Sidecar Page 13

There was a grunt then, and he realized that maybe the woman did care, and that he’d just hurt her needlessly. Well then, good for her. This whole interlude in Joe’s life seemed to be hurting needlessly; he was just glad to share.

  “He’s doing well, then?”

  “Yeah,” Joe muttered roughly. “He’s doing good.” Joe would have liked to say he didn’t know. That Casey had moved out of his house and out of his life, and that was the end of that. But it wasn’t true. Joe had fed him, cared for him, watched over him for five and a half years. You just didn’t quit caring after that, even if the guy had shoved a knife in your chest and twisted the handle two, three, six times before he left. No. Joe knew where Casey was staying, and had gone by the place about twice a month since Casey had moved out. A couple of times he’d seen that Casey’s car had been out of the driveway and had stopped to talk—first to Casey’s boyfriend, who had been less than friendly, and then to Casey’s roommate, who had been more than accommodating. It had been hard. Casey was both doing okay and he wasn’t. He was waiting tables and making money, and he was making it to his classes, but it was all so skin of the teeth. His boyfriend had left him in the first two months after promising to be there, and Joe remembered their little pity party when Dev left, and knew that Casey had needed to have one when Robbie took off, and Joe hadn’t been there. But he was still going to school, and he was still not talking to Joe. He hadn’t called, and Joe hadn’t called either, because Casey had been the one who’d told Joe to fuck off, and it was sort of on Casey’s shoulders to take that back. He was apparently eating on occasion, although the roommate did confess that a lot of it was free french fries from the restaurant where Casey worked, and basically, he was doing the starving student thing, which was both fine with Joe and…. Joe refused to think about how that sentence ended.

  “He’s doing fine,” Joe repeated now, more to reassure himself than this stranger on the phone. “Why are you trying to contact him now?”

  “His….” The woman’s voice broke, and Joe started to feel a little bad. She sounded more wrecked than he did, and he was only occasionally an asshole. “His father died,” she said through her tears. “It… I wanted to tell him when the service would be.”

  “Aw, fuck,” Joe muttered. “Fuck. Yeah. Here.” He reached for the pen drawer—every house has one—and sorted through the dead batteries, old key sets, and assorted pairs of scissors for a pen. “Here. Give me the details. Yeah, we’ll find it. Fucking Bakersfield, right?”

  It was in Bakersfield, and Joe took down the address and the directions.

  “You… you promise he’ll be there?” the woman asked, her voice hesitant, and Joe grunted.

  “I promise I’ll tell him,” Joe said with a sigh. “Beyond that, it’s anyone’s guess. His trip up here wasn’t a picnic; he may not feel like making the trip back.”

  “I… is he still… you know…?”

  “Gay?” Joe’s disbelief flooded under his new vow of kindness. “Yeah, lady, last I heard, all cures for gay were a hoax. Does it matter?”

  “He’s my son. Of course it matters. I want to let him come back home.”

  “Well it’s good to want things,” Joe snapped bitterly, knowing he was talking more to himself than to her. “I’ll let him know.”

  He hung the phone up on its cradle on the counter and then turned around and slid down his battered cabinets, thrilled that his body didn’t ache when his ass hit the floor. Jordan padded up and shoved her fuzzy orange face up into his and started licking his nose. He forced a smile and set her on his stomach, then petted her dispiritedly while he swallowed hard against the tightness in his throat, his face, behind his eyes.

  Lynnie watched him for a moment and then grabbed a chair from the dinette table and moved it to the middle of the kitchen so she could sit on it. She’d put on some weight in the last four months—sitting on the floor was probably not an option for her. “Joe?” she said quietly, and he sighed, wishing he could look at her.

  “His dad died. I’m going to have to tell his roommate that his dad died, and then hope he forgives me enough to let me hold him.”

  “Forgives you?” she asked, her voice shrilling with attitude. “Forgives you for what?”

  “For being stupid,” Joe murmured, and Jordan kept up her licking. Nick and Jay were curled up on the couch. Like a rapidly aging Rufus and a depressed Hi, they were probably blaming him for Casey’s absence too.

