by Alexis Angel
I’m still trying to figure it out when Paul leans in and kisses the guy. I’m watching my brother kiss another man, and the sounds around me fade away. My ears are ringing so loud I can’t hear anything.
“I’ll be right back,” I say and get off the barstool.
Skylar tries to call me back, but I need to go over there and talk to Paul. I need to know what’s going on. I feel like I’m stuck in a dream. I don’t want to see him sucking face with another man, but it’s like I’m watching an accident. I know if I don’t look away, I will be scarred for life, but I can’t help it.
I walk to their table and clear my throat loud enough that they break the kiss. When Paul sees me, he scrambles away from the other guy, and I can see the hurt on his face.
“Don’t stop on my account,” I say.
“Parker,” Paul says. He’s trying hard to come across composed, but the skin has tightened around his eyes, and he’s gripping the table so hard his knuckles turn white. “This isn’t what it looks like.”
“Then what is it?” I ask.
“I would also like to know,” the other guy says, and he sounds hurt. Not nearly as hurt as Paul is going to be if I have my way. I glare hard enough at the other guy that he swallows whatever remark he wanted to add.
“Paul?” I ask, and my voice is hard. “Care to explain what this is all about? Or am I to assume the hell you put Skylar through was just for fun?”
Paul swallows hard, and he looks uncomfortable. “It’s not like you can say anything. You weren’t playing by the rules, either.”
“At least I fessed up when you confronted me,” I say. “So, what, you’re bisexual? Or just gay? Is it a new thing, or did you marry Skylar because it was the ‘right’ thing to do?”
The other guy looks at Paul.
“You’re married?” he asks.
“No,” Paul says, and he’s not lying, but I won’t stand for it.
“He meant to be,” I say. The other guy looks upset. Paul reaches for the man, and we both cringe. Our reasons are different. Paul looks hurt about the rejection from his would-be lover. He doesn’t seem to care about me.
“Parker,” Skylar says, appearing at my side. “Let’s get out of here. We don’t have to do this.”
I brush her hand off my arm. “I’m trying to talk to my brother.”
“Let’s just go,” she says again. I look at her, really studying her face, and I realize she doesn’t look nearly as upset about it as I feel. In fact, she doesn’t look upset at all.
“Did you know about this?” I ask.
She hesitates. It’s enough for me.
“Goddammit, you knew? When were you going to tell me this? Or was I going to be in the dark the whole time? And all this time, I’ve been wishing I was lucky enough to have you as my woman when my brother, who I find out is gay, got to have you. What the hell is going on here?”
I look at Paul, whose face is carefully blank. I realize his company for the night has disappeared.
“How long has this been going on for?” I ask.
“I’ve known I was gay since high school, Parker,” Paul says.
That incessant ringing in my ears is back.
“You what?” I look at Skylar. “And you’ve known this for how long?”
She still doesn’t answer me. I can’t believe I’ve been lied to. I can’t believe the woman I love, the one I wanted to be with, chose to marry my gay brother over me. It’s too much for me, and I turn around and storm away.
“Parker,” Skylar calls after me, but I don’t want to hear it.
I don’t want to know what she has to say. I’m upset that they both lied to me. I’m angry that I was in love with someone that refused to have me, even though there was no reason to say no to me. I’m so angry, I could choke on my rage.
Outside, I lift my arm and try to hail a cab, but none of them will stop for me. I’m starting to get angry. I wave my hands like a lunatic. It feels like my emotions are going to burst out of my chest. I feel like I’m going to rip apart. I’m so angry that I don’t know what to do with myself.
“Parker,” she says behind me.
I don’t turn around to look at her. “Leave me alone,” I say.
“Parker, please.”
I spin around. Her eyes are big, her face apologetic. I don’t have it in me to forgive her right now.
“You lied to me, Skylar. You both did.”
“I know,” she says. “But you don’t understand—”
“You’re damn right, I don’t,” I say, interrupting her. “I have no idea why you would do this to me. A gay guy? What the fuck were you thinking? God. I don’t even want to know.” I walk away from her and push my hands into my hair. When another cab comes past, I wave at it, but he doesn’t respond, just like the others.
“Asshole!” I shout.
“Parker, calm down, please,” Skylar begs. She lifts her arm, and a car stops in front of us on her first try. I get in without thanking her and wait for her to get in, too. When the door is closed and we drive off, the silence in the car is unnerving.
“This wasn’t supposed to happen,” she says.
I’m looking out of the window at the city sliding past.
“No, I imagine not,” I say, and I’m aware of how bitter I sound. “What was supposed to happen? You were going to ride off into the sunset with a man who likes other men?”
“Please, Parker,” she begs. “It’s not like that.”
“Then what is it like?” I ask. I’m suddenly tired. The anger evaporated, and all that’s left is exhaustion that feels like I haven’t slept in years.
Skylar doesn’t answer me. I don’t know what she’s trying to hide from me, but I suddenly don’t care. I don’t care about any of it.
When we get out in front of my apartment building, I storm off, leaving her to pay for the cab. Am I being a dick? Yes, I am. But I’m angry, tired, and so over this shit. I want to get into my room and lock the door. I want to shut out the world and pretend none of this happened. I want to get into bed, and tomorrow, I want to wake up and all of this will have gone away.
