We Still Live

by Sara Dobie Bauer

  JOHN’S BACKYARD, BRIGHT green when Isaac had first seen it in September, was now painted shades of orange and red—both the tree limbs above and fallen leaves below. The scent of wet earth wafted like perfume on the breeze. People filled a picnic table, as well as a few ramshackle tables that looked like they were probably campus castoffs. Cleo sat across from Isaac in an oversized sweater, black skull in the center, wielding a butcher knife—which would have been distressing if not for the huge pumpkin in front of her.

  Isaac glanced over his shoulder at the click of a lighter and watched John pull smoke into his lungs before laughing with a few men whose names Isaac had already forgotten.

  “I didn’t know John smoked.”

  “It’s a clove,” Cleo said. “John and I split a pack once a year to celebrate Halloween.”

  John exhaled, and Isaac tore his gaze away. He’d never found smoking sexy until that second. “But you sing, Cleo. You shouldn’t smoke.”

  “Once a year, Dr. Twain.” She stabbed the top of her pumpkin and started sawing up, down, up, down.

  “I haven’t carved a pumpkin in years,” Isaac muttered, his own kitchen knife in hand.

  She paused. “Where have you been?”

  “Unhappy.” Before she could respond, Isaac plunged the knife in deep and immediately smelled pumpkin innards, despite John’s fragrant clove smoke that now danced through the backyard.

  The door into the house slid open, and Tommy’s voice echoed through the yard. “Hey, asshole, get inside. Kickoff.”

  John whooped and dropped his clove into an empty beer bottle. Only four p.m., there were already several since John had apparently bought out the grocery store’s supply of pumpkin beer and decided to share it with everyone—including Adam, who sat across the table and two seats down.

  Adam was good-looking in that unfair sort of way, like John. They were both handsome but pretty and unlike anything Isaac had ever seen. That included Adam’s hair—a thick, blond ponytail curled into a bun on the top of his head while the sides were shaved. His short goatee was so artful, it might as well have been showcased in a museum, which made Isaac wonder about John’s sensitive skin and whisker burn and—

  He blinked to keep from thinking too much about John with someone else.

  Manly roars echoed from inside.

  “What exactly is happening in there?” Isaac popped the top off his pumpkin as Cleo stopped scrawling on scrap paper and raised one dark brow—the only evidence she was not a natural redhead.

  “Didn’t you know? It’s Ohio State–Wisconsin day: the one day of the year when Tommy and John actually hate each other.”

  That sounded dubious. “Really.”

  “Well, no. It’s the one blip in their epic love story, though.”

  More shouting—only John’s voice this time.

  “And how long is this going to continue?”

  Half the table answered, “Three hours.”

  Cleo reached her red, manicured fingers into her pumpkin and pulled out seeds and slime. Every handful hit the table with a wet slop.

  Adam glanced toward the house. “Sometimes, I swear John is straight.”

  “From what I’ve heard, you know damn well he isn’t,” whispered a man in eyeliner. He was incredibly tall and looked vaguely familiar.

  Oh. He was one of the drag queens Isaac had seen at the Cave.

  Adam cleared his throat and drew on his pumpkin.

  “What? Are we not going to talk about the fact that you two fucked? Please. Everyone knows.”

  “Sasha, don’t be a bitch,” Cleo snapped and then blushed. “Sorry, Dr. Twain.”

  He resolutely focused on his pumpkin.

  “Boy may have lost some weight over the summer, but thank Christ he didn’t lose that tight little ass.” Sasha shoved Adam in the shoulder. “I want details.”

  “No,” he said.

  Sasha kept going. “I bet he’s a power bottom. Boy can probably work that mouth.”

  Adam glared. “Enough.”

  Isaac channeled his emotions into his pumpkin. Was he angry? No, why would he be angry? John wasn’t sleeping with Adam—again—and so what if other men appreciated John?

  He was smart and sexy as hell and maybe even a little dangerous. There was plenty to appreciate, and Isaac appreciated as often as he could, unlike the other men at the table, so what was there to be angry about?

  “Are you going to see him again?” Sasha asked.

  Adam gestured toward the house. “I see him right now.”

  “You know what I mean.”

