by Witt, L. A.
Since moving to Bluewater Bay, the hours I’d spent smoking with Scott had been a reprieve from the crushing depression. They had worked much like a painkiller taking the edge off a nasty injury—I’d still been miserable, but it had been temporarily bearable.
Today, it was more like a huge portion of the weight on my shoulders was gone. Like I was floating. Like I was actually high the way I remembered from my more carefree days: my head light and my body languid.
And if I was honest with myself, some of that lightness had been there even before I’d taken my first drag. Every time I went anywhere near Jesse, a little more heaviness slid off. Not enough to make me think my grief would magically evaporate, but enough to give me hope that I wouldn’t feel like shit forever.
Across from me, Scott rubbed the bridge of his nose, his features still tight even though we were better than halfway through an exceptionally strong joint.
“You’re too stoned to be this stressed,” I said. “What’s wrong?”
He laughed halfheartedly and sat back. Staring up at the sky, he sighed. “Wedding planning. That’s what’s wrong.”
I grimaced. “Still?”
“It’s not until December,” he grumbled. “It’s going to be happening for a while.”
“Are you at least making headway?”
“Oh yeah. But it’s two steps forward and three steps back. You get two things locked down, deposits paid and all that, and three others fall through. You know how it goes.” Instantly, he winced. “Sorry.”
“It’s okay.” I smiled as I set the joint in the ashtray on the plastic table between us. “Yeah, I do know how it goes. It’s a goddamned circus.”
“It so is.” He closed his eyes again, but the tension lingered in his forehead. “This wedding shit is a nightmare.” He scowled harder. “I mean, the planning part. I’m looking forward to it and all, and I can’t wait until we’re married, but damn, I’d forgotten what a headache it was.”
“It’ll be worth it in the end.” Nostalgia crept in, reminding me of how frazzled Sean and I had been in the weeks leading up to our wedding. I’d never forget how I’d been tearing my hair out right up until the ceremony, and how the moment I’d laid eyes on him in that tailored tux, grinning with tears in his eyes, surrounded by all the people and decorations we’d spent months wrangling . . . it had been worth it. Every frustrating, expensive moment. I had no doubt Scott and Jeremy would feel the same way.
Scott gazed up at the trees. “It’s weird, you know? This is my second wedding, but the first legal one.” He smiled serenely, some of that tension fading from his expression. “Times have changed.”
“Yeah, they have.”
We were both quiet for a while. Long, comfortable silences weren’t unusual with us, even when we weren’t smoking, so it didn’t bother me. I liked just being around him, and the tranquility of the woods behind his condo was almost as intoxicating as the weed. More than once, I’d considered getting a place in this complex when I eventually decided to buy instead of rent. Then I could sit out here and enjoy the scenery anytime.
Eventually, Scott spoke. “So how are things going with . . .” He paused. “Jesse?”
I released a long, relaxed breath. “Good. They’re going really good. We’re actually going out of town for a weekend soon.”
“Oh yeah?” Scott straightened a little. “That’s kind of a big step, isn’t it?”
I shrugged. “Not really. I once took a ten-day cruise with a guy I’d just met.”
“True. You did.”
“This is just a weekend in Portland. Jesse’s going to a big convention with the comic book shop, and he invited me along.”
Scott’s eyebrows rose. “And you’re going?”
I nodded.
He smirked. “Just what you need—a reason to get back into role-playing games and comic books.”
“Who says I ever got out of them?”
“Why am I not surprised?” He gave me a playful nudge with his elbow. “Nerd.”
“Jock.”
“Hey.” He shrugged as he lit the joint again. “Social strata cease to exist in the stoner circle.”
“Amen to that.” I watched him take a drag, and couldn’t help a fond smile. We’d come from wildly different social circles, but after a few sessions of getting baked off our asses together, we’d become good friends and had been ever since.
Scott lowered the joint, holding his breath as he offered it to me. My head was perfectly light, so I declined.
