Nothing but Smoke (Fire and Rain) (7 page)

Too bad Nicky was so clearly confused. Michael might have liked someone to hang out with for more time than it took to suck each other off.

“So…you’d be up for doing this again if…” Nicky pushed like he wanted an ultimatum, some agreement that would make him
gay enough
or
out enough
to meet Michael’s standards.

But it wasn’t as simple as being seen in public together, or as black-and-white as coming out at work. It came down to whether a guy was comfortable in his own skin. Not vacillating all the time, or jacking Michael with his hand while hating Michael in his heart.

No step-by-step guidelines would get Nicky to that place, though Michael wished Nicky were there already.

“Why don’t you think about it?” Michael watched the lake go by, the window cracked open and letting in the sweet summer smells. A comforting sadness twisted in his belly. “Call me when you figure it out.”

In Michael’s heart of hearts, he knew Nicky would call whether he’d decided anything about himself or not. Maybe it was Michael who needed a few days to cool off and get some perspective.

“Okay.” Nicky’s voice was quiet and perfectly serious when he muttered, “I will.”

Chapter Six

By the time Nicky pulled into the driveway and maneuvered the Lincoln between the abandoned planters and the trash cans he had to remember to take down to the curb the next day, his underwear had fully adhered to his dick.

The awkwardness of getting out of the car with his jean shorts shrink-wrapped around his hips was nothing, though, compared to the thoughts battering inside his skull.

Are you bi?

Nicky had never considered the question. He’d spent so many years trying not to be the other thing that he hadn’t stopped to consider the intermediate option. Early in high school, he’d stared in the mirror, thinking
I’m not gay
over and over, never daring to say it out loud but hoping repeating the words in his head could make them true.

The lights flickering behind the window shades showed that his mom was still awake, so there’d be no way of avoiding her. Would she see guilt in him? Funny, but Nicky had seldom felt guilty before when he’d gone to the park.

Sure, the first time there’d been guilt, but not any more than the first time he hid a porno under his bed or masturbated into a sock. It was all the same shame, the same cold spot in his stomach.

This was different. Not shame—not the feeling that he was fighting a desire bigger than himself and that lust was winning. This guilt was purer, and lust had very little to do with it.

His steps set the rotten planks of the front steps creaking, and Nicky thought about the wood he’d need and when he’d find time to replace them. He thought of anything but the way he’d felt at Seward Park, with Michael kissing him and happier than he’d ever been in his life.

“Is that you, Nicky?” his mom called.

“Yeah.” He wished he could say good night quickly, then run upstairs and avoid her like he had a few times in high school, but he no longer had the luxury of that kind of disrespect. Nicky grabbed a sweatshirt off the bench by the door and held it in front of him as he went into the living room.

“Did you have a nice time?” Her forehead was creased and her eyes tense. Nicky suspected it was because of her pain, but he couldn’t ignore the needle of worry that she was angry with him.

“Yeah. The movie was great.” Nicky tried to ignore the hospital bed, though it kept drawing his gaze.

She coughed gently and leaned forward from her spot on the couch to get her cup of water. Her skin seemed so thin now. Much thinner than a week ago, and had a tinge of yellow under the surface. “You weren’t gone long enough for a movie.” Her voice was soft, and he could tell by how she swallowed that she was trying hard not to cough.

It took Nicky the space of three breaths to realize she was teasing him. Now that he looked, he could see that she was trying to smile.

“Yeah. We didn’t end up going. Just had a beer instead.” Nicky couldn’t tell what hurt worse, seeing her in pain or the guilt clawing his way up his throat and threatening to choke him. Stepping across the coffee table, he settled next to her on the couch.

He put his arm around her and eased her into a hug. She felt so brittle, like one wrong word and she’d break. When he was a kid, she’d been so strong. Only five foot three, but a whirlwind of energy.

He missed that part of her so much, the strength he could turn to whenever he needed more than his own, her arms gripping him tight even when he’d grown a half-foot taller than her.

