The Good Neighbor: A Novel

by Jay Quinn

  In the end, he’d never told Bruno that his audition was today. After the night when Bruno had told him to do what he wanted, he’d never brought the subject up again. If Bruno had either forgotten or declined to express any further interest, the result was the same. Rory had something that was his and his alone. In giving everything he was to a dream of marriage and living with someone else, there was still an echoing emptiness in the space that was left. This one chance, this gig in the studio, was only a small rebellion in the hope of filling the void.

  Bitterly, he thought how Bruno filled his own empty spaces. But there was no question he still loved Bruno, maybe even because of his bad behavior. He loved him more than he had m the days shaded by the trees on that street, if that was possible. There was no question that he’d stay with him. To leave him was unimaginable, even if his disappointment with him tested his patience over and over again.

  The only way Rory knew to distance himself from Bruno’s shortcomings was to retreat into himself. He knew he’d only just begun to find ways to keep a part of himself from being swallowed by Bruno’s oblivious self-centeredness. He thought about Bruno the night before, talking about how he needed Rory to be excited about a potential move to New York. Yet Bruno couldn’t even manage to get excited about Rory’s audition. Rory knew things would never really change. He’d signed on to be Bruno’s property a long time ago. It was just the way things were.

  Rory heaved a sigh that was far more appropriate than any tears. He pushed the gas pedal to slowly build the speed he needed to leave memory lane behind, again. With half a life spent loving Bruno in his rearview mirror, he accelerated toward home, knowing he’d settle. Living, he knew, was full of compromise. Living with yourself was just another kind.

  5160 ST. MARK’S COURT

  AUSTIN SAT IN his car, in the shade of the black olive and live oak branches, just to savor the moment. He never dreamed a simple email would bring him such satisfaction. He hadn’t recognized the name of the sender, but he did recognize the Web address it came from. It was a site he visited often and with a longing he was ashamed to acknowledge, even to himself. So when Dave Handley invited him to go to lunch, he’d at first wanted to decline. Finally, simple curiosity led him to accept the invitation. After all, he’d thought, it was really sort of harmless, just two guys getting together for lunch. Dave Handley had a come-on that couldn’t fail. He simply said he wanted to know Austin better, considering what they had in common.

  So Austin agreed to meet him for lunch at the Cheesecake Factory on Glades Road in Boca. It was a place Austin knew well from back in the days when he worked at the hi-tech firm. At first, he was nervous about meeting Dave there. He didn’t particularly want to run into anyone he knew, but finally he decided the hell with it. Lunch didn’t mean anything. Austin told himself it would be crazy to believe it could lead to anything more.

  At first it had been very pleasant and all general bullshit. But, by the time the food arrived, Austin got the distinct impression he was being subtly courted. It grew increasingly obvious that Dave found him a real possibility. By the time lunch ended, Austin was utterly seduced. He found the possibilities Dave Handley hinted at to be something he’d wanted for a long time, but had been too proud to own up to. By the time the check came and Dave suavely handed the waiter his corporate card, Austin found himself liking Dave very much. They agreed to meet again, though no date was set. Dave said he’d call him next week, and Austin found himself fantasizing about getting that call now.

  It turned out Dave Handley was the new CEO at the hi-tech firm Austin had worked for. It seemed that, in the bizarre corporate permutations and power plays since Austin had been asked to leave, the true extent of the old CFO’s perfidy and the old CEO’s blind complicity in it had come to light in a very harsh way. When Dave had come onboard, he’d heard the real story about Austin’s honesty, and he was a man who valued honesty among his department heads. Austin’s name and reputation had stuck in his mind. Once Dave had successfully moved people and situations to his advantage, he’d known precisely the right moment to give Austin a call.

  It seemed to Austin that Dave liked him a great deal. He offered to bring him onboard as the new CFO, with all the benefits and perks associated with the job. After all, even after his extended absence, to Dave’s mind, Austin’s learning curve would be considerably shortened by the length of time he had been with the firm before. He’d made certain overtures and Austin had responded in the appropriate ways—at least he had to his own way of thinking. Corporate courtship dances were as complex and orchestrated as minuets at the Czarist court. In plain Texas talk, Dave had asked Austin if he wanted to dance. Austin had said hell, yeah. There was little more to do now than wait for Dave to signal the band and get the music playing.

