A Whole Latte Sass

by Marguerite Labbe

  “You were kinda set on the fling idea too.” Morris chuckled in a low rumble. “Too busy, remember? I hear what you’re saying. There is a lot more to us than on the surface, so shut up and give it a chance because there may be a lot more under their surface.”

  Theo rubbed his fingers over the soft wool of Morris’s kilt. “You know how to speak Theo.”

  Morris settled down and joined in on the next song, singing in an off-key baritone. When it was over, the remaining crowd called for an encore, and Theo realized that this group could probably go all night long if the drinks and food kept flowing.

  “Felipe was asking if we’re going to have capes and canapés at our wedding,” Morris confided. “I laughed it off, but I kind of like the idea.”

  Theo closed his eyes with a shake of his head. “Scottie would murder me and hide my body in the walk-in freezer if I tried to put him in a cape.”

  “Yeah, so would my sisters.” Morris sighed. “It would be cool, though.”

  Theo heard that underlying note of nervous tension in Morris’s voice. He supposed it would make another man anxious, like Morris was having second thoughts, but Theo didn’t think that for a second. It was just the idea of a big event that got him so antsy and the desire to please everybody. Theo’s thoughts whirled as he looked at the people around him, the people who made up Morris’s world. The world that his family didn’t entirely get. “You know, I’m having a crazy thought.”

  “Just as long as it has nothing to do with extending the hours of the bistro until after the honeymoon. Things are going to be insane enough as it is.”

  The honeymoon. Wow, Theo could not wait for that, for real. It had been years since he had a vacation. The thought of it being just him and Morris at Disney and Universal Studios for a whole week of crazy fun. No work allowed. None. May couldn’t get here fast enough.

  “No, I was thinking of your capes and canapés idea.” Theo turned toward him and lowered his voice. “What if we did both, had the big celebration that fits our families’ idea of weddings and something small, zany, and fun earlier? Just us and the handful of people closest to us who can keep a secret.”

  Morris turned toward him, his eyes widening with hope. “Are you asking me to elope with you before our wedding that our sisters are going mental over?”

  “Yep.” The more Theo thought about it, the more he loved the idea. Jill and Morris’s troop of sisters had taken over. Which was probably partially their fault for letting them in the first place.

  “Didn’t I warn you that we would have to face the gauntlet of the sisters if you talked me into a plan like this?” Despite the warning in Morris’s voice, Theo could tell he was considering it.

  “That’s only if we get caught.” Theo hugged Morris’s waist. “They wouldn’t even think we’d do such a crazy thing in the middle of planning a wedding with a couple hundred guests.” The size and scope of it was part of what had Morris so on edge.

  “I can’t even believe I’m seriously thinking about agreeing to this,” Morris muttered.

  “We can clear off the tables one morning on the bistro deck or go down on the waterfront with just a few people. We can have all the crazy silliness we want. It’ll be our secret. And then whatever tizziness our families get into, it won’t matter because the important part, you and me and to death do us part, will be done. The rest is just dressing, and we can have fun.” The more Theo thought about it, the more he wanted to have that quiet, crazy day just for themselves. They were getting married. Who said they couldn’t celebrate that twice?

  Theo felt the tension drain out of Morris’s body. “You had me at capes and canapés, for real.” He brushed his lips over the top of Theo’s head. “I love it, especially the thought of doing it at the bistro. Just a few of us, right? Felipe, Scottie, Laila, and Lincoln? Lincoln can be trusted not to tell our sisters, right?”

  Theo pondered that a moment. It touched him that Morris had thought of Lincoln too. He weighed Lincoln’s desire to be a part of the secret against his ability to hide anything from Jill. Lincoln had a pretty good poker face and great instincts for survival. “He’d probably blurt it out a decade from now at some family function, like ‘Hey, guys, remember when you eloped,’ but by then it won’t be such a big deal. What about Laila? Can she keep it quiet?”

  “Oh hell yeah, she’ll tease us, but no threats would ever get that info out of her.” Morris nodded, his broad brow creased, and then he grinned at Theo. “When do you wanna?”