  Joe certainly was blaming himself—although, when things had gone south, he’d thought he was doing the right thing.

  THE day they’d gotten stoned on Derrick’s weed, Joe had confessed something to Casey that he thought he should probably regret, but didn’t.

  They actually had gone to see a movie that night (Say Anything—a movie Joe still loved), after the high had worn off, and the high itself had been a temporary thing, soon washed out of their hair and munched away with breakfast. But the melancholy, the betrayal, the nasty, sticky residue of coming out of a night of sex—the good kind, where two people felt connected and caring—only to find out you were another body in bed, that had settled in for the both of them.

  “I probably should have known,” Casey said glumly on the way to the movie theater. “I mean… he just always thought he was so much better than me.”

  Joe looked at him protectively. “That’s bullshit. Why would he feel like that?”

  Casey’s shrug wasn’t a teenager’s shrug anymore. He had his hands in his pockets, and his gray eyes, deep-set and narrow, were mild and introspective. This shrug was an adult’s shrug, a twitch of the shoulders and not too much passion. “Same reason I felt that way when I lived with my folks, I guess. I was spoiled. He was spoiled. He’ll learn.”

  Joe looked at him for a long moment as they stood in line then, with the dawning comprehension that Casey really didn’t need him anymore. It was both gratifying and terrifying. If Casey didn’t need him, why would he stick around?

  Joe swallowed against that fear, managed to tamp it down in the pit of his stomach for the next two or so years, but it was there, growing, along with an awareness that Casey was as tall as he was ever going to get at five eight, and that his lean face and high cheekbones were pretty, and the deep-set eyes and power brow didn’t change that but only made it deeper.

  They talked about the movie on the way home, about the likelihood of finding the love of your life at nineteen. Joe said it was possible, yes, but he didn’t want to bet anyone’s life on it.

  “I certainly don’t want to bet yours!” he protested, and Casey snorted.

  “That’s just because you don’t want to see me as an adult,” he muttered, and Joe sighed. The tall trees on either side of the highway were outlined against the bright stars, and he looked at that ribbon of stars in front of them and wished them for Casey.

  “You’re right,” Joe said, wanting to close his eyes against the beauty there, but he couldn’t. He was driving. He focused on the road instead, which was better, because possum, skunk, and deer often made appearances in the darkness, and he didn’t want to kill another critter or him and Casey. It was much safer that way, but not as wonderful.

  “Why not?” It had been a long day, and Casey’s voice was close enough to a whine to make Joe chuckle.

  “It’s scary,” Joe said softly. “It’s scary. If you’re a kid, you need me. I grew up, I left the house, I haven’t returned. I love my folks, and I miss them, and as much as I whine about my mom’s phone calls, you know I make it a point to be there.”

  “You write letters,” Casey interjected, and Joe still couldn’t believe how blown away Casey had been by something that simple.

  Joe shrugged. “Yeah. But… but my folks don’t know about me, don’t know about life out here. It’s a lot easier to let them think I’m looking for Mizz Right instead of Mr. slash Mizz Right. And in a way, I’m sort of hoping it is Ms. Right—”

  “Why?” Casey asked, his voice quick and a little angry.

  But Joe
figured Casey had seen him as a human being today, from stoned and angry to vulnerable and melancholy. Maybe he should know the truth about Joe—about all of him. “’Cause I want kids,” he said baldly. “I mean, I can live without ’em, and if I’m in love enough with a man, I’ll do that. But I can’t lie to myself, say it’s all right, that it won’t hurt to give that up. That’ll just confuse the whole thing.”

  Casey’s voice throbbed with sadness in the dark. “You’d be a really, really good father,” he said, like the admission cost him.

  “Thanks. From you, Casey, that means a lot.”

  They’d gone to sleep that night sad, but happy too. Joe knew he’d been content to be Casey’s friend, his older mentor, someone he could depend on in an uncertain world. But those words, that idea, that Joe was looking for a family, not just a mate—that seemed to lay between them.

