by Alexa Land
“I know this was a lot to hit you with, and I know it came totally out of the blue, but I’m going to be in town for a couple days. Can we find some time tomorrow to get a coffee or something?”
I pushed my hair back from my face, and after a moment I said, “I guess.”
“Good. Great! I’ll text your boyfriend’s number in the morning. Like I said, I have it memorized.”
“Alright. Well, see ya.” I left him in the conference room and found Finn and my brother eating Fudgesicles in the break room. “We have to go. I don’t want to be late for the dinner rush,” I told Colt.
Finn crossed the room to me and rubbed my upper arm. “You okay?”
“Yeah. I’ll see you tonight.” He nodded and kissed my forehead.
On the bus ride back to Nolan’s, Colt said, “So that was probably the last thing you expected to happen today, huh?”
“Pretty much.”
“Are you mad at that guy? What’s his name, anyway?”
“Tony Asturias. And…yeah. I guess I am, but I’m not sure why.”
“Because he wasn’t there for you when you were a kid?”
“That’s not his fault. He had no idea I existed.”
Colt thought about it for a minute, then said, “Maybe it’s really Mama you’re mad at, but you don’t want to be because she’s dead. She’s the one who didn’t tell that guy he had a son.”
“I don’t know. Maybe.”
“Or maybe you’re just mad in general. That’s okay, too. You can just be mad because life’s not fair and stuff sucks.”
I said, “I’m going to go with that.”
When we got back to the apartment, we found Jamie and Dmitri curled up on their couch, kissing each other tenderly. Lily was sound asleep in Dmitri’s arms, her chubby little legs sprawled out on Jamie’s lap. The two men stopped kissing and smiled at us, and Jamie raised a hand in greeting.
I returned the smile and wave as Colt snuck in and retrieved his schoolwork from the coffee table, and then he and I went into the office and closed the door. “We really gotta find our own place,” he said. “Those two are the nicest guys in the world and they’d probably let us stay forever, but I totally feel like we’re intruding.”
“I feel the same way.”
“Can we go stay with Finn’s brother? Shea and Christian have that nice, big house.” We’d all been there for dinner the week before.
“Finn thought about that, but then he decided against it. His brother is a newlywed, and before they got married, Christian had a ton of health issues. Everything’s okay now, but they really need to just be able to enjoy being newlyweds without a bunch of chaos and interruptions.”
“I’d be quiet. I promise,” Colt said.
“I know. I don’t mean you. It’s just a lot to add four people to any household.”
“I guess you’re right.” My brother chewed his lower lip as he sat down at the desk and spread out his homework. After a while he looked at me over his shoulder and said, “I wish you’d change your mind and let me get a job. I could be helping out financially. I could bus tables downstairs, I’m sure Jamie would hire me.”
“We talked about this. You need to concentrate on school.” I sat down cross-legged on the air mattress and carefully unpacked the contents of my camera case. It all appeared to be in perfect condition.
“I know, but I could do both. I hate seeing you and Finn bust your asses while I sit back and do nothing.”
“You’re not doing nothing. You’re studying hard so you can get into a good college.”
“Like that’s gonna happen,” he muttered before turning back to his schoolwork.
In an outside pocket of the camera bag, I found a green, zippered canvas pouch that I didn’t recognize. I turned the worn fabric over in my hand. A Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles emblem was so faded out that it was almost illegible. Inside the pouch were a child’s treasures, a couple Hot Wheels, pretty rocks, baseball cards, a cheap adjustable ring with a blue stone, and several more trinkets. I picked up a tiny, unlined notebook, no bigger than two by three inches, and turned the pages. It was full of drawings of the same boy, and they were quite good. I wondered if they were self-portraits, but doubted it because the subject was always looking away, as if they’d been drawn while observing someone who didn’t know the artist was there.
