Dreamspinner Press Year Eight Greatest Hits

by Brandon Witt

  It wasn’t long before we were set up on upturned buckets and a beach chair, each swearing by the spot we’d picked, and waiting for a bite. As I stared at my lure, willing it to go under, I was soothed by the soft chattering of my father and brother. They were talking about his job, and I tried to be happy for the two peas in a pod. So what if I was a carrot? Peas and carrots still went well together… sometimes in the same dish.

  My lure bobbed under briefly, and I was excited before I realized I’d been picked clean. “Damn,” I mumbled under my breath. “Sneaky little devils.”

  “Epic fail, Uncle Mac,” Case announced in a way that made me want to bean him with my fishing rod. He was lucky I loved him like he was my own son. Whoever created “epic fail” should be tied and stuffed in a sack with whoever created work, discrete calculus, and “Where is this relationship going?” then drowned in a river.

  Feeling quite snarky, I snapped, “What’s the point of fishing if you’re just going to have your nose buried in a DS all day?”

  He shrugged, flipping a wave of overlong caramel brown hair out of his eye, and I felt like an ass. Maybe he just wanted to spend time with his dad. Or his grandpa. Or hell, judging from the distance of his bucket chair from mine, maybe even his Uncle Mac. I tugged the DS from his hands and stuffed it in my back pocket.

  “Here.” I handed him my line. “I’m going to show you how to cast.”

  The quiet murmur of my dad and Robert faded into the background as I showed Case the basics, and we cast and cast again. The kid had a good arm—probably would make a great ball player someday. Terrible fisherman. But a great ball player.

  “Back over the shoulder,” I instructed, and he slung it over his shoulder like a Louisville Slugger. The bait sailed into the trees, and the hook caught on a branch. When he pulled, the tree shook, as if it too were holding back laughter.

  Three minnows and two hooks later, he was throwing a pretty good line. “You’re in the reeds, Case.” I mimed pulling the line back. “You need to cast again.”

  “Stuck again?” He frowned down at the dark water. “How can you tell?”

  “See mine? It’s bobbing and shifting a bit with the wind and current. Yours is—”

  “Still as a rock.” He scowled, yanking the line back into the trees. “Don’t worry, Uncle Mac,” he assured me as we tried to find his lure in the bushes. “By summer, I’ll have the hang of it. We can come out here anytime then.”

  “Maybe.”

  Weren’t children dragged off to summer school anymore? I had no intention of spending my summer on the fishing creek, but I was hesitant to ruin any of Case’s nonteenager, I-hate-being-alive moments. We picked our way through the bushes to find his caught line, branches and hidden mangrove scraping at my jean-clad legs.

  When we returned from our search and rescue operation, Robert had apparently tried on his new fishing goggles and was staring down into the water intently, brows furrowed.

  “See anything, Rob? Fish? Spare tires? Loose change?”

  He gave a noncommittal grunt to my ribbing, and I wondered what had put him in such a foul mood all of a sudden. I mean really, I groused to myself as I grabbed a beer out of the cooler, one moment he was talking to Dad, and the next…. Oh, man. A little too late, I saw my father’s eyes narrowed in my direction, and I knew he was making the rounds. Rare it was when my father decided to get nosy, but unpleasant nonetheless.

  “How about you, Mac? How’re things going down at the firm?”

  “Good.” I bobbed my head, clutching my beer like a lifeline. Calling my tiny PI gig a firm was a bit ritzy, but why not? “Real good.”

  “Meet anyone nice lately? Anything new on the dating scene?”

  Oh dear Lord. I couldn’t meet my brother’s eyes. Even if they were covered by those stupid goggles, that would set us both off. I would not laugh at my father when he was trying so hard to make conversation.

  “No, but you’ll be the first to know.”

  “I tried to set him up with this great guy I know, but he’s got a crush on some straight guy,” Robert tattled for reasons known only to him and the Lord above.

  I sent him the darkest glare I could muster, which, as far as I could tell, bounced right off his thick head. “Thank you, Robert.”

  “Welcome,” he sang.

  “Chasing after someone who is straight.” My dad nodded. “Sounds productive.”

