Dirtiest Secret

by J. Kenner

  "Sounds good." As they walked to the door, his father started rattling off some thoughts about an upcoming company retreat. Dallas barely even listened. Instead, his thoughts were on Jane. On Deliverance. On Adele and the dark places into which he so often sunk.

  And he knew that whether or not he wanted to, inevitably he would disappoint the people he loved.

  --

  Liam was coming toward the bungalow as Eli was leaving, and Dallas left the door open so his friend could enter.

  "Good trip?" he asked, as Liam shut the door and crossed to the bar. He dropped his leather messenger bag on the floor and pulled down a glass.

  "This place is a pain in the ass to get to," Liam complained. "Especially if you have to crisscross all over the globe to manage it." He poured a shot of tequila and drank it straight, an affinity that Dallas neither understood nor shared.

  "I saw Poppy, though," Liam said. "He's pretty spry for a hundred."

  "That he is." Dallas joined him at the bar and poured his own drink. Frankly, he could use it.

  "So where's Jane?" Liam said. "I figured she'd be here."

  Dallas looked at him sharply. "Whatever you think you know, you don't." He didn't want to talk about it, tiptoe around it, or even fucking think about it. Not now. Not yet.

  Liam held up his hands, signaling surrender. "No need to bite my head off, man. I was just wondering about her."

  "Yeah, well here's a suggestion. Don't."

  "What bug crawled up your ass?"

  "This conversation is finished, Foster."

  Liam cocked his head. "Yes, sir, Mr. Sykes."

  He waited a moment, just studying Dallas, then he bent to the bag, pulled out a small box wrapped in plain brown paper, and passed it to him. "For Crowley's party on Friday. Three bugs. Office. Foyer. Living room or the bedroom. Bedroom's better, obviously, but harder to pull off. That's it. Nothing you haven't done a dozen times before."

  Dallas nodded, then set the package aside. For a second, he hesitated, not wanting to be crossways with his friend. But all he said was, "Thanks. I'll call you when they're set."

  "Then I guess we're good to go." Liam hoisted the bag back onto his shoulder. "I'll see you at the party tomorrow, D."

  And then he walked to the door and headed outside. And Liam Foster, one of Dallas's closest friends in the world, didn't once look back.

  The last strains of "Happy Birthday to You" are buried under the cacophony of the entire family laughing and whistling and generally cheering Poppy on into the next century of his life.

  Almost the entire family, anyway. Even Liam and Archie and Mrs. Foster have joined in the festivities.

  Dallas, however, is conspicuously absent.

  As the clapping fades, Poppy grins at all of us--toothless because he spit his dentures into the sand this morning and Becca says they're still disinfecting--and then holds out his arms so that we can each come in close for a big birthday hug.

  I go after my mom, and as he hugs me tight he thanks me for the giant book of old Times crossword puzzles. "I figured after all this time it would be like doing them for the first time," I tell him.

  He taps my nose. "And that's why you're such a smart girl."

  I step away so that my great-uncle can move in, and take a look around, partly so I can decide who to visit with next, but mostly because I'm looking for Dallas. He, however, is nowhere to be seen.

  We're on the patio by the pretty, grotto-style pool, with Poppy in the place of honor at the big outdoor dinner table. My mom has wandered off toward the fire pit and Liam is chatting with his mother. I want to talk to him, but I know they spend precious little time together these days, so I head over to join my mom, since I don't see her nearly enough, either.

  "Hey, sweetheart." She smiles at me and holds out her hand. "Did you have a relaxing time on the beach yesterday?" She pokes my shoulder, testing for sunburn. "You wore sunscreen, at least."

  "Always." My fair-skinned mom is what they sometimes call a Georgia peach, and she's drilled the need for sunscreen into my head since birth.

  "Were you able to chat with Dallas at all?"

  I frown. "What?"

  "Yesterday, when Daddy and I bumped into you. You said he was busy on a call."

  "Oh. Right." I shrug and hope that my guilty expression isn't visible to Mom-radar. "To be honest, I still really want to talk to him about some stuff. Do you know where he is?"

