by Amy Lane
“Wait,” Ray said, yawning and opening his eyes like he’d been asleep until this exact moment. “Are those shoeboxes?”
Crispin grimaced and gestured to the four bar tables filled with Jamie’s less-than-meticulous tax forms. “Yes.” He was helpless to deny it. “They are. And we have until five o’clock tonight to figure out how to transform this disaster into a working business. Can we do it?”
“Why five o’ clock tonight?” Nick asked sharply. “Does the bar turn into a pumpkin?”
“No,” Link told him, standing up and starting to rearrange the boxes. “It opens and we have to fit ourselves in the controller’s office. Which is really frickin’ small. So, you see this stack of boxes? This is what he’s put into the bar—Cam, you go through it and decide what he can declare and how much of it. Ray, you look through it and find the stuff he doesn’t mention—I didn’t see a single electric bill in there, and I think he needs to pay for water too. When you have a list, come see me. I might have them, but we might have to go get Jamie—he’s doing the books with the week’s take. Crispin, Nick, these are the vendors he’s paid—I think they’re overcharging him. Check out the most obvious to the least obvious—I seriously don’t think he’s getting what he’s putting into them, so this is a big deal. I’m going to organize the boxes better and make sure there’s no crossed receipts and see if there’s anything else I can spot. Are we ready?”
Well, there was a reason he was their fearless leader.
“Break!” they all said, even putting their hands in the middle and flaming out.
Link ignored them. “God, you try to do one good deed and see what it gets you?”
Cam looked around the bar—which Crispin could admit was gorgeous. Burnished red-tinted pine, classical brass fixtures, big Toulouse-Lautrec prints on the walls at each booth. The alcohol on the top shelves was rare, pricey, and really good, and the call shelf had a lot of Link’s favorites. In the kitchen, Jamie had asked his best cook to come in early and make free appetizers for the accountants, and the smell of french onion soup was insanely good.
“Well, if it gets us free beer for life at a place like this, I’m going to say it was worth it,” Cam said judiciously, and Crispin grinned at him.
“You guys are the best,” he said with feeling. “All except Link. He still sucks.”
Link shrugged. “If I sucked, I would have married you, so you’ll have to deal with me as I am. Now get to work!”
It took Crispin two or three beats to parse that, and by the time he could figure it out and get outraged, Nick was pulling him toward a bank of shoeboxes, shaking his head.
“Just don’t think about it,” he muttered. “Do you want your head to explode?”
“God no. No. No. No. No.” Luka was still looking for a plane to America—this was not the time for Crispin to decide to go celibate.
He was just going to dive into the numbers and make them his bitch. He really was with the best accounting team in northern California—they should be able to make this happen.
Break!
AT FOUR thirty, they were not nearly so optimistic.
“Oh my God,” Cam moaned, sprawling across the receipt-strewn table. “I’m going to dream about these numbers and fix them in my sleep. My parents were right—I shoulda gone to Yale!”
“So, uh, how’s it going?” Jamie approached them with a game smile. He’d very wisely left them alone during the afternoon, but he and a couple of waitstaff were setting up all the tables with condiments and coasters, generally getting ready for their shift.
“Jamie,” Link said, shaking his head, “I’d say we were giving up, but at this point you’d not only lose the business, you’d wind up in jail. Have you fired your other guy yet?”
“No?”
“Do it. Do it now. If he walks in while we’re fixing this mishegas I’ll kill him, and that would be a shitty thing to do to my wife. We’ll get it fixed up, but it’s going to take tomorrow and some more time next week too. I’m sorry, man. I’m surprised you lasted this long.”
Jamie’s face fell, and he nodded apprehensively. “So, uh, so you want help getting this stuff in the—”
“No!” they all shouted, and Crispin took pity on him.
“We sort of have our own way of organizing things,” he apologized. “Let us put stuff in the controller’s office and we’ll be back tomorrow.”
Jamie nodded, looking embarrassed. “Thank you guys—seriously. If you can get me out of this hole by April… I mean, free beer for life—”
All the guys behind Crispin perked up. “You rang?” Cam said hopefully.