  A snigger came from Robert’s general direction, and I suddenly knew where I was going to wing my beer can when it was empty.

  “It’s more fun than you can possibly imagine.” I sighed and dropped the sarcasm. “But even a hope that we could have been something more is gone.”

  “Oh?”

  I had to give him props. Even though his face was beet red discussing his gay son’s love life, he seemed to be determined to stay his course. I rewarded his effort with the truth, embarrassing as it was.

  “He told me that he’s uncomfortable with the idea of dating a man and can’t see or talk to me again.” He wasn’t that specific about seeing or talking to me, but I was an expert at reading between the lines.

  “Bastard.” Robert scowled.

  “He’s really not. He’s just… not gay. Which, to be fair, he told me in the beginning. He’s actually a pretty cool guy, which makes it that much worse.” I gave a half smile. “But don’t you worry, my love life is going just fine, thank you very much.”

  “Is it?” My dad’s next words made me regret sharing. “I heard from Nick.”

  I took a swig of my beer. “Did you now?”

  “Don’t give me that tone.” My dad’s cheeks had gone dull red. “He told me he can’t get in touch with you. Wanted to know if he had the right number.”

  “Well, he does.”

  “Glad to hear it.” I really should have known better than to hope the subject had passed as he continued. “He wants to see you. It’s not really all that easy for him to travel.”

  “I don’t want to talk about Nick.”

  “The accident was nearly six years ago,” Robert said. “Right before you hooked up with that loser, Trevor.”

  “The only thing I want to talk about less than Nick is Trevor.”

  “We’re just concerned,” my father interjected. “Nick wouldn’t want you to—”

  “What part of ‘I don’t want to talk about Nick’ don’t you understand?”

  “Now wait just a minute—”

  “God, you have no respect for—”

  “I have plenty of respect!” he groused. “But I know something about missing someone you love.”

  I was silent for a moment, letting the anger slide and settle somewhere in my stomach region, where it burned like acid. But he had pulled the trump card. The mom card. My mother had run off fourteen years ago, but the old man still had us every time. She had left him and us for our neighbor, a man half her age. Our father had raised us without malice, never taught us to hate her for what she’d done. But just the pain in my father’s voice when he spoke of her made me want to hit something. Or someone.

  “You been pining ever since, and that Trevor was a poor substitute,” he went on. “’Course that didn’t work out. That boy is all about himself. Don’t have one thought that isn’t about Trevor. Never did like that boy.”

  He’d loved Trevor. Everyone had. Or maybe they’d just wanted me to move on.

  “You can’t use the mom card for at least another year,” I said sourly.

  He shrugged. “I want to meet this Jordan fellow.”

  “Why? It’s not like we’re dating or anything. He’s not—”

  “Gay, I know, I know. I can still hear just fine, boy. Just let him get to know you, and he’ll like you just fine. Young people today are so determined to slap labels on everything.”

  I refused to explain why sitting Jordan and me down in a playpen like toddlers would not work. And us liking each other “just fine” was part of the problem. That day in my office, we’d nearly “liked�
�� one another into a sexual coma.

  “I got one!” Robert hollered suddenly.

  “Not for long with all that noise,” my father said as we both swiveled around.

  I noted two things fairly quickly—one, Robert looked like a complete idiot with those bug-eyed goggles on; and two, if we made it out alive, we were getting a refund on those glasses.

  “Let go of the pole!” I shouted.

  I grabbed Case’s collar and threw him toward the hill and then began scrabbling up behind him on my hands and knees, rocks scraping my legs even through the jeans. I hoped that was my father I heard behind me, scrabbling up the hill, and not the beast Robert had unleashed from the deep.

  “For God’s sakes, Robby, it’s an alligator!”

  Chapter 15

  MUD SQUELCHED in my shoes as I made my way up the drive, muttering dire threats against my brother. Between the yelling and cursing and one unidentified squeal that no one would cop to, we’d all managed to perch on a ledge—a rickety ledge, may I add. It had, however, given us the opportunity to observe the alligator raiding our minicamp with feckless abandon.

  “Stupid Robert. Stupid Robert and his stupid glasses.”

