Nothing but Smoke (Fire and Rain) (11 page)

Outside, the rental car sat in innocuous silence among the older and more beat-up student cars. The Mazda hatchback wasn’t fancy. In fact, he’d rented it as an economy car, but Michael had to admit it was nice that when he turned the key in the ignition, the car actually started.

The drive to Beacon Hill was an easy shot, and though Michael could have taken surface streets and been just fine, he got on the highway and let the engine open. Fine, he sped a little, but it had been so long since he’d been able to get on the highway and be certain he wouldn’t break down.

A half hour later, Michael pulled up next to the address Nicky had given him. Paint chipped off the front of the house, and the tattered curtains hung in the picture window. Nicky’s motorcycle was the only thing about the scene that was new and clean and shiny.

Michael texted Nicky, saying he was there. After all, Nicky may have changed his mind or decided he wanted to go somewhere with Michael instead. Maybe they’d head to some park, kiss and suck each other to oblivion without having to cross this uncomfortable step of Michael going inside Nicky’s house.

The oddest thing was if they did that, Michael would be let down. He’d driven across town.
Fuck it.
They were doing this, even if Michael felt like an idiot after.

The door opened, and Nicky jogged down a set of front steps so rickety Michael wasn’t sure they’d hold Nicky’s weight. When Nicky grinned, Michael forgot his hesitations. All he could feel was happy.

“Hey.” Michael closed the hatchback’s door carefully so he didn’t startle anyone inside. Amazingly, the door shut on his first try.

“Hey.” Nicky came to a stop in front of him, gaze darting all over—down Michael’s body, over Michael’s face, like Nicky couldn’t get enough of looking at him. “You came.”

“Yeah.” Michael wasn’t sure why there was so much hope and fear written in Nicky’s expression. He handed Nicky the casserole. “Uh, this isn’t cooked yet, but if you have an oven…”

God, it was stupid to have brought food.

Nicky took a step closer, landing a grateful kiss on Michael’s cheek. “I really appreciate it.” He gestured with the casserole dish, but Michael was pretty sure he meant he appreciated that Michael had showed up. From the state of Nicky’s browned and overgrown front yard, Michael had the sense that not many people visited.

“No worries. Are we going inside?”

“Sure.” Nicky nodded toward the door, and then led the way up the steps. “Excuse the rotten parts. I was going to fix them, but then my mom came down with pneumonia…”

“It’s okay.” Michael hoped Nicky didn’t spend all night self-conscious about where he lived.

The house was built like an old colonial, more common in this part of town than up by where Michael lived, and the front door led into an entryway with a set of stairs heading up the middle.

Straight ahead, Michael saw the white appliances and brighter lighting of a kitchen, while to the right was a doorway to a dark room with a television blaring.

“Come on.” Nicky frowned, his gaze on the floor, but Michael did as Nicky asked, following him into what seemed to be a living room but had been outfitted with a hospital bed on the side. A woman sat on the couch, her hair thin under a skullcap and her skin sunken around her eyes.

“Oh, hello.” She patted at the blanket over her lap, and then landed a hand on her cheek. “I’m sorry I’m such a mess. You must be Nicky’s friend.”

“Yes. Hi. I’m Michael.” He went to where she was sitting. She didn’t seem capable of getting up, so Michael reached out.

He could feel her bones through her skin as they shook hands, and he hoped she couldn’t see him recoil. The room smelled stale, like cleaners were fighting with mold, or maybe that was just the normal odor of people who were as sick as Nicky’s mother looked.

“This is my mom, Lydia,” Nicky said from behind him.

Nicky’s mom smiled. Her eyes were tired, creased around the edges in a way that seemed out of place with her features. She didn’t look that old, and if Nicky was her son, she couldn’t have been much over sixty.

“Hi, Lydia.” Michael smiled, though it was hard to do when seeing her obviously pained face.

Her lips quirked up. “It’s good of you to come around.”

There was a lump in Michael’s throat, filling the place he normally stored his righteous indignation. For some reason, he’d expected to be curt with this woman, or at the very least to think of her as the enemy.

