A Package Deal

by Mia Kerick

  Again, Savannah chimed in, helpful as always when it came to getting Tristan and me together, “And Tristan’s tall, doesn’t that help in basketball?”

  “It sure does. Pretty soon, he’ll be dunking the ball—it’ll be impressive!”

  All right, both of my dates were looking at me as if I were God. All I’d offered to do was play basketball with Tristan. I guess little things meant a lot to some people; I just wasn’t accustomed to associating with those types. I smiled, genuinely pleased that something so small could make them both so happy. And it was something I enjoyed as well. Win-win-win, all around.

  “I’ve come to claim my dance wit’ Robby’s little sex kitten here.” Mikey offered a hand to Savannah. “Wanna get my paws on all those soft pussycat curves. What do ya say? Meow once for yes, baby.”

  Savannah refused to even acknowledge his presence. She stood up and said, “Please excuse me, Robby, Tristan. I have a sudden need to visit the ladies’ room.” She walked away without a backward glance.

  Mikey looked at me, as if for an explanation, and like the dedicated defender-of-the-innocent that I was, I just shrugged.

  But Tristan cleared his throat and spoke up. “Savannah doesn’t like to be treated as if she’s a sex object. Because she’s a person.” Then he also shrugged without malice. “Just saying.”

  Dragging his eyes up and down Tristan’s body with revulsion, as if he was nothing but a disgusting piece of slime that had just washed up with the seaweed on Revere Beach, Mikey replied, “You, pretty boy, can tell your snobby bitch girlfriend that I wouldn’t dance wit’ her if she was the last frigging broad on earth! Jesus, this is what I get for trying to be a nice guy.”

  Tristan’s eyes narrowed just slightly at Mikey’s words, but he didn’t challenge him. And for some reason, I felt compelled to smooth things over with my oldest friend. “Come on, Mikey, I’ll buy you a beer.”

  “Fuck the frigging beer—get me a couple shots of tequila. And get a few for yourself too. You’re gonna need ’em if you have to go home wit’ that bitch!”

  Apologetically, I glanced at Tristan, who sent me a passive stare in return, and then I followed Mikey to the bar. Somehow I sensed that I’d let my partners, and even more than that, myself, down.

  “Fuck, Robby, where’d you find them two?” He was completely pissed. “A snobby fucking bitch who thinks she’s all that, and her faggot roommate who probably has some sexual-transmitted fucking disease. You found yourself a couple of real winners, you know that, Dalton?”

  It seemed that shrugging was the name of the game for the next fifteen minutes or so. I listened calmly and shrugged intermittently, as Mikey ranted that out of all the millions of people on earth I had to pick those two “fucking losers” to cozy up to, when what I really wanted to do was to go back to the table in the corner where my friends were. Rather, where my other friends were. Thankfully, it didn’t take long before Mikey became distracted by a redheaded “piece of ass” who’d made it clear that she was selling if he was buying.

  “This ain’t over, Dalton. We’re gonna discuss this whole thing tomorrow morning. And bring me coffee—an extra-large one. You know how I like it, right, buddy?” He slung his arm around the woman’s shoulders. “Come on, honey. Show me what you got out there on the dance floor!” They headed for the disco room.

  By the time I returned to our table, Tristan and Savannah had gone into the classic rock room to dance. I knew that because one of them had scribbled a message on a cocktail napkin and had left it on the chair where my blazer was hanging. I was certainly not accustomed to this type of consideration.

  I watched from the shadows as the two of them danced. They moved in unison like they belonged together. I wasn’t exactly sure how I felt about that, but I realized that moments like this, moments of feeling like the odd man out, were bound to occur when three people shared. Shared each other.

  As soon as they saw me standing there, they both signaled with wild enthusiasm that I should join them on the dance floor. After taking a glance around me to make sure that neither Mikey nor his cousin/buddies were within eyeshot, I made my way across the crowded floor. And although it may seem rather bizarre, the three of us danced together to rock ’n’ roll classics, sipped on our beers, leaned in to make an occasional joke, and it felt like all was right in my world.

