“And he got mad. You fought. I know.”
A small smile that had little to do with humor curved his lips. “I don’t think so. When you told me he’d told you the story, I thought you got it. You understood. But I don’t think you did.”
“So, tell me.”
“We got shit-faced, and I got what I wanted. He asked me not to go. He got mad, yeah. He wanted to know how I could take it up the ass for somebody else, how I could fuck just...some guy. That’s what he said. How could I fuck some guy. How could I kiss some guy. And he tried to kiss me.”
She studied his face, looking again so deep he knew there was no way she couldn’t understand him. “He didn’t tell me that.”
Alex laughed. “Jamie couldn’t hold his liquor. He tried. I didn’t let him.”
“Why not?”
“Because,” Alex said. “Jamie’s not...that’s not him.”
“Obviously it is.”
He shook his head. “No. I don’t think so. He’s not going to suddenly come out of the closet. He’s not queer, Anne. And I loved him, yeah, but not...not in a way that would end up being very good. For either one of us. I’m a fuckup. I can’t make things work. And I didn’t want us to screw trashed out of our heads and lose everything we had.”
“And the fight?”
“Oh, we had it. He punched me in the face and called me a fucking fairy faggot queer. We both hit the coffee table, and he got tore up. I took him to the E.R. The rest is the same.”
“And you left for Singapore.”
“I went back to the Kinneys once before I left,” he said. “I wanted to find out how he was. Mrs. Kinney told me I wasn’t worth the dirt under Jamie’s shoes and that I should consider myself never welcome in their house again. I’d known she didn’t like me, but I’d never realized until then that she hated me. I don’t know what he told her, but it was enough to make her crazy.”
She smoothed his hair off his face. “Alex. I’m so sorry.”
“I wanted to come to your wedding. I could have. I could’ve taken the time, no problem. But when it came right down to it, I didn’t think I could see him again for the first time in so long walking down the aisle. So I waited, sent a gift.”
“It was very nice. We still have it.” She smiled.
He smiled, too. “I sent him a card. We kept in touch. I ended up here. And once again, I’ve fucked it all up.”
“No, you haven’t.”
He reached to put his hand on the back of her neck, to pull her just a bit closer. Their foreheads touched. She closed her eyes, waiting for a kiss that didn’t come.
“I didn’t count on you.”
A small, hitching sob leaked out of her. “I thought you—”
“Shh.” He put his arms around her, no longer wanting to hurt her even if it was better in the long run.
“What are we going to do?” Anne whispered.
“Nothing.”
“We have to do something.” She pulled away to look at him, to cup his cheek. “This is something.”
He pulled away. “What you and Jamie have is something. This is just...nothing, remember? A little summer fling. I’ll leave. You’ll forget it ever happened.”
“No. I won’t. He won’t, either.”
Alex tried a smile. “You’d be surprised what Jamie can forget when he wants to.”
“I won’t forget,” Anne said fiercely, a sheen of tears in her eyes. “I won’t ever forget.”
He kissed her forehead. “Yes, you will.”
“Will you?”
It was all too much. There was too much there between them, layers he hadn’t expected. Like the surface of the lake, clear to a point and murky below it, and he was treading water without knowing what lay beneath. He was a disaster, a mess, and he could not let her choose him. He had to walk away.
He kissed her forehead again, softer this time. “Anne, I already have.”
Then he got up and left her alone.
* * *
John Kennedy pushed the coffeepot across the diner table toward his son. “Drink up. It’s on me.”
“I can pay for it, Dad.” Alex filled his mug with the black, bitter coffee and added sugar and cream.
His dad snorted. “You drink your coffee like a pussy.”
Alex didn’t let that get a rise out of him. Compared to some of the things his dad had said in the past, this was the equivalent of a hug. They drank their coffee in silence broken by the clatter of forks on plates and low conversation.
“You got another one of those?” His dad gestured at the pack of Marlboros in Alex’s breast pocket. “Your mother got me quitting all kinds of shit.”
