A Package Deal

by Mia Kerick

  Tristan blushed at her pointed comment, and we both chose to ignore the plural word “things.” We would deal with one “thing” at a time, as far as Savannah separating herself from us went. And like clouds parting to allow the sun’s rays to shine through, it became clear to me at that very moment exactly why Savannah had been so motivated to get Tristan and me together. She loved Tristan so deeply and she felt she owed him such a debt of gratitude, that she couldn’t leave him to pursue her own goals in life until he was safe and secure in the arms of another person who loved him. She’d found that person in me.

  And in no way was Savannah being selfish. She didn’t require time away from Tris to travel the world or to date rich and successful men or to live in the lap of luxury. No, she needed time and space to accomplish important tasks, to prevent more teens from becoming lost like Tristan and Savannah had been. Or maybe to right the wrongs that had been done to them. Helping other teens in crisis was how she would deal with her own past, a past that had also been filled with pain and loss. Right then, I loved her more than I had ever loved any other woman. And I would do my part; I would stay with Tristan and love him and comfort him and be what they both needed me to be. Not because I had to, but because I wanted to.

  Looking back…. Savannah

  “I’M SORRY, Savannah. I just… I just can’t.”

  On the last night that we’d tried, I’d known pretty quickly that it simply wasn’t going to happen with us. I mean, we’d been together for more than two years at that point. We’d become extremely close; we’d come to love each other beyond reason. And in this time together, Tristan had grown much healthier in mind as well as in body. There’d been no valid reason why we couldn’t be intimate.

  Our lack of success in the bedroom had a rather drawn-out history. The first time we’d tried and failed, we had attributed his inability to perform on the sexual trauma of his childhood, which was a very legitimate reason for impotence. The second time, we’d credited the effects of the gang rape when he was sixteen years old for his incapability, and the next time we’d agreed that he hadn’t recovered sufficiently from the emotional toll of having been, at times, a child prostitute, to be sexually close to me. All of those had been valid reasons.

  And there had been more attempts to be intimate, which had all started with frenzied kisses and had consistently ended with Tristan’s head hanging, frustrated and humiliated by his inability to make love to me, and equally distraught by his inability to explain it. Or understand it.

  But I’d eventually come to understand that Tristan’s problem had not been with sex; the problem had been sex with me. I’d realized that though he’d loved me deeply, it was the sort of love a brother held for a sister. At first that knowledge had shattered my girlish dreams (no, Tristan and I were never going to get married, have babies, and live the white-picket-fence kind of traditional happily ever after). And soon, it had been my ego that had felt the devastation. I’d asked myself over and over why I hadn’t been able to make Tristan want me. Hadn’t I been pretty enough to attract him? Womanly enough? And that particular question had set off in my brain a slow process of realization.

  So after a few weeks of observing him and speculating on his each and every word and movement, I’d just come right out and asked him, “Tristan, are you gay?”

  Chapter 32

  Tristan

  THE night was here. I’d waited for it with a sort of annoyed impatience. I’d also wished it would never arrive. But it was here. And there wasn’t much I could do about it now, was there?

  “Savannah looked pretty happy to be climbing into that minivan with the girls, huh?” Robby and I had just returned to the apartment after having dropped Savannah off for her overnight trip to the mountains. I pushed the door open and both of us hung our coats on the hooks on the wall.

  “She sure did, Robby. I’m glad she went. And Lani was having a pretty hard time acting as angry at the world as she usually does.” I walked down the hall into the living room. “Hey, come here and look at this.” On the coffee table was a small bouquet of red and white roses, and beside it a bottle of champagne and a card addressed to Robby and me.

  Looking stunned, Robby said, “So this was what Savannah was doing when she came back upstairs to get her ‘forgotten mittens.’” He leaned down and picked up the card. “You want to open it?”

  “No.” I shook my head. “You do it.”

