Sidecar Read online

  “You’ve got to have some good memories of him,” Joe said softly, and Casey reached for them and found only blankness. Something in him got a little desperate then, needy.

  “Probably.”

  Joe grunted again. “You let me know when it’s time to remember them, okay?”

  “Yeah. Joe?”

  “Yeah?”

  “You said you didn’t love Lynnie in a forever way.”

  “Yeah.”

  “How do you love me?”

  Joe sighed. “Can we talk about this later, Casey? I mean… in a good way, but I don’t want to have this conversation on a trip to a funeral in fucking Bakersfield.”

  “In a good way?”

  Joe risked another look off the road. “I’m here, aren’t I?”

  Casey looked down at the little black console of the tiny car. “Yeah. But you’re a good guy. You’d be here for anybody.”

  “No. Not just anybody.” There was a pause, and Casey dared to hope, and then Joe gave a sigh. “Oh good, there it is. The turnoff on the map. We’re going to be a little early.”

  “Fuck.”

  “Yeah, well, it’s a six-hour drive—early’s better than late.”

  “Not if you’re me.”

  LOTS of pretty people in black. That was Casey’s first impression, and it didn’t go away. The grounds were beautiful—lots of ponds with orange fish inside, surrounded by trees, and flat headstones in neat little rows, flush with the lawn.

  Bakersfield town proper had a central city and some extensive suburbs around it. The cemetery was in the central city, with an imposing two-story brick building in the front, as well as a little chapel to the side for funerals. Casey didn’t know what the big brick building was, but Joe said he supposed it was where people stored the ashes of their loved ones in little boxes, like at a bank vault, and Casey blessed him for that. He tuned out the entire service in the chapel, wondering what aliens would say if they landed on earth and saw that great building that held nothing but boxes of ash.

  He was at the point in his fantasy where the aliens figured out how to recombine all of the elements that made a human being and resurrected boxloads of zombies when the service in the chapel ended and everybody migrated outside.

  Everyone stood there with their black umbrellas in their black trench coats, and even though Joe planned for most things, he seemed to have forgotten the umbrella, so they stood back away from the crowd, under a tree, where the rain wasn’t quite as persistent.

  “Do you know anyone?” Joe asked, and Casey finally found himself focusing on the people there.

  “The blonde woman in the front who won’t stop blowing her nose is my mother, Vivian.”

  “Okay. Who’s the woman next to her?”

  “The one with the gray hair that looks like a helmet? That’s my dad’s mom. They hate each other.”

  Joe choked back a laugh. “They seem to be leaning on each other now.”

  “Yeah, well, look at Grandma Spencer. She’s telling my mom that there aren’t enough people there and they should have had warm snacks at the house and that the mourners aren’t well enough organized by the grave site and she would have done better if she’d gone to another cemetery.”

  Joe grimaced. “People shop around for that sort of thing?”

  Casey looked with distaste at the woman in the flawless Chanel suit with the perfectly stylish black pumps and even jewelry that seemed accessorized for mourning. “If anyone does, my dad’s mom does. My mom would just pick the most expensive and assume that was the best.”

  Joe grunted. “What would your dad do?”

  Casey didn’t have to think about it to answer, which was probably why he told the bold truth. “It wouldn’t matter—he’d let someone else do it and then bitch about how they fucked up.”

  “What would he think about all of this?”

  Casey looked around and saw a lot of elegant middle-aged people with sober faces and no real expressions. One woman, very beautiful and about Joe’s age, was distraught, but she was hanging in the back, with no one to comfort her.

  “He’d think they were a bunch of phonies,” Casey said roughly, wondering if his father had made any provision for the mistress at all or if he’d just left her there to grieve without even a shoulder to cry on. “He’d say they were just here because they didn’t want the world to know they don’t give a shit. He used to talk such horrible trash behind people’s backs, you know?”

  “You don’t do that,” Joe said, and Casey felt his hand, warm and reassuring in the motorcycle glove, at the small of his back. It was a curiously intimate gesture, and Casey felt some warmth and humanity creeping up his spine and toward his chest. It hurt like hell, and Casey kept talking just so he didn’t have to acknowledge the hurt.

