Strays and Lovers

by John Inman

Without hesitation, Gray answered, “He was my lawyer.”

  “Lawyer for what?”

  Silence took hold inside the cabin for a string of heartbeats, broken only by the sound of the fire snapping and popping in the hearth and a barely audible contralto crooning an Italian aria on the stereo. Gray sighed and cleared his throat.

  “I was young.”

  “You’re still young.”

  “I mean I was younger. I was also stupid. I got in trouble. Mr. Stevens got me out of it, but not before….”

  “Not before what?”

  Again, the silence flooded in. A little longer this time. Finally, Gray ended it. “Not before I spent some time in jail, Eddie. And I’d appreciate it if you kept that information to yourself.”

  “Certainly, Gray. I wish you didn’t feel you had to ask. I wouldn’t have said anything.”

  Gray tore off another bite of sandwich. Around it, he mumbled, “I know. I’m sorry.” But he didn’t look sorry. He looked annoyed with himself, as if he’d already said more than he should.

  “How young were you?”

  “Eighteen.”

  Eddie blinked. “But you must be in your midtwenties by now.”

  Again Gray sighed. He set the rest of his sandwich down and leaned over the table, arms folded, staring into Eddie’s eyes. “Since you seem to need to know, it wasn’t jail, it was prison. I spent five years there. Mr. Stevens is the only one who tried to help me. He finally got me out, and here I am. And before you ask what it was I did, I guess I’ll tell you. I was with a friend when he took it into his stupid head to rob a liquor store. With a gun. Believe me, I didn’t know what he was about to do, or I wouldn’t have still been sitting in the car waiting for him like a twit. I told the judge that, but he didn’t believe me. Mr. Stevens did.”

  “And it took him five years to get you out?”

  Gray gave an exasperated grunt. “The wheels of justice turn slowly.”

  Eddie shook his head. “Geez, I guess so.” And after a moment, he added, “I can’t imagine how awful that must have been for you.”

  “No,” Gray said, his eyes sliding toward the fire. “You can’t.”

  Silence settled over them, broken now by the soft sound of Louie snoring in Gray’s lap. Gray looked down at him and almost smiled.

  “I think I wore Louie out,” Eddie said. “Three miles is a long way to go when your legs are four inches long. I’ll probably have to carry him home.”

  Gray nodded as if not really listening. While his hand gently stroked Louie’s cottony coat, he lifted his eyes and stared through the cabin window. It was almost fully dark outside now. Inside, the cabin was lit only by firelight. Gray reached over and flicked a wall switch and light from a ceiling fixture flooded the room.

  “I’ll keep an eye out for a vacancy for you,” Eddie said.

  “Thanks.”

  With that, the silence returned. “My dog likes you,” Eddie said, not sure what else to say.

  Only then did Gray’s smile finally come to life. “So it would seem.”

  Suddenly the words were there even before Eddie knew they were coming. “I like you too,” he softly said. “I really will help you find a place to stay, Gray. I promise.”

  “I—I don’t know why you should. I wasn’t very friendly to you back at the store. Or a few minutes ago on the porch. I guess I can be a dick sometimes.”

  Eddie shrugged, hoping to make light of it all. “You were probably worried about where you’re going to live when the lawyer comes back. I know I would have been.”

  A blush rose to Gray’s cheeks. He stared down at the pup. “I guess I was. Actually, I guess I still am.” And with that, he finally lifted his eyes to lock them on to Eddie’s gaze.

  Eddie was resting with both arms on the table. Gray was in almost the same position until he moved. Suddenly his right hand slid away from his tea cup and edged across the table toward Eddie’s. Eddie didn’t wait for it to reach him, but extended his own hand and met it halfway. Laying his hand over Gray’s, he held on to it briefly, then gave it a friendly pat before pulling his hand back.

  “Don’t worry, Gray. We’ll figure something out.”

  To Eddie’s utter amazement, Gray said, “About my living conditions or about us?”

  Eddie’s breath caught. But only for a moment. “Is there an us?” he asked quietly.

  Gray removed both his hands from the tabletop and laid them in his lap alongside Louie. It was almost as if he was afraid he had said and done too much. When Gray spoke, Eddie had to lean forward to hear his words.

