Cole McGinnis 05 - Down and Dirty (24 page)

“This changes nothing,” Bobby replied gently. Quirking a slight grin, he said, “Okay, there might be some funky-ass food at Thanksgiving dinner, but Ichi’s pretty okay.”

Thanksgiving. Christmases. Hell, Fourth of July BBQs suddenly stretched out in front of him, and Bobby—didn’t mind. Shit, he grinned, he was kind of looking forward to it. Stupid romantic things like getting a tree and arguing about the decorations. Everything he’d merely handed over to Marsha because it’d been her family—
her
happy little domestic scene—and now Bobby had someone he wanted to share those stupid special Hallmark moments with.

If he wasn’t careful, he and Ichi would end up with matching purse dogs and calling each other Boo.

“Fuck, you’re serious about this guy. Like serious
serious
. Or… is he just the first boyfriend I’ve known about?” Jamie looked like Bobby
had
punched him. He rocked back on his heels, studying his father with a trepidatious stare. “Shit, Dad—are you going to get married to him? He’s just a
kid
—okay, maybe not jailbait but—”

The word
married
brought a quick end to the tinsel-hanging and heart-shaped boxes of chocolates floating through Bobby’s thoughts.

“How about if you work on how you feel about the whole Dad’s gay thing and let Ichi and I worry about whether or not you’re going to have to choke down Jordan almonds any time soon?” Bobby held his hands up to stave off Jamie’s questions. “So, we good? Or as good as we can be for right now?”

“Yeah,” Jamie grunted, nodding. “I just…. Dad, I just need to wrap my head around it. It shocked the hell out of me. I mean, you don’t
look
gay.”

“Really? I’m not even sure what gay looks like.” He wanted to hug Jamie, but his son was pacing off his energy, eating up a square of concrete as he listened. “But we can work on that. At least you’re not a bigot like your Uncle James.”

“Kind of hard to be. What
aren’t
I? Mom’s black, Persian, and Chinese, and you’re Irish and whatever. What’s left?” Jamie’s snort sounded exactly like he did, and Bobby’s grin grew. His son grew serious, and he reached out, placing a hand on Bobby’s shoulder. “I just…. God, I’m kind of pissed off and sad… and a bunch of things I don’t even have words for.”

“No, I get that.” He sighed. “I felt that way too. Shit, sometimes I
still
do.”

“Let me head home. I’ll call you tomorrow maybe. Just… give me some time to work out my shit.” Jamie dug his keys out of his jeans. “Okay?”

“Yeah, okay.” Drained, Bobby exhaled, then turned as Jamie was about to walk past him. “Hey, one thing—why’d you come by? What did you need?”

“Me? Shit.” Jamie’s grin ate up his face, wrapping up broad and white. “I just came by to tell you that you’re going to be a grandpa.”

T
HE
ROOFTOP
was cool, and despite the blaring spangle of music coming from a taco truck a block down, relatively peaceful. Ichi’d cleaned up the glass from the lobby, using a wet mop to catch any stray slivers only to find one with his knuckle when he bent down to pick up the filled dust pan. Waiting in Bobby’s loft drove him insane after ten seconds, and Ichi’d headed up to the top of the building, hoping to find some solace in a
kretek
and a tumbler of iced coffee.

His lungs twinged when the spiced smoke hit them, then shuddered into a calm when the nicotine kicked in. The coffee chaser was a good idea, especially since Ichi could still taste Los Angeles in the air despite the cloves and tar.

It was strange to stare out onto a cityscape and see its edges. He’d apartment hopped in Tokyo but always in the central districts—always where cement, steel, and glass bristled upward toward the sky. He’d grown up used to being surrounded by its sea-urchin spines rising from the streets, and the bustle of crowds was a familiar comfort, snippets of languages and lives he could almost predict merely by watching people go by him.

Los Angeles was different. Here it was like casting fortunes at the temple. He never knew what was going to come up, and most of the time, it took him a while to figure out what the perplexing sliver meant.

Now he couldn’t imagine living anywhere else—or being without the man he’d just been with.

