I’m not even to the kitchen when the doorbell rings.
Shit.
I don’t want Dom to wake up. He needs his sleep.
But I also don’t want to answer the door. What if it’s one of his cop buddies? What if they see me in my underwear and they don’t know he’s… well, whatever he is? I mean, he’s got to be at least bi. Not that it matters. Labels aren’t important. Well, except they are. Like, what are we now? Is he my boyfriend? Or my partner? Or my fuck buddy? Or—
Shit. I’m doing that thing I said I wouldn’t do.
The doorbell rings again.
Fuck it. I’m decently covered. I got this.
Except if it’s Bear, it whispers. If he sees you like this, he’s going to murder you.
That puts a little falter in my step.
But even before I can open the door, I hear a key in the lock and it turns and opens on its own. Well, not exactly on its own.
Stacey smiles at me, and when she looks me up and down, that smile turns into something more. “Hey, Ty,” she says, brushing past me. “Saw the car in the driveway, figured the big guy was home. Thought I’d drop on by and find out how the trip went.”
My face burns with the force of a thousand suns. “Uh. Er. Flarg.” I’m pretty sure I look like a homosexual deer caught in the headlights after just having sex for the first time.
“What’s that?” she asks, heading for the kitchen.
“Please, come in,” I say.
“Thanks,” she says. “Oh, I’ve got a key.”
“I noticed.” I look longingly at the front door, giving serious reconsideration to running through it.
“Hey, can you help me?” she calls, and I can hear the sounds of her rooting around in the cabinets.
I would rather not, and I would actually rather have her not exist in my vicinity right at this moment at all, but that doesn’t seem like a polite thing to say. “Uh, sure.”
I follow her into the kitchen, and she’s taken coffee mugs down and is fiddling with the fancy espresso machine Dom has. She pushes a button and it makes a grinding noise. She frowns and hits it. “Technology hates me.”
“If it makes you feel any better,” I say, “I don’t know how to work it either. What’s the point of having one of those when you can just go to Starbucks?”
She reaches up over the sink and finds a box of tea. It strikes me then that she probably lived here at one point, or at least has been here many times, and knows the house well. I’m jealous, but I don’t know why.
“This will do,” she says. “I’m pretty sure Dominic would be slightly pissed if we burned down his house. Speaking of, where is he?”
“Sleeping,” I say. “We didn’t get to bed until really late last night.”
“Oh, really?” she asks, that smile returning.
I backpedal as quickly as possible. “What? No! What? We were driving! Got back late! Very early! That’s it!”
“Uh-huh.” She puts two mugs in the microwave and starts it. “So you guys just crashed, huh?”
“Yes, ma’am. That’s it. Just crashed. So tired. Long drive.” I fake yawn. It probably looks like I’m doing a bad impression of a T. rex. Or a good impression of an allosaurus. Subtle differences, those.
“I bet,” she says. “Long drives can do that to you.”
Goddamn stress sweat. “Sure can.”
“Tea?” she asks me as the microwave goes off.
“Thank you,” I say politely. And maniacally.
She takes sugar and honey down from a shelf without even having to search for it, and I’m somehow able to keep from growling at her. The smile plastered on my face probably wouldn’t look out of place in a mug shot lineup of known serial killers.
“Shall we sit?” she asks when she finishes the tea.
“Sounds wonderful.” Sounds awful and I’d rather get punched in the uvula!
“How was Tucson?” she asks.
“Hot.”
“And Kori’s all right?”
“Peachy.”
“Have a good time?”
“Yes.”
I’m golden. She won’t break me.
She takes a sip from her tea. “You and Dom get on okay?”
I’m drowning in my own sweat. “We got it on okay—or, what I actually meant to say was we got on just fine.”
“Lovely.”
“Quite.”
“Indeed.”
“Totally.”
“His bed is really soft, isn’t it?” she asks innocently.
“I wouldn’t know,” I say. “I slept in the spare room.”
“Did you?”
“Sure did.”
“So, Ben’s room.”
Oh fuck. “Yes.”
“You slept in Ben’s room.”
“Yeah.”
She laughs. “In his racecar bed, huh?”
Son of a bitch! Did he have a racecar bed? “I pretended I was driving really fast,” I told her, spilling my tea all over myself.
“Did you?”
“Yes.”
“Fascinating.”
“I agree.”
“Tyson?”
“Yes?”
“Ben doesn’t have a racecar bed. It’s just a normal bed.”
“You liar!” I shout at her.
“You little shit!” she says with a grin. “So it finally happened, huh?”
“I have no idea what you mean.”
“Oh, bullshit. Tyson. I don’t care. Well, I do. But not in the way you think.”
“How can you say that!” I cry at her. “This is your ex-husband! His loins did stuff with your loins and you have a child!”
“Ew,” she says, her nose wrinkling. “Let’s not talk about loins anymore.”
I bury my face in my hands. “Oh, Jesus.”
“What’s wrong?”
“Everything. Nothing. I don’t know.”
“Well, that was… all-encompassing. And succinct, as usual.”
“I hated you,” I say, dropping my hands on the table. “For the longest time.”
