What It Takes (15 page)

“So this is the famous sangria,” Milo says with a smile. Andrew’s hand pauses midair, and a strange look crosses his face.

“Yes,” Andrew says after a beat. “Do you want to taste?”

“Sure, why not try something new? I’m generally more of a beer guy.”

“Not shocking,” Andrew says. His eyes travel over Milo’s torso in a flutter; if he weren’t watching Andrew so intently he might have missed it. Milo’s face heats up. He takes a quick sip of Andrew’s drink and shakes his head. “Too sweet.”

“And here I thought I had you at sangria,” Andrew says. Milo smiles in response.

“Well, I tried a new thing; I’ll cross that off my bucket list.” His smile fades as soon as he says it. “Anyway.” Milo sits back, determined to pry his foot out of his mouth. The chair is wrought iron. He feels huge in it.

“So how are you?” Andrew asks. His tone is tempered—offering an out for an easy, unrevealing answer. A waitress comes to take their order; Andrew asks for more time and Milo orders a draft beer. After she leaves they both pretend to peruse the menu. Well, Milo does. He doesn’t have many real confidants in his life. He’s learned over time to be an island. Reaching out isn’t natural for him.

“Well,” Milo puts his menu down. “I’m here, aren’t I?”

“How bad is it?”

“What?”

“Whatever’s forced you here,” Andrew says with unnerving directness.

“It could be worse?” Milo thinks of the odds Dr. Schroeder gave them. He looks up at the big, star-shaped leaves above them. He takes a deep breath and doesn’t look at Andrew when he speaks. “Mom has breast cancer.”

He hears before he sees Andrew’s sharp breath. When he looks back at him, he has to swallow something too big and too painful clogging his throat.

“Milo,” Andrew says helplessly, “I am so sorry. How bad—I mean,
god
.”

“Like I said, it could be worse. She’s seen an oncologist at the Cape Cancer Center. He seems good. She’s having surgery in a couple of weeks.”

Andrew moves his hand, a flutter as if he’s going to reach across the table to him, but doesn’t.

“He said her chances are really good.”

“Okay.” Andrew swallows and looks away.

“Hey, it’s okay,” Milo says, because Andrew’s eyes are bright in the way they always got when he was about to cry.

“I feel awful. I’ve been here for a few months and I should have visited her or something.”

“Andrew, you’re not a mind reader.” Milo doesn’t say what he’s thinking—that Andrew probably avoided her because of him. Their waitress, Denise, comes to take their order. Milo orders the first thing his eyes land on. Andrew orders carefully. Milo has to hold back laughter.

“Still picky, I see,” Milo says. Andrew makes a face at him.

“I see no reason not to enjoy every bite of my food,” Andrew says primly, and they both laugh.

“Tell me about you.”

“I’m afraid my life is not terribly exciting.”

“Well, you said you’ve been here for a few months?”

“Yeah. I wanted to be home. Turned out that city living wasn’t for me.”

“What city?” Milo asks.

“We were in Baltimore for a while. Dex had a great job there. He’s a CPA. But he had an opportunity to change things up. So we’re trying this out, to see if he can manage Cape living.”

“It’s not for everyone,” Milo says.

“He seems good so far.” Andrew smiles at Denise when she sets their food down. Apparently everything is right on his order. Milo begins to slather his fries in ketchup.

“Want some fries with that ketchup?” Andrew jokes.

“Nope, just ketchup with ketchup,” he quips back, then bites his lip.

“So what do you do?”

“I write,” Andrew says as though it’s obvious. It’s not. Milo remembers that he toyed with the idea of studying writing in college, but never figured he could or would make a living from it.

“Like, books?”

“No, freelance stuff, plus part time at the
Santuit Chronicle
. I have a few blogs.” Andrew pokes through his salad delicately. “Maybe one day a book.”

“Wow. That’s impressive.”

“I know. I thought I’d be a starving artist,” Andrew jokes. “I still kind of am. On the brink, perhaps.” A large group is being seated at the table beside them. They pull more tables together, and their chatter is loud and intrusive.

“Artist?” Milo says over the din. Luckily the group quiets. The open air releases the noise and the muttering of the trees buffers the sound.

