The Drifter: A Valentine’s Day Short Story

by A. M. Arthur

Kyle was grinning when I met his gaze again, and he nodded subtly—his approval of the new addition to our road trip.

  Conversation was easier now that all our cards were on the table, and I enjoyed the ride more than I had the previous day. After a quick pit stop for the john and snacks, we drove well into the morning, the interstate taking us through Memphis. Since none of us had been and we wanted to see a little bit, Kyle got off the highway. Drove us up and down some of the streets, pointing out a few landmarks, before getting back up on I-40.

  We reached Nashville by early afternoon and stopped for a late lunch downtown at Wild Horse Saloon. Having Eric around felt a bit like having a kid brother tagging along on our adventures, and I got pretty fond of the guy. Invested in making sure he got to his family safely. So did Kyle, who watched Eric with an intensity that wavered between big-brotherly, and something else. Nothing erotic for sure, but noticeable.

  Eric never seemed to notice, simply happy to be with two new friends, on his way to a safe place without hitchhiking his way there. God only knew what could have happened to a good-looking, twenty-one-year-old on the side of the highway.

  The long stretch of road between Nashville and Knoxville was mostly trees and not much to look at, and I ended up dozing a bit, only to wake up with the sun down and Kyle pulling into a Red Roof Inn. Definitely nicer than last night’s roadside motel.

  “Eric,” I said, “I know you may not be comfortable sharing a room, but do you at least want to come up for a shower? I was thinking we could order a pizza and eat in.”

  “Yeah, okay, that’s cool,” Eric replied. “I do smell a bit ripe. I’d love a hot shower.”

  “Cool.”

  The olive branch also got me a firm kiss on the mouth from Kyle when we met by the car fender. I got us checked in, then led the way, grateful for a ground-floor room. I’d grown up with a weird paranoia about being on the top floor of a hotel when it caught fire. Probably because I watched The Towering Inferno when I was seven.

  I found a local delivery place and ordered on my phone, while Eric went into the bathroom to shower.

  “Thank you,” Kyle said. “For offering to take him the whole way.”

  “He’s a good kid who got a shit deal with his folks. I hope he lands on his feet.”

  “Still, you didn’t have to.” Kyle walked to me and looped his arms around my waist. His comforting, familiar scent swamped my senses. “I need to do this for him, Thomas. I need to do one last, really good thing with that car. Taking Eric to his new home is that thing, and I feel like we met him for a reason. There’s this kinship I feel that I can’t explain.”

  “Can you try?”

  He bit his lower lip. “I wish I could. It’s like how I used feel around you, like you’d always be there for me, no matter what.”

  I jolted. “You don’t think I’ll always be there for you?”

  “You were planning to leave me.”

  “Because you were keeping things from me.” I cupped the back of his neck and studied his sad, dark eyes. “But if we can fix things, I want to fix them. I want to be the guy you go to for support, the guy who listens when you’re upset. I love you so much Kyle, and I want to fix us, if that’s what you want, too.”

  “It is. I promise you, it is what I want. I want to fix us, but marriage…it scares me.”

  “Tell me why it scares you.”

  “Because I love you, and it would kill me if I ever cheated on you.”

  It would kill me, too, but that was such a specific fear. “Why do you think you’d cheat on me? I trust you with my life and my heart, Kyle.”

  “It’s in my blood, Thomas.” His eyes glittered with tears. “Uncle Frank was married, and he cheated on his wife left, right, and center. He fucking flaunted it in front of us both. He’d tell me my momma never knew who my daddy was, because she slept around, and that our family was cursed. It got so bad that when I was seventeen, Aunt Gert killed herself using painkillers and whiskey.”

  “Jesus.” I crushed Kyle to my chest, hugging him tight and wishing I could do more. His voice was fractured with pain and old grief, and he trembled in my arms. “I’m so sorry, babe. Christ.”

  “I hate him so much.”

  “I know. Hate him all you want, but know you are not him. You are so much better than him. I trust you not to cheat on me Kyle Morris, I swear. And I also swear I’d never, ever cheat on you.”

  Kyle sobbed softly, but didn’t start crying. I held him until the water shut off in the bathroom, and then we reluctantly pulled apart. Holding Kyle like that, being the person he opened up to and confided in, was so wonderfully familiar that I didn’t want to lose it. But I no longer worried I would.

