by Kol Anderson
***
Roger was awake and working on his computer when I woke up next morning. “Hi,” he said, smiling at me. “Did you sleep well?”
“Yeah,” I said, trying to locate my pants.
“Can I make you breakfast?”
“No thanks,” I said, putting on my shirt. “I have to go.” I saw my phone on the floor and picked it up. Roger was standing in front of me with the envelope, payment for last night. “Let’s do this again sometime.”
“Sure,” I said, taking the envelope and making my way to the door. “I’ll see you around.”
***
Halfway down James and Roger’s stairway I get a call. I knew the number, it was saved on my phone. For some reason it made me smile. “Hi,” I said.
“Sam? It’s Isaac.”
“I know who you are.”
“You never called. Figured maybe you’d forgotten about me.”
“It’s only been a week.”
“Feels like more.”
I grinned at the silly sentimentality of his tone. “Do people still talk that way?” I said, opening the gate and stepping outside.
He laughed, but I could tell he knew what I was talking about. “Like what?”
“Like they’ve just stepped off the set of a Paul Rudd rom-com.”
“Listen,” he said. “Where are you?”
“Where am I?”
“It’s just, I was about to leave for work. But I have time for coffee. If you want, we can meet up someplace.”
“Right now?”
“Why not?”
I really was in need of caffeine. Didn’t see anything wrong with it, so I said yes. Gave him the address to a nearby coffee place.
***
The first thing I noticed was that smile. It seemed wider and somehow even brighter than I remembered. We ordered coffee and bagels and sat down to talk. “Where do you work?” he asked out of nowhere.
I looked up at him, searching for an answer. “Why?”
“No, it’s just… you’re up early, so I assumed…”
“I don’t work,” I said, unsure where I was headed with this. Thought perhaps I could just pretend like Alex was my sugar-daddy and let Isaac think that’s the reason I didn’t have a regular job.
“Right,” he said, and never broached that subject again, so I’m guessing he assumed the same.
“So, what have you been up to?”
“Not much. Just came back and finished the pending work. Met some people. My sister’s coming to spend a weekend with me so I will be busy.”
“Your sister?”
“Yeah. And her two kids. Her husband’s not a big fan of traveling.”
“Where does she live?”
“Ohio.”
“Right.”
“You can come over. We’ll watch movies and I’ll cook.”
“You can cook?”
“Like nobody’s business.”
“How do I know it’s any good?”
“Only one way to find out,” he said. “This Friday. Seven p.m.”
“You’re really serious about this.”
“Of course I am.”
“I don’t know,” I said, trying to think of an excuse.
“Look, it’s okay if you have other plans, I completely understand.”
“It’s not that.”
“Then you’re coming?”
What the hell. “Okay,” I said. “I will see you Friday.”
His grin widened. “Can’t wait,” he said, and reached into his wallet, took out a business card. “It has my work address and my home address on the back. All my phone numbers.”
I took the piece of card in my hand, and stared at all those details. “So you can reach me anytime,” he said. I looked up at him. There was something really odd about the way he looked at me. I’ve had people looking at me strangely before, but never like this. Plenty of people make me feel hot or attractive, but he’s the only one who made me feel special.
Chapter 5
Old School
I got off Alex and lay next to him on the bed, trying to catch my breath. “How is it possible?” he said.
“What?”
“That you’re this good.”
I grinned. “Do you think I’m getting better?”
“Oh absolutely! I thought you were good when I met you but I can’t believe you just keep getting better at it.”
“You know we’ve been together a year now?”
“Really?”
“Do you want to celebrate?”
“Sure. Why not. We’ll do something this weekend.”
“Actually,” I said. “This Saturday I've got something planned with Isaac.”
“You’ve been hanging out with him a lot lately. How’s it going?”
“I don’t know. Fine, I guess.”
“He likes you.”
“He doesn’t even know me.”
“He knows you,” Alex said. “He just doesn’t know what kind of work you do. It’s been what, a couple of months that you two have been together? And he’s always asking you out. He actually had you meet with his sister!”
“Well, that was technically our first date.”
“Just saying. He sounds serious.”
“So what do you want me to do? Leave everything and go off in the sunset with him?”
“Why not?”
“I can’t.”
Alex turned to me and kissed me, and his hand played with my hair as he talked. “You can tell him we broke up,” he said. “That it didn’t work out. Then you’re free to be with him.”
“I’ll still be lying to him.”
“Lying isn’t as big of a sin as people think it is.”
“So, I keep seeing you, I just don’t let him know.”
“Sam. I can tell he’s old school, you know? I don’t think he’s going to understand all this. He wants you to be with him, and you’re giving him that. What we do, we can continue doing that, with or without him.”
“Why do you even want me to be with him?”
“Because everyone deserves a shot at old fashioned true love, Sam,” Alex said. “And that’s the one thing I can’t give you.”
“Thanks.”