“Back when I wrote fiction. Not so much anymore. I double majored in college: journalism and creative writing.” Andrew shrugs it off, but Milo wonders how he really feels. They eat in silence. Every now and then Milo darts a look at Andrew. He seems lost in thought, but Milo catches his eyes once.

“So you’ll be here for a while?”

“Yeah. We don’t really know how long. But I’ll help Mom out. She refuses to close her business for a while and let me take care of things financially.” Milo pushes back the recurring frustration.

“And you can take a break from your job?”

“No. I toyed with taking a sabbatical, but I spoke to my partners about it and we’re fixing things up so I can work remotely after the surgery.”

“Where do you work? What are you doing?”

“I work for a company called Miller Green Developers. I’ve recently become a partner, but more of a junior partner. We rehab and renovate older or run-down homes, make them green-efficient and resell.”

“So you’re like… home flippers, only hippy style.”

Milo laughs. “That’s an interesting way to put it.”

“They must really like you to give you so much leeway.” Andrew pushes his salad plate away. He’s on his second sangria.

“I’m doing well there.” Milo doesn’t want to brag; he doesn’t feel that his work is really brag-worthy. He’s worked hard for what he has, for where he is. But he isn’t sure that makes him any more special than the next hardworking individual.

“That’s great to hear. Where is
there
exactly?”

“Oh yeah,” Milo says. There’s so much they don’t know. It seems like an impossible chasm. Are they doing this thing? Is this going to be a lunch and done, or some sort of friendship renewed? “Colorado. Denver.”

“I would never have pictured that.” Andrew leans back in his chair.

“I like it there. Have you ever been?”

“Nope.” Andrew shrugs.

“You always wanted to travel the country,” Milo says. He suppresses a wince. One of Andrew’s wishes, caught in that bonfire. Is it okay to mention them? They promised to remember, and Milo had.

“I did.” Andrew’s eyes flitter away, taking in the pedestrian traffic and the shifting leaves above them. His expression is coded. “I travel-blogged for a while. I got to see so many things. Just not Denver. Well, I mean there’s lots I also didn’t see. You know what I mean.”

Milo smiles and feels it in a deep but aching place. The things he hoped for Andrew when he left—it’s nice to know he got some of them. “That’s excellent.”

“And you?” Andrew asks, delicately, as if broaching Milo’s personal life might be too much. When they parted, they both believed the work Milo needed to do was harder. It was invisible work, impossible to quantify.

“I have done well, I think.” Therapists and medications, pulling through a deep depression he thought would swallow him whole. Traveling too: Prague, the most beautiful place he’s ever been. Paris and Athens. Florida and Oregon and so many others. Falling in love, for a lovely time. Even handling the breakup with Patrick had been an achievement. Or it seemed like it. When things fell apart with Patrick, Milo got through it without falling into old habits or another depression. He doesn’t say any of that to Andrew, though.

Denise brings them their checks and Milo considers the rest of his day. There’s nothing for him to do, really, not until he can work again. He’s not felt this aimless in years, and it’s getting a little boring.

“What are you doing the rest of the day?” he asks, taking a chance. Extending this, deepening this, is a risk.

“Nothing.” Andrew smiles, brilliant and exquisite.

“I’d love to hear more about your work and those blogs,” Milo says. “Want to walk?”

Andrew pauses and looks out to Main Street. There’s pedestrian traffic—tourist traffic that looks promising, even if the season hasn’t quite started yet.

“All right,” Andrew says quietly. “Where to?”

°

Andrew stands when Milo does. “Lead the way.”

Milo leads them to his usual walking route. They walk down Main, and Andrew tries not to notice the way locals notice them. He only sees two people he knows: Olivia Wood and Mr. Cavanaugh from the drug store. What gossip will this stir, if people remember them? Andrew shakes his head and tells himself not to care.

They go down side streets; Milo looks at the houses carefully. “I like to notice the details,” he admits. “Nothing in Denver looks like home.”

