Stumble Forward

by Alex Jane

  <•••>

  “Mom!”

  His mother jerked back to reality, just in time to stop pouring and flooding the kitchen.

  Alec thought that all in all she’d taken the whole thing very well—considering. “It’s a lot to take in, I know—”

  “Yes. Yes it is.” Her voice was steady but tense.

  He had left out some of the more lurid details.

  She didn’t need to know that he and Jack had first made out, hell, first orgasmed together, not ten feet from where he was sitting, or that when she’d sat in the garden and had coffee with them last week, Jack’s cock had been in Alec’s mouth not five minutes before she got home. She knew what was necessary. He was no longer with Alicia, Jack was more than a friend, he’d got the job, and when he left for Austin, Jack was going with him.

  “I just need a minute to—” She wiped mechanically at the kitchen counter with a cloth. She was thinking hard and that worried him. His whole life, whenever he imagined he had thought through a problem or idea as thoroughly as it could be done, she was always the one to find the flaw or unforeseen angle that changed everything. She was analytic and smart and had the schoolteacher way of explaining stuff in a manner that made it impossible to argue with her.

  Throwing the cloth into the sink, she turned back to face him. Once her eyes were on him again, a shiver of fear and anticipation of judgment went through him. She smiled. “So. Less than three weeks ago, you were dating Alison—”

  “It’s just Allie, Mom—”

  “You were dating Allie and things were going just fine—and now,” She braced her arms on the kitchen counter and hung her head. “Now, you’re telling me you’re moving away to live with Jack, who is the brother of the girl you were just dating?”

  Alec shifted uncomfortably in his seat and muttered, “Well, Jesus, when you put it like that—”

  “I feel like I should call Jerry Springer.”

  Alec muttered something about the show not being on the air anymore but when he looked up, she was smiling. He tried a small smile back but he still felt worried. “Are you mad?”

  His mom looked confused. “About what?”

  Alec shrugged. “I dunno. The liking guys thing. Leaving town. Not having grandchildren. That stuff.”

  She smiled and said softly, “Honestly. The only thing that really concerns me in all this is that Jack is an addict. One that hasn’t been in recovery very long and I don’t want to think of you being so far away—with temptation—without Ethan or me—”

  “Oh God, Mom,” He leaned his whole body over the kitchen island and reaching his arms across, taking her hands in his. “Please don’t worry about that. I’ll still keep in touch with Ethan and I will still go to meetings and get a new sponsor as soon as I can and Jack was never—” Alec let go of her and sat back on the tall chair, looking at her, defeated, “Jack never did drugs. And he never—he wasn’t like me. He drank to hide from his problems. He didn’t do it because—”

  Because he liked it was on the tip of his tongue but that was something neither of them really wanted to be reminded of. “And besides. I’m going to be working with Phil, so you can bet he’ll be keeping me in line.”

  “Phil? Stella’s Phil?” Alec wasn’t sure if he’d seen his mother more surprised.

  She had always had a soft spot for Phil, who always did his best to charm her whenever he came to visit. One summer break, Phil had come home with him for a couple of weeks and they’d bonded over her vinyl collection and his barbecue rib recipe. When things had ended in Dallas, Alec had the sneaking suspicion that she was sorrier to lose Phil than the girl Alec had planned on marrying.

  “Does that mean you’re going to see Stella?” She held up her hand, when Alec recoiled, “Nope. You’re right. Sorry.”

  Alec opened his mouth to try one more time to persuade her that being with Jack was the right thing, the only thing that he could do but she gave him that look that said I haven’t finished so he closed his mouth again, and she went on. “Aside from these last few weeks, this last week especially, I can’t remember the last time I saw you so happy and I don’t mean high-happy, I mean genuinely happy. And if this boy is doing that for you—then I can’t see anything wrong with that.”