  After lunch, Austin walked slowly to his car and waited a decent interval to make sure Dave had put some road between them before he cranked his own car and followed him to the office. Now, he sat in his car in a visitor’s space far from the front door and savored the feeling of returning to the place not only vindicated, but victorious. It was a very good feeling. The last time he’d walked under these trees he’d been carrying a photocopy paper box stuffed with an assortment of personal things that had collected in his office over the years. That box had sat undisturbed in his old garage for the many months since he’d come home angry and defeated. The box waited while Austin moved unhappily into a job where he had no real office. It sat undisturbed until it was moved and placed unopened in Austin’s new garage. Now, Austin idly enjoyed the sunshine and the breeze in the office parking lot and thought about the pleasure he’d take in finding the box, opening it, and getting out the old frame that once sat on his desk. He had new pictures of Meg and the boys to put in it. Pictures he’d had copies of and left sitting in a drawer because he couldn’t face opening the box that contained his old office life.

  Austin looked fondly at the building in front of him sprawling strong, solid, and squat. Inside it, there were people busy making things happen. They sat hunched before keyboards, or leaned back in their ergonomic chairs on conference calls with headsets in their ears. People were in the break room, going for that fresh three o’clock cup of coffee. They were alive, they were vital, and they were going to see him back happily among them after an exile of far too long. He missed it; god, how he missed it so.

  To his mind, that office was what held the life of a man. To be fully alive with his mind humming like a calculator offering up facts and figures, even entire spreadsheets on command; that was what he wanted to do. He didn’t want to sit at home anymore trying to peddle diagnostic equipment to poorly funded hospitals. He didn’t want to be cut off and apart from the brilliant activity happening in that building, in that world, and in that life. More than anything, he wanted not to fill his time thinking about new furniture for the loft. He didn’t want to worry how he would pay for it.

  He didn’t want to worry about picking the boys up from school or ferrying them to and from soccer practice. He didn’t want to be beholden to Meg’s hours and schedules and whims and paycheck. And that was at the core of it. Quite simply put, he didn’t give a fuck about those things, not when he could stride back into the working world of men and big decisions.

  He glanced at his watch and realized the day of his redemption hadn’t yet come. He had no more than a clear understanding with Dave Handley and a vague idea of when this next act of his life would begin. Austin looked around the parking lot he’d made his way through over seasons before. He saw himself at Christmas, on the day before the Memorial Day weekend, on Good Friday, as he made his way into and out of the office that lay across the parking lot. He longed to stride across it with self-assurance and pride again. He wanted to come home.

  For now, it was his secret. When it came down to it, he knew he wouldn’t tell Meg. Not yet. For a time, this new opportunity was private and beautiful and his alone. Out of the emptiness he’d felt after he’d been forced out, th
is dream always somehow survived. Until it was a fact, he didn’t want to jinx all the possibilities that were so close at hand. He knew he’d had to settle for doing less than his best for a time, but that time was over. No more compromises.

  Unsurprisingly, he knew there was one person he could tell. Rory. Today had been Austin’s own audition of sorts. Rory would know how he felt. Austin cranked his car and backed carefully into the parking lot. He pictured swapping success stories with Rory. He had no doubt he’d aced his audition. With an expansive spirit that was fueled by his own new victory, he wanted to hear all about Rory’s. He’d wasted enough time asking him about furniture, he wanted to talk to him about guy stuff. And, for Austin, guy stuff was about motion. It was about moving forward into wonderful, exciting change. Rory would understand he wasn’t just a schlep now. Austin was going back to being large and in charge.

  Oh man, he thought. This is going to be big fun. With that, he put the car in drive and headed home.