Home
. How long has Milo called Santuit home? He didn’t in college. Andrew lets Milo point out the details he likes and pretends he’s not looking him over. Milo has changed, but it’s subtle. His body is shaped differently: a little broader, but as muscled as Andrew remembers. His hair is still that lovely deep red that’s almost brown that Andrew’s never found a name for. His face is older: not old, but mature. Milo catches him looking, and Andrew darts his gaze elsewhere.

“So this is where you walk?” he asks.

“One of the places. Depending on where my mood is, sometimes the beach or the forest.”

“Familiar haunts?” Andrew says.

“Not so much,” Milo says softly. “Like I said, it depends on my mood. There’s enough on my plate.”

“Maybe I shouldn’t have said that,” Andrew says, stopping Milo with a hand on his arm.

“Don’t worry about it.” Milo looks him in the eyes. “There’s a lot we don’t know, and we…” he takes a breath. “Maybe a lot we can’t talk about right now? I don’t know.”

“Yeah.” Andrew looks away. The houses here are pristine with their curled accents on porches and captivating rich colors: proper Cape houses.

“Let’s admit this is weird. I have no idea what to do.”

“I don’t either.” Andrew admires Milo’s candidness. “Milo, what is good for you right now? Like you said, you have a lot to handle. Is this—” he gestures between them, “is this going to be too much?”

Milo is quiet, and resumes their walk. He’s thinking—Andrew can tell by the way his face settles.

“No,” he says finally. “I think it could be good. What about you?”

“I want to try. To be friends again,” Andrew blurts. Milo smiles; it’s wistful and unexpected, the sweetness of his face when he smiles like that.

“All right. Me too.” Milo looks to the sky.

Andrew sighs. They walk and walk and don’t speak. Andrew breathes in home; everything here smells of comfort and familiarity. He could never find this quietness in Baltimore and felt suffocated without it. It was always different for Milo—every corner of this town oppressed him. How much is the same as it was then? And how much can Andrew help?

“We should do something,” Milo says before Andrew takes off for home. “Maybe get together with Ted? I haven’t seen him yet.”

“Really?”

“Yeah. I really should. His wife is helping my mom—do you know her?”

“Yeah.” Andrew doesn’t mention he was one of the groomsmen in Ted’s wedding.

“To be honest, I’ve been putting it off,” Milo admits. “This is all…”

“A lot?”

“Yeah. But I think it’ll be nice.” Milo smiles a little. His hair is tousled, one lock curling onto his forehead. Andrew refrains from biting his lip and doesn’t let himself linger on Milo’s eyes, that dark blue he’s never seen on anyone else.

“We can get something together. Invite Kathy, if you want. Even Sarah, if that’s not too much.”

“Sarah lives here still?”

“No,” Andrew says. “But close, up in Norwalk.”

“Oh yeah, my mom told me that.” Milo glances around the neighborhood, then back at Andrew. “It’s so foreign to me, everyone still being so close to home.”

“Most of us left for a while. I guess the Cape has a way of drawing people back.” Andrew regrets his words almost as soon as they’re out. Milo’s face shutters, then he takes a deep breath. His smile is forced, polite and strange.

“I guess so.”

“That was thoughtless—”

“No, don’t worry about it,” Milo says. “Come on, it’s late. You said you have something you have to do tonight. I don’t want to keep you.” They’re back on Main. Andrew wants to linger, but a glance at his cell phone tells him he’s dangerously close to being late to dinner with his parents and Dex.

“I’ll text you?” he says.

Milo nods, waving when Andrew does, and walks back to his car. Andrew makes quick time getting back to his apartment. He lives close to downtown but now he has to book it to leave enough time to change and meet Dex.

chapter ten

M
ilo settles down at a Starbucks and corresponds with his boss on his phone, and then calls Zeke, whom he counts as his best friend back home. He’s kept contact limited to text and emails until now, outlining what’s going on. He’s kept distant, but Zeke knows not to press.

“How’s it going, man?” Zeke answers easily.

“It’s been worse,” Milo says.

Zeke laughs lightly. “Ready to spill your tender guts?”

Milo laughs; Zeke has an irreverent sense of humor that Milo appreciates and needs. “Not to you,” he kids. “Just thought I’d finally grace you with my voice.”

