There was something so intimate about sleeping together, and he and Michael weren’t there yet. They’d had sex, sure, but they weren’t intimate. And it was this, more than anything, that kept Alan from taking the kiss he wanted so much.
They stayed that way for a long time, the warmth of the sun on their faces, the rush of the water under their feet. Alan had just moved his hands to Michael’s waist when the other man sighed.
“God.”
“What’s the matter?” Alan backed off and returned his hands to the railing. Had he done something wrong?
“I don’t know. Nothing. Everything. Do you mind if we go home now?”
“No, of course not. Are you okay?”
“I just …” Michael shook his head. “I don’t know, started getting all melancholy all of a sudden.” He laid his hand over Alan’s on the railing. “We used to come here a lot, Phillip and me, when we were first together. Almost every weekend we’d come up here and just walk around or have lunch or dinner. There used to be this restaurant right by the water—I don’t even remember the name, but it’s gone now--and you could sit outside. There
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were always ducks hanging around, begging for food. I don’t know why I was just thinking of that and it made me sad.”
Michael’s voice broke and he fell silent.
Alan’s arms closed around him. Gently he turned Michael to face him and drew him against his chest. “I’m sorry. I didn’t know about that or I wouldn’t have suggested that we come here.”
Michael’s arms went around him and he held on. He wasn’t crying, not that Alan could tell, but he was trembling.
“It’s not your fault. Don’t apologize.” He sighed again like his heart was breaking. “I thought I could handle it, coming here. I guess I was wrong. Sometimes it just comes on me, you know?
I can be fine and all of a sudden, just boom, and I’m a wreck.”
“It’s okay.” Alan rubbed Michael’s back. He was desperate to give comfort, to take some of Michael’s grief away.
He thought of the pictures, of the pretty blond college boy and his porn star poses. And he wondered again what connection he had with Phillip.
Would it ease Michael’s grief to know about those pictures?
Would knowing make it worse? He just couldn’t say. Which was why he would say nothing, not yet anyway.
Michael leaned back in Alan’s arms and shoved his sunglasses up onto his head. He pressed his fingers to his eyes. Alan saw with some relief they were dry.
“I’m okay,” Michael said, seemingly as much to himself as to Alan. “Can we go back to the car now?”
On the drive home Michael was quiet and so still he might have been asleep. He’d replaced his dark glasses, concealing his eyes.
Alan turned the radio on low and tried not to think too much.
When they turned into the driveway, Michael straightened in the passenger seat and yawned. He reached over and rested a hand on Alan’s arm. “You want to come in?”
“Sure, if you want me to.”
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Something had happened between them on that bridge and it wasn’t good. Michael had distanced himself somehow, retreated into his grief to a place where Alan couldn’t reach him.
Though he told himself he should expect moments like this, Alan felt somehow abandoned, like he’d had something good in his grasp, then had it snatched away. Which was ridiculous. He had no right to feel that way, but there it was.
Alan followed Michael into the house. As he closed the door, his gaze fell on the pile of mail that had accumulated on the hall table.
“Wow, didn’t we just do mail a few days ago?”
Michael unzipped his jacket, took it off and hung it up.
“Seems like it. I don’t know where it all comes from. Give me your coat.”
Alan did and their fingers brushed. God, he wanted to touch Michael, to hold him, to find their way back to where they’d been earlier that day. But that wasn’t happening, not right then at least.
“What me to sort out the junk mail while I’m here, so you can toss it?”
“If you wouldn’t mind. Maybe you could see if there’s anything that looks like it can’t wait. How about something to drink?”
“That would be great.” Alan picked up the basket and headed into the study where they’d taken to going through the mail.
“Alcoholic or non?” Michael called from the hall.
Alan started to say non, then changed his mind. “Whatever you’re having is fine.”
As Michael’s footsteps faded away, Alan picked up the first envelope and slit it with the letter opener that always lay atop the desk. It contained copies of correspondence from Michael’s lawyer. Estate business, most likely. He scanned the papers quickly then laid them aside.
