To Have and to Hold

by Riley Knight

  “I haven’t talked to her for ten years,” he said quietly. There was more that he could say, but he wasn’t going to. Not to this stranger with his judgmental voice. He wasn’t going to tell him that he had thought he just might be able to make something of his life if he were away from her. That he hadn’t been able to watch her destroy herself anymore.

  “Well, Lily is turning seven next month,” the man said. “So that would fit.”

  A little sister. Almost seven. And he’d given his mother his number, had made sure she had an updated one, just in case anything happened. Damn it, a little sister more than qualified!

  “I see.” Justin didn’t know what else to say. His mom in the hospital, and he apparently had a sibling that he’d never known about. A sibling who was more than twenty years younger than him. What did she look like? Had she gotten it just as bad as Justin had growing up?

  “I just thought you should know,” the man said, his voice a bit prissy. Like he had maybe expected more of a reaction.

  Well, for his mother, he was just glad if she had a chance of getting some help. He doubted it would do any good, but he hoped he was wrong. She had, after all, kept him alive for nineteen years until he’d taken off.

  “Would you do me a favor?” Justin asked suddenly. “Just keep me posted. Especially with what happens to Lily.”

  It felt odd to say the name of a little girl he’d never even met. It was so strange that the same blood that ran through his veins would be running through hers, too.

  “Of course, Justin,” the man said, and his voice softened just a little. It seemed that he was human, after all. He at least understood about emotions to that extent. That was more than a lot of the social workers he’d been involved with as a child could say.

  Justin ended the call and then leaned forward over the steering wheel, cradling his head. A little sister and his mom may be headed to jail. At the very least to rehab.

  All of a sudden, his life was so much more complicated than it had been just a few moments ago.

  * * *

  When Justin got home, he was a bit antsy. He felt like he couldn’t sit still. Part of him just wanted to get up and go do something, but what?

  The truth was, he didn’t even know where his mother was living these days. Even if he did, and he went there, no one would be there. His mother was in the hospital, and his little sister in some foster home somewhere.

  The moment he walked in, Ran frowned as he laid eyes on him.

  “What is it?” he demanded, and Justin laughed softly. He was supposed to be so mysterious, but in many ways, Ran could see right through him. Not all the time, but often enough to be spooky.

  It took very little time to tell the whole story. It wasn’t the sort of thing that Justin had talked about a lot. He had mentioned that he and his mother weren’t on good terms and that his father wasn’t even close to being in the picture, but he’d left it at that.

  Maybe he just needed to tell someone, so he did. He spilled it all. At some point, Ran took his hands and led him to the couch, and he settled down on it, all the while still talking.

  “So now I have a little sister, and she’s going into a foster home,” he concluded.

  Ran frowned a little, his face very serious, his legs tucked up under him as he perched on the couch beside Justin.

  “Well, isn’t that a good thing?” he asked, honestly baffled.

  Justin shook his head.

  “In theory. But when you grow up in the poor part of town, you hear things, and I was always terrified of going into foster care.” He could see that Ran didn’t, probably couldn’t understand, having been raised in a stable family, so he continued.

  “The system, it’s full of people trying to make a difference, lots of good people, but it’s a mess. There are too many people just trying to make money off of it, people who neglect or even hurt the kids. I heard so many stories …”

  He didn’t realize he was shaking until Ran put an arm around him and pulled him close. Ran didn’t say anything, but then, maybe there was nothing for him to say.

  Justin felt helpless. The little girl who had just come into his life, he hadn’t even met her, but it didn’t matter. He cared about what happened to her now, and he felt like he couldn’t do anything about it.

  “Hey, what was that phone call this morning?” Justin had meant to ask earlier, but he’d gotten a little distracted by his own phone call. “I only heard some of it, but it sounded important.”

  Ran gave a smile, and to Justin, that smile looked strangely sad.

  “It was important,” Ran admitted, “But I’m not sure now is the time.”

  Justin sat up, frowning, looking at his best friend. Whatever it was, it was clear that it was a big deal. He would have noticed sooner if not for the fact that he’d been so distracted by his own thing.

  “No way. You can’t just leave it like that,” Justin protested. “It’ll drive me crazy if there’s some huge thing hanging over me.” Well, another huge thing. The thing with his newfound sister was pretty damn huge, too.

  Ran looked at him, and then looked away and sighed.

  “It’s about my citizenship.”

  Instantly, Justin was prepared for the worst. Or he was trying to be, anyway. The very worst, he supposed, was that his husband was going to be deported. That would be the only thing that he couldn’t handle.

  More likely, Ran would just tell him that it was going to take longer or something. That would be disastrous enough, of course, given the fact that Ran’s job was waiting for him but only for a limited time, but they’d get through it. Ran could find another school that wanted to hire him.

  Funny how Justin was so okay with this being for the long term. How he had started to think of Ran as his husband for real, and not just in name.

  Ran would probably be terrified if he knew.

  “Well, what is it?” Justin demanded, and Ran took a deep breath, then finally spoke.