  Casey had tried to climb into his bed when he turned eighteen—but it was more as a joke than anything else. It was pretty obvious from the fact that the kid had lined the floor with pillows so it wouldn’t hurt so bad when his ass hit the floor, and they’d both been laughing as he’d trundled off to his own bed. A few weeks later, Lynnie had done more than smile shyly at Joe when they went in to eat at The Oar Cart, like they did about twice a month, and had asked him for a date instead.

  Joe had taken her to a movie—something he wouldn’t have done before he met Casey—and then for a moonlit walk of his property. Somewhere between the chicken coop and the little mother-in-law cottage he was building, she’d turned to him in the moonlight and kissed him, and he’d kissed her back.

  Making love that night had felt… blessed, and the look of sadness, almost of recrimination, in Casey’s eyes the next morning as he’d kissed her good-bye had hurt.

  “It’s not just because she’s a she,” he said as the echoes from her little Toyota’s engine died out.

  “She’s only twenty-three.”

  “Twenty-three isn’t eighteen.”

  “When’s it get to be old enough, Joe? When do I even get consideration before you bring someone else home?”

  “When you’re old enough to drink!” Joe snapped, and Casey sneered at him. It wasn’t attractive, and it was the first time Joe had ever felt… less, in Casey’s estimation.

  “Stop bringing me home beer, then, oh child of the seventies, or that doesn’t count.”

  Joe flushed. “Casey—why does this have to be hard? She’s a pretty girl. We’re dating. You’ve seen me date both—I’m happy with either. Why does this have to be ugly?”

  Casey scowled at him. “Because she’s your chance at breeding, and I may get it, but I don’t have a uterus, so I’m not going to like it!”

  “I’m not dating her to breed!” Joe roared, his sudden temper taking even him by surprise. “I’m dating her because she’s a pretty girl! That’s the definition of bisexual, Casey—pretty girls and pretty boys, it’s like an all-you-can-fuck buffet!”

  Casey’s sudden snicker lightened the moment—and made Joe crack a reluctant smile—but that moment was just the first skirmish in what became an all-out war.

  Casey was never rude to Lynnie; Joe had to give him credit for that. But Joe’s preparation for every date was peppered with snide remarks; every sleepover was a stomach-sinking dread of what was coming out of Casey’s mouth when Lynnie left. When she was there for dinner or a movie, Casey found more and more reasons to be gone, and when he was there, he frequently retreated to his room. It was like all of the dreaded symptoms of adolescence that Joe thought Casey had bypassed in high school came back to visit for those two years of junior college—but only when Lynnie was in the picture. More than once Joe contemplated breaking up with Lynnie just because spending time with Casey on any other day was really his favorite thing to do.

  Casey had dates too. He didn’t bring a lot of them home, and he only rarely slept over, and not without a phone call to Joe that he was going to be gone, but there were young men in his life. At first Joe was happy; it meant the kid wasn’t there when Joe was dating Lynnie, and their friendship, however ill-defined it may have been, was intact.

  And it was wonderful. They spent three more Christmases together, where they attempted to share music and videos and good deeds, like when Joe detailed Casey’s car or when Casey stenciled the hallway and the living room so that they didn’t look quite so spartan. They spent three more New Year’s Eves watching the ball drop together, talking about Dick Clark and the picture of Dorian Grey he must have somewhere in his condo, and how Oscar Wilde was one fantastic writer for a flaming old ’mo. (Casey used that as a dig to Joe to maybe give up on girls altogether. Joe used it as a dig to Casey to strive to do great things.)

  Joe watched Casey turn eighteen, then nineteen, then twenty, and gave thanks every morning that he’d get to see his friend: the constant sarcastic, funny voice in the morning, who grounded him and made the sun through the trees a thing to turn your face to and not to hide away from. They both worked, and Casey went to school, but their time off was very often together. When there were no dates with other people, they played with the dogs or went swimming at Sugar Pine or Lake Clementine and went to movies. They shared books—Joe hadn’t gotten to read nearly as many classics when going through nursing school as Casey did going after a liberal studies degree. Casey’s feistiness, his spirit—it grew brighter, more sure, more beautiful every day. Sometimes Joe would look at him and be reminded of something great and powerful and tenuous, something that should have been familiar but wasn’t.

