by Rachel Kane
They rested in the afterglow, if glow was the right word for the brightness of the construction lights that bathed them in this aseptic glare. Liam's cheek was against Mason's chest, his fingers lazily dallying over hair and nipple, a quiet hum in his throat.
The secret bar, disconnected from the world outside, was warmer than Mason might've expected, well-insulated by being underground. They could lie here, naked, without needing the comfort of blankets or clothes.
Clothes that might have their phones. Phones that might give the time.
He didn't want to think about time, about how many minutes he had left before Liam had to go.
He knew Liam was thinking along similar lines. It was in these little movements, slightly faster than the laziness of only a second ago, like he was bringing himself to life, ready for the world outside.
"No," said Mason. "Come on. You don't have to go yet. You know you don't."
"I just wanted to check the time. I can't leave Mama—"
"No, no, I know. I just wish…”
They sat up, legs dangling off the bar. Eyes aimed across the room, rather than at each other. "You wish…?" said Liam.
"Look, I may as well say it, right? No use in holding back at this point, not after what just happened. Damn it, I want you to stay here. I'm not joking. I'm not talking hypothetically. I said it before, but I mean it now. Be here with me, Liam. Stay. I was serious when I said I'd find a place for you, for your family."
Wordlessly, Liam slid off the bar. He picked up one of the towels Mason had brought (Notice how thoughtful I am, Mason's mind said) and began to dry himself off. "Mason, you know I…" His words trailed into some void, a darkness Mason couldn't see into.
"I'm not asking for the whole world," Mason insisted. "You could live on your own! We could see each other just as often as you wanted—"
He cringed at the tone of his own voice. How could you be a top, and beg like this for your lover to stay?
"Could we?" asked Liam. His voice was tender, and his touch gentle as he brushed his fingers over Mason's cheek. "Could we really see each other? Because you're still in the closet, baby, and that poses a problem to me. You know that. I can't… I can't have secrets in my life. Not anymore."
"I could do that," Mason said. "I think. Probably."
"Probably?" Liam laughed. "It sounds like you're talking yourself out of it, just sitting there."
Mason left the bar, his bare feet patting the newly-cleaned floor. He took one of the towels and began to rub himself as vigorously as if he'd just stepped out of the shower. "There's just some aspects of it that have to be worked out first."
Like the fact that the Mulgrews will destroy me if I say a word about it.
Funny how you can hide something like that from yourself. How you can pretend it’s the town that’s forcing you to keep secret, like it’s a matter of it being nobody’s business but your own.
But that’s the power of a true threat. It becomes such a part of you that it doesn’t even seem unusual anymore. It’s just a fact of your life, and you try to live around it, and never think about it.
To the point that you won’t even reveal it to the man you want most.
"I like you," said Liam. "You know that. I can't demonstrate it any more clearly than I did tonight. I'd do practically anything for you, Mason. But the one thing I won't do is be someone's secret."
"Say you'll think about it."
"Say you'll come out."
"Come on, give me some credit here, it's more complicated—"
"Then tell me why it's complicated."
"I want to, I really do, but you have to understand…"
But the thing Liam would have to understand, couldn't be spoken. There was too much shame behind it. Too many years of hiding. How could you say it to someone? I'm being blackmailed. It didn't even sound right, didn't sound like a phrase that belonged to this day and age. This wasn't the 1920s, when the resort was at its height, and people surely were drunkenly backstabbing each other day and night. It was the twenty-first century, surely we were past all that. Surely it was a new age.
Liam was staring at him, a longing look in his eyes. "Can't you just tell me what's going on?"
But instead of Liam, the person he saw was Violet Mulgrew, in that overly-decorated drawing room, his teenage body, all elbows and knees, gawky and constantly uncomfortable, trying to comport itself with dignity amongst the chintz and the tea-roses. You understand what you did to my son was wrong. You understand it was a sin.
Yes ma'am. Bowed head, contrition and guilt and not understanding why it had to be a big deal.
My son is going to have a certain place in this town, a position of power. I have raised him up to take his rightful place, and you will not drag him down. The whole town has seen the two of you palling around, arms around each other. If they ever thought, for one minute, that it was more than friendship, then I'd know who told them. I'd know who tried to humiliate my family. I'd know it was you, Mason Lee Tisdale.
What could one say? Yes, ma'am.
So I don't want to hear any of this coming-out-of-the-closet nonsense, like you see with these Hollywood stars and their debauchery. If you live in my town, you obey my rules. And my rules say, you keep your filthy little secret to yourself. Otherwise I will make your life so hard, dear. So very, very hard. You haven't seen the full range of powers that the Mulgrews have in Superbia. Pray that you never do.
But how could he say any of that to Liam? How could he tell him this history, when it was so embarrassing, so humiliating? It would sound ridiculous, a big guy like Mason quailing over a threat, changing his entire life because some angry old lady hadn't liked the way he'd cozied up to her son. Like the whole town didn't already suspect Justin was gay.
