Rough Road (18 page)

Trinity opens the door and folds her arms over her chest. “He doesn’t want to talk to you.”

“I know, but this is important. Can you ask him if he’ll just give me a few minutes?”

She glares at me. “They went out.”

“Out?” My jaw drops, and I brace myself against the doorway. He was supposed to be here. I would grovel a bit and then we’d live happily ever after, or at least go home and have smokin’ hot sex. I wasn’t prepared for the possibility he wouldn’t be here.

“Out.” She looks pointedly out the door. “Not here. And tonight was Jordan and I’s anniversary.”

I resist the urge to correct her grammar. “I fucked it up good, didn’t I?”

“Yeah, you did.” She shifts her weight and raises her chin. “You gonna do something about it?”

“You know where they went?” I ask her, mimicking her attitude. A ghost of a smile flickers around her lips.

“You know Champs?”

“The sports bar?” I groan. “Really?”

“Jordan is fine with a gay roommate, but he draws the line at going to gay bars, you know?”

Well, I can certainly appreciate his reticence there, but
ugh
. The worship of grown men chasing a ball is so not
my
scene. Not that I was invited.

“Okay, Trinity, how’s this? I get your boyfriend back in time for dinner, and it’s on me. Have him take you to the most expensive restaurant in town; I don’t care. I’ll call and settle the bill, okay?”

She softens a little. “You get your boyfriend back by suppertime too, okay?”

I start back down the stairs, then stop. I look up, and she’s watching me, so I call over my shoulder, “How many years?”

“What?”

“You and Jordan. How many years have you been dating?”

“Oh, it’s our ten-month anniversary.” She gives me a sly smile. “Longer than you and Wish, anyway.”

“Go put on a fancy dress and make a restaurant reservation. I’ll have him back in time for dinner.”

Champs is a neon-covered monstrosity. At one point, the building had been painted that peculiar shade of pink that is bizarrely popular in Central Florida, and then later it was painted over with a dull yellow. In some places, the pink still shows through. The “character” of Lake Lovelace is tired-er here on the west side of town.

I park out front and walk into the dark bar, senses assaulted on all sides by televisions, Jimmy Buffett music, and the smells of beer, sweat, and fried food. I search for Wish, and find him and Jordan in a corner booth. He doesn’t see me at first, he’s too busy waving his hands at Jordan, but as I approach, he looks up and his face shutters.

“May I join you?” I ask, suddenly sure I’m doing exactly the wrong thing, but it’s too late to do anything about it.

Jordan springs to his feet and gets in my face, all fire and venom. “He doesn’t want to talk to you. Can’t you take a hint? If he wanted to hear anything you had to say, he would have answered his phone.”

Okay, yes, brawling is a particular turn-on of mine, but getting my ass kicked by my boyfriend’s straight roommate is not foreplay. I hold up my hands in what I hope is a placating gesture.

“It’s important.” I peer over his shoulder, step to the side, and plead with Wish. He won’t even meet my eyes. “Please. I know—I know you’re really mad. I don’t deserve it, I know I don’t, but please listen—I can’t let the conversation we had this afternoon be the last thing we ever say to each other.”

“Maybe that isn’t up to you.” Jordan crosses his arms and steps in front of me again.

“Maybe it isn’t up to you either,” I snap, and attempt to sidestep him. This time he grabs my shirt in his fists and shoves me back.

“Jord, let him go.” Wish’s voice is almost as wrecked as that day he called me from the hospital. “You’re gonna get us kicked out.”

Jordan takes a step back.

“Eddie, I can’t . . .” Wish drops his gaze to the table.

“Please. Can you honestly say you’ll be any more willing to talk to me three days from now?”

“No, I won’t.” He takes a swig of his beer.

“So hear me out. At least let me apologize for—shit, for everything.”

He finally meets my eyes and stares for a long time, making me think for a minute he’s going to let his roommate drag me outside to deliver an unholy ass whuppin’, but then he says, “Fine.”

Jordan moves to sit back down, and I clear my throat. “Um, a little privacy please?”