  CHAPTER NINE

  Two grown men, playing hooky…

  IT WAS A NEAR-PERFECT day on the beach. The highs for the day had been predicted near eighty, and the winds were near calm. There was just enough breeze off the ocean to blow away any notion of burning skin, and the late winter sun was more inclined to caress than sear in any event. Austin sighed happily and slipped a fresh Bud Light can into his neoprene holder. As he contentedly sipped his beer, he noted that it was the precise moment when you realize the morning had turned to afternoon. He still had plenty of time before he had to pick up the boys from school. For the moment, he was becalmed in the sea of the day, and he was very happy.

  The beach lark was all Rory’s idea. He’d been out watering his geraniums that morning when Austin got the good news. Feeling the need to shout, Austin flung open his office window and called down,: “I just got off the phone with Dave Handley! I start back in two weeks!”

  “Wanna celebrate?” Rory yelled back.

  “Celebrate? Hell, I want to get drunk,” Austin said and laughed particularly long and well.

  “Let’s take the day off and go to the beach and get drunk together,” Rory said. “I got finished in the studio last night and I feel like celebrating myself!”

  Austin didn’t need much persuading. Within a half hour, he found himself in Rory’s car with the music blasting, the windows rolled down, and after a quick pit stop for beer, the road to the beach rolling along under him. He hadn’t felt so good since he’d had beach hooky days back in college. Rory was easy company, as most listeners are. He’d patiently sat in thrall through Austin’s first rush of beer buzz ramblings. He didn’t make too big of a deal of his own studio achievements from the past few days; he simply let Austin’s excited expansiveness fill the time between when they’d arrived on the beach and when he’d run out of steam a couple of hours later.

  Having talked himself out, Austin realized how he’d dominated the conversation and felt chagrin at the way he’d played to Rory’s audience of one. He’d apologized, but Rory just smiled and told him he was used to it. Thinking about it now, with a fresh beer in his hand and his happiness undiluted in the fine day, Austin considered that Rory was probably right. “I bet you’d make a good wife,” he teased.

  Rory chuckled and turned from his back to his stomach on his beach towel. “I’ve had a lot of practice,” he said dryly as he pillowed his head on his arms and looked up at Austin sitting next to him.

  Austin sipped his beer and leaned back on his elbows. “Is that how it is with you and Bruno? Are you the wife?”

  Rory snickered. “It always comes down to that question doesn’t it?”

  “Well, he treats you like one,” Austin said. “I’ve noticed it.”

  “We fascinate you, don’t we?” Rory asked without being condescending. “I’ve seen you watching us. What did you think you’d see?”

  Austin colored under his sun- exposed skin. He took another sip of beer and tried to think of how to reply.

  Rory laughed. “Austin, you’re the only person I’ve ever seen who could blush under a morning’s worth of sun. You’re busted. It’s no big deal, I just figured you were either totally bored, or mildly curious. There’s nothing wrong with that.”

  “Okay, I’ll cop to being curious. That’s why I’m asking,” Austin said. “Are you the wife?”

  Rory closed his eyes and sighed. “It’s not like that. I mean, I can see how you’d think that way. Bruno is this big-assed businessman. I’m marginally employed. Bruno is all man. I’m just an aging pretty boy. Bruno is always pulling me around. I’m always taking it. I’m sure that’s what you see.”

  “Yeah, pretty much,” Austin admitted.

  “Well, that’s just what you see. Most of the time, it’s more like this, like me and you hanging out right now. Only more,” Rory tried to explain. “At least that’s the way it feels to me. We talk. We get each other, we’re best friends, but we’ve been best friends for so long, sometimes it’s like we’re the same person,” Rory said carefully. He opened his eyes and looked at Austin. “I’m not blind to the way Bruno comes off, like he owns me and shit. He’s just protective and territorial. He’s always been that way. I put up with it because I know him and I love him for how he is.”

  “But,” Austin began and faltered. He took a longer drink from his beer bottle.

  Rory rose up on one elbow and rested his cheek in his hand. “But that’s not what you’re curious about is it?”

  Austin looked at him uneasily, but Rory’s open face and slight smile disarmed him. “No. I guess it isn’t.”