  It wasn’t until Casey brought Robbie home that Joe remembered where he’d first had that feeling, where the heart was too big for the chest, where the breath caught and the eyes teared up because looking at this person, this one perfect person, was so bright, so golden, that they had no choice.

  Joe remembered the moment.

  Lynnie was cooking that night, and she cooked lovely, delicate things—angel-hair pasta with cream pesto sauce, hummus and pita sandwiches, braised lamb with slivered shallots—things that tasted good but always left Casey and Joe quietly raiding the refrigerator together at two in the morning when she was either gone or asleep in Joe’s bed.

  The table was set, and Casey’s car drove up, Ford white and serviceable. Casey took good care of it—Joe was proud. Joe stopped and went to the living room to look outside. It was his first glimpse of Robbie, the one guy in the past few months that Casey deemed worth bringing home, and Joe wanted a look at him before he was in Joe’s house. Neither of them wanted a repeat of the whole Derrick/Devin thing—if Casey was introducing this guy to Joe, it was going to be important.

  Joe watched them get out, and for a moment, yes, he checked Robbie out. Robbie was as small as Casey, slightly built, dark hair, dark eyes, wearing jeans and a plaid shirt. A lot of kids were wearing those these days—something about Pearl Jam, and since Joe could get into both the band and the fashion statement, he was impressed. He was not so impressed by the jeans that could seat three, and he laughed a little to himself as Robbie pulled the crotch of his jeans up so he could walk, and he looked to Casey to see what Casey thought.

  Casey was leaning over the top of the car, his door open, and he was laughing. His head was tilted back, and his brownish-blond hair was turning gold in the May sunshine. It was longish now, hanging from a part in the center of his head, feathering back a little, and his gray eyes were half-closed as he smiled. His snub little nose was tilted to the sun, and the bridge was almost transparent. Joe knew if he was closer, he could see the faint—very faint, now—freckles right under Casey’s eyes. Casey’s cheeks grooved with his smile, but not too deeply—it was a gentle smile, not an all-out laugh. When Casey was laughing until he fell off the couch, he actually closed his eyes, and his smile carved his cheeks with wreaths.

  But not now. Now it was gentle, and the sun was kissing him, like Joe… like Joe….

  Joe swallowed. His chest swelled in that faintly familiar breath-stopping, overwhelming way, and
he made a faint sound, a gasp really, as he remembered the last time he’d felt that, and knew with total assurance what it was.

  It was when Jeannie had held his hand in church, when he was six and love was so simple, and so uncomplicated, and God was the reason you loved until you cried.

  For the first time in twenty-seven years, Joe felt the existence of God. He was in Casey’s smile, his eyes, the way he looked at his lover, the way he greeted the dogs. God was there, in the sunshine brushing Casey’s hair, and warming his skin, and Joe….

  Joe wanted to touch him.

  For a moment, when there was no air in the room and the world was entombed in ice, Joe remembered swimming at Clementine the week before. The water had been cold, and the dogs had been about played out when Casey had started to swim, shivering, toward a place the sun had been hitting all day.

  “Here!” he cried. “Joe, it’s warm here! I swear! Come on out, please?”

  And Joe had, because Casey had asked, and he’d been so sincere. And sure enough, it was warmer there, shallower, just barely chest level. They swam for a bit and then treaded water and talked, laughing as the dogs paced the shoreline, not happy about their humans in the water without them but reluctant to get wet again.

  That moment had been so perfect, so golden, but Joe had been itchy, somehow, shaking with a need he couldn’t name, a need that had something to do with Casey’s tanned skin, the gold in his hair, the faint stubble glinting in the late spring sunshine. The narrow span of Casey’s chest—still hairless—made Joe squirm, and the definition in his arms and abdomen made that discomfort worse. When Casey had gotten out before him in order to comfort the dogs, Joe had watched his bottom in cut-off jeans and realized that all of the walking and working on the property they did made his legs muscular in the right places, and his calves tight and hard. He’d shivered, then swam out to the coldest part of the lake to get over this sudden discomfort with Casey’s body and the beauty Joe had always known about but never really seen for himself.