Rough Road (9 page)

On Sunday afternoon, I have to take him home, and I’m reluctant for reasons I don’t fully understand. I think about picking a fight with him in the car. It would end things fast, or it would end up with us in bed. But I can’t do it. I had too much fun, enjoyed the sex and the sunshine and the company too much to sabotage us.

“Eddie?” Wish sets his hand on my leg. “Did you hear a word I said?”

“I’m a complicated guy,” I blurt out. “I know I told you that already. I don’t know if I can be good for you. I don’t know if I can be what you need in a boyfriend.”

“Whoa, where did this come from? And maybe we should stop the car if you’re going to break up with me.” He leaves his hand on my thigh, and I reach down and take it in my own.

“I’m not—” I pull over anyway, into the weed-strewn gravel lot of a church, put the car in park, and turn to face him. “I’m not trying to break up with you. I don’t know what I’m doing.”

He considers me, all serious and seriously pretty, and he squeezes my hand, and oh my God, am I really starting a relationship with a twenty-four-year-old?

“Let’s start small,” he says. “Do you want to see me again?”

“Yes. I want that a lot.”

“Okay. I do too. Why are you worried about being a complicated guy? I like
you
.”

I take a deep breath. “My relationships don’t tend to last because I’m high maintenance. I’m an incorrigible flirt. I don’t tone down my big gay attitude for anyone, anywhere, so you can totally expect me to fag out and embarrass you in front of your straight friends.”

“Fag out? Best you can do?” He laughs. “Okay, first of all, I like your big gay attitude. It’s a turn-on to be with someone who doesn’t give a fuck what anyone thinks. Second of all, the flirting is cute, especially when you do it with me. And I’m pretty sure ‘high maintenance’ is a code word for ‘likes attention’ and I like paying attention to you.”

“I do like attention.” I try to keep a straight face, but who am I kidding? “And I really like attention from you. And your cock.”

He grins back at me. “So, we’re good here? Your little crisis is over?”

“You know, there aren’t a lot of people who are willing to put up with me on a regular basis.”

“Well, that number grew by one, okay?” He undoes his seatbelt and leans across the console. He puts one hand on either side of my lap and kisses me.

It’s not a “we’re okay now” peck. It’s a no-holds-barred sensual onslaught. It’s teeth, tongue, perfect pressure. It’s the kind of kiss that ends with clothes on the floor and somebody getting dicked out up against the wall.

It’s the kind of kiss that makes promises.

“Fuck.” I groan as he pulls out of the kiss and sits back in his seat. He fastens his seatbelt again and faces forward, brushing his hair out of his eyes and smiling like that cat who got the cream.

“You’re pleased with yourself,” I huff as I put the car in drive again.

“Just pleased.” He starts fucking whistling, so off-key that it takes me a minute to recognize the song. “Blue Skies.”

“You’re a pretty great guy, Wish,” I tell him as I pull into traffic. “But you got no fucking ear for music.”

“Not one bit. Nobody wants to stand next to me when the singing starts at birthday parties.”

“I think I’ll keep you anyway.”

On Monday morning, I start making calls about the roads bill. No time like the present to thwart Romeo. I call my mother first because I know she’ll start harping on it to her girlfriends in the active adult community where she lives. They’re all about keeping Lake Lovelace a small, family-oriented town; especially since most of them grew up here when the town was first being built. It’s
their
town, and as far as they’re concerned, progress of any kind needs to wait until they’re dead, so they can turn over in their graves.

Mama is properly scandalized.

After promising her I’m doing my best to preserve the nature of our community, I ask her about her best friend, Karen, who recently had a hip replacement. Karen’s nephew works in the zoning commissioner’s office.

“She says it’s better than new—says she’s going to dance the rumba at the Christmas party this year.” Mama cackles into the phone. “I can’t wait to see that. She’ll be so touched you asked.”

“Does her nephew still work for the city?”

“He does, and I’ll be sure he gets an earful about this bridge project. Four lanes of traffic each direction? That’s just wrong, honey.”

“Too right, Mama.”

“Did you know that Karen’s youngest son, the one who lives in Miami, is gay?”

I wince. Yeah, I knew. I’ve known since the guy gave me a blowjob during the town Christmas tree lighting ceremony twenty years ago. I have tried on many occasions to explain the “you don’t out anyone, ever” rule to my mama, but she doesn’t get it. “I may have known.”

“Well, he finally came out to Karen and Geoff, so there’s no reason for him to stay in Miami. I mean, now that everyone knows the truth.”

Oh, I can see where this is headed. I take a deep breath and pray for patience.

“He has a job, a partner, a life in Miami. Don’t start playing matchmaker in the hopes he’ll move back home to cement the dynasty of two Lake Lovelace families, okay?”

Her put-upon sigh makes me smile. Mama is nothing if not relentless in her pursuit of my happiness—preferably the coupled variety.

“Edward Anthony Russell, I may be an old lady but I can still whip your ass for sassing me.”

“Yes, Mother.”

“Come to dinner Thursday, I’ll make lasagna.”

I glance at the calendar. “What time?”

“At dinnertime, Ed. And would it kill you to bring a date?”

She always asks, and I think it breaks her heart a little when I show up alone. I suppose I could bring Wish. He’s made it clear he wants to have something like a relationship. Something more than smoking-hot sex. Well, meeting Mama would certainly show my willingness to try this dating thing at least.

