L. A. Mischief (7 page)

Or were they both being stubborn fools instead of enjoying themselves the way they both wanted?

What was Chris planning for Wednesday? More than just a simple dinner, if David knew anything. David knew it would be an expensive one. When Chris wanted to impress he always went all out, which had always been a bone of contention between them. David wasn’t a material person. He was happy with his simple, uncluttered life. His cat, his antiques, the car he was still working to restore. He didn’t need or want anything else. But Chris lived in a world David had only caught glimpses of in his work as a homicide detective, where death visited the rich just as it did the poor and the disenfranchised. He saw the way they lived, the elaborate charade they often erected around their bubble of wealth and privilege to pretend a normalcy that didn’t exist. The rich were different. And Chris had spent most of his adult life in that rarefied gilded tower. The only common ground they seemed to share was in the bedroom, where they had fired a passion that David had never experienced before or since. Even at its best, sex with Blair never reached the levels it had with Chris. And something told David it was the same for Chris.

But could they forge a relationship on just sex? Even the best sex ended and what was there to fill that void?

Today had been promising. Maybe Chris could step out of his walled world and live in David’s. He’d had fun today. It had seemed to be genuine and David thought he could read Chris well enough to know when he was faking it. And he hadn’t been faking today.

So did that mean there was hope?

He desperately wanted to think so.

Once home he fed Sweeney, put the Bud in his fridge and pulled a steak out to barbecue. All he’d had all day were the bar snacks from the bowling alley. He was starving. A rare steak and a salad filled his stomach and an old John Wayne movie following the news would round out his evening. It would have been perfect except for the fact that he would be going to bed alone.

Sweeney jumped onto the chair beside him and butted his head against David’s chin, demanding a belly rub. Once David complied he curled up on his lap and started purring.

David watched the news with only half an ear, then had another beer while he watched John Wayne save the west again. Finally he went to bed where his dreams were filled with achingly erotic dreams where he pursued and caught Chris only to see him fade away into a sticky dawn. Groaning he dragged himself into the bathroom where he tried to clean himself up while keeping the bandages around his stomach from getting wet, no easy task. He’d be glad when the reminder of his carelessness was gone.

In the meantime he needed to find something to fill his time.

He had a room full of old clocks and Victrolas he was painstakingly restoring. He could spend a few hours doing that. And there was always the car. It was a bottomless pit of repairs and special order parts that weren’t always easy to get. But he was determined to restore it as close as he could get to cherry, and was willing to wait for the right part to come along.

He took it easy on Sunday and Monday. By Tuesday he was bored and decided to clean the house. He realized his pain had ended and was looking forward to getting back to normal—and work. He was eating a simple lunch of a grilled cheese sandwich and a bowl of mushroom soup, when the house phone rang. He scooped it up, surprised to find Des on the other end.

“Just wanted to see how you were doing,” Des said.

“Good,” David said. Quietly he added, “How about you?”

“I’m doing okay. It’s still rough, you know. Sometimes I think it will never get better, then it does. Know what I mean?”

“Yeah, I do.” David encountered a lot of grief and rage in his job. He saw often how it destroyed some people and made others stronger. He had the feeling Des was the type to get stronger. “You’ll be okay, Des. You’re one of the survivors.”

“Sometimes I think that’s the problem.”

David knew enough psychology to understand survivor’s guilt. Des’s sorrow came from the simple fact that his lover, Kyle had died, and he hadn’t. And that was something Des would have to work through on his own.

“It’s rough,” he said. “All you can do is take it one day at a time. You know Kyle loved you and he wouldn’t want you to be in pain because of what happened to him. He’d want you to be happy.”

“I know,” Des’s voice broke. “But I miss him so much.”

“Do you want me to come over, Des? I’m just finishing lunch, but we could go for a walk. Get out of the house. Talk.”

“Would you? I’d like that.”

“I’ll pick you up in about an hour. Maybe we can down to the beach, watch the lifeguards,” David said, fingers crossed that Des wouldn’t be upset at the suggestion. According to Chris, Des didn’t even look at guys right now. The very idea of being with someone seemed to trigger too much pain.

But Des only laughed. “You’re on.”

