by V. L. Locey
There, Barron. Move along to the skinny middle-aged woman who liked to talk. Pam. Yeah, move to Pam now. She’d gabber on for ten minutes or until someone made her shut up.
Barron leaned forward in his seat, elbows to knees, geeky computer nerd aura radiating out from him.
“How was it good?” Barron prodded. Someone took a sip of coffee. A hot wind blew in the open windows, tickling some flyers taped to the wall. “Was it good because you didn’t drink?”
“Yeah, it was good because I didn’t drink.” I wished he would just move on.
“Did you have any moments of crisis? When you wanted to go get drunk? Did you have a second of weakness when you spoke to your parents or a sibling? Family issues can be huge triggers for slipping off the wagon.”
Several people there murmured in agreement. I shook my head, sweat beading on my brow.
“Nope, no family issues because I don’t speak to them. Can we move along now?” I stared at Barron, right into his dark brown eyes, daring him to keep pushing me. I knew how to wear a pissed-off hockey player face.
“Why don’t you talk to them? Did they pull away when you were arrested for the second time?”
“Look, Barron, I don’t come here to fill you fuckers in on my personal issues!” I shouted and the fucker leaned back and cocked a thin eyebrow. Cocky shitbag had picked at me until I’d opened up. Did I ever mention how much I hated this group shit?
Everyone started talking at me at once, correcting me, telling me that I was wrong, that we did come here to talk about personal issues and blah, blah, blah, blah, fucking blah.
“Okay, group, quiet down,” Barron called as the piling on of Nate got to dangerous levels. “Let Nate reply to our views. Nate, why do you come here if you’re not going to open up? Is it because it’s court-mandated? Do you really hope to learn how to handle your addiction, or are you here for the ice cream?”
“Fuck you,” I snarled. A couple of women gasped. Like they’d never heard a vulgarity before. Pfft. Right. Bar fly Betty’s all of them. “And fuck all of you. I come here because I have to. The courts think my sitting here and listening to you all drone on about your petty stupid shitty problems is a path to me finding redemption. I come here because I need signatures on papers so I can play hockey. You all are whiny weak idiots. Sitting here week after week, whimpering about how bad your pasts were, how you saw your daddy drink and pee on the petunias. Christ. I wish I had seen something that amusing when I was a kid. Know what I witnessed? I got to see the aftermath of my father putting a gun to his head and pulling the trigger. Yeah, nice, huh?” Pam covered her mouth with her hand. The room was still as if a creeping cloud of death had blown in with the summer air. “Only, Dad fucked that up, so now he’s in a home lying in a bed like a cucumber. Yep, that was fun. Nothing like having to clean up the mess of your father’s failed suicide attempt, you know how bloody a head wound is? How sticky that shit is once it dries? How red the water in the bucket gets as you wring out that sponge over and over and…and…”
I sat down. I didn’t even remember standing, but I had. My ass fell into that metal seat, and I began wiping my hands on my thighs. It took a moment for me to realize that the red on my palms wasn’t real. It was just a memory. One that Barron, the asshole, pulled out of me like a dentist yanks out a rotten tooth. My hands started shaking. I couldn’t find my breath, and then, to add to the misery, I got sick. Vomit raced up into my throat, and I barely made it to the trash can in the corner.
“Let it out,” Barron whispered, kneeling down beside me, his hand on the nape of my clammy neck. “We have to get the poison out before we can start to recover.”
Poison. Yeah, it tasted pretty toxic. The rest of the meeting was subdued, the others eyeing me warily as I sipped putrid coffee and nibbled on a stale donut. The tremors had pretty much stopped by the time we were done. I no more felt like meeting Bran for squid or chicken than I did shoving a screwdriver into my ear, but the hibachi place had a bar…
“Nate, if you’d like to stay here and talk…” Barron offered while I was slugging down the cold remains of my coffee. I shook my head. His lips flatlined. “Where are you going now? You probably shouldn’t be alone.”
“I’m meeting my man at Destiny for dinner.” I tossed the Styrofoam cup into a clean trash can. Pam had graciously carried the soiled one outside and found a clean one for the room. “I won’t be alone.”
“Good. Maybe you and he can talk, but if not, you have my number.”