There was a bank statement, an electric bill, a phone bill, a pile of junk mail addressed to occupant and a hand addressed
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envelope. That one looked like a letter.
In this day of email and texting, did people really still write letters?
Alan slit the envelope, drew out two sheets of lined paper and unfolded them.
Phillip,
Why won’t you answer your phone? I’ve been calling and calling. Did you get the emails I sent?
Of course you did.
I’m sorry. I didn’t mean any of those things I said. Well, maybe I meant them at the time, now that I’ve had time to think, now that you forced me to think, I see that you were right all along.
And I am sorry.
But try to see it from my pov. I love you so much. That part I absolutely meant. I just want to be with you.
It’s hard playing second string, warming the bench while he warms your bed. But I’d rather have part time than no time.
Please, stop punishing me, daddy. I promise I’ll be good.
Your boy, Robby
Alan stared at the letter in his hand. Well, if there was any doubt about Phillip’s relationship with the blond in the photographs, these two hand-written sheets had banished it.
Phillip had a lover named Robby, a lover who called him daddy and who knew he wasn’t free. Yet even knowing, Robby had promised not to make waves.
I promise I’ll be good, just don’t punish me anymore.
Obviously no one had told the man that his elicit lover was too soon FoR Love
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dead. Unless the letter had been delayed or lost in the mail.
Maybe it had been lost. Maybe it was ancient history, one of those odd pieces of mail that shows up years after it was originally sent.
He checked the postmark. It was from two days ago, from Annapolis, Maryland. He looked at the pages, but there was no indication when they had been penned. He had just begun to read the letter again when Michael returned. He held a glass of wine in each hand.
“I decided on wine. I hope that’s okay.”
“Wine’s great.” Alan let the letter drift down to the table and reached for the glass Michael held out to him. “Thanks.”
He took a large swallow but felt no steadier.
Michael sipped his wine. “So, anything good come in the mail?”
“Good?” Alan’s gaze was drawn inexorably to the letter.
“What do you mean, good?”
Michael shrugged. “I don’t know, a letter from Ed McMahon telling me I just won the Publisher’s Clearing House prize, a check for ten million bucks, a love note from my secret admirer.
You know, good, as opposed to bad, like my credit card company telling me my interest rate is going up to eighty-five percent, somebody’s lawyer informing me that I’m being sued for liable because his client happens to have the same name as an axe murdering character in my last book, something like that.”
“Oh, right.” Alan drank more wine. “No, nothing good.”
“Anything I need to deal with right away?”
Yeah, your dead lover’s boyfriend’s little entreaty should probably go at
the top of the list.
“I don’t think so. There are a couple of bills, but nothing that can’t wait a few days. Come and sit with me. Do you want a fire?
I have one ready to go in the fireplace. It’ll just take a second to get it going.”
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“No, I’m good.” Michael sat down on the couch next to Alan.
He ran his fingers, those long clever fingers, up and down the stem of his wineglass. Even white teeth worried a full bottom lip.
Alan was beginning to recognize it as a sign that Michael was nervous.
“What’s the matter?”
“Nothing.” Michael sighed. “Everything. I don’t know.” He set his wineglass on the coffee table then removed his glasses and laid them beside it. “Alan, listen. There’s something I need to say, but I don’t really know how to start.”
Alan’s gut tensed, the wine turning sour in his stomach. “Just say it then. I’m sure whatever it is, it’s not that bad.”
He was sure of no such thing.
“Okay.” Another sigh. “I like you, Alan, a lot.”
Alan laughed, he couldn’t help it. Conversations beginning with the words ‘I like you a lot’ never, in his experience, ended well.
“What?”
“Nothing. Go ahead.”
“The thing is, I’m not ready for a relationship right now. Hell, maybe that’s not even what this is. I mean, we had sex once and here I am talking about making space for you in the closet and picking out china patterns.” He huffed out a laugh. “This would be one of those times when that nonverbal feedback we were talking about would really come in handy.”
Michael was dumping him. He hadn’t even known they’d gotten to the point he could feel hurt about that.