  “Do you want there to be an us?” Gray asked.

  Eddie’s pulse thudded inside his head. “I’ve wanted it since the first time I saw you.”

  “You don’t know me,” Gray said.

  “I know enough,” Eddie answered.

  Gray tore his eyes from Eddie’s face, and they flitted about the room like butterflies seeking a place to land. Before they stopped moving, he pushed his chair back and stood, still cradling Louie in his arms.

  “I’m sorry, Eddie. I think we’ve said enough for one night. You’d better go.”

  Eddie started, pushing his chair back with a squeak and all but springing to his feet. “Oh. Of course.” He reached out to take Louie, but Gray lifted the pup to his face first and kissed him on the nose. Louie’s sleepy eyes opened, then just as quickly closed again. Fred, already sensing the visit was over, stood at the front door waiting for Eddie to lead him out.

  Eddie turned to do just that, first tucking Louie into his backpack and hanging it carefully over his shoulder. Before he reached the door, he stopped and turned back.

  Gray still stood by the kitchen table. Eddie thought he looked unhappy again, so he stepped forward and slipped his arms around Gray to pull him in for a hug.

  Before he could stop himself, he tucked his hand under Gray’s chin and lifted his face to align it with his own. Their eyes burrowed into each other, and while Eddie’s heart galloped inside his chest, he leaned forward and laid his lips over Gray’s.

  Gray accepted the kiss by closing his eyes and relaxing in Eddie’s arms. But only for a moment. He quickly—but not too quickly—eased free of the kiss, leaving his hands on Eddie’s broad chest.

  “This is all too fast,” he breathed.

  And Eddie stammered, “I know. I’m sorry.” But he still stood there with Gray’s hands over his thudding heart, licking Gray’s kiss away from his lips. With a teasing smile, he said, “Peanut butter and jelly. My favorite flavor.”

  Gray blushed as a smile softened his face. “I—I didn’t know for sure.”

  Eddie’s eyes crinkled around the edges. “Didn’t know what? That you like peanut butter and jelly? Or you didn’t know I was gay?”

  “The second one.”

  “And now you do?”

  This time Gray’s smile wasn’t hesitant at all. He licked his lips like Eddie had done. “Pretty sure.”

  Eddie smiled back. “Good.”

  Gray’s hands slid from his chest as Eddie stepped backward toward the door. Before he actually reached for the doorknob to let himself out, he turned one last time and laid his fingertips to Gray’s cheek. “Thank you for sharing the truth with me,” Eddie said. “About the cabin, I mean. And about yourself.”

  Gray’s gaze fell away when he briefly ducked his head to brush his lips over Eddie’s fingers. Then, more businesslike, he stepped around him and opened the cabin door.

  Eddie followed Fred onto the porch, and turning one last time, stared at Gray standing with the orange firelight framing him in the open doorway.

  “Good night,” Eddie said, aching to say more but knowing he shouldn’t. It was a struggle for him to keep his voice on an even keel. It seemed to be shaky all of a sudden. He stood quietly, listening to the night breeze blowing across the cabin’s eaves. The wind felt good ruffling his hair.

  “Good night, Eddie,” Gray answered, his eyes once again looking everywhere but directly at Edd
ie’s face.

  He was about to ask Gray to look at him one last time, when the next thing he knew, the cabin door closed quietly, and he found himself standing alone in the desert dusk.

  He tilted his head back and sucked in a calming breath. The young moon had risen plump and pale in the eastern sky. Eddie eyed it all the way home.

  He was a long way down the trail before the taste of Gray’s kiss evaporated from his lips. He hated to see it go.

  Chapter Four

  EDDIE AWOKE to the sound of rain lashing his bedroom window. Gusting winds buffeted the house. There was so much ozone in the air from lightning strikes he could feel the little hairs bristling on the back of his neck.

  It’s a dark and stormy night, he thought sardonically.

  Somewhere over his head a loose shingle banged around. When the rain stopped, he’d have to fix that.

