“I’m calling from Max’s phone, because I didn’t have your number, so that I could tell you I wasn’t allowed in past the cubbies, because your best friend, decided to change the parent passcode for the outer door! Why aren’t you here today, anyway? I am in serious need of some back up.”
“I had to schedule an emergency meeting, which is still going on by the way. So can you just ask the front desk for a new one and get off my kid’s phone?” Keane shot the architects an apologetic look.
Keane got a bunch of “no problem” waves and murmurs back. Probably because they were getting paid by the fucking hour, while his kid’s uncle gnashed his teeth over a stupid passcode.
“I did. But the teenager running the front desk informed me that William has decided to change the code every Tuesday, and only those who are picking up can have the code. She said it’s a new safety measure, but you know that’s bullshit. Like, it had to be on Tuesday?”
Yeah, that was definitely bullshit, though it’d been so long since he heard anyone call Con anything but his old hockey nickname or Coach, that he’d nearly asked who this William guy was and why he thought he had the authority to change the lock policy.
As it was, Keane sighed and said, “Okay, I’ll talk to him.”
“When? I got gulab jamus for dessert!”
“Will it keep? We’re doing this thing over at Lena’s dad’s, tomorrow. You can come.”
Keane couldn’t see him, but he could hear the squinted eyes in Vihaan’s voice when he asked, “Rajiv Kumar invited you to his house.”
“You coming or not?” Keane asked, refusing to answer the unspoken question.
“Oh, I will be there!” Vihaan assured him. “I’ve got to see this. I might bring a doctor, too, just to make sure Mr. Kumar hasn’t had a stroke.”
Keane hung up without bothering to explain why he was having this special dinner. His serious hockey player days were long behind him, but the same thing that had used to make him tap the Nikolai Rustanov card he kept taped in his helmet three times before every game, kept him from spilling the beans to Vihaan.
One more day…
Lena hadn’t said yes to his marriage. Instead she’d said, “I know you want us to just jump into this again, like we did when we were kids. But we’re just now learning to trust each other enough to admit we really liked each other back in the day. Give this a month. Give us a month to make sure we’re really solid. No more secrets. No more mind games. Just one month of being decent to each other and proving we have what it takes to be a real couple. Then, you know, actually ask me, and I promise to say yes.”
One more month. Much like he’d once asked her for just one kiss to prove he wasn’t full of shit.
It wasn’t his ideal arrangement, but Keane had taken what he could get. And the month had passed by unexpectedly fast. No fights. Lots of great food and even better sex. And so far, no period yet, even though twenty-nine days had passed since she made her promise.
All signs we’re pointing to Keane finally getting everything he wanted that summer. And he refused to jinx it.
But he did keep his promise to Vihaan, about talking to Con the next day. Not just because he had no intention of giving up Indian Tuesdays, but he also wanted him there when he proposed to Lena that night. Plus, he had to talk with him about the process of making all the elite Keane Academy teams open to tryouts from either gender, without a reporting requirement—which would probably be a long conversation with someone as old school as Con.
It was Con’s day off, so Keane decided to drive over to his house. He lived on a couple of acres outside the city. Not a farm like the one he grew up on, but most of his spare time went to growing corn, tomatoes, and a whole bunch of other crops, that he usually ended up passing on to some local food shelter.
The point of all this working the land was beyond a city guy like Keane. He needs a woman, Keane thought, not for the first time, as he knocked on the white door of Con’s barn-red 1920’s three-bedroom ranch. When he didn’t receive an answer, he also wondered why Con didn’t take his advice and get a doorbell for this place already.
No answer, but Keane could hear Con’s workout mix blasting even from here. Same one as high school. Vince Neil was screaming at some girl to kickstart his heart, so that meant he’d be working his lats in the second bedroom he’d converted into a home gym.
Keane let himself in, using the key Con had given him five years ago when he first bought this place.