“I’ve been seeing someone. I’ll ask him. But Mama—” I pause for her squeals of joy. “Mama, it’s not serious. We’re casual.”

“I serve him lasagna, he won’t be casual for long. Oh, baby.” She sounds like she’s going to cry. “Bringing a man home to meet your mother. I’m so happy.”

In spite of my attempt to deflate her expectations, by the time we hang up I think she’s picking out a mother-of-the-groom dress.

Next, I start riling up the libertarians about the sin taxes. Romeo may be able to count on them to help him push cuts for social programs, but they aren’t going to be happy about a tax increase. By the time six o’clock rolls around and I start my drive home from the marina, I feel like I’ve spent more time planting the seeds of an opposition to the road expansion than I have on my actual business endeavors. I use the Bluetooth to voice dial Wish.

“Hey, you.” His voice is low and husky. Intimate. My breath catches and a rush of heat floods my groin.

“Hey, yourself. I promised my mother I would invite you to dinner on Thursday. You in?”

“You have a mother?”

“I didn’t erupt, fully formed, from my daddy’s head like Athena. Yes, I have a mother.”

“And I get to meet her? That’s a big deal, S-Class.” There’s as much excitement as nerves in his tone. God, he’s as bad as she is. They’re going to love each other.

“Are you afraid to meet my mother?” I’m oddly charmed by that.

“No.”

“You should be.” I laugh. “She’s a feisty old lady, and she has no filter. She’ll embarrass both of us, and her dog will pee on your shoes.”

“She sounds terrific.” He chuckles into the phone. “I’m in.”

I pick him up at six thirty Thursday night. The GPS leads me to a newish apartment complex on the western side of town—about as far from the water as one can get and still be in Lake Lovelace proper. I park the Benz and make my way to the fourth floor—Jesus, you’d have to be young to live here. I’m in decent shape, but my knees would have a thing or two to say about a daily workout like that.

“Hey, S-Class.” He greets me with a smile and a kiss on the cheek. I angle for a little more, but he pulls back and opens the door. “C’mon in; I’ll be ready in a minute.”

I step through the door into a small, but clean apartment. A young man in a baseball cap reclines on the sofa in the living room, playing a first-person shooter game, and a woman with long black hair is cooking at the stove.

“Eddie, this is my roommate, Jordan, and his girlfriend, Trinity. Guys, this is Eddie.” He waves at the other people in his apartment, then disappears into another room.

“Pleasure to meet you.” I nod at the girl, who gives me a bright smile, then the guy on the sofa, who sort of grunts at me.

Roommate. Ugh. So much for the possibility of postdinner coitus. The last time I had a roommate was when I let Ben live in my house nine years ago. Not an ideal situation, but it did help him get sober. I can’t imagine voluntarily living with someone I wasn’t fucking.

Stepping from one foot to the other, I listen to the buzz of an electric shaver until Wish emerges from the bathroom.

“Ready?” I ask, raising an eyebrow. God, he’s pretty. I’d gotten used to his end-of-the-day scruff, but clean-shaven? He’s even hotter.

“Absolutely. ’Night you guys.” He waves at his roommate.

“What’s that like?” I gesture back toward the apartment as I unlock the car. “Roommate?”

He shrugs. “Necessary evil. I don’t really make enough to live on my own and save money too, so, Jordan.”

Wow. I couldn’t have asked for a clearer demonstration of how we’re in different stages of life, compounded by the fact I’ve never had to worry about money. How the hell is this ever going to work?

“I don’t know what that’s like,” I admit. “I’m a spectacularly privileged fucker.”

He laughs. “I won’t hold it against you.”

But I can’t help being unnerved by the reminder of our age difference as we head toward my mom’s house. Wish doesn’t seem to mind the silence though—he runs his hand up and down my thigh, almost absently like he’s feeling the texture of my jeans. Finally, he says, “What’s on your mind?”

“You’re so . . .”

“Young.”

I wince and nod.

“It’s okay to notice it, you know? The difference. It doesn’t bother me though. It’s part of what I like about you. That you’ve lived a completely different life than I have, and we can still find common ground.”

“That’s the boner talking, lovely.”

He laughs. “See, that’s what I mean. You’re funny and sexy, and I don’t have to have been born in the sixties to see that, or to like it.”

“It’s going to piss you off at some point. There’s going to be a final straw, where I’m too old, and it’s just too weird for you.”

“That’s your baggage. Not mine. I’m not carrying it for you either, because that bag is toxic. Waiting for the other shoe to drop? Throw the damned thing and be done with it.”

“You have quite the way with words,” I say as we pull up to a stoplight, and he leans across the console and kisses me, deep and sweet. When a horn sounds behind us, we separate, and I blush as I drive through the intersection. “And kisses. You have a way with those too.”

“That’s the boner talking.”

When Mama opens the door, her Jack Russell terrier, Ricochet, runs up my legs and then over to the couch, jumps on it, spins in a circle, leaps down, and runs over to Wish and circles him a few times before lifting his leg. I tug Wish out of the way, and he manages to avoid getting pee on his shoes. Mama clucks and fusses and scolds the dog, then puts him out back and returns to the door.