Bonfires

by Amy Lane

  “Definitely,” she said, winking. “Is Kirby coming?”

  “I’m not sure. Aaron said he was whining about homework.” Then, because he was the dad: “Why? You got a crush on Kirby?”

  This elicited no outrage. She’d heard the question about boys—and girls—most of her life. “Nope,” she replied cheerfully. “He’s nice and all—like his company. But, you know, I’ve known him for seven years. Kissing Kirby would be like drinking caffeine-free Diet Coke.”

  Larx laughed, because she’d used this one before. “Pointless and icky?”

  “Yup.” Christi stopped fiddling with her helmet and grew suddenly sober. “But, uh, Dad?”

  Larx swallowed. This sounded serious.

  “Yeah?”

  “I… if Kirby’s dad is, you know, your flavor of soda?”

  “Oh God.”

  “Yeah. Pour yourself a glass with some ice and enjoy, okay?”

  “I promised you—” And he had. He’d been totally honest with the girls from the beginning. Why their mother had wanted the divorce, why she’d suddenly turned on his children as well as on him. And he’d promised that nothing he did, nothing, would touch their lives, their stability, ever again.

  “Yeah, ’cause we were little!” Christi laughed. “But I’m going to school in two years, and you’re going to be alone here.” She bit her lip. “And I don’t want you to be alone.”

  Oh charming. Charity. “I have friends!” he retorted, stung.

  “Yoshi has his own boyfriend!” she replied. Then she got serious again. “Just think about it, okay, Daddy? You guys don’t have to get all gross and serious all at once, but… you know. Think about it.”

  Like he’d been thinking of anything else since that day on Olson Road. “Christi… look, whatever you’re… wanting me to think about, you’ve got to do me a favor, okay?”

  “Sure.”

  “Don’t tell—”

  “Olivia? ’Cause we totally texted about this all yesterday. She thinks you should go for it because Kirby’s dad is a total DILF.”

  Larx should be used to this feeling by now—twenty years of fatherhood should have prepared him for feeling like he was on the deck of a small ocean vessel that had just gotten undercut by a whale. “Uh, that’s not awesome, but I was going to say don’t tell Kirby.” God. Because kids talked, right? And if Kirby didn’t know, or suspect, or if Aaron wasn’t as up-front with his kids as Larx had been with Christi and Olivia…

  Bad. Just all the bad.

  “Oh!” Christi looked like she hadn’t thought of that. “You think he hasn’t figured out his dad is crushing on you?”

  “He’s crushing on me?” Larx couldn’t help but ask, pleased.

  “Dad—dude. You were like talking to Uncle Tony and watching the game, and he was staring at you like you were water. It was totally obvious.”

  He couldn’t help the shy smile that seemed to be taking over his face. “Really? Like I was water?”

  She smiled back. “After a trip through the desert. Yeah. But if Kirby doesn’t say something first, I won’t dish. Deal?”

  Larx nodded, hoping the embarrassment flush could be confused with sun exposure. “But… uh, look. Do me a favor and don’t talk about, you know, why we left Sacramento. Okay? I need to tell him first.”

  “You didn’t do anything wrong!” she said, dismayed.

  Larx felt his third or three millionth pang of anxiety about this subject. “Not everybody agrees. Aaron’s pretty law and order, hon. This might be the deal breaker.”

  Christi wrinkled her nose. “I don’t think so. See you at dinner!”

  “Wait, that’s it? You don’t think so and you’re leaving?”

  “Yup! Have fun while I’m gone!” She laughed wickedly as she swung her leg over her bike and took off, and Larx was left with his fallow garden and a field full of dead mice and fat, self-satisfied cats.

  HIS BEMUSEMENT faded and he got to work after that. He harvested the last of the vegetables from the live plants and uprooted the dead ones and added them to the pile. By the time his pocket buzzed again, he was hot, sweaty, and covered in dirt but almost done. Just one more plant—wait, let’s pull up the stakes and put them next to the porch for next year, and the tomato racks too. And oh no! Almost forgot the green-bean vines—the wood will rot under those if they’re allowed to stay past the rains.

