Family Man (16 page)

I went still, Josh’s words rushing down inside me like Luke Skywalker’s fatal hit to the Death Star. I wanted to tell him no, he was crazy, I wasn’t in love with Vincent Fierro.

But as Tara rolled her eyes and told me I was forgiven so long as I produced him for inspection within a week, as Dillon mock leered and teased me, promising to give me all the pointers I wanted on how to have sex, I thought about Vin and how he made me feel and all that Josh had said, and I realized he could be right. I might be in love with Vinnie. With the man who fixed my steps and held doors for me and brought Gram tea when we sat in the waiting room, who set her up with his uncle. Who lay on my bed with his shirt rucked up to his neck and told me to take him, who said he wanted to lick our shared come off me and suck me until I was hard again.

Vin, who went from strong and confident to soft and almost vulnerable, who looked so goddamn good in a gold chain I hurt, who was turning into the very definition of what I was looking for in a lover.

I slumped back in my chair, stunned and more than a little scared.

Josh clapped me reassuringly on the shoulder and rose. “I’ll get you another espresso, double shot,” he said, and went back up to the counter.

Chapter Nineteen

Every Fierro learned how to handle going to church past confirmation.

Initially they all fell for the well-laid trap of being told, now that they were adults in the eyes of God and fully initiated into the Church, they could decide when they attended. Sometimes a well-meaning elder cousin or sibling would warn them not to stop going altogether and would try to give tips, but nearly universally every one of them seized on the moment of freedom and started partying late on Saturday night and hanging out to watch TV in their bedrooms well past noon mass. The golden period never lasted more than the first month and a half, at which point one of the Fathers would pay a visit to the new adult’s mother and inform her of the lack of attendance. Depending on the mood of the parents, a harsh lecture or serving of guilt with more layers than Marco’s lasagna always followed.

Church didn’t have to happen every week, but it still had to happen. For his part, Vince went about every third weekend, which was slightly more than absolutely necessary but less than was ideal, and usually his mother would cluck her tongue and shake her head when the subject came up. He was never sure if the bigger problem was that he went when most of the family didn’t go or when
she
didn’t go.

This Sunday was a Fierro command performance, however, because at ten o’clock mass, Vince’s second cousin once removed would be baptized. The entire family was present. As Vince gravitated to his usual seat at these occasions next to Rachel in his family’s pew, he saw the prodigals returning with their standard reluctance to the fold: Adamo, Rina, Cessy, Patrick and Hank.

Vince couldn’t help watching Hank as he made his way into the pew on the other side of the aisle. Hank was ten years older than Vince, but he seemed more like twenty. His hair was thin on the top of his head, as thin as the rest of him. The women always worried over Hank with no one to cook for him. Vince had to admit, his cousin did look a little sickly. Was that because he was sick? Was it because he was that uneasy about being here?

“Quit staring,” Rachel hissed at him, and Vince averted his eyes.

Mass slid over him like a comfortable blanket, and he rose and knelt and murmured along at the appropriate moments in the haze he’d perfected in fourth grade. His thoughts kept returning to Hank, however. He’d come alone. Was he alone? Did he have someone he wished he could bring, or was he single?

He wondered if he should have invited Trey.

They’d seen each other a lot lately, as much as possible with Trey’s school and work schedule. He knew the people at Full Moon had figured out he and Trey were seeing each other. He was pretty sure he liked them knowing too.

They were dating. Seeing each other. Trey wasn’t pushing him to make it public, but it was getting close to time. By this point in any relationship with a girl, he would have at least taken her to dinner at one of the restaurants. He’d have invited him to this event today.

What did it say about him that he hadn’t considered it? Did this make him smart, or an ass?

The baptism was the same as any other, another baby in a white dress, another pair of beaming parents, another set of cousins standing at attention as sponsors. Vince had done it himself three times and didn’t have to be prompted for his responses during the ceremony anymore. He did, though, feel the usual pang of regret for never having gone up for the other set of responses, and today the idea of possibly getting serious with Trey, of thinking of bringing him to family events, of maybe, potentially, considering him family—well, playing parents at a baptism would be out, wouldn’t it.

Of course, they could adopt.

The gravity of this kind of thinking shook him hard enough to make him stumble over a refrain, and his head couldn’t hold much more than white noise for the rest of the ceremony. He walked with Rachel from the church to the restaurant in disquiet.

“Talk to him,” Rachel said eventually.

Vince blinked at her, confused. “Who?”

Rachel rolled her eyes. “The Pope.
Hank
. I can see your mind working from here. And I saw you staring at him. If you want to know what it’s like being gay in the Fierro family, take him outside for a smoke and talk to him.”

That wasn’t what he’d been thinking about, not exactly, but Vince nodded. She left him alone after that for the rest of the walk, and once they got to the restaurant, Aunt Eva pulled her aside to tell her about the handsome young man who’d come into her sister’s shop, and Vince ended up wandering near his father and Marco.

He didn’t talk to Hank, but he watched him. Watched him linger at the fringes, watched him take a seat alone. He saw the others steer clear of Hank as well, glancing at him, exchanging painful, awkward waves. It was almost as if he had a force field around him.

It upset Vince. It wasn’t right. Hank was family. Someone should sit with him.

He decided he would be the one to do it.

He’d finish this scotch, though, to bolster his courage.

Two scotches later, dinner was about to be served, and Vince was pretty sure he was ready to commandeer a seat next to his cousin. He maneuvered his way through a sea of children, around a group of teenagers and past a group of aunts who were whispering intently near the bar. They kept glancing at Hank, and since Vince wasn’t moving as swiftly as usual with a few drinks in him, he couldn’t help overhearing what his Aunt Fina was saying.

