Smoky Mountain Dreams (32 page)

“That’s more like it,” Jesse said after he’d taken them
both, closing his eyes briefly as the liquor hit his system and thrummed
through him reassuringly. He opened them again to see Christopher’s handsome
face. He liked the way his chin jutted out, making almost a heart-shape out of
his face. Looking at him was exactly what Jesse needed. “Damn it’s good to see
you.”

Christopher smiled and took another swallow of his beer
before saying, “You too. But I wish I knew what was going on. Are you okay? Is
it Brigid and Will?”

“The kids are fine. Brigid’s still earning back her iPad
after the incident with the ice cream float, but she’s okay.”

“Her cranes? They’re okay too?”

“Yeah. She’s made a lot more. Hey, the note you left for her
was sweet, babe. I’m sorry—I meant to tell you that earlier.”

Surprise flashed over Christopher’s face and Jesse took a
moment to wonder why before he realized he’d called him “babe.” He’d done it
before during sex, but a lot of people said things like that during sex—though
he hadn’t really with anyone before Christopher. But there was no denying the
word meant something affectionate when said elsewhere. That’s why they were
called endearments, after all.

He
was
feeling the liquor, but he
didn’t want to blame it on that. He wanted to call Christopher “babe” whenever
and wherever he wanted, and he wanted Christopher to
be
his
babe, and to maybe call him something stupid like that back. It’d already come
to this. So fast. And he didn’t even care about that at all.

Christopher cleared his throat. “It seems pretty clear you
don’t want to talk about it, but I’ve got to know. You’re scaring me.
Are
you okay?”

“Yeah. I’m fine.”

Christopher tilted his head and gave him a doubtful look.

“Fuck. Fine—no. I’m not okay.”

“What’s going on? How can I help you?”

“Help me? Ha. Yeah, you can’t. No one can help. Or will, I
guess.” Christopher’s eyes got wider and more frightened. “Shit, I’m doing this
all wrong. It’s not even about helping
me
. It’s
about helping Mar—” He broke off and pounded a fist on the table, making
Christopher’s bottle rattle. “Jesus, it’s just my fucking bitch sister-in-law
and this goddamn eternal fucking lawsuit. Everything goes along just fine until
I have a mediation meeting with her and have to deal with her smug, righteous,
holier-than-thou, sanctimonious bullshit. I’m going ahead with the appeal. I
wasn’t sure before because of what it does to Nova and Tim, but fuck it. She
can’t get away with this forever.”

Christopher looked bewildered. “Okay, it’s clear you’re
really upset, but I’m not following you at all, and I think it would help if I
could. There’s a lawsuit?”

“Yeah. Well, if I go forward with the appeal there will be.”

“All right. And what’s the lawsuit about?”

“It’s about Marcy. It’s about unplugging Marcy. Sorry to be
crass about it. I’m just…I don’t have any delicacy left in me right now. Not
after dealing with
her
.”

“Unplugging…? Wait, your wife?
Unplugging
her?” Christopher shook his head, squinting at Jesse like he was trying to
translate from Russian. “I thought your wife was dead?”

Jesse blinked, taking in Christopher’s gaping mouth and wide
eyes.
Oh, Jesus.
His empty stomach churned with acid
and his pulse raced. No, Christopher had known. Of course he’d known! They’d
talked about it! Jesse frantically cast his mind back. Yes, he’d definitely
told him—that night up on the rooftop patio.

“I’d rather you heard it from me than
someone else.”

He’d explained about the accident and the coma, but…fuck.
Fuck.
Had he explicitly explained Marcy’s situation? He
was used to people just
knowing
. And Christopher
wasn’t playing now. He clearly hadn’t known.

“Christ.” Jesse closed his eyes and took a long swallow of his
second drink. “Holy fucking hell. Could this day get any worse?”

Christopher was quiet, and Jesse finally looked to assess
the damage done. Christopher was rubbing his fingers over his eyes, and then he
sat back, picked up his beer, and drained half of it quickly.

