by A. C. Katt
Milo closed his eyes and tried to regain his center. His hubris caused the breakup of Shattered Glass. That same pride and unthinking anger let loose drove away his love. He felt the tears start again.
Milo had discounted Sam’s counsel about Bart’s shifty eyes. Liam said Bart gave him the creeps, and Milo had laughed.
It turned out Bart kept secrets of his own. Sam had good reason for calling him shifty. He acted as Rick’s dealer and supplier, so convenient, so Johnny-on-the-spot. Only after the awards fiasco, when Sam called him about Rick, Milo’s mind turned to Bart and the pieces began to fall together.
It was hard for him to bring his mind back to the present. The here and now no longer provided pleasant dreams. Every time he slept he felt like he faced execution, Liam telling him to go fuck himself.
Milo stretched out his arm for the cocoa Conchita left and took a sip. It had cooled to lukewarm. He got up with the cup, intending to take it back to the kitchen, when it hit him. Father Sanchez said someone always listened.
“Lord, I’ll be straight with you. I want him back and I’ll do anything short of hurting him again to bring him home. Please help me.” With that abrupt prayer, Milo went to bed.
Chapter 12
I sit and wait as I contemplate the arrival of my sun
My heart’s alight with joy tonight
For tomorrow, he shall come
He brought the light that warmed the night
Always the one, my love, my sun
—Milo Stamis, “A River of Glass”
* * * *
As he had for the past few hours, Milo paced from the door to a chair in the entrance area. He spent quite a bit of time in prayer, a habit Milo had only recently fallen into with Conchita and Esteban’s encouragement.
She told him, “You can talk to God, Mr. Milo. There is nothing hidden from Him, no secrets.”
Milo would never be a churchgoer, yet he felt some comfort from his one-sided conversations with the deity. They gave him the illusion of control and the occasional feeling someone cared.
In case I haven’t said anything, I know what You did for me, giving me this chance, Milo said to the heavens. I’ll try not to screw it up again.
Milo heard a car pull into the drive. He listened as the engine stopped and waited for the tell-tale rasp of a car door opening. It didn’t come.
Milo almost jumped out of the chair and ran to the door. He realized he could not be sitting there looking like a predator awaiting his prey. If he did, Liam would react like a jackrabbit, turn tail, and run. Therefore, he waited. He bit his cheek. He picked at his cuticles. He got up and paced a bit.
Ten minutes went by. It seemed like ten years. At eleven minutes, Milo was ready to go out and get him.
Then it came, the rasp of the door opening, then the door slammed shut. He heard footsteps. The trunk opened. Milo listened carefully. One bag hit the pavers before the trunk closed.
Liam remained one stubborn bastard. One bag meant he did not intend to stay for the full month they needed.
Milo, used to thinking on his feet, grabbed his cell and called Sam.
“He’s here.”
“So?”
“He doesn’t intend to give me the month,” grumbled Milo.
“He told you this already?” Sam asked.
“No, he’s not in the house yet.”
“You’re reading minds now, or what?”
“He only has one bag.”
“Milo, don’t make a judgment until you have the facts. Give him time before your damn temper takes hold.”
“He’s at the door. I’ve got to go.”
“Be kind. To both of you.”
* * * *
The front door was crafted of a gorgeous carved wood, hand polished to a high sheen. The master artisan who carved the door detailed the symbol of the sun that decorated so many of the homes Liam passed on the way to Milo’s. Even so, the symbols on this door were heavily inlaid and detailed. The exquisite design looked like a pictograph of the sun, and it showed all under it as fruitful and full of life. In the second panel, the sun hid and the land filled with sorrow. It took Liam aback for a moment. Milo always called him his sun, the bright light of his life. The door seemed new yet wore a patina of age, which made it remarkable.
Liam shook his head. I’m imagining things, slapping significance on the mundane because I want to believe in miracles. Miracles don’t exist. Not for me. I can’t let him see how much I need him. I won’t be a charity fuck or a one-off.
Liam clenched his hands into fists, just as he had since childhood whenever he became upset or angry. His mouth tightened. He rang the bell.