“I’ve been pining,” Zeke says drily. “How I’ve missed you.”

“I could tell; there was so much subtext in those late night texts.”

“There’s nothing to stir up longing like texting about a rousing Nuggets game.”

“You know, that always sounds strange, throwing the word ‘nuggets’ into a conversation if you don’t have context. They couldn’t have come up with a better team name?”

“Are you trying to distract me from asking personal questions?” Zeke asks.

Milo sighs. “Yes. It’s nice to hear a voice, but that’s about all I need right now.”

“Cool. So, poorly planned sports team names,” Zeke transitions easily. “Top five, go.”

°

“How was it?” his mom asks. She’s waiting up in the kitchen. They have a couple on their honeymoon staying with them, so he’s used the family entrance. There’s no escape from this ambush.

He rolls his eyes. “Fine, Mom.” Fondness, curiosity and something else brightens her eyes and he’s not sure he can handle it.

“Tell me everything,” she says. Her arms are crossed on the table; her tea is at her elbow. His place has a steaming cup of what he assumes is decaf coffee, and even a plate of cookies. She clearly expects a debriefing and maybe a gossip session. His conversation with Zeke may have provided a temporary distraction, but now his insides are roiling again, and confusion layers everything.

“We had lunch at Tribute,” he says.

“And?” she leads. Milo sighs. Maybe he can give her enough to assuage her curiosity without having to talk about all the things he’s not ready for.

“He had sangria. I ordered a beer. Is it weird that that seems weird, because we’re old enough to drink at a restaurant and I remember when we had to use fake IDs to drink?”

“Fake IDs?”

He winces, then smiles sheepishly. He really should be over thinking he might get in trouble.

“Well…”

“I’m messing around, honey,” she says, smiling widely. “It’s nice to know you were doing stupid things kids do at that age.”

Milo looks at her. Their gazes are naked, acknowledging truths they usually skirt. Her hand on his is soft and slightly cold.

“Not too much,” he says.

“Andrew was always so good for you.”

Milo considers this. Andrew was more than good for him. Andrew was the reason he survived. “Yes.”

“I was sorry to hear you guys stopped being friends.” She’s leading, and he can tell she wants to know what happened between them, because he’s never told anyone.

“Mom…” He sighs and runs a hand through his hair. “This is all… overwhelming.”

“I’m sorry.”

“No, don’t be. I am not sure I am ready to talk about… that. It’s so unnerving that he’s here and I’m here; I wasn’t expecting that at all.” He shrugs and looks down, tracing the bumpy weave of the placemat.

“I shouldn’t be prying.”

“You aren’t. You want to talk; that’s good. This part…I need a little time, that’s all. There’s a lot more history between us than I can explain right now.”

“Well, whenever you want to, or if you need to, I am here, all right?”

“That sounds great.” He looks at her gratefully.

“And whenever you’re ready, I’d love to have him over for dinner.”

“I’ll let you know,” Milo says. Inviting him over probably means inviting his boyfriend too, and that’s definitely too much. Milo isn’t prepared to contemplate why, not just yet.

° ° °

“Let’s go
to the beach,” Andrew says.

Dex is buried in work; his dark hair is a mess. He’s in sloppy sweatpants and a ratty shirt and there’s tension in his shoulders Andrew tries to soothe with open palms.

“Drew, I have a deadline.”

“Just for a bit. Clear your mind, de-stress a little.” Andrew’s feeling incredibly hemmed in. They’ve both been working all morning, which is criminal on a Saturday, when they should be lazing around or getting errands and housework done.

“Why don’t you go down,” Dex suggests. “You know the sun on the water gives me a headache. I hate the feeling of sand between my toes. I’ll read.”

“I thought maybe we could talk. Reconnect? We’ve been buried in work.”

Dex turns in his chair and grabs Andrew’s hand. “So let’s do dinner. I’ll make a reservation at Ashe’s.”

Andrew bites back a sigh. They’ve barely talked about his lunch with Milo, and it seems like a secret, even though it’s not at all. It’s more frustrating that Dex doesn’t seem terribly invested or worried. Andrew would like to unburden himself, but he’s not sure what the burden is. After years of separation, the memory of the most painful part of his life is suddenly too close and too bright. Andrew kisses Dex’s cheek.