The house was sparkling clean as if Con, like Keane, paid a daily cleaning service. He didn’t. But two tours with the Army had never wore off—yet another reason, he was afraid Con might decide to dig his heels in about making the team gender blind.
Lucky, it was his fuckin’ name on the academy sign, Keane thought, already preparing his “go fuck yourself” argument as he strode down the hallway.
Only to stop short, his eyes widening to saucers.
No, he didn’t find Con in the second bedroom working his lats.
He found one of his oldest friends in the master bedroom. Working his abductors, core and hip flexors, …
…with a writhing Vihaan on his elbows and knees underneath, groaning, “Oh fuuck! Oh fuuuuck! Oh—”
Vihaan froze when he saw Keane standing in the hallway. “Oh fuck!” he said again.
But this time not nearly for the same reason.
Chapter Twenty-Eight
“So I don’t suppose there’s any way we could get you to keep this a secret from Lena?” Vihaan asked, his voice full of hope.
“Hell no,” Keane answered, killing that dream, even as he took a cup of coffee from Vihaan, while sitting in the recliner in Con’s too clean living room.
He’d never generalize about the gays—Bono made them do a company-wide class about that kind of stuff—but he had to give Vihaan credit Most girls would be locked in the bathroom right now, crying about how embarrassed they were. Vihaan had just scrambled out of bed, grabbed Con’s robe off the bathroom door, then offered to make everybody coffee. “It’s one of those awful K-cup dealies, but I’m sure you already knew that William’s basic.”
Keane wasn’t sure what was turning the Wisconsin farm boy’s face redder as he pulled up his gym shorts. That his best friend had caught him fucking a dude or that Keane actually accepted Vihaan’s offer of coffee.
But that gracious shit ended there. “No way, I’m not telling Lena,” Keane informed Vihaan, as the smaller man, took a seat as far away on the couch as he could get from Con. Like that would erase the memory of what Keane caught them doing. “No more secrets. It’s part of the condition.”
“The condition for what?” Con asked.
“Nunya…” Keane answered, still too superstitious to tell anyone that Lena would be agreeing to marry him that very night. “But if you’re free later on today around seven, Lena and me are doing this thing at her dad’s house. Vihaan’s coming, and I’m sure the kid would be psyched to find out his uncle’s got a thing going with his coach.”
“But William and I aren’t dating!” Vihaan protested.
Keane cut his eyes to Con, who was studying the Boston Hawks mug of coffee Vihaan had made for him awfully hard. “You sure about that?” Keane asked.
“Yes, I’m sure,” Vihaan replied, his voice just as testy as when he complained about his Vindaloo. “This was just an argument that got out of hand.”
“You came all the way to West Boonfuck to have an argument with Con,” Keane repeated. “And that argument ended with Con’s dick in your ass?”
Vihaan glared at him. “You know, I hear you’re wicked rich now. And you went to prep school for goodness sake. You don’t have to be so foul-mouthed.”
“Maybe not, but I like it,” Keane answered, grinning at them. Then he asked Con, “So that’s your story. You’re sticking to it?”
Keane watched Con for a bit, waiting for him to respond. Then when he didn’t he set his coffee cup down on a side table Con had made by hand and said, �
��Okay, it took me a few minutes to catch on to why Con couldn’t stand to be in the same room as you fifteen years after high school but he’s in here fucking you like see in the XVideos with the rainbow flags today. But since neither of you seem to be well-versed in the language of hate fucks, I’m going to explain something to you. A man that’s been claiming to be straight all his life, doesn’t suddenly decide to hate fuck somebody just because he’s pissing him off.”
“But that’s what happened. Exactly what happened,” he insisted. Vihaan shook his head. Looked at Con. Who was still looking at his coffee cup. Then back to Keane. “What are you trying to say?”
“That I don’t think I was the only one who was secretly crushing on somebody in high school,” Keane answered Vihaan, while looking pointedly at his friend. His friend who’d never had a real serious girlfriend in his life, not because he was shy, like he kept on insisting when they used to all go out, Keane realized now.
