A Package Deal

by Mia Kerick

  But then, so was Savannah. “Well, Lindsey, I can’t say that I’m particularly fond of him either. He has not shown himself to be very polite and respectful in my presence.” Savannah did not dip her head shyly as Tristan would have. She held her head high and stared right back into Lindsey’s eyes. “His rudeness tonight was to be expected. Not a surprise at all.”

  My sister nodded and then looked to Tristan for his response. As predicted, Tristan was hiding behind the hand he’d placed on his head. “What do you think about Mikey’s behavior tonight, Tristan?” Lindsey alone knew my feelings for Tristan. I’m sure she was very interested in his response.

  “I, um, I can’t help but feel sort of bad for Mikey. I mean, he thinks that because of us, he has lost his best friend. He’s hurting, you know?”

  In my opinion, the man was far too good-hearted. I shook my head.

  “You think that maybe he’s jealous of your relationship with Robby?” Brandon interjected. “Robby has really never been close friends with anyone but him.”

  “Oh, yes, I’m sure Mikey feels jealous. Who could blame him? And although we love spending time with Robby, we would be more than happy to share him.” He glanced at me and bit down on his bottom lip, his entire face suddenly blushing to a bright pink. “I meant that Savannah, I’m sure, wouldn’t mind sharing him.” Tristan was becoming emotional. I wasn’t sure if it was because he feared he’d slipped up and said too much in front of my sister, or if he was simply upset that my friendship with Mikey was so strained. His pretty eyes had become red around the rims. “I really hope Mikey and Robby can figure out how to fix their friendship. I really do.”

  At this point, I’d had more than enough family fun for today. I needed to take my partners home and get them settled in their apartment. I wanted to make sure Savannah wasn’t angry and Tristan wasn’t upset.

  I had to take care of my family.

  Brandon retrieved our coats and my mother returned from the kitchen with a few filled-up Tupperware bowls. After quick hugs and other pleasantries with my mother and my sister’s family, including a reminder from Madison that Tristan and I owed her a game of Go Fish, I led Tris and Savannah to my Jeep, noticing that my dad still stood with Mikey beside his car, deeply absorbed in conversation. So deeply absorbed that he didn’t even notice us leaving. Or he just plain didn’t care.

  I, however, noticed Tristan waving good-bye to my completely oblivious father from the backseat of my Jeep. And then I heard him ask quietly, “Do you think they liked us, Robby?”

  Tristan

  “COME on over here, buddy, so we can be a little closer.” Robby patted the place beside him on the couch and his hopeful blue eyes met mine. “If you’re cool with it, I mean.”

  I got up from my chair and slowly crossed the room, sitting down lightly beside Robby on the couch, when what I’d truly wanted to do was to lunge right over the coffee table and flop myself gracelessly into his arms like a puppy in desperate need of affection.

  What was happening to me? I’d lost my ability to set boundaries, to keep my cool, to put Savannah first. Wasn’t I supposed to be dating Robby strictly for Savannah’s sake, so Savannah would date a man who could give her all that she needed and deserved as a woman? But here I was, all ready and willing to cuddle up on the couch with the very man who could give her all that.

  “I’m so confused, Robby. I just want to do what’s right and….” I hadn’t even realized I was speaking out loud until I’d heard the words ringing in my ears.

  “This is right, Tristan. You being close to me is right. Something inside me won’t stop screaming just how right it is.” Robby looked at me with such an expression of certainty that I wondered if maybe I actually could believe him. “And Savannah, well, I think she wants this for us too.”

  So maybe just for tonight I’d let myself believe him. Hadn’t Savannah told me over and over again that she wanted me to listen to my heart when it came to Robby? And hadn’t Sandy told me the very same thing? I closed my eyes tightly and just pushed all my worries about Savannah out of my mind for the time being.

  I turned toward him and then shimmied a little bit closer. Robby lifted one strong arm onto the back of the couch and tentatively wrapped the other around my shoulder. He pulled me against his broad chest, tilted his head until it leaned softly against mine, and gave me a gift that I’d never before admitted I needed. “I feel safe.” I’d spoken without thinking again.