  “No. No, I don’t. I always wondered what it was he said about me. When I left, I wondered if they ever talked about me or what they told the neighbors—was I at reform school, did they send me away to some sort of place that would cure me?” Casey’s voice was quiet, and something about the dripping of the trees and the patter of the rain made it seem like he was disappearing. “My mom used to come to my room at night and kiss me good night. Maybe she missed me then—we’d talk about school and grades and stuff, you know, like you and me did over dinner. But I never watched movies with them or went out and shit. My dad might have missed me at the dinner table, but I never really talked there. And still, as stupid as it is, I wonder—would he have missed me? I don’t know if I’m going to miss him. I had that same sort of fantasy, you know? That one day I’d see him, and I’d be all college graduate and super successful, and he’d have to respect me or even maybe fear me because he was in real estate, and I don’t think he had a college degree. I wanted to say, ‘See! Here I am! I’m everything you said I couldn’t be, now fuck off!’ And now I don’t even get to do that, I don’t even get to tell him to fuck off, because he told us all to fuck off….”

  Casey’s face was hot, even in the icy rain, and his chest was full and hot, and Joe’s hand on the small of his back was his anchor, and suddenly he was adrift in pain without definition. It wasn’t anger or bitterness or mourning; it was just loss, loss for all sorts of things that never really were. He took a deep breath and let it out on a sob, and then another one, and a third, and then Joe’s arm went around his shoulders and he wrapped his arms around Joe’s solid waist and cried honest tears in the rain.

  He was still shuddering the tears out when the graveside service ended and the mourners walked to the pathway next to them. Joe put his hand up on Casey’s face to shield him from the strangers, and Casey was grateful until two sets of black-heeled pumps intruded on his vision and he looked up at his mother and grandmother, both of them looking back at him with scowls on their faces.

  “You came,” his mother said, and Joe let go of his shoulder and grabbed his hand instead.

  “It seemed the decent thing to do,” Casey mumbled, and he was not surprised at his grandmother’s venom.

  “If you were going to be decent, you would have come alone.”

  “Don’t you mean die alone?” Joe asked, his voice hard. “Because that’s what you left him to do in the first place.”

  “We couldn’t let him live in the house,” Vivian Spencer said, her voice tremulous, and Casey looked at his mother without understanding.

  “Why not, Mom? I was still the same kid.”

  “But what you were doing—”

  “Was my business. I didn’t break in on you and dad having sex. I wasn’t going to make you watch.”

  Without warning, Casey’s grandmother’s black-gloved hand shot out and smacked Casey’s cheek, hard. “You speak with respect of your father, young man.”

  Casey blinked at her, not even bothering to rub his cheek. She hadn’t hit hard, but Joe angled his body more protectively. His hand on Casey’s back was vibrating with anger.

  “I just paid respects to him, ma’am. That was the last respect I think I hav
e left.” He looked at his mom. “Thanks for telling me. It was almost human of you. Come on, Joe. I want to go home and see the dogs.”

  “Wait!”

  Casey stopped then and turned to his mother.

  “Weren’t you a little bit sad?”

  Casey swallowed and huddled more into Joe’s warmth, basking in the physical closeness that Joe had rarely given, because he’d always seemed to respect Casey’s personal boundaries with absolute reverence. Casey appreciated the contact so much now, when those boundaries seemed to have disappeared. “I was, yeah. That’s why I cried.”

  “I mean when you left. Weren’t you a little sad to leave us?”

  “Yeah, Mom, when I was starving and freezing and willing to get fucked in a bathroom so I could have someplace to sleep, I was a little fucking sad to leave you. But I won’t be sad this time. This time I can take pretty good care of myself, and when I can’t, Joe fills in the gaps. This time, I’ll be just fine, so don’t you worry about me.”

  Joe’s arm tightened around his waist, and he leaned his head on Joe’s shoulder. He didn’t care if they thought he and Joe were lovers. He didn’t care what they thought at all.

  “Come on, Joe,” he said softly. “I’m glad we came, but we’re done now.”

  Joe leaned over and dropped a kiss on his hair, and it felt personal. Casey leaned into him for some more strength, and because he could.