“You’re Dawson’s boyfriend, aren’t you?” A man’s aged voice boomed out behind him, a sonorous, British pour of tea, cigar smoke, and fog. “Tell me you brought a lighter up here with you. I plum forgot.”

Startled, Ichi turned to see a tall egret of a man approaching him from the rooftop access door. Despite being slightly stooped and leaning on a cane to help him cross the uneven rooftop, the older man towered over Ichiro. His shock of white hair caught the sparkle from the faerie lights someone’d strung up over a large space near the door, and his fierce Roman nose threw a long shadow down his strong, long face. Even in the night’s faint dusting of light, his light blue eyes held a fierce spark of life in their watery depths.

“Sure, yeah.” Ichi fumbled at his pocket, finding his Zippo. “Here, let me—”

“I’m coming. No need to stir yourself.” Holding up a cheroot, the elderly man made a brisk progress toward Ichi, his cane thumping in time with the swing of his stiff leg. Sticking the raw-ended cigar into his mouth, the man cupped the other end against the wind, then held still as Ichi flicked the Zippo’s flame back and forth under it. The leaves caught, smoldering at first, then glowing a deep cherry once he sucked on the cheroot a few times. Pulling back, the man blew out a mouthful of fragrant smoke, then stuck his free hand out to Ichiro. “Charles Howell. I have one of the corner ends on the first floor. I’ve seen you around with Dawson. Heard him making a racket coming down those stairs while I was taking the trash out. Thought maybe you two had gotten into a tussle, but here you are. Or did he go the wrong way and should have gone up here instead?”

“Ah, no, Mr. Howell, It wasn’t me he was fighting with. We’re good.”

“Please, call me Charles. Mr. Howell makes me sound like I should be stuck on an island with a bunch of incompetent sailors and a bevy of pretty women. Now why are you up here and that boy isn’t?”

“Okay, Charles, then. I’m Ichiro.” He grinned at the Brit, catching the man’s wink. “He was trying to catch up with his son. They… have to talk about a few things.”

“Let me guess,” Charles said around the end of his cigar. “That boy of his found out his father’s not one for the girls?”

“It’s like you can see through walls.” Ichiro motioned toward a cluster of Adirondack chairs near them. “Did you want to sit? Maybe get off that leg, sir?”

“Sir’s just as bad as mister.” He leaned a bit more on the cane. “No, I’m fine here for now. Stretch my legs. You get to sitting too long, and your body forgets to move. How’d the boy take it? The whole Band of Thebes thing? I like Dawson. He’s a good man. Son should know that about him.”

“Yeah, I don’t know. I was waiting downstairs and just… couldn’t stand there doing nothing. Came up here to pollute my lungs.” Ichi leaned back against the short wall running around the roof’s edge. “You okay with… us? Me and Bobby?”

“What? You think an old man can’t be open-minded? Hell, some of the wildest people in the world have snow on their roofs and a fire in their belly.” Charles shot him a playfully scornful look. “Besides, every generation’s got a struggle they have to fight. In my time, it was me marrying a Chinese woman from Jamaica. God, did I ever hear the whispers behind my back. Here, this is from when we first met. Oh, more decades ago than I care to count, but tell me… have you ever seen a more lovely woman? You’d have married her too if you were… you know, that way.”

He pulled out a leather wallet, its folds creased and comfortable. Flipping it open, he turned a flap so Ichiro could see an old black-and-white photo stashed under a protective plastic layer. The woman was caught in midlaugh, her ebony hair teased up into a fall to add a few inches to her petite frame. His wife’s sleeveless jacquard shift dress exposed her bare arms and her skin shone with faint healthy gold. With her head thrown back, her cheeks pulled up into plump frames for her sparkling dark eyes. She was beautiful, carrying a pair of cats-eye sunglasses in one hand and a pineapple-embellished drink in the other. She was surrounded by faint blurs of movement and out-of-focus people, but her attention was clearly on the person taking her photo.

“She’s gorgeous,” Ichi agreed. “And I can definitely appreciate a gorgeous woman.”