Now that Michael was seeing her, he couldn’t feel any kind of animosity. She was dying. There was no way not to notice.

“Michael brought dinner.” Nicky held up the casserole pan.

Lydia made a face like a wince. “I’m not hungry.”

Nicky
tsk
ed, rounding to where a side table held a lineup of medicine bottles with white caps. “Did you take these this afternoon?” He pulled out a couple pills and pushed them into his mother’s hand.

His mother rolled her eyes. “I don’t know why I bother. They don’t work.” She threw them back, frowning as she swallowed.

“Here.” Michael picked her cup off the coffee table and handed it her direction. He’d never in his life been around someone this sick. All his grandparents were still alive, and the sole great-grandparent who’d passed away in his lifetime had lived out in Port Orchard, a place his parents only made him go a few times.

“Thank you.” She took the cup in her shaking hand.

Michael wondered if he should help her get it to her lips, but she managed a sip without help.

“You boys don’t have to stay.” She waved them off with a quick gesture. “Go talk. Have fun.”

Across the couch, Nicky’s gaze met Michael’s—his eyes going wider as if his mom had just said some kind of innuendo—and Michael cringed to think of what kind of fun he’d been coming here to have.

“Sure, Mom.” Nicky crossed in front of her, landing an awkward kiss on her cheek as he passed. “And we’ll bring you some food when it’s done.”

With how fast Nicky cleared out of the room and headed to the kitchen, Michael was surprised his mom had the reflexes to call out, “You don’t need to. I’m not hungry.”

That was an argument Michael wasn’t planning to get in the middle of, so he followed into the kitchen in the back of the house. Unlike the living room, which felt like a shrine built out of religious statuary, the kitchen was wallpapered with a floral pattern. The windowsills were decorated with doodads in addition to planters and vases. But somehow in here, the effect of the mournful saints and baby angels wasn’t quite as intense as in the living room.

“I probably should have warned you.” Nicky set down the casserole dish and turned on the rickety oven.

“Oh. Well, I expected her to be sick. With what you said…” Seeing the expression of confusion in Nicky’s eyes, Michael trailed off. Okay, maybe Nicky could have given Michael more preparation, but it’s not like Nicky hadn’t shared that she was going into end-of-life care. It was just a shock coming upon a person that—there was no other way to say it—was so close to
the end
.

Death was such a private matter, usually confined to hospitals or inside houses. Michael felt like he’d been let in on something intimate. About a hundred times more so than if he’d come over and he and Nicky had simply fucked.

“I mean about the religion thing.” Nicky wiped his hands on his jeans like he was embarrassed. “I don’t notice it anymore. She got a bunch of the stuff when her own mom died, but then it started multiplying in the last few years…” He scrubbed a hand through his hair, and then on the back of his neck. The skin there had faded to pink.

Michael guessed Nicky hadn’t had much time lately to motorcycle in the sun. “Oh. That.” He shrugged. His own mom had weird crap all over the place, though in her case it was more likely to be plants, dream catchers and statues of Shiva. “I figured you were religious or something, and that’s why you never…” He didn’t want to say
came out of the closet
. Even with the television cranked to a level they practically had to shout over, Michael didn’t want to be overheard.

“I’m not religious.” Nicky went to the fridge and got out two beers. He handed one to Michael and opened the other for himself.

“Okay.” Michael downed a measure to have something to do with his hands. “You know, you don’t need to explain anything to me.”

Nicky glanced sideways, his lips pinching. “Like hell I don’t.”

The remark cut so fast that Michael couldn’t figure out where it came from. He gritted his teeth, trying not to rise to the bait. “What do you mean by that?”

“Nothing.” Nicky rubbed his face, hanging his head and looking small, like maybe he’d shrunk recently. “It’s just, I know what you need. What you want me to do if we’re going to…”

Michael thought about stopping Nicky, telling him that tonight Michael didn’t need anything from him at all. But he wanted to hear this, to know how things looked between them from Nicky’s perspective.