  “Yeah, no problem.” But he wasn’t moving.

  Casey looked up and saw that Joe was giving Vivian and Grandma Spencer a measured look.

  “He’s mine after this. You want to talk to him, you talk to me first. You want to see him, you’ll have to see me. He was a class act, showing up here today. You don’t deserve that sort of class.” He turned away then, Casey tucked under his arm, and paused to look back over his shoulder. “And for the record? Kicking him out might have been the best thing you ever did for him.”

  Then Joe steered him toward their little car in the parking lot by the chapel. Casey clung to his waist and shivered and wished desperately for their house, and their dogs, and a warm blanket and a chance to talk, and a little bit of peace.

  Big Love

  ~Joe

  JOE was shaking, he was so angry. He and Casey had spent six years feeling out how to do the right thing, and there they were, doing the right thing, and that bitch had slapped him! Slapped Joe’s Casey. And Joe, with his size and intimidation, hadn’t done anything about it.

  They’d stopped for gas on the way into town, which was good because it meant Joe had nothing to do but drive after he sat in the car and roared out of the cemetery. He zigzagged out of town on sheer instinct. They had been in the car for about twenty minutes when Casey actually said something.

  “Joe?”

  “Yeah?”

  “Thanks.”

  “I’m sorry.”

  “For what?”

  “Those people hurt you. I… I didn’t bring you there for those people to hurt you, you know?”

  Casey sighed and shifted and leaned back against the seat rest, closing his eyes a little. “It’s not your fault I was born,” he said, a little bit of humor in his voice.

  Joe’s mouth quirked up. “Yeah, but I sure am glad I know you now.”

  The kid shifted in his seat, and Joe felt a hand on his knee. “I’m glad you know me now too. The grown-up me, mostly. More grown-up than six months ago, anyway.”

  Joe winced. “Yeah?”

  “Yeah. I never apologized. You showed up, gave me shit news, took care of me—I never apologized. I acted badly—really, really badly. I… I guess I knew Robbie wasn’t really who I wanted. I mean, it’s always been you. As far as I know, it always will be. But I wanted you to… I don’t know, give me a reason to say no. To tell him no. That’s why I got impatient and crawled into your bed. It was… it was stupid. I was stupid. And the things I said….” Casey trailed off, and Joe, confident that they were going to be in fourth gear for a while and he wouldn’t have to shift, grabbed his hand.

  Casey turned his palm up and squeezed his fingers.

  “Maybe,” Joe said gruffly, “all I needed was a little bit of time. You think of that?”

  “I hoped,” Casey whispered. “But these last six months, when I couldn’t even see you, it really fucking hurt to hope.”

  Joe felt a smile start at the corners of his mouth and spread. He took a careful look at Casey, who was looking at Joe’s face with hungry eyes and a pucker between his dark brows.

  “Don’t let it hurt anymore, okay? Hope shouldn’t hurt.”

  Another glance, and he saw the slow smile on Casey’s high-cheekboned face. It was a slash of the lips, really, and then a curve. Casey had a lean mouth, and that full-out, shining smile made the grooves in his cheeks pop out. “I won’t. How long am I going to have to hope? A time line would make it hurt even less.”

  Joe felt the blush burning up from his stomach. At odd times over the last six months, he’d relived that kiss. At first it had felt dirty, shameful, to think that he’d let himself be taken advantage of that way, and then he’d felt worse, because dammit, Casey was so much younger than he was. But Casey had turned twenty-one in the time between, and Joe was wondering how long he’d have to wait before that didn’t matter anymore. Did he say twenty-five? Joe’s parents had had two kids by the time they were twenty-five, and they still, as far as Joe knew, looked at each other with secret smiles when they thought no one was looking. Did he make Casey date other people until he was thirty? God, Joe would be forty-two—and as much as Casey would think four years was forever, nine years seemed like forever to Joe.

  Casey’s hand was warming up in Joe’s grip, and he suddenly pulled it away and squeezed Joe’s thigh. Joe gasped and his skin tingled in his thighs, in his groin, and he risked another look at Casey and thought that even with the longer rock-star hair and the lean mouth, he looked beautiful, and he looked grown. If Joe hadn’t known him when he was sixteen, he wouldn’t see any of the boy in him now.

