Hank blinked a few times and shifted his eyes between Marcus’s lips and his eyes. He leaned into Marcus’s face, his lips nearly meeting Marcus’s again and said, “That was nice, but I believe I was promised cake.”
Marcus pushed off the car with a grunt to shift his body away from Hank’s. He lifted the sack and waved it in front of Hank’s face. “Right here. But I was promised something, too.”
“The keys are right here.” Hank lifted his hand to show the key ring again.
“No.” Marcus shook his head and pouted. “I mean date number three.”
“Oh yeah. I vaguely remember there being some discussion about that. So when did you have in mind?”
“Well, there is the big dance the Do-Nothings are throwing tomorrow night in the town square.” Marcus traced the outline of Hank’s name patch and pressed his hips into Hank’s pelvis. He bent his head and looked up through his lashes at the other man. “Sure would be nice to have an escort for that. You know, make all the girls jealous walking in with you on my arm.”
“Hardly,” Hank said and laughed. “But I got to say ‘no can do’ on that one.”
Marcus jerked his hand away from Hank’s chest and took a few steps back. “Oh. Um… I’m sorry. I thought you wanted another date.”
“I do. But that society stuff isn’t really for me. Bunch of people standing around talking about nothing. Giving money—money I don’t have—to get their name on a plaque on a hospital wall. Nah. That’s the same stuff I got away from when I left my mother’s house.”
“Oh, good grief, Hank. It’s not a night at the Metropolitan Opera. It’s a bunch of biddies dancing poorly to old music and eating some food. Food prepared by the hottest new chef in town, by the way. And you don’t have to give any money or talk to anyone. God knows I don’t have any money to give. And you can hang out by the food with me all night. Well, at least, until you take me out for a spin on the dance floor.”
“I already told you at The Woodshed, I don’t dance. Also, I don’t really have any fancy clothes to wear.”
“I don’t have anything fancy either. We can be the hobos in the corner together.”
“Fiat,” Hank said and sighed, “just drop it. I said no.”
“Fine. But I still want that third date.”
“Tell you what. Why don’t you come over here tonight and I’ll cook for you for a change?”
“Ooh,” Marcus replied and raised an eyebrow. “What you going to make for me?”
Hank squinted and looked toward the ceiling. “Well, you can choose between spaghetti and spaghetti.”
Marcus chuckled and pretended to consider the options. “I guess I’ll take the spaghetti.”
“Excellent choice.”
“No, wait,” Marcus said and snapped his fingers. “I have to start prepping some of the food for the dance tomorrow night. Why don’t I just whip up something for us out of that stuff? You can come over and eat at my place, since you won’t get to try any of my food at the dance.”
“I really wanted to show you my place, though.” Hank pointed above his head toward the apartment above the garage.
“Okay. I’ll go home, do my prep work, make us something, and come back here. After all,” Marcus yanked the key ring out of Hank’s hand, “I have wheels now!”
Marcus sat in the old, red car and stared at the lights in the windows above the garage. In the five minutes he had been sitting parked on the street in front of the building, he had counted at least thirty times that Hank’s shadow had passed by the window shade. Marcus’s nervous heartbeat in his ears nearly drowned out the barely audible country music that twanged out of the stereo speakers. Two foil-covered plates sat on the passenger’s seat; the food hidden within was growing colder by the minute. Just open the car door and go upstairs.
When he had hopped into the car ten minutes earlier, he had been a bundle of excitement and energy, but the drive over had altered his mood. When he’d put the car into reverse and backed out of his grandmother’s, well, his, driveway, he had looked at his reflection in the rear-view mirror. The black eye that had marred his face was gone, much as thoughts of Robert had faded to an occasional moment of anger or panic. Life was exciting again. The ease with which he had fit in at the diner and the rapport he had built with the regulars had brought back so much pleasure to his daily life. His time spent chatting with the Do-Nothings as they loitered about the booth in the corner for their “meetings” had become the highlight of his day. He and Skeet had found an easy camaraderie, and a day without the banjo twang of the boy’s excited voice seemed incomplete. Now he had an incredibly sexy man waiting for him. He had winked at his reflection and said aloud, “Let’s go on that third date.”