“I’m so sorry, Chris. I thought you knew. I swear to God, I
thought you understood when I said that she was in an accident that—”

“Stop. Just don’t talk for a second,” Christopher said,
dragging his hand over his face. Jesse would have given anything to be able to
read his mind; to know his thoughts as emotions tumbled over his expressive,
vulnerable face.

“Wow. Okay, your wife isn’t dead. She’s what? You’re talking
about unplugging her and…what does that mean? I guess I need it spelled out for
me.”

Christopher’s voice was shaky, and Jesse wanted to reach out
and touch his hand, comfort him and soothe his confusion away.
How did I fuck this up so badly?
He took a deep breath.
His throat was dry, and he wanted another shot of bourbon, but it was likely
the last thing he needed. He realized his hands were trembling, and he drew
them to his lap, clenching his fingers together.

“Marcy’s in a permanent vegetative state. Somewhere between
level one and two on the Rancho Los Amigos scale, which, no, no—I know. That
means nothing to you. Basically, it’s how they measure cognitive function, and
she effectively has none. At all. There’s no hope for recovery. No brain
activity. No one left there in her body. Her cerebral cortex has mostly been
replaced by cerebrospinal fluid. The Marcy I knew and loved is gone. She’s just
a body now that breathes, wakes, sleeps, and exists. It’s utter fucking
torture.”

“Jesus.” Christopher shook his head.

Jesse’s stomach knotted up even more. Was this going to be
the end now? It’d been going so damn well and he wanted to dive in for more of
this man. He wanted to sit with Christopher and drink and talk and take him
home and ask him to play that “Paper Heart” song for him again. Jesse’s chest
ached at the thought of the melody.

If that didn’t happen—if Christopher decided this was too
much bullshit and walked away—Jesse couldn’t blame him. Maybe he could blame
Ronnie. She’d be thrilled if her religious bullshit stripped him of this fresh,
new, beautiful almost-something that she’d find sinful and ugly.
And I can blame myself.
He dug his fingernails into the
backs of his hands.

“Oh my God.” Christopher breathed in and out, took another
swallow of beer, and stared blindly across the room.

Jesse could see his pulse fluttering in his neck, fast like
a rabbit, and he wanted to touch him just there to feel it against his finger,
to kiss it and beg him not to leave. Not yet. To swear to him nothing had
changed. But for Christopher it probably had changed.

“Let me get this straight. You’re still married?”

“Yes.”

“Okay. Okay, wow. So, technically, we’ve been committing
adultery.” He blinked and swallowed, shook his head, and picked at the label on
his drink, looking anywhere but at Jesse’s face. “Not that I haven’t probably
done that before with some guys I hooked up with in Nashville, but this is
different. This is something I know about now.”

“She’s not in her body. She’s dead for all intents and
purposes.” Jesse winced. It still felt like a gut-punch to say that sometimes. “It’s
not adultery to me. My wife died five years ago. I had to move on.”

“Okay, but legally, you’re still married.”

“Yes.”

“I just…I didn’t know.”

“I thought you did. I thought—listen, I understand. It’s
heavy, and probably a hell of a lot more than you want to deal with. I know
this isn’t what you’re looking for.” He forced the next words out. They felt
like slivers of glass on his tongue. “I’ll understand if you want to walk away.”

Christopher eyed him sharply. “Hey now. Give me a minute. I’m
surprised and I have every right to be. I thought I understood the situation,
but I didn’t. I’m not sure how I feel about that, and I think I have the right
to feel however I
want
about it without it meaning a
damn thing going forward. Don’t put words in my mouth.”

“You’re right. I’m sorry.”

“Then back off and let me feel this out for a second.”

Jesse groaned and drained his glass. “I’m doing this all
wrong. I’m fucking this up.”

Christopher blinked at him in annoyance, green-flecked-gold
beneath the fringe of dark blond lashes, eyes as wide and beautiful as ever. He
shook his head, looked away, and sighed.

“What?” Jesse asked timidly.

“I feel like I might need something besides a beer,
actually.”

“I know where we could score a joint.”

