St. Nacho's (21 page)

“You’re doing fine,” he said. “Breathe, baby.”

I put my head down on his shoulder and he never stopped talking. At first I had to gasp for breath to control the nausea I was feeling, but then all I could smell was Shawn’s skin, still moist from the rain, the warmth and richness of his essence currently scented with Italian food and coffee and my cigarettes. I sank into that, inhaled it, let it surround and engulf me. His lips next to my ear, teasing the skin there, and the words he said, all conspired to make me feel, if not comfortable, capable of the forty-five minute drive to the hospital in the cities.

By the time we got there, I was so anxious I could have had myself committed. I was covered in sweat and I’m sure I stank. I took it as a victory that I wasn’t covered in puke. I stumbled stupidly over Shawn to climb out of the truck and fell into a puddle of rain on the pavement below on the way out. I might have been crying.

Julie and Shawn picked me up while Stan and Bill stood a small distance away, trying not to look.

Shawn said something in Julie’s ear and she looked at me like I had grown two heads.

No one said anything else, though, and we stumbled together through the rain into the hospital’s emergency entrance. It was an indication of my state of mind that I left my instrument in the truck because normally I would never just leave it in a car.

* * * * *

Past history and hard mileage have made me wary of the police. I’ve never been proud of the way my eyes hit the floor when there are cops around, but I’ve never been able to change it. But having Bill there in uniform gave us the kind of credibility we needed to get information and I made a vow to give any preconceived notions I had when seeing a cop in uniform a significant overhaul. Bill spoke quietly but respectfully to the emergency room admitting clerks and told them we were there for Jordan Jensen. He asked for and secured permission to see him, and when he returned it was with the news that Jordan would see me, and only me, privately.

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Stan was crushed, and he covered it poorly with pastoral concern. He tried to tell me what to say and how to say it and begged me to ask Jordan to allow him in, but I’d have been less than honest if I agreed. As I walked down the sterile corridor, I worried that I might have been too hard on Stan, but overall I felt admitting visitors was up to Jordan, and I wasn’t about to try to sell Stan as an answer to his problems.

I entered the small room. It was a rehab room; it contained a small bed, a nightstand, a little table, and a chair. It didn’t have the medical equipment of a traditional hospital room, nor did it yet have the reassuring personal touches of a lengthy habitation. Just seeing it made me crave a cigarette and a cup of coffee.

Jordan was lying on his small bed, facing the wall. I knew he could tell when I entered.

I wasn’t stealthy. He didn’t react, though, and I decided to sit in the small office-type chair and gather my thoughts.

“Did you ride your motorcycle in this fucking miserable storm?” he finally spoke.

“I came in Bill’s truck with Stan, Shawn, and Julie. We’re all here. Mary Lynn was concerned. I told Bill to call her.”

He turned over and stared at me, hard. “You rode in Bill’s truck?”

“How else was I going to get here without getting myself killed?” His eyes shimmered. He turned back over and lay down facing the wall. “You must think I’m an asshole,” he said.

I rubbed my face. Sometimes I stalled if I didn’t know what to say.

“It doesn’t matter what I do, Bobby is still always there.”

“He is,” I agreed.

“It’s not the same for you,” he snapped.

I didn’t point out that he’d made it the same. That he’d wanted me to own the responsibility for Bobby’s death entirely. “You can’t know that.”

“I do know that,” he said in the smallest voice. “Even though I tried to make everyone think --” He sighed. “I do know that.”

I got up and went to stand by the side of his bed, looking down at him. He looked small, somehow, and I knew I would never see him as a grown man. He’d always be Jordie, the boy I loved. The brother I wanted. The lover I’d lost in alcohol and confusion and tragedy. I lay down behind him and pulled him into my arms, fitting our bodies together carefully because he hissed in pain. I told him everything I ever knew about him and me and us. I begged him to hear me, finally, and understand.

It was dawn when he finally fell asleep.

St. Nacho’s

119

Chapter Eighteen

The first thing I did was leave the building for a cigarette. This severely pissed off Stan, who had been waiting all night to see Jordan.