  “It’s going to go quicker than they thought. Probably about twice as fast.”

  It was a fair bit different than what Justin had thought might happen. Pretty much the exact opposite, actually. He was relieved, at least at first, but then he realized something.

  His marriage to Ran could end much sooner than he had thought.

  That was not good news. Maybe it should have been, but it wasn’t. There was no relief at all when he thought about being let out of this, about being divorced. If anything, what he felt when he faced that prospect was terror.

  “Well, that’s good, right? You’ll be able to get that job for sure,” Justin managed, trying to push past his own innate selfishness to think about what was best for Ran.

  That was the thing he was finding out about love. It meant putting someone else’s well-being above your own. What was best for Ran, the way Justin saw it, was to get the job he’d been dreaming about for years.

  Justin couldn’t even start to think about getting in the way of that, no matter how selfishly he might want to. Even if he didn’t get to keep Ran as long, he had to be glad for him that he was getting what he wanted.

  Something seemed to shut down behind Ran’s eyes, but he nodded slightly.

  “Yeah. I’ll be able to get the job. So it’s good.”

  Somehow, that didn’t sound right. Ran seemed upset, though Justin wasn’t sure he knew why. It was good news, right?

  “You okay?”

  Ran stood up, giving him a smile, but it looked forced.

  “Yeah, of course, I am. How do you feel about pizza for dinner tonight? I don’t feel like cooking, and it’s getting late.”

  Justin frowned. Something wasn’t right here, but how could he force Ran to talk to him? He couldn’t. It wasn’t possible. And whatever was up, Ran didn’t seem to want to talk about it.

  In all honesty, pizza for dinner sounded amazing. Justin had had an incredibly intense day, and he didn’t much want to cook, either. Besides, it had been a while since they’d just hung
out and eaten pizza. It sounded like it could be fun.

  He could use the relaxation. He felt like he’d been on edge all day, what with one thing or another.

  There was more he wanted to tell Ran, too. He wanted to tell him about his worries about his own job, how his boss was following him around, watching him like a hawk.

  He probably would tell his best friend that, though. What he was less sure about was if he would tell him how hopelessly in love with him he was. How he didn’t want this marriage to be over.

  Maybe he should say those words, but it felt to Justin like there had been enough of that sort of intense talk already that night. He felt a little drained, actually, and he wasn’t sure how much more he could handle.

  If he told Ran how he felt and Ran rejected him, he might just have a little mini breakdown right in their living room.

  So instead, he ordered pizza. He knew, from being friends with Ran for years, exactly what kind of pizza to get. Then all there was to do was settle down and wait while Ran put on the sort of terrible action movie that they both loved.

  It was so comfortable, being with Ran, in some ways. They knew each other so well. But these new things going on between them that was where it got into territory that Justin didn’t know how to deal with.

  It wasn’t just Ran, either. Justin had never really been in a relationship with any man. Even his relationships with women hadn’t been amazing, either in quality or quantity. So what did he have to offer someone like Ran?

  That was where it always came back to. He wasn’t good enough for Ran, and he didn’t see how he ever would be, and maybe that was the real reason that he kept his uncharacteristic silence when it came to his feelings for him.

  The rest of the evening was nice, though. They ate pizza, watched movies, and eventually, Ran moved over to rest his head on Justin’s shoulder, which felt incredible.

  What was going to happen, Justin didn’t know. There were a lot of unknowns, with his family, with his job, with his marriage. But right then, it didn’t seem to matter. He was happy, and that was something rare, something to hold on to.

  Chapter Fifteen

  Ran

  He had almost done it.

  When Justin walked in, Ran had been determined that he was going to talk to him. Get it all out in the open. Ask if Justin were really too straight to be with him. If there was any chance that this could last beyond Ran getting his citizenship.

  It would be better to know. The whole thing was putting a lot of stress on their relationship, and Ran figured that it would be better to have everything out in the open.

  Honesty, they could hopefully recover from, but Ran keeping this to himself, he wasn’t sure that they could. So he’d been all set.

  And then Justin had walked in with a look on his face unlike any that Ran had seen there before. A look that was sort of like Justin had been hit over the head with something that he couldn’t quite make himself get.

  Everything else had gone out the window then, and Ran could understand why Justin was so freaked out. A new sibling out there that he’d had no idea about, not to mention his mother in jail? That was a lot.

  So the whole thing where he confessed his feelings to his best friend, that was pushed to the side. It had to be, but at the same time, Ran was also sort of relieved. At least he’d gotten a reprieve, even if he knew it was only a temporary one.

  As he was going into work the next morning, after having had a surprisingly satisfying evening of pizza and movies and good company, his phone rang. It seemed like there were quite a few phone calls going around lately, some with better news than others, and Ran answered cautiously.

  “Hello Ran,” the woman on the other end said when he answered. It had been a few weeks, but he recognized her voice even so. The principal at the high school where he’d interviewed to work. It seemed like months ago, but it really hadn’t been that long at all.

  A lot had happened, though. It sort of made sense that things would seem a little more distant in time than they were.