“You should probably, uh, put a limit on that,” Crispin warned him, and Jamie nodded.
“I can see that!”
The guys got up and started stacking and labeling, and Crispin turned to help them. Jamie stopped him with a hand on his sleeve. “Your, uh, guy. He make it to the States yet?”
“Still on standby.” Crispin bit his lip. “Haven’t heard from him since yesterday—I’m hoping his phone just died.”
“Oh.” Jamie bit his lip in return, a smidgeon of diffidence in his look. “Well, uh, you know. If he never shows—”
“You can get me a flight to India?” Crispin asked, because that was what he’d been thinking.
“No.” Jamie shook his head. “Just… you know. Local guys, Crispin. Local guys who have a serious hard-on for accountants. We’re here.” He gave a smile that was all teeth and waved.
It dawned on Crispin that Jamie was hitting on him.
He was tempted to give Jamie the whole spiel—that he was sort of broken. That he’d put off having a relationship for a decade because he was so very careful about letting anyone into his heart. That Luka was a long shot, and if he crashed and burned after Luka, it might take him another ten years to put his heart back together.
And then, as much as he liked Jamie, as friendly as he’d been, Crispin realized he didn’t want to share that much of himself—not with a stranger.
Luka hadn’t ever felt like a stranger.
“If this falls through, I’ll keep you in mind,” he said with a quiet smile and then went to help the guys with the boxes. He pretended he didn’t hear Jamie’s sigh—but he was the only one.
“What did you say to that poor man?” Cam hissed.
“Besides ‘Here, have me and my friends to do free labor for you and bail you out of an enormous accounting hole’?” Link muttered. “I’d like to know too. He looks like you told him we were taking out the paneling with a sledgehammer.”
Crispin glared weakly at them. “I said I’d keep him in mind—”
The collective groan made him wince.
“What?”
“Worst blow-off ever.”
“You guys! Luka has been on standby at an airport in Delhi for four days. To come see me! I mean….” He flailed. “Four days! He said he was washing his pits with a bandana and Boraxo in a stall in the men’s room! Should we not wait for him to arrive before you say it can’t work and have me dump him?”
They all gave him the half-lidded looks that children gave parents who actually spoke sense.
“Fine,” Cam said at last. “Look—we just… you know. We like Jamie.”
“You liked Luka,” he said patiently.
“We liked that you took a chance with Luka,” Link spoke up. “But we were really sort of hoping for someone more….”
“Domestic,” Ray supplied. “Like beer. Which is shitty of us, I know, but you’re such a domestic person, Crispin. We just really want you to be happy.”
Crispin sighed. “Well, let me muddle about with happiness for myself, and when I screw it up, then you guys can intervene. How’s that?”
Cam rolled his eyes. “Fair enough. But seriously. Jamie’s a good alternative—or he will be once we make him solvent again. My God, I’d pair you up just so you could help him do basic math.”
“That’s great, Cam—and how many cows would you trade me with for th
at skill?”
“At least six. Move your ass and—”
Crispin’s pocket buzzed, and he set down the shoebox in his hands.
I am in Sacramento, but I don’t smell good. Do you still want me?
I’ll be there in less than an hour. Stay put. I have a shower, and even if I had to use spit and a washrag I’d still want you. OMW!
He couldn’t stop the sunshine smile that took over his whole body as he looked up to tell the guys.
But they knew.
“He here?” Cam asked gently.
“At the airport. Says his first stop is a shower.”
“And probably a bed,” Nick said. “Have fun helping him there.”
Crispin’s grin grew so big he had to squeeze his eyes shut. “See you all tomorrow!” he sang, practically dancing to the coat rack at the entrance. “Ten thirty like today?”
“Twelve,” Link ordered. “You guys whine about me being on overkill. It’s our frickin’ weekend—I need to get a run in first!”
Nick and Ray were glaring at him.
“What?” Link had the nerve to look offended.
“He’s your best friend, Ray. Do something about him.”
