The Fiancé (It's Just Us Here Book 6)

by Christopher X Sullivan

  Mark said something in the background.

  “Oh, just talking to your girlfriend while you showered,” Mel answered.

  Shit!

  They bickered until the phone changed hands. “Hey,” Mark said.

  “So much for nobody finding out.”

  “Yeah,” he agreed nervously.

  “Also, she seemed to think that I broke up with you.”

  “Yeah,” he said without elaborating.

  “I’ll see you when you get home. Also, I tossed Suhail to the wolves so try to make sure Mel doesn’t kill him.”

  “What did you say to her? She was pissed.”

  “Nothing. I clammed up and just wanted her off of our backs.”

  “Remind me never to go hiking with you in bear country. One minute everything will be fine, then I’ll be facedown on the ground as bear food while you run away and leave me for dead.”

  “Cute. And that’s not funny. You know I’m scared of bears. Why don’t we go camping in, like, Iowa. Somewhere there aren’t any bears.”

  “Shit,” he said softly. “I can hear Mel getting angry. I’m going to diffuse the situation.”

  “Don’t get yourself killed.”

  “Pray for me,” he said.

  “You’ll be lucky if I don’t burst into flames when you take me to your fucking church.”

  “Father Dunworthy will teach you how to pray.”

  “Find God,” I suggested.

  “Cute.” He hung up the phone.

  Mark texted me a minute later.

  ~love you~

  = Love you, too =

  ~find god~

  THE FIRST FIVE DAYS of the new ‘us’ had been relatively calm compared to how we were before the Big Fight (except for that time Mark wanted to kill a man and went berserk at Tim and Stacy’s house). The phone call from Mel reminded me of how I was in love with a tornado. Mark moved people out of his way like he was washing bugs off his windshield.

  How in the hell was I supposed to introduce that to my family?

  The pressure was building again. It was easier to just... let everything lie. I was never the kind of guy to rock the boat. If I made a scene, it was because I was fighting on behalf of someone I cared about, not something for my own personal benefit. Coming out of the closet, by its definition, was doing something for me. It would be all about me.

  I had to stay focused on Mark. He wanted to meet my parents. I wanted to show him off to my family. That’s what mattered. This one blip of fear would pale in comparison to the life we were going to live together.

  Right... it was definitely happening... I mean, he wouldn’t leave me after I went through all this trouble... right?

  Oh, how my head went back and forth and back and forth and back and forth. Then Mark showed up at the apartment for dinner. “Well that went great,” he said, sarcastically.

  “What happened?”

  “Suhail has been slain. Murdered by his crazy girlfriend otherwise known as my sister.” He shook his head. “Suhail never should have listened to you. You do realize he kept this secret from Mel... for you.”

  “I know.”

  “And then you tossed the red meat to my crazy sister. You must really like burning bridges. First Stacy, now Suhail.”

  “I thought Suhail died?”

  “Cute. He told me he’s never speaking to you again.”

  “Bullshit,” I said instinctively, but it came out stronger than I felt. Then I lunged for my phone.

  “Dude, I wouldn’t call. Let things calm down. Ride out the storm and see if he survives.”

  “If he can’t survive one little Melanie storm, then he’s not made for the long haul.”

  Mark sighed, then sat beside me on the couch. “You know I love you, but sometimes your head jumps to the exact wrong thing.”

  “Never. Not once. That never happens.”

  “You aren’t as smart as you think you are,” he said, rather loftily. “Suhail was so mad at you that I had to defend your honor. He was calling you all kinds of names.”

  “Now I know you’re lying.” I relaxed slightly. “You had me going there for a while....”

  “I’m serious. Suhail is furious.”

  There was a knock on the door.

  “I told you not to knock,” Mark yelled from the couch. The door opened. Melanie powered into the room and stopped beside the kitchen island. Suhail followed after and shut the door softly.

  “Hey Mel,” I said.

  “We’re going for a walk,” she commanded, like how a defensive lineman might say he’s about to ‘pound you into the ground’.