“For what?”
“For the honest advice.”
Alex turned off the bedside lamp. “Goodnight Sammie.”
***
I took Alex’s advice. The next time I met Isaac I told him I had broken up with Alex Cooper and though Isaac tried to be all sympathetic about it, I could tell he was just a little bit relieved. Over the next couple of weeks, we had plenty of dates, and one Friday night we ended up at his place. It was a bit strange. All that time and we hadn’t even kissed when I was so used to going from drinks to sex in a matter of hours. Finally, standing in his kitchen as he was pouring wine, I made the first move. Instead of getting into it, he broke off, with a strange look on his face. “I’m sorry,” I said. “I thought you wanted this.”
“Sam,” he said. “Why are you doing this?”
“Why do you think?”
“I can’t be the rebound guy.”
“Isaac, you’re not the rebound guy.”
“You just broke up with him.”
I had no idea how to even begin to explain that to him. “Can’t you just trust me?” I said at last. Instead of replying, Isaac came up to me and started kissing me, and this time he was into it and we started making out heavily in his kitchen. “Are you sure about this?” he asked, with his face close to mine, and I’m barely able to keep my hands off to myself.
“I’m sure.”
Chapter 6
Of Mothers Who Die
After that one night in bed together, everything changed. Alex was right. Isaac was old school. He did everything with that sweet kind of passion most people lack these days. It seems most people today, including me, don’t even believe in love. The way Isaac lived life was the way he made love, with a hunger that you can’t fake. The way he looked at me when we went out, and the
way he never seemed to get enough, it made me go crazy for him in return. After such a long time of being alone except for work, I wanted to be that guy who waits for someone to call. We talked on the phone all the time when we weren’t together and all the time we spent together, Isaac made me feel like I was doing him some kind of favor just by being with him. I had never met anyone like him. I was starting to understand what I had been missing. I was also afraid it was going to hurt a lot worse than anything ever had when we broke up.
I was still seeing Alex, still making money that way. Aiden too, once in a while, as another source of income. It wasn’t ideal but I couldn’t help it. I had to make a living, and I guess I never learnt to do anything else. It was awful, lying to Isaac, it did bother me, but I kept thinking if I worked hard for long enough, if I saved up, perhaps I could find something to do, get another job. But I just wasn’t ready to burn all my boats yet. There was always this fear in the back of my mind that whatever I had with Isaac might wind up being nothing. Fear of abandonment or just my natural skepticism, I don’t really know. Plenty of times I wondered if Isaac was faking it all. He didn’t get angry at me much, but the two times that he did become angry were when he found out I was still talking to Alex. We didn’t talk about it, not even a fight but I could tell Isaac was angry for days. Eventually, he let it go and we never really talked about it. He probably guessed I would lie if he asked anyway. Probably realized he didn’t want to be lied to. But I tried to be sincere with him in other ways.
I did grow to love him.
The fifth month I was with Isaac was when the call came.
***
I was in the shower when I heard the phone ringing in Isaac’s bedroom. The phone was still ringing when I came out and a new number. “Hello?”
“Your mother’s been in an accident,” the woman on the other line said.
“How bad?” And what she told me made me go cold. I dropped on the bed, unable to carry my own weight, and stared blankly in front of me until Isaac came in.
“Sam?” he walked up to me. “What’s wrong?”
I stared up at him and wondered how to tell him, but I couldn’t bring myself to do it.
***
“Look who decided to show up,” Aunt Becky said the minute she saw me entering the funeral home. I tried to ignore her, just kept walking trying to get to where I wanted to be. When I saw my mother’s body, lying in that coffin, I realized it was the first time I’d seen a dead person. It was depressing. But more than that, it made me miss her.
“You shouldn’t even be here,” Aunt Becky’s husband stood up. “This is sacred place and you’re tainting it by being here you fag!” Someone tried to shut him up but he kept going, saying shit right to my face and I couldn’t help it. I went to him and I hit him square in the face, it must have hurt my hand worse than it hurt him. He didn’t stop either, just hit me right back. Someone came and forced him to stop from taking it further, pulled him aside. I stood in that so-called sacred place feeling like the weight of the whole world was on me.
But worse still was the way those people were all staring at me, their hate coming off them in waves.
“She wanted you gone,” Aunt Becky said. “She never wanted you in her life, so why are you here?”
***
The air was better outside the funeral home but hardly close to being a relief. I got in my car and took out the bottle of whiskey that I had been carrying around and I must have finished half of it right there. I checked my phone and found out that Isaac had been calling me. But somehow I wasn’t ready yet, I can’t explain it. Everything seemed to be spinning out of control and I needed to stop feeling like I was going to drown. Needed something else to focus on beside the grief. Several times I wanted to tell Isaac, but then decided against it. There was no sense dragging him into this mess.
