by Kay Harris
“I only come home at Christmas. My parents and I aren’t very close.” She shifted in her seat and ripped her gaze away from his chin to focus on his blue eyes, shadowed now as the sun was nearly gone. “I work at a candle company. That’s where my other family is, my chosen family as they say.”
He nodded.
“You already knew where I worked, didn’t you?”
He frowned. “Don’t be mad. But I looked you up on social media.”
She shrugged. “I saw you on TV all the time and probably know as much about you as you found out about me from the Internet. So I guess it’s only fair. Except there aren’t any pictures of me in my underwear.” She grinned.
He rolled his eyes. “I knew that was a bad idea.”
“On the contrary. I thought it was a great idea.” A light giggle escaped her.
“Yeah?” There was something in his in tone. He sounded a little like Kyle when he was begging for a compliment.
“Like you don’t know you’re hot.”
“I didn’t know you thought I was hot.”
“Why?” She cocked her head. “Did you think I was a lesbian?”
She watched, amused, as he nearly choked. Thanks to a good friend of hers and a community of caring and supportive peers, she didn’t have trouble talking about her sexuality anymore, even in Walker Springs.
She waited patiently while he gathered himself. Finally, he spoke. “No. I…I thought you were…”
“What?”
“You’re enjoying this too much,” he accused.
She smiled. “Yeah. A bit. I’m bisexual, Darius. It’s a real thing. It’s not temporary. I’m not confused. That’s what I am.”
He nodded. “Cool.”
“When I told your brother, he was so grossed out he got drunk and spray painted “homo” on my chest out in the woods behind your house.” She’d practiced saying that in group sessions and in front of her dearest friend. It came easy now, even in front of Darius.
“I know. I’m sorry.”
“You shouldn’t be sorry. You didn’t do it. In fact, you helped me. You were kind to me. I will always be thankful for that.”
“But you didn’t want to talk to me for the past six years.”
She shifted on the bench so her right leg was up on it and she could turn toward him, getting a better view of his strong jaw in the twilight. “Why did you call all those years? What was the point?”
“I’m not sure how to answer that.”
“Answer with the truth.”
“I should say to check on you. To make sure you were okay. Because I felt guilty about what my stupid brother did. Because I wanted to somehow make it up to you that the little boy I feel partly responsible for turned into an asshole when he grew up. But that’s not the whole truth.”
Fully intrigued now, she leaned toward him. “What’s the rest of it?”
He leaned toward her as well. The clouds of frozen breath coming from their mouths mingled together. “You know that Police song about the teacher and the student?”
Alice’s voice cracked. “Yeah?”
His Adam’s apple bobbed as Darius swallowed hard. “I’ve had a crush on you since you were a freshman and I was a senior trying to pretend your presence didn’t affect me.”
Chapter 3
Alice took several controlled breaths, trying to concentrate on keeping herself together, processing what he’d just said. It didn’t seem real. “You had a crush on me.”
He nodded. “To be honest, you’re even prettier now. Just as strong and smart. Definitely more…forward. I think my crush is back.” He shrugged. “Or it never really left and now it’s stronger.”
Alice blinked several times. “I’m bi.”
“You’ve said.”
“Doesn’t that bother you?”
“Absolutely not.” He smiled.
She was having trouble getting her head around his casual attitude. As the brother of the bigoted asshole that broke her heart, she couldn’t imagine he didn’t harbor some prejudice. “What if I want to talk about the girlfriends I’ve had? What if you met one of them?”
“Sounds perfectly normal to me. I mean, I’ve dated a few girls in my day. And I’ve met a few of their exes. I actually dated a girl who had once dated the running back on my team. I admit that was slightly awkward, but—”
She interrupted him, her exasperated tone clear. “But these would be women. Some of them. And some would be guys. I like both.”
Darius gently put his big hands on her shoulders. “Alice. I get it. I know what bi is. I live in San Francisco, you know. And I’m not an idiot.”
Alice ran her hand through her hair, effectively knocking one of his hands off her shoulder. The other stayed. “I didn’t mean you were dumb…I just meant…”
“That I’m an intolerant jerk? Like Derek?”
Alice let out a breath. “Sorry.”
He smiled. “He’s changed. But I don’t want to talk about him. I want to talk about you.”
****
The day after Christmas, Darius texted Alice to ask if she wanted to join him to walk his family dog. So, once again, she found herself in Fountain Park with Darius Fleck.
This time the sun shone down on them, making it warmer. Alice unzipped her parka and swung her hands, now covered in thin gloves instead of thick mittens. No long johns hid beneath her jeans today.
Darius also wore jeans. They cupped his perfect football player ass very well. He’d covered his thick, muscular torso with a tight sweater and an open coat. His big, bare hands held the end of a pink leash. On the other end danced a tiny, bouncy Shih Tzu named Honeyface.
“So…that’s your dog, huh?”
“She’s my mom’s baby. I think my mother might love Honeyface more than she loves me, even though I paid off the house with my first NFL check. Honeyface sure as shit never did anything like that.”
Alice couldn’t hold back her giggle. “She probably never made a seventy-yard pass either.”