After a few seconds, Scott released the smoke as slowly as he’d inhaled it. “So things really are going well with this kid.”
I winced at the reference to kid. “He’s not that young.”
Scott arched his eyebrow.
Rolling my eyes, I chuckled. “Fine. He’s young. And yes, things are going great. I have no idea if it’ll go anywhere or if we’re just screwing around, but . . . yeah, it’s good. He’s even . . .” I stared at the white-painted floorboards of the balcony, studying some of the pine needles that had collected and were trying not to fall between boards.
“What?” Scott asked, reminding me I hadn’t finished my thought.
I sat back in the chair. “He doesn’t mind talking about Sean.”
“Oh. That’s a plus.” He paused. “Do you mind talking about him?”
“It’s a little weird when the subject comes up while we’re in bed, but . . .” I considered it before shaking my head. “No, I really don’t mind. It’s not the most comfortable subject for either of us, but he seems to get that up until recently, Sean was a huge part of my life. I can’t say much about the last few years without mentioning him, you know?”
Scott nodded as I spoke.
“The other night,” I went on, “I’d left some pictures out. He saw one and immediately realized it was Sean.”
“And that didn’t bother him? Seeing a picture of your husband?”
I shook my head. “If it did, he sure didn’t let it show. He even asked about him a little.”
“Which didn’t bother you?”
“Not at all.” I let out a long breath, feeling some more of that lightness pushing the dull heavy weight off my shoulders. “A few months ago, I don’t think I would’ve been able to, but now . . .” I shrugged.
“Good. That’s a really good sign.” He studied me. “So you’re holding up pretty well in general, then? It’s a great sign that you’re out dating again and that you can talk about Sean, but . . . are you handling everything okay?”
“Yeah, I am. Mostly. It’s still hard, but I’m better than I was a few months ago. That says something, right?”
Scott smiled. “Says a lot, actually. Grieving shouldn’t be rushed, but I’m glad to see you’re getting out there again.”
“Me too.” I paused, gnawing the inside of my cheek. “Speaking of getting out there and dating again, I’m curious about something.”
“Okay?”
I exhaled. “And this stays between us, all right?”
“Of course.” The sudden worry in his tone made him sound closer to sober than either of us probably were. “What’s up?”
I hesitated, uneasy about divulging Jesse’s status to someone he didn’t know.
Scott shifted, the lawn chair squeaking under him. “Everything all right?”
Meeting his gaze, I chewed my lip. “I’m just . . . I’ve been out of the dating loop for a while, you know? And . . .” I paused. “How much do you know about those new anti-HIV drugs? Truvada, that sort of thing?”
He blinked like he hadn’t been expecting the question, then shrugged. “They’re effective as hell from what I hear.” His eyebrows lifted just enough to ask why.
“I mean, if I’m going to be dating again . . .” I fidgeted uncomfortably. “Is it worthwhile? Getting on it?”
“Can be, yeah,” he said immediately. “I pretty much rec it to any of my clients who aren’t in monogamous relationships. Jeremy and I talked about having an open relation
ship at one point, and if we’d gone through with that, we’d definitely both be on it.”
I nodded. “Too bad they didn’t have this shit years ago.”
“No kidding,” he muttered. “But it’s a damn good thing we’ve got it now. I mean, I work with some serodiscordant couples who use it, and—”
“Sero-dis-what now?”
“Serodiscordant. Where one partner is positive and the other isn’t.”
Oh. Right. I had seen that term on some websites, hadn’t I? I shot the joint a glare, then arched an eyebrow at Scott. “How the fuck can you still pronounce that while you’re this high?”
He laughed. “Just don’t ask me to spell it, all right?”
“Fair enough. Anyway.” I made a go on gesture.
“Right. So. I work with a few couples, and pretty much all the negative partners are on PrEP and the positive partners are undetectable.” He shrugged. “The meds are so effective now, the odds of infecting the negative partners are practically nil, even if they’re not using condoms. Or PrEP, for that matter. A lot of the monogamous couples don’t use it as long as the positive partner is undetectable.”