Crispin was out the door and into the sleeting rain before Ray could respond, but it didn’t matter. It was like having that little warm haven of sarcasm and overprotective good will gave him the strength to go out into the elements and battle traffic to bring home his boy.
Luka needed Crispin to bring him home.
HE WAS waiting outside Terminal B as Crispin pulled up, backpack at his feet, leaning against the back wall with his eyes closed.
He looked exhausted. Crispin stopped his little Toyota and climbed out, managing to pick up the backpack before he tapped Luka on the shoulder.
Luka was right about being a bit ripe—he smelled like five days in an airport and nineteen hours in the air. But his tired smile was about the most beautiful thing Crispin had ever seen.
“Hey, love,” Crispin said softly, shouldering the backpack and wrapping an arm around his waist.
Luka sighed and rested his head on Crispin’s shoulder. “Shower?” he mumbled.
“Sure. Have you eaten?” Luka looked, if anything, leaner than he had in Munich.
“If you insist. A sandwich? Something with good bread.”
No fast food—but that was fine. “I’ve got some good stuff at my place,” Crispin told him. “I’ll make you food while you shower—then you can sleep.”
He settled Luka into the front seat of the car, and Luka sort of jerked himself awake.
“But not now,” he said, sounding a little more lucid. “If I sleep now, I’ll fall asleep in the car and not wake up until tomorrow.”
“I can see that!” Crispin tried to keep his voice light, but his heart ached. Whatever had driven Luka to fly here on such short notice, it hadn’t done Luka any favors. “And that would be a shame.”
Luka gave his pits an experimental sniff and groaned. “It would ruin a perfectly good car,” he agreed. “So, keep me awake. Tell me what you have been doing since I last texted.”
“As long as you promise it won’t make your eyes glaze over,” Crispin said dubiously, and when Luka laughed, he launched into the narrative of Link and Maritza’s failed setup and the perfectly dreadful experiment with duck ala orange.
“That’s terrible!” Luka laughed.
“They had to throw away the pan,” Crispin confirmed. “I don’t think even their dog would touch it. Jamie was laughing so hard he couldn’t breathe.”
“So this Jamie….”
Crispin rolled his eyes. “He’s a very nice guy—I made Link and the guys help him with his taxes, sort of to make up for the setup and the duck.”
Luka let out a small laugh. “Being set up with you shouldn’t be a hardship.”
“Well, once they saw the bar, they were all in. If we can keep Jamie in the black, I think they’ll be getting free beer there for life. It’s a pretty classy place.”
“Ah. The plot thickens. Well, then, if there’s beer involved.”
“Of course!” Crispin let out a self-conscious sigh. “I mean, you have to understand. There’s a lot of… I don’t know, vanilla franchises out there. Places like this—original, a little classy, comfortable—that’s like the dream watering hole, you know?”
“Mm. Ja. Oui. Da. Oi. Yes. Ha. Ya. Yeah.” Luka giggled a bit. “Oh my. I am tired.”
“Luka, how many languages do you know?” Because Crispin couldn’t even make out every form of yes he’d just spoken.
“Well, I spent three weeks speaking Hindi, ja? And German, of course. And French. And English, of course. And a few words of Russian. Not enough Asian—I should learn Japanese or Korean.”
“Wow. Well, maybe learn a little slower and you’ll remember which one you should be speaking now,” Crispin counseled. He sounded almost delusional—it was a good thing traffic had lightened up. He’d figured out by now that the game was how to keep Luka awake until they got to Crispin’s house.
“You don’t know how much time we have,” Luka said earnestly. “We should know that. My parents were thirty-six and thirty-eight when they died. I only have twelve years at the most.”
Crispin frowned. “Luka, that’s not logic—”
“Because, you see, they were so in love,” Luka rambled. “And not everybody is so in love. It was like God let them turn into birds so they could stay together forever.”
Exhaustion—worse than alcohol, worse than intimacy. The fables Luka had probably told himself as an adolescent, kept close to his chest, hidden from the adult he was supposed to be. Those stories out here, in Crispin’s car, when Crispin could offer nothing in comfort but a kind ear.
