Faith and Fidelity (25 page)

At the door, he juggled his packages to knock; he worried that he would be waking Evan up— but he saw the lights on in the living room and hoped. He didn't have a chance, the door swung open and Evan stood framed in the doorway.

“Hey,” Matt said happily, extending his bundles. “I did a little shopping.”

Evan did a little double take at the piles of bags at Matt's feet. “No kidding.”

Matt found himself grinning widely, staring at Evan's face as he took in all the packages. He licked his lips a bit...

“You gonna let me in or are the neighbors about to get a free show?” Matt joked, giving a pointed eyebrow raise in Evan's direction. His smile vanished as he watched Evan's face go slack. “What?”

“Nothing. Come in,” Evan said quickly, moving aside so Matt could enter.

He dropped his bags on the couch and shrugged off his jacket, keeping his head turned away from Evan. Matt felt his nerves suddenly on edge; something felt weird.

“Everything okay today?”

“Yeah,” Evan said absently, walking into the kitchen. “You want something to drink?”

“Sure.” Matt waited a second, watching as Evan woodenly pulled two glasses from the cabinet. “What did you do?”

Evan's movements stopped for a moment, then resumed. “Slept, talked to the kids. I'm picking them up tomorrow.”

“Great!” Matt said, genuinely enthused. “What time do you want to get out there?”

“I can— ”

“No, actually, you can't. You're not allowed to drive for another two weeks.”

Evan's mouth went into a tight line. He went to the fridge and pulled out a pitcher. Matt couldn't help but notice the stiff way Evan was holding himself.

“Hey— you all right? Have you taken your pills?”

“I'm fine,” he said shortly.

A bit taken aback by his tone, Matt just nodded. He watched Evan pour them both a glass of iced tea, pushing Matt's over to where he sat.

“Thanks.”

As he returned the pitcher to the refrigerator, Evan made a sound that could have been “you're welcome"— but Matt couldn't tell. He quietly sipped his iced tea... waiting... watching. Evan's eyes were darting all over the kitchen, anywhere but near where Matt sat. He wiped his damp hands repeatedly on his pants; Matt took a hard look at his lover, realizing that he looked disheveled and pale, like he had broken a sweat.

He sighed inwardly. Something was definitely up.

“Liz says hello by the way.”

Evan's head snapped up.

“What?”

“Liz... she sends her best. She was sorry to hear about you getting shot.”

“She knows about... me?”

“What are you talking about?”

“You told her my name.”

Matt saw immediately where this conversation was going and went from concerned to pissed off in five seconds flat.

“Why is that a problem?”

Evan looked at Matt, obviously stunned he'd have to ask. “Because she knows people I work with.”

“Helena and Vic both know— ”

“Yeah, but not everyone else! There are a lot of people at my precinct... and the DA's office. What if she says something... ” Evan's voice escalated with each new concern.

“Whoa, wait a second. Calm down. This is Liz Friedman we're talking about. Aside from the fact that she's a shrink, she's one of my closest friends. She would
never
say a word about this; she wouldn't betray my confidence that way.” Matt stood up and moved toward Evan, his hands making calming motions in the air even as his anger grew. “What is wrong here? A few days ago we were telling Helena and you were fine. A few fucking hours ago, we were making love. Now you're acting like this is some dirty little secret!” he shouted.

The room went silent.

Evan's hands stopped moving, clenching into fists which he plunged into his robe pockets. He slowly raised his face to meet Matt's gaze.

Matt blinked. “What the hell happened? When I left here... ”

“I did a lot of thinking today, Matt— I had to spend a little time alone.” Evan's voice was a nearly monotone calm, each logical thought flowing smoothly from his mouth. “I thought about my kids, I thought about my career. This can't... ”

“
This
? What is
this
Evan?”

Evan faltered for a moment. Matt watched him swallow, watched his eyes dart around the room. “This is something that neither one of us is prepared for. It's happened too fast, Matt. Way too fast.”

He heard the words and understood what each one meant, but for the life of him, Matt couldn't comprehend this conversation. He'd left a lover behind this morning, shy but committed, and now this cool stranger with the wild eyes was giving him a speech that spelled the end of everything.

