Lovingly Yours

by Jerry Cole

  I felt like I’d been punched in the gut.

  “Are you comparing me to that son of a bitch who molested you?”

  “No, I—”

  “Because there is no comparison, Ian! None!”

  Friendly, hearing our conversation, walked up the stairs and went over to Ian, resting her head on his chest to comfort him. He stroked her fur and took several deep breaths while I watched. For the first time since we started dating, I resented him and his past. I hated the fact that the things that were done to him had left him so scarred. And I hated the idea that those scars made it so easy for Harold to shake his faith in me.

  “I don’t need anything from you except your trust, Ian. If we don’t have that, then what the hell are we doing together?”

  “Josh, I trust you.”

  “Do you?”

  “I know you would never lie to me.”

  “Right, I wouldn’t lie but I might have accidentally raped a fifteen-year-old boy in my past and romanticized it in my head.”

  “I’m not accusing you—”

  “Right! What you’re doing is much worse. You’re doubting me. I can fight off an accusation. How do I get you to believe in me? I can’t get rid of your doubts, Ian. I never could.”

  “Josh.”

  He looked up at me, seemingly lost in a sea of his own doubts and misery. There was nothing that I could do to rescue him. It made me sick to my stomach, and angrier than I’d been in a long time. Whether he knew it or not he was the center of my world, and it was crumbling, and I was powerless to stop it. I couldn’t be there anymore. I couldn’t look at him sitting there, questioning everything he knew to be true about me, about us. I left him there with Friendly and found my sweats in the dark. By the time I came down the stairs, Shaolin was already up and waiting by the door. I escaped the house and took off at a run, down the street with Shaolin close on my heels.

  The sun was just turning the grey sky blue, with a crown of gold sitting on the horizon all around. It should’ve been beautiful but it felt like it was mocking me. I knew better than to come back here. I knew better than to stay. Eventually, everything good got corrupted here. After a few short weeks my father had managed to shake the one thing that I knew was rock solid in my life.

  I felt like I’d been gutted. I’ve had my fair share of heartbreaks and tough moments in life. None of them hurt like this. I felt like I was bleeding out and there was no way to stop it. The worst part about it was the fact that it had been my father who had caused it. There was no way to recover here. I had to send him back.

  My legs gave out and I found myself facing the same manmade lake, under the same tree with my lungs on fire and my heart pounding so hard that it hurt. I couldn’t stand any longer and I let myself hit the ground. Tears stung my eyes and I was powerless to stop them from falling. A painful scream tore through me. Shaolin whimpered beside me and licked my face, confused by my sudden outburst.

  It was like Deja vu. I was losing the person I love to the same lie that had ruined my life so many years ago. How could the same lie kill two loves in one lifetime? Why was I always too weak to stop it? By the time I pulled myself together enough to turn toward home the sun was high in the sky. I felt empty but I was sure that it was time to get back to our lives. I had gone as far as I could go with Harold, and it was costing me the one thing I refused to lose.

  Any hope that I’d had for a reconciliation with him was dead. I didn’t want it and didn’t need it. The only thing I wanted was to see Ian looking at me with the same trust that he’d had the first time he allowed me into his apartment. With each step I took I became more convinced that there was no other way. By the time I returned a deadly calm had settled into my bones.

  “Is that you, boy?” Harold called from the living room. I ignored him and sprinted up the stairs, expecting to find Ian sitting in front of his computer as always. Instead I found a covered plate with eggs, toast, and orange slices and a note saying he’d be back soon. I tried calling him but he didn’t answer. I came back down the stairs and walked into the living room where my father was sitting up, watching the news.

  “Where’s Ian?”

  “Why? You lost your girlfriend already?” He chuckled at his joke.

  “Did you see him leave?”

  “Yeah.”

  “How did he look?”

  Harold turned and looked at me as if I’d just asked the most ridiculous question he could think of.

  “What do you mean?”

  “How did he look?”

  “I don’t know. He looked like he always looks. A little soft and light in the pants, but okay otherwise.”

  Something inside me broke and I charged at him, pinning him to the chair by his shoulders.

  “He has been nothing but good to you. He’s cleaned up behind you and went with you back and forth to the hospital! Do you know how hard that is for him? Do you even fucking care? Do you care about anything other than yourself?”

  “You’re one to talk,” he growled, refusing to back down even though I had the clear advantage. “Why was your precious Ian bringing me meals and taking me back and forth to those damned doctors? Where were you? You’re my son, and you let your fucking lover look after your old man! What were you trying to do? Rub my nose in it?”

  “You didn’t want my help! You made it quite clear what you thought of me...YEARS AGO!!”

  “And it seems like nothing has changed. You’re still the same hot headed, obsessed little boy that you were then. What are you going to do? Beat me? You couldn’t beat me then, so now that I’m a sick old man you’re going to get your revenge. Well, bring it on Princess! I don’t have shit to live for anyway and my days are already numbered!”

  It took all of my self-restraint not to give in to his provocation. I wanted to deck him for not paying attention to Ian when he left, and for saying things that I knew were true. But Ian would’ve reminded me that I am better than that if he were here. I didn’t want to disappoint him when he came back. I took a deep breath and eased away from Harold. Yelling at him wouldn’t solve anything, and my priority had to be getting Ian out of this place.