  But I knew I’d pay for it tomorrow.

  BOTH of my dates dozed a bit on the drive home. Savannah had crashed with her head in my lap, blonde curls covering me from waist to knees. In the backseat, Tristan kept on closing his eyes and then completely startling for some reason when he found he’d drifted off. I decided to help him out, since he clearly felt the need to stay awake.

  “Okay, Tristan, summarize the game of football for me, top to bottom. And I’m looking for major detail here.” As instructed, Tristan repeated (and I’m talking word-for-word) what I’d taught him at the game last weekend. When he was finished reciting, he looked at me as if checking for my approval. I immediately recalled all of the times when I’d made decent plays on one field or another and had looked to my father for a smile of reassurance, and he had turned his head away.

  I smiled widely at Tristan in the rearview mirror. “You’re an excellent student; I don’t think you forgot a single thing I told you.” He beamed back at me. “The only area you stumbled a bit was on defensive positions—but just a little. Okay, it’s time for your final exam.” I heard Tristan exhale a nervous puff of breath. “Name the defensive position that is farthest from the line, usually in the middle of the field.”

  Tristan tilted his head in deep thought. “Um, a safety?”

  “So far, so good. Now tell me about a fair catch.”

  “Um, it’s when a, uh, a kick receiver waves his arms around over his head before he catches a kick, and nobody can tackle him. Then they play it from the twenty-yard line, right?”

  “Not bad. But I’d like to sense a little more confidence in you, okay? Last question, and this one is gonna be tough. How many points can you score in a two-point conversion?”

  He hesitated, probably unsure as to whether or not it was a trick question. “Um, two points?”

  I laughed and lifted my hand off of the wheel and tilted it back toward him so he could slap it. “You know the game inside out! Are you sure you didn’t play football as a kid?”

  I immediately wished I hadn’t asked him that. In a split second, Tristan’s lips transformed from a giddy grin to a pencil thin line. “I’m sure, Robby. There was no football for me… when I was young.” We stayed quiet after that, but Tris had no trouble staying awake.

  When we arrived at their apartment, I pulled into an open spot and turned to look at Tristan, at least as much as I could with Savannah on my lap.

  “You want to come in for a while, Robby? I can make us some coffee.” Tristan’s expression revealed the blend of emotions he felt: hopefulness mixed with abundant fear.

  He clearly wasn’t ready to take the next step, and since I wasn’t exactly sure what the next step was, I was fairly certain I wasn’t ready either. “Nah, I can’t. I’ve got an early meeting tomorrow.”

  I watched as his facial muscles relaxed. “Okay, maybe next time.”

  “So, do you want to come to the gym with me Saturday morning? At about, maybe seven?”

  “Oh, yeah! Robby, that’d be super. But remember, I’m no Larry Bird.”

  “Don’t worry, Tristan. Neither am I. We’ll play for fun and exercise.”

  Savannah started to wake up and immediately Tristan jumped out of the backseat and came to pull her from my lap. “Come on, honey, let’s get you to bed.” Gently, he assisted her as she rose unsteadily to stand on the sidewalk.

  This part of the night, I had to admit, was kind of weird.

  “Good night, you guys,” I said softly.

  Hands full of a wobbly but still rather adorable Savannah, Tristan looked back at me and offered a tolerant smile.

  And I asked myself
yet again how a definite feeling of genuine warmth could be growing in my heart for two separate people at the very same time. And how could I not even be slightly sorry that it was?

  Chapter 14

  Robby

  “ALL’S I know is, you’re fucking warped!”

  Mikey was in rare form. He’d been basically shouting at me since I’d stepped into the office on Friday morning. My first response to his tantrum had been, “I don’t remember asking for your opinion, Mikey.” But that had set off an even more violent demonstration of his volatile temper, probably because I had, indeed, asked that he share his personal views on Savannah and Tristan as recently as several days prior. He’d actually thrown the paperweight that my three-year-old niece had painted for me at one of those ceramics places at a local strip mall, and had smiled as it had shattered on the floor. If you asked me, that was warped.