  He flinched as another streak of lightning sizzled past. Sitting up, he reached over to switch on the bedside lamp and found six animals huddled around his bed, each one looking more anxious than the other. Leo, Oxley, Madam Ovary, and Chester were lined up in a neat little row, their haunches twitching nervously, ears flat to their heads, tails puffed up to three times their normal size. They were bookended by Fred and Lucretia, their more expansive canine butts planted firmly on the rug at the foot of the bed, their worried eyes as big as hard-boiled eggs.

  Eddie almost laughed.

  “It’s just a storm, guys. No need to panic. It’ll blow over soon enough.”

  In truth, the animals had a right to be worried. Eddie couldn’t remember the last time a thunderstorm had descended on the high country with this much force. It sounded like the whole joint was about to be washed away in the deluge.

  Another flash of lightning strobed the room, a split second of white-hot light that exploded around them like a nuclear blast. A crack of thunder, as crisp and sharp as a femur snapping, made Eddie jump. It made all the dogs and cats jump too. Well, almost all of them.

  Suddenly Eddie realized not everyone was present and accounted for. Naked, he rose up onto his knees in the middle of the bed and began rooting through the covers, hoping to unearth a small white puppy who had never seen a thunderstorm in his life and was probably cowering under the blankets in fear.

  But the bed was empty.

  Eddie called out, “Louie!”

  No yip or whimper answered the call. No tiny bark drifted up the staircase from the rooms below. No clatter of the doggie door leading out to the back porch could be heard. No patter of tiny footsteps raced toward him in the night. But for the snap of lightning and the grumble of thunder, the house was as still as death. And since death was a poor choice of similes on a night like this, Eddie quickly pushed the thought away.

  He called out for Louie one more time. Still no answer. He hung himself over the side of the bed and looked beneath it. Nothing but dust balls and one stray sock. He turned to Fred and Lucretia, who were quivering in consternation now, sensing the desperation in their master’s demeanor. They might not know why he was desperate, but they knew whatever it was, it couldn’t be good.

  Their backs stiffened and their ears popped up when Eddie looked at them.

  “Fred. Lucretia. Go find Louie. Go on now. Bring him to me. If he’s outside, fetch him back. Go!”

  Both dogs took off like a shot. They stampeded down the stairs while Eddie grabbed his bathrobe off the dresser where he’d tossed it when he went to bed. He pulled the robe around him, and it felt good against his naked skin. He knew it was precisely midnight when the old-school clock in the dining room downstairs chimed out the hour. Twelve tinny bongs. What with the storm and the late hour, the night had turned chilly. He had goose bumps from the bottom of his feet to the top of his head.

  But to heck with the cold. And to heck with the late hour. Where the hell is Louie?

  He cinched the robe’s belt firmly around his waist and sprang down the stairs, making enough racket to startle the cats and send them scurrying off in four different directions. When he reached the mud room at the back of the house, he threw a rain slicker over the robe and stuck his bare feet in unbuckled galoshes. The boots were icy cold against his naked skin. He tightened the robe’s belt more snugly beneath the slicker and stepped out into the rain.

  The storm was a frog strangler, as his daddy used to say. The rain came down so hard that even with the outside floodlights on, Eddie had to squint to see anything. The kennels and dog runs were all empty, of course. The animals had retreated into the Quonset huts to escape the weather, proving each and every one of them was smarter than he was. The only beasts Eddie could spot at all were Fred and Lucretia, and they were still sitting on the back porch, looking guilty because they really did not want to venture out into the pounding rain.

  “Thanks for the help!” Eddie bawled, stomping off into the mud while raindrops clattered against the hood of his rain slicker, all but deafening him to everything else. Within thirty seconds, even with the rain slicker to cover his back and head, he was wet and shivering and utterly miserable. And since he was already drenched, and knowing he couldn’t get any more drenched, he splashed his way from kennel to kennel, calling out Louie’s name.

  But the white pup was nowhere to be found.

  Eddie stood helplessly in the pelting rain while lightning flashed and thunder boomed and the icy wet wind whipped under his bathrobe, chilling his balls and making him gasp. Ignoring his freezing nuts and the rainwater dribbling down his calves into his boots, he ran around to the front of the house and peered under the Jeep, thinking Louie might have sought refuge there. But he hadn’t.