“Thing is, most men those days—they treated women badly, especially if the women weren’t… white. And if there was one thing I could not stand, it was to see any woman being treated as if they were dirt. Was a time when I spent more time defending my choice of bride than I spent loving her. It was damned nice to see that time slip away, let me tell you.” Charles nodded at him as he put away his wallet. “It’s the same with the two of you. Back then, I never would have imagined I’d think any differently. You called a man a ponce or a nancy boy, and it was a surefire way to get your nose knocked right off your face. Now some of the best men I know are ponces. And I’m glad to know them. Hell, probably some of the best men I’ve known in the past were too, but they hid. Don’t hide, son. It eats everything up inside.”

“No, hiding’s not my style,” Ichi agreed.

“Dawson done hiding too?”

“Yeah, I think so.” He drew on his
kretek
, but the end had gone out. Lighting it again seemed like too much of a bother, and the woodsy scent of Charles’s cheroot seemed to be enough for his body to suckle out what it needed. “I hope so.”

“Good, because that man needs someone in his life. Other than that insane friend of his who keeps trying to get him killed. God, what is that boy’s name?”

“Cole,” Ichi murmured. “Unless Bobby’s got another stupidly insane friend in his life I don’t know about.”

“That’s the one. Cole. Good-looking boy but the common sense God gave a dead iguana kicked up into a lorry’s grill. You know him well, then?”

“Yeah, he’s my brother.”

“Oh.” Charles sniffed, then eyed Ichi. “Sorry about that, then. No offense meant. Or disparagement.”

“No, you’ve got it about right. Trust me.”

“Surprised Dawson isn’t up here yet. How long do you think it takes to argue some sense into a son? I had two girls myself with the wife. Don’t even try arguing sense into women. You always lose because you find out you’re the one who’s off his rocker, not them.” Charles exhaled again. “Unless you’re one of those tech kids who’s forgotten how to write properly and you don’t know what a pen and paper is for. ’Course these days, my own hand isn’t too easy to read either.”

“Oh shit, a note.” Ichi choked on his own spit. “I didn’t write a damned note.”

“Well then, young man.” Charles tapped the floor with his cane. “You better get your damned ass back downstairs before you break that man’s heart. He’s going to think you’ve left him.”

“Nah, we talk stuff out. Or at least I do. He grumbles under his breath, then spills the beans when I poke at him.” He pulled himself up, reluctant to leave Charles alone on the roof. “Want some company going back down?”

“Nope, I’m sitting right here and seeing if I can find some stars through all this crap above us.” The older man eased down into a chair. “You go and pull Dawson’s head out of his ass if he needs it. I’m going to go look for my wife’s smile in the sky and tell her about my day.”

Chapter 15

S
ILENCE
DOMINATED
the loft, a heavy blanket of what-if and what-now settling in the air as Bobby walked through the empty space. There was no note, nothing to tell him where Ichiro’d gone, except his clothes were still on the floor, and his keys were missing. But then so were the pumpkin-pie-scented cigarettes he liked to have once in a while.

“Fuck… this day.” Bobby sighed. “God, I’m so damned tired.”

Flopping down on the couch, he reached for his phone, then stopped. He wanted to call Cole. It was such a damned ingrained response to dial up his best friend and rage about the shit around him. Touching his jaw, he had a very painful reminder of why he shouldn’t call Cole. Hell, they’d spent the afternoon avoiding each other while everyone around them pretended not to have heard the fight coming from the front of the property.

“Screw it. I’m calling him.” The phone rang three times before Bobby realized it was almost one in the morning. He was about to disconnect the line when Cole answered, his voice soft and grumbly.

“Hey, what’s up? What’s wrong?” It was a comfort to hear Cole’s worry. “You okay?”

“Yeah, sorry. I… didn’t know it was so damned late. Go back to bed, Princess,” Bobby reassured him. “I’ll call you in the morning.”

“No, dude. It’s okay.” There was a murmur of Korean-accented English, then the squeak of a mattress before Cole spoke again. “Going downstairs. Jae asked if you needed us over there. I told him I didn’t think so, but dude, if you need—”

“No, nothing like that.” He tried to get a handle on the flow of thoughts and emotions swamping him, but Bobby felt like he was sucking more muddy water than clarity into his brain. “It’s been a fucking shit day.”