  And since he was Mikey DeSalvo, he got overly personal in a very ugly way. “I caught a glimpse of the three of you dancing last night. What a fucking heartwarming sight that was. So, D-man, you and that fag gonna divide your time in the bedroom wit’ the bitch fifty-fifty, or are you three gonna have yourselves a big orgy like out on the dance floor?”

  At first, I just bent down to pick up the broken pieces of my paperweight, trying my best to pretend he wasn’t in the tiny office with me, ranting and raving like I’d beat up his nana. And then I tried to reason with him. “You’ve got it all wrong, man. Tristan and Savannah are just friends.” I sounded whiny and pathetic. How could I convince Mikey of something I wasn’t convinced of?

  “Tell me another one, Rob. I saw the way them two looked at each other and I didn’t see no friendship in their eyes. By the way, are you gonna service that dude in the bedroom too? Is that part of the deal?”

  “Shut the fuck up, DeSalvo.” I’d had about enough.

  “The truth frigging hurts, don’t it? And from what I hear, butt-sex hurts even worse! Good fucking luck wit’ that shit!”

  That was it! I jumped to my feet, grabbed Mikey by his good-for-nothing neck, and being half a head taller and broader by a wide measure, without much effort I easily had him pinned up against the wall. “I said to shut the fuck up!”

  Breaking out of my grasp, Mikey straightened his collar coolly and cleared his throat. “Just think about it.” He sent me one of his more meaningful glares and then stalked out of the office, probably to go be a realtor or to eat Italian cookies or to fuck a redheaded chick or something. I didn’t really care what he left to do, as long as he got the hell out of my office.

  And maybe I would think about it; maybe I wouldn’t. Maybe the three of us were destined to be friends, maybe we were destined to be lovers, or maybe some combination of those things. Maybe it was nobody’s business but the three of us.

  Maybe I’d figure it out tomorrow.

  Chapter 15

  Robby

  I’D DONE some work in the Saugus home of Danny Rose, the owner of Rose’s Gym. Nothing major, just refurbishing his deck, fixing a couple of holes in his drywall where he’d sunk his fists in the heat of the moment, that kind of stuff. But ever since then, I hadn’t been asked to pay for my membership. Dan and I had an unspoken bartering system going, and it worked well for both of us.

  It also had other perks. The indoor basketball court didn’t open to the rest of the members until nine in the morning, so when the gym opened up at five for early morning workouts, the court was mine and mine alone. I figured that Tristan would prefer to learn the game unobserved by a crowd of critical ex-jocks.

  Tristan was definitely nervous from the moment he got into the Jeep, and I really didn’t blame him. He was soon going to have to demonstrate his lack of ability in an area in which most men took great pride: their athleticism. Neither one of us said too much until we got to the gym.

  “Hey, Jake. This is my buddy, Tristan. He’s gonna be my guest today.”

  Jake at the desk didn’t take his eyes off of his newspaper. “Right, Robby.”

  Tristan seemed quite relieved. “So getting me in was no big deal, was it?”

  “Not at all—this isn’t that type of club, Tris. Come on.” Since we were both already dressed in sweats and T-shirts, we didn’t need to stop by the locker room. We each just dropped our gym bags on the side of the basketball court.

  The next two hours flew by. Other than being slightly awkward in some of his first attempts at layups and three-point shots, I had to say Tristan was a fairly adept natural athlete. Before we’d even completed an hour of drills, he’d started asking me if we could play a little one-on-one, and I figured he’d gained enough of the basics to be ready.

  And it was awesome. Tristan was competitive, but in a good-natured, nonassholish way, reminding me of when he’d been playing board games that night with Savannah and me. And when I corrected him on his ball handling, he listened carefully and made the necessary adjustments. As my father would have said (about pretty much anybody but me), “the boy’s very coachable.”

  By the end of our game, I found myself experiencing feelings of admiration for the guy. Tristan had had absolutely no idea what he was doing when he’d started today, but he’d still put himself out there and he’d given it his best shot, no pun intended. I decided maybe I should take a lesson from him about life in general.

