by Rick R. Reed
“We just thought maybe if you were finished, we might be able to grab your table.”
She smiled, revealing perfect white teeth that made Flynn think of Chiclets.
Mac spoke before Flynn had a chance to. “Of course, ladies. Please, be our guests.” He wrapped Barley’s leash around his wrist so he could gather up their refuse. He brushed some crumbs onto the ground and gestured, with a bit of a flourish, to the chairs. “Please. Sit. Enjoy.” He winked again at Flynn, which made things at least a little better.
They gave up the table and started walking along the sidewalk.
“Ah, Green Lake. You have to love it on a sunny day. The crowds! Sometimes I avoid the lake on summer weekends just because so many folks just have to be here.” Mac shrugged. “I guess I’m one of those folks, but still. I like my solitude.”
“So you can be alone to read?”
“Something like that.”
They walked in silence for a while. Flynn noticed they were walking in the general direction of Mac’s house. He hoped he’d be asked in for iced tea again. Maybe more….
Down, boy. You just met the guy. Flynn’s thoughts were rational, but thinking them didn’t minimize them. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d been so powerfully attracted to another guy. Flynn’s thoughts went to a dark place as he considered the last relationship he’d had—the only real long-term one he’d experienced at the ripe old age of twenty-six—and how that had gone. He and Clive had seemed to have a lot in common, but there had never been a spark, no matter how hard Flynn tried to kindle one.
With Mac he felt there was already something combustible.
But he didn’t know if Mac felt the same. Slow down. Don’t rush things. It’s early. Let’s see where things go, Flynn told himself. But he wondered if he could listen to his own good advice. Patience had never been one of his virtues.
They chatted some more as they walked to what Flynn was now sure was their destination—Mac’s house. They didn’t bring up their mutual gayness again. Why would they? Most of their conversation revolved around Mac’s current read—Mr. Mercedes—and how many miles Flynn ran in a typical week—twenty-five to thirty.
At last they ended up in front of the lovely old gray, white, and black Craftsman Mac shared with the old lady, as Flynn thought of her. What was her name again? Dee?
It hurt Flynn a little when he saw Barley about pull Mac’s arm off to run up the steps to the porch and the front door. Mac looked a little abashed at Flynn.
“Sorry. He thinks he’s home.”
Mac pulled him back down toward the sidewalk, but the dog continued to stare at the front door, panting and—Flynn thought—longing. Mac squatted.
“You need to go home with your other daddy,” Mac explained. He rubbed the dog’s muzzle with the back of his hand and smiled sadly. He looked up. “We probably shouldn’t draw this out, for his sake.” Mac stood and handed the leash to Flynn. “And mine.”
Flynn was stunned to see there were tears standing in Mac’s eyes.
So much for coming in for iced tea, maybe more. Flynn tried to plaster on a nice accommodating smile that hid his disappointment. “Yeah, you’re probably right. Get this boy home and he’ll probably sack out the rest of the afternoon.” Flynn knew he should maybe make some words of farewell and head off, but he just couldn’t bring himself to do it. There lingered in him the hope Mac would change his mind and ask him in. He suggested they exchange numbers, and they brought out their phones for inputting.
Mac put a close to their afternoon. “I should get inside. I promised Dee I’d spray-paint the retro aluminum chairs she has out on the back patio. When it was raining earlier, I didn’t think the day was right for it.” He looked up at the sky, then at Flynn, and smiled. “Now it is.”
“Yes,” Flynn was forced to agree. Flynn started back down toward the sidewalk but paused when he got to the bottom and called up, “So when should we do our next visitation with our little guy?” He gave what he hoped was a cheerful and seductive grin.
But Mac didn’t return his smile. Pain was naked on his face, as plain as the constellation of freckles across the bridge of his nose and upper cheeks. “I don’t know,” Mac said softly. He glanced down at Barley, who was straining on the end of his leash to, very obviously, get back to Mac. “It’s hard.”
Flynn felt the smile vanish from his face by degrees. Although he knew exactly what Mac was referring to, he asked, “What do you mean?”