  Alec wasn’t sure what to do or say or feel. It wasn’t a resounding affirmation but it was a blessing of sorts and he’d take it. He put one hand over his mouth and rubbed, then circled both hands around the mug in front of him, seeking the warmth. “He does, y’know—make me genuinely happy. I love him, Mom.” His voice was barely a whisper.

  His mom was quiet too, her words barely audible as she spilled them over the lip of her mug, before taking a sip of coffee, “You better kiddo, ‘cause this isn’t going to be easy for you boys.”

  The rest of the afternoon was spent trying to distract himself from the fact that his phone was not ringing. He spent some time online, looking at rental properties, trying to think what Jack might like, whether they should get a two bedroom apartment or one, but his mind would always cut back to the possibility that Jack might not be coming at all. And after a while he couldn’t bear to look at another space he might have to fill by himself and closed the lid of his laptop.

  He dug out a few old packing boxes from the garage and made a start on filling them with his stuff. He was perturbed to realize that he wouldn’t need half the boxes. It had been eighteen months since he arrived on his mother’s doorstep with just a suitcase, guitar and a couple of bags of his things and he had accumulated very little since then.

  Still he managed to find enough to distract him, flicking through each book before he placed it carefully in the box, tessellating them together so they wouldn’t get damaged, pondering every movie title, wondering if Jack had seen it or if Netflix meant he could save himself the space and just sell the lot. More often than not, the cases ended up in the box.

  He had other bits and pieces including some photographs loose in a binder. The only framed picture was of his dad. He looked happy in it, his smile crinkling his eyes up so you could hardly see the dark brown, one large hand rubbing the salt and pepper of his beard. Alec had asked his mother about it, what he was thinking about when she’d taken the photograph. “You,” she always said but he didn’t believe it, even though he really wanted to. His mother had the same picture hung in her room, the only one of him in the house. Alec kept his in a box under the bed with ticket stubs and leaflets, memories that he could take out and look over when the mood took him.

  Apart from the guitar his mother had bought him when he graduated, the only other thing of any real importance was his box of sobriety chips, eleven of them rattling around in a grubby old metal tin.

  He had thirteen in all but the other two he kept in his wallet.

  The first, the silver one, he’d clung to. Going 24 hours without any kind of chemical assistance seemed like a Herculean task at the time but when Stephen handed him the chip, he knew that he’d done it once, all he had to do was to do it again. So he did.

  The other, the bronze one, seemed so far out of his grasp for so long, he was determined to never let it out of his sight again. The feeling of making it to one year, knowing that he’d managed to repeat that impossible 24 hours enough times to get him there, was just incredible and there was no way he was going to let that slip away. He didn’t think he could survive a year like that again.

  Eventually, Alec found himself sitting downstairs, slumped in the big armchair, flicking through the TV channels, with the volume down so low it was practically on mute, one eye on the screen, the other on his cell phone propped up on the coffee table in front of him, while his mother graded papers on the couch.

  After a while, he realized there was a hand on his forearm and drool on his chin. He brought a sleepy hand up to wipe at it and stretched. “Did I doze off?”

  “You’ve been snoring for about ten minutes.” She leaned down and pulled the remote out from where it had wedged down the side of the cushi
ons, clicking the TV off as she placed it on the table. “Why don’t you go to bed? You’ve had a long day and it’s late. I think if he was going to call he would have by now. Maybe he’s waiting ‘til the morning.” She patted him on the shoulder and headed for the kitchen.

  Alec leaned forward and put his elbows on his knees, yawned and rubbed his face with his hands. She had a point. “Maybe you’re right. I’m beat,” he muttered.

  It was an effort to haul himself out of the chair; the weight of his tiredness pressed him down like extra gravity. He was almost out the door, wondering if he had the strength to floss, when his cell buzzed loudly on the coffee table, his ringtone blaring out in the quiet room.

  In an instant, his tiredness fell away and Alec launched himself back across the room. He scrambled for the phone, wondering why the hell it wasn’t in his pocket, and answered it without looking at the caller ID. It was so late; who else was it going to be. “Jack? Are you okay?”