  And so it was, he was still almost done when Aaron came walking around from the front of the house, one hand in the back pocket of his jeans, his T-shirt stretched across his broad chest. He was smiling indulgently, and Larx’s heart stopped for a moment, just seeing him, beautiful and confident in the long shadows the lowering sun cast through the pine trees.

  Shit.

  Was it that late?

  “Oh my God!” he yelped, tossing one last handful of dead green beans into the pile. “I’m so sorry! I got caught up! Oh shit! I was going to be cleaned up before you got here!” He picked up the giant basket full of squash, potatoes, and tomatoes and scrambled forward, dodging little mouse carcasses as he went.

  Aaron laughed and took the basket from him and then, quite naturally, kissed him on the cheek.

  Time stopped. Larx’s heartbeat froze. The world ceased to whirl, the shadows ceased to stretch, and for a moment, everything was still.

  Larx turned his head slowly in that moment and captured Aaron’s mouth for another kiss, this one on the lips, with a little bit of tongue.

  Larx pulled back and time started again, and he and Aaron regarded each other soberly.

  “Don’t worry about being late,” Aaron said, voice soft. “I’ll wash the veggies while you clean up.”

  Christiana was right. He was looking at Larx like water.

  Larx nodded wordlessly and opened the sliding screen door, gesturing Aaron into the house while he kicked off his mud-covered flip-flops and stomped the dirt from his bare feet.

  “Welcome to Chez Larkin,” he said as he followed Aaron. “You passed the garage on the way around the house—we keep old craft supplies, Christmas decorations, and gardening tools in there.”

  “But not your car,” Aaron observed.

  “No, no—that’s why we built the carport leading up to the garage. Because, you know, snow.”

  “Yes, yes I do know. The kids and I were sure we were going to die the first time it came down.”

  Larx nodded in perfect understanding. “It’s white, it’s from the sky, it’s got to be evil magic. And it happens every year.”

  It hadn’t snowed in Sacramento in over forty years—it was nice to meet someone who had trouble with that transition too.

  “So, in the house, from the backyard, we’ve got this useless anteroom that leads to the kitchen.”

  Aaron looked around, nodding. “You’d think it was a dining room, but you’ve got that—” He gestured to the completely fuel-inefficient double-sided fireplace that blocked the view to the living room.

  “Yeah. It’s not great. Anyway, we have friends over for Thanksgiving sometimes, and we bring in the picnic table from the porch and it fits here. Or the girls do their homework at the little desk in the corner—also handy.”

  Aaron raised an amused eyebrow. “I take it you have an office?”

  Larx grimaced. “Not so much. I did have an office, and then it became a playroom for the girls, and then it became a cat room and a gaming room, and, well, it’s sort of that right now.” He gestured to the now-clean kitchen table and the stack of paperwork and the laptop tucked on the floor by the built-in china hutch next to it. “Behold, my office.”

  “Handily located near the refrigerator.” Aaron groaned and patted his stomach. “This is why I converted the guest room pretty much after we moved in. I’d eat the house.”

  Larx grinned. “Who says I don’t?” he taunted, and Aaron grimaced in return.

  “That’s mean. Just mean. I so much as look at ice cream and I gain ten pounds.”

  “Yeah, but that’s the job,” Larx sai
d seriously. “I was put on paid leave a few years back and I packed on twenty in a month. Made me appreciate how much of my ass I really did run off.”

  Aaron arched his eyebrows, and Larx took the basket of veggies from him. Well, better now than after dinner, right? If Aaron suddenly decided he had to go home, Larx would know where they stood, and they could pretend two kisses and a few weeks’ worth of running had never happened.

  “Paid leave?” Aaron asked carefully.

  Larx sighed. “Do you want to wait until after I shower before we have this conversation?” he asked carefully.

  Aaron brushed some of the sweaty hair back from Larx’s forehead—a curiously tender, intimate gesture that twisted Larx’s heart. Oh… so much promise here.

  “Tell me now,” Aaron said. “Then you can go shower, and I’ll cut up the veggies.”

  “I’m supposed to cook for you.” Larx gave a weak grin, but his stomach was a mess of knots.