“—heard he was with a boy. An
escort
, someone he hired for sex. Except it was a sting, and he got
arrested
. Alberto had to bail him out of jail.”

Vince slowed way, way down, acting like he was looking across the room for someone, training his ears like sonar.

“Can you imagine? A
grown man
doing such a thing.” Fina clucked her tongue.

“That’s how they are. The gay lifestyle. That’s all it is.” Vince couldn’t see his cousin’s wife Olivia, but he could hear the pinched outrage in her voice. “He shouldn’t even be allowed in here.”

“He’s family,” someone else said.

“People like that aren’t family. Not the kind of family I want around.”

Vince cleared his throat and stumbled back the way he’d come. His mother came around the corner from the kitchen, smiling at him. “They’re about to serve, hon. Why don’t you take a seat by your father and I?”

“I just gotta hit the restrooms quick,” he told her, nodding in their direction.

“Sure.” She patted him on the shoulder with a wink. “Fair warning—I heard a rumor you’re seeing someone again. I won’t let you leave the table until I’ve heard all about her.”

Vince’s insides churned. “Really gotta go, Mom.”

She kissed him on the cheek. “I’ll be waiting.”

He didn’t go to the restroom. He went outside, where an April rain had started, and stood underneath the awning, hands shaking as he lit a cigarette from the secret stash he and some of the cousins kept behind the loose shutter for emergencies. He smoked four of them.

People like that aren’t family.

Tucking the cigarettes into his shirt pocket, Vince turned up his collar and headed out into the rain.

Chapter Twenty

Just when I’d started to think everything between us was good, that maybe I loved Vincent Fierro, that maybe I could introduce him to my friends and maybe even kiss my virginity goodbye, he got weird on me.

First, he didn’t show up at the coffee shop like he always did. I texted him, but got no answer. I thought for sure he’d be waiting for me when I got home, but he wasn’t.

“Hey, Gram, did Vinnie call?”

“Not today, honey.”

Still, I didn’t think much of it. He had a job. He had family. He was probably busy. But when the second day passed with still no word, and then the third, I became worried. A little seed of doubt began to grow.

I texted him several times on the fourth day. On the fifth day I called. He didn’t answer. I left a voicemail, but he didn’t call back.

On the sixth day, I was angry. I spent a lot of time composing long diatribes in my head where I told him that the least he could do was offer me an explanation.

On the seventh day, I fought back tears.

On the eighth day, my phone rang. A glance at the screen told me it was him.

Not sure if this would be an apology or a kiss-off and feeling vulnerable because Tara was starting to get pushy about meeting the man who was possibly about to dump me for reasons I didn’t understand, I answered cautiously. “Hello?”

“Trey!” Wherever he was, it was loud. I could hear music in the background, and people laughing. He was practically shouting. “What are you doing tonight?”

“Writing a paper.”

“
What
? I can’t hear you!”

“Writing a paper!” I said, louder this time. At least Gram would have her hearing aid out by now. I didn’t have to worry about disturbing her. “Where are you?”

“I’m at Mr. Joe’s.”

“What are you doing all the way over there?” Mr. Joe’s was a bar close to my house, and close to his family’s restaurant, but I knew it wasn’t a place he normally went.

“I wanted a drink.”

“Sounds like you’ve had a few already.” More than a few, if his slurred words were any indication.

“Yeah, maybe,” he said, sounding amused. “So what? You should come have a drink with me.”

I glanced at my watch. Only nine o’clock, and yet I still had a paper to finish, and though I didn’t work the next morning, I had to be up at five if I hoped to beat the crowd at the computer lab so I could type it up. “Not tonight, Vin.”

“Come on, Trey. You work too hard.”

“I haven’t heard from you all week.”

“I know, but you’re hearing from me now. Come down here and let me buy you a beer.”

“Vinnie, has it occurred to you that I hardly ever drink?”

“Yeah, but…” His words died out. No, it hadn’t occurred to him at all.

“I have to go.”

“No, Trey, don’t hang up. Just one beer, okay? What would it hurt?”

I was surprised by what I heard in his voice. Disappointment. Maybe even a hint of desperation. “Why?” I asked.

“Because. That’s all.” That was all he said, but I could hear it in his voice—it was the defensive tone he always used when I pushed too close. The same tone he used when he said, “I’m not gay.”

I bit back my urge to laugh. I bit back my urge to cry. I thought about the fact that he’d obviously come over to the neighborhood to see me. He’d probably run out of nerve and stopped at the bar on his way. Even if he had to be drunk to do it, he had actually called. Finally.

I pondered the ways this could go: me giving in, or not. Him saying what was really on his mind.

Or not.

“Vinnie,” I said at last. “Repeat after me: ‘I’ve missed you, Trey.’”

“Fuck, Trey, it’s just a beer.”

“Okay. If you say so. I have to finish my paper now, but—”

“Goddamn it!”

“—maybe we can get together on Saturday—”

“All right.” He sighed heavily. “Just a minute. Let me at least go outside where I can fucking hear you.”

What he meant was, let him go outside where nobody would hear
him
, but I didn’t push it.

The noise of the bar died, and I imagined him pushing through the dirty glass door of the old building. I pictured him hunching against the brick wall of Mr. Joe’s, his arms crossed over his chest. I could practically sense him glancing around to make sure nobody was near enough to hear. “Fine,” he said at last. “I’ve missed you.”

Not exactly sincere. More grudging than accepting, but it was a start.

“Good. Now say, ‘Please come have a drink with me, Trey.’”

He sighed again, but it sounded a bit like laughter. When he spoke, I thought he might even have been smiling. “Please come have a drink with me, Trey.” And then, without me coaching him at all, he added, “
Please
. I’d really like to see you.”