by Drew Hunt
“Yeah. But what choice do I have? A life spent alone, regretting the fact that I never gave him a second chance?”
Peter shook his head. “You're gonna do what you want no matter what I say.”
Kevin stood up and approached his friend. Putting his hands on Peter’s shoulders, Kevin said, “But will you support me? Will you be there for me? I can’t do it if I don’t have anyone in my corner cheering for me.”
“’Course we’ll support you,” Terry said, shooting a warning glare at Peter.
Letting out a breath, Peter said, “We love you, Kev. I don’t mind saying that I think you’re heading for one hell of a fall, but if it’s what you feel you need to do, then of course I’ll stand alongside you.”
Kevin felt as though a huge weight had been lifted from his shoulders. He was making a start in re-building his life. Though the thought was scary, he knew he’d made the right decision.
“Go on, get your coat,” Terry said, “we might as well strike while the iron’s hot.”
Epilogue
“We getting a taxi home?” Joey asked as he was being pushed in a wheelchair by one of the male nurses from his ward. Kevin was flanking him on one side, Simon at his other.
“No, Simon and I came in Carole’s car,” Kevin said, moving aside to allow a woman using crutches to pass.
“She’s here?” Joey didn’t want the momentous event of being sprung from the hospital marred by the presence of his sister.
“No, Uncle Joey, she’s off doing some last minute shopping or something with Keith,” Joey heard the note of contempt in Simon’s voice at the mention of Keith’s name. “They’re leaving in a couple of days.”
“But if she’s not here, how…”
Simon giggled.
“I drove,” Kevin said, pausing just inside the main entrance to allow a line of patients on trolleys to be wheeled in.
“You never told me you could drive.”
“You never asked.” Kevin smiled down at Joey, who reached up to take his hand.
“Looks like there’s a lot I don’t know about you,” Joey said, locking eyes with his love.
* * * *
The first time Kevin showed up in Joey’s hospital room, the older man had been surprised to see him. Kevin hadn’t stayed long, hadn’t even approached the bed. However, Joey’s emotions at their first meeting were as nothing compared to when Kevin came back a couple of days later.
“Your mum came to see me the other day.”
“Huh?” Joey’s mind raced.
“She said you’d come out to her.”
“What?”
Calmly, Kevin continued, “Now she knows, do you think we have a chance of making it work between us?”
Anger at his mother’s meddling instantly turned to shock. “But, I…” Joey swallowed. “I don’t deserve a second chance. You should have someone better than me. How many times did you ask me, plead with me not to leave you? And I bet there were loads of times you thought about it, but didn’t say it.”
Kevin nodded.
“And what did I do as soon as things got…complicated?”
“You were put in a tight situation.”
“God, you’re fucking amazing. You still want me back after what I did?”
“Do you still love me? Do you still want me?”
“With all my heart. I promise I never stopped loving you.”
“And would you ever turn me away again?”
Joey shook his head. “I couldn’t.” Reaching out to take Kevin’s hand, he said, “I know what effect me rejecting you had on you, and I’ll go to my grave regretting it, but you gotta know it hurt me, too.” Joey shuddered, “More than you could know.”
“Thank you, Sir,” Kevin said, visibly battling to keep his emotions in check.
“It’s not right you calling me ‘sir’. What’s happened this last couple of weeks must show you that.”
“I need you to be the strong one, I can’t do it.”
“Kevin, please look at me. You are strong. You’re a lot stronger than you think. You got through what I did to you. Coming here today and asking what you just did. Wow, if the roles had been reversed, I bet I couldn’t have done it.”
“When we were together you always protected me and loved me. That’s what I need.”
Joey gazed lovingly at the man who had stolen his heart and was asking if he could look after it again. “You know our Simon’s gonna come and live with me…us? It’d not be right if you called me ‘sir’ in front of him, and as I said, I don’t deserve it. But if you need me to be the strong one, then I’d be honoured to do it. It’d be a fucking privilege to be anything for you.”
“One thing I’m gonna insist on, though.” Kevin said, a resolute tone overlaying his words.
“Name it.”
“You get rid of that bike and don’t buy another.”
Joey had loved the freedom his bike had given him, but lying in his bed for the past week, he’d come to realise it wasn’t the safest form of transport. Now he had a family, he knew he’d have to behave more responsibly. “Okay.”
“I told you that you were a good influence on my son,” Mrs Goldman said, entering the room. ““How many times have I told you that thing was a death-trap? Oy, but would you listen?”
Joey gripped Kevin’s hand tightly, it was either that or he’d throw something. “You can’t help interfering can you? Kevin told me you went to see him.”
His mother didn’t look the least bit contrite. “Someone had to get you two back together.” Seating herself in the chair at the other side of the bed to Kevin, she continued, “Men! They’re no good at organising.”
Kevin chuckled.
Joey just shook his head, unable to stay angry.
“And though I don’t understand why you want to be…that way, you couldn’t have done much better than Kevin there. Though I don’t know why you couldn’t have found yourself a nice Jewish boy. Mrs Feinstein’s son, Marcus, is…a homosexual, and he…”
“Ma!”
“I don’t mind converting to Judaism,” Kevin said softly.
Joey shook his head violently, and, moving his hand toward his crotch, made snipping gestures with his index and middle fingers.
Meanwhile Mrs Goldman had fixed Kevin with a stare, “This isn’t something you should take lightly, young man. Being a Jew is…”
“No way!” Both his mother and Kevin turned surprised expressions on him. Joey realised he’d spoken out loud. “It’s, uh…” He couldn’t discuss Kevin’s foreskin, not in front of his mother.
“I’ll think about it some more, then,” Kevin said, smiling knowingly at Joey.
* * * *
Once the congestion around the hospital’s main entrance had cleared, Joey was able to resume his break for freedom. After crossing the road and negotiating their way through the many parked cars, the group finally arrived at Carole’s vehicle.
The male nurse applied the break to the wheelchair and bent down to Joey’s level and said, “Okay, Mr Goldman, let’s have you in the back seat.”
A suitably salacious comeback immediately popped into Joey’s head, but one look at the warning glare on Kevin’s face as he nodded in Simon’s direction, made him think better of verbalising it. He knows me too well, Joey thought, inching his way into the car.
Once Joey had belted himself in, the male nurse stuck his head through the open door. “Good luck, Mr Goldman.” He reached for Joey’s hand and gave it a shake. “Though having these two people round you, I can see you’re already pretty lucky. The nurse winked at Joey before withdrawing his head and closing the door.
As Joey watched the hospital recede through the back window, he thought, You’ve no idea how lucky I am, mate. Facing forward, he looked upon his new family, good-naturedly arguing over which radio station they should listen to. No idea at all.
THE END
ABOUT DREW HUNT
Having read all the decent free fiction on the net Drew could find, he set out to t
ry his hand at writing something himself. Fed up reading about characters who were super-wealthy, impossibly handsome, and incredibly well-endowed, Drew determined to make his characters real and believable.
Drew lives a quiet life in the north of England with his cat. Someday he hopes to meet the kind of man he writes about.
ABOUT JMS BOOKS LLC
Founded in 2010, JMS Books LLC is owned and operated by author J.M. Snyder. We publish a variety of genres, including gay erotic romance, fantasy, young adult, poetry, and nonfiction. Short stories and novellas are available as e-books and compiled into single-author print anthologies, while any story over 30k in length is available in both print and e-book formats. Visit us at jms-books.com for our latest releases and submission guidelines!