The Closer You Get (30 page)

Jeff’s eyes looked a little red around the rims, but it was difficult to tell with just the porch light. “I…I sure understand all that. I do. I hate thinking of how I acted. He was my boy, and if you want the truth, I always felt closer with him than with you or Scott. I guess cause he was the baby, I don’t know. At the time, well, I thought I’d raised all of you right. I thought we’d made it past anything like that. I know it’s wrong and foolish, but having a gay son…well, that was my worst nightmare. When he came to us, I just felt…I felt betrayed by God. And I thought maybe it wasn’t real. Maybe there was something wrong with him.”

“There’s nothing wrong with him.”

“I know. I know that, Rye. I do. But at the time, I was just confused and…and scared and angry. I know it was wrong, and I regret that day more than anything else in my life. Both for how I treated Cash and for how I treated you.”

Rye hated that he was starting to feel pangs of compassion. He didn’t want to forgive this man. He’d set his dad up as the villain in his life for ten years, now, and all of a sudden the monster was becoming human right before his eyes.
 

“I know you’d be too young to recall, but your mother and I never hit any of you kids. Not even spankings. We never raised a hand to y’uns. We just couldn’t countenance it. That fight, Rye…,” he stopped and looked away. “God, I’m so sorry, son. I was so angry. Angry enough to turn one son away and to use my fists on another.”

“Well, I swung first, Dad,” Rye said, contrition coming into his voice whether he liked it or not.

“Ain’t no excuse for me. Ain’t no excuse for fighting with my boy.”

Rye shrugged and looked away. “It’s done.”

“Yeah. It’s done. I wish it wasn’t, but it is.”

Rye looked down at his feet. The night, here, was noisy, being in town. There were highway sounds and the occasional car passing by. Finally, Rye sighed. And with the breath went a weight he didn’t know he’d been carrying. “I guess if you’re making amends with Cash, that’s really the most important thing.”

Jeff nodded. “I want to make amends with you, too, Rye.”

Rye wanted to hang on to his grudge. He felt justified in doing it. But there was also something in him that kept him from fully rejecting his father’s repentance. The same something that made him march down to the river to get his bitter and degraded soul washed clean. Maybe this was a part of that cleansing. He blew out a breath and shoved his hands in his pockets. “I don’t want you to think you just get to apologize and suddenly have my trust—”

“I don’t, son. I know it’ll take time. But if you’ll just let me try.”

Rye nodded as he dug the toe of his boot into the driveway. “Yeah, all right. I can do that.”

“Good,” Jeff said, visibly relieved. “Good. Thank you. And I know Scott is sorry, too.”

“Scott can go fuck himself.”

Jeff laughed.

Rye looked up at him, startled. But then he laughed, too.
 

Jeff shook his head. “You draw your lines hard, son. It’s a good quality. I appreciate the forgiveness that much more.”

Rye studied his dad for a long moment. Then he stepped forward and held out his hand. Jeff shook it and thanked him once more.

“I don’t suppose you’ll reconsider coming over,” Jeff said. “It’d mean so much to your mother. And it’d give Scott a chance to make his own apology.”

Rye mulled it over. “I don’t know,” he said.
 

“If you need some time…”

“It’s not that. It’s just…there’s Cora. You know?”

Jeff laughed. “Yeah. I know. You’d have some privacy at our house, though. You can pretend you’re sneaking girls in your room like in high school.”

Rye frowned in thought. “That does sound like fun.”

“And then there’d be breakfast.”

“I do love breakfast.”

Jeff chuckled. “It’s settled then.” He slapped Rye on the back and led him back into Candace’s house.
 

They all played with the kids for another hour and visited. And then they convoyed out of town to the large, ranch house that Rye and Cash had grown up in.
 

Cora lay naked and sated in Rye’s bed late that night. The lights were out. The windows were open, the breeze shifting the curtains, which in turn shifted the moonlight and the shadows. She listened to Rye’s breathing, gradually slowing after a passionate round of lovemaking. His fingers were linked with hers as they lay side-by-side.

“How many do I make?” she asked.

“How many what?”

“Women. In this bed.”

“Hmm. Tough question. There were quite a few in high school. Oddly, they all asked that question, too.”