“You were young when they passed,” Crispin prompted.
“I was sixteen. Very independent. Organized the funeral myself.”
“Scary grown-up.” Crispin reached across the seat and stroked his hand, never taking his eyes off the road. “Did you think you had to be like them when you got out of school?”
Luka’s laughter rambled, just like his speech. “No!” he cackled. “Yes! I have no picture of a nest in my head, except the kind the birds have. I dream of birds flying, but they have to sleep somewhere, right?”
“I have the same family of birds in my tree at home,” Crispin told him, although he still wasn’t sure if it was true or not. “They build a nest every year. There is a lady in my neighborhood who knits, using cotton and wool, and she leaves out her yarn ends, little pieces, at the end of every winter. The birds’ nests have tiny bits of color in every tree.”
“Your neighborhood is full of birds? You never told me that.”
“Well, you’ve never been stoned on birds before. I thought this would be a good time to mention it.”
Luka half laughed. “I have the oddest vision in my head, little houses woven together with colored wool. I could write a children’s book right now. Have you ever wanted children?”
Crispin let out a squawk—and then answered him quick, before he could sleep. “Yes. Yes, of course. I just… you know. Didn’t want them alone.”
“Children are very portable,” Luka told him gravely. “You can take them all sorts of places. Before they can walk you can put them in backpacks, and after they start walking you can tow them in wagons, and then they can walk on their own and put other children in backpacks. And you see people walking with all of their children and you wonder if they have a nest full of backpacks or if they all just turn into birds with little nylon pouches for the young. Like an afterthought, yes?”
“You were not an afterthought,” Crispin said, his voice hard enough to make Luka shake himself awake.
“What makes you say that?” he asked, like the last twenty minutes of heart-wrenching conversation had never happened.
“You do. Baby, we have lots of time later, but we’re home now. Let’s get you showered and fed and to bed, okay?”
“Mm… I like it when you c
all me baby. Why did I think all of the houses would be made of yarn again?”
“Because you haven’t slept in four days and you’re delusional.” Crispin had already pulled into his driveway, and he sat, waiting for his garage door to open, wondering if Luka would be disappointed in the morning when he realized that even yarn couldn’t make the houses in his neighborhood exciting.
“They’re all different?” Luka asked as Crispin pulled into the garage. “I mean, I expected all the houses to look the same, with postage-stamp yards, but you have a yard and space around. That’s nice.”
“Quarter-acre lot,” Crispin told him on automatic. “The backyard is big enough for my sister’s dog and some gardening. In the spring I go out there with a trowel and a little kneepad every weekend and try to keep it from running riot.”
“Do you tan?” Luka asked, holding his tanned hand up in front of his face. “You are so pale—I wondered if you would brown.”
“Mostly I get freckles if I don’t use sunblock,” Crispin said, smiling. “Freckled and plain.”
“No.” Luka leaned forward in the confines of the car. “I know I smell, but can I kiss—?”
Crispin took his mouth so fast he couldn’t finish his sentence. No, objectively he didn’t taste good, but he tasted familiar, like Luka, and he was warm and welcoming and human, and he’d just bared his heart in a terrible and vulnerable fashion while Crispin had been unable to stop him.
Crispin drank him in, hoping Luka would remember the kiss and not the pain, the comfort and not the terrible unrooted feeling of traveling when he was too tired to even remember what language he was speaking.
He felt the kiss start to wander and pulled back sharply. “Luka—wake up. Let’s get you inside. Warm water and food—it’s a worthy goal, you can make it!”
“Into the breech, dear friends!” Luka cried, and it was a good thing Crispin had seen the movie and read the play or he might have thought Luka had gone around the bend completely.
“And fill the shower with your bacterial dead!” Crispin cheered.
Luka got out of the car giggling and had to be led through the garage and the hall to the bathroom. Crispin started the shower for him and thought longingly of seeing him naked, holding him close—and then he thought of feeding the poor man before he passed out. He helped him take off his boots and socks and left him to get under the water before he could fall asleep on the toilet.