  “You realize this is the most you’ve said to me since I came back?”

  “What’s your point?”

  “I thought maybe we would have something to say to each other. Maybe we could get some closure, but that doesn’t seem to be possible. I’ll call Janet and let her know I’m leaving. I can help pay for a nurse to come and help you out during the day.”

  “A nurse?” He looked aghast.

  “You’ll be more comfortable that way, and she’ll be trained to handle things if you take a turn for the worse again. That’s the best solution for everybody.”

  “So,” he paused to glare up at me. “You’re just going to run away again.”

  “I didn’t run away. I wasn’t wanted. Or did you forget all the things you said to me? I didn’t have a home anymore, and if I did it certainly wasn’t here.”

  “I am still your father!”

  “You said you didn’t have a son like me. You were adamant about that.”

  “Was I supposed to be PROUD when I caught you red handed, doing THAT to that boy?”

  “I WASN’T HURTING HIM!!!” I paced the living room, trying to maintain control of my temper.

  “I know what I saw, Josh.”

  “You don’t know squat, old man.”

  “You need help, Josh. There are people out there who can help you. I know you think you love this boy—”

  “Ian.”

  “I know you think you love him. I know he cares for you. You’d have to be blind not to see it. But I’ve seen the dark side of that. What happens if he tried to break it off with you. Would you treat him the way you treated Patrick?”

  “You’re sick, you know that? Is this how you got into his head and convinced him not to trust me?”

  “Did I? Or did I just open his eyes?”

  I couldn’t stand being in the same roo
m with him any longer. I stomped up the stairs, feeling like a defeated child, and pulled out the large steamer trunk that Ian had used to pack his equipment. I tried to call Ian again but his phone went straight to voicemail and I gave up. Chasing him when he didn’t want to be found was the wrong way to handle this. Instead I focused on carefully disassembling his equipment and packing it safely away.

  When it was done, I sent Janet a text message and got into the shower. No matter what, come hell or high water, we were going to leave that place tonight.

  Chapter Fifteen

  Ian

  “You’ve come this far, no point in turning back now!” Joanne pushed her glasses up the bridge of her nose for the millionth time since she answered my call.

  “I still don't know if I am doing the right thing. I just need to know.”

  “Remember when I told you, you have to decide if you really love him or if you just love being loved by him?”

  I nodded.

  “This is part of that. When you love somebody, you have to take some risks, sweetness. You gotta do the crazy shit that makes love worth finding. Call that man’s ex. Hell, beat his ass if you have to, but get the answers you need so you can hold on to your love!”

  I couldn’t help but to chuckle at her spirit. Despite her age and the fact that she hadn’t left the house since her husband died, she was as feisty as women twenty or thirty years her junior, and just as much of a hopeless romantic.

  “Here’s the real question. Do you trust him?”

  “It's not that I don’t trust him,” I admitted. “I don’t trust myself.”

  “Did you tell him that?”

  “I was kind of busy trying to hold the contents of my stomach down.”

  “Oh, honey,” she clicked her tongue. “We are at DefCon One here. You have to tell him before he starts making bad moves trying to win you back. Trust me, I know. My husband once bought a horrible little cabin because he thought that’s what I wanted.”

  “Didn’t you?”

  “No, all I wanted was someplace quiet where we could snuggle up in front of a fire for the weekend. This fool blew through five years’ worth of savings trying to fix a marriage that could’ve been saved with a weekend at a four-star hotel.”

  I couldn’t imagine what kind of drastic measures Josh might use to save our relationship if he thought I was leaving him. He was a pretty intense person to begin with. He didn’t do anything halfway. Whatever decisions he made he did so with complete confidence and without hesitation. That was one of the things I loved about him, and also what scared me most. How was I supposed to deal with that kind of confidence when I was constantly second guessing myself and others?

  Until now the one thing I never doubted was Josh, but that was changing, and it scared me.

  “That’s why I didn’t want to wait. I don’t want to have another night like last night.”

  “I can’t believe that this Patrick person agreed to meet with you,” she said.

  “Me neither, but I think he’s been waiting a long time to get some things off his chest.”

  “So, what’s the plan?”

  “The plan is to convince him to go back to the scene of the crime and clear up what really happened that day. Whether it was love or obsession, he’s the only one who really knows.”

  “And what if it was obsession?”

  I had been asking myself that all morning. What if Harold’s suspicions turned out to be true? Could I continue in a relationship with a man who was capable of that? Did it matter that it was more than a decade ago and he was only seventeen at the time? Could I forgive him for his past? Could I forgive myself for allowing myself to fall so deep for a man so flawed?

  “I honestly don’t know.”

  The roar of an oversized engine made the tiny diner rumble as Patrick Dunlevy pulled into the parking lot. He slid down out of the massive truck and walked across the parking lot with the same easy gait he had whenever I met him. He walked into the diner, scanned the room briefly and then slid into my booth, dropping his keys on the table and giving me a practiced smile.