“Have fun,” Dex says. He catches Andrew’s mouth in a kiss, then turns back to whatever spreadsheet he’s tangled in.

Andrew heads to the harbor and wanders by the boats before making his way to the beach. It’s getting crowded in the public access areas—tourists lugging bags of beach gear, children in tow. If he were to wander among them, he’d catch the scent of sunscreen and the chatter of children woven with the sound of the water and the call of gulls, maybe the shouts and laughter of an impromptu game of beach volleyball. Sometimes Andrew loves making his way through groups of strangers in spaces he knows like the back of his hand. He likes to see people at their best and worst—soaking in the sun and vacation freedom, harassed by toddlers and saturated with sand and slightly sunburned.

Today, though, he goes to the beachfront designated for residents and walks just above the water line. He sees a few boats. The sun really is bright—bright enough that, yes, Dex would have gotten a headache.

He needs to talk to someone, but Dex seems both too close and too far. He only knows bits of his and Milo’s history. Andrew could tell him the whole story, and Dex would still never be able to empathize with what they went through. He pulls out his phone and dials Sarah: someone who knows the whole history, but is removed from it, hopefully enough to offer sound advice.

“Hey, Sarah.” Andrew turns the phone, cupping it to keep the hush of wind off the beach from drowning him out.

“Drew! Long time no talk.”

“I know, I know.”

“Don’t worry; I know you’re settling in,” she says playfully.

Andrew takes a deep breath. Asking someone for advice when you’ve hardly made time for them in months might be a jerk move. But he doesn’t feel comfortable talking about this with Ted either.

”Are you busy? I… I need someone to talk to.”

“Everything okay?”

“Yeah,” he assures. “Well, sort of.”

“I’m around. Where are you?”

“Pine. I can meet you somewhere in between.”

“’Kay. How about Joe’s Shack in thirty minutes?”

“Sounds great. Thank you.” Andrew hangs up and looks back over the water one last time, then tries to shake the sand out of his hair. He heads back to his car, opens every window to let the trapped heat out and empties sand from each shoe.

°

“I heard Milo is home,” Sarah says once they’ve worked through the
it’s been so long
preliminaries.

“Grapevine?”

“Something like that.” Sarah reaches over for his hand. “How are you doing?”

“Um… I’m not sure?”

“Look, I haven’t spoken to Milo since right after his dad’s funeral, so I really have no idea what his story is. But I have been your friend almost our whole lives. I don’t want…”

“What?”

“No one should be hurt like you were.”

“Sarah.” He puts his fork down and meets her eyes. “Please believe me when I say that whatever happened at first, I did something after that hurt us both even more. I don’t want to talk about it, and I don’t particularly want to relive it. I’m just trying to figure out how to move forward.”

Sarah takes her hand back and fiddles with her straw. “Well, the grapevine wasn’t terribly specific. How did you guys run into each other?”

Andrew pushes his shrimp and scallop pasta around his plate. “Dex and I were walking on the beach and we ran into him.”

“Ohhhh, awkward.”

“Not as bad as it could be? I met Milo for lunch yesterday. It was nice. But…”

Sarah waits him out patiently.

“There’s a lot I haven’t told Dex. Milo’s story is his own. But everything is starting to feel… I’m not sure. Dex is acting like everything’s par for the course, but I know it’s not. I feel weird about that.”

“Why?”

“Because it relates to shit I worked through before we got together that he’s never known the cause of. I don’t want to share it but I’m annoyed that he’s acting like this is
nothing
, which makes no fucking sense because I’m keeping him in the dark. Basically, I want Dex to guess that I want him to push me to talk about things he has no idea about.” Andrew pushes his plate away. “I’m being crazy, aren’t I? This is actually insane; I am so fucked.”

“What exactly does he know about your relationship with Milo?”

“That we were childhood best friends but that we drifted apart.”

“So… basically not the
in love
and
heartbreak
parts.” It’s said kindly, but he still doesn’t want to hear it.

“Yes.” He looks away. “Whatever. So, verdict: Does Dex need to know?”