Alex gave his dad the pack. “You can have it.”
His dad quirked a thick, gray eyebrow. Alex swore to himself if his hair ever started to grow as wild and ungroomed as his dad’s, he’d shave himself bald. His dad sucked in a long, grateful drag before he started coughing and pounded out the cigarette.
“Fucking things,” John said morosely. “They’re killers.”
His dad sat back in the booth and stared at him while Alex stared back. It had been a long time. He’d spoken to his parents on the phone and kept in touch with his younger sisters, but that wasn’t the same.
“Listen,” his dad said suddenly, as though he couldn’t bear the silence. “I wanted to say...I’m sorry.”
Alex tensed his jaw on the words threatening to spill out. Instead he said lightly, “For what?”
“For being a fucking drunken asshole to you,” his dad said so sincerely there was no question he meant every word. “I’ve been sober, God willing I should keep it up, for five years.”
Alex blinked, years of built-up anger trying to surface and sloughing away at this unpretentious and simple honesty. “Dad—”
His dad held up his hand. “No. No, listen to me, boy. I know I’ve been an awful fucking father to you and your sisters, and a shitty fucking husband to your mother. But, God willing, I’ve changed. And I’m trying to make amends. So I’m fucking glad you came back here, son, so I can tell you this. That’s all.”
His dad nodded, that gesture familiar in the way the apology was foreign. Alex didn’t point out that although he hadn’t kept in touch with his family, he’d always made sure they got their monthly checks. They always knew where he could be found. If his dad had really wanted to make amends he might’ve done it long ago.
“It’s okay, Dad.”
“How about you?” His dad said, almost as an afterthought. “You good?”
“Um...yeah. Sure. I’m good.” He’d told his dad about selling Transcom but not about much else. They walked to the cashier and though his dad had said he was going to pay, Alex pulled out his wallet and paid the tab.
“Got a special lady in your life?” In the parking lot, his dad nudged him with a grin showing teeth that had had a lot of work done.
Alex looked up into late-summer sunshine, squinting against the glare. A breeze made the day less of a scorcher than it might have been, otherwise, but sweat trickled down his back anyway. He looked at his dad, who’d always seemed so big but had shrunk.
“No, Dad. No special lady.”
“Don’t wait forever,” his dad said with another nudge. “Your pecker’ll fall off. Well, maybe you’ll stop over to the house before you head out of town. I’m sure your mother would be glad to see you.”
“I will,” Alex promised.
He stood in the parking lot for a long time after his dad drove away. There should have been more to it than that. A tearful embrace would have been too much to ask for, but maybe a handshake or something honest.
Not everything changes.
* * *
“Man, of all the places you could stay, why are you holed up here?” Jamie looked around the room, which had been remodeled but would always be small. “Fucking Breakers hotel? C’mon.”
The Hotel Breakers was Cedar Point’s oldest property, right on Lake Erie. Alex used to unclog its toilets and
put down sawdust on the puke spots when little kids had too much fun at the amusement park. Now he was staying in its most expensive room and ordering room service every day. Jamie wouldn’t get it if Alex tried to explain, so he didn’t.
“Everything work out okay with Claire?”
Anne’s sister’s husband had run up a bunch of gambling debt and put them in the hole to the tune of almost a hundred thousand dollars. Jamie had asked Alex for a loan and Alex, who was by no means any sort of humanitarian, had given it. He had fuckall else to do with all that money.
Jamie nodded. “Yeah, man. Thanks for the money. It will help her a lot. Anne wanted me to thank you.”
Alex laughed and looked out the window to the lake beyond. “Yeah, right.”
“Listen. I could talk to her. If you wanted.”
Alex flicked Jamie a glance. “Why would I want you to do that?”
Jamie looked uncomfortable, and Alex tried to find some pity for his best friend. Very little of it rose to the surface, so he dug deeper, trying to imagine what it must be like for Jamie, the peacemaker, to deal with his pissed-off wife. Alex tried but couldn’t quite manage more than the barest of sympathy.
