by Peter Styles
“I woulda used the bat,” the deputy grunted. “Bloody faces get cleaned up but this one deserves something he won’t forget. I’ll need both of you to come down to the station with me so I can get your official statements.”
Chris nodded and wrapped his arm around Jeremiah, who managed to stand but only with a huge effort that left him shaking. Though Chris supported him, the deputy noticed.
“You should also go to the hospital and see if you can’t get something to help you rest tonight. We’ll talk more about that later. For now, please come with me.”
Jeremiah turned his head as they walked away, looking to see the mugger also being tugged toward a cruiser. To his surprise, the mugger twisted around and looked back at him as well.
“Wait,” the mugger said. He spoke like a man with a mouthful of marbles, speaking through blood and broken teeth. “This ain’t all on me, okay? I got paid for this.”
Jeremiah stopped in his tracks and twisted out of Chris’s grip to look right at the mugger. “Who?” he whispered.
The man laughed in his face, straining against the cuffs on his hands as the cops dragged him backward. “Who the hell do you think? Markus did! Markus did this! He asked me to get rid of you so you wouldn’t go jabbering about his business to the whole world!”
Stunned, Jeremiah let himself be ushered into the cruiser alongside Chris. The deputy sat in front and they drove off, leaving the bloody crime scene behind. Jeremiah felt numb and uncertain. “Markus couldn’t be that heartless,” he whispered to Chris.
“Oh, you trusting little thing,” Chris said, and that was all the comment he made.
Jeremiah wasn’t done, however. He looked up into the eyes of the other, the one he trusted so much. “Why does Markus hate you so much?” he asked, finally giving voice to a question that should have been asked ages ago.
Chris sighed and hugged Jeremiah, enfolding him with warmth and care. “I wish I could give you some sort of storybook answer where everything makes sense, but this just doesn’t wrap up neatly. We aren’t ex-lovers or childhood friends who had a falling out. He’s not an outcast family member. He just doesn’t like having competition and he made it his life mission to ruin me. Just because he could. Sometimes real life is like that.”
I wish it wasn’t.
Chapter 21
The call came just as they were leaving the police station. Chris checked his phone and felt the blood drain away from his face.
“Shit,” he muttered.
Jeremiah clung to his side. “What’s wrong?”
Holding up one finger to quiet him, Chris answered the call while moving over away from the station doors. “This is Chris Finley speaking.”
“Mr. Finley, it’s your father.” The speaker was a nurse he knew well by now, one who often tended to his father during his frequent hospital stays. Despite the fact that he’d been expecting this call, his heart still sank. It couldn’t have come at a worse time. “He took a turn for the worse about an hour ago and hasn’t bounced back. We think this might be it. You should come.”
“I’ll be there.” He hung up, and stared down at his feet.
A soft touch on his arm reminded him of Jeremiah’s presence. He turned to look into the dark eyes of his lover. “What do I do?” he asked, shoulders low. For once he didn’t want to be the strong one.
Luckily, Jeremiah understood just like he always did. Leaning down, he clasped Chris’s hand between his and held it tight. “Let’s go to your father. Your car is still stranded so we can either catch a cab or ask one of the officers for a lift.”
Chris hesitated, torn by indecision. Before he could give his answer, he saw a very large black man striding in their direction. Jeremiah stiffened at his side, becoming a wooden puppet judging by the way he moved.
“Markus,” Chris snarled. He couldn’t stop himself.
Luckily, Markus didn’t stop himself either. He glared at them like a caged tiger but continued on past and into the police station.
Chris turned back to Jeremiah. “I think I’d rather take a cab.”
Jeremiah gripped his hand tightly, offering him what reassurance he could. “Then let’s go. What are we waiting for?”
Unlike certain others in positions of power, Chris had never really lost his taste for driving. There were times when it couldn’t be avoided, having a driver, but he did preferred to do it himself as much as possible; he supposed it was like his version of making tea, having something to focus on when he needed it. Now, when he needed that distraction the most, it had come to this where he could only sit and watch helplessly as someone did it all for him. The streets went by, features all the same. The signs meant nothing. The skyline was unchanging.
Chris fidgeted with his hands in his lap, fingers churning over and over like he was in the middle of lathering up a bar of soap. Jeremiah just leaned into his side, offering comfort with his presence. Although he wished he could be soothed, Chris couldn’t. He could only think about what he was losing.
Half an hour later, he raced inside the hospital and up to the front desk of the emergency room. “My name is Chris Finley,” he gasped out. “My father—”
“It’s okay, sweetie,” the old crone behind the window said. “I remember you. Your father is down in Critical Care. Let me page someone for you to come and get you.”
God, but she moved so slowly. Chris stood anxiously in front of the window, drumming his fingers on the thin lip of counter. The room on the other side of the glass was small and tight and cluttered, but the old crone with a nametag of Dorothy somehow took forever even standing up. He could hear her joints popping, her bones creaking even through the wall and the glass separating them. Laboriously, she got to her feet and then took a single shuffling step over to a table off to the side. Another step, and then another, each one a calculated motion planned out beforehand.