He frowned down at the dog, who was thoroughly sniffing the base of the fountain for the exact right place to make her mark. “Definitely not. She probably can’t even run seventy yards without needing a treat and a cuddle.” He snapped his head up to look at Alice. “You watch football?”
“What? You think women don’t watch football?”
“Of course I don’t think that. I know women watch football. I just didn’t know you did.”
“I like all sports. I will literally watch any sport, especially during the Olympics. Curling. I’m there. Fencing. Count me in. All of it. I’m like a junkie for two weeks every two years.”
He smiled at her. “And you’re pretty athletic yourself, aren’t you?”
“I mostly do martial arts now. I also teach the kiddos at a private studio. I’m a sub, so the hours vary. But in the past I played volleyball, soccer, hockey, and softball. I never played football. But I watch it. I watched all your games.” She stopped abruptly and frowned. “Sorry. I sound like the people in town that won’t leave you alone.”
Honeyface tugged on the leash. Darius put his hand on Alice’s lower back, just as he’d done on Christmas Eve, to move her forward so they were both following the sprightly little dog. “No. You don’t. I mean, my family has watched all my games and they never ask for selfies. Just to get a family photo for my social media I have to convince…” He trailed off.
Alice decided to address the elephant in the room. “You know, it’s going to be hard to have a conversation if you have to leave out the name of your only sibling all the time.”
“I suppose you’re right. Do you want me to leave out his name?”
“How about, you just say ‘my brother’ when you’re referring to him,” she suggested.
“Okay,” he agreed easily. “So, back to you and sports. Tell me everything.”
The walk ended about twenty minutes later when Honeyface laid down on the slushy snow and refused to move another inch. With a long-sufferin
g sigh, Darius scooped the little dog up and tucked her into his arm like a football. Honeyface seemed content there and closed her eyes for a nap.
“You hungry?” he asked.
“I could eat.”
“Me too. How about we hit Cindy’s?”
“Okay, but what about her?” Alice nodded her head at the sleeping dog.
“We could drop her off…Shit…”
Alice took pity on Darius. He was trying so hard to keep her away from the one piece of her past they both knew she didn’t want to revisit. “I’ll go get us a table. You can meet me there.”
He smiled. “Thanks.”
****
Darius and Alice had definitely become friends. So when he stopped by the house on December thirtieth as Alice was preparing to leave for the airport, she wasn’t surprised.
Her mother and aunts, on the other hand, were star-struck and on their worst behavior. As the five of them sat in the living room of her childhood home, Alice wanted to crawl into the floor and disappear.
“Your muscles are so big!” Aunt Peg exclaimed as she squeezed his arm.
Darius was wedged between the two tiny women on the modest sofa sitting along the far wall of the biggest room in the house. Alice was across from him on the loveseat, perched beside her stiff-backed mother.
On the other side of Darius, Aunt Lily mirrored her sister’s action, pinching part of a beefy muscle with her miniscule hand. “So strong!”
“You should date my daughter.” Alice’s mother had just come right out and said that.
Alice hung her head in her hands and took three controlled breaths. Then she lifted her head and said, “Enough. Ladies. I love you all. Please leave us alone for a bit. Please.”
Her two aunts wiggled their eyebrows, winked, oohed, and finally shuffled out of the room with an insane amount of backward glances. Her mother moved more slowly, her expression one of censure and disapproval at Alice not doing exactly what was expected of her. So basically, the usual.
“Well that wasn’t the least bit embarrassing.”
Calm and relaxed, a smile painting his face, Darius leaned toward her. “It wasn’t so bad. They’re cute as hell.”
“That’s because you could fit all three of them in your pocket.”
The size difference between the quarterback and her female relatives had been giving Alice an extreme amount of amusement right up until they’d opened their mouths.
“I could.”
“When are you headed back?”
“The second. I promised to stay for New Year’s. You got out of that, huh?”
“We don’t do much for it,” Alice shrugged. “But the real reason I can’t stay is that I’m flying to Ireland for business.”
Darius’ eyes grew wide. “Ireland. Damn. You must be higher up in the candle business than you let on.”
She tossed him a coy smile.
He rubbed his hands together. It was the same move she’d seen him make while going over a play with his coach or teammates on the sidelines at a game. “I was thinking…”
“Yeah?”
“Can I see you when we get back to the Bay Area?”
“Sure. We could hang out.” She could see them doing that. She considered him a friend now.
He shifted, moving to her couch to sit beside her. He took one of her hands in both of his large, agile ones. “I don’t want to hang out, though. I want to go out. I want to date you.”
Alice ripped her hand out of his grip and stood up. Heat rose from her chest to the top of her head. “No.”
Darius stood as well and they faced off right there in front of the couch. “Why not?”
Alice took five deep breaths while trying to decide the best way to explain the conflict inside her. Darius waited.
“Because you’re my friend. I already have one friend who wants me. And I’m not going through that again.”
His eyebrows knitted in confusion.
“Besides, I’m on a mission.” She walked to the door and opened it.
It was a clear sign. He didn’t take it. He stayed rooted to his spot in the center of the living room. “What kind of mission?”