I did. I had his card and my pretty new two month chip in my pocket. “Yep, I have it. I’m out of here. Next week, start with Pam, okay?”
He patted me on the arm, his smile sincere. “I will. I think we’ve made some progress though. We have to face our demons.”
“Uh-huh.” I tugged my Stallions ballcap down to my eyebrows and left him in the dust. Personally, I could skip seeing that demon. Forever. What was the point of dragging all of that out into the light? Mom was gone. Dad was a vegetable. Jacob had been blown up in some desert, and Chris hated me for reasons too numerous to count. Like, why would I want to wallow in all that? Wasn’t letting it fade away better? Sure it was. Had to be.
I climbed back onto a city bus, sat down somewhere in the middle, and rode along with my stomach roiling and my nerves shattered. One beer. Just one beer and I’d be able to shove that demon back in the box where it belonged. When the bus pulled up outside the massive shopping mall, I nudged an old woman aside to exit first. She called me bad names. I ignored her. I’d gotten accustomed to old people railing at me. Barney never missed a chance to give me grief.
Climbing the stairs to the food court, I hung a left and beelined it into the Purple Dragon Hibachi Bar.
“I’m meeting someone. He probably made a reservation. Cavanaugh?” I told the hostess as my gaze stayed on the bar just four steps away.
“Oh yes, he’s not here yet,” she replied with a shy smile. “I can seat you.”
“I’ll wait for him at the bar.”
And with that, I walked away from the lovely Asian woman as calmly as I could and climbed onto a barstool. A baseball game was on, professional, and I stared at the scoreboard as I waited.
“You have I.D.?”
My sight dropped from the game to the older man staring holes through me. “I left my wallet at home,” I lied then dug into my front pocket for the cash I’d dug out of my billfold on the bus ride over. Four hundreds fluttered to the bar as well as Barron’s card and my spiffy chip. It hit the bar and the sound was enormously loud, or perhaps that was just how I was hearing it. “I got cash. One beer. All of this is yours as a tip.”
I shoved everything toward him, the money, the card, and the chip.
“Sorry, kid. No I.D., no beer. I can get you a soda. Or a Shirley Temple,” he said, his expression one of utter boredom as if he said this a dozen times a day.
“He’ll have a lemonade if you have it.” Fuck. Bran. I closed my eyes. He slid in beside me, between me and some other guy, his arm brushing mine. “I’ll have a cola, lots of ice.”
I sat there like a corpse for as long as I could.
“It was a bad meeting,” I finally uttered, my throat drier than it had ever been. Would one fucking draft have killed the guy? I’d be legal soon.
“I assumed so. Gather your stuff up. Let’s go to the table. Are you still hungry?”
My fingers slid forward, my fingertips slipping up and over the chip lying among the bills. “Are you disappointed in me?”
“Not at all.”
I didn’t believe him. “I’m not hungry. Can we go home?”
“Sure.”
He took my hand after we’d left the bar and led me to his truck. The walk helped clear my head a bit so that by the time I was seated and he was behind the wheel, the full impact of how close I’d come to trashing the past months of hard work dropped down on my head like an anvil.
Bran reached over to caress my cheek. “You want to play something of you
rs?”
“Nope. Drown me with Diamond.”
“How about we just listen to the wind?”
“Cool.” I shut my eyes and fell into that dead kind of slumber that takes over after a trauma. When I woke up, we were sitting outside his cabin, the truck engine ticking as it cooled off. Head feeling like it was filled with cotton batting, I rolled my gaze to the left and there sat Bran, watching me sleep.
“I didn’t want to wake you up,” he explained, the lights of the dash dimming then going out. “Guess the engine going off did it.”
“Why are we here?” The moon was a sliver climbing up into the new night. A million fireflies seemed to emerge from the woods in a matter of minutes. One second the lawn was dark the next it was alive with flickering tiny lights.
“It felt right to bring you here,” he replied, and I nodded even though he couldn’t see the movement. “Are you okay with it?”
“Yep.” I tugged on the release and slid down from the truck. He came around the truck and slid his fingers between mine. I followed him in the dark, trusting he’d not walk me into a tree or a hole or a bloody mess of a fractured remembrance.