  Felipe turned around and eyeballed them. “What are you two scheming about?”

  Theo bit his lip to keep from laughing as Morris attempted to shoot Felipe an innocent look. It lasted for all of two seconds before Morris grinned. “Capes and canapés.”

  Felipe’s eyes narrowed. “How come I get the feeling you’re not just talking wedding planning?”

  “We’re eloping,” Theo confided in a conspiratorial voice. “Before all the planning makes us certifiably crazy.”

  “Yeah, I want to enjoy the moment. Not be dying of nerves because something isn’t planned perfectly,” Morris added. “We’re taking your idea. You and I can wear capes. Theo will make nibbles, and we’ll get hitched on the down low at the bistro.”

  Trask turned around, a smile tugging at his lips. “Congrats, you two.”

  “Does this mean I get to be a best man twice? I can wear a cape and a kilt?” Felipe’s eyes gleamed with mischief. “I’m in.”

  “You have to send me a picture of both. Are you going for superhero capes or something that would fit in more with the Faire?” Trask asked.

  Theo hoped superhero. Hell, if they were going with the zany theme, they might as well carry it the whole way. They would look back on the day of the big wedding and laugh while everybody else ran around in circles.

  “Oh, superhero all the damn way,” Morris said, and Felipe nodded eagerly. “I’m thinking Superman. I love Batman, but he’s moody. I don’t want moody. I love Superman’s blues and reds. Laila can wear a Wonder Woman getup. She’ll freaking love it.”

  “Good plan. I’ll make something for us and Lincoln too. He’ll want in on it. The capes can be souvenirs.” Felipe gave Theo a crooked grin. “Which I guess leaves you and Scottie out of the fun.”

  “Oh, don’t you worry. Coming up with the cocktails and finger foods for the theme will be superheroic for us. We won’t feel left out,” Theo assured him. Then he considered Morris’s earlier question. As tempted as he was to suggest eloping as soon as possible, he didn’t think they’d get away with it now. “We should probably do it at least within the same year as the big wedding, huh?”

  “Probably, though this means we can celebrate two anniversaries. That will be fun.” Morris said with a laugh. “I say we rule out the winter months. I’ll still be nervous, and I don’t want to worry about slipping on a patch of ice and sailing off the deck into Back Creek. I can’t really fly like Superman.”

  Only Morris would consider that a worry. “Let’s aim for March. The ladies will be in full-tilt mode and easily distracted. We’ll be in the middle of moving, so it’ll be a nice break, and if we come across acting weird, they’ll figure it’s because of the move and the wedding planning. They’d never suspect an elopement.”

  “You are devious.” Morris tapped his finger against Theo’s lips. “I think I love that about you.”

  “And now you just took a turn down sapsville.” Felipe snickered.

  “Oh, we haven’t even started getting sappy,” Theo warned and flicked his hand toward Felipe. “Go back to torturing Trask’s ears with your yapping.”

  “It’s not torture,” Trask protested. “I like hearing Felipe talk.”

  “See.” Felipe stuck his tongue out at them, hooked his arm through Trask’s, and turned back around to catch the end of the song.

  Theo glanced around at the thinning crowd, then leaned over to Morris. “I say we slip away, leave Felipe and Trask to get into whatever trouble they want, and you and I
go and celebrate in the back of your little car.”

  Morris laughed nervously. “You wouldn’t really….” He gave Theo a long look. Theo smirked back and slid his hand under Morris’s kilt, moving up along his thigh. Morris stood up, capturing Theo’s hand before he could go any further. “Night, Felipe, night, Trask. Gotta go.”

  Chapter Eight

  TRASK SLIPPED into the room and took a seat in one of the hard plastic chairs in the back. Long-familiar faces milled about, talking in low voices as they exchanged greetings and news. A few newcomers hovered uncertainly near the door with expressions ranging from hopeful to sullen as they were encouraged to take a seat. He didn’t see Ryan, even though he wasn’t closing the Den tonight, and then Trask remembered that Ryan had been splitting his time between this group and the one in Henrico as he settled into his new life.