“I think they wanted you to lie and tell them they were the only ones.”

Rye squeezed her hand. “If it makes you feel any better, I’m pretty sure you hold the record for most orgasms in this bed.”

Cora giggled. “I’ll take it.”

He was quiet for a while. Cora’s eyes were wide open as she stared at the ceiling.
 

“Did you like my family?” Rye asked.

“Yes,” she replied. “Very much. Seeing you play with your niece…mmm. Pretty sure my ovaries were quivering with joy.”

“So Cash was right. You’ve gone and gotten ideas, huh?”

Cora couldn’t tell if there was a tone to his voice other than amusement. “Would you be opposed if I had?”

He was quiet for a moment. “You know, I think my only objection would be timing. I want to spend time with you. Just you and me. But beyond that, no, I’m not opposed.”

Were they really having this conversation? After so brief a period of time? Surely it couldn’t be as easy as this. Surely you couldn’t just fall in love with a man and have him fall in love with you back just in a matter of weeks.

“Inching too close to commitment talk for your comfort?” Rye asked, jolting her out of her reverie.

“N-no. Just…I’m surprised is all.”

“Be okay with you if we saved that conversation for a little later? I’m enjoying what we’re doing right now.”

With that, Cora snuggled close to his side. “We are so right for each other.”

“Agreed. Cora?”

“Mm?”

“There is one thing I need to tell you right now.” He rolled to his side, propped up on his elbow, and brushed her hair out of her face. There was just enough moonlight in the room that she could see into his eyes. “I love you.”

She blinked. Smiled. Her skin flushed, and her heart beat a little faster. True, she hadn’t given much thought to the saying of those words, everything was happening so fast. But hearing them felt right. And she knew beyond a doubt that she felt the same way. “I love you, too.”

His smile lit up the night. “First time I’ve ever said that to a woman.”

“Really? You’re an I-love-you virgin?”

“Not anymore.”

“I’m glad I could experience this moment with you.”

He kissed her, his tongue lapping at her lips as she realized he didn’t know how to do anything without putting his whole heart into it, not even a kiss. She took it, opening to him, excited at all the possibilities for their future.

N
OW
,
NOT
ONLY
was his boyfriend shutting him out, his best friend was, too. Adam faced the prospect of a weekend alone, knowing that he was losing both Cash and Cora, and not knowing why.
 

That wasn’t true. He knew exactly why.
 

Rye.

The guy was obviously one of those soul-sucking, charismatic user types. The kind of guy who could charm the pants off the most stalwart of prudes. The kind of guy who made you think he was a hero so you’d give him all your heart and loyalty.

Wasn’t that what he’d done for Cash? He’d rescued Cash one time, and now Cash was so unbendingly loyal, he couldn’t even see his brother’s faults. Couldn’t even see the potential in his relationship with Adam.
 

It wouldn’t hurt so bad if Adam hadn’t fallen so far in love that he could hardly breathe from the effort of masking it. He wanted to shout it out, to declare to Cash that he loved him and wanted to spend forever with him. But there was no doing that while Cash continued to give so much of himself to his brother.

And then there was Cora. Rye had changed her, and she couldn’t even see it. Now she was even keeping secrets from him. He’d found out that she knew what had happened to Cash back in Henderson. She knew what Rye had been arrested for. But she wouldn’t tell him. Her loyalties had changed. She’d turned away from him.

“Fuck it,” Adam said on Saturday morning. He swung his legs out of bed, dressed, and drove to his office. Was it ethical to violate the privacy of his lover’s past? No, of course not. But what choice did he have?

He turned on his computer and searched for crimes committed in Henderson, Arkansas three years ago. He found the mugshot of Davis Acton and realized he’d seen the guy before. He was some cousin or somebody to the Dunigans. In the photo, his face was completely rearranged, his eyes swelled nearly shut, his lip split and bloody, and bruising pretty much everywhere.
 

Next he found Rye’s mugshot. Rye’s lip was also split, but other than that, he looked just as pretty as ever. Adam read court reports and newspaper articles. As he read, he grew sick to his stomach.
 

Cash.

