“Look, I don't think now's the time. You've got half the force here, man. We'll talk later.” Ron got up to leave, but Michael caught him, grimacing in pain as the movement yanked the healing muscles in his abdomen a little.
“Oh, baby,” said Ron, sitting back down guiltily. “You hurt? Do you need your meds?”
“No, I just want an answer, Ron,” said Michael tiredly.
“Sparky and I had a talk, Michael. He was moving in here, and I asked him if he thought about what being out would do to your career, to your safety.” Michael opened his mouth to say something, but Ron went on. “Don't look at me like that! I've known cops who died because people didn't much like their lifestyle. Tougher guys than you got fragged when I was in the military, Michael, for no more than the hint that they were gay.” Michael could read the worry and the love on Ron's face and didn't hold it against him.
“Times change.”
“People don't,” said Ron peevishly. “And people with guns change less than most.”
“Come on, Ron. Tell me that my boy is not hiding in the kitchen because he's afraid he'll get me killed.”
Ron said nothing.
“Aw,
shit
.” Michael caught his mother's eye. Emma came to him, sensing the change in his mood.
“What, baby?” she asked, concerned.
“Can you make all these people go away?” he asked, feeling surlier by the moment. “I just need some damn space, Mama. Give me some time, okay?”
“Oh,” she said. “
Oh
. Sure. We've been thoughtless. I'll hustle everyone to my place, okay?”
“Okay. It's not thoughtless… I'm just tired, I guess.”
“Sure you are, baby.” She smiled at him. “I'll take care of it.”
“Thank you.”
Michael watched as his mother effortlessly gathered his guests and moved them, snacks in hand, out the door. When Tristan returned to the room carrying a meat and cheese tray, everyone was gone, and the silence hung thick in the air.
Michael rubbed his eyes tiredly. “When were you going to tell me?”
Tristan advanced into the room and placed the food on the table next to Michael. “Tell you what?”
“Tell me what's going on in that hyperactive brain of yours. That you're scared.” Michael said it like an accusation, and Tristan reacted defensively.
“Is that such a surprise? You were very nearly stabbed to death. If I weren't scared I'd be a pretty shitty boyfriend all around, wouldn't you think?”
“Tristan, listen…”
“No, you listen to me. It's not rocket science. I'd probably understand it better if it were. You almost
died
, Michael.”
“I know that… I know. It's part of the job. What did you think? That I'm Barney Fife and the most dangerous thing I do all day is put my gun in my holster?”
Tristan slumped into the futon, going down hard onto his ass. “We cannot have this conversation now, baby. Now you need to heal and rest. Now is when you need to just…”
“We sure as shit will have this conversation now.” Michael put a pillow over his abs and held it there, hoping it would keep him from feeling the stabbing pain in his gut when he took a deep breath. “I'm a cop, Tristan. I know you don't have much respect for the badge, but—”
Tristan cut him off. “You know damn well that's not true.”
“Sparky, listen to me… I was stabbed, I almost died, I got lucky, and now I want us to be a forever couple, hell, even a family, if that's what you want. I could do kids… I could do anything…”
“Can you fucking
hear yoursel
f
?” spat Tristan. Michael jumped at the sound and looked up. “I want, I'm fine, I got lucky, I could do kids.” Tristan was clenching his hands together, the muscles in his arms bunching as if he wanted to hit something.
Michael froze. How could he have failed to notice how tired Tristan looked? He'd never heard Tristan curse like that, ever. There were dark circles under his eyes, and his lips were white and pinched.
Tristan stood and started to pace. “I want, I want, I want. Shit!” Tristan raked his hands through his long hair. “Let me tell you what I wanted. I wanted to get laid. I wanted to find out what it feels like to be fucked by a man. I wanted to start on a long journey of self-exploration. I did not want to fall in love. I did not want to live in a world where the sun rose and set on one man. I did not want to give my heart away to a guy who took it and went out and got himself almost killed because that was his
job
. Can you understand that?”
“Sparky!”
“No, let me say it.” He began to cry. “I have to say it. I'm nineteen fucking years old. I took off the training wheels, and now I'm racing down the damned autobahn. I've had you for what, a month?”