  “Oh, hello,” he said, but he was frowning a little. It was on his morning walk to work, which normally, was a peaceful time. He did a lot of his thinking then. He had to wonder, though, what would happen now.

  Would she tell him that she’d found someone else to take his job and that she was very sorry, but she couldn’t offer him the job? Really, what else could it be?

  “I was just wondering how the whole process of being a citizen is coming,” she said, and Ran shook his head. He definitely had a bad habit of assuming things were as bad as they could possibly get, and it was rarely true.

  “It’s going better than expected,” Ran said, and he was pretty happy to be able to report that. “I’ve spoken to someone, and they’ve assured me that it should all be taken care of within six months.”

  He thought that he could actually hear her smile, even over the phone.

  “That’s wonderful news. I was going to ask that if you need someone to vouch for you, I’d be happy to offer myself.”

  Wow. That was intense. This woman barely knew him and was willing to do that. All of a sudden, he wasn’t as worried about losing this job to someone else.

  “I also wanted to let you know that I’ve spoken with the board, and they’ve agreed to have a substitute teacher have the class until you’re cleared to work. So just keep us posted here, okay?”

  She’d really put herself out on the line for him. He was utterly amazed by this. He’d gotten the sense that she had really connected with him, and it seemed like he had been right.

  “Thank you,” he said, his amazement in his voice. “I had no idea that you would do this for me.”

  “Well, when someone is the right person for the job, I know.” Her pride was clear in her voice. “Did you know that the rate of teachers and other staff leaving my school for others is the lowest in the school district? That’s because I know.”

  Well, if her intent was to impress him, then she had definitely done so.

  After promising to keep her updated, he hung up the phone and then smiled. He found that he couldn’t stop smiling, actually, for the rest of the walk to work.

  His parents had always had faith in him. Justin, too, actually. But other than that, there weren’t too many people in his life that Ran could say had believed in him that had put themselves out on the line like that.

  It was going to be a pleasure to work for her. Ran was sure of it now. He’d had a good feeling from the time they’d met, and the conversation that they’d just had had only made that stronger.

  * * *

  Another busy day. Another day with the store packed to capacity. Not only that, but word had gotten out, as well, about the fact that the store purchased used books, if they were in good shape, so people had started bringing them in by the box.

  There were more books than could fit on the shelf, and that was saying something because they were selling more books than ever.

  “It’s only going to get worse once Christmas season comes,” Vinnie said, and Ran smirked a little. He knew that his friend loved it, but at the same time, he could see some real worry on his face.

  Vinnie had never intended for the store to get this much press. It was a great thing, of course, but his little shop wasn’t set up for it.

  Oh well. It was probably a fad. Next thing you knew, the customers would be super excited about a new thrift store or a retro record store or something. Meanwhile, Vinnie was getting an influx of cash into his store.

  On his break, Ran pulled out his phone. Suddenly, he couldn’t take this anymore. Barring any more life-changing announcements, he needed to at least be with Justin tonight.

  He was pretty sure that the other man worked early today, and got off slightly before Ran did. So he sent him a quick text because he wanted to talk to him. He wanted to be around him.

  Funny how he could swear he was actually spending less time around his friend now that they were married.

  Hey, you wa
nt to go somewhere tonight?

  Justin’s reply came back soon.

  Yeah. Where? It’s supposed to rain.

  That was a good question. Ran thought for a moment, and then tapped in a reply.

  Dinner and a movie?

  Sounds romantic. Are you asking me out on a date?

  Ran couldn’t figure out if Justin was serious or not. It was so hard to read tones through text, and Justin could be hard to read even to start with.

  Sure, why not? So are you in?

  The safest thing was just to play along. Honestly, he did want to go on a date with his best friend. They had kind of skipped the whole dating thing. It was normal to go on dates before getting married, as far as he knew, but better late than never, he figured.

  Yeah.

  It was just one word, but it was more than enough for Ran. Let Justin think it was whatever he wanted to. That was fine.

  Really, when it came down to it, Ran just wanted to celebrate. Sure, the news that he would be able to work sooner than he thought was a mixed blessing, but a blessing anyway.

  Maybe he could pick up some clue about how Justin felt about it. He hadn’t really been able to tell when he’d made the announcement to him before. Justin hadn’t seemed as blissfully happy about it as Ran would have assumed, but Justin didn’t tend to show much in the way of blissful happiness.

  Either way, it would be nice just to try this out. To see if dating worked for them. Justin, at least, hadn’t seemed opposed to the idea. Or maybe he’d been joking.

  Damn it, this whole time, he’d been thinking too much. It had led to him not doing anything, really, and that was going to drive him crazy. Time to act.

  So, with that in mind, he went back to work.

  * * *

  What he wasn’t expecting was for Justin to turn up a half an hour before Ran’s shift was over.

  Thinking it over, though, had he told Justin what time he worked? Yes, he had. He was sure of it. Frowning, he glanced over at Vinnie, not sure what his boss would make of Justin showing up.