The door opened before the chimes ceased to ring, as if Milo sat in waiting on the other side.
“Hi, how have you been?” Milo grabbed the duffle and yanked it into the foyer.
The slight rasp of Milo’s baritone voice sounded the same as it used to. Liam closed his eyes, remembering Milo’s beautiful voice whispering love words in his ear as he took his body. He shook his head. He couldn’t afford to travel there, where all the wounds still lay, raw and bleeding, even after six years. To hide his unease, Liam turned his back to Milo and fixed his gaze on the steps below. It gave him the extra second he needed to regain his composure.
“Fine. Just fine. The garden is beautiful. Did you do it all yourself?” Liam launched the opening salvo of an undeclared war.
He didn’t want Milo to see his fear.
Liam heard Milo’s harsh intake of breath, the signal he waited for. It was safe to turn back and face his former lover. Liam watched Milo’s face for a reaction. Although well masked, he noticed a grimace and a slight shiver. Milo looked older and a bit careworn.
Push your advantage, he told himself, no mercy. “Does Bart serenade you in the courtyard? I didn’t see any drums in the garden,” Liam remarked. He stepped inside the house and stood next to his bag. Beyond a vague impression of space and sunlight, he looked at Milo’s face rather than notice the details.
Deep down, Liam feared what he would do this close to Milo. He couldn’t let himself beg. He begged six years before and nothing moved Milo. Yet this Milo seemed more approachable. Milo didn’t scream at him for being snarky. Yet Liam knew what he said came as near to a body blow as he could give at the moment.
Actually, Liam hoped Milo would kick him out before he got beyond the foyer. Under normal circumstances, he would never have behaved this crassly, but just the sight of Milo made his cock hard and his brain soften. Milo’s golden aura still called Liam’s name. What he wanted to do was throw himself into those strong arms that sheltered him so many times before and never let go.
Whoever said the best defense was a great offense got it right. It seemed to work. Milo appeared a little less confident. He stuttered, “I-I haven’t seen Bart since the press conference, when we announced that you left the band.”
What the hell? I saw that son of a bitch practically crawl up your ass on stage, Liam’s mind screamed, but he didn’t rise to the bait.
Milo hadn’t risen to his either. The old Milo with his fiery temper would have been all over him. Liam hated not knowing what would come next or where he stood. He wanted to keep Milo off balance, not the other way around.
Milo awkwardly waved him inside after a moment of Liam’s silence. “Come in. Leave your bag. My housekeeper, Conchita, will take care of it later. I know you wanted no other company, but she has her own apartment on the grounds. I thought about it and decided you wouldn’t want to starve.” Milo forced a chuckle. “After all, as you must remember, I never did any of the cooking for good reason.”
Good, Liam thought. He isn’t as mellow about this as he seems. He’s babbling. Liam left his bag and followed Milo into a huge living area. The walls, covered in an adobe plaster glaze, glowed with a marbleized sheen, reflecting the afternoon sun. A series of lazy ceiling fans barely stirred the warm air.
“Sit down and relax a few moments. Let me go and see what
Conchita made for supper.”
“I’m not sure I feel like eating.”
“I know she made something special. I’d consider it a favor if you went through the motions for her,” Milo gently asked.
You are doing this for Rick and Sam. You can at least try to get something down. “All right. Something light, I hope?”
“Knowing her, she has it all figured out.” Milo left for the kitchen.
Liam couldn’t sit, so he paced. He looked out to the garden. He’d spent many evenings listening to Milo discuss the merits of one seed catalog over another.
He stopped himself. He didn’t want to go there, back to the time of warmth, comfort, and security. It evaporated and Liam could not let this trip down memory lane wipe out the progress he made toward becoming his own man, and not the discarded accessory that once graced Milo’s entourage.
Milo returned. “Homemade mac and cheese okay?”
Liam smiled for the first time since entering Milo’s home. “Yeah, that’s always been a favorite.”
Milo nodded. “I know.”
Liam couldn’t decide whether the fact Milo remembered his food preferences augured a good or bad portent. It made him nervous. Where is the aggressive man I left raining curses on my head? He watched as Milo turned to a credenza. When he turned back, he held a bottle with two glasses on a tray.