  “You want to know about the sex. You want to know if Bruno is always the pitcher and I’m always the catcher,” Rory said and laughed.

  “Well, yeah,” Austin admitted. “I mean, you have to wonder.”

  Rory shook his head. “Boy, anatomy really is destiny for you breeders isn’t it?”

  “I don’t get it,” Austin said, somehow offended, but not knowing why. “I mean, I don’t get your point… about what you just said.” Rory always made him feel slightly stupid for no reason at all.

  “I’m just saying that I don’t see sex as about who’s putting it to who. You both are fucking, right? It’s like you both are there,” Rory explained.

  “Okay… And?” Austin urged.

  “So do you fuck thinking about ‘my man dick is all up in this pussy so I’m a man,’ or are you thinking; ‘boy, this feels good.’ When I’m having sex, I’m busy thinking about what I’m feeling, not who I am.” Rory snickered and said dismissively, “I don’t have any psychological identity crises while I’m in the middle of a right proper pounding.”

  “Must be nice,” Austin said sarcastically. “I’m always thinking, “ ‘Am I crushing her?’ or ‘I hope I make her come this time.’ Or the old standby, ‘I hope to hell she doesn’t get pregnant.’ You got it easy, buddy, if all you’re thinking about is how good it feels.”

  “I’m sorry, dude,” Rory said. “I’m glad I’m queer. I enjoy fucking too much for all that shit.” With that, he settled back down with his head on his arms and closed his armseyes.

  Austin had nothing to add to that. He simply finished his beer and closed his eyes. In his early afternoon stupor, he wondered what it would be like to have sex with someone who was just in it for the fun. It had been years since he and Meg had anything approaching fun in the bedroom. In fact, it usually seemed like it was a chore in her eyes, or a hasty opportunity to be seized upon in his.

  As it did with increasing frequency in the past few weeks, his mind turned to having sex with Rory. In those weeks, ever since he’d moved in next door, in fact, Rory became the object of a kind of curiosity he’d not indulged in since he was a kid. The idea had grown from a distraction to an ever-increasing itch. Austin wasn’t introspective enough to think about why he found himself so attracted to Rory. He wasn’t having any sort of “psychological identity crisis,” as Rory put it. He was only interested in the possibilities of an abstract kind
of sexual availability Rory presented.

  He stole a glance at the slender form stretched out next to him. With his narrow shoulders and slim build, Rory could almost be mistaken for either a boy or a young woman from behind, if you didn’t look further up than the neck. His crew cut was too blunt an affirmation of his maleness to allow the comparison to proceed any further. As Austin allowed his eyes to wander, he noted Rory had a trim ass that curved suggestively under his swimsuit, and it wasn’t until Austin’s eyes ran down to his calves that he encountered any suggestion of hairiness. The rest of him was as slick as a baby’s butt.

  Austin wondered at that form engaged in nothing but feeling good. He mused on the abstraction of what it would be like merely to freely fuck that body and have it respond so willingly, so eagerly to his touch and command. It didn’t really disturb him that those simple thoughts had progressed to more concrete, personal imaginings. He wondered at Rory’s capacity for shivers and hard panting. He wondered how it would feel to run his hands over that back and grasp that narrow waist. Up until now, that imagining had been enough. It was an enjoyable personal fantasy, but he intuitively understood he wanted to take it further than fantasy. Increasingly of late, he wondered if Rory might be thinking the same thing. In so many ways, it would be so easy and uncomplicated. Austin thought about how it might be an act so separated from any of the baggage he was used to packing in with the notion of sex, that it could be like being young, a teenager, once more.

  For once, he was glad of the bagginess of his trunks. His dick took his musings further than where his courage, so far, had allowed him to go. He was glad Rory had apparently drifted off to sleep. Still, he bent his leg closest to Rory to cover his rampant curiosity and rested the hand holding his beer on that hip. His eyes were smarting from the salt breeze and the frank appraisal of another guy’s body. The sun and his growing insistent ease with his thoughts made closing them a welcome idea. Alone in the dark behind his eyes, he allowed his curiosity to move even further.