“I drove.”

“I’ll drive him home.” I smile as sweetly as I can manage. “Shouldn’t you be celebrating your anniversary with Trinity?”

“I’ll take a cab. Go on, Jord.” Wish glances at his friend, then back at me. “You might as well sit.”

Jordan glares at me. “Don’t be a dick, man.”

I laugh, thinking his admonition has probably come too late, but then take his abandoned seat. He and Wish perform some elaborate bro-shake, and he finally leaves.

A half-eaten order of onion rings sits on the table with an empty bottle of Rolling Rock. I push both away, wrinkling my nose. Serious conversation should never be served with a side of fried food.

“Thank you, for letting me stay and talk. I know it’s a thing with you, when you’re angry, but you can’t fix things by running away from them.”

“Sometimes I don’t want to fix them, and it’s easier to walk away.”

Those words are like a punch in the face. “I see.”

Wish takes a pull on his beer and then waves it at me. “So, let’s hear it.”

“Hear what?”

“Your argument for how I’m wrong.”

“You’re not wrong.” I shrug. “Well, you’re not right either. But you’re not wrong. I have some issues with Ben.”

“Understatement of the year.” He snorts, then picks up one of the onion rings, takes a bite, and scowls at it. “These are terrible, don’t eat them.”

“I wasn’t planning on it.” I smile at him.

“Just because I wouldn’t wish disgusting food on you doesn’t mean I’m falling for your shit, Eddie.”

“I’m sorry, Wish. I’m so sorry. This afternoon I was stupid, and I was wrong, and you have every right to be mad at me.”

He twirls his finger as if to say
go on
.

“You are
not
my second choice. I want you. I don’t want Ben. You’re absolutely right that I’m used to putting him first, to trying to make life easier for him. Because he’s my friend and I take care of the people I love.”

“I knew it.” He shakes his head, and his chin trembles a bit. “Goddamn it, Eddie. You gotta do this to me in public?”

“Hey.” I cover his hands with my own. “I’ve been friends with Ben a long time. I love him, yes, but not like . . . not like you.”

He flinches, like a feral cat when you hold out food. “Not like me how?”

“Not like you at all.” I lift his hand and kiss it. “You, I want to see doing yoga at the foot of my bed every morning, and if you’re not there, I miss you. I think about you all the time. You’re responsible for goddamn every inappropriate erection I get in the course of my day-to-day. You make me feel young and wild and like everything or anything is possible.”

“Yeah, see you say things like that, but your actions don’t match up with your words.”

“I know, and that’s what I’m trying to explain. I put him first this afternoon, out of habit, out of—just years of habit. And I shouldn’t have, because he’s not that person to me anymore. He’s not the person I should put first. You are.”

“How can I believe you?” He sniffs, then straightens his spine. “I mean you say this . . . this awesome thing about how I make you feel, and how you’re going to put me first, but how do I trust that?”

“I don’t know that I deserve your trust. I want it. I want it so badly.” I shake my head. “No one has
ever
made me feel this way. And maybe I don’t deserve to.”

He looks down at our hands, still joined on the table. “So what are you going to do about it?”

“Well, for one, I’m going to stop fighting the roads bill. I’m going to close my dealership if the county votes that way, and I’m going to let Ben move on.”

“You really are, aren’t you?” Wish studies me over his beer. “What about your other employees?”

“For those I can place elsewhere, I will. For others, temporary unemployment while we rebuild. It’s not an ideal situation, but it will get them by.”

“What about Keith?”

I shrug. “He’s my friend, not my responsibility.”

“You’re really not in love with him?”

“Keith? No.” I shudder. “Straight boys, am I right?”

“I meant Ben.”

I shake my head. “I swear.”

“I’m falling for you.” He glares at me, right in the eye, a sudden ferocity in his voice. “I’m falling
hard
. And I might be a bit of a diva for asking, but I need to come first for you.”

I don’t hesitate. “You do. And I will do everything I can do to prove it to you.”