  "He joined Poppy for breakfast--gave him an amazing book of old Times crosswords," she adds with a small smile. "You two always did think alike."

  "Breakfast? Why? Where is he now?"

  "Back in New York handling some sort of problem at work," she says. What I hear is, He wanted to get away from you.

  "Oh. Well, I guess I'll just have to catch him in the city." I try to keep my voice light. As if this is no big deal. As if Dallas and I don't have huge things to talk about.

  "So does the fact that you went to his bungalow and are planning to see him in the city mean that things are getting easier for you two?"

  And isn't that a loaded question?

  "Easier," I say, letting the word sit on my tongue while I try to figure out how to answer. "A little. Maybe. I mean we're trying. Or, at least, we're trying to try." I lift a shoulder. "We miss each other a lot, we really do. But I'm starting to think that we're never going to get past what happened."

  "You two used to be so close," she says with a sigh. "Two peas in a pod. And then--well, it's just so unfair that something neither of you had any control over could change the direction of your lives like that."

  "Yeah, but not much about a kidnapping is fair."

  "Mmm," she says, and for some reason I get the impression that we're talking at cross-purposes.

  But before I can press, Mom hooks her arm through mine and starts heading to the boardwalk. "I hope you know how proud I am of you."

  I grin up at her. "Is this our annual mother-daughter talk?"

  She bumps me with her hip as we walk down the boards toward the beach. "Don't be impertinent when I'm being serious." She pauses and draws me to a stop with her. "You've had to overcome a lot, baby. And I know that Eli and I weren't--"

  She cuts herself off and frowns as she closes her eyes, takes a breath, and then begins again. "The kidnapping destroyed your father and me, too, and while that is no excuse, I know we weren't there for you as much as we should have been afterward. I still look back on those days, and all I recall is feeling numb."

  "Do you think I don't understand that?"

  "I just--I just wanted to say that at the time I was hurt when you wanted to leave and go away to school. And that was unfair of me. I was still raw from the battle with Colin, and I knew he hated me for asking the court to terminate his parental rights. And then just three years later when I wanted you home where I could pamper you, there you were asking to go live near him. I was angry and I was confused and I was hurt."

  "Mom." I swallow. I've sort of known all that, but she's never outright told me before. "I just couldn't be around Dallas. Seeing him every day. Remembering every day."

  I drag my toes across the sand-covered boards remembering how I'd snuck into Dallas's room the first night he'd been home. I'd spooned against his back and just held tight. I'd wanted more--so much more--and I know he did, too. But when I'd whispered his name, he'd shaken his head. "I can't," he said. "We can't."

  He'd rolled over to face me, and I saw the pain in his eyes. "What we had inside, we can't have it anymore. You know we can't."

  "I know," I'd whispered. "But--"

  He'd shut me up with a kiss. Our last kiss for a long, long time. "It has to stay locked up, Jane. If our parents found out...hell, if anyone found out."

  I closed my eyes, but I nodded. Because he was right. We were free, and that was good. But what we'd shared had been left behind, locked up inside those dank, gray walls. And that simple truth had come close to destroying me.

  The next week, I'd begged my mom to enrol
l me in boarding school near Colin. And, thankfully, she'd reluctantly agreed.

  "It was never about getting away from you and Dad," I tell her now. "You know that, right? It was just that Dallas--"

  "Was a reminder. I understand. I do. I did back then, too. And I wanted the best for you. I was glad you could get away, go to a place where you could heal. But sometimes even when we know we're doing the best for our kids it still hurts. I wanted to be the one to kiss you and make it better."

  "Mom." I blink away tears. "You always do."

  She starts walking again. "I really didn't bring any of this up because I thought we needed an emotional cleansing. I just wanted to say that now things are different. For me, I mean. I understand that Colin was there for you in a way I couldn't be. And the truth is that I will always be grateful to him for that. He could have walked away. From you. From all of it. But he didn't. He stepped up to the plate. And even though he and I don't talk anymore, I thought you should know that I am grateful to him for that. And that I really am glad that you and he have a relationship."