  The arm that had been waiting patiently on the back of the sofa wound around my other shoulder. He squeezed me firmly. “You are safe, Tristan.”

  My breathing sped up. No man had ever held me this way before. Savannah had tried to hold me, but with her slight arms around me, I’d never felt completely safe. And when Savannah was in my arms in bed at night, I wasn’t as much holding her as I was clinging to her.

  This was different. Not only did I feel protected, but I also felt needy in a way I’d never expected. The sensual feeling was almost too much for me to deal with. I hadn’t thought I could feel this way about another person, mostly because women didn’t arouse me, and men, well, most men rather terrified me. I squirmed a bit until I was still closer to Robby, feeling even more secure now than ever. I had to smile; he probably thought I was trying to climb into his lap, which actually didn’t seem like such a bad idea.

  And then there were moist kisses on my neck. Not breathy and slurpy and selfish, but tiny, delicate, almost experimental kisses, that felt like the fluttering of a hundred teeny butterfly wings against my skin. The only problem now was that I knew only too well where necking led. Because yes, a former now-and-then call boy knew things like that. And I waited for Robby to lewdly express his body’s physical need, accompanied by the expected rush of fear that would bowl me over.

  But neither came.

  “You are so sweet.” Robby’s deep voice was murmuring into my ear. “You are the sweetest thing.” But he was still speaking very quietly, not panting with the sort of need that had always led to pain.

  Knowing just how far what he’d said was from the truth, though, I kept on waiting for what would surely come next, what had always come next: the suggestive words, the wandering hands, the huffing and puffing and humping that had consistently been a precursor to me giving a man what he wanted. But surprisingly, even shockingly, all Robby seemed to want was to hold me, to soothe me, to shelter me.

  It appeared that he wasn’t here simply to use me.

  “Everything that has always seemed wrong for me is right with you.”

  I wanted to shout, “Yes! I know! I feel that way too!” but I couldn’t make myself speak. I was still so afraid he’d turn into one of those heated-up, lustful monsters from my past.

  “What happens if I fall for you, Tristan?”

  Turning my head just slightly, I pressed my lips softly against Robby’s throat, the only way I could think of to show him that I’d catch him if he fell, because I’d fallen weeks ago and I was already waiting for him down below. His skin felt rough and stubbly and honestly, fantastic, against my lips. Another first for me.

  “What if I’ve already fallen, baby? Tell me, what then?”

  And that’s when I pushed him back enough so that we could look directly into each other’s eyes, and I replied, “I guess I catch you, and then we pick each other up and dust each other off and keep on going, Robby, because I’m pretty sure I’ve fallen too.” I stood up and took Robby’s hand in mine. “Let’s go to bed.”

  He stood and followed me down the hall, and as we had done once before, we silently took turns in the bathroom. When we were in the full darkness of the bedroom, we stripped down to our boxers on either side of the bed. In the bed, Savannah had positioned herself all the way on the right edge, so I climbed in the middle, ran my fingers lovingly along the skin of her arm, and then Robby climbed in beside me.

  Robby said, “I want to hold you all night.” His words didn’t scare me.

  His words didn’t scare me.


  And this time, it was me who wrapped my arms around Robby’s bulky shoulders, and I wasn’t merely clinging onto him for dear life, but I was giving him what strength I had, and in turn, I was taking his strength into me.

  “I think I love you, Robby.” Yeah, I just blurted it out.

  Robby chuckled softly, and I could feel the skin of his bare chest vibrating a bit against my own. “I can do you one better, Tristan, because I know I love you.”

  He’d said it. Robby loved me too.

  “But, Robby, I’m not sweet, you know, like you said before. I’ve been used. You’ve gotta know that w-when times got really t-tough, like when it was freezing cold outside, or when I was starving, sometimes I sold my body. It was all I had to sell. And I think that you have the right to know this.” My confession just escaped. It seemed I hadn’t spoken a single word tonight that hadn’t caught me by surprise. But still I repeated my message so he would understand. “I’m not sweet, not at all.”