She seems taken aback by my candor. “I know,” she says. “But I won’t apologize for it.”
I shake my head. “And I don’t want you to. I was wrong. I’m the one who’s sorry.”
“Tyson, can I tell you something? Just between you and me?”
“I guess.”
“And you have to promise to let me finish.”
“When people tell me that, it usually means I’m not going to like it,” I say glumly.
Stacey laughs. “Probably. But you need to hear it.”
“Okay.”
She takes a deep breath and then lets it out slowly. She looks out the window into the afternoon, then back at me. It’s only a second she looks away, but in that second her face hardens, and her eyes turn steely. “You broke him,” she says. Gone is the laughter in her voice. “When you left. When you abandoned him. When you took yourself away from him, when you cast him off like he was nothing so you could lick your wounds, you broke him.”
“I—”
“No interrupting, remember?”
I nod and sit back, helpless.
She watches me for a moment to make sure I’m sincere before she continues. “I sent your invitation out early. We hadn’t even agreed on a design yet. He told me he’d already told you. That you were happy. That you were okay. I should have looked closer, but everything was swirling around me then. The pregnancy, him. His mood since you’d gone away to school. It was all too much. And then the day came when you stopped it all.
“He tried to hide it. He tried to go on like nothing had changed. Like he wasn’t unhappy. Like he wasn’t upset. Like he just hadn’t had his whole world turned upside down. Because whether you realize it or not, Tyson, that’s what you were. You were his world. The rest of us just drifted right on by. When you pulled away, so did he. He acted like it was nothing, but I knew him. It wasn’t nothing.”
She looks down at her hands. “We we
re never meant to be, he and I. I know that. I’ve had a long time to accept it, and I have. I’ve moved on. I have a wonderful life. I can stand on my own two feet. I have a man who loves me. I have a son I would do anything for. But even though Dom and I didn’t work out, that doesn’t mean I don’t still love him. Do you understand?”
I nod. Then, quietly, “He loves you too.”
“I know. We’re friends. But even if we weren’t, we’re always going to be bound together because of Ben. Ben has to come first. No matter what. You were Dom’s world before, Tyson, but now you’re going to have to share it. Nothing, and I mean nothing, can bring harm to Ben. Are we clear?”
I nod.
She looks a little sad. “He told me, one day. I don’t know why he came clean or what he thought would happen. He told me how he felt. You know. About you. But I had already figured it out long ago.”
“How?”
“The looks he gave you,” she says. “Like you were the only magic he’d ever known. I knew that look for what it was. And when you left, it was like a light had gone out in him.”
“I’m sorry,” I say, unsure of what else to say.
She shakes her head. “You don’t have to apologize to me. I’m not the one who needs to hear it.”
“I know. He knows. I’ve told him.”
“Is that all you’ve told him?”
I look sharply up at her. She watches me with those clever eyes. “Yes,” I say. “For now.”
“Are you staying?”
I hesitate. “I… don’t know.”
“Does he know?”
“I don’t know.”
“Tyson? What do you know?”
“That I love him,” I finally say aloud. It’s easier than I thought it would be. “With everything that I am. With everything that I have.”
“Is that enough?” she asks.
“I want it to be. But I need to work more on myself before it can be. I need to stand on my own.”
“And how are you going to do that?”
“I don’t know yet. But I’ll figure it out.”
“Just… don’t hurt him.”
I look away. “I never wanted to.”
The fierceness melts away, and she smiles. “I know. But sometimes, those we love the most are the ones we hurt the most. And he loves you, Tyson. I don’t think he ever stopped, even when he didn’t know that’s what it was.”
“Do you…?”
“What?”
I think hard. “Do you think it’s possible for two people to be meant for each other? That even through all the shit and all the drama, you’re meant to be?”
“I do. Some things are just inevitable.”
I close my eyes. “What?”
Stacey reaches out and takes my hand in hers. “Inevitable, Tyson. No matter how hard you fight. No matter what happens between the two of you, no matter the distance that separates you, sometimes, these things are inevitable.”
SHE LEAVES a little while later.
I sit at the table, watching the sunlight trace its way along the wall. For the first time in a long time, I’m making decisions for myself. It’s terrifying. Addicts and alcoholics can tell you that, for a time after the drinking and the drugs end, all decision making is taken away and a strict structure is put in its place. It’s constrictive and suffocating, but necessary. It can be hard to trust us again, and we might not even trust ourselves. It was good to hand the reins over. But it’s gone on long enough.
And it scares the crap out of me.
It’s going to hurt, no matter what I decide. And now there’s more to consider. So much more. And I have to take it all in.
Speaking of.
Up from the table. Down the hall.
I crawl back into the bed with him.
He opens his eyes. He sees me. And smiles. As if he’d been waiting for just this moment to wake and see me.
Ah, God. How he sees me. My heart aches for him. All of me does.
“Hi,” he says in that broken voice. “Okay?”
I nod. “I need to go home.”
He waits.
“I want you to come with me.”
“To the Green Monstrosity?”
“Yeah. There’s something I need to do.”
“I’m not going to like this, am I?”