  We can fix us.

  Eric exited the bathroom in a clean set of clothes, his canvas bag slung over his shoulder. The pizza arrived in the same moment, along with soft drinks. While Kyle and I settled at the seating area to eat, Eric put a slice on a paper plate and headed for the door. “I’ve never been to Knoxville before, so I’m going to walk around for a few hours, okay?”

  “Be safe,” Kyle said. “Do you have your key?”

  Eric flashed him the plastic card, then left. I couldn’t help wonder again if walking around had the same sexual connotation as pitching a tent, but it wasn’t my business how the kid made money. And just because he’d done webcam porn, it didn’t make him a hooker.

  The pizza was decent, but nothing special. Still, I was hungry enough to wolf down three slices, along with a can of Sprite. Kyle nibbled at his second piece, but he was deep inside his own head. Staring into space, fingers moving without really accomplishing anything. I wanted to ask what he was thinking about, but Kyle would tell me when he was ready.

  Finally, Kyle put his plate down and angled to face me. “I was going to tell you this secret tomorrow when we got home, but I don’t want to darken our Valentine’s Day with it. It’s too black. Too awful. It’s the reason why I’m claustrophobic.”

  I’d never given his claustrophobia any real thought, other than the small ways it affected his day-to-day life. It was simply a part of my boyfriend, so I accepted it. And now, it had roots in something Kyle described as a black secret.

  My stomach clenched, unhappy with all the pizza I’d stuffed into it. “You can tell me anything, babe, I promise.”

  “Whenever Uncle Frank wanted to punish me, no matter what I’d done, he’d lock me in the trunk of that car. The Charger.”

  I know my mouth fell open, but I was so shocked I couldn’t speak.

  “Didn’t matter what time of year,” Kyle continued, his voice rough and heavy. “Freezing cold, sweltering summer, I’d spend hours in that trunk dying of thirst or going numb. It was the worst from age eight to fifteen or so, and then I actually got taller than him, so he’d still slap me around, but I wouldn’t let him put me in that trunk again.”

  Jesus. Rage blasted through me then, aimed at a dead man, but I raged nonetheless. Knowing Kyle had grown up poor and around a serial cheater was a far cry from hearing about the physical abuse of a child. A child who’d grown into the man I loved so much.

  “None of that was your fault,” I said, desperately pulling back on my own temper. “God, I want to bring Frank back so I can kill him again.”

  “I know it wasn’t my fault. That’s not what makes the car evil.” Kyle raised his head, his eyes now haunted. “That car killed my brother.”

  His…what? “Brother? You have a brother?”

  “Had.”

  “Christ, babe, what happened?”

  Kyle swallowed hard several times, but he held eye contact. “He was a year younger than me. One summer when I was seven, and he was six, my brother got a bad summer cold. A lot of coughing and nose blowing, and he had a fever. Aunt Gert tried to care for him, but he was six, and he whined and cried and begged for our mom. I don’t know if mentioning Mom is what set him off, but Frank lost it one day. Ranted about us respecting the people raising us, and he dragged us out to the
car. Locked us in the trunk.” Kyle’s eyes overflowed, sending tears streaming down both cheeks. “For two days in July.”

  Jesus Christ.

  “I thought I’d go crazy from the heat and from his crying, but then he got quiet. So quiet, and in the dark I thought he’d fallen asleep. We had no food or water, and when Aunt Gert finally opened the trunk, we were dehydrated and filthy, and my brother wasn’t asleep. He was comatose, but Uncle Frank wouldn’t let her take him to the hospital until he’d been bathed and put in clean clothes. After she left, Uncle Frank put me in the tub. Said it was my fault if my baby brother died, and I was a kid so I believed him. And when Aunt Gert came home without him, I believed I’d let my little brother die.”

  Kyle didn’t seem to notice the tears streaking both cheeks, so caught up in the past that even I was no longer in the room. “When Uncle Frank heard my brother was dead, he said if I told police about being in the trunk, he’d put me in there forever. I’d die in that trunk. And I believed him. I didn’t speak at all, to anyone, for weeks afterward. And it was almost a full year before he put me in that trunk again, because I’d tracked a bit of mud into the house after it rained.