  “Does this have anything to do with your divorce?”

  Larx looked determinedly at the sink and set the veggies on the counter.

  “See,” he said, plugging the sink and starting the water, “I was a horny little bastard in college—fucked everything that moved. Girls, boys….” God. This didn’t sound awesome, considering Aaron had been risking his life for his country at the same age. “Lila had just died,” he said nakedly. “Mom passed away about a month later—”

  “You were alone,” Aaron said, turning off the faucet. “I get it.”

  Larx nodded and picked up the veggie brush and a potato. “So I started teaching and knocked up Alicia just about the same time. We got married, because… kid, right? And for a while, it’s good. We had Olivia, and Christiana, and then….” He sighed. “And then Alicia miscarried. And we were both sad for a while. But for her—well, hormones are shitty things when you’re a woman, you know?”

  “I remember,” Aaron said, his voice rumbly and comforting. He took the almost-white potato out of Larx’s hand and gave him another. Larx had scrubbed the skin off and all.

  “So no sex—for a long time. Almost a year. And I didn’t cheat, ’cause I’m not geared that way. That’s not….”

  “Not what good guys do,” Aaron supplied.

  Larx gave him a quick smile, grateful. “I try. But I had a lot of time to fantasize about sex, and I realize, 80 percent of my fantasies are guys. And it hits me—I don’t really want to have sex with Alicia, not really. But she’s my wife, and she’s sad, so I keep trying anything to make her happy again.”

  “Larx, that’s the cleanest potato in the world. Take another one.”

  Larx gave the clean one to Aaron, who rummaged around the cupboard under the counter by intuition, apparently, and came up with a drainer to put them in.

  “So finally there’s sex again, but I know. I know I’m more attracted to men than women, and I have to fake it with my wife—but we’re in it together. We’ve got the girls, and it’s our job to make sure they’re happy, right?”

  He looked at Aaron then, trying to search inside his soul, maybe, through his pretty blue eyes, wanting to make sure they shared this one core value.

  “Most important job in the world,” Aaron confirmed.

  Larx nodded nervously. “I always thought so.” He grabbed the rest of the potatoes in the basket and threw them all in and started with the scrub brush again. “Anyway, so about eight years ago, this kid comes into my room during lunch. And he’s a mess. He’s crying, he’s got cuts on his arms—his grades have gone down the toilet, and he’s just like a breath away from ending it all, you know?”

  Aaron nodded like he knew.

  “So he comes into my room and tells me he’s a freak who doesn’t deserve to live, because he’s gay. And you know what the climate in this country was back then, right?”

  “All the politicians who wanted to kill gays with fire? Yeah. I remember.” He sounded grim, like there was a story there.

  “Yeah.” Larx closed his eyes and gave up on the potatoes. He turned around and leaned against the sink, crossing his arms. “So I told this kid I was bi. That it was okay. That he deserved a happy ever after and that the bullshit of high school would go away, and I was living proof.”

  “That was ballsy,” Aaron said softly.

  Larx shook his head. “Dumbest fucking thing I ever did.” He grimaced. “The kid went home and told his parents he was gay, and when his dad threatened to kick him out of the house, he said it was okay, because Larx was gay, and that made him not a freak.”

  “Oh God,” Aaron said hollowly.

  “And I get called up and told to meet my union rep, and then I meet the head of human resources and my administrator, who was the same prick who liked to let the kids lead witch hunts on the teachers that crossed them. And they read this letter threatening to prosecute me for pedophilia.”

  “Oh my God—Larx!”

  Larx shook his head, waving off his sympathy. “I was put on paid leave. It’s what they do when they don’t know what to do to you. They had to prove I’d done horrible things to this kid, and they had to prove I’d made him gay—which is what the parents were claiming—and they couldn’t prove any of that, but God, they certainly couldn’t have me teach, right?”

  “So what did you do?” Aaron asked, and Larx still couldn’t look at him.

  “Well, I had myself some great union lawyers, who both assured me I wasn’t a pervert. One of them got me a settlement, the other one saved my credential—but it took a while. I got my administrative credential in the year and a half it took them to resolve the matter.” Larx shrugged. “I wasn’t living at home by then anyway.”