  Yanking open the Jeep’s door, Eddie laid on the car horn, blasting it out through the night, thinking that might draw Louie to him if the dog was lost. But Louie didn’t come. Still, Fred and Lucretia wouldn’t brave the rain to see what was happening. Instead they had chased each other into the house and were now sitting on the back of the sofa peering through the living room window, stubbornly refusing to set one foot into the driving rain.

  Standing soaked and worried sick, Eddie let the storm wash over and around him. He trembled when a trickle of icy rainwater slid down his back under the robe. Not knowing what else to do, he reached into the Jeep again and switched on the headlights, thinking that might give a homing beacon to the pup if he were lost and turned around in the rain.

  Eddie tensed in surprise when the headlight beams illuminated a man. Like Eddie, he too was hunkered down against the weather and looked as miserable as Eddie did. He was standing at the edge of the county road where Eddie’s driveway began, and he was cradling something in his arms. At least, he was cradling something in his arms until the something leaped free and made a beeline through the rain straight for Eddie.

  It was Louie. And behind him, caught in the glow of the Jeep’s headlights, as wet as a fish and stomping around, trembling in the cold, was Gray, grinning widely as he watched the reunion of master and dog.

  When Louie, covered in mud, sprang into Eddie’s arms, Eddie let out a hoot of relief, and even Gray, as miserable and wet and cold as he looked, barked out a laugh in return. Eddie hooked an arm through the air, beckoning Gray forward, and clutching Louie safely to his breast, he reached in, switched off the Jeep’s headlights, and turned and ran for the front porch. Gray joined him there three seconds later, scurrying in out of the rain. They stood dripping, staring at each other, their teeth chattering with cold, their hair soaked flat to their heads. Smiles stretched from ear to ear on both their faces.

  Eddie, not standing on ceremony and still holding Louie securely in his arms, took a fistful of Gray’s coat and pulled him close. Without asking permission, or even so much as saying hello, he wrapped Gray in his arms and buried his face in the crook of his neck, inhaling his scent and pressing his lips and nose into the heat of his skin.

  “Thank you,” Eddie started to whisper, but before the words were out, Gray’s mouth found his in a brutal kiss. Their teeth clacked t
ogether, and Gray’s icy hand slid under Eddie’s soggy robe and caressed the wales of his rib cage, causing them both to shudder. The kiss went on and on, but there was nothing gentle about it. Finally even Louie, squashed between them, was squirming to be released.

  Breathless, Eddie took Gray’s hand and pulled him into the house, out of the damp and cold. With everyone now safely inside, Eddie set Louie gently on the floor, then turned to close the door, blocking out the storm.

  Only then did he turn and gaze into Gray’s burning eyes. There was a spot of blood on Gray’s lower lip. Eddie didn’t know if it was his blood or Gray’s, and he didn’t care. He extended a fingertip and gently wiped it away, causing Gray to close his eyes and shiver yet again.

  “Sorry,” Eddie mumbled, not quite embarrassed, but not exactly proud of himself either. “I didn’t mean to kiss you that hard.”

  Gray pushed his hood back and shrugged out of his wet parka. He looked around for a place to hang it and finally dropped it on the floor. “I don’t remember complaining.” A spark of fire lit his eyes when a streak of lightning brightened the room. No more than a second later, the thunder boomed, causing them both to jump. The storm was right on top of them.

  “Come to bed,” Eddie whispered. “Come to bed now. I’ll kiss you more gently next time.”

  Gray was shivering, but Eddie didn’t think it was from the cold. He reached up and touched his lip with a fingertip, assaying the damage, maybe, or to help him remember how the kiss had felt. When he spoke, his voice was throaty and hoarse. The fire hadn’t dimmed from his eyes one little bit. “Do you promise?” he asked.

  “Yes,” Eddie said. “I promise.”

  Another jolt of lightning strobed through the house, illuminating every corner, every knickknack, every dust ball. Eddie really had to clean. But why the hell am I thinking about that now?

  Gently, he wove his fingers through Gray’s, and with his heart thundering in his chest, he led him up the stairs.

  GRAY’S TREMBLING hands pushed the bathrobe off Eddie’s shoulders to send it sliding to the floor. With that last garment out of the way, Eddie stood in the light of the nightstand lamp, as naked—and as excited—as he’d ever been in his life.