Mac forced his gaze away from the dog and back to Flynn. “I thought it would be wonderful to see him, to have some contact with him, and it was and is. But—” Mac stopped himself.
“But what?” Flynn asked, feeling a kind of guilty sickness in the pit of his gut, as though he’d stolen something.
“But it’s hard,” Mac repeated.
If it weren’t for the tension in the air, Flynn’s mind might have gone other places when Mac kept insisting that it was “hard.” Instead he just felt defeated and sad. “I get it,” Flynn said, barely above a whisper. He tried to inject some brightness into things when he said, “I could make it so you see him more often. Maybe, like, I don’t know, every other day? How do you think that would be?” Already Flynn was wondering how something like that would work, what with his busy schedule at his job. But if it meant seeing Mac again…. Oh, why do things have to be so complicated? Why couldn’t he have just met Mac on a run around Green Lake, and the two of them simply locked eyes and fell in lust? That’s the way gay relationships were supposed to work for guys their age, wasn’t it?
Mac shook his head. “I don’t know, Flynn. I never thought I’d say this, and it truly breaks my heart, but I’m wondering if things might not be easier if I just let Barley go to be with his rightful owner. In time I’ll get over it.” He sighed. “Ah! I don’t know what to think! As soon as those words came out of my mouth, I was accusing myself of being a self-harming idiot.” Mac turned toward the front door and said over his shoulder, “Listen. I need to think about this arrangement. Think about what’s best for the dog. For you. For my own heart, if that doesn’t sound too corny.”
“Well, whatever you decide,” Flynn blurted, “maybe you and I can go out? For beers or dinner or something?”
Mac made no comment. He simply gave Flynn a small hard-to-read smile and went inside.
Flynn started away, realizing too late that Mac had never given him the Truman Capote books he’d said he’d loan to him. He shrugged. Maybe not giving him the books was on purpose. Maybe Mr. Mac Bowersox had it in mind he’d simply never see Flynn again. Too painful.
“Story of my life,” Flynn mumbled, disgusted, to Barley as the two headed down the road toward Flynn’s car.
Fitting that just then a bank of gray clouds moved in rapidly, scudding across the lake to blot out the sunshine. Flynn felt the first raindrop just as he and Barley reached the car.
Chapter 9
MAC CLOSED the door just in time to face Dee, standing in the archway between the foyer and the kitchen. She had her arms folded across her chest.
“Well?”
“Were you listening?”
“The whole time. I’m an old lady. I get to be a busybody. And you have to give me a pass, because, you know, I’m ancient.”
Her sly grin was anything but old, Mac thought. He shook his head but couldn’t keep the smile off his face.
“You’re incorrigible.”
“I don’t deny it. Lots of other big words too, not all of them flattering, but I’m comfortable in my own skin. That’s the beauty and the reward of getting to be an old bat.” She dropped her arms and moved toward him. “How are you, son?”
“I don’t know. Seeing Hamburger, I mean Barley, was the best. It was what I had been dreaming about all week, but I just crashed back down when I realized he had to go home and home wasn’t here.” Mac looked up the staircase for so long, Dee tilted her head up too to see what he was staring at. He finally looked back at her. “That was the hard pa
rt. That was the part I just don’t know if I can do. Or keep doing.”
Dee didn’t say anything for several moments. Then she spoke. “And that’s something only you can decide, Mac. I can see how it might be easier, in the long run, to just let him go. But I’d miss the little guy so much! And I’m miffed you didn’t bring him to say hello.”
“Sorry, Dee.”
“It’s okay. When I was eavesdropping, I could hear your pain. You know, when I was a girl—hard to believe as that is—back in the olden days, I dated a cop.” Dee stared off into the distance for a moment, presumably remembering. “He was a handsome fella. Really manly too. Just all man, beefy, virile, oh my!” Dee laughed. “We had ourselves a wonderful four or five months, some of the most passionate of my life.”
Mac wondered where she was going with this.
“And I fell hard for this man. But he was never there for me. Part of it wasn’t even his own fault. He was ambitious, wanted to make detective before he was thirty. And it was a tough job. Seattle was a lot rougher around the edges back then. So even when he was with me, which wasn’t all that often, really, he worked so hard, he really wasn’t. You know what I mean?”