  I watched as Robby opened the envelope and took out a pretty floral watercolor greeting card. “Savannah wrote, ‘To my two favorite guys, Be each other’s tonight.’” His voice broke on the last word. “There’s a slip of paper in here with your name on it.” He passed it to me.

  Goosebumps rose on my skin as Robby’s fingers pressed the note against my hand. Silently, I unfolded the paper and read.

  Tristan-

  You know I will love you and need you forever. We are, and always will be, each other’s family. But now it is time for you to lean on Robby. And it is time for Robby to figure you out by himself. I want this for you, both of you. And for me, Tristan, I want this for me as well. So, now is the time for you to become each other’s, in every sense.

  Be my family and a home I can always return to.

  I love you.

  Savi

  “I think I’m ready now, Robby.”

  Robby

  I’D BEEN intimate with a handful of women. Maybe a bit more than that. Certainly not buckets full, though. But enough so that I knew what I was doing between the sheets. None of that less than plentiful (but surely sufficient) amount of experience was of any help to me tonight.

  We lay shoulder-to-shoulder in the big bed, both of us highly aware of the fact that there was no Savannah present to act as our sexual buffer. Tonight we were alone and we were in love and we had Savannah’s blessing—if not her direct command—to consummate our relationship. Stripped to the waist but still wearing my boxers, I’d never felt more naked and exposed before. As Tristan pulled the sheet up to his neck to cover his bare chest, I was fairly certain he felt the same way.

  “I’m scared.”

  “Don’t be. You know I would never hurt you, right?”

  Tristan turned onto his side to look at me. “I’m not worried about physical pain, Robby. You do know that there’s more than one way to hurt someone, right?” His voice was breathy as he threw my words back in my face.

  I had to think about that for a minute, and when I did, it brought back words Savannah had said to me not too long ago. “Of course I know that. Why do you think I’d hurt you, anyways? I love you, Tristan.”

  He continued to study my face with a scrutiny with which I was almost uncomfortable. “Then I’ll try not to be scared.”

  I turned to face him. “I’m as scared as you are, just for different reasons.”

  “Then tell me why.”

  God, Tristan was so fucking beautiful, so desirable. His dark hair fell over his forehead and rested like strands of silk on the pillow, begging me to run my fingers through it. And no eyes had ever been more compelling to me than his. But beneath his perfect face was a man’s body, which complicated things. “H-how do we know, y’know, how do we know who goes on top?” I felt my face heat and a line of perspiration form above my top lip. I was out of my league here.

  Strangely, where Tristan had seemed anxious about the emotional side of intimacy, he was far less uncomfortable with the physical aspects of it. “Well, when you think about us being together, how do you picture it? How do you fantasize about it, I guess is what I’m asking?”

  My forehead joined in the rest of my face’s perspiration party. “Uh, the only way I’ve ever, um, been with someone, is by being inside them. So, I guess I picture myself being inside you.”

  He didn’t look at all scandalized, though I felt almost weak from the magnitude of my confession. “Is that how you want it, then?”

  “I-I suppose so, if it’s how you like it too.”

  Tristan placed a palm sof
tly on my cheek and shrugged. “I’ve never been asked how I liked it before, but that’s okay with me. I mean, it’s good with me.” Then he reached over me to the bedside table. “I’m gonna need to be ready for you, Robby. It’s been a long time since, well, I’ll put it this way, it will hurt if I’m not ready.” He grabbed a small tube and a condom that he’d placed there before we’d gotten into bed.

  “Let me. I want to get you ready myself.” I took the tube from his hand but allowed it to drop onto the bed. “But first….” I shifted his slim form beneath me. “First, I want to kiss you.”

  And that is when the awkwardness of our preamble-to-sex discussion simply dissipated, because kissing Tristan plucked me right out of my head and transported me to a place where all I could do was feel. As my lips devoured his, my body responded quickly and powerfully, somehow screaming silently into my consciousness, “This is right! This is so very right!” There was no room for doubt; there were no questions. Tristan was the unique combination of strength and fragility that I had never before known but I simply had to know tonight. He was distinctive in my mind, though, not simply because he was a man, and not just because he was beautiful, but because he was pure and selfless, and at the very same time resilient and sturdy.