  “Anything you need to say can be said in front of these guys,” I said. “My best friends.”

  “I promise I won’t stab, maim or otherwise incapacitate you.” She was testy.

  “Did Suhail come up with that line?”

  “Let’s go for a walk!” Her voice was like a clap of thunder and her eyes were like inhuman orbs of manic energy.

  “Mark, if I don’t return... you’ll know who’s responsible.” I dusted off my lap and stood. Mark walked me to the door.

  “Just the two of us,” Mel demanded. “Sit with The Snitch and think about what you’ve done.”

  Mark rolled his eyes. Suhail tried to smooth everything over and eventually succeeded in getting Mark away from me. Mel and I took the elevator down. This would be the worst time in history for an elevator to stop working.

  We were silent for three minutes until we made it out the east exit and into the park. I craned my neck upwards because there was a one hundred percent chance that Mark was looking down on us... probably commenting on how he was surprised we made it out alive.

  “I asked Suhail to keep this from you,” I whispered. “I’m sorry.”

  “I’m not mad about that. Suhail is a pushover when it comes to some things.”

  “Plus, he didn’t want to live up to his reputation.” For once.

  “That, too.” She didn’t smile. “Suhail is a good guy. We talked about this a lot. About you and Mark and about how to make this work. He promised that you were over him. He said you were getting serious with someone else...”

  “I broke up with her two days ago,” I said. “Technically, I broke up with her the minute I saw your brother.”

  She sighed heavily. We ambled towards the beach. “I used to really like you, Chris. I really did.” She choked up.

  “I like you, too. I think Suhail found a solid partner.”

  She ignored my compliments (how unlike her brother!). “I knew the minute he walked in the door at Grandma’s house. He looked so smug. And distracted. I just... knew. I knew it, I knew it.”

  “I asked Mark not to talk about it. I’m coming—”

  “I know what you told him. I know what you told Suhail. And I don’t care. He hasn’t looked this happy since the two of you fell apart. I don’t know... Mark explained that maybe I didn’t have all the facts straight. That I may have jumped to some conclusions and he never corrected them. Whatever. I don’t care.”

  “Mark and I are... going to be together.” I was helpless. “That’s what I feel, that’s what I believe. He’s been very forceful on that point.”

  “I hope you’re right. I hope for both your sakes that you are.... Now that this has all played out, there’s really only one way it should end.”

  “I agree,” I said, trying not to provoke her anger.

  “Do you remember the first time we met?” She kicked a small rock through the sand so that it skipped off the sidewalk and into the parking lot.

  “I remember.”

  “I was in a bad place. I didn’t realize it, but I was in a bad place. And then... he happened.” She shuddered slightly.

  Greg... asshole Greg.

  “I never liked him,” I confessed. I nearly blurted some BS about how I could’ve prevented the assault, but that would have been giving me too much credit and Greg too little.

  “I never thanked you,” she said simply. �
��That morning was horrible. I was... shocked, really. And I tried to put it behind me. You were like an attack dog. Mark was... Mark.”

  I understood what she meant. Mark wasn’t a perfect person. He viewed me as his property, so he fended off strangers. He was not as defensive or protective of anyone else, not even his sister.

  “Mark and I walked back to his building after getting a coffee. I didn’t want to go back up there.” She nodded to indicate Mark’s apartment. “I didn’t think I would ever go there again. It was... it was so out of my control. Everything about that night was wrong.” She scrunched her face. “We saw the scumbag as he left the building. Did Mark tell you that?”

  “He said something about it.” I kept my voice neutral and couldn’t predict where she was going to take this.

  “I saw a look in his eyes as he walked away. Fearful. Fearful of me.” She stopped moving and watched the waves as they lapped against the beach. “I think about that look when I think of him. Him being scared of me and not the other way around.”

  “I did make some pretty strong threats.”

  She ignored me again. “And then I met Suhail. That night.” She laughed lightly. “So I owe you twice, it would seem.”

  “You owe me nothing.”

  “I owe you some advice, at least.”

  I was silent, still not knowing what she was getting at.