“I can’t be like that right now.” Nicky’s chest deflated. “Hell, I can’t even be a regular person. Do regular shit like go to work or to the store without worrying. And I have to pack her stuff up tomorrow…” He swallowed, eyes wide open and his gaze a bottomless pit of need. “But, I want you here. I can’t offer you anything, but I want you here so much.”

Michael crossed the kitchen in a few steps and grabbed Nicky around the shoulders. He didn’t worry about Nicky’s mom out in the living room, or anyone seeing through the pitch-black windows, because what Nicky needed right now was a friend. No matter what Michael might want in the future, he could be a friend for Nicky. The guy who held him and patted his back, letting him shudder and maybe cry a little.

“Hey. It’s okay.” Michael rubbed Nicky over his short-sleeved shirt, not letting their skin touch, because if that happened, Michael would want to give Nicky a kiss. “It’s fine. Just relax.” In the week since they’d last seen each other, Nicky seemed to have grown more fragile. “Let’s have another beer, huh?”

Nicky’s shoulders bounced on a laugh. “Okay.” He wiped his face, pulling away. They were only a third of the way through their bottles, but he grabbed another two out of the fridge. With a sly smirk, he said, “We should tip into my mom’s schnapps collection.”

“Oh. It’s going to be that kind of party.” Michael sidled up next to Nicky, wanting like anything to touch him but settling for a hip bump. “Peach schnapps out of dusty bottles? Yum.” As much as Michael hated sweet drinks, he’d share a glass with orange juice if it kept the smile on Nicky’s face.

“No. Peppermint.” The way Nicky shuddered made it clear that he didn’t like schnapps any more than Michael did. “But we’d have to give Mom a nip. I swear she can smell that stuff like a bloodhound.”

The idea that the frail woman on the couch in the living room was a secret party girl tickled Michael’s imagination. “What could it hurt?” Actually, Michael had no idea what could go wrong for Nicky’s mother mixing small amounts of alcohol with her medications, but he figured Nicky would know well enough what his mother could handle.

“Yeah.” Nicky went over to a cabinet. Inside was a surprisingly well-stocked liquor cabinet, though the bottles looked like they’d been there for a decade. When he rounded with the schnapps in hand, Nicky’s face had softened. “What did you say was in that casserole?”

“Tofu and broccoli. Some brown rice and a little organic cheese.” Michael should have had something better to offer. If they were getting decadent, his casserole wasn’t exactly helping.

Nicky tilted his head, his expression serious. “And would you say peppermint is the best accompaniment to broccoli tofu casserole, or should we try blackberry?”

Michael barked out a laugh, surprised Nicky had gotten one over on him. “Oh man, I can’t imagine which is worse. Could I stick with beer?”

“Suit yourself,” Nicky said with deadpan humor. “I think you’ll be missing out.”

Michael couldn’t resist touching him, just for a second. He meant to poke Nicky’s side, but it turned into a rub. Michael curled his fingers around taut muscle, but only long enough to feel Nicky squirm. “No I won’t.” Quickly, so as not to freak Nicky out, he blew him a kiss.

Chapter Nine

Nicky would have thought dinner would be uncomfortable, what with him and Michael sitting on chairs next to his mom on the couch, watching old episodes of
Law and Order
and eating off plates on their laps, but it was fun. His mom managed a few bites, not even complaining that the food involved tofu. If anything, Nicky suspected she chewed and swallowed easier than she could have meat.

Afterwards, they each drank a thimbleful of his mom’s favorite schnapps, and though Michael winced like he’d taken medicine, Nicky’s mom smiled. “Nicky Senior likes to cook,” she told Michael. Her eyes sparkled, and it seemed like she thought Nicky’s father was still alive. Or maybe he felt real to her because soon they’d be reunited.

“You know what they say about a man who likes to cook?” Michael waggled his eyebrows.

Nicky’s mouth dropped open. Was Michael flirting with his mother?

“I don’t believe I do.” His mother’s chuckle turned into a cough.

Michael shrugged, making it clear he didn’t really have a punch line. “They have big spatulas?”

His mom giggled, maybe the slightest bit tipsy from the schnapps, but Nicky thought most of her good humor was from having company.