“He doesn’t want to see anyone,” I told him. I could see he didn’t believe me but I was tired and didn’t give a fuck.

“He saw you,” Stan pointed out.

How tired do you have to be to feel like kicking a member of the clergy? “Well, yeah, Stan. Because I’m not just anyone,” I said, turning away.

Shawn came out the double doors and picked his way through the crackling tension to stand beside me. “How is he?” Shawn asked, taking out his phone. He put his free hand on my shoulder and gripped it a little, I thought, to let me know I should rein it in.

“Angry,” I said, for Stan’s benefit, as I typed for Shawn’s, Remorseful, guilty, depressed.

Shawn leaned over and put his lips on the side of my neck and nuzzled in with a sigh, pulling me to him. “Sorry,” he whispered.

I took a deep drag of my cigarette, hoping it would help stop the shaking in my hands.

More later, I typed with one thumb. He read it over my shoulder, so I didn’t bother sending.

Bill came out of the hospital to join us, pulling my sister along behind him. She had marks on her face where she’d slept on him; his uniform button had impressed itself on her cheek below her right eye. She still looked tired.

“Jordan wants us to go home,” I told them, encapsulating hours of conversation. “He doesn’t want to see anyone. He wants to go to Hazelden and try rehab again. He says he wasn’t honest the first time, when he was in prison. He won’t be coming back to River Falls.” I felt Pastor Stan stiffen beside me. Since he’d taken Jordie’s success so personally, it only followed that he’d take this the same way.

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“I’m sure if I could talk to him --” He started back toward the hospital doors.

Bill caught his arm. “If he doesn’t want to see you, you can’t --”

“He’ll see me; I know he’ll see me. What are you?” he asked me, turning and raking me with a nasty look. “Just his old drinking pal. Of course he’ll see me; I offer him the water of life from the Savior himself.” He might have been self-righteous. He also might have been right, but so long as Jordie remained dishonest inside of himself, it wouldn’t matter. If he was going to tell himself the truth, finally, I was all for it. And I didn’t think he could do that with us around. Jordie had asked me to leave; it was hard but it was right. And I loved him enough to do it.

Looking at Stan, though, I felt sorry for him. I was searching for something to tell him that might make him feel better when my sister said, “Oh, for the love of heaven, put a sock in it,” and walked past him toward the truck.

I don’t think I had ever loved her more.

* * * * *

Bill dropped Shawn and me off in front of the apartment I shared with Jordan. It wasn’t easy, but I didn’t claw my way out of the truck. The panic attacks seemed to be able to bypass my brain and travel directly to my nervous system, so that when we exited the vehicle, I was still wet with sweat and drawing shaky breaths. I acknowledged my sister, Bill, and Stan, and took Shawn’s hand to go inside.

I felt all wrong. As soon as I entered, I knew it was only a matter of a few days before I would leave the apartment entirely. I was actually hoping that I wouldn’t have to spend another night under this roof. Shawn bumped into my back when I stopped moving forward.

“What?” he asked.

I got out my phone to text him. I couldn’t wait until I could learn enough sign language to avoid needing this interface between us. I can’t stay here.

? he texted back.

I don’t belong here, I texted. I never did.

Shawn smiled a little. “Get what you need and come with me.” I shook my head. I have to clean. He moved so he could read over my shoulder. I have to pack. Take stuff to his mom. I have to give notice and His hand closed over mine and his mouth came down on my lips. “Not today, you don’t,” he said.

I acknowledged that he might be right when his hand strayed to my ass. I grabbed my helmet and Jordie’s for Shawn, and we headed for the Comfort Inn on my bike.

What started in the empty elevator continued down the deserted hallway until we reached Shawn’s room. The little red light on the door lock no sooner turned green than he St. Nacho’s

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was pulling on the handle and we were spilling through, rubbing and groping each other until we almost fell over. He pushed my back against the door and it became clear why hotels bolted that “for your safety” government-mandated evacuation plan there rather than just hanging it on a hook. He was shoving against me hard, and I was completely okay with it, desperate to get to a little patch of his skin to lick or suck or bite.