I’m going to go out of my mind.
The frustration rising up inside his chest felt very much like rage. He clamped both hands on the counter, knuckles white from the strain. Not even Jeremiah at his side could ease the tension as seconds turned into a full minute.
Agitated, Chris glanced over to the side to look out at the full waiting room. No one looked at him. They were all busy with their own aches and pains. Someone was clearly nursing a broken arm. Another held a thick, bloody cloth to his forehead. However, none of them were dying or even close to death as far as he could see. His father was more important than all of them. They had family and loved ones, and he was about to lose his after regaining it for only a short time. That wasn’t fair at all!
In the back of his mind, he knew he was being a hasty fool but he couldn’t stop. He had only felt like this once before and that was also today. He didn’t know how to deal with this twice, especially when he thought it was all over.
“Sir? Mr. Finley?”
Chris looked up. The nurse was back, looking at him with a sympathetic expression. “Yes?” he growled. Jeremiah tugged at his shoulder, clearly trying to warn him to be nice.
“Someone will be along shortly. In the meantime, if you’ll please take a seat?”
There were no empty seats, not that Chris wanted one anyway. He chose to pace up and down the length of the hall instead, struggling to get rid of some of the excess energy brewing inside him. Jeremiah stood against the wall, arms crossed and head lowered but eyes raised to watch.
Shortly, a man dressed in blue scrubs came striding down the hall. Chris stopped and stared hard at him, waiting.
The man flashed a friendly smile. “Hi. Are you Chris?”
He would have nothing to do with friendly greetings right now. “Take me to my father.”
The man’s face fell and became an impudent mask. “Of course. Right this way. But who is this?”
Jeremiah gripped Chris’s arm, clearly intent on coming with him no matter what. “I’m his boyfriend. And his support. I’m coming with him.”
After hesitating for a moment, the man nodded.
“Very well, but I’ll ask that you comply with any requests to leave the room.”
Neither of them liked that, but if it was the only way…
The man led them deeper into the hospital and up an elevator, and down another series of corridors. Chris kept his hand firmly around his boyfriend’s, not just to keep them from being separated but because he needed the support. He hated hospitals. All he could think of was his mother dying, of being rushed to a place like this where they tried and tried to revive her. Of seeing her body, already cold and congealing like a bad dinner dumped in the trash.
He shuddered.
They passed into a waiting area equipped with sinks and all the tools necessary for hand-washing. All three of them did so. The patients in Critical Care were obviously unstable. Any errant germ could mean the difference between life and death.
At least they were allowed through the doors. This part of the hospital resembled every other except for how quiet it was. No chatter from the nurses, no crying babies or music filtered in through speakers. Only silence, and an occasional murmur of television.
No, not exactly silent. Like a forest at night, full of nocturnal going-ons, a hospital could never truly be quiet. Computers beeped and chimed, machinery whirred, and soft footsteps echoed.
The man in blue scrubs took them to one room in particular, near the back. One of the quiet ones, with only a deep hissing sound coming from within. “The doctor will be along shortly. Please push the call button if you have need of assistance.”
Chris hesitated outside the room. “I’m not really sure what we’re going to find in here.”
“I can handle it,” Jeremiah whispered, and kissed him. It was a chaste sort of kiss, one that involved only the lips, but it was perhaps the most meaningful kiss they had ever shared. Their foreheads touched and they breathed together before pulling apart.
Chris knocked on the door and then stepped inside.
The sight was exactly what he expected it to be, and yet far more painful. He’d seen this same thing plenty of times during these visits but it hurt him deep inside to know that this would be the last.
The old man lay on his back in the hospital bed, arms down limp by his sides. He already looked as if he was embalmed in his casket at the funeral home, waiting for burial. His skin sagged loose, almost like melted wax. Heavy wrinkles marred his face, nearly hiding his mouth and eyes. What hair remained on his head was sparse and crinkly, devoid of nutrients.
Chris sighed softly, earning a tender squeeze on his hand from Jeremiah. He would have walked up with the other on his arm but this was something that needed to be done alone. Pulling his hand away, he approached the bed.
A breathing mask covered his father’s mouth, and there were tubes up his nose. Every part of him was connected to machinery by wires or needles or catheters. The smell was one Chris had come to know intimately, of harsh soap, urine, and a strange sweetness.
The sweetness was death; a slow rotting from the inside out as organs and extremities shut down to protect the heart and brain.
The old man didn’t open his eyes or even register that Chris was there at all. The only sign that he was alive was the rush of oxygen entering and leaving his lungs.
Chris grabbed a chair and moved it over to a clear spot beside the bed where there were no wires. He dropped down into it and looked at his father, feeling like a scared child.
“Hey, Dad.”
No response, and no reason to try again. Real life wasn’t like the movies. People didn’t always get to wake up to have their last words.
He was proven wrong by a sudden rattling. His father pulled in a deeper breath than he had been taking before, eyes slowly opening and turning in his direction. Chris’s heart gave a terrible wrench. Those eyes were so tired. They had given up.