I nodded slowly. That was what I’d gathered from reading online, and hearing it from him settled what was left of my nerves. I wasn’t sure what else to say, but my head was getting clearer than I wanted it to be, so I picked up the joint and lighter.
Scott watched me silently. He didn’t ask if or how the topic related to Jesse, which I supposed was his way of keeping Jesse’s status ambiguous. As it stood now, I could easily have been asking because Jesse was positive or because we weren’t monogamous and I wanted to be safe. I could’ve been asking because I’d read an article about it, or because I was ready to get out and play the field. There were plenty of possibilities that didn’t mean Jesse was poz, and though Scott could probably read between the lines, he didn’t push to confirm either way. I appreciated that.
As I blew out some smoke, I offered him the joint, but he shook his head.
“While I’m thinking about it, do you have a doctor in town yet?” he asked. “If not, I know one who’s great, and I know for a fact she’ll hook you up with a prescription.”
I started to speak, then thought twice. Rolling my eyes, I said, “Let me guess—there are still some docs who won’t?”
“Not without making you feel like a filthy whore who deserves to get AIDS and die, no.” The bitterness in his tone startled me.
“Really? In this town?”
“Homophobes are everywhere.” A wicked smirk spread across his lips. “I just remind myself how fucking miserable they’ve got to be in a place as queer as Bluewater Bay.”
I laughed. “Good point. And yeah, I’ll take that doctor’s number.”
“Remind me.” He motioned toward the sliding glass door behind us. “I’ve got her card.”
“Cool. Thanks.”
“Don’t mention it. By the way, if this guy ends up sticking around, we should do a double date or something.”
“So you can grill him?”
“Something like that.”
I just laughed. “Yeah. We’ll see.”
Maybe we would. I had no idea where things would go with Jesse, but . . . maybe we would.
Chapter 19
Jesse
Garrett was sexy as hell anyway, but when he took out his contacts and put on his glasses? Ohmigod. Hot.
When he was wearing glasses and grinning deviously as he shuffled a deck of Magic: The Gathering? Oh, fuck yes. We’d just made plans to play cards tonight, but the way he looked, he was one hundred percent getting fucked before I went home.
Since his kitchen table was occupied by some more boxes he’d been sorting through, we used his coffee table instead, with both of us sitting on the couch. It was easy enough to play side by side—we would just keep our hands angled so we couldn’t see each other’s cards, and lay out our battlefields next to each other. I actually liked it better this way anyway. When he played a card I wasn’t familiar with, I would be able to read it without too much effort.
I took my own deck out of the small backpack I’d set next to his couch. “You ready to play?”
“Whenever you are.” As if for emphasis, he put the deck on the table. “What color are you playing?”
“This is a green deck, but I usually play blue and white.” I winked. “I won’t unleash that deck on you while you’re still rusty.”
“Much appreciated,” he said with a chuckle.
“What about you?” I nodded toward his deck. “What color?”
“Black.”
“Huh. For some reason, I’d pegged you for a red-deck kind of guy.”
Garrett grinned. “I have one of those too. But I do enjoy playing black.”
“Fair enough.” I finished shuffling and put my deck on the table. We each put out a twenty-sided die to keep track of our life points and set them with the twenty facing up. Then we drew seven cards. Normally when I played, players would look at the bottom card on each deck, and whoever had the card with the highest casting cost would go first. Since Garrett was getting back into the game after a long time, I let him go first to give him a head start.
He pursed his lips as he inspected his cards. It was cute, watching him study them like they were written in a foreign language. He tentatively laid down a Swamp—a land card he’d use to get mana so he could cast spells. Then he turned it slightly to indicate it was tapped, and cast a Throne of Bone. That was a pretty benign card. It just meant any time he cast a black spell, he could gain a point of life. Good thing we had more twenty-sided dice handy.