  “Mark is... not the most sensitive guy,” she said. “You’re the opposite. It was funny to see the two of you together, that first day. And the months that followed.” She smiled at me with genuine warmth. The wind blew her loose hair. “Mark says he’s going to marry you.”

  “Well, that’s news to me because as far as I know, I’m never getting married.”

  She threw her head back and laughed with a short, dog-like bark. “You should have heard him yesterday. He has it all built up in his mind. But you know as well as I do... he’s a hard guy to love. He’s my brother and I love him, but he’s selfish. His entire world is centered around himself. Nothing else matters.”

  I nodded. Of course I had realized that long ago, but somehow I had also become a part of his constellation—a part of him. His world was still centered around himself, but also himself and me.

  “Don’t give up on him,” she commanded.

  “I never did.”

  “Really, though. He’s a tough guy. I know I’m hard to live with... I don’t know how Suhail puts up with my crap. But Mark is, like, ten times worse.”

  I laughed. In the blink of an eye it grew into brash, unstoppable laughter, starting with a snort, then building into a crescendo that shook my whole body. Melanie asked what was so funny.

  “He says the same thing about you,” I said through coughing laughs. “I know I’m tough, but Melanie is ten times worse.”

  “That’s not true at all,” she insisted.

  I wiped my eyes. “You two are so similar.”

  “I am not a narcissist. Sorry, but Mark has it way worse.”

  “He’s not that way with me,” I assured her. “I mean, he’s still full of himself and looks at himself in the mirror a lot, but he’s different with me. I know he is. I can feel it when he looks at me.”

  We walked back to the building.

  “You’d make a good in-law,” she said at one point.

  “Now, are you thinking of yourself or are you thinking of me when you say that?”

  “Fuck you.” She was smiling and there wasn’t any heat in her threat.

  We took the elevator and chatted calmly. Mel assured me that she would be my strongest ally and warned me that there was work to be done to get back in her parents’ good graces. Something about them believing me to be a coward and possibly a pervert. She said she would do what she could for me.

  I opened the door to Mark’s apartment to find Suhail lying on the floor covered in tomato sauce. He was shirtless.

  “I killed Suhail!” Mark declared. “He was nagging me, so I knifed him. Help dispose of the body!”

  “That’s a waste of tomato sauce,” I pointed out.

  “You’re no fun,” Mark accused.

  “I’m not cleaning that up.”

  “It’s not going to waste. I’ll give it to Gloria.”

  I almost started shouting, but figured that’s what he wanted. He grinned at me like a stupid monkey who thought he was doing something clever. I shook my head and walked back to the bedroom, then picked out his favorite white shirt.

  “Here Suhail, clean it off with this.”

  “You better not!” Mark said, lunging at me. “We just wanted to make you laugh. You were talking too seriously.”

  “We talked about you,” I said.

  Melanie helped clean Suhail in the bathroom. Mark and I took care of the kitchen, then sat around the island and waited on them. When they were done, I asked if our two guests wanted to play board games. Suhail said maybe another day. Melanie said she had been through too much Mark-drama for one day and that she wanted to escape before he threw a can of tomatoes on her, too.

  I understood that sentiment completely.

  They left.

  “How did you like my thing with the tomatoes? Pretty quick thinking, huh?”

  “Pretty dumb,” I corrected.

  “No... pretty memorable. Almost memorable enough to write about?”

  I rolled my eyes. “It doesn’t work like that. You can’t force a story. You just have to feel it.”

  “What was wrong with the tomatoes? You honestly can’t figure out how to put that in a story? Connect it to your past as a farmer.”

  “I wasn’t a farmer. I was poor and we grew up surrounded by cornfields. That’s different than ‘being a farmer’.”

  “I still think the tomatoes were a stroke of genius.”

  “You aren’t as smart as you think you are,” I taunted, throwing his earlier words back at him.

  “Ouch! You can’t say it if it’s true.” He opened those blue eyes wide like an innocent baby. That got me giggling.