“It’s better this way,” he said when Jamie didn’t answer.
Jamie fidgeted foot to foot and scrubbed at his hair. Then he sat so heavily on the end of the bed it creaked and rocked against the wall. He buried his face in his hands, shoulders hunching, and let out a low groan.
“I think...I think she’s going to leave me. She says she’s not, but fuck...” Jamie’s voice trailed off, strangled.
Alarmed, Alex turned and went to the bed. He put his arm around Jamie’s shoulders. “She won’t.”
“She says she won’t. She says...she loves me.” Jamie’s voice, muffled behind his hands, broke. His shoulders heaved again. “But I wouldn’t blame her if she did.”
Alex wouldn’t have, either, but he kept his mouth shut on that truth. “Shh. She loves you.”
“She loves you,” Jamie said without a hint of accusation.
Pain speared Alex’s heart, sharp as a blade. “No. She doesn’t.”
Jamie looked up at him, expression agonized but eyes dry. Alex had never seen his friend look bleak. “You were right. I should’ve just told her from the start.”
Alex didn’t wish Jamie had listened to him. Then it might never have happened at all. “Too late now, brother.”
“Alex...”
Jamie almost never called him by name. It was always man, or buddy, or dude, or bro. Now his voice drew out the syllables and dragged on the consonants, turning the name into a plea.
“No, Jamie.” Alex shook his head and would have moved away, but Jamie’s work-worn hand gripped his wrist.
Jamie kissed him.
Alex, ready for it, didn’t open his mouth though Jamie’s parted lips gusted hot breath over it. Jamie shifted and held him close though Alex was no longer trying to get away. He felt the wet probe of the tip of Jamie’s tongue and couldn’t fight it.
For all the years spent imagining it, the kiss was harder than it should have been. Jamie shook against him even as his tongue swept inside Alex’s mouth. Jamie’s taste reminded Alex too much of Anne.
Jamie put a hand on Alex’s thigh, high up. Leaning, breathing, kissing, it seemed the embrace when on forever, but at the touch, so close to his prick, Alex put away. He jerked his wrist from Jamie’s grip and slapped his hand down on his friend’s to keep it from moving higher.
“No, Jamie,” Alex said again, softly, their mouths still so close they almost touched with every word.
Jamie withdrew a little. “Why not?”
Alex ran his hand over Jamie’s hair, memorizing the thickness of each soft strand, and anchored Jamie to him with a hand on the back of his neck. He put his forehead to Jamie’s, eyes closed for half a heartbeat. Then he pressed first his lips and then his cheek to Jamie’s so he could speak directly into his friend’s ear.
“Because I love you too fucking much. Because things would change if we did this, and not for the better. You know it, too.”
Jamie put his arms around him, his face buried against the side of Alex’s neck. “I fucking ruined it all.”
“No. Not all of it. You’ll always be my best fucking friend, Jamie.”
They held each other, tight, without any of the fake backslapping or arm-punching that had always punctuated every embrace they’d ever had without a woman between them. And then, Alex pulled away. Jamie blinked, face red, and his fists clenched in his lap.
“Go home to your wife, Jamie. Everything will be all right.”
Jamie nodded and stood on unsteady legs, but though it looked as though he might fall he made it to the doorway without stumbling. Alex watched him go. He heard the dry, hard click of the door locking as Jamie closed it, but Jamie didn’t look back.
* * *
When the knock came at the door, Alex knew who had to be on the other side. Jamie wasn’t answering his calls. It could only be one other person. “Does Jamie know you’re here?”
“Yes.”
“He does?” Surprised, he couldn’t meet her eyes. “Fuck.”
“Exactly.”
He looked at her then, startled at her calm response. He tried to speak, but had no words. The world shifted under his feet and he could only concentrate on standing still.
Anne’s fingers eased open the buttons of her shirt. “I have to know something, Alex. Do you want to fuck me?”