  “The weird thing is that at first, I didn’t think about my brother at all while I was in the trunk. It felt like a different place, and I think in some ways I blocked out what happened. Sometimes in school, a classmate would mention him, and I’d forget who he was at first, that I’d ever had a brother at all.”

  “Trauma can do that,” I said. “I cannot fathom what you went through.”

  Kyle wiped his face on his sleeve, but those tears kept falling, and it took all of my willpower to stay still and allow him to speak on his own terms, when I wanted him in my arms. “After a while, my classmates stopped saying his name, and I did forget. For a long time. But after Aunt Gert died, I found a picture of the three of us. Me, her, and my brother, and it all came rushing back. I was already working my ass off on a baseball scholarship, and the day I left for college, I lost my shit. That goddamn Charger had killed my brother, and Frank loved that car. He detailed it, washed it, barely ever drove it, and it was the culmination of all my anger and hatred. I even covered the damned thing in lighter fluid, and I had a match out when Frank tackled me.

  “We fought. Someone even called the police, but no one pressed charges. I couldn’t bring myself to talk about my brother, not ever again. It hurt too much, so I pushed all those feelings deep down and I left. I left everything behind: Frank, Texas, my brother, the pain. And then Frank died, and the biggest ‘fuck you’ in history was him leaving me that goddamn car.”

  Wetness hit my cheeks, and I reached up to wipe away my own tears, unaware of when they’d started falling. “That’s why you want to destroy the car,” I said. “That’s why you call it evil.”

  Kyle nodded. “I know the car didn’t kill my brother. I know it was Frank’s choice to put us in there while my brother was sick, but it’s easier to blame the car and take it out on the car, since Frank is dead. Can’t take it out on him, can I?”

  “No, you can’t. I’m so sorry you’ve been dealing with this alone. With all of this. Every single fucking thing Frank did you, your aunt, your brother. I wish you’d been able to tell me.”

  “I couldn’t even tell myself. I buried it down so far, and it came screaming back when I heard Frank had died. I’ve spent the last few days trying to get my head around everything I’ve repressed. I’m so sorry I hurt you.”

  “Stop, you didn’t knowingly hurt me.” I knelt in front of Kyle and pulled him into my arms as the dam broke. He sobbed into my neck, and I tried to gather him up, hold him together while he fell apart. Years of grief gushed forth, and we both grieved lives lost. Innocence destroyed. I grieved a six-year-old boy I’d never met, and would never get to meet, and I grieved for Kyle’s pain.

  “I’ve got you,” I said. “I love you, and I’ve got you. I’m not going anywhere, I promise.”

  Kyle burrowed into my arms while he cried, and I tried to hold him. Soothe him. Exist for him, while he worked through years of repressed guilt, grief and anger. I grieved the time we’d missed, driven apart by resentment these past four months over long-buried things Kyle wasn’t even aware of. Not really. The cheating thing was only one surface layer of deeper emotional pain. We wouldn’t fix it in days, probably not in weeks. But I was in this for the long haul, so we had all the time in the world.

  “Eric,” Kyle said after a long stretch of tears and no words.

  “He’s still out,” I said. Good thing, too. He’d done us a huge favor by leaving when he had. Kyle had shared this awful part of his past, and I’d be forever grateful to Eric for that.

  “No, my brother.” Kyle raised his head, eyes bloodshot, nose leaking. “His name was Eric. I think that’s why I have to help our Eric so badly. He reminds me of my baby brother. I couldn’t save my Eric, but I can try to help our friend.”

  “Yeah, you can.” I wiped Kyle’s tears away with my thumbs. “We can help our friend Eric. We’ll get him to Lovettsville, okay? We’ll make your brother proud. I love you.”

  “Me too. God, Thomas, I was so scared to tell you.”

  “I know I gave you reason to doubt me, but I hope you trust me now.”

  “I do.” Kyle brushed his mouth over mine. “I promise, I do. I don’t know who I am without you.”

  “You’re Kyle Morris. The man I love. And you’re still you without me, but I truly believe we’re stronger together. And I won’t keep pushing about marriage. I understand your hesitation now, and I can wait until you’re ready. You know my answer is yes, but I’ll let you propose this time.”