She gestured with her hand, and he reluctantly moved closer to her and the door. “I want to get married by my next birthday. I don’t need dates and romance getting in the way of that.”
“What?”
“That’s my goal. I need to find a husband. And, honestly, Darius. You don’t have the attributes I’m looking for, okay?”
“There is so much wrong with that statement.” He stepped up so they were both standing in the doorway, nearly touching each other.
“Like?”
“First, you’re twenty-three so I don’t know why the hell you’re in such a hurry to get married. Second, why does it have to be husband? What is that shit?”
He was right, of course. Alice had not narrowed it down to just marrying a man. She was just as open to having a wife. But she’d grown used to talking that way around her parents. And Darius’ recognition of her core self—that right there was why she almost grabbed his hair with both hands and yanked his face down to hers for a long, deep, tongue-tangling kiss. But fortunately he kept talking, stopping her from executing her fantasy.
“And third. What’s wrong with me?”
“I can’t do this with you, Darius. I’m sorry. It’s friendship or nothing. Really, it’s nothing. Because I don’t want another friend who loves me in a different way than I love him.”
He shook his head, his blue eyes dark and stormy. “Fine. Have a safe trip across the pond.”
And he walked away, without looking back.
****
Derek’s New Year’s Eve party was the last place Darius wanted to be. He was cranky, pissy, and annoyed.
Derek’s modest house was filled to the brim with old high school friends, new friends from Derek’s auto shop, and teachers who worked with Derek’s fiancée, Stephanie. Some of them were pretty nice, some were obnoxious, some drunk as skunks. All of them wanted a piece of him.
His brother had changed. He was no longer completely self-absorbed and solely focused on his own image. He was still a little selfish, but now he was capable of empathy and understanding, albeit on a limited scale.
It was Stephanie who was responsible for the change. They started dating when she was still in college. It was long distance, as Derek was working in the same auto shop back home. That challenge had made Derek figure out how to really be in a relationship, not to mention how to keep his dick in his pants.
The development of the new Derek was built on further when Stephanie had a battle with breast cancer. Derek’s entire personality seemed to shift as the woman he loved fought for her life. Add into all that his best friend coming out as gay, and Derek had been shaped and molded like a hunk of clay.
His new sense of empathy was put to work when Derek gathered his brother and Greg and pulled them both into the basement of the quaint mid-century home to shut out the reveling of the partygoers above.
“Thought you might want a break from the autographs for a minute,” Derek told Darius as he passed him and Greg each a beer.
For a long moment the sounds in the basement were of men settling into old furniture and cracking open cans. Darius knew his brother had brought him down here to relax, shoot the shit, maybe play something on the game console. But he had other things on his mind.
“I saw Alice Bando this week.”
Derek and Greg each looked at the floor and huffed out a deep breath. Then, almost in unison, they took long swigs of their beer.
“How is she?” Greg asked, not meeting Darius’ eyes.
“Good.” What else could he say? He wanted to date her but she wouldn’t have it, and it was probably all their fault.
Derek lifted his head and looked his big brother in the eye. “I wrote her a letter a couple years ago.”
Darius shifted back in his seat, his eyes wide. “You did?”
Derek nodded.
“I gave it to Mom to send to her. I didn’t want her to think I was, ya know, finding out where she lived or anything creepy like that. Mom said she sent it to her with a note from herself. I guess in Mom’s note she explained how much fucking trouble I got in.”
Derek looked down again and Darius joined him in remembering all that had happened when Darius came home that night. Darius had punched Derek in the face, dispersed the party, then called their parents who were on a business trip in New York to tell them the whole story.
Derek had been stripped of his car, pulled off the football team for the rest of the season, and basically put under house arrest. His parents also insisted Derek apologize to Alice. But she dropped out of school, choosing to finish through an online program. Then, as soon as the school year was over, she left for California. Derek never got the chance to ask for forgiveness in person.
“So? What happened?” Darius pressed.
“She sent Mom an email. Said she appreciated Mom’s letter and thanked her. She also said she’d thrown my letter away without reading it. She said she wasn’t interested in hearing from me ever again.”
“I sent a letter, too. An email, actually.” Greg’s voice was rough, like something was caught in his throat. He took another sip of beer.
Both brothers turned their heads to look at him. “You didn’t tell me that,” Derek said.
“Look.” Greg glanced up at Derek. There was fire in his eyes. “You were her boyfriend and you were the one who started the whole thing. You got drunk and told us your girlfriend was confused and liked to kiss girls, and we all laughed. And I don’t know if it was Joe or that other asshole we were with that suggested we tag her like in that god damn scarlet letter book. And you.” He pointed his finger at Derek. “You let that happen to your girl. But me.” He turned his finger and shoved it roughly into his own chest. “I’m the worst motherfucker of them all. I knew I liked boys by then. Hell I’d known for years at that point. I was living with this big ass secret. I was a coward. But Alice was brave enough to tell you. I should have stuck up for her. I should have stood at her side. I was the biggest fucking dickhead of all that day.” He seemed to grow calmer after he’d spoken that truth and settled back in the couch. “And she forgave me.”