Sarah thinks it over. “I don’t know. It’s your relationship. You get to decide what’s best, long term, with Dex. You don’t have to do it now, but at some point, something’s bound to come to a head.”

Andrew looks over the bar rail. They came early enough to get a beach front view, and down the sharp incline of dune, the water is high and agitated. His stomach feels like that, churning helplessly, grinding and crashing against the inevitability of the shore.

°

Dinner with Dex is a little strained. Despite Andrew’s intentions, they don’t talk about Milo or Andrew’s lunch with him. Andrew doesn’t have to try to avoid it; it just never comes up. They talk about a problem Dex is having at work. Dex is an easy-going guy; it’s hard for him to understand the friction he’s run into with one of the partners in his firm. Andrew spends dinner trying to help him come up with managing skills for future interactions, all the while trying to find the will to bring up Milo.

By the time they get home, Andrew is buzzed from the wine they shared and the frustration of his day; his energy is built up almost to a boiling point. Dex doesn’t seem to mind the assertive and thorough way Andrew takes him apart as soon as they’re past the front door. Andrew fucks Dex with all of that drive. Sex knocks Dex out like a light, unlike Andrew, who often feels as if he’s riding out an adrenaline high after.

Andrew’s trip to the beach was calming, and his conversation with Sarah was enlightening, but dinner did nothing to address his issues. He wasn’t home long before he felt hemmed in and frustrated again. Dinner at a crowded restaurant was the opposite of a place where he thought he could open up some very painful wounds in order to enlighten Dex. A distance maybe only he perceives is settling between them.

Andrew kisses the top of Dex’s sleeping head and climbs out of bed. He checks on Dex one last time, tucking the sheet around him, then goes into the living room and fires up his laptop. It’s old and heavy and makes an ominous whirring noise, but Andrew’s always had a strange attachment to it.

Dex knows he keeps a blog, but he doesn’t know that Andrew keeps two. Sometimes a pang of guilt overcomes him, but he’s tried hard to convince himself it’s okay. He’s had a secret blog, a second identity, since college, and it’s often a life saver, a place for honesty he has needed but could never express as the Andrew he’s cobbled together over the years.
Lingering
is a blog no one in his real life has ever known about, and secrecy seems to be the only way of keeping it exactly what it is.

In many ways Andrew shocked his readers as much as himself when he realized that the ache dogging him, despite his happiness with Dex in their first year as a couple, was a longing to come home. When he first went to college Andrew was painfully homesick, but also all whim and changeability, stumbling home night after night from sloppy parties and blurring laughter. Back then, Andrew saw his life stretching before him as a never-ending carousel of revelry, pleasure and touch and boys all helping him coast over a cavernous emptiness only one unattainable boy could fill.

The breaking apart of his friendship with Milo changed everything. Andrew felt it in his bones, in every molecule. After seven years, still, some nights, Andrew can’t breathe through the echo of the love he had for Milo. Andrew spent years avoiding the place that held the imprint of the force of their heartbreak. When he was ready, when he grew up enough to trust someone with his heart and try to pull himself together, Andrew begged Dex to give Santuit a chance. And on their first day in Santuit, when Andrew’s feet were buried in the grit of Chickopee’s sand, he felt it. The air here breathed. It pulsed through his body and against his skin. Andrew is not a terribly spiritual man, but that day, he knew the truth in sayings about full-circle journeys.

Dex got sand in his eye.

That memory sums up so neatly the problem they’re trying to work out. He gave his heart to Dex in Baltimore, one of a string of cities he’d tried on and discarded. For a while, it was okay. But Baltimore’s air rubbed the wrong way. Andrew hated the unclean wind, how it channeled between buildings, heavy with the shared air of many. He loved Dex, but he hated Baltimore and, in the end, pleaded with Dex to settle on a compromise: a trial period back in Andrew’s hometown.

Now, Dex sleeps easily and unburdened while Andrew spends an hour staring at the blinking cursor on his computer screen.
Lingering
has been where he’s worked through the most painful and complex struggles of his life. But whatever is happening now—not just Milo, but with Dex—feels too big even for it.