  I stopped short when I reached my door. Of course Jordan was sitting there—Murphy’s Law was a real thing, after all. He was sitting on the narrow strip of my stoop, forearms perched on his stonewashed-jean-clad knees, taking in my appearance in a decidedly wide-eyed manner. My heart gave a little gallop that I was more than happy to ignore.

  “What happened to you?” His nose wrinkled in a way I refused to identify as adorable. “You smell like a creek.”

  “I was attacked by an alligator.” I stomped past him, enjoying the way he leaped up to give my mud-speckled appearance a wide berth.

  “What?” A forgotten Starbucks cup dangled from his hand. “You were attacked by an alligator?”

  “Well, the cooler was.” I dropped my keys and baseball cap on the end table nearest the door, toeing off my filthy sneakers. “And he managed to drag my fishing pole and cooler back to the hell from whence he came.”

  I didn’t want to go any farther than I had to, dripping Everglades on my carpet. Socks followed quickly after. I paused before stripping off my shirt, hands curled at the hem of the filthy garment. My eyes shot to Jordan, but he was already making his unsolicited presence comfortable in my living room. Frustrated that I’d even given him a second thought, I yanked the shirt over my head.

  “I’m going to take a shower,” I said. Waiting. Awkward.

  “Oh yeah? Go ahead. I’ll be here.”

  Thank you for giving me permission to shower in my own home.

  He settled into the cushions of the couch, moving one of the throw pillows beside him. He looked comfortable there… here, in my living room. With me. You come find me when it’s more than a curiosity, Jordan. Well, he’d found me. So what did that mean? Despite the chain of questions running through my head, I knew I should go for casual and breezy. Crazy, desperate people wound up with cats and afghans.

  I settled on a terse, “Why are you here?”

  He managed to look adorably flustered with very little effort. “I wanted to see you.”

  “And what does that mean? I thought I made myself perfectly clear—”

  “God, Mackenzie, you think way too much. Just chill, okay? Go.” He shooed me. “Take your shower.”

  Now I was tired, dirty, and huffy. I thought too much? Maybe if he wasn’t so determined to keep me tied up in knots….

  “Make yourself at home,” I murmured, heading for the bathroom.

  The hot water did a half-assed job of lightening my mood as I scrubbed every nook and cranny. I stood under the spray, letting the knot between my shoulder blades take a good pounding. The water sluiced over my shoulders for an obscenely long time as I stalled/bathed. I lathered the soap between my hands absently, not knowing why I was so unsettled. You wanted him here. He’s here. And you’re hiding in the shower.

  I shut the water off with a wrench of the shower knob and tried to pretend I was a normal human being. I changed into a pair of threadbare jeans and a T-shirt that had seen better days before padding into the living room, rubbing a navy blue towel over my shock of hair. He was standing in a shaft of sunlight, examining the sparse DVD collection strewn about the entertainment center.

  For a moment, I stood like a dope, clutching my towel like a lifeline, staring at the strangely delicate shell of his ear. He had tucked tendrils of his hair behind the ear, a study of soft peach and pink. It felt strangely intimate, studying the back of his ears. I wanted to touch them. Trace them with my fingers.

  I marched over and stuck my hand past his nose to take the stack of DVDs from his unresisting grasp. “You’re still here.”

  “Yes,” he agreed.

  “Why?”

  For the first time, he looked a little unsure. His gaze slid from mine. “I-I don’t know.”

  It was expectedly awkward. Maybe because I was expecting our… whatever this was, to turn into a relationship. I was tired of thinking about, over, and under it. I was tired, period. Maybe he was right. I did think too damn much. Just let him get to know you, and he’ll like you just fine. Oh, goody. Now I had my dad’s voice entrenched in my mind.

  I set the DVDs on the coffee table and plunked down on the couch. I ignored him as he plopped down next to me, and clicked the TV and cable box on. “You like TV?”

  “What am I, an animal?”

  I took that to mean yes. “The Heat game is on.”

  “Whatever you want.”

  What I wanted was to finish what we’d started in my office. I tried not to think about the lube and condoms in my bedside drawer, hopeful sentinels that barely got used, waiting a scant few feet away.