  Kyle smiled, his entire expression softening. “Thank you. I know I kept a lot of things from you, so thank you.”

  “It’s done. Forgiven. I’m just glad I didn’t lose you.”

  “You didn’t.”

  “I’m also glad I didn’t make the worst mistake of my life by walking away from us.”

  “You’d have had good reason.” Kyle rested his head against my shoulder. “I pushed you away and gave you every reason to leave. Guess Frank died at exactly the right time, the old bastard.”

  I snorted, then pressed a kiss to his hair. “Yeah, he did. This trip brought us back together.”

  “And here I boarded that plane expecting it to be a long goodbye.”

  “Never. You’re stuck with me now.” I drew his head back so I could kiss him properly, licking against the seam of his lips until he opened for me. Allowed me to put his essence back on my tongue and taste the Kyle I knew and loved. I didn’t deepen the kiss the way I wanted, didn’t drag Kyle into bed so I could taste every inch of skin I’d missed. He’d had an emotional upheaval, and I didn’t want to burden him with anything else right now.

  Kyle pulled back from the kiss, his warm breath caressing my damp lips. “Can we just…hold each other? I’ve missed that more than almost anything. You holding me.”

  My heart turned over hard. “Definitely.”

  We changed into boxers and t-shirts for sleeping in, turned off all but the bathroom light for when Eric—hitchhiker Eric—returned, and then climbed into one of the beds together. Kyle and I were about the same height and body mass, so I let Kyle arrange us. On our sides, me wrapped around Kyle from behind, our joined hands resting over Kyle’s wildly beating heart, heads sharing a single pillow like the old days.

  I pressed my nose into the back of his neck and inhaled, wallowing in his scent, savoring having Kyle in my arms again, when forty-eight hours ago, I’d thought we were in a death spiral. Now I had hope for us, for tomorrow’s trip home, and for every single day hereafter.

  The other bed was empty when we woke on Valentine’s Day. It hadn’t even been slept in, because no twenty-one-year-old could fold corners like that. Kyle didn’t seem concerned, though, because he tugged me into the bathroom for a shared shower. Even with the door open, he was like his old, pre-Halloween self. All smiles and easy touches, and after
we jerked each other to completion, we took turns washing the other guy, taking care with certain places, sharing this moment as if it was our first.

  I may have shoved him against the shower wall and kissed him until we were both breathless and half-hard again, but we had a long drive left to get us home. Plenty of time to fool around in our house later. We bypassed the hotel’s continental breakfast on our way out, and neither of us were surprised to find Eric lounging on the Charger’s trunk. He tossed a lazy smile our way, and I don’t know how he wasn’t cold without a coat, but the temperature didn’t seem to bother him.

  “You guys look self-satisfied,” Eric said as he slid off the trunk.

  “Had a good night,” Kyle replied. “You?”

  “Can’t complain. Does that mean you guys are going to be okay?”

  Kyle and I exchanged big grins. “Yeah, we’re okay,” I said. We clasped hands, and I raised his so I could kiss his knuckles. “Best we’ve been in a while.”

  Eric smiled. “Then I’m happy for you guys. I mean it. And Happy V-Day.”

  “You too.”

  We hit takeout fast food for breakfast on our way through Knoxville, and then snagged I-81 North toward Virginia. The last stretch before home. Eric didn’t elaborate on where he’d spent the night, but the kid was in great spirits, so I didn’t worry too much about it. Even Kyle whistled along to the radio, as relaxed as I’d seen him since we met. Last night, he’d unburdened himself of a huge secret, trusting me to help him carry it, and it showed in this new, happier version of my boyfriend.

  Lunch was takeout, too, and Kyle ate his chicken strips while he drove, as if he didn’t have time to stop for thirty minutes to enjoy a simple meal. He simply needed to be home. And I’d help him take this car apart, piece by piece, if that’s truly what he wanted. Now that I understood the car’s evil, I’d make sure it died the death Kyle wanted.

  When the first signs for Winchester, Virginia, flashed on the side of the highway, the air in the car sharpened with anticipation. Kyle and I were nearly home, and Eric was closer to the last leg of his thirteen-hundred-mile journey to a new life. And then Kyle took the exit to 7-East toward Leesburg, and I squeezed his thigh. He winked.