but knows if it stops, there will always be a secret between them. “The thing is, I never mailed the letter.”

  “I’m not sure I follow…”

  “I slipped it under the door of the mini-mart last night.”

  Julie’s jaw drops. “Oh, shit.”

  He now knows the depths of shame are limitless.

  Carver DeMaris guides his rental car across the abandoned railroad tracks and past the peeling sign reading “Leaving Patience: It’s A Virtue.”

  Saying good-bye to Julie was difficult. In a sense, despite their sometimes difficult relationship, she’s always been the love of his life. Not, of course, in the same sense as Tom.

  He hopes Tom will forgive him. He hopes Tom will want to rekindle the relationship abandoned so long ago when Carver was a frightened teenager.

  He’s also prepared for rejection, which he knows is a much more likely outcome.

  Carver turns the key in the ignition and the engine dies. He sits behind the wheel for a moment and takes a few deep breaths. Then he looks out the windshield at the mini-mart and gathers his courage.

  Tom barely looks at him when he walks through the door.

  Carver swallows hard. “You’re angry.”

  Tom takes his time answering. Finally, he says, “Yes.” Then he says, “No.”

  Carver is confused. “Yes and no?” He wishes Tom’s emotions were clearer. At least he’d know—something. “Tom? Look, I’m sorry.”

  Tom glares at Carver, who begins to wish Tom’s emotions were less clear again. “I’m pissed that you blamed your mother, and I’m pissed it took you ten years to tell me the truth. So yes, I’m angry.”

  Carver tries to speak. Tom holds out a hand to silence him.

  “I’m also pissed at myself for wasting my life in Patience. Not moving to Denver or someplace else where I could have a real life.” He sighs. The harshness in his voice loses its edge. “So I guess I’ve got a lot of anger to spread around.”

  “It’s not too late,” says Carver. “Come to New York with me.”

  “Is that why you’re here?” Tom asks. Carver smiles hopefully. “I can’t see that happening.”

  It’s hard to argue, but Carver tries. “It’s never too late to start a new life.”

  “A new life.” Tom’s tone is dismissive. “Who gets a new life?”

  Carver’s voice is tiny. “I did.”

  Tom finally manages a smile. “I guess you did. And that’s why I can’t be angry with you, no matter how much I’d like to be. You found some courage and made something of yourself. You came out. Maybe not to your mother, but you did it. And you’re finally being honest with me. It took you ten years, but you did it. Me, I’m just stuck. Stuck in a small town in the middle of nowhere. Each day like every other day.”

  Carver pleads, “Leave. I’ll—look, I’ll even buy your ticket.” When Tom doesn’t respond, he adds, “I’d like to start over again. Not as a scared kid, but as an adult.”

  Maybe Tom appreciates Carver’s persistence, but it’s clear he isn’t going to jump into the rental car, and he isn’t going to fly away with Carver.

  When Carver walked into the mini-mart, he’d thought there were two possible outcomes: Tom would fall back into his arms, or Tom would reject him.

  While he preferred the first possibility to the second, either would give Carver closure.

  “I’m not ready to make a decision,” Tom said. “I understand why you did what you did ten years ago, but I need to think about things.”

  His decision is a big Maybe. Carver hadn’t counted on a third option. But in that option, he finds hope.

  Carver thinks he understands why Tom needs to protect himself. And they both understand that, individually or as a couple, they need to move forward.

  The conversation ended with a lingering kiss. There was still passion after all those years.

  That’s good enough for Carver.

  He knows a song about a broken relationship sung by a man who overdosed at twenty-five doesn’t fit the situation, but he can’t help singing “Goody, Goody” as his car speeds west toward Denver.

  SPILL YOUR TROUBLES ON ME, LOVE

  Georgina Li

  Ethan grabbed the big gray hoodie from his locker in the train station, pulled it on over his black tank and hopped on the train. There was a guy crashed out across five or six seats at the far end of the car, but other than that it was empty. Ethan sat by the door, pulled his knees up close to his chest and wiped his mouth on his sleeve. It left a little smear of cherry lip balm on the fabric, but Ethan didn’t much care. He was off for the next thirty-six hours, and Rosie’s Bakery was only three stops away.

  Rosie’s had become a ritual from the first time Lucas brought him there and Mrs. Cammelli fussed over them and made Ethan blush. Ethan stopped there every Tuesday morning, and old Mrs. Cammelli spoiled him just like she did Lucas. There was something about it that felt right. Sometimes Ethan fantasized about giving up the life and working at Rosie’s like Mrs. Cammelli, or maybe even working in the back like Mr. Cammelli, wearing an apron and singing to his pastry while he measured and kneaded and baked. It was crazy, and it was never going to happen, but Ethan liked the idea of it anyway. He couldn’t turn tricks forever.

  This morning he bought two buttery croissants and splurged on two chocolate ones, too, still warm from the big ovens in the back. Mrs. Cammelli fixed two large to-go cups of steaming hot tea, one for him and one for Lucas, sweetened with the thick condensed milk he loved without his even having to ask. Ethan walked the two blocks to their apartment humming to himself. The city was as quiet as it ever got, buses and street cleaners and someone’s car alarm going off, boys like Ethan heading home after a long night, street vendors setting up.

  Ethan’s building was mostly dark still, the stairwell filthy, more rank than usual. He carefully made his way up to their floor,
opened the door to the squat he shared with Lucas with one hand, tea and croissants balanced in the other.

  Inside, Lucas was slumped against the wall, jeans around his thighs and his dick soft, vomit on his shirt. Ethan leaned back against the door for a minute, took in the sight. He set their breakfast down on the table, making room among the tangled strands of tiny lights Lucas had found the day before. Ethan closed his eyes for a minute, imagined the lights were hanging above their bed already just like they’d talked about, white and gold like so many stars, close enough to touch, and he and Lucas were sprawled out beneath them.

  Ethan kicked off his shoes, scrubbed his fingers through his hair. It was long enough now that he could tuck it behind his ears, pale curls that reeked of spunk and sweat and dirty hands. He’d hack it off but he’d been earning heavy lately and he knew it was the hair. It made him look younger than he was, more vulnerable.

  Lucas shifted on the floor and licked his lips, made a low sort of sound, slurry and almost like words. Ethan rubbed his hand over Lucas’s shaved head, the soft buzz of bristles making his skin tingle, and Lucas blinked up at him, smiling. Ethan dropped down beside him for a while, leaning his head on Lucas’s shoulder. One of his regulars had been in a shit mood tonight, couldn’t get it up until Ethan was bloody, shaking.

  Lucas touched Ethan’s swollen lip carefully, the bruises on his throat. “Hey there, beautiful,” Lucas said and pulled him a little closer.

  Last week they’d dragged a mattress up the stairs, big enough for both of them and hardly stained at all. Lucas took their old one down to the alley, left a note on it: FREE TO A GOOD HOME. Ethan had added a smiley face to it when he headed out that afternoon and wasn’t surprised at all to find the mattress gone when he came home.

  Ethan looked at their bed, scratched at his belly, said, “Okay, fucker, time to get up. We both need showers,” and Lucas burped and swallowed hard, reached out a hand when Ethan stood up again. Lucas’s skin was hot and his palm was scraped to hell, but Ethan pulled him to his feet carefully and brushed a kiss across his cheek. Lucas grinned at him and held up his pants with his free hand.