  “So, we finally meet,” he said.

  “I, um, thank you for meeting me. I know you probably have things to do.”

  He frowned slightly and waved away my thanks as if it were nothing.

  “Any friend of Josh’s is a friend of mine.”

  “But, I’m not his friend. I’m his boyfriend. And I think the two of you have a lot you need to say to each other.”

  The lines of his face shifted slightly, letting the mask of joviality fall slightly.

  “I take it you’ve been talking about me at home.”

  “And I know that he’d rather shove hot iron under his fingernails than sit down with you. But that doesn’t mean that you two don’t need to talk.”

  Patrick frowned again and then Friendly licked my hand, drawing my attention to my tapping foot.

  “Josh always had a soft spot for broken things,” he mumbled and rolled his eyes. He picked up the glass of water in front of me and took a sip.

  “I am offering you the chance to clear the air between you two...today...right now.”

  He narrowed his eyes and gave me a serpentine smile.

  “Okay, I’ll bite. What’s the catch?”

  “There is no catch. You, Harold, and Josh have this thing that’s been festering between you. It’s like quicksand. Nothing seems to be able to escape it. But I love Josh. I want to stay by his side for a long time. I can’t do that until you three get some clarity and closure about what happened that day and how it changed you. Isn’t that what you want? Isn’t that why you wanted to meet up?”

  He cocked his head to the side and stared at me with his mouth open. For a moment I wondered if he was having a stroke. Then suddenly he started to giggle, a high-pitched feminine sound that was totally out of sync with his image.

  “Since you’re being so honest, should I tell you the truth as well?”

  “Please do.”

  He leaned across the table and looked me deep in the eyes.

  “What if I told you that Josh was the one that got away?” He lifted his eyebrows and smiled. He seemed a little rattled when I returned the smile, but he alleviated an entire night of suffering with just a few words. How could I not smile?

  “I can see that.”

  “You can?”

  I nodded.

  “He’s an amazing person. But I think he needs to hear you say that to him. Even though he doesn’t think he needs it, I think whatever happened between you two scarred him and he needs to ask his questions and get his answers so that he can finally move on.”

  “I just told you he’s the one who got away. Why would I want him to move on?”

  “Because you want to move on too, I think.”

  He frowned again, this time he let it settle on his face, drawing deep lines in his porcelain skin.

  “I could be wrong. I listen to a lot of psychobabble. But if you didn’t have something to say, you wouldn’t have made it a big deal to ask him to meet up. So, come with me, okay?”

  I stood up, hoping that he would follow my lead. He hesitated before grabbing his keys and casting a disparaging look at Friendly.

  “You can’t force me to ride in the car with that beast,” he sneered.

  “I wouldn’t dream of it. You know where the house is. I’ll meet you there. I’ll catch a cab.”

  He exhaled loudly and rolled his eyes.

  “Come on, I’m sure I have a blanket or something in the back seat that he can sit on. That thing better be house broken.”

  “She is,” I assured him. We climbed into his vehicle and rode back to the house without bothering with chit-chat. He turned on his sound system, which made some funky European fusion music thump through the speakers. Friendly didn’t seem to like it but I was just glad to be spared the effort to engage in small talk.

  I had my answers, but I was still worried about how Harold and Josh would react once they got the
irs.

  Patrick pulled up into the tiny driveway and hopped out of the car without bothering to look back. Friendly and I slid out of the backseat.

  “My God, it feels weird being here again,” Patrick said.

  “Not much has changed.”

  “Not the things I had hoped would change,” he said sadly.

  Before I could say another word, the front door swung open and out ran a very wound-up pit bull and an equally upset Josh.

  “What the hell is he doing here?” Josh seethed with anger and I found myself taking several steps backward, shocked by the raw violence in his eyes.

  “Hello to you too, lover. Believe it or not, I am here under Ian’s invitation,” Patrick said, walking up to Josh with the same casual stroll that he used all the time. This time I was afraid it might get him hurt. Josh had great reflexes and about twenty pounds on him. Unlike Patrick, Josh’s muscles weren’t for show. He got them the old-fashioned way, by spending his days in the sun, lifting, hauling, and hitting things.

  Josh turned his head and looked at me with desperation etched into the lines of his face. I wanted so much to smooth them out with my fingers and tell him everything would be okay. We would get through this and go back home and live our lives as if nothing ever happened. But, I couldn’t. I had no idea how, or if we could ever go back to the way things were. I staked my whole relationship on whatever the outcome of this conversation would be, and I still wasn’t sure that it would be enough.

  “Ian, baby, let’s go inside and talk.”

  “Great idea,” Patrick attempted to walk by him and enter the house but Josh blocked him.

  “Not you, Dunlevy.”

  “Josh, let him in. We all need to talk.”

  I walked over to Josh and put my hand on his chest. His heart was thundering against his ribs.

  “Ian,” he reached for me, touching my cheek with the tips of his fingers. I took a step back. I had to stay strong and stand my ground. If I let him coerce me, I would never get this chance again.

  “Josh—”

  I stepped out of his grasp and watched as he closed his hand into a fist and let it drop to his side. I felt like a jerk