The Santa Monica pier was the end of the legendary Route 66 so it was only appropriate that David and Des parked David’s ‘56 Chevy in the Pier Deck parking. They strolled through the boisterous crowds of parents and children. Even on a Tuesday, the place was packed. The famous carousel with its painted ponies, dancing chariots, and gleaming brass glowed in the deepening dusk. In the distance the solar powered Pacific Wheel carried its human cargo aloft against the clouds massed out over the Pacific.

Raucous hawkers peddled everything from cotton candy to giant stuffed pandas. Des walked at David’s side, dwarfed beside his six-four frame. He stuffed his hands in his jean pockets and seemed relaxed.

“Chris and I used to come here a lot when we were at UCLA. We weren’t much more than kids I guess, though we thought we were pretty sophisticated. He won me a tiger once, gave it to me right here,” Des glanced around the milling crowds of couples and kids. “Didn’t give a damn what anyone thought. Just handed me this big black and orange thing with this shit eating grin on his face.” He shook his hairless head at the memory. “I tried to win one back so we’d be even, but I couldn’t win jack. You want some cotton candy?”

It was on the tip of David’s tongue to say he didn’t really like the stuff then he looked down into Des’s open face and saw his broad smile and acquiesced with a grin. “Sure.”

Des bounced over to the nearest vendor and returned minutes later with two cones covered with pink and blue spun sugar clouds. David took the blue one and bit off a mouthful, which instantly dissolved into a sticky mass of crystals on his tongue.

“What was he like?” David asked softly, almost to himself.

Des didn’t need to ask who. He smiled and stuffed a finger full of cotton candy in his mouth. “He was always up for an adventure. He wanted to ‘try’ life, he said. He dragged me out to go sky diving once, I almost shit my pants. Another time we had to go to Australia and try reef diving, because he heard the best diving was there. He dragged us out of school for a long weekend at the balloon fiesta in Albuquerque and hooked us up with someone in the mass ascent on opening day. But he never let his grades slip. The guy was a genius—even when he didn’t try, he aced a 3.0 grade point average. When he put his mind to it he always got a 4.0. It was always easy for him.”

“Even being gay?” It had taken David years to even be able to say that word. It had taken him nearly as long to come to terms with the fact that he was part of that disenfranchised group. It had always seemed like a ridiculously frivolous word for such a life changing thing. But it was a word he’d learned to embrace since it gave him a freedom he’d never had before. A freedom just to be himself.

“Even that,” Des said. “He told me once he knew he was gay in junior high. He claimed he was really nerdy back then, told me he looked like ‘the dog’s breakfast’ which I never believed, but he insisted. I guess he got seduced by some jock in the locker room after a big football game and always said he knew what that made him. But he had a supportive family and when he finally came out to them in senior high there were no fireworks. What about you, what was it like?”

“I knew young, but I didn’t want it to be true, so I pretended it wasn’t. But there was this sergeant at the academy... he showed me what it could be like. Of course back then if you came out on the job you were committing career suicide so we all learned to keep our mouths shut.”

“That’s got to be hard. I always had it pretty easy. Hell any one who knows anything about fashion assumes we’re gay even if we’re not. Hooray for stereotypes, right? No one cares. Right wing god jockeys don’t tend to buy what I’m selling anyway. Your parents... do they...?”

“They know,” David said stiffly, thinking of his rigid, New England born and bred mother and her Puritan sensibilities and morals. “They made no bones about not liking it. At least my mother did. My stepfather’s less... judgmental.”

Des’s smile turned coy. “I’ll bet you never thought you’d fall in love with someone like Chris, did you?”

“The truth? No. What have we got in common? I mean, look at me.”

“You’re sexier than you think. Chris sure thinks so.”

“He said that?”

“No, but then for the first time Chris wouldn’t talk much about that at all. Usually he’d dish all his dates. I expected it. But with you,” he shrugged. “He wouldn’t talk.”

David was amused and slightly alarmed at the notion of Chris talking him up to Des. But what did he expect? The two had been best friends for most of their lives and had shared so many things, good and bad. Of course Des would want to know all about the men in Chris’s life.