  Aaron put a hand on his shoulder, but Larx couldn’t let himself be comforted. Not now.

  “’Cause I came home and told Alicia what I’d done, and she kicked me out. Which would have been… I don’t know. Not fine, really, because….”

  “Because you’d stuck with her when shit got bad,” Aaron said.

  Larx managed to meet his eyes. “I thought so.” He stared at his tile floor again, aware there were some holes where the tile had cracked. “But apparently I was foul and evil and gross, just like she said… whatshername? I forget? That one bitch who was running for president?”

  “Bachman Palin Overdrive?” Aaron quipped, and Larx appreciated the joke.

  “Yeah, that’s the one. Like she said. Anyway, so Alicia was home with the kids, at least, and I got to see them on weekends. But then I started to notice—the kids aren’t looking too good when I get them. Olivia had this really long hair, and it’s got rats in it—every time.” He’d had to take her to have it cut, and they’d both cried, because it had been long and dark and lovely. “They’re growing out of their clothes, and every time I come get them, they’re starving. And I start asking questions and it turns out that Alicia—she’s not caring for our kids. She told them straight-up that they’re a faggot’s kids and they don’t deserve to be cared for—”

  “Oh my God!” Aaron’s horror felt like a balm to his soul.

  Larx swallowed. “I don’t think… I think she never got over that one we lost,” he said, that soul-searching pain awakening again. “And when the world came crashing down on our heads, she was like, ‘Oh! A sign! It’s all Larx’s fault and I should repent!’”

  “That’s horrible,” Aaron snarled. “That’s—it wasn’t your fault. None of it.”

  Larx smiled at him, lower lip wobbling. “Well, yeah. But my kids, Aaron. She was taking it out on my kids. So I got my union lawyers to rec me a shark, and I used my settlement to go after Alicia in family court. I mean, it shouldn’t have worked, right? But apparently enough of my old colleagues liked me. They got subpoenaed to come testify. It was really fucking human of them, because I wasn’t allowed to make contact. So they don’t see me for a year and a half, and suddenly they have to show up in court. And they all, to a one, said I was one of the best teachers and fathers they knew. And the prick administrator had moved by then,
and… lawyers. Alicia’s lawyers didn’t even think to ask all the people who’d tried to kill me with fire by then anyway.”

  “So you got your kids,” Aaron said, nodding like he understood.

  Larx nodded back. “I did. And I got the job up here, and me and my girls, we got—”

  “A family.”

  Larx met his eyes then, his throat thick with confession, his chest sore and aching with what it might mean. “Yeah. A family.”

  Aaron leaned against the counter with Larx and wrapped a beefy, secure arm around his shoulder. “That was hard for you,” he said. “Telling me.”

  Larx nodded and leaned into him. “You’ve got a kid at home, Aaron. My girls, they know everything. I told them why their mother was mad, I told them who I was and what I’d done. We don’t have any secrets. I knew Olivia was fooling around with her boyfriend before you caught her—I took her in for the pill. But I don’t know about you and Kirby. I don’t know what Kirby knows. You… you and me do this, and we can keep it quiet for as long as you want. But you have to know, sometimes that’s not even as long as you think it’s going to be.”

  Aaron kissed his temple. “So you thought you’d get this out in the open now?”

  “I just thought it was fair.”

  Aaron’s arms tightened, and a puff of air feathered through Larx’s hair. “Go get washed up, Principal Larkin. I’m going to decide what to do with all of these lovely veggies, and we’re going to have dinner. And maybe, if your kid promises not to look out the window, I’ll kiss you good night before I leave. And tomorrow we’ll go running some more. Because I like your company a whole damned lot. How’s that?”

  Larx turned, thinking he’d pull back so they could talk some more, but Aaron kissed him, softly at first, then harder, tongue charging, hands on Larx’s hips, body turning to press Larx back against the counter. Larx groaned, seven years of repressed sex drive breaking loose as he reached behind Aaron and grabbed himself a double handful of surprisingly taut backside, sinking into the kiss like a man dying of thirst sank into a pure mountain lake.

  Like drowning would save his life.