  My chest feels tight, and I nod, afraid to speak in case I start to cry.

  "You okay?"

  "I love you, Mom," I say and start leaking tears.

  "Well, good." She hugs me, and I cling tight. "Because I love you, too."

  When we break apart, we walk off the boardwalk and onto the sand. She points north, up the beach. "Walk with me?" she asks. "We can look for seashells."

  "I'd love to," I say. And even though I know that my mom may never know all the secrets of my heart, I don't doubt that she loves me. And in this moment at least, I'm content to do nothing more than hang with her for a while.

  --

  I'm tossing the last of the toiletries in my weekender bag when Liam calls from the front of the bungalow where I've left the front door open for him, as he'd promised to swing by with a couple of beers.

  "Back here!" I reply. "Open me one, would you, and I'll be right there." I zip up my bag, glance around the room to make sure I haven't forgotten anything, and head into the living area to meet him.

  He greets me with an ice cold beer, and even though I'm much more of a wine girl, when I take a swallow I can't deny that it feels good on my throat. I sit down on the couch and he sits next to me, and I realize that I'm grinning.

  "Something funny?"

  "Not a thing," I admit. "I just haven't seen you in ages." I hugged him earlier, but I do it again now. "I wish Dallas was here," I say without thinking. "The three of us together would--"

  I cut myself off, then shrug. It's been a long time since the three of us have hung out like we used to.

  "Did you talk to him at all while he was here? And do me a favor and answer that without chewing my head off."

  I raise my brows. "Why would I chew your head off?"

  "Because there's a lot of that going around." He stands up to get another beer from the fridge where he stashed the six-pack.

  "You're going to have to give me a little more to go on."

  "Why don't you tell me what's going on with you and our boy, Dallas?"

  I cross my arms over my chest, because that is a hell of a broad topic--and not one I'm keen on getting into with a helicopter on its way.

  "It's just that I went over to his bungalow last night, mentioned you, and the fucker practically bit my head off. You two have an argument?"

  "I wouldn't exactly call it that. But I'm pretty sure he left this morning because of me. Not because of a business thing."

  Liam looks straight at me. "What's going on, Janie?"

  "Not a story that's mine to tell," I assure him. "Let's just say that I'd hoped we could maybe stop avoiding each other. But I think we're back to square one. Or maybe square negative one hundred and one." I shrug. "I texted him earlier today to check on him. No reply."

  "Gotcha." He leans forward so that his elbows are on his knees and his beer is held tight in his outstretched hands. His head is down, and he looks like a guy who is thinking deep thoughts, or wrestling with a sticky problem.

  When he looks up at me, I can see that it's the latter. "What?" I ask.

  "So what are you going to do?"

  "Do?"

  "You guys are trying to work it out. Trying to repair a friendship or a family quarrel or whatever the hell you want to call it. And he just up and runs away. What are you going to do?"

  "I--I don't know."

  "Then you're a lame-ass friend, baby girl."

  I leap to my feet. "Dammit, Liam. It's not just--"

  "I don't fucking care about your excuses, do I?" He stands, too, completely dwarfing me. "Because it's not about excuses. You have one question to ask yourself, and that's 'Do I want that boy in my life?' "

  He grimaces in that cocky way he has. "Right now, he's acting like such a prick that I wouldn't be surprised if the answer is no. But if it's yes--" He takes a breath, and I watch as he visibly calms. "If it's a yes, you fight for him." He pulls off his ball cap so he can rub his hand over his buzz-cut head.

  "I lost a lot of friends in Afghanistan, you know. Really lost 'em and can't get 'em back no matter how much I might want to. Don't lose one of the people who matters most in your life, Janie. Not if you can help it."

  Tears sting my eyes as he looks straight at me. "And if that means you fight, then fuck it, that's what you do. If you think he's worth it, then you have to go to the mat."

  You have to go to the mat.

  For about the millionth time since I left the island last night, Liam's words fill my head. I'd taken them to heart and sent Dallas a text message before I'd climbed into the 'copter.