Michael held his arms out, but Tristan stayed where he was.
“I live for you. I breathe for you. Every cell in my body wants you
right now
. And I'm not fucking ready!”
“Tristan, the doctor said it's going to be fine… I'm going to be okay… It's not over.”
“No, it's not,” said Tristan suddenly too quiet. “Because you're going to turn right back around and go back out there and do it again.”
A thick, smoky silence fell over them, and each waited.
“It's the job, then,” Michael said in a sepulchral voice.
“Yes.” Tristan shook his head. “No. Not entirely. I…I just wanted to get laid. I'm not ready for any of this.”
“You said you love me. Didn't you love me?”
Tristan closed his eyes. “Oh, wouldn't that be easy.” He knelt in front of Michael, holding both of his hands. “I know what it's like to lose someone who means the world to me, Michael. To know I'll never, ever see him again in this lifetime. I can't go there again. Not and stay sane.”
“So what do you want? If you leave, you won't see me again in this lifetime, either,” Michael snapped. He hadn't meant to; he was tired, in pain, and dissolving in disappointment.
“So if I say I'm not ready, it's a deal breaker?”
“I didn't say that. It's just that… I looked it in the face, Sparky. It changed me. I want new things.”
“I want to think, Michael. One thought where I'm not drowning in the enormity of my feelings for you!”
“Jeez.” Michael looked away.
“I'm sorry.” Tristan swallowed hard. “I told you I didn't want to have this conversation.”
Michael's laugh was mirthless. “Maybe if you'd told me why…”
“Shit,” said Tristan. “Don't joke. Not about this.”
“What do you want?” Michael asked again.
“I don't know.” Tristan's blue eyes were troubled. “I cannot lose you.”
“But you'd push me away.”
“I. Can. Not. Lose. You.”
“That's not rational, Tristan. If we're over, then you lose me,” said Michael gently. “Have you realized it yet? One of us is going to repeat the past. You live with loss…or I live with abandonment.”
“Oh,
fuck
, Michael.” Tristan melted onto him.
Michael held him gently and kissed him tenderly on the lips. “Better go. Be like ripping off a Band-Aid. Get her done, you know?”
“I know.” Tristan left by the front door.
Michael stayed on the couch in the living room of the house he'd begun to really consider a home. “Happy. Fucking. New Year.”
Tristan took the mountain roads carefully, not quickly, because he was certainly not the only person with the idea of snowboarding on New Year's Day. When he'd decided a little rush would be a good thing, he'd called his friends, most of whom already had plans, but P.K.—
Pankage
—had been home watching the Rose Parade and packed a bag with little persuasion, ready to go when Tristan arrived at the student housing complex to pick him up.
“I can safely say that snowboarding isn't something I would choose to do on purpose,” he admitted when he threw his duffel into the back of his car. “But getting out of town sounds like fun.”
“I need clean air,” said Tristan simply, as he took off up the 55 Freeway.
Whether P.K. noticed his unusual mood or not, they drove companionably, winding from one freeway to the next until they had to get out and struggle with tire chains.
P.K. broke the silence between them as he watched Tristan work on the cold ground. “So do you think it will be possible to rent snowboarding equipment? I brought my warmest clothing, such as it is, but frankly, I don't see myself as a mountain man.”
“You can rent equipment; if you don't want to snowboard, you can ski, if you like. I can do both, so I can help you if you want to learn. I only brought my board, though.”
“Is it difficult?”
Tristan turned to him. “For a rocket scientist like you?”
“I was not exactly the first chosen for team sports, Tristan.”
“You'll be fine,” said Tristan. “We're lucky my mom found a place for us to stay. Apparently someone had a cancellation, or we'd be S.O.L.” He was straining and jerking, linking the chains in place. “I had to get away for a while. I need air.”
“I'm sorry Jonathon and Daniel couldn't make it. That would have been fun. I imagine we'd all be wading through your cast-offs. Ah, well, more for me.”
“What?” asked Tristan, completely in the dark. He moved onto another tire.
“Well, it did occur to me that I would have the opportunity to watch you in action, as it were, with the ladies.” Pankage grinned, his white teeth dazzling in the golden brown of his face.