The fact that the boy in the drawings wasn’t Cory Previn was confirmed when I took a look at the photos on my camera. He’d taken a series of selfies, which showed a kid with a ton of freckles, clunky glasses, and auburn hair that looked like he’d cut it himself. Not exactly the thug I’d been expecting.
In addition to the self-portraits, he’d also taken hundreds of pictures of anything he could find, like trees, old bottles, rusty barbed wire, often in close-up. They were exactly the kind of pictures I would have taken, and they showed he had a good eye. He’d take dozens of shots of the same thing, each time adjusting the camera settings, the focus, the angle. He was trying to learn, teaching himself. He was trying to get better.
“Shit,” I whispered as I looked at his pictures. As if I didn’t have enough on my plate. Now I actually found myself worried about a fifteen-year-old car thief in Gala, Wyoming.
*****
I didn’t get off work until one a.m., but I still beat Finn home. He came in sometime around three and climbed onto the air mattress gingerly, trying not to wake me. I immediately crawled into his arms, and he pulled me close. “Sorry,” he whispered. “I was trying to let you sleep.”
“I was waiting for you to get home.”
“Are you okay?”
“Yeah.” I burrowed deeper into his embrace.
“I’m sorry I didn’t tell you Asturias was at the station. I kind of thought you wouldn’t come if you knew it was him, but I also thought you really should hear what he had to say.”
“You were right, I might not have. Why am I so angry at him? He didn’t really do anything wrong. Well, aside from being an asshole back in Gala, and waiting almost a month to tell me about the test results. And why the hell would he need the excuse of my camera to come and see me? Was ‘I’m your father’ not important enough on its own?”
“I don’t know. Maybe he was scared to come see you, and the camera was enough to tip the scales.”
I looked up at Finn in the darkness. “Why would he be afraid to come see me?”
“Well, because nobody likes rejection. I’m sure he knew he’d blown it back in Wyoming when he refused to listen to you and acted like a jerk. Maybe he thought you’d written him off after that.”
“Life was already so damn complicated, Finn, and then he shows up out of the blue! I don’t even know what to say to this guy! I don’t know the first thing about him.”
“So, maybe that’s where you start. Just talk to him, get to know him. Isn’t that what you wanted?”
I mulled it over for a while and finally said, “Yeah. You’re right. I’m going to call him tomorrow. He came all this way, it won’t kill me to have a cup of coffee with him.”
“I’m glad you’re giving him a chance.”
We talked for a while, and then I leaned in and kissed him. He cupped the back of my neck as he deepened the kiss, and things soon got hot and heavy. We hadn’t been able to do much since we’d been staying in his cousin’s apartment, aside from a few stolen moments here and there, and Finn needed release. I knew that even before I ran my hand down his body and felt the growing erection in his boxer briefs. I climbed between his legs, freed his cock from his underwear and took it between my lips.
He let out a soft, “Ahhh,” and wove his fingers in my hair as I began to suck him. I worked his shaft with my lips and hand and tongue while caressing his balls, and in just a few minutes he came, struggling to remain silent as his body shook and I swallowed his load. When he’d finished and was catching his breath, I pulled up his underwear and the blanket that had slid onto the floor and returned to his arms.
“Thank you,” he sa
id, and kissed my forehead.
“My pleasure.”
“What about you, do you want a turn?”
“Next time.”
He fell asleep a couple minutes later, and I rubbed my cheek against his chest and breathed in his scent, which was both familiar and comforting. I wanted to fall asleep too. My body was so tired, but my mind kept racing. After about half an hour, I gave up and slid out of bed. Finn stirred, but didn’t wake up.
I decided I might as well do something productive as long as I was awake, so I picked up the cardboard file box I’d taken from my mother’s closet. I’d already gone through the first box, which had been full of old bills, statements and receipts, and closed every account I came across. She’d had all of two hundred and thirty dollars in the bank. Since Hayes, the lawyer who was helping me on a pro bono basis, had filed the paperwork and I was named executor of her estate, I’d been able to close her account and move that money into a savings account for Colt. I thought ‘estate’ was a pretty ambitious word for a ramshackle old house and two hundred and thirty dollars.