“What the hell happened?” His voice was low, barely registering in his own ears. “Who did you talk to? What happened?!”

And he knew, from the way Evan's face just convulsed with a nanosecond of panic that someone had terrified his lover, had frightened him back into himself.

“My... my kids need me, Matt. They haven't gotten over Sherri's death and frankly, I don't know that I have either. You were there when I needed you and I'm grateful. I swear to God I'm grateful, but... ” He shook his head sadly, for the first time in this whole conversation looking “real” to Matt's eyes.

“But I don't think I can do this.”

The bottom dropped out for Matt.

“You need time?” Matt hated,
hated
the way his voice sounded.

Needy, desperate.

Evan's eyes were glued to the floor. “I don't... I just don't think I'm ever going to get past it, Matt.”

Surreal. So fucking surreal he almost expected to wake up on the couch, having dreamed this entire day.

“This is ridiculous. Absolute fucking insanity.

“Matt... ”

“Don't. Not a word. You stand there and tell me that it's over because you
thought
about things this afternoon while I was gone. What— six hours? Six hours for you to figure this all out? Six hours for you to decide that everything that's gone on between us isn't real?”

Evan refused to look at him.

“I'm going to ask you one more time, Evan. One more goddamn time. What the hell happened today?”

The long silence that enveloped the room was broken only by Matt's ragged breaths and the everyday sounds of the Cerellis’ neighborhood, filtering in through cracks in the windowpanes. “I thought about everything,” Evan whispered. “I thought about where this was going and I couldn't see a future, Matt. I'm sorry.”

And that was it. Matt was so used to being in this place, in this sad, bitter place, that he nodded automatically. “I'll get my things, I'll leave tonight... ”

Evan's head made the tiniest shaking movement. “Stay tonight... on the couch.”

“How are you going to get the kids?”

“I can dr— ”

“
No
, you can't.” Matt winced at his harshness.

“I'll call Vic.”

“Fine. Fine.”

The quiet grew and grew. Matt couldn't hear anything but the pounding of his heart. What happened? What happened? It kept repeating in his head. What the hell happened? He felt like an idiot. After the talk with Liz, everything was so clear. Now it was even clearer. Perfectly. He had ended up exactly where he always did. Nothing had changed. Haight luck.

He heard a noise and realized Evan was speaking. “What?”

“I said I'm going upstairs to bed.”

Matt nodded absently. He was about to remind Evan about dinner, about his pills, about his dressings but he savagely bit down any words of concern. He felt childish and embarrassed and furious. He didn't care if he wasn't playing nice.

“Night.” He nearly missed the whisper as Evan walked by. He listened to the sounds of his footsteps until they were gone.

Evan walked around upstairs, going into each of the children's bedrooms to gently touch their belongings, their clothes. Every nerve was deadened, he could barely feel himself moving.

Everything that had come out of his mouth downstairs had been automatic, as if some small part of his brain had just started to supply him with a way out. A brutal way out. He hadn't been able to look into Matt's face but he heard the devastation, felt it eating away at Matt's heart.

He felt like a murderer for the second time today.

Moving out of the girls’ room and into his own, Evan stripped out of his robe and sweats. He felt dirty, like the guilt was clinging to his skin. The bathroom was another reminder of what he had accomplished— hours earlier he and Matt had been here in this room, together in a way he'd never imagined and now... now he was a monster trying to get clean, trying to scrub away the blood.

“I'm not good at this,” he whispered to the showerhead. “I'm not good at taking care of the people I love. But I won't let my kids down. I swear I won't.”

A few minutes later he was dry and in another pair of sweats, climbing into his bed; he never even put on the light. That icy terror that had kept him from this room was back, teasing him from the edges of the shadows. He knew that even the light wouldn't make them go away, he knew that they lived inside him and would never leave.

Matt woke with a start— at some point he'd dozed off in front of the fireplace. Nothing was left but a few embers, a small orange glow in the center. Stiff from the cool floor, he pulled himself upright and stretched. Damn. He was definitely too old for this. Standing, he twisted and turned until the kinks worked themselves out. In the darkened room, he realized all his things were upstairs. And so was Evan, who apparently wasn't interested in seeing Matt anytime soon.

