by Amy Lane
“Upstairs crying.” And oh Lord, Tino felt like a barbarian just for saying that sentence. “I, uh, threatened to take his lesson for him.”
That elicited a laugh. “Oh, dear boy—I think we’ve found a solution, then. Are you any good at the piano?”
“Never touched one,” Tino replied, embarrassed.
“Oooh,” Anson said, like that was the answer to their prayers. “Even better. You’ll play horribly—I can’t wait!”
Tino grimaced. Well, that probably wasn’t what his mom had hoped for him when she’d wanted him to play the piano as a kid, but at least he’d get to say he did it. Bemusedly he led Mr. Charles to the formal sitting room, where he turned on all the lights and made sure the room was cool enough while Mr. Charles opened up the baby grand and set up his music.
Anson Charles was actually a very good kids’ piano teacher. He was patient, started with the basics, and within fifteen minutes had Tino seated and walking his way up through a set of awkward scales.
Tino couldn’t have made more mistakes if he’d tried—and he was trying not to, for heaven’s sakes! But Anson laughed wickedly with him when he flubbed, and by the time Channing walked into the room about a half an hour into the lesson, they were both laughing so hard Tino wasn’t sure he could stand up.
“Well, you’re not Sammy,” Channing said, sounding charmed and annoyed at the same time.
“Uh, sorry,” Tino muttered, his face flaming. “I’m pretty sure Sammy could play better.”
Channing just stood there, one eyebrow arched, his eyes burning like coals from the purple shadows under them. Oh God—he did not look like he was in the mood to banter at the moment.
“I’m pretty sure anybody could play better than that,” Channing said dryly, surprising him. “I take it Sammy was having sort of a day?”
Tino sighed and stood up. “Thank you, Mr. Charles,” he said, thrilled to have had the lesson. “I know you think I’m a total loss, but trust me, my mother will be tickled.” He turned to Channing, remembering the times his mother had been exhausted but his father had been on his feet for forty hours that week. This was one of those same occasions. “Mirella isn’t done with dinner yet, but I can get you a snack,” he said hopefully.
Channing shook his head. “No—no. I can wait. Don’t stop the lesson because of me,” he said, smiling tiredly. “Anson, you’re just as patient now as you were fifteen years ago.” He grimaced. “But I don’t remember you being quite so flirty.”
Anson chuckled and touched his fingers to the scarf at his throat. “That’s because you were young and couldn’t see the old queer for the piano keys, my darling. I flirt with all my students.” He sobered. “Even your sister. She flirted back, the dear.”
Channing nodded, his chin going a little wobbly. “Yeah. Sheryl was good like that.” Tino saw him visibly swallow and pull himself together. “But continue to flirt and teach now. Tino should get something out of his day, right?”
“Of course,” Anson said, bowing his head a little. “Here, Tino. Let’s do something I do with my very small ones. One finger on the C, one finger on the F in the higher range—good. Now you’re just going to play the melody, okay? It’s just this rhythm.” Anson played a very simple six-note rhythm with those two keys, and Tino copied him. “Very good, young man. Now, you just keep playing that rhythm, yes?”
Tino nodded, intrigued, and Anson….
Anson showed him what a master piano player could do.
While Tino puttered around going “ba-dum, ba-dum, ba-dum ba-dum ba-dum,” Anson improvised wildly around him, creating countermelodies that went from classical to jazz to country to rock, all of which gave room for Tino’s simple little patter to be the melody. Every time Anson switched styles, Tino laughed some more, and the by the third change, he’d begun to sing silly words to the silly riff.
“You work, I play, you work—I play all day!”
“I’ll say,” Anson responded. “I’ll say you play all day!”
“Hooray!” Channing chimed in. “Hooray, you play all day!”
“You pay,” Tino retorted in song. “You pay, for me to play all day.”
Anson changed the countermelody to something melancholy and Celtic.
“I slave,” Channing bemoaned. “I slave… I yearn to play all day!”