“Is something wrong, Nicky?”

He pulled away, getting himself back together. She needed him to be tough, not searching for the parent who was no longer there. “No.” He wiped his face. His nose was running a little, but his eyes had managed to stay dry. “I’m fine.”

“Is it about that girl? You know if you’re seeing her, you can tell me.”

“It’s not about a girl.” At least for once he was telling his mother the truth.

“Why do we have to stop at your mom’s place again?” Henri cranked the handle, trying to lower the window on Michael’s car.

“She wants me to pick up some tomatoes.” Michael leaned across the seat and slapped Henri’s hand. “Stop it. You’ll break the thing.” Michael hated how his mother thought he would come running every time she called. In fact, visiting his mom was almost ruining his buzz of contentment over his night with Nicky.

He was walking a slippery slope, risking getting emotionally involved, but damn he hadn’t felt so good with a guy in ages.

“Geez. When in the hell are you going to trade this thing in for something that doesn’t stink like an oil spill?”

“It’s not so bad.” Michael rolled down his window to get some cross ventilation. Much as he hated to admit it, his car was starting to reek. The last three bouts of repairs had gotten her running again, but hadn’t done much for the stench of gasoline every time he turned over the engine. “And anyway, I can’t afford a new one.”

The light flicked to green, and the cars rolled forward. Unfortunately, the light ahead of that one turned red, so the traffic stuttered to a halt before Michael even got through the first.

“With the money you put in to fixing this heap…” Henri trailed off, probably because they’d bickered like an old married couple over Michael’s car a hundred times.

“God, I hate driving to Wallingford.” As an undergrad, Michael had liked having his mom nearby for holidays. It saved time since he had to drive all the way out to Snoqualmie for Christmas to see his father and
the bitch
he’d left Michael’s mom for. But now that he was older, he wished his mom lived farther away.

“Well, why didn’t you tell her no?”

Michael rolled his eyes. Henri’s question must have been rhetorical because both of them knew the answer. His mom would call and hound him, and eventually show up at his apartment huffing and whining that she couldn’t reach him.

A familiar tension curled under Michael’s skin as he turned onto his mother’s street.

“Oh, man.” Henri pointed at the front of Michael’s mother’s house.

She hadn’t been lying about needing someone to take her tomatoes. Seven buckets of plants lined the wall in front, all heavy with bright red fruit.

Giant sunflowers arched into her neighbor’s yard. Purple, yellow and red-streaked edible greens exploded in bouquets out of the planting box in front of her dilapidated fence.

As Michael slowed to park, she bounded out her front door, garden gloves over arms bare to the shoulders. Her wild, gray hair flew around the edges of her haphazard bun.

“Hey, Mom.” Michael shoved his door shut with his hip a few times. “The garden looks good.”

“Uh-huh. I told you I didn’t want to see you driving that anymore.” She tossed her gloves to the side and folded her arms across her bosom.

If he hadn’t been gay already, his mom’s chest would have made him so. The woman never wore a bra. Not ever. Michael understood her point that underwires were the modern equivalent of a corset and bra straps a tool of the oppressor, but he’d always wished she’d tie down the girls when he had friends over.

“I can’t afford a new car, Mom.”

“Oh, please!” She shuffled down the path to plant a kiss on his cheek and one on Henri’s. “I know it has sentimental value. But…well, don’t you think you’re done punishing yourself?”

Henri faked a sudden interest in the hydrangeas cascading down the southeast wall of the two-bedroom cottage. Despite his impeccable acting abilities, he couldn’t seem to find an excuse to get all the way to the backyard, so Michael hissed as he tried to head off his mom’s argument. “The fact that my ex gave me the car has nothing to do with it.”

He and Mark had broken up four years ago. The car hadn’t belonged to Mark in ages. “It’s the only car I have, and it would be worthless as a trade-in.”