Vihaan shook his head. “No. I mean, obviously this wasn’t his first time. But today with me wasn’t based on any real attraction. Right, William?”
They both waited, but Con continued to sit there, saying nothing.
And Keane just lost it. “Jesus Christ, Con. I know how homophobic hockey teams can be, but we’re not in high school anymore. Safe space or whatever shit they say. If you like him, stop eye-fucking that cup and tell him!”
“Nanh, I don’t think I like him,” Con mumbled, still not looking up from the cup.
“See!” Vihaan said, looking at Keane and jabbing his hand palm up in Con’s direction. “I told you—”
That “I told you so” got cut off, when Con suddenly set aside the coffee cup and turned on the couch to face the adamant Indian man he also used to bully in high school. “I think I love you. I think I’ve been in love with you since high school.”
Vihaan jerked, then sputtered, then choked out a shocked, “Wait…what?”
“I don’t know…I don’t know,” Con said, his voice frantic. “In high school, I saw you and all I knew was I wanted to kiss you. And I knew it was wrong, so I started trying to date girls. But even after I did that, I couldn’t stop thinking about you. And I tried, you know, with both girls and guys after the Army, but nothing ever stuck. Then one day you showed up again out of the blue, at my job, and there it was again. This insane desire to kiss you, and you know, do more. A lot more. Tuesdays became my worst nightmare. I couldn’t look at you without springing a woody. But I couldn’t, like, not look at you. And every time I did my heart would start pounding, just like it did in high school.”
“Like the way it does when the Hawks win and they play ‘More Than a Feeling.’”
“Yeah!” Con agreed, throwing Keane a grateful look. “I mean, go Stars. But yeah, just like that!”
Vihaan rubbed at his temple. He appeared to be trying to process all of this. “So that’s why you wouldn’t let me in yesterday?”
“Yeah…” Con swallowed. “That’s why I wouldn’t let you in.”
They stared at each other, and Keane got the feeling they weren’t still talking about Con refusing to let Vihaan visit Max.
A new silence descended. Con waiting with a hopeful expression. Vihaan obviously still processing.
When long moments passed without Vihaan saying anything, Con said, “I know I’m probably not your usual type. I didn’t go to college, and you already told me I don’t have the right kind of coffee machine. But if you give me a chance. Let me start taking you out and you know, show you all this stuff in my heart I’ve been hiding. Maybe one of these days, I can get you to start loving me back?”
There were tears in Vihaan’s eyes by the time Con finished, and this time it didn’t take nearly as long for Vihaan to respond. He flew across the couch and knocked Con backward with a passionate kiss.
“I’ll take that as my cue to leave,” Keane said, standing up.
Con and Vihaan were too busy trying to suck each other’s faces off to answer.
“I’ll just let myself out…,” Keane said, sliding to the door. “Oh and hey, Con, we’re going to need to make all the Keane Academy teams co-ed and gender blind, starting in January. Cool? You’re not answering, so I’m going to assume that’s a yes…”
Con flipped Vihaan underneath him, and Keane had a feeling that robe wasn’t going to be on much longer. “Okay, see you both at 7 sharp tonight ….,” he said backing out of the door with his eyes covered. “Don’t forget the gulab jammies or whatever they’re called.”
Yeah, there was no way Keane wouldn’t be telling Lena about this. Which was why it seemed like serendipity when his phone lit up with her number, just as he pulled it out to call her when he got back in the car.
“Baby, you are not going to believe what happened…”
“Did you get me fired by my job?”
It took Keane’s brain a moment to switch from telling his story to figuring out Lena’s question. And when he did, his chest iced up.
The seeds have all been gathered. Permission to plant?
Oh, fuck….
Yes. It had been a simple yes, an easily forgotten dick move in a lifetime of pre-emptively assholing to make sure things went his way. “Lena…” he said.
“No more secrets. That’s what we promised. But you went behind my back. Threatened my colleagues to get me cut from the practice?
“Who told you that?”