Of course, that won’t happen. Skylar is living with me now, and I’m not just going to escape her. I don’t even know if I want to. I don’t know anything right now.
All I know is that I don’t want her near me, trying to explain it all.
“I’m going to bed,” I say when she finally joins me in the apartment. “It would be best if you take the spare bedroom.”
She’s been sleeping in my bed with me since she moved in. It feels like an eternity ago, now.
“I’ll go,” she says. “I have the couch at the bakery, and I can phone Lizzie in the morning.”
I shake my head. “I’m not kicking you out. I’m not like my brother.” That statement is truer now than ever. “I just don’t want you in my bed.”
I’m aware how bad that sounds, and I don’t care. Skylar stands in the living room, a vision with a dejected look on her face instead of the smile she wore earlier, and I don’t care. I turn around and walk away from her to my bedroom. I close the door behind me and lock it for good measure.
Skylar
I don’t know what to think. I’ve never seen Parker this angry. We have been sleeping together a lot, and we had a fling a long time ago, but other than that, we are virtually strangers to each other, and I don’t know how to handle him when he’s like this.
He was so angry at the bar, it crackled in the air around him. I couldn’t sleep after I went to the spare bedroom, feeling like an intruder in a life that I was suddenly not welcome in.
When I wake up in the middle of the night, I can’t fall back to sleep again. The night before plays in my mind’s eye. I feel bad that I lied to Parker about Paul being gay, but I did what I had to do. I must protect myself before I do anything else, and I couldn’t tell Paul’s secret without him telling mine.
Now that his secret it out there, what does that say about our deal? But he won’t tell o
n me. I wasn’t the one that let his secret out. If he wants to go into public where anyone can see him, I can’t stop him from doing that.
I kept my side of our deal.
Finally, after rolling around for what feels like hours, I decide to get up and go to the bakery. Baking has always helped me think or work out my stress, and I need that now, more than ever.
When I look at the clock, it’s three in the morning. I get dressed as quietly as I can, not wanting to wake Parker when he’s in any kind of mood like this. I leave the house quietly and make my way to Hope Street.
I unlock the bakery, lock the door again behind me, and go through to the kitchen where I switch on the lights and start measuring out flour and yeast. I need to let the yeast ferment and that takes time, so I set up different stations with different timers and set them up one by one. When I calculate times for fermenting, kneading and baking, I have to concentrate and that distracts me from whatever is bothering me enough that it’s not in the forefront of my brain.
When I knead, I’m busy enough that I don’t feel like my thoughts are haunting me, but the action is mindless enough to still work through whatever’s bothering me.
In this case, it’s Parker.
Things don’t look good for us right now. It’s all good and well when we’re sneaking around, fucking each other behind closed doors, and we don’t have to face the consequences. I have a feeling reality caught up with us now, and there are things that still need to be taken care of.
After Paul kicked me out, I’m pretty sure my relationship with him, the one that never existed emotionally, and what the government considered void, is completely over. But until last night, our deal was still in place.
A part of me is nervous that he won’t honor our deal. Of course, that won’t be fair, and he won’t play the game that way. He married me so that he could get his company from his dad, and he got it. He has everything he wanted.
Why, then, if we were in this together, both with secrets, didn’t I get everything I wanted, too?
The sun rises, and the kitchen floods with golden, natural light. I switch off the electrical lights and work by the light of day instead. One by one, the ovens deliver baked goods to me, macaroons, bagels, flatbread, Anadama bread, and muffuletta. I put them on display in the counter.
Lizzie opens the door with a smile. When she sees me, her smile fades, replaced by a frown.
“Are you okay?” she asks.
“Fine,” I lie. “Why?”
She shakes her head. “You look like you’ve been up all night.”
Maybe I do look like that. I haven’t looked in a mirror at all. I threw on clothes and ran to hide out in the bakery where I could bake my fears and my regrets into bread. I ran to a place where I know what the outcome will be when I mix flour and yeast, where everything is safe and predictable.
“I’m just having some troubles with Paul,” I say. And his brother, I add in my mind. “I had to think things through.”
Lizzie looks concerned when she hugs me. “You know you can talk to me about anything, right?” she asks.
I nod. I do know that. Then, why haven’t I? It’s hard to explain to her how everything fits together, or why I made the choices I did when I’m not allowed to speak about it.
Except, the cat’s out of the bag, right? Or Paul’s out of the closet, so to speak.
I take a deep breath. “Paul kicked me out because I developed feelings for his brother, and now that our marriage is void, I think I’d rather be with Parker.”
I swallow after I say it all. It sounds terrible. Lizzie’s eyes widen.
“What are you talking about?” she asks. “How long has this been going on?”
“Paul is gay,” I blurt out.
Lizzie freezes, and it looks like she’s not breathing. She looks as haunted as I feel.
“Since when?” she asks.
I shrug. “Since the beginning. I married him that way.”
Lizzie shakes her head.
“This doesn’t make any sense. Why?”