  “Alec Clark?”

  The voice on the other end was distinctly not Jack.

  Chapter Seventeen

  Alec was breathing hard when he pushed open the glass door of the precinct. He hadn’t run there but his heart was pounding as though he had.

  The sergeant Alec had met on his last visit was leaning on the near side of the reception desk talking to the cop behind it. They both looked up as Alec walked in and Jim walked over to meet him.

  “Thanks for coming, son. When I told him I was going to call Alicia he went nuts, put one of my guys on the ground before we could calm him down.” His face looked grim and Alec could see it was from worry rather than ire.

  Alec swiped a hand over his mouth and shook his head. “Is he okay? What the hell happened?”

  Jim motioned over towards the seating area and they both walked over. “Seems he went out and got loaded, ended up at one of the bars he used to be a regular at so the bartender recognized when he started to get out of hand and called us. We got there before he caused too much damage. There’s a chair and a couple of glasses he’s going to need to pay for but the owner isn’t interested in pressing charges.” Jim sighed and reached his hand into his pocket. “When he ran out of cash, he tried to pay with these.” He held out his hand and dropped the three metal discs into Alec’s palm with a tinny chink.

  Alec rubbed a finger over them sadly, one silver, one red, one gold, and then stuffed them into his jean’s pocket without saying anything.

  Jim sighed. “Two months sober. It’s good for him. Progress. Don’t be too disappointed, son. I don’t know what he and Allie have had a bust up about but it was a doozy by the looks of him. I love her to death but—” He shook his head and looked at his feet. “God, she’s just like her mother. Doesn’t always think about what she’s saying.”

  “You knew their mom?” Alec was surprised Allie had left that bit out of the story.

  Jim nodded. “Vaguely. My daughter is the same age as Alicia. You get talking to people standing around waiting for ballet class or soccer practice to finish up. She was hard on those kids. Especially Jonathon. Poor boy.”

  “What happened with their dad? Do you have any idea? Allie wouldn’t say and—” Alec stopped. The look on Jim’s face was—Alec wasn’t sure. Confusion? Horror was probably too strong for it. Alec shook his head. “I’m sorry. You’re right, it’s none of my business.”

  Jim looked at him, his eyes searching but flat. “I just assumed—How did you say you know the Spenser’s, again?” The question didn’t sound casual.

  The tone of his voice made Alec feel irrationally reluctant to answer anything without his lawyer being present but shrugged. “Um, I dated Allie for a while but not now. Jack and I—we—we’re in the program together. Well, we were until tonight.”

  Jim huffed out a breath and brought his hands up to his mouth. He didn’t look like he was going to speak, lost deep in thought, but before Alec got a chance to fill the void with a question of his own, the door down to holding banged open and Jack was there.

  Alec turned to go to him but Jim caught hold of his arm and said, “You taking him home with you?”

  Alec felt suddenly very uncomfortable about the way the guy was looking at him. It looked like fear. Not of Alec, but for him. He nodded. “Yeah, well, my mom’s house.”

  Without taking a beat, Jim asked, “She still living on Cherry Park?”

  Alec shook his head. “No, Spearson. She moved a couple of years ago. How did you know—?”

  He didn’t get to finish the sentence or get a straight answer, as Jack’s insistent voice rang out through the room, followed by the voice of an equally insistent officer who was trying to stop him from climbing over the security barrier.

  It took a while for Alec to pry Jack off him, unwrapping his arms from around his shoulders, praying that he wasn’t going to try to kiss him in front of a room full of cops. By the time Alec got him to sit on the rickety bench in the corner while he signed a bunch of papers he really didn’t understand and then half carried Jack back to the car, it was nearly 1am.

  He learnt his lesson the last time, so he wrangled Jack into the front passenger seat and strapped him in. As he pulled back from fastening the seatbelt, Jack pressed his face into Alec’s neck and whispered, “I’m sorry. Please don’t hate me—”

  Alec turned, inhaling the smell of Jack along with the stink of beer and without hesitation, put his lips on Jack’s and kissed him slow and messy before resting their foreheads together, said, “I could never hate you, Jack. I love you, you idiot. Nothing can ever change that. Nothing.”