Well fuck me
, Matt thought morosely.
This is pretty much exactly where I usually am. Frozen out
. For a split second he thought about grabbing his jacket and heading back to Staten Island but it was so brief he was already unbuttoning his shirt when he said “no, I'm not leaving” aloud. Sighing, he pulled his jeans off. A T-shirt and boxers would have to do. There was a blanket on the back of the couch— which should be enough.

Matt went into the kitchen, poured himself a glass of water from the pitcher in the fridge. The clock on the wall read 2:00 a.m. He heard a floorboard creak above him. He froze. He listened for another sound but there was nothing more.

With a heavy exhale, Matt walked back to the couch and settled down, pulling the blanket over his body. The unbidden thought came— Evan had slept here the night before, curled up under this quilt.

Matt bleakly thought that this was it. The end of the road. The creak came back. This time it didn't stop and suddenly Matt heard Evan coming down the stairs. He didn't turn around. With a cop's ear, he listened as Evan padded quietly to the couch. He still didn't turn. He couldn't. He was tired of making all the moves, all the overtures, and ending up with a kick in the gut in return.

Matt listened as the clock ticked each second by; he stopped counting at one hundred.

Evan stood over Matt, knowing he was awake, not comprehending why the hell he was standing there. At some point he'd drifted off but awoke in a blind panic, reaching desperately across the sheets as he'd done before. But this time... this time he wasn't reaching for Sherri.

His weakness made him angry. And weary.

With a shaky hand he reached out to touch Matt's shoulder. Ice. Tension. Disappointment. He could feel it all.
I'm a terrible person
, he thought,
I can't believe I've done this to him
. He turned the touch into a caress, unable and unwilling to stop. He knew that in the morning his speech would be the same, but right now... right now he wanted to say he was sorry and apologize for being a murderer and a bastard... He wanted things to be different, but there was nothing he could do.

“If this is a pity fuck, you can stop.” The voice was low and furious, and it stopped Evan's explorations.

“It's not.”

Matt sat up suddenly, facing Evan across the back of the sofa. “Then what the hell is it?”

“I... I just wanted... ” Evan sighed deeply. His head ached. He just wanted to lie down.

With Matt.

“I know you're pissed off at me, Matt. And you have every right to be. I'm sorry I hurt you but... I just don't know how to do this. It's not going to work... ”

“We can figure this out,” Matt blurted out. “We can find a way... ”

Evan shook his head. “I don't think... ”

“Trust me.” Evan heard the desperation. It just about killed him.

“Matt... ”

“Please.”

He opened his mouth to argue but nothing came out. Without thinking about the consequences, he moved to the other side of the couch, pushing Matt down flat in one swift move.

“Evan.” It was a warning and a question and Evan ignored it. He pretended that the conversation in the kitchen never happened, that Phil hadn't reminded him of being a murderer, that Suzannah hadn't made him a liar. He pretended that this was still something new and beautiful.

He pressed his body down against Matt's, soaking up the heat, and the sounds of sad moans— because Matt wasn't stupid, he knew. He knew Evan too well to be able to pretend.

They knew one another too well.

Matt reached up and pulled Evan's face down to his; these kisses were like the first, on this very couch. Clumsy and afraid and a tiny bit desperate. Evan ignored the rush of pain in his chest— it could have been the stitches, it could have been his heart fragmenting a tiny bit more.

The pain centered him; it made him remember everything that had led up to this moment.

This had to be good-bye.

Vic Wolkowski tightened his hands on the leather-covered steering wheel and steered the minivan toward the EZ Pass lane on the Triborough Bridge. Out of the corner of his eye he could see Evan scrunched down in the passenger seat, staring blanking out the windshield. His skin was sickly white, his eyes were flat. He hadn't said ten words since Vic had pulled out of the driveway of the Cerelli house twenty minutes ago.

The phone call had come yesterday— just a few mumbled words. Evan needed someone to drive him to his in-laws place, to pick up the kids. He wasn't allowed to drive yet— it would only take a few hours. Was Vic available?