He sits back in his chair, but his hand is still clasped with mine on the table, so I pull him forward with a gentle tug. “And I’m falling for you too.
Hard
.”

His face lights up, and he whispers, “How hard?”

“Let me take you home and I’ll show you.” I grin.

He laughs, then gets serious. “I’m going to try. Because I want to believe you, and even though I’m scared, I think you mean it.”

“I do. With all my heart.” Relief washes over me, but also wariness. I might have fucked up, but he hurt me too. “Can we talk about how you walk away from us when you’re mad?”

He sits back a little, discomfort clear on his face. “I know I said I didn’t want to talk, but I was wrong. It’s just that confrontation makes me feel like the worst parts of me are exposed.”

“Sometimes being exposed is a good thing. And look, I’m stubborn and used to getting my way, but I wouldn’t have pushed so hard if you weren’t important to me. It kills me that you would rather walk away than fix this.”

“I think you and I are worth fixing—I shouldn’t have said that I didn’t want to fix it. I’m sorry. If you hadn’t come after me, I would have let being pissed at you ruin the best thing in my life.”

“Best thing in my life too,” I admit. “Can you try to do this for me: talk through our problems instead of storming off when you get mad?”

“I might need you to force the issue—I’m not good at this part.”

“It’s a deal,” I promise him. “So. Can we go back to talking about how hard you make me?”

Election Day fills me with the same dread I used to get before exams in school. Nail-biting, gut-clenching nerves. I wake up the first time at 3 a.m., toss and turn for an hour before Wish pulls me against the hard heat of his body and shushes me. Somehow, in his arms, I relax enough to fall back to sleep, and by the time I wake again, he’s gone to work.

The coffee in the pot is still warm, and there’s a note next to my mug.

Max invited us to dinner tonight. Text me later if you want to go.

If my plans, my efforts to stop the bill, bear fruit, he might have to move. Away from Max. Away from his mom. Chase a job to another part of the state—or another state altogether. I feel sick at the thought of what I may have cost him. And, of course, he’d also be moving away from me. How ironic I once feared tying a younger man to my older, settled lifestyle, and now I’m afraid I may have driven him from it?

One way or another, the results of today’s vote will change everything for me. I’ll either keep my dealership, potentially losing my boyfriend, or I’ll lose the dealership and pro shop. As much as both prospects sting, it isn’t the idea of not being Ben’s boss anymore that woke me up in the middle of the night.

I take my coffee to the back patio and watch the breeze stir the lake. A fisherman trolls by in his low flatboat, and I want to shout at him that it isn’t fair for him to be out enjoying himself while my life is a mess. It’s not often I’ve been presented with a situation I can’t control, and I hate the way helplessness chokes me, squeezes me. I wave to him instead, and he waves back.

Civilized, on the surface at least.

Later that morning, I head to Lake Lovelace High School—remodeled since the days when I brightened its hallways with my matriculation—my assigned polling place. The same hallways where I claimed my queerness so no one could use it against me seem dark and tiny and a little smelly now. The gym, with its array of high-tech voting machines and its crew of senior citizen volunteers, proudly proclaims its status as home to the Lake Lovelace Lions.

I take my place standing in line behind a mom who’s struggling to contain two young kids in a big double stroller. She’s the first person I’ve seen today displaying the same turmoil I feel. I can almost smell the desperation coming off her as she lifts the smaller baby and tries to stick a pacifier in its crying mouth. The baby only cries harder and spits the pacifier on the floor. Whatever they say about misery loving company must be true, because I take an immediate liking to the mom. I wonder how she’s planning to vote. Would a wider bridge make any difference in her life? I pick up the pacifier and hand it back to her.

“I’m sorry,” she says to me, an edge of panic in her voice. “She’s teething.”

“She’s adorable,” I reassure her, and her face brightens.

“Thank you.” She maneuvers the baby’s fist into the squalling mouth, and the crying stops. The mom’s shoulders slump in relief. A voting machine opens, and she wheels her kids over to it with a last apologetic smile over her shoulder.