  Suddenly, Robby’s hands were on my face, holding it in place, and they were not soft and gentle like before, but instead their grasp was firm, almost rough. Hands that had a purpose. “That’s not who you are, it’s what you had to do. You did what you had to do and you survived, and I’m just so thankful for that.” That’s when his lips covered mine, at first tentative, but soon more insistent. And when he stopped kissing me long enough to take a breath, he told me, “I love you, Tris. So much. And believe me, you just can’t help it, you’re so damned sweet. You are the sweetest thing.”

  And I didn’t want to run and hide. I wanted to stay exactly where I was, in Robby’s arms, kissing Robby’s lips. Safe and loved.

  Looking back…. Savannah

  IF I’D thought I had my work cut out for me in locating Tristan, I’d soon learned that finding him had been the easy part. Getting Tristan’s life into some semblance of order, now that had been the real challenge.

  Above all else, he’d needed a place to live. A place to feel safe. Lately, Tristan had been staying more or less regularly in the shoebox of a storage room over the S-Squared Diner in exchange for doing odd jobs for Gus. In the corner of the room was a couch that had seen plenty of better days, on which he slept. At the end of the hall was a tiny bathroom with no more than a sink and a toilet and not much else in the way of amenities. But Tris had told me that it had seemed like a castle to him. Since I was eighteen and had aged out of the system, the time had come for me to step out on my own. I’d decided to forgo university housing and find a place that Tristan and I could pay for from the wages we earned at the S-Squared, where we now both worked full-time hours. And we could live together. It hadn’t taken us very long to find a small one-bedroom apartment near the square, where Tristan could finally, at long last, make a home.

  But there had been so much more to do.

  Tristan’s physical health had needed addressing; there’d been no question about it. He’d been sick when I’d found him, and it took several courses of strong antibiotics from a local Health Stop to fix that. But I’d had other more serious concerns in the wellness department than his bronchitis. Tristan had been living on the streets for the better part of a decade and he’d confessed to me that he’d done “whatever it took” to stay alive. “Whatever it took,” he’d explained flatly, had included turning tricks when he’d found himself in dire straits. That news, coupled with him having had no access to healthcare during that time, had been my incentive to get him to a health clinic ASAP. I’d located a free clinic just south of Boston, where Tristan had undergone a complete physical, including a barrage of blood tests for STDs and HIV, and the doctors there had addressed a whole host of other health concerns as well.

  Tristan had faced all of the poking and prodding with little outward emotion. In fact, he’d barely spoken a word during the doctor’s appointment or in the days that followed as we’d waited for results. And even when he’d received the phone call that had given him a clean bill of health, he’d said nothing but “Yes, this is Tristan Chartrand speaking.” I’d had to take the phone from his loose grasp and finish the conversation with the doctor, who suggested that he repeat certain tests, which he did six months later. His teeth had been a total wreck. Tristan had needed four appointments just to clean things up, and he’d needed more work to fix a broken tooth, but we’d had to save up for almost a year to get that done.

  It had not been as simple to repair Tristan’s mental health. Though never sullen, Tristan had become extremely withdrawn. Having spent the majority of his time in no one’s company but his own, he hadn’t ever become accustomed to sharing his thoughts or asking for help. No amount of cajoling on my part had been able to convince him to see a counselor to help him deal with what life had dealt him. Or, more truthfully, how life had cheated him. His mistrust of society had just been too huge. Very gradually, though, Tristan had opened up to me. He’d told me how broken he’d felt, how lost and alone he’d been. Until I’d found him. And I’d changed the course of his life.

  And when I’d felt that Tris had been well on his way to good mental health, or at least better mental health, I’d tutored him. Math, English, reading and writing, and even current events. I’d actually been very good at tutoring and successful too. It had been so incredibly rewarding when Tristan had received his GED. When I had seen his face as he grasped his diploma, I had known for certain that helping people was what I’d been born to do.