“I cave,” Tino sang back, unable to look away from Channing’s twinkling blue eyes. “I cave—I’ll work so you don’t slave….” He couldn’t finish. For one thing, if he made the stupid rhyme again, he’d run screaming from the house, and for another, he was laughing too hard.
And he was also extremely impressed.
Channing was exhausted—exhausted and sad. But he was playing with Tino and Anson because… well, maybe because like Tino’s father, he had an enormous heart and would play until he fell asleep.
Tino and Anson finished the last riff, and then Anson collapsed giggling on Tino’s shoulder. “Oh dear! Oh dear oh dear oh dear! I haven’t had that much fun in ages!” he chortled.
There was a collective breath, and then a child’s voice spoke up. “I want to have fun.”
All three of the grown men turned toward the little boy standing in the hallway. Tino was flabbergasted—Anson had been sure that hearing them play would pull Sammy out of his room, but Tino hadn’t been so certain.
Channing remembered his words first. “Would you like to come in and play, Sammy?” he asked gently. “I’m sure Mr. Charles has missed you.”
“Tino’s in my spot,” Sammy said woodenly, and Tino popped up like someone had jerked his strings.
“I’m just going to get your uncle Channing a snack,” he said winningly. “I don’t even have to be in the room.”
“I don’t want him in the room either,” Sammy said decisively. “I just want to play.”
Anson raised eyebrows at them, because altogether this was a hopeful thing, right? And the two of them fled.
The kitchen smelled great, but Mirella was elsewhere in the house, and Tino was much relieved. The housekeeper had performed her duties competently during the past week, but with all of the grace of a pit viper. Poor Sammy! Tino remembered being small and his mother bringing him and Nica to her employer’s house so they could play with the children on lazy summer days. Ideal? No. But Tino and Nica had enjoyed playing with the different children, and the children had, for the most part, been pleasant and charmed by their mother. Of course, any woman who dispenses cookies is the automatic favorite in any household, but Tino wished Sammy could have had a Stacy in his life instead of a Mirella.
As unpleasant as she was, though, the woman could stock a mean refrigerator. Tino shooed Channing to the stool and the butcher-block in the center of the kitchen while he pulled some hummus and snap peas out of the fridge. He set that in front of Channing, thinking to make a plate, but he heard the rustling of bags and the crunch of the peas before he could even pull down the pretzel chips.
He turned to Channing in exasperation. “I was trying to serve you!” he said, laughing.
Channing shook his head, trying to chew and talk at the same time. “An’ I wa’ tryin’ do ea’!”
Tino chuckled some more and grabbed the milk, making sure he poured at the counter so he didn’t have to see Channing drink from the carton.
He turned back around to put the glasses on the table and found Channing was busy taking his suit coat off and shoving the tie in the pocket. “God,” he said in relief, undoing his top two buttons, “am I glad that week is over.”
“You’re home early tonight,” Tino said, taking the stool adjacent to him and snagging a pretzel chip from the bag. “I didn’t expect you before midnight, not with traffic.”
Channing grimaced and settled back into his seat. He reached for a handful of pretzel chips and started dipping them in the hummus and eating methodically, speaking every time he swallowed.
“I was falling asleep at my desk,” he said after his first swallow. “My secretary told me before lunch that
I could either leave before two and make it back to Sacramento before traffic, or she would steal my car and hire a cab to take me to my city apartment. I chose option A.”
Tino whistled, impressed by this unknown woman. “She sounds fearsome. You should marry her.”
Channing laughed. “She’s happily married and in her fifties—but she’s got the mom thing going on that won’t quit. She totally would have done it too. I’ve seen her bully pretty much the entire office into eating right and getting more sleep—it’s astounding.” He crunched some more pretzel chips and swallowed, and then went back to the snap peas.
“Well, I’m glad someone nagged you—you look like the cat’s breakfast, it’s really disgusting.” He looked wonderful, if tired, and Tino could see the fine lines at the corners of his eyes had deepened from the stress of the week.