  This was Trask’s home group. He’d been going to this same meeting on Monday nights for over a decade now. Coming here kept him grounded even when his mind wasn’t on the program. His thoughts were definitely wandering tonight. He kept thinking about how much fun he’d had hanging out with Felipe and getting to know his friends better. His thoughts also lingered on kissing Felipe among all the cars in the dark field after they left the Faire. That felt good.

  Trask did not get involved with young men still in college. He definitely did not get tangled with people in one of his immediate circles. If this game group worked out, then Felipe would be in his immediate circle. He had rules. Rules that had changed his life. Some argued he had too many rules, but he was still alive because of them. At the same time, he recognized rules were meant more as a guideline for life and it was possible to get too bound up in them, which could be just as unhealthy. The question he had was which applied to his life at this time?

  Every time Trask told himself he was going to take a step back and reevaluate the growing situation between them, he found himself exchanging texts and phone calls with Felipe. He found himself not calling off that breakfast date they had with puppies before the game next week. With puppies. Trask shook his head in bemusement. He had lost his mind, and yet he felt vitally alive.

  Over the last few months, Felipe had somehow managed to sink himself into Trask’s mind. He hadn’t realized how much until after that first date. Then bam! A thousand little memories of Felipe’s wicked smile and laughing eyes rose to the surface. The challenging strut to his gait when he wanted to flaunt it, and the quickness of his tongue.

  Trask glanced up as the meeting began and put his rambling thoughts away. He paid attention here in a way he’d never paid attention at the church services his grandmother had dragged him to as a child. He often wished that she’d lived long enough to see him turn his life around. Ryan would tell him that she did know, and the thought did help, but it wasn’t the same as having her here.

  He smiled faintly at old Joe as he opened up. The man was in his late seventies, as lean and tough as a steel nail. There were others who had the sober and clean years in that Joe did and gradually stopped coming, thinking they didn’t need the meetings anymore, but not Joe. Trask hoped that one day he would be doing the same and maybe showing that the program still had a purpose, still worked, even with that many years behind them.

  Trask looked down at his hands as Joe opened the chip container and contemplated the step for this night’s discussion. This step hadn’t given him as much trouble as others had in the past. Now he found himself looking at it in a new light with his fascination for Felipe. What was it inside him that had him seeking the young man out, agreeing to see him again?

  “Anyone with twenty-four hours?”

  A soft susurration of regret drew Trask’s attention back up, and his heart panged as he saw Jason with his hand raised. He’d had at least three years of being clean. There had been a time when Trask doubted Jason would make it that far. Trask intimately knew the pain and humiliation of collecting that twenty-four-hour chip after managing to hold on for that long. He also knew the relief and healing it could bring to admit it to these rooms. His heart ached for Jason, caught up in the midst of his personal demons, but he was here and that was a good thing.

  When Jason turned to sit back down after collecting his chip, Trask noted the bruised bags under his eyes, the trembling in his hands. He could’ve gone on another bender instead of coming here. Hell, he still might. Trask had done that before too. But he kept telling himself that if he just continued to come, something said within the NA rooms would have to sink through his thick-assed, stubborn skull. It had and it stuck.

  As the meeting continued, Trask listened to the others’ stories, gleaning from them some lessons he could apply to his own life, marveling at others, how the hell they were still alive, and contemplating what it meant to him. Old Joe caught his eye, and Trask knew if he didn’t speak, he just might be called on to do so. It could still be hard for him to open up at times, though here, he’d come to be more relaxed about it. But Joe had been his sponsor for many years, and he was always on the lookout for Trask and making sure he didn’t become complacent.

  “Thank you for sharing, Carrie,” Trask murmured with the rest and half raised his hand. Joe nodded in acknowledgment. “Hi, I’m Trask and I’m an addict.”

  “Hello, Trask,” familiar voices replied like an old Greek chorus.