  “Maybe wait until we get home,” Joe said breathily and shivered, the unfamiliar fabric of his best suit chafing the creases of his arms and his thighs.

  Casey grunted and squeezed his thigh some more. Joe shuddered, six months of pent-up frustration, of yearning, suddenly assaulting his skin. He started looking for a turnoff so he could go get a soda and go to the bathroom and maybe get away from the steamy closeness inside this tiny car.

  “I’m done with hoping,” Casey said tightly. “I want now!”

  Casey had large hands for such a slight body, and right now the one on Joe’s leg spanned from a few inches above his knee, where his thumb rested, to the aching tip of Joe’s sudden erection, where his small finger twitched. Joe shifted, not sure if he wanted the contact or wanted to move away from the contact. It didn’t matter—it was a small car, and that tiny brush against the fabric near his erection was enough to make him gasp.

  He reached down and grabbed Casey’s hand, moved it back to his knee, and tried to catch his breath. He scowled and focused on the road. He didn’t want to accidentally take the I-580 turnoff that led to San Francisco—it was notoriously hard to spot. A sign for a filling station at the next exit popped up, and Joe snatched his hand back so he could jerk the wheel to the right and make the exit. He couldn’t even look at Casey as he was negotiating the turn, and when he pulled up at an ampm and parked in the little secluded spot on the side, he muttered, “Thirsty,” and then tried to get out of the car.

  Casey didn’t let him.

  “Wait,” he said, his voice a little desperate. “Wait!”

  Joe stopped and looked at him, trying to put his customary smile on his face, the one that said he was patient and everything was okay.

  Casey knew that smile, and he wasn’t buying it. His eyes were narrowed and his mouth was compressed in a scowl.

  “What?” Joe asked, his smile slipping even as he spoke.

  “Make me hope,” Casey begged. “I can wait—I’m
not sixteen anymore—but make me hope.”

  Joe closed his eyes, feeling totally vulnerable, but there had never, ever been a time when he could refuse to make Casey happy.

  He didn’t kiss by halves. He seized Casey’s small face in his big hands and shoved his fingers through that straight sandy-blond hair, and liked the texture so much he did it again. Casey’s narrow, streetwise eyes grew wide and shiny and his flat mouth puffed up because his teeth worried it in anticipation. Then Joe framed his face, holding him just so, tilted his head, and lowered his mouth with force and decision.

  Casey groaned and opened his mouth at the first touch of lips, and Joe took command. He liked kissing that was hard, with lots of tongue, and he started by tasting the inside of Casey’s mouth and forcing his tongue to engage. Casey got the hang of it in a moment and brought his own hand up to the nape of Joe’s neck, digging his fingers into Joe’s neat braid and hanging on for dear life.

  Ahhh… kissing Casey this way was glorious. He kissed back hard, rapacious, demanding more and more and harder. Their teeth clashed for a moment, and Joe pulled back so he could kiss the groove of Casey’s cheek and then the sharp angle of his jaw below his ear. He pulled a pierced earlobe into his mouth and toyed with the stud there, suckling the soft flesh until Casey’s hand tightened in his hair and he whimpered. Joe let go of it reluctantly and then breathed softly into Casey’s ear, close enough that he knew his mustache would tickle and his breath would sound like the roar of the wind.

  “Is this hopeful enough?”

  Casey pulled back and glowered at him. “More!” he demanded, and Joe took his mouth—swollen now, open, ready—and answered him.

  Casey groaned, and Joe clenched both hands in his hair and held him still. The space of the little Escort was small, the black interior humid, and the rain outside wasn’t doing anything to cool their overheated bodies in the unfamiliar wool clothes. Casey’s hand, cool and trembling, was an urgent relief as it snuck under Joe’s suit jacket and smoothed across his stomach. Joe sucked it in, self-conscious about the slight softness there in spite of the heavy muscle on his ribs and his chest, but Casey made a purring sound as he slid his hand between the buttons of Joe’s shirt and under his T-shirt and kneaded the tender, slightly furry skin he found.