Channing laughed, not at all offended. “Well, I accomplished a lot this week. After four days of consultation and running numbers, I think I can expand the business into Sacramento. I should have an office up and running by the end of the summer, and hopefully someone competent running things down there. I’ll still be the CEO, of course, but this way—”
“You can be a captain of industry here, and Sammy gets to have you in his life,” Tino said, because he got it.
“Yeah.” Channing winced. “But I’m sorry you bore the brunt of that. I would imagine it’s been a pretty crappy week for all of us.”
“Artie’s coming over tomorrow,” Tino said, avoiding the question. “We’re going to do kids and cookies and lounging around. I’ve noticed Sammy is happier doing stuff with people who don’t mention his mom, you know? It’s easier to pretend everything is happy if you don’t have any reminders, and I think he just needs one of those days before he can….”
“Eat bananas on his cereal or wear clothes that fit,” Channing said quietly, surprising him. “Yes, I know about that,” he said, laughing a little in response to what must have been the surprise on Tino’s face. “I talk to Sammy before I tuck him in.” Without warning, he placed his warm hand over the back of Tino’s where it rested on the table. “And you avoided the subject. I’m sorry it’s been a crappy week, Tino. I didn’t mean to ruin your life.”
Tino couldn’t stop staring at Channing’s hand on his own. Channing’s skin was lightly tanned but still pale next to Tino’s Italian brownness, and the heat and the contrast and the human contact sort of all built into something bigger than it probably was.
Right?
It wasn’t any big deal that his boss wanted to hold hands with him in the kitchen, right?
“You didn’t ruin my life,” Tino said, his voice sounding tinny in his own ears. “It… it was going to be rough no matter who was here. I’m just… you know, earning my keep.”
Channing started to drag his thumb gently over Tino’s knuckles. “Earning your keep doesn’t include being kind to the piano teacher or fixing me a snack. I really appreciate you. I want you to know that, okay?”
Tino swallowed and risked a look up into Channing’s eyes. “I… uh… yeah. Thank you. Uh, you’re welcome. Whatever.”
Channing smiled softly. “I’m really glad to see you,” he said, without pretense or hesitation. “I’ve been looking forward to seeing you all week.”
Tino smiled shyly at him. “I… you looked so tired,” he said, feeling stupid and wretched. “I tried to get up to have breakfast with you twice, but you kept beating me—I’d hear your car in the driveway before I even got my pajama bottoms on.” It had been stupid hot, as it often was in June, and even though the air-conditioning worked great, you could still feel the heat beating outside the walls of the house like a live thing. Sleeping in pajamas wasn’t comfortable in that weather—everybody knew that.
Channing’s warm fingers grew tighter over Tino’s knuckles, and on impulse Tino turned his hand over so they were palm to palm and he could squeeze back.
“So,” Channing said, the grooves at the corners of his mouth deepening with mischief. “Now I know something personal about you.”
Tino stared back dumbly. “What’s that?”
“You sleep in your briefs?”
Tino’s embarrassed smile felt like it took over his entire face, but he couldn’t look away. “Lots of guys do,” he said defensively.
“I don’t.”
Tino’s mouth fell slowly open as his mind filled in the blanks of that statement, and then he realized Channing’s eyes were crinkling in the corners and an insufferable smirk was twitching at his lips.
“I wear boxers,” Channing said, winking, and Tino pulled his hand away even as he groaned.
“I walked right into that one,” he muttered, standing up to put the milk away.
“Mmm….”
The tone of Channing’s voice was suspicious, and Tino shoved the milk in the refrigerator and whirled around. “Are you checking out my….” He blushed, but Channing’s eyes hadn’t moved any higher, and now he was checking out Tino’s—
“Assets?” Channing said, waggling his eyebrows and continuing to assess Tino’s body under his cargo shorts. “Why yes—yes I am. And you have much to be proud of.”
“Oh my God, you’re incorrigible! Now give me the hummus so I can clean this up before dinner.”
Channing circled his arm around the hummus and pretzels and play-smacked at Tino’s hand. “Hey—you don’t approve of my eye candy, now the least you can do is let me nosh until dinner time! I skipped lunch to get here, you know!”