I pulled the door to the office shut quietly, and when I stepped into the living room, I was surprised to find Dmitri on the couch. He was holding an e-reader in a black leather case, dressed in a black V-neck t-shirt and black cotton sleep pants. Somehow, he still looked pulled together and sophisticated, even at three a.m.
“I’m surprised you’re awake,” I said as I came into the living room.
“Lily woke up and wanted something to drink. I couldn’t get back to sleep after that.” Both of us spoke in a whisper, so we didn’t disturb the rest of the household.
“I’m sorry to interrupt you.”
“You’re not at all. This book wasn’t holding my attention. How are you doing, Chance?”
I sat on one of the white leather chairs on the other side of the big coffee table and put the file box on the floor at my feet. “Pissed off that I’m not asleep right now, but otherwise fine. How about you?”
He grinned and said, “The same. How much more paperwork do you have to go through?” He gestured at the file box when he said that.
“This is the second of two boxes I brought from my mom’s house. The first was pretty straightforward and most of it went in the recycle bin when I was done with it, but so far this one has been less cut and dried.” I pulled the lid off and set it aside, then took out one of the green paperboard folders and looked inside. “This, for example. It’s full of Colt’s report cards.” I flipped through the papers and said, “All Bs and Cs. I see why she kept his and not mine, my grades were far worse. I guess I’ll hang on to them, too.”
I put that folder back in the box and pulled out the next one. It contained three birth certificates, mine, Colt’s and my mom’s. The folder after that contained only a sealed, blank envelope. I tore it open and read the one-page letter, written in my mother’s girlish handwriting, then murmured, “Oh God.”
Dmitri tossed his e-reader aside, came around the coffee table and sat on the edge of it, right in front of me. “Chance, what’s wrong?”
My mouth was so dry when I said, “It…um…it’s a letter from my mom.”
“Oh wow.”
“That’s not the stunning part. It’s what the letter says.”
I handed it to Dmitri, and he read it quickly, then asked, “Who’s Henry Aimsley?”
“He was my mother’s boss. He was also the man who sexually molested me when I was thirteen and fourteen.” I swallowed hard and said, “According to this, he’s Colt’s father.”
“Oh dear God,” Dmitri whispered.
I read the letter again. It explained how she’d gotten pregnant while she was having an affair with Aimsley and had been paid ten thousand dollars to keep it quiet, since he’d been married. It said she wanted to tell Colt who his father was, but because my “…lies had turned Colt against Henry,” she was afraid to say anything. It also said that, if anything ever happened to her, Colt should go to Aimsley’s family and ask for money.
“Fuck that,” I muttered as I refolded the letter and put it back in the envelope.
“What are you going to do? Will you tell Colt?”
“I don’t know. I do know this, though. I sure as hell won’t let him go beg those rich, arrogant bastards for a handout. I don’t care how many jobs I have to work, I’m going to take care of Colt without their help and make sure he never wants for anything. The Aimsleys can go fuck themselves.” I handed Dmitri the letter and said, “Will you please hide this for me? If Colt does find out I want it to be from me, not from accidentally stumbling across that.”
“Sure.”
Dmitri took the envelope from me and I slumped in the chair and muttered, “Life just had to get even more complicated.”
Chapter Nineteen
“I’m glad we had a chance to talk,” Tony said as he leaned against the bar at Nolan’s two days later. He’d planned to stay one more night, but the guy watching his bar was having some kind of meltdown, so Tony had come to say goodbye.
“Me too.”
We’d met with each other twice during his visit to San Francisco. Our conversations had been more than a little awkward. We’d talked about random stuff, Gala and Simone, books, movies, the weather, nothing terribly personal. Neither of us was the type to open up quickly. “I wish we didn’t live so far apart,” he said, studying the wood floor. “Be nice if we could, you know, meet for coffee or have a meal together once in a while.”