Liam was never going to accept Mason's closeting unless he knew the full story. And hell, maybe not even then. Maybe he'd think less of Mason, knowing he had given into this threat his entire life.
"I will…someday," whispered Mason. "I promise you I will. But stay, Liam. Say you'll stay."
26
Liam
The motel room was full of the smell of fresh-brewed coffee. The coffee itself wasn't that great—just the packets the Superbia Motor Lodge offered its guests—but the smell of it was something enticing. Liam opened the shades to let in some of the indirect morning light.
"Are you a happy girl this morning…or a very saaaaaaaad girl?" he asked Roo. Morning was certainly the time she was a clean girl, fresh-scrubbed and rosy, with a cowlick of dark hair giving her a jaunty look. He put a little bow on the cowlick, to make it look like it was on purpose, rather than a stray curl he knew he was going to spend years battling.
Roo held up her sippy cup, and he mimed drinking some of her water, which she loved, and she laughed and laughed, shaking the cup at him, then stealing it away to drink a little herself.
Stay.
He shook his head. It was impossible, he couldn't even think about it.
Stay.
Move himself, his child, his job, everything, down to be with a man who couldn't even be honest with the world?
Stay.
He was saved from further rumination by his mom, who brought in a box that smelled of yeast and cinnamon.
"I discovered the bakery!" she said happily. "I was sure the town must have one, but it's squeezed between the feed and seed, and the tiny antique store. I would've missed it if I hadn't followed my nose."
Pastry had never been more welcome. It was hard to worry about life's larger problems, when fresh, gooey cinnamon buns were at hand. He put a little piece of one on Roo's plate.
"This is a cinnamon bun," he told her.
"Bah?"
"Bun, right! It's good. So good."
"Goo'!"
As hungry as he was, having expended a year's worth of calories on that bar with Mason, he waited until Roo had tasted the pastry, because he loved the look of delight on her face, the way surprise mingled with happiness, the way they sp
read out over her entire expression, first the mouth, then the eyes, and then of course her voice, giggling and laughing and asking for another piece.
"The bakery wasn't the only thing I found," said Mama, and this time there was a tinge of something to her voice, something less than happy, that caused him to cut his eyes over to her.
"Like…what?"
She brought over some napkins and cleaned the dots of frosting off Roo's cheeks. "Information about your father. Gossip, I should say."
"About Dad? Here? I thought he avoided this place his whole life."
She shook her head. "Not his entire life. No. It turns out he spent his summers here with his uncle and cousins."
"You're kidding. Was the resort still up and running then? How did he never tell us about this place?"
"This would've been around the time the spring closed down and the money dried up. But he was definitely familiar with the house, knew the town, knew the people here. And he never said a word."
Secrets, always secrets. He swore to himself he would never keep secrets from Roo, no matter how minor. He'd talk her ear off, boring her with every possible detail of his history.
Well, maybe not every detail. She didn't need to know about this affair with Mason, any more than she needed to know what was in her Christmas presents before they opened. Some small secrets are benign.
But what his father had done was not benign at all. He had hidden so much of his life from his family, that it was like being parented by a shadow.
How did I ever think I knew you? I loved you so much, I always wanted to spend more time with you, but you were never there, you were never around, always off on business, always gone…
"So he kept two secrets from us," he said. He set the half-eaten cinnamon bun back in the box, his appetite gone. "Where he came from, and that he was gay. How many more are there?"
She pressed her lips together, her head like a sad pendulum swinging from no to no. "I don't know, baby, I really don't. Why would he keep this place from us? Why would he refuse the house, and never tell us? Is it…is it all connected somehow? Is it all the same secret? I just hoped I could find out. I hoped, I don't know, that I'd find a signed confession in his handwriting, something that told me all the things he'd never say to me himself."
As though shaking herself out of this line of thought, she busied herself, cleaning up Roo, rinsing the sippy cup out in the sink, laying out baby clothes for the day, making sure there were enough layers to keep her warm, but easy enough ones to remove if she got overheated. The same thing Liam would've done…so it left him with nothing to do. He picked Roo up, smelling her sweet baby-scent supplemented by the cinnamon.
"Did you have a good time on your date?" his mom asked.
Sure, aside from the fact that Mason has secrets too. "Yeah, I… I really like him, Mama. A lot."
There must have been something in his tone, because she looked up from the baby clothes and studied him closely.
"When you say a lot…?”
"I don't know how to describe it. But…there's a problem."
"The closet you mentioned earlier."
"Exactly."
He told her about how they'd talked about it last night, about how clearly there was something Mason wanted to say about it, but kept holding back.
There was, of course, plenty he didn't have to say. He watched her face get tighter and tighter, as he explained how he felt…especially that he wasn't sure he could see a future with someone who wasn't out, as much as he might want one.
"It's a hard thing," she said. "You can't rush him, and you can't force him."
"No, no, I know that," Liam said. "I wouldn't dream of it. But if I feel like I'm being strung along with promises of someday, then I'm not being fair to myself, either. Why can't men just talk? Where did we get this idea that you have to be silent about everything?"