Mac nodded. He just wanted to go up to his room and read.
“I finally had to let him go, even though the passion was red-hot, over the top, blazing.” She laughed. “And I really think I loved him. But we needed to part. That same fire that got me so worked up could have burnt me up as well.” She looked pointedly at Mac. “I said good-bye to him. To protect my own heart, you see.”
Mac nodded.
“I know Hamburger isn’t a man. But you love him, and sometimes if things aren’t right, it’s better just to be grateful for what you had, to celebrate that… and to move on. Nothing lasts forever, my boy. That’s the way things are. That’s life.”
“You’re right, oh wise one.” He grinned to show he was kidding, sort of. “I just don’t know if I can let go of that pup.”
“Well, make sure you weigh all the factors.”
“What do you mean?”
“I wasn’t just eavesdropping, you know. I was looking out the window too.” Dee laughed. “That young man is smitten. Even from the living room, I could see that. And he’s not a bad catch. You might want to take that into consideration.”
Mac shook his head. “I don’t know what you’re talking about, Dee.”
“You do too.” She poked his chest. “You’d be doing a lot better with this young man than that SOB you were hanging out with last winter.”
“Now, Dee.”
She turned and headed back toward the kitchen. “I need to shut my mouth. I say a bunch of good, reasonably intelligent things… and then I have to go too far.”
“No worries. I appreciate your insight. I like that you care.” Mac started up the stairs.
“Course I do. You want a beer or something cold to drink?”
Mac continued to ascend the stairs. “Nah, but thanks. I’m just gonna hole up for a bit with Mr. Stephen King. Stop thinking for a while….”
“Okay. If you change your mind, I’ll be out on the front porch, watching the rain.”
MAC WAS so tired. He’d lain in his room for a couple of hours, trying to read, when he heard the tap on his door.
He got up, feeling like the very blood in his limbs had turned to lead. When had he gotten so old? He opened the door a crack.
It was Dee. She looked normal except for the fedora she wore. What trunk had she pulled that out of?
“Yes? What’s up?” He loved Dee. He really did, but he wanted to be alone this afternoon.
“It’s him,” Dee practically hissed.
“Who?” Immediately Mac thought that maybe Flynn had returned. He glanced over Dee’s shoulder.
“Phineas.” Dee spat the odd name out like it was something unsavory that had gotten caught between her teeth.
“Phineas Blake?” Mac asked in wonder.
“Do you know any other Phineases?”
Mac laughed and shook his head.
“I left him on the porch. I didn’t want him in the house. And I didn’t think you’d want him in your room.” Dee walked away. She paused at the top of the stairs. “And he has the creature with him.”
Mac went over to the window to look down. He didn’t know why. The porch roof blocked any view of someone standing down there. The sun was once again shining brightly. When would the weather make up its mind? A dragonfly, huge and impossibly colored in hues of teal and red, hovered just outside the glass.
Phineas Blake. All through last fall and winter, Mac had kept company with the professor of Russian literature at the University of Washington. He was old enough to be Mac’s father but was still hot, in a DILF sort of way, with a full head of silver hair, arresting gray eyes, and a strong jaw that he kept covered with a carefully groomed beard. The smallest stray hairs were identified quickly and summarily executed. Mac knew the man played up his professorial mien by dressing in things like tweed sport coats paired with dark jeans and expensive Italian leather loafers without socks. Even his glasses, round and gold rimmed, were just for effect. Mac had learned early on that the glass in them was clear.
Mac, who had been lying in his plaid boxers, sighed and made himself hunt through his drawers for something to put on. He knew Phineas would have turned up his nose at the jeans and tank top Mac wore earlier. Phineas turned his nose up at a lot of things Mac did—his job, his lack of education, his housing, even his dog. A beagle? Really? How common!
Well, at least the last obstacle had been removed from Phineas’s disdain.
Mac slid into a pair of khaki shorts and pulled a hunter-green Izod shirt over his head. There were some Keen sandals under his bed, and he slid his feet into those. He checked himself out in the full-length mirror hanging on the back of his door and wasn’t unimpressed at the young guy looking back at him. Phineas should have been counting his lucky stars to have him instead of constantly criticizing him.