  Jack’s eyes flicked open and stared at him, then they were kissing again, each of them whispering declarations of love like no-one had ever said it to them before, Alec wondering if the high he felt was from that or the alcohol on Jack’s mouth.

  When they got back to the house, his mom had gone to bed. Alec managed to get Jack up the stairs and into his room without disturbing her. When he switched on the light, he wasn’t expecting what he found but he wasn’t really surprised.

  His mother had not been happy about Alec bringing Jack back to the house if he was drunk enough to get pulled in by the police but she hadn’t said no. After he’d scrambled out of the house, she had obviously been in and prepared his room.

  All of the clutter that he left lying around had been cleared so there was a path to the bed, which had been turned back. There were also three bottles of water, some Advil, a large plastic bowl, a towel and some Kleenex on the bedside cabinet.

  Alec smiled when he noticed too, that she’d pointedly placed a spare pillow and blanket on the comfy chair in the corner of his room.

  He got Jack out of his clothes and after some protest and a little groping, got him into t-shirt and sweatpants, and persuaded him to drink some water while Alec did the same. Then they lay together on the bed, Jack with his head on Alec’s shoulder repeating, “I’m sorry, I’m sorry,” over and over, while Alec stroked his hair and whispered back, “I love you, I love you,” until Jack started crying and finally fell asleep.

  <•••>

  The following morning, Alec was woken by someone pounding on the front door. He had some vague recollection of the door slamming earlier and figured his mother had gone to the store so he had no choice but to answer it. He slipped out from under Jack’s heavy arm and padded downstairs in his bare feet.

  The sun was so bright when he opened the door, he had to squint, everything blindingly bright white for a moment. And then wished he hadn’t opened it in the first place. Alicia was standing there, looking nervous, fiddling with the strap of her bag that hung loose in her hands. She started when he opened the door but then seemed to tense and harden. “I’m sorry for just turning up. I did try to call—”

  “Allie—It’s—it’s okay. Come inside.” Alec stepped away from the door but Alicia shook her head.

  “No. No, I don’t think so. I just wanted to make sure he was okay.”

  Alec shook his head. “Don’t—loo
k just come in.” He looked away from her and after a moment, she reluctantly stepped over the threshold and followed him to the kitchen.

  “He’s fine. Sleeping,” Alec said, pouring them both coffee as Alicia sat down on one of the chairs at the counter. “How did you know he was here?”

  “When he didn’t come back last night, I got worried. I called Jim and he said—I figured he’d be here—with you.” The with you came with a look, hard, bitter but not angry.

  Alec sighed. “I’m so sorry Allie. I really am. Neither of us knew it was going to turn out like this. I never, never wanted to hurt you.”

  Alicia tilted her head back as if looking to the ceiling but closed her eyes, trying to center herself. She let out a long breath, then looked back at him. “I know. And I’m not mad. Well, I am a little but—yesterday—yesterday was such a shock—” She pressed her fingertips to her forehead, shielding her face from him. “God, I said some terrible things to him, Alec. Terrible. I don’t think he’ll ever forgive me. I’m not sure I’ll be able to forgive myself.”

  Alec wiped his hand over his mouth and leaned heavily on the work surface. “He’ll be okay. He’s not the first guy to have fallen off the wagon. He’ll get back on, you’ll see. And as for anything you said—you were angry and it was a shock and we’re both so sorry you had to find out like that—”

  The front door slammed, interrupting him. He was about to call out but his mother was heading straight for the kitchen and spotted him. “You’re up!”

  She bustled into the kitchen, bags hanging heavy in each hand, coming around to the sink and dumping them down on the floor. Alicia watched her progress, silent but her eyes gradually getting larger and larger in her head. Alec’s mom turned to her and smiled. “You must be Alison.”