“Don’t worry most of them were too scared to take my call after they sent me some group email about how the practice had decided to go in a different direction,” she answered, her voice snide. “I won’t tell you which one, since I’m assuming whatever goon you sent into threaten her got to all of them.”
“Lena, let me explain…”
“Keane, what is there to explain? Did you or did you not conspire to get me fired from my job so the number one bullet point in our custody agreement would be null and void?” she demanded, her voice cracking there at the end.
That feeling of hollowness, one he hadn’t felt in weeks returned with the heaviness of a boulder. “Yes,” he admitted, rubbing his temple. “But seriously, what else was I supposed to do? You were so hellbent on going back to California...” Of robbing me of everything again.
“To going back to my job. To starting a program, I’ve been training for all summer. Did you not register why I came here in the first place?” she asked, her voice a weird mix of anger and tears. “Were my hopes and dream nothing but a pawn to knock off the board in your latest chess game?”
“I can get you a job at the institute,” he said gruffly.
Her breath hitched. “The Institute is already fully staffed and not accepting any new applicants. You want to just stuff me down their throat, because you’re they’re biggest donor?”
“Yeah, that’s what I want in return for the millions I’m going to give them!” he answered, frankly. “And I want you here with me, just like we talked about.”
“We didn’t talk about anything, Keane. You told me to marry you, and I ignored the many, many red flags you’ve thrown up all summer, because I’m stupid. Always so stupid when it comes to you.”
She went quiet and he could hear a small hitching sound on the other end of the line. Crying. He made her cry. A third time.
Just a few more hours. Just a few more hours and she would have been his.
“Lena…” he said. “Look. We’ll figure this out. As soon as I get home. I love you, and I know you—”
“You don’t love me. You love controlling me,” she said, before he could finish that sentence. Her voice was watery with tears and disappointment as she said, “If you loved me, you’d give me choices. Real choices.”
“Yeah, would I?” he asked, a nasty anger rising up inside of him. “And how’d that work out the last time I let you make all the choices. You fuckin ripped my heart out and left!”
“Yes, because that’s how love works, Keane. You’re allowed to leave to take some space,” she pointed out, her own tone
verging on nasty. “And I came back, but you pushed me away!”
“You don’t think I didn’t see that writing on the wall, when you came by my place that night. You think I didn’t know you wasn’t really there to stay for good? You would have nursed me back to health and left again when Daddy told you it was time to go back to med school. That’s why I didn’t give you any options about going back to California, because baby, I’m sorry but you’re a fucking coward. And if there is an option between just about any fucking thing and me, you will always, always choose anything but the man who loves you!”!”
He was breathing hard by the time he was finished. But Lena…she didn’t say a word.
Then the next thing he heard was a double beep, letting him know… no, she didn’t love him back, warts and all, like he loved her. In fact, she’d hung up.
Chapter Twenty-Nine
The first time she broke up with Keane, Lena kept moving.
She still remembered how the hot August heat had dragged across her skin as she walked away from Keane to the T station. As if it was trying to keep her from leaving, trying to push her back to the boy she could not let herself continue to have. But she’d kept on moving.
At home, she packed a whole two weeks’ earlier than required. Then she spent the rest of her time in Boston taking on extra projects for the then underfunded Institute. She kept moving until it was literally time to move.
In California, she threw herself into her classes. When thoughts of Keane popped up during her first year of medical school, memories of how he’d kissed her and the things he’d done to her body…No, Lena! she’d say to herself. Don’t think of him. He was just a fling. A silly summer romance that should never have happened. She kept on moving and studying and trying not to remember, until that fateful day when she saw his accident on the TV at that sports bar…
And her whole world had stopped.
She’d gone to him. Not once. But twice. And the second time he’d rewarded her with a new, way more brutal introduction to who he really was. The bully who’d been buried for the summer now had free rein. And the tears he made her cry had strangely put her train back on the right track.
Keane: Her Ruthless Ex: 50 Loving States, Massachusetts Page 20