Mac wasn’t sure why he was even bothering to go downstairs and meet the man. It wasn’t like he’d seen him recently. They’d broken up at the beginning of spring when Phineas told Mac he didn’t want him going out to the bars anymore. He said that Mac should have better ways to occupy his time, ways that would “enrich his mind” rather than going out to the “meat markets” and “getting hammered.”
Mac rolled his eyes. He knew Phineas was just jealous and possessive. He would have had more respect for the man if he’d simply been honest. Anyway, with the prohibition against Mac’s going out, he felt trapped and had ended the brief love affair.
Phineas had been enchanted with Mac’s hair. What was it about red hair? Mac himself had always hated it and had gone so far as to entertain the idea of dying it dark brown—or simply shaving it all off.
When they met, Phineas had taken guarded pleasure in Mac’s interest in reading, but even that soon became cause for criticism. Mac’s taste in books, Phineas had said, was far too “populist.” “Stephen King?” he’d scoffed. “He’s the literary equivalent of fries and a Big Mac. I think he even said so himself.”
Whatever.
Mac traipsed down the stairs and saw Phineas through the screen door, standing at the top of the porch stairs. The “creature” Dee had referred to sat obediently at his feet, looking, as much as he hated to think it, like some kind of cross between a large rat and an opossum. No, that wasn’t fair. It was her daddy who looked like that.
Phineas turned at the sound of Mac’s footfall on the bottom stair. Even through the screen, Mac could see how tan Phineas was—it contrasted wonderfully with the starched white button-down shirt he wore, along with pressed jeans, loafers, and no socks. He lifted the corners of his lips to Mac, revealing rows of cosmetically enhanced teeth, perfectly white and block-shaped.
My God. What did I ever see in you? Mac asked in his head. He smiled back and stepped outside. “Hey, Phineas. What brings you over here?”
“I wanted to see yo
u. Can we sit?” Without waiting for an answer, Phineas snagged a seat on the glider. “Sit, Luz.” The dog, a Peruvian hairless, also known as an Inca Orchid, sat obediently, if not somewhat rigidly, much like her master. She had yet to look at Mac.
Mac wandered warily over to a space opposite the glider and leaned against the porch railing. He folded his arms across his chest. “This is unexpected.”
“I can’t come to see you?”
“Well… no. It’s been months. Come on. I thought we’d agreed we weren’t right for each other.” Mac smiled sweetly.
“Let’s not be unpleasant to one another.”
Mac had to bite his tongue to not say that was Phineas’s province—being unpleasant. “So, this is just a visit? Happened to be in the neighborhood?” Mac felt just about every muscle in his body clenching.
Phineas smiled, and Mac wondered how an expression usually associated with warmth and affection could manage to look so artificial and cunning. “Well, of course I wanted to see you. I’ve always been sorry how we left things.”
“Save it,” Mac warned.
“I need your help,” Phineas blurted. “And I thought it best to request it in person.”
“I should have known you needed something,” Mac said, his voice barely above a mumble. He couldn’t imagine, though, what Phineas would want with him. “Why else would you be here?”
“I was accepted into a teaching exchange program. In Moscow, for all of the next school year. It’s a dream come true.”
Had Mac missed something? This statement, like Phineas’s arrival on his front porch, seemed from so far out in left field. “Congratulations,” he said, with a distinct lack of enthusiasm.
“Anyway, I could use your help.”
“I don’t know any Russian, so if you want to know how to say—I don’t know—‘may I lick your bum?’—I wouldn’t know how, other than pantomime, of course.” Mac stuck his tongue out and wagged it a bit.
Phineas rolled his eyes. “I mean with Luz.”
Mac looked down at the dog. She’d been looking at him, but when he directed his gaze at her, she turned her head, as though bored. There was something cold about the dog, which Mac had always found strange, since he loved most dogs. He knew people found Luz ugly. She was, after all, hairless, save for the Mohawk-like tuft at the top of her head and the matching one at the tip of her tail. In his unkindest moments, he’d always thought she had something of the oversized rodent about her.