***
He looked at me across the bar. After a while, he got up from the barstool, made his way to the men’s room and I followed him. He pushed me against the wall, tried to kiss me but I didn’t let him. I opened his belt buckle and dropped to my knees, went down on him until he was ready. It didn’t take long but already people had started banging the door. He lifted me, placed me on the bathroom counter and started fucking me right there.
***
Hours later, I made my way into Isaac’s bed. He was asleep, but he woke up and turned on the lamp. “Sam? What’s wrong?”
“Nothing,” I said, but I was slurring my speech and I was barely even aware of what I was saying.
“What happened to your face?” And that’s when I remembered the brawl with my asshole uncle at the funeral home.
“Nothing,” I said again, climbing next to him on the bed. “Please, turn off the lights.”
“How much did you have to drink?”
“Not enough.”
“You left your phone here,” Isaac said.
“Oh.”
“There was a call so I picked it up, thought it might be important.”
“Okay,” I said, fearing he might have talked to some client or Alex.
“They told me about your mom.”
In a way I was relieved.
In a way I wasn’t.
“Why didn’t you tell me?” Isaac asked.
“I don’t know.” And that’s when the tears finally decided to spill. In fact, they started spilling so much I couldn’t get them to stop.
Thankfully, Isaac didn’t ask any more questions.
***
The next day I told Isaac I wanted him to drive me to my mom’s place. I told him what happened at the funeral home. Right now, there was some other stuff on my mind.
***
“Mrs. Hernandez?” I said when I saw her sitting in front of the fire.
“Sam?” she said, squinting above her glasses and looking up from the book she was reading. “Sam Taylor?”
The happiness on her face was so genuine it made all my fears go away. “I was afraid you weren’t going to recognize me,” I said, going over to her and giving her a hug.
“That’s never going to happen, Sammie.”
“This is my friend Isaac,” I said, introducing him.
“Don’t you mean your boyfriend?” she said.
“You’re not angry at me?”
“Why would I be angry?” she said. “I might be old, but I’m not senile. Have a seat Isaac, I’ll bring you two some snacks.”
“There’s no need for that,” I kept saying, but as usual she wouldn’t listen, so instead I followed her into the kitchen to help her out, just like I used to when I was a kid.
“Where have you been, Sam?” she asked me, taking out some plates. “You know you had your poor mother worried sick.”
“She kicked me out,” I said. “Why would she be worried?”
“She loved you, Sam. She just didn’t know how to deal with you.”
“She hated me,” I said. “I know that because I was the one living with her.”
“She was confused. You should have come back; she was always waiting for you, right to the end.”
Suddenly, I couldn't stop the tears again. Mrs. Hernandez placed a hand over mine. “It’s okay,” she said. “You loved her too, she knew that baby. Just try not to be mad at her anymore.”
We went back to the living room where Isaac was waiting.
“Isaac,” Mrs. Hernandez said. “Where did you two meet? Was it romantic?”
“We were on vacation in Cabo,” Isaac said. “I don’t know if it was romantic, but I think I fell in love with him the first time I saw him.”
Mrs. Hernandez said something, but my focus is drawn away from the conversation to the orchids on display in a vase. “Mrs. H,” I said. “Who brought you these?”
She smiled. “You noticed,” she said, and went over to the vase, picked up a small envelope and brought it over to me. “These are from your father.”
I took the envelope from her and sure enough it said they were from him. “My father? He was he
re?”
“He came to see me,” she said. “Yesterday.”
“What did he want?”
“He was asking about you,” she said. “He came to see me a few times, before. When your mother was ill and he was visiting her.”
I felt that stab of guilty conscience again, feeling like an idiot for not being there. And I wondered what was up with my father, why the sudden concern?
***
On the drive back home, Isaac had some questions. “Yesterday,” he said. “When you found your mom died, you went straight off without saying anything. Where were you?”
“Nowhere in particular.”
“Were you with him?”
“Who?”
“Alex,” he said. “Were you with Alex? You can just tell me.”
I realized how little he knew about me and that just made me feel guiltier than I already was. “I wasn’t with Alex,” I said. “I told you before. He’s not my boyfriend. He has a life that I’m not part of.”
“But you wished you were.”
“Don’t put words in my mouth.”
“Who were you with then?” he said. “I know it was someone, so don’t lie to me, please.”
“Stop the car.”
“I’m not stopping the car.”
“Please Isaac.”
When he stopped the car, I tried to kiss him and placed a hand to his crotch.
“What’re you doing?” he said.
“What does it look like I’m doing?”
“Your mother dies and the first thing you want to do is screw some random guy? And now you’re trying to fuck me because you want to change the subject? Why is fucking the answer to everything for you?”
I pulled away, feeling utterly stupid, knowing that this time I have made him angry. I realized how much I hated him when he was angry, when all I saw in his eyes was pure hatred. It happened rarely, but when it did I couldn’t wait to see that loving look in his eyes again.