  Now, I read over what I sent for the umpteenth time, trying to decide if I could have worded it differently. Somehow written it in a way that actually got through his thick skull. But honestly, it says what I wanted it to. He's just ignoring it.

  I get why you're upset, why you backed off and walked away. But don't stay away. You don't want to and I don't want you to. We can try again. We can try a hundred times.

  Or we can not try that at all. That's okay, too. I just want you. YOU.

  Please don't think so little of me that you actually believe what happened makes a difference in how I feel--in how much I need you.

  You know me better than anyone. Surely you know that, too.

  So far he hasn't answered, but I open my texting app for the hundredth time that morning and check again. Just in case my phone forgot to beep in signal of an incoming message.

  There is, of course, nothing.

  Since I'm already looking at my phone, I decide that I probably should check my email, since I haven't even opened it since Saturday when I left for the island.

  It's mostly subscription crap or unsolicited newsletters and I barely glance at each message as I slide it off the screen and into the archive.

  And then there it is.

  D.Sykes@SykesEntUS.com

  J--

  We can't play this game. More important, I can't, for a lot of reasons, and you know every single one of them.

  I don't want to write you out of my life--hell, I already miss you. But we have to find a way to move on, and if cold turkey is what it takes, then that's what we do.

  Hate me if you want. Maybe that will make it easier.

  Your brother,

  Dallas

  For one minute I let myself consider the possibility that he's right. After all, we've lived at arm's length for years and survived. But that's all it was--surviving.

  And now that I've touched him, talked to him, just plain been with him again, I know that I don't want to just survive anymore. I want to live. Fully and completely and with Dallas--my best friend. And, yes, my lover. Forbidden fruit be damned.

  Honestly, the thought that he thinks differently--that he could just turn back to that emptiness, pisses me off. Either he's lying about how he feels about me, or, more likely, he's willing to sacrifice both himself and me on the altar of lost erections, bullshit incest laws, and ri
diculous social taboos.

  Idiot.

  Damned, stupid idiot.

  For just a moment, I let myself rage at him. Then I very calmly and deliberately squeeze my fury down into a neat little box and I tie a pretty red bow around it.

  Done. Finished. Nothing to see here. Just move along.

  Because anger doesn't do me any good. I want to go to the mat, yes, but I'm not interested in stomping on his face when I get there.

  But now that he's officially thrown down the gauntlet, I'm faced with the biggest question of all: how exactly do I fight a man who just won't engage?

  "Easy," Brody says when I present him with that very question at Starbucks three hours later. "The same way you got him in bed with you on the island."

  I've told him the whole story up to the real reason for the lack of follow-through. I figure that's the kind of thing Dallas wouldn't appreciate me sharing, and so I blamed it on an attack of conscience.

  "I jumped him in his bungalow after we watched each other masturbate on a beach," I say flatly. "I'm thinking reproducing those circumstances won't be easy."

  "Mental masturbation," he says with a grin. "Sexting. Send him naughty pictures and even naughtier suggestions. Eventually, he'll either block your texts or fuck you blind."

  I frown, because at the moment I think the blocking possibility is very, very real.

  But I also don't have a better idea.

  Unfortunately, I also can't think of what I want to say that doesn't sound like I write porn scripts. I enlist Brody's help again, but he makes my porn-a-licious sext attempts sound like a Disney movie.

  "Well, I can't help you if you don't press send," he says after I reject his fifth attempt. "If you won't text him then go back to door number one and accost the boy."

  "Unfortunately, he's not in the habit of forwarding me his daily agenda. And while I could monitor Twitter and chase him all over town, I really don't think that's my best option."

  It's only Wednesday morning, but already the King of Fuck is back in business, and Twitter is lighting up with Dallas sightings all over the city, with a different bimbette--or two--on his arm at each and every location.

  "If I knew ahead of time that he was going to be somewhe--"

  "What?" Brody asks.

  "A party," I say as I congratulate myself on my own brilliance. "Turns out I do know at least one place he's going to be."