I can’t answer her. I feel like an idiot for opening my mouth at all. I want to tell her to leave it, when the first customers arrive, and it’s time to open the shop doors.
“We’re talking about this later,” Lizzie says and plasters her customer-smile on her face before she opens the doors and invites everyone in.
There is no time to talk about anything. Lizzie and I run around, making sure customers get what they need, serving coffee and tea when they order it. Neither of us have a chance to take lunch.
Just after the lunch rush is over, Parker walks in through the doors. My heart skips a beat when I see him. He looks neat and put together, a lot more composed than I feel.
“What are you doing here?” I ask. I don’t know what to expect from him.
“I’m here to whisk you away,” he says. “Close the shop for the weekend. Come away with me.”
I blink at him. He smiles at me, his blue eyes like a Fall sky. There is no trace of his bad mood or his anger from the night before.
“I can’t just close for the weekend. They’re expecting me to be open. This is a business.”
I realize that I sound snappy. Parker nods and glances at Lizzie who hovers within earshot, eager to hear what we’re saying.
“Can she run it?” he asks.
“I can,” Lizzie answers before I do. I glance at her. I can’t read what’s on her face. I didn’t get the idea she approved of what I’ve been doing with Parker when I mentioned it earlier, but she’s making it possible for me to leave now.
“I guess I could,” I say.
“Good,” Parker says. “Go home and pack. We’re leaving in an hour.”
I don’t have time to ask where we’re going before he walks out of the door. I look at Lizzie.
“You’re sure about this?” I ask her.
“I am,” she answers. “Are you?”
I know she’s not asking whether I am happy to leave the shop in her capable hands. She’s asking about my relationship, or whatever it is, with Parker. And the truth is, I don’t know if I’m ready. I know what I feel for him, I know what I would like to happen, but right now, I don’t know where we stand.
But because it’s harder to answer the complicated question, I stick with the easy part of it.
“I am,” I say, and we both know I’m referring to the shop again.
She nods, and I leave the shop, heading to the apartment to pack. Parker is already there when I get home, and he tells me to pack warmly. Apparently, he has a cabin in Vail, Colorado that he wants to take me to. I don’t know much about Colorado, but I like the idea of getting away.
I like the idea of getting away with Parker even more.
We leave exactly an hour later, as he said, and he drives me to a private air field where a jet waits for us.
“Is this yours?” I ask, incredulous.
He shakes his head. “No, but my money can rent just about anything. I didn’t feel like public airlines. It’s always so crowded, and you have to wait so long before you can go anywhere.”
I nod, even though I didn’t think it was that bad. I feel a little lost, unsure about how Parker is behaving. He’s his normal self, smiling and happy, and I don’t know what to make of it after his angry outburst.
When we’re in the air in a luxury plane, with seats along the side like a limo instead of rows, Parker turns to me. He takes my hand and kisses my knuckles.
“I’m sorry about last night,” he says. “Seeing Paul like that. It’s a shock.”
I nod. That I can understand.
“I don’t know why you didn’t tell me.”
“I’m so sorry,” I start, but he shakes my head.
“Let me finish,” he says. “I don’t know why you didn’t tell me, but I figure you respect him enough to let him come out in his own time, and it wasn’t your secret to tell. So, I don’t want to talk about it anymore. All I want is to spend time with you away from everything.”
I smile. Relief washes through me that he won’t press me for any kind of details. Not talking about it at all is so much better than having to lie more and more to cover up my secrets and initial lies.
“Tell me about your cabin,” I say, changing the topic. “Is it a family cabin?”
Parker shakes his head. “I don’t know if you’ve noticed. You’ve been in the family a while. But my family isn’t exactly your cut and paste American family. We can’t stand each other. We don’t do family things. The cabin is mine. I bought it with my first real income after Grimrage took off, so I have somewhere to escape to.”
I nod. I can fully understand that. I’m a pro at escaping the real world. Sure, I deal with it differently, but baking as an escape or running away in an expensive jet is fundamentally the same thing.
When we land, Parker leads me to a black rental car. I slide into the leather passenger seat, and the door closes with an expensive clunk. Parker climbs into the driver’s seat, and the car purrs to life.
He pulls off, and we drive down roads that wind though the mountain. The world is dressed in tall pine trees, evergreen against the purple, snowcapped mountains in the background.
After a while, he pulls into a driveway and parks in front of a wooden house.
I lean forward and look through the windscreen.
“This is it?” I ask.
Parker nods. I can’t believe it. When he said cabin, I had a vision of a small rectangular log cabin with smoke curling from the chimney and hemp rugs. This is something completely different.
The only thing this cabin and the cabin in my vision have in common is the log walls. This place is a mansion, not a cabin. The cabin is huge, with three stories and an elaborate structure that takes up a great deal of land. Large windows look out in every direction, and lights are on inside, giving the place a homey, cozy feel.
“I had a cleaning service prepare it for us,” Parker says, getting out of the car. He opens the trunk and retrieves our bags.
“What, no butler to do that?” I joke.
Parker smiles and shakes his head. “I wanted to be alone.”
I like the sound of that. I don’t know if it means there might have been a butler if he hadn’t chosen for us to be alone, but it’s beside the point.