As the words hung in the air, Marcus remembered what Hank had said the previous night. Won’t sleep with someone until the third date. Instantly he had begun to sweat and his heart began to race as he realized exactly what could happen at Hank’s apartment that night. While he had been ready to climb Hank like a fireman’s ladder last night, the seed Hank had planted about the importance of a night spent together had grown into a blossom of pressure in Marcus’s mind. He had to be not only good in bed, but good at staying in bed. Oh, for crying out loud. He had pushed the thought down and begun the drive into downtown Marathon. As he’d stopped at the exit of the subdivision, he had glanced over to see the sign the Do-Nothings had hung below the stop sign—Be Safe! Thank you, ladies.
A few miles away from the neighborhood, he’d entered a sharp curve that he was sure existed solely because some farmer had refused to give up a piece of his land and the developers had just curved around it. As he’d turned the steering wheel to follow the curve, he’d noticed the traffic sign to his right: Slow. Dangerous curves ahead.
Well, yeah, I guess. Another mile down the road he had been greeted with several stop signs and a Do not enter sign on top of a metal post that had been twisted and mangled by some reckless driver so it faced the wrong direction. Really?
By the time he had reached the streets of the downtown area, he had nearly convinced himself to turn around and go home. Soft Shoulder. Can I be that? No U-Turn. No turning back. As he had sat at the last traffic light before arriving at the garage, he’d read the black and white sign overhead that was swinging in the early summer breeze—Don’t Block the Box.
What the hell am I supposed to do with that advice?
Marcus dropped his head onto the steering wheel and closed his eyes, considering the implicit promise of Hank’s third-date rule and trying to mute the nervous thoughts that screamed in his ears. You are over-thinking this. He may not want to have sex. But what if he does? His thoughts were interrupted by the vibration of his phone on the seat beside him. He opened his eyes, picked up the phone, and looked at the screen.
Robert: Please answer your phone. Or call me. Very important we speak.
Marcus quickly tapped out the digits of Robert’s number on the screen and let his finger hover over the green “call” button. He counted to ten in his head and began to lower his finger when a tapping on the window made him stop. Hank was bent over and looking at him through the glass. He wore a snug white polo shirt that accentuated his full chest and biceps and khaki shorts that accentuated everything below. His eyebrows were angled down in the center in a look of concern, and the corner of his mouth twitched.
“Fiat? You all right?”
Marcus nodded his head and dropped the phone back onto the seat beside the plates. No U-turns now. He opened the door. “Sorry about that. I was just reading some emails.”
“Well, I saw you sitting down here for so long, I was worried you changed your mind about coming up tonight.”
“No.” Marcus grabbed the plates. He swung his feet out of the car and handed the plates to Hank. “Unless this garage doubles as a drive-in restaurant, I guess we better get these upstairs and eat.” He turned
his upper body back into the car, took the phone off the seat, and shoved it into his shirt pocket.
“You sure you’re okay?”
“Yes. Totally.” Marcus stepped out of the car and nodded toward the building. “Give me the grand tour?”
Hank bowed slightly and swung his arm toward the door of the garage. “Right this way. So what are we having tonight? Is it the chili you are serving at the dance?”
“No. After I got the car from you, I realized I had the freedom to come and go around town as I pleased. I ran back by the diner to pick up a few ingredients from Francine and then rushed into Dale Clifford’s butcher shop to pick up the beef, chicken, and sausage I need for the menu for the dance. In that long glass display case at the front of the shop, I noticed two beautiful cuts of veal and decided that maybe veal piccata was a good choice. It was a little expensive, but I figured we should celebrate me having a car again.”
Marcus followed Hank into the lobby of the garage and waited while Hank locked the door, drew large blinds over the windows, and turned off the lights. They continued on behind the counter and into the office that Marcus had noticed his first day in the garage. It was just as messy as it had been that day, with catalogs and invoices scattered all over the desk and a greasy mechanical thing that Marcus couldn’t name sitting on a newspaper with smaller pieces scattered around it. “I think you need an assistant to help with all of this paperwork.”