  We watched the game in companionable silence, punctuated by my attempts to couch-coach the team and Jordan’s attempts to shush me. They didn’t need my help. By halftime, they were up sixty-three to forty-four, and LeBron was showboating with an easy layup that fluttered on the rim for three seconds before dropping into the net.

  “Do you have anything to drink around here?”

  “Bring your own beer, princess.”

  “What kind of host are you?”

  “The lazy kind.”

  Remembering my visits to his house and office and how hospitable he had been both times had me sighing. I levered myself off the couch and made my way to the refrigerator. I ignored Finn’s empty, waiting bowls by the door and leaned in, enjoying the cool blast of air on my face.

  “Let’s see. I can offer you mustard or… pickles, looks like. Yeah, pickles.” I scratched my head. “Maybe we can order some pizza.”

  “Or I can take you out somewhere for real food.” His voice near my ear made me jump.

  I hadn’t heard him follow me into the kitchen, but now that he was so close, I don’t know how I could have missed the heat radiating off his body. He looked a bit flushed, and I wondered if he had been checking out my ass. His eyes widened at my squinty-eyed stare, and I knew he had been.

  It would be so easy to turn, just the slightest bit, and press my body into his. He was just the right height—my face would just meet the curve of his neck. What I would do when I was there? Well, that practically wrote itself.

  “Mackenzie?”

  “Yeah?”

  “You want to eat out? Or stay here?”

  “Out,” I croaked. Anything was better than being so close to my bedroom. Maybe then I could get my mind out of the gutter and enjoy his company. I shut the fridge and turned to face him. “You have a place in mind?”

  “There’s a little Japanese place downtown I’ve wanted to try. What do you think?”

  I thought I was courting trouble. But I said only, “Perfect.”

  A guy’s gotta eat, after all.

  I COULDN’T shake the feeling that this was a date. The atmosphere of Peking Tokyo was jovial and fun, your typical Benihana experience. The lights were a little low
, but the music was some kind of peppy Gangnam Style deal. Yet our table had a warm feel, a small, intimate space for two. The small round tables were perfect for their tiny-ass plates of food. Delicious. But small. The chef had long since deserted our table after we made him do the onion volcano trick like four times.

  I gave the remnants of my stir-fry a poke. I usually didn’t eat bean sprouts, but as hungry as I was, I was willing to give it a go.

  “How was it?” Jordan asked.

  “Perfect.”

  He chuckled softly. “You only say that when something is wrong, you know.”

  A flush climbed my neck, and I couldn’t help it. I sent him a glare over the candlelit setting. “Okay, it’s small.”

  I only needed to eat light when I was planning on some heavy aerobic activity after. Preferably in the bedroom. And suddenly, I had to ask.

  “Jordan, why does this feel so much like a date?”

  It was hard to tell under the dim lighting, but I thought he might have blushed. “Does it?”

  I narrowed my gaze. “Are you trying me out again?” He reddened further, and I sighed. “Oh, for fuck’s sake—”

  “I’m not trying out anything, okay? Calm down. I just wanted to take you out for a nice dinner.”

  “Because….”

  “Because you’re funny. And smart. Hot,” he admitted, and I was pretty much close to full forgiveness. “I like being around you and talking to you… and I’m trying to figure out if I’m bi or if I just like you.”

  “Forgive me if I’ve misunderstood, but why do I feel like I win either way?”

  He smiled a smile of relief and put his hand over mine. His hand was warm. Big. Comforting and arousing at the same time. “So this is okay?”

  “This is very okay.”

  We sat, grinning at one other like fools until the waiter placed the check between us. I glared. Moment killer.

  I busied myself by shrugging into my jacket. Even though our forecast was usually one word—hot—sometimes the ocean breeze kicked us a little somethin’ at night, and we gleefully pulled out those jackets we’d been saving for the slightest hint of cool weather. Every native Floridian had a winter wardrobe that rivaled that of any snowbird, which my Northern friends usually found quite amusing. When the thermometer inched below seventy, it was jackets and UGG boots on. His voice cut through my wardrobe musings.