He led me into the cabin, to the living room, where he turned on a small lamp that filled the homey room with subtle light.
“Sit down. I’ll get us something to drink and snack on.” He gave my fingers a squeeze then went off in the direction of the kitchen. I walked to the far wall and admired the shelves of books and photographs. Most of Bran and Jim, some of Bran with his aunt and uncle, others with him with old folks in the garden. Maggie was in one, hugging Bran hard, her smile and his wide.
He made people happy. That much was obvious. He made me happy too. Deep down. Way below the yuck that was on top now. I thought I could love a man like him if he’d just let me all the way into his life and heart. I flipped the power on for the stereo. Neil Diamond flowed from the speakers resting on the shelves. I was so not surprised.
“We don’t have to listen to that,” he said as he emerged from the kitchen with frosty bottles of drink and a bowl of pretzels balanced on a tray.
“Nah, it’s cool. He’s growing on me.”
Bran smiled. My heart lifted a little. “Told you that would happen. Come and sit down. We can talk if you want, or we can just snack and cuddle.”
I chewed on a handful of salty pretzels. “You want to talk. Okay, uhm, let’s talk about why you brought me here. You yourself told me that you did not want me in your bed because it was sacred or some shit. Are you taking me home later or am I supposed to sleep out here in front of the fireplace like a dog?” I looked at him sitting on my left. He didn’t shy away or press his lips into a line as he generally did when he was upset or stressed.
“That’s all justified,” he eventually mumbled, his handful of pretzels lying in his palm untouched. “I want you here, tonight, with me.” He lifted pained blue-gray eyes from his snacks to me. “I’m worried that you’re in a vulnerable place and that you’ll find someone to buy you booze.”
“Okay. So this is just a humanitarian gesture in Jim’s name. God, what a fucking saint he must have been. Remind me why you’re even seeing me? Oh, no, wait, I know. I’m good at getting you off.”
His nostrils flared and yes, his lips were set into a paper-thin gash, but he kept his cool. Instead of lashing out at me with words or a fist, either I would have liked because abuse and battery I was used to, he dug into his back pocket and pulled out a yellow invoice.
“I bought this tonight. I was going to show it to you over dinner at the hibachi restaurant but when I walked in and saw you at the bar…” I stared at the neatly folded paper. “Take it. Read it. I want you to know where I’m at with this relationship. Take. It.”
“Fuck off.” I ripped the stupid invoice away from him, shook it open, and read it. The kick to my gut from seeing that he’d just purchased a new bedroom set and new mattress felt like a crosscheck into the glass. I had no clue how to reel back the nasty shit I had slung at him.
“I’m sorry. It’s…meeting was bad. I’m raw.”
“I know,” he said, exhaling deeply as I handed the bill of sale back to him. “Can you tell me what happened at the meeting that sent you into this spiral?”
I looked from him and found a spot on the wall, right above the mantel over the now cold hearth.
“Shit came out,” I murmured as my gaze locked on a small knot in one of the buttery logs.
“What kind of shit?” He shifted closer to me, his hip and thigh now pressed to mine. My spine sort of dissolved at that moment and I listed to the left. He lifted his arm and draped it around my neck. Eyes still on that knot, I burrowed into his side.
“About that day…”
“The day your father tried to end it?” he asked, his voice low and soft and super respectful. I nodded. “I know how hard that must have been for you, but perhaps talking about it will help you cleanse the hold it has on you.”
“I threw up,” I passed along, a self-deprecating snort followed. “Pretty cool action from Nate Zinkan, huh? Tossing chunks into a fucking metal trash can at a booze hound meeting. Fuck my life.”
He pulled me closer and for once, I let him be in charge. I was too spent to be alpha dog right now, and Bran seemed to be happy to coddle me for a change. His fingers moved up and down my neck, the sensation soothing. My eyes began to grow heavy.
“I had a friend in college who hung herself,” he said after tossing his pretzels back into the bowl. A few missed and bounced to the floor. Neither of us cared. “And then, of course, there was Jim’s death after I lost my parents. Grief and guilt are monstrous things, Nate. They’re destroyers of souls and lives. To this day I question myself about things. If I had been more attentive to Krista’s moods, if I’d done this for my mother or that for my father, if I’d picked a different place to get gas the night Jim was murdered…”
“No way you had control over that night, Bran,” I stated as firmly as my exhausted self could state.