  It had taken nearly two years to complete the bulk of project “Rebuild Tristan,” but it had been worth every bit of effort. Out of the discarded fragments of a person I had found, I’d molded Tristan into the healthy, well-adjusted, competent, and loving man I knew he could be.

  Chapter 25

  Tristan

  SANDY came up behind me and pinched my side playfully. “Hey, handsome. You’ve got a phone message at the bar. Phillip asked me to tell you.”

  “A message? I can’t remember the last time I got a call at the bar, Sandy. It must be important. Can you bring water to table eight for me? I’ll be right back.”

  “That is absolutely not a problem, T.”

  I wondered if Robby had called. Maybe he wanted to pick me up tonight or meet me somewhere after work. Those thoughts had me sort of race-walking to get my message, a stupid grin on my face, no doubt.

  “Hey, Tristan.” Phillip stood behind the bar hanging wine glasses. “Some dude called you. Hang on, I wrote down a message.” He turned around and grabbed a small scrap of paper off the counter. “Yeah, Mike D. is gonna be at the bar here at 10:30 tonight and he wants you to meet him for a drink. Says he wants to talk about ‘shit with Rob.’”

  “Thanks, Phil. You have a good night, okay?” I headed back to my serving section feeling happier than if it had been Robby who had called. Because it was clear from this phone call that Mikey wanted to make peace with Robby. Which was not to say I hadn’t experienced a momentary chill of suspicion in regards to Mikey’s intentions for wanting to meet me tonight, because, yeah, I was suspicious as hell. I guess mistrust was just how street kids reacted to kind gestures like this. But I forced myself to swallow hard and to push back my overabundance of caution; I was not a street kid anymore, and Mikey was simply a close friend of Robby’s who wanted their friendship to move forward in a positive manner.

  But the single factor that most swayed me to overlook any sense of wariness I felt in regards to Mikey was that lately, I’d sensed that Robby was truly affected by the breakup of his friendship with his longtime buddy. Not that he said much about it, because he barely ever mentioned his old friend’s name, but I could tell that trying to get anything done at work with Mikey had become very stressful for him. And the times when he and I had seen Mikey together, like at the Red Sox game and on Thanksgiving night, Robby couldn’t hide his tension. Finally, as he and Mikey were becoming more and more distant, his father and Mikey were growing closer and closer. All of this spelled out d-r-a-m-a, which took a heavy toll on Robby. Above all else, I wanted his h
appiness. I knew that this was my opportunity to help him. I wasn’t going to let it slip past me.

  Luckily, I’d wrapped up all of my tables by quarter past ten, so I had a chance to wash up and change my clothes in the men’s room before meeting Mikey at the bar.

  MIKEY was late. It was almost eleven and the bar was about to close to the public, so I decided I’d just stand outside in front of the restaurant and wait for him there. I still really hoped he’d show up. I wanted to get this whole thing straightened out so Mikey would know how important he was to Robby and they could be friends again.

  And I refused to give in to my sheer sense of relief that he hadn’t showed up. As I crossed the empty bar, I reminded myself once again that Mikey, however unlikeable he might have been, was a law-abiding business man, and people of his social stature didn’t engage in street fights.

  “I thought you were meeting somebody at the bar tonight.” Phillip was wiping down tables, starting the closing process. “You get stood up?”

  I looked down at the floor, a bit embarrassed because it seemed that Mikey was, indeed, a no-show. “I, uh, maybe. I mean, it’s starting to look that way.”

  “Shit, Tristan, if you want to wait around for a half hour or so, I’ll be ready to get out of here, and you and me can go get a drink somewhere.”

  “Thanks, Phillip, but I think I’m gonna go out front and wait for him there. Are you working tomorrow?”

  “Nah, got a couple days off.”

  “Same here. Well, I’ll see you later.”

  I grabbed my jacket and put my tips in the pocket. Then I went out the front entrance, the door locking behind me. It was a cold night so I threw on my wool blazer, which was fairly thin and didn’t go very far in the direction of keeping me warm. I decided I’d wait around for another thirty minutes or so; maybe Mikey got caught up with business.