That elicited a sad smile from Mama. "I wish I knew the answer to that. If I did, you and I might both have our husbands back. All I can tell you is, protect yourself. As good as he is—and I believe he is a good man—he's no good for you if he's asking you to keep his secret. Not after what you've been through."
Not surprisingly, Noah disagreed. After naptime, Liam was rolling Roo through town, looking in storefronts and saying hello to people, when his phone rang. He had mixed feelings when he looked at the screen and saw it was his best friend. He loved Noah…but sometimes the guy could be a little much.
"Your mom is wrong," he said, after Liam had clued him into the situation. "So wrong. I mean, sorry, but she's not a gay man in today's meat-market atmosphere. You're sure this guy isn't a player? You're sure he's not manipulating you or anything?"
The idea of Mason being a master manipulator brought a smile to his lips. "No. Mason's a lot of things, but I don't think he's got a backstabby bone in his body."
"Yeah, exactly. Let me tell you what I hear in your voice, dude. Comfort. Serenity. Do you realize how frantic you usually sound when we talk? It's why we're always trying to get some wine into you, calm you down a little. Right now you sound like you're on some tropical vacation."
He looked around this sparsely-populated part of the town, the low buildings, the abundant trees, and felt the tug of spring, the battle between winter and summer. "It's not tropical yet," he said, "but I do like it."
"You like him. You like the way he makes you feel. Look, your mom has got some trauma. She should've been in therapy years ago. Her choice, right? I told you the same thing after Richard. I even gave you Dr. Neighbors' card, not that you'd ever take me up on it. But your mom is never going to believe any man with a secret is any good. But…we're human. We've got secrets. Even inadvertent ones. Did I tell you what I had for lunch yesterday?"
"Uh…no." Probably one of those greasy keto meals, assuming Noah was still on that diet, but Liam didn't mention that.
"Exactly. You don't know. So it's a secret. Is your life made worse by it? Am I harming you by not telling you what I had?"
"It was avocado something, wasn't it. Avacado…and fried egg."
"You're missing the point."
"With a cup of almond butter."
"Liam. Give the man time. He must have his reasons, and they probably have to do with him living in that dinky-ass town. If he were up here, he'd probably be in the next Pride parade, ripping his shirt off and showing the world those big handyman pecs."
"Contractor."
"At which point you'd have to fight to keep him, because the whole world loves a big lunkhead like that."
"He's not—"
"My point is that you shouldn't listen to your mother. Give him time."
Not surprisingly, Judah disagreed.
They had made it to the Mulgrew Municipal Park—Est. 1987 by Violet and Frederick Mulgrew said the sign, so a recent addition to the town. Liam wondered what they'd mowed down to put a park here. He and Roo were the only visitors, and he was letting her play in the grass when his phone rang again.
"What, is she telling everybody about my business?" he asked Judah.
"I was just calling to ask if I could stay at your place while you're gone," his brother said. "My apartment flooded, and the landlord is saying it's my upstairs neighbor’s fault, it's turning into a thing. The kind of thing I don't really like. Lawyers, everyone's saying we should get lawyers. I don't want to do that. I just want somewhere dry to stay."
Poor Judah, there without anyone to help! His head was so in the clouds…or, maybe one should say, in The Cloud, with all his technical stuff, his computers and his data…it was hard for him to function in the normal world. If it weren't for Superbia, Liam would've already been recommending a course of action for him.
"Of course you can stay at my place. You've got the spare key."
"It's really miserable," Judah said. "I lost two of my laptops, and thirty-six books, and one long-box of comics, and—"
"It sounds rough. Bring that stuff over to my place, see if you can dry it all out."
&n
bsp; "Okay. What was Mama supposed to tell me about your business?"
Liam sighed. Hell, everyone else knew, why not his brother? He gave him the short version.
"Why are you dating a handyman?"
"He's really nice, and handsome, and I don't even want to tell you how he is in bed—"
"Yes, please don't. Please. No intimate details. You know I hate that stuff. But…why? You're going to be back up here soon, why get attached to someone you're just going to leave?"
And there was the real question, wasn't it?
Was he going to leave? Was he going to turn his back on the spring-house and the secret bar, the whole of Cooper's Folly, the whole town of Superbia…and Mason? So he could return to the ghost-town his city had become?
"I'm just feeling like there's nothing left for me back home," Liam said. He removed a rock from Roo's hand, and before she could fuss about it, handed her a fresh green leaf.
"So you're going to escape one place because it's full of secrets, and you're going to run to another place that's full of secrets? I don't understand you. I mean, I don't understand anybody, but in particular, you."
"You think he should come out, right?"
"I don't care," said Judah, and Liam felt that flash of agitation he always got with his brother, with the ease with which he disconnected from everything around him. It must be nice to always be able to turn your emotions off and think about numbers and subroutines or whatever. "Mason's life is not my concern. Yours, on the other hand, is. Why does it bother you so much?"
"You know why. After Dad—"