  “No, it was a one-time thing, and we are just friends. I’m not even his type; you know that.” Adam tossed his knife on the table. “If anyone around here is John’s type, it’s Isaac. Honey, if you were gay, he would climb you like a tree.”

  Isaac saw red, not from emotion but from a slip of the knife. “Shit.” He’d chopped right into his finger.

  Cleo moved to stand. “Dr. Twain?”

  “I’m fine.” He hurried inside, cradling his bleeding hand.

  In a trim, red Wisconsin jersey, John glanced away from the TV when Isaac entered. On his feet immediately, he dragged Isaac into the kitchen and turned on the cold water.

  Isaac hissed.

  Standing next to each other, John took Isaac’s hand and gently rinsed the blood away. “Let me see.” He looked closer. “Knew I should have bought the little plastic kid knives.”

  “It’s really nothing.”

  John kept Isaac’s hand under the water and didn’t let go, fingers rubbing, massaging while football played in the living room. “You doing okay out there?”

  “Adam’s not so bad.”

  John smiled down at their joined hands. “No. He isn’t. I hope you don’t mind that he’s here.”

  “He’s a friend of yours. I don’t mind.” Making sure Tommy was otherwise engaged, Isaac leaned his nose against John’s forehead. “He said you’d climb me like a tree if I were gay.”

  John nudged him away. “Cut it out.”

  Isaac stole a quick kiss. “Mm. You taste…” He stole another. “Sweet.”

  “It’s the cloves,” John said. “Now, behave.”

  Isaac wanted to be very bad indeed, but he stood up straight at the sound of someone nearby. Tommy eyed them from a few feet away, shaking his beer to indicate its emptiness. “Do we need an ambulance? Put a finger on ice?”

  John turned off the water and grabbed paper towels. “I think the patient will live.” He wrapped Isaac’s hand and squeezed. “I’ll get some Band-Aids from the bathroom. Tommy, don’t you dare turn him into an Ohio State fan.”

  Tommy grinned. “Join the dark side.”

  For someone who didn’t like football, Isaac spent the next two hours thoroughly entertained, his bloody pumpkin forgotten. John and Tommy jumped on furniture, as usual. They cussed out refs. They cussed out coaches. They drank beer after pumpkin beer. At one point, John actually curled into a ball on the floor until Tommy scooped him up and shook him like an Etch-A-Sketch. The game was close, each score answered and defensive play matched.

  When it came down to the big finish, it looked like Ohio State might pull off the win. Even though Wisconsin was up by a field goal, OSU lined up for a possible touchdown with only a minute left—which was when John started singing something about “varsity.”

  “No, you don’t.” Tommy wrapped him in a bear hug from behind and covered his mouth. They remained like that, tangled together, as players moved on screen. The clock ran, and the pumpkin carvers observed from the sliding glass door.

  The quarterback dropped back, back…and Ohio State threw an interception.

  Even Tommy’s hand over John’s mouth could not subdue the victory howl. Tommy let him go and crumbled to his knees, head in his hands.

  “Yes!” John roared. His voice was probably heard all the way down on campus.

  Everyone but Tommy looked pleased as John doled out high five after high five. Isaac wanted to lift him
on his shoulders but refrained, accepting a wink and a smile instead. Then, John knelt by his best friend. They talked quietly together as fans rejoiced on TV.

  “You just ruined my season,” Tommy said.

  “I know.”

  “And you’re happy about it.”

  John fought a smile. “I love you?”

  Tommy shoved him, and John landed on his back, smiling.

  As though summoned, Cleo arrived with two shots. “Drink on it, you maniacs.”

  John lifted his glass. “Best friends forever?”

  Tommy toasted. “I hate you.”

  AFTER THE GAME, revelry commenced in earnest. John was the king of the food spread, an appetizer artist. Isaac still wasn’t sure whom to thank for John’s culinary side. He suspected the French mother, especially when John pronounced certain dishes with an accent. Her European metabolism might also explain how John stayed so thin.

  With drinking and eating came a pleasant haze, only multiplied by the glow of smiling pumpkin faces in the backyard and the chill music from John’s stereo. Then, about nine—that was when Isaac got himself into trouble.