  Because he is Tristan.

  The desire I felt for him was matchless; he was forever irreplaceable to me.

  I had to have him.

  With the haste of a horny seventeen-year-old, I stripped us both of our shorts, and though I’d never seen Tristan’s naked body in its entirety, as I ran my fingers methodically over every inch of his skin, I knew that it was perfect.

  And when I was finally inside him, filling him with my body, the only quandary I experienced was that I also longed for him to be inside me at the very same time, taking me, making me his, as I was making him mine.

  “I love you, Tristan, and you can trust me. Please, just trust me.” I didn’t want him to hold back any part of himself from me. He had opened his body to me; I needed his heart to be just as wide open.

  In response to my pleading, Tristan just closed his eyes. “I love you too, Robby.” His voice sounded breathless, even shaky. “I love you s-so m-much.”

  That was when I reached down to touch him in a way I had previously only touched myself. I could tell that he made a considerable effort to stifle the sound of his pleasure at the feeling of my hand on him, but he couldn’t do it. Tristan moaned. And within a few seconds, we took each other to a place I’m certain neither of us had ever before been in the company of another human being.

  Tristan

  GET the fuck out of there, Tristan!

  I was experiencing a panicked urge to flee to the bathroom, to find a safe haven to hide in.

  Had I actually just loved this man with my body? Had I allowed him inside of every part of me? Have I truly let him in? The fight against flight took every bit of strength I had, but instead of withdrawing to a separate room, I curled up tight into a ball, but kept my face pressed flat against his chest.

  “Tris? Baby, are you all right? I didn’t hurt you, did—”

  “No… no, it was… it was great.” After a slow, deep breath, I kissed his skin, my lips sweeping the soft blond hair of his chest.

  My answer hadn’t satisfied Robby, though. He took my chin firmly in one hand and raised it so I was forced to look at him. “What’s wrong? Talk to me now.”

  “Just don’t leave me, Robby. Don’t leave, okay?” I blurted out those words without so much as a thought. But I couldn’t confess the whole truth of what weighed so heavily on my mind—my senseless fear of entrusting my heart to another man. Even if I really did love him.

  No man had ever gained my trust. Not even Robby.

  I could feel a chuckle rumble up from deep within his chest. “Don’t worry, baby. I’m not going anywhere. Not even if you chase me.”

  I believed that he meant those words, at least as he spoke them. As to whether he could keep that promise, I had absolutely no idea.

  Robby

  WE WOKE up at about seven minutes before midnight. I scrambled to the kitchen and grabbed the bottle of champagne that we’d put in the refrigerator and a couple of champagne flutes from off the counter. By the time I returned, Tristan was sitting up in our bed, shaking his head slowly as if in a daze.

  I popped open the bottle and quickly filled each glass halfway. And I handed one glass to my lover. My lover. “Here, buddy, we have to make a proper New Year’s Eve toast, and kiss exactly at midnight.”

  Tristan smiled, still appearing distracted by something, but I had no idea what. He could be a hard man to read, and since midnight was less than a minute away, I didn’t have time to wait for him to spill out his thoughts.

  “Why don’t you make the toast, Tristan.”

  For a moment, he appeared uncomfortable. “To Savannah who brought us together, and to being each other’s.” He spoke those words with little expression, watching his hand on his glass rather than looking into my eyes.

  “I want to see your eyes, Tristan.” I waited for his soulful brown eyes to meet mine. And when our gazes finally connected, after he’d dragged his eyes excruciatingly slowly up the length of my naked body like he was memorizing every inch of me, there was absolutely no awkwardness between us. I felt no strangeness whatsoever when I studied the face of my male lover, a sentiment I suspected that Tristan shared. And our union was still as perfect now, without even touching, as it had been when we were making love. We clicked our glasses together lightly. “To our love, and our trust.” But it was a fact: I wanted Tristan to know that I was aware of the one thing he withheld from me.