I wrapped my legs around his waist when he slid his hands under to cup my butt. He dug his fingers in, teasing the crack of my ass, and when I shoved hard against him in response he staggered with me to the bed. We flopped there inelegantly, but it felt so good to fucking feel him hard against my body again that I grunted and fought for some kind of dominance. He wouldn’t let me have it, though, and he slipped his hands inside my jeans and grabbed my naked skin.

We rolled and stretched and twisted, and I brought my knee up against his balls to give him some quality friction when I saw the lube and condoms on his nightstand. I extended a hand as far as it would go to grab for them. As luck would have it, at that exact moment he rolled me over, pushing my legs apart to hump against me, and I slipped off the slick chintz bedspread, headed for the floor with my head.

“Fuck!” I threw a hand out as I went down, knocking the lamp off the table amid a spray of sparks and broken light bulb glass. When Shawn tried to catch me, he slid along on top of me, grinding me down into the hard hotel floor under his body.

Shawn grabbed me quickly and rolled with me, until I was on top of him and we were both panting, our hearts slamming in our chests.

Shawn lay beneath me, blinking. Finally, he sighed. “That went well.”

* * * * *

We tried a more leisurely approach until the ice stopped the bleeding from my scalp. I straddled Shawn’s lap while he held the ice in place and we just…kissed. I don’t know if I had a concussion and that’s what made it seem dreamlike, but the warmth and solid perfection of being there, finally, with Shawn, planning to go home to California together --

without the need for words -- stole my breath. Some television show was playing music, and I hummed the tune into his skin. He rocked me back and forth as we surrendered to our senses. He started to undress himself then, and I pulled my shirt, or rather his shirt, over my head. We put the ice in the sink and shucked off the rest of our clothes and by tacit agreement met back at the bed.

I knew I didn’t want to lie down. My head hurt, and I was afraid friction would make it bleed again. On the other hand I was flushed and aroused and there was nothing in the world I wanted more than for Shawn to fuck me. He sat back on the bed and got the condoms and lube. We avoided the broken glass on the floor as I climbed up on the bed.

When I would have straddled him, he pushed me to all fours. He smoothed his hands over my ass and began to kiss and lick me, slipping that slick, talented tongue down my spine and 122

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into my crack, teasing at my hole. He thumbed my ass cheeks apart and blew a thin stream of air, giving me that delicious frisson of cool on wet skin, and when he pointed his tongue and pushed inside I thought I’d die.

“Oh, Shawn,” I moaned. I dropped my head forward, which hurt like fuck. “Shawn, don’t wanna --”

Shawn’s finger replaced his mouth, and he massaged my ass open, grabbing the lube with the other hand and deliberately dropping a dollop of cold goo on me while he fucked me with his hand. He shoved a second finger in, catching the lube with it, and his fingers started to glide and curve around until he had me bucking against him like a kid.

I reached back to drag him toward me and heard him tear a condom packet with his teeth.

“Oh, yes.” I turned my head and reached for his dick. He slapped my hand away with a grin, then rolled the condom down and pulled me back, teasing at my ass with his cock. I pushed myself back as he moved forward, holding me steady, watching himself sink into me.

He groaned and pulled me up, my back to his chest, and he filled and stretched me until I thought I’d tear apart. I gripped the top of the headboard and held on. His hands explored my torso, then cupped my cock and balls.

I let him set the pace. At times he surged into me and jerked hard, and at times he moved languidly, slow and deep. It seemed like he was less interested in where we were going than how we got there.

I knew I would follow him back to California and live whatever life he wanted us to live. I knew I would stay with him for as long as he let me. I knew that I would learn to speak his language and love his friends; that I could add richness and meaning to his life, as well as my own, if I just grabbed him with both hands and clung.

“Love you,” he ground out as I shuddered to a climax around him. He pulled me to him so tightly that I almost cried out. He pumped my cock lazily; I was still riding on a crest of sensation as he jerked to his own orgasm and filled the latex inside my body. He pushed his forehead into the meaty part of my shoulder and pressed hard, still jerking inside me. “Love you, love you, love you,” he murmured against my skin. I put my hand back to capture his head, wanting to hold him too, just as tightly.

* * * * *