  He was just standing there, innocently, talking with Adam and Tommy about…something. He couldn’t remember what, because he wasn’t listening anyway. He watched John laugh and poke a stick into a crackling fire. John caught him looking and went inside. A minute later, Isaac’s phone vibrated with a text. Go home. You’re looking at me too much. Come back at eleven. So Isaac went home and waited, head leaned back on his couch, and tried not to think about what he wanted to do to John in bed—John, who he’d left sort of drunk and smiling on his front porch up the hill.

  A vibration roused him. He glanced at the kitchen clock: 10:45. Isaac hadn’t even noticed he’d fallen asleep. He rubbed his eyes and looked down at his phone, expecting perhaps an early invite from John. Instead, he lurched up to standing, throat closed on a panicked breath.

  It was a text from Simon—Found you—along with a picture of Isaac standing behind John at the Ohioana Literary Festival in Columbus. Simon had used some cell phone trick to draw a bright red smiley face over John’s eyes and mouth.

  Isaac ran up the hill like a man possessed. None of his fear made sense, of course. Simon didn’t know John was Isaac’s paramour. Even if he did, Simon wouldn’t physically hurt John, regardless of what he knew. Simon may have been in the occasional good ole boy bar brawl, but he wasn’t violent. Well, he hadn’t been violent in Charleston, but that was before Isaac had disappeared from their apartment in July without a word.

  Isaac barreled through John’s front door, unlocked, as always. “John?”

  “Kitchen,” came the calm reply. The rest of the house was quiet.

  “John, I—” He turned the corner and stopped. His cell phone, clutched in his hand since the message from Simon, hit the floor. “Holy…”

  Reclined on the island in nothing but skintight boxer briefs and what appeared to be honey was John, reading an aged collection of Anais Nin erotica. He licked a spoon, which only barely distracted from the way his neck, upper chest, and abdomen glittered with stripes of amber. He lifted his head a little and smiled, dark hair spread behind him in waves. “I spilled some. Can you help?”

  Isaac cleared his throat and tried not to just lunge and take. “John, we need to talk. I…” He sighed when John sucked the spoon into his mouth once more before setting it on the island by his head.

  “No talking. I’ve had the perfect day, and it’s only getting better.”

  Isaac rested his hands on the edge of the counter. His eyes devoured. John was so long—easy to overlook due to his small frame—but legs, arms, fingers, neck were long, long, and covered in sticky sweet. Isaac leaned down and licked across John’s left nipple. John gasped and dropped the book on the floor. His skin smelled like a bonfire and tasted sweet but oaky with maybe orange?

  “This is the best honey I’ve ever tasted,” Isaac said.

  “Local. Raw. Good for allergies.” His fingers barely had time to tangle in Isaac’s hair before Isaac pulled his shirt off over his head. He climbed up on the island, straddling John’s hips and licked from his belly button to the bottom of his sternum. John whispered his name.

  When John again reached for Isaac’s hair, Isaac wrapped his fingers around John’s slender wrists and pinned them above his head before leaning down to lick the center of his chest. “See? This is where a bit of rope would really come in handy.”

  “Ha. Nope.” John almost sounded stern. “One of my hard limits.”

  “Yeah? What else?” He sucked a nipple into his mouth.

  “Fuck,” John moaned. “No reading Stephen King before bed?”

  Isaac rolled his jean-clad hips back and forth over John’s erection. He pressed John’s wrists together and held them both in one hand, loving he could do such a thing.

  John struggled for a second, testing the grip, before wilting back onto the cool countertop. A large dollop of warm gold had settled in the crevice at the base of John’s neck, so Isaac sucked.

  “You love that part of my body,” John muttered. “That little inch of me.”

  Isaac sat back, eyes darting over John’s face, which was decidedly more flushed than when Isaac had first arrived. “I’ve never had this,” he said.

  “Food foreplay?”

  No, that wasn’t what he meant. He shook his head and collected some honey from John’s chest on his thumb. He wiped his thumb over John’s bottom lip until it shined, then leaned forward and pulled the lip into his mouth. John sighed and arched up to meet him, one of his hands still pinned to the island. His other hand pressed against Isaac’s lower back, beckoning him closer.

  John spoke into his mouth: “Don’t you waste a drop.”