Tino sighed and shook his head. “Why’d you do that?” he asked, at a loss. “You could have come early in the morning and—”
“And missed piano lessons and thinking about you in your underwear,” Channing said smugly. “And that would have been a damned shame.”
The noise from the living room changed just as Tino was flailing for a reply. What had been a series of gaily skipping scales turned into Gershwin—inexpertly played, but truly not bad—and Tino cocked his head, smiling and humming a little.
Then Channing actually sang, in a penetrating voice with a true pitch, “Someone to watch over me….”
He kept singing, eyes focused on the far wall, a half smile on his face, and Tino’s heart stuttered in his chest. His hands went cold, his thighs went weak, and his stomach began to flutter unbearably.
Oh.
Poems, songs, paintings, books… all of them seemed to boil down to that unconscious half smile on a handsome face and a sweet, deep baritone singing Gershwin. Tino could almost cry for the beauty of it, but he would have had to breathe first, and that was quite simply beyond him.
The piano stopped playing and Channing let the last few notes fade into the air before turning to Tino with a proud smile. “I’d forgotten I could sing like that,” he said, sounding bemused.
Tino managed to swallow, caught and pinned by his eyes. “You should never…,” he rasped, his voice mostly whispered. He swallowed and tried again. “You should never forget you can sing like that,” he said, and then turned away and started rinsing out the glasses.
Channing’s warmth at his back wasn’t unexpected—but it wasn’t something Tino knew how to deal with either.
“That look?” Channing whispered, his voice hot in Tino’s ear. “That look in your eyes a minute ago?”
“Yeah?”
“I like that look. I’ll remember to sing if you feel free to look at me like that any time, any day.”
Tino let out a half moan and allowed himself to lean back until he could feel the weight of Channing’s muscled chest. In that moment he’d do anything, say anything, to feel those strong arms around his shoulders, to remember all the stupid hopes that people had about falling in love and dating and being touched—and to find out they were true.
“Uncle Channing! Uncle Channing! Did you hear me play?”
Channing stepped back, and Tino had to stop himself from falling down.
“Yeah, Sammy, I did. I really loved that last song, you did beautifully.”
“Tino, did you hear me?”
Tino turned from the sink—and remembered to turn off the water—and smiled at Sammy, all of his frustration forgotten in Sammy’s joyful smile. “Yeah, little man. You did real good—did you thank Mr. Charles?”
“He did,” said Anson, practically dancing in on tippy-toe. “And he invited me for dinner.” He bent forward a little so he could talk directly to Sammy. “Which was kind of you, young man, but I have a husband who would very much like to feed me tonight, so I’ll have to say no.”
Sammy blinked. “You have a husband?” he asked slowly. “Instead of a wife?”
“I do. Is that a problem?”
“No,” Sammy said, shrugging. “It makes sense. Cierra has two moms, so it’s got to balance somewhere. I’m sorry you can’t eat dinner with us.”
Tino wanted to hug the little nightmare, and when he looked at Anson and Channing, he saw they both had their hands covering their mouths and were regarding Sammy with bright and shiny eyes.
“Well, if you go wash your hands, maybe Mirella will let you set the table,” Tino said. “Make sure she knows your uncle Channing is here.”
“Oh, she knows,” Sammy said, nodding earnestly. “I heard her saying mean things in French with his name in them when I came downstairs.”
Sammy skipped off, and Anson looked apologetically at Channing. “I’m sorry to trouble you, young Channing, but your sister, uhm, usually paid me once a month, and—”
“And I’m two weeks late! I’m so sorry—here. I’ll go get my checkbook and be right back.”
Channing exited the room, and Tino opened his mouth to say how much fun he’d had and how grateful he was for Anson’s kindness and willingness to humor him when Anson spoke up instead.
“He’s really quite something, isn’t he?”
“Sammy?” Tino asked hesitantly. “I’m afraid I haven’t gotten to know him in the best of—”