  “It’s midnight.” Again, his voice was soft, even subdued.

  And so I kissed him, all the while resolving that I would be the partner Tristan deserved. I promised myself I would not hide our incredible love, this honest and exquisite passion I’d been so blessed to discover, from anyone.

  Then I prayed that I had the strength it took to do that.

  Chapter 33

  Robby

  BEING in the office with Mikey for any substantial amount of time was close to being completely intolerable. The only small consolation I got for having to look at him came from the grisly sight of his swollen nose. Not pretty at all.

  I was just so furious at him, and I felt that my promise to Tristan had prevented me from taking the necessary actions. When Mikey had first arrived this morning, there had been a prolonged period of complete silence. And in such a small office, the lack of Mikey’s constant babbling unfortunately allowed me to become aware of so much as every breath the man took. After enduring the painful silence for an hour or so, Mikey started taking swipes at me. You know, verbal jabs.

  “So, did you and your two honeys have a romantic New Year’s Eve?” Neither of us looked up from our work.

  “It was fine.” I didn’t even know why I answered him.

  “Not gonna ask ’bout my New Year’s, Rob?” He abruptly stood up and pushed his chair backward with his calves. “Not gonna ask ’bout how I survived my first New Year’s Eve since I was a kid wit’out my wingman?”

  If I didn’t know better, I’d say the tone of Mikey’s voice sounded like he was actually hurt by that fact. My absence had sincerely been mourned by a guy who could hurt another human being so badly without so much as a drop of regret. I looked up at him in shock. “You fucking beat an innocent man with a baseball bat, DeSalvo. I’m having trouble getting past that, okay?”

  “That stupid night still on ya mind, bro?” He took a step around his desk in my direction. “You gotta learn to let that kind o’ shit go.”

  That stupid night? I clenched my fists, ready to go to town on him yet again.

  “So, let’s just say for shits and grins, that maybe I was wanting to hook up wit’ my oldest pal on, say, New Year’s Day. You know, like how that song ‘Old Lang Zine,’ or whatever it is, says: ‘don’t forget the good old days wit’ your good old friends,’ right? So maybe I
stopped by your apartment, and what do ya know? No Robby nowhere.”

  As I added the list of numbers in my ledger, I didn’t hesitate long enough to betray any of my genuine concern about what he’d discovered.

  “And what else do ya know? When I chatted up the building manager, he told me that Robert Dalton’d moved out, what did he say? Oh, yeah, way back in mid-December. Well, wasn’t that an interesting little tidbit o’ news for me?”

  “So? What do you care where I live?” I forced my eyes to stay on the calculations in front of me.

  He moved to my desk and then propped his ass on the edge. Bending down to get into my face, he said, his tone matter of fact, “I guess now you’re a homo, huh?”

  And yet again, he managed to push me over my emotional edge. I stood up. “So maybe I’m living with my girlfriend now,” I lied, and it felt so wrong. I was nothing but a piece of shit for betraying my love for Tristan like this. Yet I pressed on with the farce. “Lots of guys live with their girlfriends, Einstein. It’s not exactly front-page news.”

  “Ever think to tell your family ’bout it? I’m pretty sure they got no clue that you changed your residence.”

  “I don’t need their permission to move.”

  Mikey shook his head and offered me a patronizing smile. I knew he wasn’t buying what I’d said about me living with my girlfriend, and honestly I really didn’t care what the fuck he thought.

  “Right-o, Rob. Whatever ya say.”

  “I suppose you’re gonna run right off and squeal to my father, seeing as you two are attached at the hip lately, and all.” I was perspiring, and abundantly so because my father’s opinion of me was my only real concern here. Always had been, probably always would be.

  “I’m thinking that it’s my duty to inform him.” His mouth was shaped into a strained grin, but his eyes were dead serious. “As the son your father never had.”