  ISAAC WOKE TO the sound of footsteps on carpet. He moaned and rolled over just as the bed sank at his side. “Hey.” John’s hand on his bare chest—yes, he knew its exact weight and shape. Isaac opened his eyes to find John dressed in a button-down and blazer. He might have showered, but he hadn’t washed his hair. It stood up more on one side than the other, although it still managed to carry that perfect curl. Isaac knew John actually owned a shower cap that he hid under the sink for just such mornings when “doing his hair” took too long.

  He cupped John’s cheek in his hand. “Where are you going?”

  “Church with Cleo.”

  Isaac yawned and stretched. “You don’t go to church.”

  “I do sometimes. I like the music.”

  Isaac caressed one of John’s thick eyebrows. “Did you know all the hair on your body is above your nose?”

  “Not all of it.” He smiled and shared a kiss. His mouth tasted like mint.

  Isaac tried to finger comb John’s hair into symmetry, but John winced when one of his fingers got stuck—and stayed stuck. “You have honey in your hair.”

  John leaned into the tug. “Maybe I should have washed it this morning.”

  Isaac sat up and sucked the ends of John’s hair into his mouth. “Tasty.” He further tried to suck on John’s mouth, but John shoved him away with that familiar hand on his chest.

  “Nope. Church.”

  Isaac fell back on the bed but overtly put his hand down the front of his boxers.

  John rolled his eyes and stood. “Fucking menace. Be back in two hours or so.”

  “Pray for us sinners!” Isaac shouted at John’s retreating back.

  “It’s not that kind of church!” The front door opened and closed tight.

  Isaac eventually got up and took a hot shower, mindful to wash away any lingering traces of honey from the night before. He thought about throwing John’s sheets in the washer too. They had to be ruined, considering once they’d finally finished, they’d both been covered in tacky residue. But coffee first.

  He pulled on a pair of pajama bottoms he kept at John’s—considering John’s were laughably too small—and hummed his way to the kitchen. He smiled when he noticed the half-empty jar of honey o
n the counter and went to work boiling water.

  John’s front door opened and shut, but it had only been twenty minutes since he’d left. Isaac almost called his name but heard heavy footsteps in the hall, so not John. Before Isaac could make a dash for a closet, Tommy appeared in the doorway—and froze.

  IT WAS A small, packed diner on Union Street in the center of town. Isaac walked past it every day—the long, thin, silver box that resembled an alien spaceship on the predominantly brick block. Around them, couples and families laughed, chatted, and stuffed their faces with piles of potato and egg. Tommy did nothing but glare, even when the waitress poured two steaming cups of coffee into waiting mugs.

  Tommy sipped. “Do you know who makes the best cup of coffee in Lothos?”

  “John.”

  “That’s right. John. He uses some secret French magic.”

  “It’s cinnamon,” Isaac said, stock still, not reaching for his own mug.

  Of all the things that had happened so far—the kitchen stare, the hurry to get dressed, the tense walk down the hill—Tommy had yet to look this angry, and it was simply because Isaac knew John well enough to know a secret.

  “You’re straight,” Tommy said.

  “I was.”

  “And what, you meet John Conlon and think, ‘Hmm, I’d like to try dick?’”

  Isaac thanked God the restaurant was so damn loud. “No. I’ve always been gay. I was just married to a woman for a long time.”

  Tommy leaned so close, Isaac could see every speck of dirt on his glasses. “How long?”

  “Ten years.”

  “No. How long have you been fucking John?”

  When the waitress moved to come closer, Isaac held up his hand and shook his head. They would not be eating breakfast anytime soon.

  “How long, Isaac?”

  “Since Barcelona.” Seemed like a million years ago. He couldn’t remember a time when he didn’t know the sounds John made in his sleep.

  “Great. Yeah, that’s great.” Tommy turned his rolled silverware over and back. “Make possibly career-destroying decisions on a night when the whole world is a shit show.”

  “I kissed him in Columbus.” He didn’t know why he was trying to defend himself—defend them. As John had said, the catalyst hadn’t been the shooting. Well, maybe it had been the breaking point, but Isaac had wanted John long before that night and now knew the feeling was mutual.