As we went back and forth, steadily building up lands and armies of creatures, I reminded myself he was still getting back into the swing of things. As tempting as it was to attack the crap out of him with my vast army, I went easy on him. I didn’t even destroy that Throne of Bone despite the fact that he’d racked up an extra ten life points thanks to the little bastard.
Several turns into the game, Garrett put down two Nightmares. They were flying creatures—one that could only be blocked by other flying creatures—and their power and toughness were based on the number of Swamps Garrett had. And . . . he had a lot. And I didn’t have many flying creatures because this deck was mostly things like Woolly Mammoths and Ironroot Treefolk, which were reasonably strong but definitely earthbound. Thank God I had a couple of puny Scryb Sprites that could at least take one for the team—they had flying, so they could each block a Nightmare and save me from being damaged, but they’d be dead.
Out came a third Nightmare, and I started getting nervous. Okay, time to stop going easy on him. Next turn, the kid gloves came off.
Garrett looked at the battlefield and took a breath. “All right.” He dropped Terror cards on top of each of my Sprites, killing them. “And now I’m attacking you with two Nightmares, each equipped with . . .” He added an Unholy Strength to each of them, beefing up their power by two points.
He looked at me, a sly grin on his face like he’d been just waiting to unleash hell on me.
I scanned the cards in my hand. Then the ones on the battlefield. I had nothing. No way to cripple the Nightmares and no way to block them. “Fuck.”
“So if you can’t block my fourteen-point Nightmares . . .” He surveyed the cardboard carnage, and as he met my gaze, he smirked. “Looks like you’re dead.”
I blinked. For a moment, I stared at the cards, trying to find the piece he’d overlooked. The cocky mistake he’d made. The reason his entire onslaught fell apart like, well, a house of cards.
There wasn’t one.
It was perfect.
“You . . . bastard.”
Garrett snickered. “Beginner’s luck?” The innocent lilt in his voice made me arch an eyebrow.
I eyed him as I started shuffling my cards back into a neat stack. “Okay, how long has it really been since you’ve played?”
“Um. Well.” He cleared his throat, cheeks coloring as a suitably sheep
ish—and fucking adorable—grin came to life. “Maybe not as long as I told you before.”
“Seriously?” I studied him. “Why did you tell me it had been longer?”
The grin faded a little, but the color in his face didn’t. “I . . . guess I wasn’t sure how to say that’s how the accounting department spent our lunch breaks at my last job.”
I stared at him. “You . . . and your coworkers . . . played Magic on your lunch breaks?”
He looked at me through his lashes and gave a little nod. “We did, yeah.”
“Why the hell is that so hot?”
Garrett cocked his head. “Come again?”
“Don’t know. Just saying—you were sexy before, but the mental image of you in a shirt and tie playing Magic with the other accountants is . . .” I pondered it, then nodded. “Yeah. That’s hot.”
“And here I thought telling you I was a Magic-playing accountant would ruin my image.”
“Ruin it?” I shook my head. “Oh sweetheart. You have no idea how much I like this side of you.”
He grinned. “You really like nerds, don’t you?”
“Dude, I work in a comic book shop.”
“Fair point.” He laughed. “You’re a dork.”
“Uh-huh. And apparently so are you.”
“Guilty.” He shrugged. Then in a sultry voice, he purred, “So does that mean if we play enough Magic, you’ll get turned on?”
“Oh, I’m already there.”
“Are you, now? Well in that case . . .” He picked up his deck. “I say we play again.”
“Fuck yes.” I reached into my bag. No point in going easy on him now, so out came the blue and white deck. He also switched his cards out.
When the game started, he shot me a grin. “So, which outcome will make you harder? If you win or lose?”
“Don’t know.” I winked, biting my lip. “Guess you’ll have to find out.”
“Hmm, I guess I will. I just can’t decide if I should go easy on you.”
“Pfft. You know I like it when you don’t go easy on me.”
“Uh-huh.” He glanced at me as he drew a card. “You better not go easy on me either.”