“I know.” He toyed with my earlobe a bit as he gathered his thoughts. “Yet the guilt eats at me. And I was better suited to handle those losses because I was an adult when they happened. You were just a child. One of those terrible things happening would have scarred you, but all three before you were ten? There is no way you come out of that unscathed and looking for ways to dull the pain.”
“I don’t want to talk about this anymore,” I coughed weakly. He pressed a kiss to the top of my head, his fingers resting on my ear as he applied the softest amount of pressure to my head.
“Okay, it’s okay. When you’re ready it will come out, and I’ll be here to help you through it.”
Something about hearing someone say they’d be there for me sort of broke me into little, jagged bits. There was no way to stop the tears, try as I might to find that knot or will them to go away. They came and Bran, the man who I’d called Icy Balls at least four hundred times in that first week at the gardens, cradled me through the whole blubbery mess. Arms tight around me, whispered words of tenderness, comforting touches. How long we sat there on his couch with a yellow invoice resting on his thigh I couldn’t say. Ages, minutes, who knows. It got to be far too much and my brain slammed everything down. Sleep claimed me in the darkest hour of the morning when the tears had dried, and my breathing had settled.
The sun creeping onto my face woke me. My eyes were gummy, my mouth mossy, and my neck stiff, yet, I didn’t move. Bran was splayed out beside me, his arm still resting on my shoulder. I’d wiggled downward during our few hours on the couch, and now had a firm stomach for a pillow. There were no traffic sounds or hungry gulls demanding attention out here like at my place. Just the wind wuthering through the leaves and a lilting chick-a-dee-dee-dee song from a nearby bird. I lay there for a while, inhaling the smell of Bran Cavanaugh’s warm skin until I had to make a move.
I sat up slowly, rubbing at my neck, and looked down at the man I’d slept on. He was really a stunning man. Masculine and
strong but with a softer feminine side, a nurturing part that led him to help fuckwits like me. The urge to taste and touch him was strong, but I’d not showered or brushed my teeth after last night’s upheaval of my guts.
“You okay with me taking a shower here?” I asked, placing a hand on his knee and shaking him awake. He blinked, yawned, smiled, and then moaned when he tried to sit up.
“My back…is kinked,” he groaned and winced. “Yes, please, go ahead. Into the master bedroom, sharp right. Towels are in the closet.”
I nodded and went off, swallowing down the question of why he sent me to his bath and not the main bath at the end of the hall. The bedroom was open and airy, rich log walls, thick blue carpeting, and a massive bedframe crafted out of wood. I paused at the footboard, staring at the oaken frame, my chest packed full of emotions that I couldn’t label.
“It’s okay, really,” Bran said behind me. I shook my head. “It’s just a bed frame, Nate. Lovely yes but just a frame. It’s time for me to do this.”
“But you loved him…” I wanted to touch the curved wood but didn’t dare.
“Yes, I did. And now I think I might be falling…I think I’m developing strong feelings for you. These emotions, they terrify and exhilarate me.” I looked over my shoulder at him. He was smiling a weedy kind of smile. “Too soon?”
“No, not at all. I just…will you join me? In the shower?”
He nodded and together we walked past the bed he’d shared with another man. I pulled him into the bathroom, my fingers on his wrist, and yanked at my clothes, my cock rigid and weeping when it was freed from my briefs. His fingers closed around me.
“Are you sure you want this right now?”
“Yes, so sure,” I said, wrapping my fingers around his and squeezing. “Get in the shower.”
He gave me a stroke, his palm rough over the head of my cock. I shuddered and leaned into him, biting him on the neck in a way that would leave a small mark just how he liked it. A moan rolled out of him. He stripped and stepped into the stall, cranking on the water as I gargled. Steam filled the bath, fogging the mirror and glass door. I knocked and he slid the door open, his hair soaking wet. Water streamed down his head and over his shoulders. I stepped in, closed the door, and gathered him into my arms. The big, round showerhead pummeled my neck with bullets of hot water. It felt wonderful, nearly as wonderful as his hands roaming over me as I feasted on his mouth.