His mother cocked an eyebrow at the purple Mustang. “Some of these new hatchbacks get forty miles to the gallon on the highway. You wouldn’t even need to get a hybrid.”

“Mom, I’m not getting—”

“When I trade in the Subaru, I’m going to get one of those new Smart Cars. You could—”

Michael’s throat clogged with annoyance, so he raised his voice. “I don’t
want
a new car!”

The car didn’t remind him of Mark, but it did remind Michael of how he’d felt back when they’d first started dating—sixteen and escaping his mom’s house to go to seedy bars and even seedier hotels. His ex had been a closeted asshole, but his car had given Michael freedom.

“I’m only saying I think it might be healthy for you to move on.” She waddled over to her gardening bench and pulled open the lid to dig around inside. Maybe he was being unkind thinking of it as waddling, but there was a lot more lateral movement in her steps than there had been a few years earlier.

She pulled a couple reusable shopping bags out of the bench, as well as a folding basket with watermarks up the sides. “You could have a ceremony…” She handed him the containers and walked, hips swaying under her sundress, toward the door.

He hoped she was wearing underwear. “A ceremony for what?”

Her house was just like he remembered. Wallpaper clashed with hanging art, and statues, plants and pictures cluttered every available surface. When his dad had first left, the house had been clean most of the time. Michael still remembered how he and his mom had sat in the living room that first night after his dad was gone, cross-legged and eating gluten-free, soy-cheese pizza. His mom had lit candles and called them
refugees of love
.

At the time, it had sounded like poetry.

“For the
’stang
, of course!” His mother always called his car that when she wanted to annoy him.

“A funeral for my car?” He dropped his bags on the kitchen island in the narrow space between a crate of summer squash and a stack of unopened mail.

His mother ran the faucet into a sink full of beets—their long leaves sticking over the edge to drip pink water on the floor. How his mother managed to keep the work for the courses she taught clean in the midst of all this dirt was beyond him.

“Not a funeral…” She scrubbed the beets with a brush. “More like a clearing of spirits.”

“So, an exorcism?” It wouldn’t be the first time his mother tried to force Michael to get rid of something she didn’t like by smothering it in burning sage. Back in high school, she’d tried to murder Michael’s favorite pair of ripped jeans on a funeral pyre.

“There’s no need to be melodramatic.” His mother shook out the beets, spraying Michael’s white shirt with red, and shoved them in the bag. “I just mean it might be easier if you had some closure with…you know who.”

“We broke up four years ago, Mom.” The last word came out on a groan worthy of a fifteen-year-old.

“But you still have his car.”

Michael straightened abruptly. “Where are the tomatoes?”

His mom pursed her lips but in the end must have decided to stop pestering him, because she went to the cupboard to pull out another bushel of vegetables. Shiny Romas dotted a layer of green-and-brown heirlooms.

“Well, are you seeing someone else yet? I thought you and Henri…” She laid a few sheets of old newspaper in the bottom of the basket, articles on marijuana legalization dancing in big green letters alongside op-eds.

“No.” His knee-jerk reaction was to mention Nicky, but he kept his mouth shut. After all, three hook-ups didn’t count as dating. And even if it did, his mother would give him all kinds of crap about it. “Henri is seeing someone new, and to be honest I really don’t have time for a relationship now.”

His mom narrowed her eyes. “You’re not seeing someone in secret again, are you? You know, it’s not a real relationship if you can’t be open that you’re together.”

Her question bore right into the center of him and set a fuse on his temper. “No. I’m not seeing anyone in any capacity.” Grabbing the other two bags of food off the overcrowded counter, he backed to the door. Damn her for going straight for the kill. Maybe he wouldn’t have snuck around so much if his mom hadn’t been against Mark from the beginning.

A tiny part of him, some corner of his chest he didn’t unlock except in his most pathetic bouts of melancholy, wondered if things with Mark would have been different if they’d been able to hang out at Michael’s house as a couple.