Fucking Anne was the least of what he wanted from her. He couldn’t speak, could only watch as she shrugged out of her shirt and then her skirt. Her clothes fell to the floor and she stood before him in only a set of soft, simple cotton panties and bra.
She held open her arms. “Do you?”
He grabbed her without thinking, and she gasped. “Is that why you’re here?”
“Yes. It is.”
He couldn’t stop himself from pulling her against him. He’d felt her there before, but this was different. Everything had changed, and Alex wasn’t sure he could stand to stop himself yet one more time from doing what he really wanted.
She smelled so fucking good he wanted to cry. His cock thickened, pressing the front of his jeans. “Jamie’s my best friend.”
“He’s my husband.”
With a helpless groan he pulled away to look at her. “Why, Anne? Why now?”
“Because I want to. Because you’re going away.”
Jamie thought she was going to leave him, though she’d said she would not. Anne pushed Alex’s shirt from his shoulders, then slid her hands over his bare chest. His skin humped into gooseflesh. She wasn’t going to leave Jamie, and Alex knew it. But he also couldn’t find the strength to stop her when she pressed her face to his chest, just above his heart.
“Because I have to let you go,” she said against his skin. “You have to go.”
He did have to go. He held her close, his fingers tracing the bump of her shoulder blades. “I’m going. It’s better this way.”
Anne, as far as he knew, had never lied to him, and she didn’t now. “It’s not. But that’s okay.”
She drew his face to hers and kissed him. She unzipped his jeans and reached inside to find his already hard prick. He said her name and nothing more, and then she pushed his jeans down to the floor.
On her knees, she took him into her mouth. The wet, slick ecstasy of it was familiar and strange at the same time. He knew her touch but there was something different in it now they both knew it wouldn’t have to end with this.
He looked down. She looked up. He took her hand and led her to the bed, where he laid her down to kiss every part of her. She made the noise he loved, and he had to smile.
“I know how to touch you.”
“Yes. You do.”
“I want to hear you make that sound again,” he told her and moved up her body to suck first one nipple, then the other.
Desire might have made him fast, except he wanted to hold on to e
ach of these moments, knowing they were the last. The texture of her hair, unbound and tumbling around her shoulders. The flavor of her skin and the taste of it. The smooth, cool tightness of her nipples and softer warmth between her thighs. He memorized every part of her so he could take the memories with him and leave the rest behind.
His cock throbbed, aching with the need to be inside her. They shifted on the bed until he rested between her legs. The head of his erection nudged at her. Heat and wet welcomed him, drew him in. His arms, supporting him, trembled as he eased inside her and she shifted her hips to take him deeper.
Everything had always gone deeper with Anne.
He wanted to move fast and forced himself to slowness. In. Out. Half a thrust at a time to make it last. Anne came, her body going tight around him. They kissed, mouths biting and sucking at each other, and still their bodies would not come down from the pleasure building up.
He lost track of her orgasms, unable to count when all he could do was focus on his own impending climax. He licked her mouth, looked into her eyes. They moved together and it was so fucking good it didn’t seem real. When she came again, he joined her. Pleasure roared through his veins and left him blind.
Afterward, hands linked side by side in his big hotel bed, they lay silent. After a few minutes Anne got up and went into the bathroom without a word. He wanted to call her back, not to make love to her again but to tell her he didn’t want to leave. That even though it was for the best, he didn’t want to go.
When she came out of the bathroom she wore a different face. She’d combed her hair and fixed her makeup. She looked at him with different eyes, and he hated feeling as though all she saw was the surface.
“Goodbye, Alex. I hope you’ll be happy.”
She had her hand on the doorknob before he got the balls to speak.
“Anne.”
She stopped but didn’t turn. He didn’t want to make this harder. He didn’t want her to regret this. But Alex was tired of lying.
“When I said Jamie was the only one who’d ever made me understand how it could be to love someone...”