“Chris? Son?”
“I’m here, Dad.”
“Where’s your mother?” his father croaked.
Chris clenched one fist tight around the metal safety bars that were on either side of the bed. “She couldn’t make it right away. Traffic is terrible. But she’s coming.”
“Good,” his father grunted. “A man’s wife should always be there for him. And the other way around. Don’t you forget that when you have your own wife.”
He’s hallucinating. Dying. Lost in memories.
“I won’t, Dad,” Chris said, for lack of anything else to say. There would be nothing to gain by announcing to the old man that his boyfriend was standing in this very room, especially if he was lost in memories of a time when he was very bigoted.
His father’s head turned, the ligaments in his neck crackling. “And who’s this? That person you went on one date with?” And now they were back to clarity, but for how long.
Chris turned his head slightly to gesture for Jeremiah to come forward, but the other man had already done so and was now standing at his side. “That’s right. We’ve been on a few more since then.”
The old man grunted again. “I hope so. Not customary to take a man to your father’s death bed unless you know the poor sod a little. What’s your name, son?”
“Jeremiah, sir.”
“Hmm,” Chris’s father said. And that was all. It was the closest to acceptance that he would ever come, because right then his eyes closed once more. “I’m tired.”
“Then sleep, Dad. Mom will be here when you wake up.”
And then there was only silence. Chris blinked away burning tears at the truth in his words. The old man would never wake up again, unless it was in his beloved Heaven. And his wife would be there. She was a saint. The two of them would be reunited at last.
All that was left to do was wait. After a minute or so, he heard a plastic chair scraping over the tile floor. Jeremiah dropped down next to him and they waited together.
They hadn’t waited for very long when there was a knock on the door behind them. “Chris?” the doctor called inside.
Jeremiah patted his hand, skin warm and soothing. “I’ll watch him,” he said.
Chris nodded his wordless thanks and then went out in the hallway to face down the doctor. He was an older Hispanic fellow, without any trace of an accent whatsoever.
“I’m relieved that you came when we called,” the doctor said. “He doesn’t have long left. His vitals are fading rapidly.”
Pressing his lips together, Chris said, “Isn’t there anything you can do?”
“We have given him painkillers to make his passing easier, but it’s time, Chris. We prolonged his life for several months but we can’t prolong it any further.” The doctor blinked, and Chris realized once more how impersonal everything was in life. This other man had seen so many people die that it didn’t even affect him anymore. “There’s almost nothing left to try to keep alive. His insides are turning to mush. He—”
Chris held up one hand, turning his head away as pain wracked through his chest. “I get the point.”
“You’ll want to say your goodbyes.”
As Chris came back into the room and took his chair again, he thought bitterly how he had never actually been the one to say goodbye before. Others left him, not the other way around. Then, a small hand slipped into his and he clutched at it. This was an end, and a beginning. This was one final parting before the rest of his life could begin. And so, he waited.
It came at 11 p.m. Each time the doctor came by to check, he seemed surprised at how persistent the old man was in surviving. Chris thought it was only proper. Stubborn old bastard, just like he was in life. However, he couldn’t escape his fate forever. The old man took a breath, let it out, and simply never took another.
Chris sighed and slumped forward, pushing the call button before burying his face in his hands. Arms wrapped around him from behind; he leaned into Jeremiah, taking strength and comfort from a love he had only just come to know while saying goodbye to another.
Chapter 21
Worth Property Management met its end without Markus to lord over it, crashing in on itsel
f rapidly and leaving every single employee without a job. Chris had done what he could for them, hiring a few where he could, but he didn’t want the rest of them; they weren’t people who would work well with his current team. At least, that was what he told Jeremiah.
As for Markus himself…That trial had been almost too brief. The big, intimidating football player turned into a spineless coward when placed alone in an interrogation room with a police officer, admitting to every part of his crime. Jeremiah didn’t testify, partly because he didn’t need to and partly because he didn’t want to face that terrible man who pumped him so full of lies. Things were moving forward. There was no time to look back, which meant he was just relieved when the whole proceedings were over with. The monetary payout to compensate him for all he’d gone through was enough, although he didn’t even need that.
“I guess after all this time, I’m still just a trophy wife.”
Chris looked up at him from where he sat on the other end of the couch, his paperwork spread out all over the cushions and the coffee table. “You think you’re just a pretty face, huh?”
Jeremiah shrugged his shoulders. “I’m still hanging on the arm of a wealthy man while he pays my way in the world.”
Shrugging playfully in return, Chris replied, “When you get your degree and use your literary powers to start critiquing books and make money, you can buy me dinner for a change. In the meantime…” Chris paused, looking up at the ceiling as he searched for words. “You’re special to me and I’m happy to do it, but it’s more than that. I’ve always wanted someone I can spoil and cherish. You are my rare little unicorn, after all.”
Jeremiah groaned, color rising up his cheeks as it always did when that damnable suit was brought to mind. “Thanks, I guess.”
“Don’t mention it. Does our relationship make me a sugar daddy?”