“I know.” I shifted from foot to foot and adjusted the apron that was tied around my hips. “Oh shit, hang on. I almost forgot something.” I went behind the bar, pulled out my old camera case, and handed it to him. “I need you to take this to Cory Previn.”
“The punk who stole your car?”
“I don’t think he’s really a punk. He’s just a kid with some problems.”
“Why would you give him the benefit of the doubt like that?”
I unzipped the case, pulled out a paperboard envelope containing some prints I’d had made, and handed it to Tony. “Because of this. Anyone who can see beauty in the world like that has to have more going for him than meets the eye.”
Tony flipped through the photos and said, “Previn took these?” I nodded, and he said, “They’re good, I’ll give him that, though I assume he took them with the camera he got out of the trunk of your stolen car.”
“He did.” I took the envelope when Tony handed it back to me and packed it carefully, beside Cory’s Ninja Turtles pouch of treasures.
He glanced into the bag and said, “Hang on. Are you giving that delinquent your camera?”
“My old one. I don’t need it anymore. Tell him this one might look beat up, but despite the duct tape, it has a lot of life left in it.”
“You’re out of your mind. You’re rewarding him for stealing your car!”
I said, “What I hope I’m doing is letting him know at least one person in the world believes in him. Maybe that’ll help in some small way.”
“But you don’t even know him.”
“Tony, I was him, an artistic, troubled, gay kid growing up in a small town in Wyoming. I didn’t go so far as grand theft auto, but I was constantly getting in trouble. I acted out all the time, in the hopes that my mom or someone else would notice me. When an adult did finally pay attention to me, it was entirely the wrong kind, and maybe I was singled out because I was so vulnerable.”
“What does that mean?” Tony asked.
I told him quietly, even though the lunch rush was long over and the bar was empty, “I was sexually molested in my early teens. I’m not saying the same thing will happen to this kid, but he is vulnerable, not just to predators but to drug and alcohol abuse and dropping out of school and a million other things. Maybe it’s not too late for him though, and maybe this one little gesture will make a difference.”
I was startled when Tony grabbed me in an embrace. “God I’m sorry that happened to you.”
“I’m okay now.�
��
He let go of me and said, “I feel so fucking guilty for not being around when you were a kid, and I don’t really know why, because I didn’t even know you existed.”
“You would’ve been a great dad, Tony.”
“That’s the nicest thing anyone’s ever said to me.”
“I mean it.” We stood there awkwardly for a few moments, and finally I said, “I’m glad we had the chance to talk a bit. Thanks for coming all the way out here.”
“Me too.” He pushed his hair back and said, “Shit, I need to get on the road. But I’m going to come back for a visit next month, okay? I really want to get to keep getting to know you, Chance.”
“I’d like that.” He slung the camera bag’s strap over his shoulder and I walked him to the door. When we got there, I said, “You know, you always wanted to be a dad, and it really sounds like Cory Previn needs a father. Maybe you two should talk a bit when you give him the camera.” He raised a skeptical eyebrow at me and I added, “Just a thought.”
We shook hands and he said, “I’ll talk to you soon. Take care of yourself, Chance.”
I nodded. “Drive safe going home.”
Surprisingly, I felt a sense of loss when the door swung shut behind him. I didn’t really understand that, since I’d gotten what I’d wanted, I’d found my dad. And at my age, it wasn’t like I expected him to stick around and act like a parent. He had a life to get back to.
“You okay?”
I turned to look at Elijah, who stood a few feet away, fidgeting with a pencil. “I’m fine. I forgot you were back in that booth, you’re always so quiet.”
He said, “You don’t have to automatically say you’re fine. You do that a lot. It’s okay if you’re not.”
“You’re absolutely right.”
“Your dad seemed like a pretty good guy. You gonna miss him?”
“Yeah, I am.” I leaned against the wall beside the door and said, “Do you ever miss your family?”
“Is it really bad if I say no?”
“I don’t think so.”