“Please, sit down. Have a glass of wine with me.”
Liam fidgeted. Once, this was a familiar ritual. Until after he left the band, Liam never drank hard liquor. Milo, a real hard-ass about underage drinking, never let him touch anything but wine. When they were alone, Milo always opened a fine wine. He couldn’t cook, but he knew wine and spent a considerable amount of time educating Liam. Liam lost his palate in a haze of Irish whisky in his post-Milo period. He hadn’t touched any liquor since.
He didn’t feel much better now than he did when he disembarked from the plane, but he didn’t want to give away his mood. “Sure.”
I have to remember not to take this to heart. This is Milo at his most charming. I have to remember the other times.
Liam realized he’d been spacing out again. Milo handed him a glass of wine. When he looked up at Milo, all the air seemed to leave the room. He counted backward in his head. He refused to cry, but it seemed as if time fell away and all they were to each other came back to him in a rush.
Milo took his hand and wrapped it around the stem. “This is the 1985 E. Guigal Cote Rotie La Mouline. You may recognize the name. I saved it for a special occasion. Seeing you again is a very special occasion for me. I would like us to get to know each other. I’m through hiding who I am and what I feel. I want you to know, no more lies.”
“What are you trying to prove? You think a glass of wine and some words will make things better?”
Milo didn’t reply.
“I’ll drink to getting to know you,” Liam said, “because I don’t feel I ever really did. As far as being friends, I don’t know. It’s been a long time, and there has been a whole lot of hurt between us.”
“Couldn’t we start over, as adults? Wipe the slate clean?”
Liam got up from the couch and turned his back to Milo. His mind spiraled back to the hellish day six years before when his world fell out from beneath him. “If you want honesty between us, I’ll give it to you. I don’t know if I can manage any relationship with you at all. Even friendship is a stretch. I’ve cried too many tears. It took me five fucking years to recover the last time, I’m not sure I’m up to another bout of shadow boxing.”
“Shadow boxing?”
He stood his ground. “Yes, trying to fight your ghosts, trying to gain your trust, and always failing.”
“We’re different people now.”
“It’s impossible to forget all that came between us.”
“Baby—”
“You don’t trust me, Milo. You never have and you never will. I want a relationship where I can be an equal partner, not a snot-nosed kid who doesn’t know how to wipe his own ass. I am twenty-seven years old. It took a while, but I haven’t been a ‘baby,’ yours, or anyone else’s, for a lot of years now. I will not go backward.”
Liam’s cell phone rang. He took it out of his pocket. “Excuse me, I was expecting this call. I have to take it.”
* * * *
Milo stood there in shock. His baby didn’t talk back, shout, or contradict. Liam cajoled, teased, and tormented him out of wrong headedness. He never raised his voice or argued his point.
Since Liam didn’t bother to take the call in another room, Milo listened to Liam’s side of the conversation.
Okay, he was jealous, he wanted to know who the fuck called his Liam.
“Hi, Danny…No, I’m away on business…Tell Jimmy and Nora I’m sorry I couldn’t be there for the celebration dinner. Kiss them both for me…You have to let him try out for baseball…There is such a thing as overprotective…I know you almost lost him, but you have to let him live his life…Yeah, I know. The philosopher king.” He glanced at Milo. “I have to go. ‘Night.”
Milo stared, shocked into silence.
“That was Danny,” Liam said flatly. He looked at Milo. “His son, Jimmy, contracted leukemia six years ago. He called to let me know he just passed his five-year check-up with flying colors.” Liam glared at him. “That’s what happened that day, when you accused me of cheating on you. Danny just found out, and I drove him home because he became too upset to drive when Nora told him.” Liam stared at his phone. “Too bad you didn’t stop to ask me what happened.”
Milo couldn’t speak for a moment. He’d always been wrong. His hands shook. With a struggle, he managed to push air past his closed throat and make sound. It came out as a croak. “He’s married? His kid had cancer?”