That raised a chilling specter. “What about now,” he said. “Does Chris still tell you all the ‘dish’?”

Des suddenly looked away, his stance growing rigid. David’s heart stopped beating.

“What does he tell you, Des?”

“I can’t do that David. I can’t tell stories out of school anymore.”

“You mean you can’t, or you won’t?”

“Won’t and don’t ask me. It’s not fair to Chris or me. I stood behind you guys all the way. I still think you belong together, but you’re not sure, are you? So whatever Chris does is his business, however ill-guided it is.”

All too true, David thought bitterly. He’d given up his right to criticize Chris’s lifestyle choices when he walked away from their relationship. The reasons behind his walk were still valid, but he had to wonder if he’d been too hasty in giving up. Maybe they could work things out, if they both wanted to.

“Does he ever talk about me?”

“Does he think about you, you mean? He does.” Des blinked and stared out over the park to the sunlit sea beyond. “I’ve seen him cry, you know,” he whispered. “If that’s what you want to hear. He misses you more than he could ever admit, but he’s too damn stubborn to come to you, with his hat in his hands. Too prideful.”

He was hardly the only one. He could be stubborn too. Chris would have said pig-headed.

Finishing up his cotton candy he dumped the sticky paper cone into an overflowing garbage receptacle and strolled towards the pier that extended out into the ocean. The sun was moving around to begins its western descent. Sails dotted the horizon and further out a large tanker moved south, toward San Diego.

Des leaned on the rail and gazed down at the foamy, roiling waves that pounded against the pylons underpinning the pier. At low tide David knew lovers often took advantage of the privacy the pier afforded. So, unfortunately did dealers and others who preyed on them.

From where he stood David couldn’t see anyone down on the sand. He put his back to the ocean and faced Des who was still nibbling on his candy floss. Behind them the sounds of revelry rose and fell like a tide of noise. They continued moving down the pier, toward the Mariasol Cocina Mexicana restaurant.

“Do you really think we have a hope in hell of making it work?” David asked softly, half afraid of the answer, but needing to know.

Des turned to face him squarely. “I think that’s up to you and him.”

Not much of an answer. But then what did he expect, a magic fix? It was going to be work, for both of them. Was he up to it? Was Chris?

What was the alternative?

He sighed and tipped his head sideways, avoiding Des’s knowing look. But Des would have none of it. He stepped closer, forcing David’s face around.

“Do you love him?”

“What? Yes, of course. I always did—”

“That’s your answer then, isn’t it?”

And in the end it was as simple as that.

David did something then he’d never done before, even with Chris. He drew Des into his arms and hugged him, not caring a whit who saw him or what they thought. Then he leaned down and kissed Des on the mouth.

Des stood frozen, his hands on David’s arms. He blinked up at David then a broad smile broke over his face.

“I dare you to do that again.”

David looked around and flushed when he realized they were surrounded by people. But he gamely tightened his grip on Des’s shoulders and kissed him again. They separated and Des gestured toward the Mariasol. “Buy you a drink?”

“I better not. But let me take a raincheck.”

Des nodded. “Okay. When you have some good news to tell me. We’ll come back then.”

David started dressing early for his eight o’clock date. He took a long shower and scrubbed all over, enjoying the freedom from his bandages and stitches. He looked at the three inch scar on his belly, realizing that it would never completely fade and would always be a reminder of his encounter with Bitterman.

He spent an inordinate amount of time picking out what he was going to wear. Until Chris he’d owned one suit outside of the LAPD uniform he wore for formal events like police funerals. Chris had insisted that change. He had gifted David with three suits, all from Des’s Beverly Hills boutique. He looked them over then chose the gray Amalfi, pairing it with a pale rose shirt and dark gray and cordovan rose tie. Back in the upstairs bath with the full length mirror he studied himself, knowing he looked as good as he could, given the material he had to work with. He had shaved following his shower but even so he ran a hand over his face, grimacing at the rasp. His beard grew fast. Too damn fast. He pulled out his electric razor and buzzed himself again. Then he took his mustache comb and scissors and touched up his ‘stache, frowning over the gray hairs he spotted mixed in with his sable black.