“Well, Skeet was supposed to do that between car washes, but he seems to spend most of his day on his phone texting with Frankie and posting on his blog. Hell, some days he doesn’t even bother to come in. Just pretend you didn’t see any of that.” Hank jerked his head toward the stairs in the corner. “This is where we’re headed. Nothing but business down here.”
“And up there?” Marcus regretted the question as soon as the words fell out of his mouth.
Hank looked at Marcus with a half-grin and shook his head as he chuckled. “Well, dinner at least.”
Marcus’s phone vibrated in his pocket as he made his way up the stairs behind Hank, who bounded ahead of him two steps at a time. He ignored the phone and regretted not turning it off or leaving it in the car. At the top of the stairs, Marcus stepped into Hank’s apartment and pulled the phone out of his pocket to turn it off. He glanced at the screen and saw another text from Robert. He shoved the phone back in his pocket without reading it.
“So, this is my humble home.”
Marcus looked up at the sound of Hank’s voice. The stairwell opened directly into Hank’s apartment, which was one large room spanning the length of the business below. Directly in front of Marcus was a green metal door with several hooks holding baseball caps. To his right, he could see a blue sofa, a hideous green plaid recliner, and a coffee table tucked into the corner of the room closest to the stairs. The windows to the street were open, and a warm breeze filtered in under the half-closed blinds. Despite the sparse interior, the room seemed cozy, warm, and inviting.
Hank gestured toward the sofa. “Come on in and make yourself comfortable while I finish a few things over here. You can put on some music from the shelf over there if you want.”
Marcus wandered past the sofa to an entertainment center and glanced at the books, DVDs, and CDs lined up neatly on the shelves. Out of the corner of his eye, he noticed Hank’s bed tucked under a pair of windows. He quickly averted his gaze from the bed to two large art nouveau lithographs that hung between the windows advertising performances at the Paris Opera House.
“La Bohème,” Marcus said.
“What?”
“The poster,” Marcus pointed across the room. “La Bohème. I don’t recognize the other one.”
“Orfeo ed Euridice. It’s about Orpheus. You know the story. His true love, Eurydice, goes to Hades, so he goes down to rescue her. He literally goes through hell for love. He leads her out of hell.”
“Lucky girl.”
“Not really. I can’t remember why, but Orpheus isn’t supposed to turn around to look at her until they are completely out of Hades. But he blows it and turns around. So, yeah. I’m not a big fan of the opera itself, but I love the poster. I mean, look at those colors.”
“It really is, um, colorful?”
“You know La Bohème?”
“A… um… friend took me to see it in Atlanta. I fell asleep.”
“Ugh. Really? I’m afraid I may have to ask you to leave.” Hank laughed as he stepped into the kitchenette along one wall. He sat the plates on the counter. “But at least you pronounced it right. There was this complete idiot at one of my parents’ parties that kept pronouncing it ‘La Boheem.’ It made my skin crawl.”
“Ew.”
“Right? He was the same idiot that told my mother he had spent over a hundred dollars on a bottle of Dom Perrier. Can you believe that? Dom Perrier! That was some damn expensive water.” Hank picked up one of the plates and lifted it in front of his chest. “So do I need to throw these in the microwave?”
“Yeah. For a minute or two. Take the foil off first. Are we going to eat here?” Marcus pointed at a card table in the middle of the room. “I can get drinks ready or whatever. Maybe pour us some Dom Perrier?”
“Oh, no. We aren’t eating here.” Hank removed the foil from one plate and placed it in the microwave on the counter. “Follow me.” He walked over to the door at the top of the stairs and pulled it open to reveal another staircase. “Watch your step. It’s a little rickety.” Hank disappeared up the metal stairs and through the opening at the top.