I kiss him lightly. “Probably not. But if it ends like I think it will, then none of that will matter anymore.”
“I need to call Stacey,” he says. “Check in with her first.”
“She says to call her tomorrow, that Ben is fine. They had a blast on their trip. Seems Ben likes cotton candy far too much and Mickey gave him a hug.”
He smiles. “Oh yeah? And when did she say that?”
“Earlier. We talked.”
“Good?”
“Good.”
He holds me close.
“YOU SURE about this?” I ask, looking out the window at the Green Monstrosity.
He snorts. “Are you asking for me or for you?”
“For you, of course.” That’s a total lie.
“I’m fine,” he says cheerfully.
Bastard. “Lucky you,” I mutter. I get out of the SUV. He meets me around front. He kisses me once.
Then the door opens.
Bear.
I don’t know which one of us runs first. Maybe we both start at the same time. But one moment we’re watching each other, and the next we’re crashing into each other and I’m struggling to maintain composure as my brother hugs me as hard as he can. I allow myself to think how high that kite flies for just a moment, but then it doesn’t matter. All that matters is that despite everything that happened to us, Bear and I survived. We might not be perfect. Far from it, in fact. We think too much. We worry too much. We never stop talking. But that’s okay. We’re alive and there’s the possibility of a future, however uncertain it might be.
That’s enough.
“SO YOU guys are fucking now?” Bear asks evenly as he leans against the counter.
Okay, maybe it wasn’t enough. “Bear!” I yelp, shocked.
“Oh Lord,” Otter groans.
“What?” Bear asks. “If he’s old enough to make these kinds of choices, then he’s old enough for me to tell it like it is.” There’s a harshness to his voice I haven’t heard in a very long time. It doesn’t bode well for how this conversation is going to go.
“Don’t be so crass,” Otter admonishes him lightly.
“And besides,” I say, “you were only one year older than me when you and Otter started fucking.”
“That’s… you don’t….” Bear sputters. “You can’t… you watch your mouth!”
“Are you sure you want to be in this?” Otter asks Dominic. “It’s too late for me, but you still have a chance to run.”
“It really is too late for you,” Bear agrees. “You try to escape, I’ll go Annie Wilkes on your legs.”
Otter sighs. “It’s good to know that even after all this time, you can still make my heart jump with romantic threats of violence.”
“I figured that out a long time ago,” Dom says to Otter. “I probably couldn’t get away even if I tried. He’s surprisingly resourceful.”
“They both are,” Otter says. “It’s scary. You just wait.”
I scowl at Dom. “You think you’re being funny, but you’re not.”
“We’ll talk about that later,” Bear growls at Otter.
Dom and Otter share a look I can’t even begin to decipher, but I’m sure is full of shit.
“Things were different for Otter and me,” Bear says to me. “You can’t even begin to compare the two.”
“How?” I ask. “How is what you and Otter have any different?”
“For one, we’ve been together a long time.”
“Yeah, but you had to start somewhere.”
“It certainly wasn’t with fucking!”
“How in God’s name did you get there, and why is that the only thing you’re fixated on?”
&n
bsp; “Do you want to get chlamydia?”
“I don’t have chlamydia,” Dom say.
“I’m not stupid,” I say to Bear. “We used protection.”
Bear’s eyes narrow. “So you did have sex.”
“Yes,” I retort. “And it was fucking awesome. As a matter of fact, I’m thinking about doing it again tonight!” I’m not, actually. I’m pretty sure my ass is going to be sore for days.
“Not here you won’t!”
“Well, then it’s a good thing Dom has his own house!”
“Dom,” Otter says. “Want to go have a beer in the backyard?”
“Sure,” he says. “This is probably going to go on for a while, huh?”
“It’s just getting started,” Otter says. “Come on. I’ll give you some insight as to what you’re in for.”
“I heard that!” Bear and I say at the same time.
“Be nice,” Otter says to Bear, kissing him on the cheek.
“Don’t yell too much,” Dom says to me, squeezing my hand.
Then they practically run from the room. The jerks.
“That went well,” I mutter. I lean against the wall and glare at my brother.
He’s watching the entryway where Dom and Otter disappeared. “It usually does with us.”
“Think before you talk, much? You just asked us if we were fucking. Jesus Christ.”
“What else was I supposed to say?”
“I don’t know. Maybe something with even a modicum of tact? That might be a good place to start. I’m not a kid anymore, Bear.”
“No,” he says. “You’re not.”
“You’ve got to start understanding that.”
“I do,” he says. “More than you could possibly know. Every day I’m reminded of it. Decisions made without my input. Things happening I can’t control.” He sighs. “It sucks.”
“That’s life.”
His eyes flash. “That’s not our life. We’ve always done things together. Made decisions together. Took steps together.”
I say nothing.
“Then all of these things happen,” he continues, starting to pace. “You announce to the world you’re gay without talking to me first. You get a boyfriend. You get hooked on the benzos. You almost flunk out of school. You didn’t care what I said. Or what Otter said. Or Corey. Anyone.”
“I did,” I say. “Eventually. It just took time.”