He’d gone through a hell Adam couldn’t imagine. Six guys had dragged him into the woods that night. They’d kept him there for three hours before Rye had finally found him and intervened. The doctor who testified for Cash had described the injuries in such detail that Adam figured Cash must have spent weeks in the hospital.
 

Rye had been found innocent of nearly beating Acton to death. Adam couldn’t blame him for what he’d done, but upon reading the testimonies of some of the men who’d witnessed it, albeit men who had later been convicted on other charges, Adam decided he didn’t like the picture he saw. The level of violence Rye was capable of frightened him. And to think that Cora was spending time alone with him.

It was further confirmation of the danger that Rye posed. Adam had a long held belief that violence begets violence. Was Rye really defending his brother? Or had Rye’s already violent personality created unnecessary enmity amongst his coworkers? Maybe bad things never would have happened to Cash if his brother hadn’t been around stirring up trouble.
 

Adam wound up staring at his computer and stewing. He didn’t know what to do.
 

He shut down his office and drove to Darcy’s. He might’ve called Cora since she was the one he always talked to when he needed to work some things out. But Cora was lost to him now. He might have called Franny, but he frankly didn’t like Franny’s way of thinking about things.

So he went to Roux and Jack. The bar was slow since it was early in the afternoon. Adam was a little upset to see Les and Eddie Dunigan playing pool, but they both appeared to be sober and not taking notice of anyone else.
 

Adam sipped on a glass of wine while Roux and Jack leaned against the bar in front of him. “What do you do if you’re dating someone, but you hate their family?”

“Depends,” Roux said. “How serious is the relationship?”

“Serious. I mean, it has the potential to be serious. It’s just, his brother’s got him all tied up, and I can’t seem to cut him free.”

“Why don’t you like Rye?” Jack asked. “Seems like a standup guy. Sure is crazy about Cora.”

“Am I the only one who noticed how many women he ran through in his first few weeks here? I mean, I don’t know what he wants from Cora, but I know he’s bad for her. And I know I can’t get close to Cash because of him. I also know he’s prone to violence and, therefore, dangerous.”

“How do you figure?” Roux asked. “I’ve never seen him pick a fight.”

“Trust me. He’s capable of inflicting serious damage.”

“Has he threatened you or something?”

“No, but I saw pictures of a guy’s face. He was let off the hook on self-defense, but from the looks of it, he kept beating the guy long after the guy stopped being a threat.”

“When was this?”

“A few years back in Henderson. Davis Acton. You heard of him?”

Roux and Jack shook their heads. But Adam had caught the attention Les and Eddie, who were now heading toward the bar. “You know the guy who beat up Davis?” Les asked.

“Beat it, guys,” Jack said. “This isn’t your conversation.”

“He’s talking about our cousin. You can be for damn sure it’s our conversation, now.”

Adam swallowed the last of his wine and inched away from the two brothers who had moved uncomfortably close.
 

“Speak up,” Les said to Adam. “Who is this guy?”

“If you cared so much you could have found out. It’s public record after all.”

“Bet it’s that guy who threatened you at the pizza place,” Eddie said.

“Yeah. What’s his name? Ryan or something?”

“Rye Holcomb,” Adam said. “What’s it to you?”

“I’ll tell you what it is to me,” Les said. “Davis is my kin, and we don’t take kindly to folks beating up on our kin.”

Adam had witnessed the behavior before, but he couldn’t wrap his mind around it. People like Les and Eddie suddenly became loyal to family they didn’t even care about when an outsider came around and caused trouble. It was like the whole idea that you can be mean to your brother, but no one else is allowed to be. The situation was made even worse by knowing what a monster Davis Acton was. You’d have to have lost all touch with your humanity to do what he’d done to Cash.

“I say we make sure that son-of-a-bitch knows he’s not welcome in our town,” Les muttered to his brother.
 

Eddie agreed.

Jack spoke up, then. “Hey, I don’t want talk like that in my bar. You boys can leave the past in the past or else get the hell out of here.”

Les and Eddie muttered and slinked back to their pool table.
 

Adam shook his head in frustration.

“You can go, too,” Jack said.

Adam looked up in surprise. “I beg your pardon?”

“You just stirred up a shit-load of trouble for a guy who, as far as I can tell, doesn’t deserve it.”