Marcus grasped the cast iron handrails, peered up the steps, and noticed Hank’s backside and hairy legs as he climbed and disappeared above. Marcus tested the first step with his foot and then tottered his way up the shaky stairs. When he poked his head through the opening in the roof, he gasped.
The stairs led to the roof. Around its perimeter sat large planters with pink and purple flowers spilling over the edges and small shrubs covered with white lights. A few containers held tomato and pepper plants. Long wooden window boxes filled with multi-colored pansies, bright red geraniums, and yellow marigolds lined the ledges on two sides of the building. Two long strings of dimly lit paper lanterns hung overhead between poles at the corners of the roof, meeting at a wooden arbor in the center of the space. Vines of confederate jasmine grew out of pots at the base of the arbor and wound their way in and out of the wooden structure. Marcus could smell the sweet fragrance of the tiny white flowers as the breeze carried it across the roof.
Hank held his hand out to Marcus. “Come on up, Fiat.”
“Oh, my god, Hank. This is beautiful.”
As he stepped onto the roof, Marcus could see a small wrought iron bistro table with two chairs centered under the arbor. A single votive candle burning inside a mason jar sat beside an old jelly jar full of daisies in the center of the table. Hank pulled Marcus toward the table, only dropping his hand to slide out a chair and gesture for Marcus to sit. Instead, Marcus stood looking at the arbor.
“I’ll go get the food and bring it back up. Why don’t you pour us both something to drink?”
Marcus looked at a carafe in a cooler beside the table. “Is that wine? How did you know what to open when you didn’t know what I’d be bringing to eat?”
“It’s sweet tea, Fiat. House wine of the South.” Hank walked over to the stairs and started back into the apartment. When only his head was visible, he stopped and called to Marcus. “You should take in the view while you’re up here.” Hank’s head disappeared into the room below.
Marcus walked to the front ledge of the building, placed his hands on the bricks, and tipped forward to take in the view. From this height, he could see several of the streets of Marathon spreading out around him. To his left, he could see two men working in the town square in preparation for the dance the next night. Though he couldn’t see their features, he knew by the similarities
of their builds and the trucker caps on their heads that they were the Dobbins twins. He watched while the men strung lights around the white gazebo in the center of the grassy square.
Looking back to his right, he could see the flashing red, yellow, and green neon of the old movie theater marquee scattering swaths of color across the pavement and reflecting off the silver siding of the Tammy. The Tammy’s pink and blue sign winked back at the theater, as if brazenly flirting right there on a public street. “How scandalous,” Marcus said aloud.
Marcus shifted his focus to the street below him, where his huge red car sat by the curb in front of the garage. From this angle, he could see what a terrible parking job he had done, leaving the rear end of the car jutting out into the street. His stomach flipped at the vertigo leaning over the edge of the building gave him. As he stood, the phone in his chest pocket vibrated again. He pulled the phone out, swiped his thumb across the screen and read the message there. Three missed calls and two texts from Robert. It’s like you know I’m on a date. Marcus stretched his arm out in front of himself and dangled the phone over the edge of the roof, daring himself to drop the nuisance and let it shatter on the pavement below. I’d be rid of the phone, but not the pain in the ass calling it.
“What you doing over there?”
Hank’s voice startled Marcus and he fumbled with the phone to keep from dropping it. He shoved the phone back into his pocket before turning around to face Hank with a sheepish grin. “Just taking some pictures. It really is beautiful up here.”
“It’s a pretty little town, ain’t it? And this is a pretty plate of food. Let’s dig in.”
“Well, that was mighty fancy,” Hank said as he shoved the empty plate toward the center of the table.
“An empty plate means you liked it, right?” Marcus scooped up Hank’s plate and stood to walk to the stairs.
“Hey.” Hank stopped Marcus with a gentle touch on the arm. “I’ll clean up. You’ve done all the work.”
“Okay.” Marcus sat down and stacked the plate on top of his own. He gathered the silverware and set it on the empty plates. “But you still didn’t answer me. Did you like it?”
Lunch with the Do-Nothings at the Tammy Dinette Page 15