  Mark has a personality he shows the rest of the world, and then he has something special for me. He’s always trying to make me laugh. In return, I shower him with attention and he tries to get every last ounce of whatever I have to give.

  I don’t know how we made it work. I really don’t.

  To this day, he gets on my nerves. Sometimes I have to explain why one decision is the right one and why his ‘perfect’ idea would make him look like a bad person. I wonder if he does this on purpose or if it’s all for show?

  He is a narcissist—it goes well beyond vanity. I have plenty of problems, too. I love him so much that our imperfections aren’t important. I try to be a good person. He tries too (his heart always wants to do the right thing, he just needs a push from time to time to get started). We make each other better people. End of story.

  Oh, and then Mark found God. So not quite the end of his ‘good person’ story.

  What an adventure that has been.

  Father Dunworthy

  LET ME PREFACE THIS whole ‘church’ thing by saying that Mark is BIG into church. Like, I cannot fathom how the man I met—who professed to hate everything about Catholicism—somehow wound up in the Episcopal Church.

  Also, I should mention that Father Dunworthy is a completely made up name and has no bearing on our priest’s real name. I was not clever with this one, I just plucked a name at random. Like right now... I’m going to name him... Jordan. Random. Jordan Dunworthy. It has a nice ring to it. I apologize to any real life Jordan Dunworthys... I am obviously not talking about you.

  Thirdly, I was raised in a rural Methodist congregation. Everything about urban Episcopal/Anglican rituals and liturgy feels wrong. I will never belong. However, I didn’t exactly feel like I belonged in my Methodist community either.

  Fourth, Mark’s church has had a huge effect on my life. I do feel better knowing that when I die, Father Dunworthy will be praying over my dead body. I like that idea if for no other reason than Mark would re
ally want it.

  The congregation has never pressured me to do things I wasn’t comfortable with. They do sometimes ask why I don’t take Communion or why I won’t take Confirmation classes. Those questions died down within a couple months of Mark introducing me to everyone, but picked up again when Alex went through Confirmation (as in, Why don’t you do it now, with your son?).

  I’m a spiritual man and the church is a spiritual place. I do like attending church. It gets me out of the house and out of my writing world. I know that Alex is meeting the kinds of people that I would want him to meet. I don’t, however, appreciate the way Alex wants to evangelize everyone like a brainwashed zombie. Oh well. You take your wins with your losses, I guess.

  Alex is a good kid.

  Mark is a good father.

  We go to church every Sunday. I think I’ve been to a church service every week since I got back together with Mark. If we’re on a European vacation then we’ll go to an Anglican church. We’ve never voluntarily gone to a Catholic mass. I don’t know why because I can’t exactly tell the difference—they both say and do the same things (or so it seems).

  My grandparents were lapsed Roman Catholics. They had a huge family and their entire brood grew up as Catholics, but only a third of them remain in the Church. I don’t think my father has been a practicing Catholic since that one random time when I was a kid and he made us hold hands around the table and say grace. (Me and my sister made fun of him and Mom told us to stop it.)

  Mark’s family were all hardcore Roman Catholics. Melanie wasn’t that big on it, but Mark’s three older siblings and his nieces and nephews went every week.

  Mark had gone every week up until he was sixteen.

  During our first go-round, Mark and I didn’t talk about religion long enough for him to get past the list of things he hated about it. My partner had a lot of wounds, anger and resentment around this subject. I didn’t know how to lance the pain and probably couldn’t have even if I tried. His anger was buried too deep in his heart.

  I have come to learn two very important things about Mark’s upbringing in the Catholic Church. I always knew that he resented Catholicism because of how he was treated by his father and grandfather when he came out as gay—that was not a new revelation. What I learned by attending the Episcopal Church (through teeny, tiny pieces of conversations) was something so shocking to me that I, being an author of many books, could never have created a fictional character with the kind of complex relationship that Mark once had with his parish priest. There was no inappropriate sexual behavior in either direction—let’s be clear on that front. In fact, I would say everything was entirely appropriate and exactly what a priest is there for.