Alan struggled to keep his tone casual. “I’m just trying to figure out what I’m supposed to say.”
“Shit. I’m sorry. I’m screwing this all to hell.”
“No.” He tried to think of something more to add and couldn’t.
“Yeah, I am. I suck at this kind of thing. The truth is, I don’t too soon FoR Love
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have all that much experience with relationships. Phillip was my only real relationship. I met him when I was nineteen. You and he are the only two people I’ve ever had sex with. Well, and Robby, but he doesn’t really count.”
“Robby?” The name popped out before Alan had time to censor it.
“Yeah, he was just some guy, a one and done. It’s not important.”
Alan thought of the signature on that letter, the name Robby written in a large, loopy scrawl. Robby might have been a one and done for Michael, but for Phillip obviously the young man had more staying power.
“Who was he? Robby, I mean.”
“He was just some kid, a college kid Phil and I met when we were on vacation in Mexico. We flirted a little by the pool one day then invited him up to our room.”
“And had a threesome.”
“Yeah, we had a threesome.” Michael flushed. “I told you that. Remember the condoms? You asked where they came from and I told you about Robby. So don’t sound so shocked. People do stuff like that all the time.”
“I know they do. I’m just … surprised, I guess.” He’d never had a threesome, but then, he lived under a rock.
“Like I said, it doesn’t really matter. What does matter is that I was with Phillip for twelve years. He was my first boyfriend and I loved him. I still love him. Maybe I’ll always love him. I know I think about him all the time, and that’s not fair to you. You deserve someone who’ll think about you. And that guy isn’t me, not right now anyway, maybe not for a long time. I’m sorry, Alan.
Really sorry.”
“It’s all right,” Alan heard himself say. And of course it was the right thing to say. It was mortifying to know he’d only just been thinking how easily he could fall in love with Michael Stricker.
Well, at least he hadn’t said it out loud. That was something
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anyway.
“I understand if you don’t want to read the mail or go to the games or anything anymore.”
Oh, God, that letter.
“I can keep on reading the mail, if you want me to. I like you, Michael. I’d like to think that we’ll still be friends.”
Christ, had he really just regurgitated that old bullshit about being friends? Blech.
But Michael was smiling. “I’d like that. I’m afraid Phil and I were always so wrapped up in each other that we didn’t make many friends. I like to think you’re one of mine.”
“Well, I am.”
“Great. Does that mean we’re still on for the game this Saturday?”
“Sure. I’m looking forward to it. You’re turning me into a real hockey fan.” Alan glanced at his watch. He could sense when it was the opportune time to make his exit. “But right now I should probably get going.”
“Yeah, I guess it’s getting kind of late.” Michael stood. “I’ll walk you out.”
Alan got to his feet. On an impulse, he grabbed Robby’s letter. There was no need for Michael to ever see it. He took the envelope too, folded them and tucked them in his jeans pocket, then followed Michael from the study. He would keep Phillip’s dirty little secret, but only for Michael’s sake.
✧ ✦ ✧
“How many computers does one person need?” Alan looked around for somewhere to set down the computer he held. Every available surface in the spare bedroom was covered with either computers, cables or boxes of additional computer crap. With no other option, he set the one he was holding on the floor.
“Hey, don’t put that there. It’ll get stepped on.” Tommy glared at his brother over the top of another box. “And that’s not just a too soon FoR Love
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computer. It’s a server, my oh-so-computer-challenged brother.
Now, pick it up, would you?”
“It’ll only get stepped on if you step on it.” But he bent and picked up the computer. Server. Whatever. He balanced it atop a stack of boxes then dusted his hands on his jeans. It looked like a worse choice than the floor to him, but what the hell did he know?
“I can’t even see the bed. You’ve got so much computer crap in here.”
“I’ll get it all situated by bedtime.” Tommy dug in one of the boxes and produced a coil of cable. “I appreciate you letting me stay here, man.”
Alan shrugged. “You needed a place temporarily. I needed the extra money. It works out all around.”
“Hopefully,” Tommy said, unrolling the cable. “We haven’t lived together in a long time, me and you.”