Christopher snorted. “Bad for vocal chords. Besides, not my
thing really.”

“Not mine either. My in-laws, though, are a different story.
I thought it might take the edge off the shock.”

Christopher’s lips slipped up at the corner in a smirky
smile, and then he dug out his wallet and tossed more than enough money on the
table to cover their tab. “Let’s get out of here. This isn’t the place for this
conversation.”

Jesse made a note to make sure he paid Christopher back. He
could afford that kind of sloppiness with money, but he knew Christopher couldn’t.
His palms were sweaty as he stood and followed Christopher’s stiff back out of
the bar, up the stairs, and onto the tourist-thick sidewalk. He didn’t try to
catch up until Christopher turned around at the crosswalk to wait for him.

“We’re going to my house. And after the amount of bourbon
you just put back, I’m driving,” was all he said.

Jesse followed him down to the parking garage across from
the Christ in the Smokies Museum, and they climbed into Christopher’s car. They
barely spoke a word the entire drive up to Christopher’s place, and Jesse’s
mind spun, his heart clenching with the fear that he’d fucked it up for good.

J
ESSE’S WIFE IS ALIVE.

Christopher brought Jesse a glass of water and motioned him
to the couch before returning to the kitchen. He splashed water into his own
glass and refilled the new Brita jug from the tap. He was clenching the plastic
handle so tightly he was amazed it didn’t crack. A surge of anger heated his
skin.
How did he not tell me?

Gran’s voice filled his mind.
Being
dad-blamed mad won’t fix it. It’ll just make things worse, boy.

Sighing, Christopher put the water back in the fridge.
Permanent vegetative state.
He’d remembered seeing a news
show on TV when he was younger the Florida woman whose plight had sparked a
huge national outcry. But beyond the fact that her husband had eventually been
successful in removing her feeding tube, Christopher didn’t know much else
about the diagnosis. It sounded miserable for everyone, though. He shuddered
with the urge to go pull Jesse into his arms. His throat thickened as he
imagined the sorrow Jesse had gone through. Was
still
going
through. It scared him how much he felt for this man, and how little he
apparently knew about him.

The hurt returned, and the heat in his cheeks traveled to
his ears, which prickled with humiliation. He’d been cycling through this range
of emotions since the truth had hit him like a pile of bricks, and he needed to
get ahold of himself.  

Now that he had Jesse back at his place, he wasn’t sure
where he wanted to start with any kind of conversation, but they had to start
somewhere. He returned to the living room and sat on the soft chair across from
the sofa, where Jesse waited, perched on the edge and looking like he might
vomit.

Christopher needed to do something, so he picked up his
guitar and started to play softly, letting his fingers wander as his mind
careened from one new fact to another. Jesse was married. His wife wasn’t dead.
He was in some sort of lawsuit about that. They were having an affair. Kind of.

“So…” Jesse said. “As you now know, I’ve got this huge thing
going on in my life. Kids. A wife in a permanent vegetative state. And there
are no days off from it.”

Christopher strummed softly, looking for a way to navigate
his confusion.

“I know a complicated situation wasn’t what you were looking
for when we hooked up. I get it. But I don’t want this to be over, Chris. If it’s
easier for you, though, we can keep it casual. Assuming you still want anything
to do with me.”

Christopher’s fingers stilled on the strings. “I’m pretty
sure if the other night at the Cove didn’t do it, then this conversation took
us way beyond casual already.”

“Yeah. I’m sorry about that.”

“Are you? Why would you be?”

“I’m not. I just don’t want you to—”

Christopher shook his head, cutting off whatever Jesse was
going to say next. He shut his eyes and kept playing his guitar, letting his
feelings sort themselves out with the music. He’d ask questions when he was
ready—when he’d figured out what he wanted to ask first. When he opened his
eyes again, Jesse was sitting back on the sofa, his head resting against the
soft cushion. His breathing came slow, like the rhythm of Christopher’s music,
and yet there was a wet quality to his breath. His eyes were wide open and
staring at the ceiling, and tension coiled in his muscles.