Liam turned to him. “So now you know. Before you get sappy, know this—every foul name you called me, every curse you threw on my head, I became in the first year after we split. I slept with every man I could pick up. I let them do things to me that you held too much respect for my so-called innocence to try. As they pounded into my ass, I shouted, ‘Watch me, Milo, you bastard. Watch him pound me bloody, if this is what you think I am, than this is what I’ll be: a filthy fucking whore.’ I took more than one at a time, stuffed them in my mouth, my ass, with my cock in theirs. I became the slut of your worst imaginings, two, three, or four at a time. I didn’t give a flying fuck. If they were up to it, so was I.”
Liam shook with anger. Milo grabbed his arms to steady him. Liam broke his hold and knocked him away. Liam walked to the fireplace, and leaned on the mantle as if he needed the stone to hold him upright.
* * * *
Because of his stubborn pride and out of control temper, he had refused to listen. Well, he’d listened, but to the wrong man and let himself be played. How could he ever make it up to Liam? “Baby,” Milo pleaded, “please, come over here and sit next to the fire.” Ever so carefully, he took Liam’s hands in his and led him to the brown leather couch flanking the raised hearth. He didn’t sit next to him, afraid Liam would balk.
“Your hands are like ice.” Milo grabbed one of the brightly woven Indian blankets and tucked it around Liam’s shoulders.
Liam looked straight into Milo’s eyes. “Don’t comfort me, don’t be kind. I won’t be a charity case for you or anyone else. When I needed your charity and understanding, you turned your back on me. I need nothing from you or anyone else.” Liam rose and, taking the throw, he precisely folded it.
When Milo attempted to speak, Liam held up his hand. “No, listen. You must know who I am. I am no longer a boy, your baby. I know the dark as intimately as I once knew the sun. I tried to commit suicide. I finally gave up on death and decided to live my own life after I woke up one morning in the gutter. I called a cab to come for me and Sam for help. He insisted I see a psychologist.”
Milo sat down on the couch because his legs wouldn’t hold him up any longer.
Milo physically felt Liam pull his emotions ba
ck and stuff them away. He could almost hear the lid close on the box and the key turn in the lock.
He wanted to scream and plug his ears against what he heard. He wanted to beg forgiveness and at the same time, he wanted to deck the kid for letting anything he said to him hurt so deep.
How could Liam not comprehend that I was the pretender, the liar, the ultimate cheat? By refusing to make the leap of faith, I doomed both of us to this half-life of broken dreams and no expectations.
However, it seemed his ass froze itself to the seat cushion, and again, he couldn’t move. Liam continued, Milo forced himself to listen. If this be his penance, he would take it like the man he aspired to be, not the leech he’d been.
“So I did see the shrink. I still do. I have nights when I wake up screaming because I’m in bed alone with my fears. I haven’t had sex in five and a half years. I work alone. I write my music. I travel, come home, write more, and begin again. This is who I’ve become. If you can’t accept what I am, who I am now, as opposed to what I used to be, if you are going to feel the need, now or in the future, to throw all this shit up in my face, I cannot accept your offer of friendship. Even if refusing you completes my transformation into a tin man without a heart.” Liam began to pace. “I don’t feel anymore, Milo. I have difficulty. I’m hollow, except when I think of you.”
Milo felt the tidal wave of guilt break over him. How could he ask for forgiveness? “Liam, please, baby, sit down. Eat some of the supper Conchita made and let me get you something warm to drink. I’ll listen to anything you have to say. Just let me make you comfortable,” he pleaded.
Liam continued on, relentless. “I have no diseases, but not because of any prudence on my part. I so reveled in danger, I scared myself. Since I left the hospital the second time, I can’t bring myself to go out on a date, never mind sex. I get checked every six months anyway. I didn’t care whether I lived or died. I still don’t know how I feel about my existence. I survive in a semi-radioactive half-life. I once gave you my heart. It was all I had. You tossed it and me onto the street without remorse. I love you, I always have, but you never did love me. You loved the idea of me, the little boy, not the man. Where that leaves us, I have no idea. Now, if you don’t mind, I’m going to bed. It’s been a long day and it’s after eleven, Jersey time.”