  All sweaty and smiling and bubbly, Tristan grabbed his bag and bounced over to stand in right in front of me. In his excitement, Tristan’s long dark eyelashes fluttered against his cheeks a few times before he looked at me and said, “That was really fun, Robby. Really fun, so thanks.”

  And right then I knew I wanted to see what he looked like the very second he opened his eyes in the morning. And I wanted to be the first one he saw when he woke up and greeted a new day.

  What the fuck? I’d never had thoughts like that in my entire life—not about a man or a woman. But I couldn’t deny them, and I realized I didn’t want to.

  “No thanks required, man. We both put our hearts to work, and that was the whole point, right?”

  He nodded. “What are we gonna do next?” A boy on his first trip to Fenway Park: that was how excited Tristan was.

  “How about we do a few laps in the pool?” And yet again, he lowered his head and shoved his fingers into his sweaty hair, and I knew immediately that Tristan had never learned how to swim. “Or maybe we should hit the hot tub. It’d feel great after two hours of basketball, you think?”

  “Okay, Robby.” His face brightened, but he still appeared somewhat anxious. “I brought my swim trunks and a towel.” Yes, he was definitely uptight about something.

  As soon as we hit the locker room, I knew exactly what his problem was. He looked around with wide eyes at the other guys, who were stripping down so easily, and by the way his knuckles had whitened on his gym bag, I could tell he wasn’t comfortable taking his clothes off in front of them.

  “Tris, you may want to hit the toilets before we get into the hot tub, ’cause I’m going to be heavily pushing the water bottles on you. You can change while you’re in there.” I don’t know if what I’d said made much sense or not, but Tristan jumped at the chance to change into his trunks in privacy. And just to make him feel comfortable, I did the same.

  TRISTAN was breathtakingly beautiful. He was sitting across from me in the hot tub with his hair damp and falling softly over his half-lidded eyes. His olive-toned, lean body was covered by the water just enough to suit what I assumed was his strong sense of modesty. Speaking of which, I hadn’t missed the fact that the guy had actually kept his towel wrapped around his chest until he slid into the water. But now he allowed his slim shoulders to slump down, loosening with relaxation. And that was when I had another one of those earth-shattering insights I’d been experiencing more and more lately. Out of what seemed like the blue, I knew with certainty that I wanted to run my fingers over the entire length of Tristan’s body. I wanted to find out if his skin was actually as soft as it looked right now, all splattered with tiny dr
oplets of water. Holy shit, I wanted him.

  I shut my eyes as I inhaled sharply at my startling realization, knowing that this very moment signified the end of my own personal denial. No longer would I struggle with myself as to whether or not I had sexual interest in another man, or in this particular man. Because there was no denying that part of my interest in Tristan was sexual, but it was so much more than that. So much deeper than that.

  My admission of my feelings for Tristan left me feeling relieved and eased and somehow strangely thrilled. And more alive than I ever had before. Ever.

  We sat together silently in the bubbling hot water. And I wondered with some trepidation about the nature of his interest in me.

  Chapter 16

  Tristan

  WHEN I got home, Savannah was curled up with the cat on the couch. She never went to bed without me on the nights that I worked late. She’d fallen asleep once again watching one of those home makeover shows that we both loved.

  I went to the television, snapped it off, and headed to the kitchen to grab a beer to help me unwind. When I came back to the living room, Savannah was sitting up, now more awake than asleep.

  “Tris, it’s so late, and you must be exhausted.” She patted the place beside her on the couch and I stepped over and sat down.

  “Actually, it’s really early.” I looked at my watch: nearly 3:00 a.m. “I missed the last subway. Had to take a cab home.”

  “Was it a wedding?”

  “Yeah, and it was huge. I’d say three hundred and fifty people.” Michael’s housed several enormous function rooms where I often served dinners at weddings and other events. “The money was great, though.”

  Savannah squatted on the couch, completely dislodging a disgruntled Runaway, who gave me a look to kill before he launched off the couch, and then she moved behind me as best she could. I felt her palms on my neck, kneading away my weariness. “Robby came by tonight.”