  Trask rubbed his palms together. “There are some steps I really struggled over. Making amends for one. I had so much anger inside me, and I really felt that there were those who owed me amends first before I gave them theirs. But the steps all kind of work together, and I had to keep going back to tonight’s step to get a handle on making amends.” He’d gone several rounds with Joe over that very issue.

  He paused, lacing his fingers together. “A searching and fearless moral inventory….” He pressed lips together in thought. “That’s an ongoing process. It’s not a one and done step like I once thought it was. I believed I’d go through the program, graduate so to speak, and I would be done. Thinking like that kept me coming back, but it tricked me too. Because I kept thinking of an end result and not an ongoing life-changing process. And I ended up right back here with a fresh twenty-four-hour chip, a bad case of whiplash, and the terrifying knowledge that I should be dead.”

  Trask glanced up and caught Jason’s eyes. The raw desperation in his gaze was the same damned look from Trask’s past. But Jason wasn’t alone. None of them were.

  The room was quiet with the empathy of similar experiences. “To me, this step has to encompass the good as well as the bad. As hard as it is to face all our shortcomings and flaws, to admit all the places where we screwed up without equivocation, the reverse can be just as difficult. I think the hardest thing for me to face then, and it’s still difficult to grasp now, is that I am worthy of being loved. To be honest, it terrifies me and I push people away and I question my motives for wanting them near. Am I too dependent, or is this going to be another crutch? What can I possibly give someone who has no way of understanding the world I come from? I use that as a shield to keep myself safe, but sometimes I think I’m actually harming myself in the process.”

  He had no family left to speak of. He could count on one hand the number of friends he’d let get close to him, and most of them he’d met through the program. His last long-term relationship ended a couple of years ago. Hell, as Felipe reminded him, he didn’t even have a pet anymore.

  “I have lost people I really cared for because of it, and it’s a destructive pattern I don’t want to repeat.” Only Trask sure as hell didn’t know how to stop it. “So there, I’ve acknowledged it, wow.” He shook his head. He supposed he ought to admit that he had no damned control and go with the flow, but that was a rough one for him. He surrounded himself with his rules, his false idea of control, and knowing it was an illusion didn’t make it any damned easier to let go. He could spit out NA adages all night; applying them was another matter.

  “I think what it comes down to right now is that I’m afraid of putting
my toe back in those waters, because what if I succeed? That would mean commitment and working through all the ups and downs of a relationship, and dammit, that’s real work. And deep down, there is still that nagging voice that asks me if I’m worth it. Some days the answer is a hell yes, other days not so much.”

  Trask met the gazes around the room with a self-deprecating smile. “I have chased relationships away when I was using. I have chased them away when I wasn’t, but by my behavior, I might as well have been getting high. And I’ve kept them away by building this wall around myself and only letting a few people close. And I think that’s where I am right now. On the other side of the wall and wondering if I should go through that damned open door.”

  He paused again and nodded, clasping his hands together. He hoped he hadn’t let that run away from him. He really wasn’t good at this sharing business, but he continued to try. “Thanks for letting me share.”

  Joe favored him with a two-fingered salute and turned his attention to the next speaker. Trask listened in quiet contemplation as more shared their stories. He was often surprised by what poured out of him when he spoke. Sometimes truths he had buried so deep that he didn’t realize they were lingering in his subconscious until he opened his mouth. He had much to think about tonight.

  Jason spoke at the end, his head down, his voice barely audible. Trask couldn’t remember who his sponsor was, and whoever they were they didn’t seem to be in the room tonight. It nagged at him as they gathered in a circle for the closing prayer. At a time like this, Jason needed a strong sponsor. The meeting ended, and a few made a beeline for the bad coffee at the back of the room. Some others surrounded Jason, while more groups broke off in quiet conversation.

  Trask shrugged into his jacket and made his way over to Joe, who was packing up the meeting materials into a battered case. Joe glanced up, and a warm smile crossed his weathered and seamed face. “I was hoping you’d stick around afterward.” Joe stood up and clasped his hand.