Chapter 13
I didn’t really expect Robin to text back, but I kept my phone next to me all Tuesday evening. Came in, set my phone on the counter with the ringer turned all the way up, got my mail. Stack of junk, but the top piece grabbed my attention.
Buy One, Get One Pizza! Call Happy Slice today!
I held that shiny flyer in my hand for a long time. Carried it and my phone to the couch. I thought about how badly my stomach would ache, how I’d most likely puke if I ate as much as I wanted right then. Thought about beer, and how I had puked the last time I’d tried one. I could go straight for hard liquor and a fast drunk, but that felt . . . disrespectful to Robin and everything he stood for. If I was wrestling with my demons that night, he must surely have been wrestling ones twenty times larger. And I wanted to believe with every fiber of my soul that he would win. That he would be safe that night, and the next night after that.
I pushed up from the couch, let the flyer flutter to the ground. I marched to my entryway. Surveyed it. Tried to see what Robin saw—the foot-thick crown molding details, the vintage light fixture missing two bulbs, the dusty hardwood floor. I pushed all thoughts of pizza from my head and put all my focus into cleaning that entryway.
I removed all the half-empty paint cans and the trash. Swept it clean. Put new lightbulbs in the fixture. Washed the trim. Next night, I went to Home Depot after work. Rented a steamer and spent the next four hours stripping my entryway of the peeling wallpaper. The next night I primed the walls. I ignored Cliff and Trish when they remarked on the bags under my eyes and my groans when I hefted flour sacks. The labor at home felt good. Right, even. Necessary.
I was piping a wedding cake when my phone rang. I dropped my icing bag and leaped across the room to answer the call.
“What happened to ‘all phones should be on vibrate,’ Vic?” Trish asked, trying to imitate my deeper voice and failing. Yeah, I’d cracked down on a couple of the assistants last year. Ordinarily mine never left vibrate. I hate loud ringers. But this wasn’t an ordinary week.
I made a shut-it gesture and picked up the phone. “Hey?”
“Hay is for horses, Victor Degrassi. I raised you better than that.”
“Hello, Ma.” I drew out my syllables.
“You coming for dinner Sunday right?”
Hell. I’d forgotten that Sunday would have been my dad’s sixtieth birthday. Ma wanted to have a family dinner. Seemed kind of morbid to me, but even if he and I had had more than our share of words, I’d still loved him. More to the point, I loved my mom. Wasn’t about to disappoint her, no matter how shitty my week was working out.
“Yes, Ma. I’ll be there. What kind of bread you want?”
“A nice sourdough.” She said this thoughtfully, like she didn’t request a round sourdough for every family meal.
“I’ll do a cake for dessert, too. I’ll see what’s on order for Saturday. Work something in.”
“You’re a good boy, Vic. Something chocolate, maybe? I’m not supposed to say, but Tessa’s got an announcement. Some good news.”
“And her good news has her craving chocolate?”
“My lips are sealed.”
“Ha.”
“You respect your old mother.”
“You’re gonna outlive us all, Ma.” I hope. My gut flipped helplessly, knowing how little hope was really worth these days. God knew we didn’t need any more bad news. And Tessa having news should have made me happy—I’d put money on buying booties before the year was out. But instead, it made me think of Melissa and her dilemma regarding her maternity leave and Robin’s reluctance. And thinking about Robin made the burning spread from my shoulders all the way down my back, my muscles going slicing-wire tight.
“And Vic, we’ve got to talk about Mary’s place.”
“What about it?” I paced back and forth in front of my station.
“Spring’s coming. Time to call Cousin Carol’s husband. Get the house on the market.”
“It’s not ready—”
“Mary says she can make do with a low-ball offer. Her expenses are way less here. She just needs not to be worrying about the house. Needs not to have it hanging over her head.”
Her and me both. A deep, sinking feeling gathered in my lower stomach. The house had been hanging over my head ever since Manny passed. I should have been clicking my heels at the chance to be free, but instead I felt a deep weariness, a sense of failure clogging my lungs, almost like I could hear Manny laying into me.
“Yeah. I’ll talk to her Sunday, Ma. Come up with a plan.”
“And Vic—you need to move on, too. We all miss Manny—may he rest in peace—” There was a pause, and I knew she’d just crossed herself. “But you need to get your own life back. Your own place.”
Three days earlier and I would have told her about Robin. Told her how there were good things happening in my life. Told her I wasn’t missing Manny so much these days. Told her how the house didn’t feel so daunting anymore.
But today, missing Robin hurt even more than missing Manny. Made me feel old and cranky. And the thought of letting go of the house, of letting go of all of Manny’s plans to restore his mom’s place, that was its own kind of pain, a burn right below my breastbone.
“Yeah, I hear you, Ma.”
Friday dawned clear and cold. I’d already told Cliff I wouldn’t be in. After the last few years, I knew the drill by heart. I vacuumed out my car, then ironed the one pair of black dress slacks that fit me and a gray dress shirt. Put in my dad’s silver cuff links. Put on the same black and silver tie I’d worn to Manny’s funeral and my dad’s. Then I drove to the shelter and picked up Melissa, who wore a simple black dress with flats.
Next, we drove out to Troutdale to Zach’s memorial service. Much as my heart was breaking for Robin, I wasn’t going solely for him. I was going for Melissa and for everyone who’d tried so hard to save Zach. I was going for his poor parents and the lonely road they walked. I was going because the crowd was likely to be small and because I knew that not even the large crowds at my dad’s and Manny’s funerals had done a damn thing to stop my grief. I was going because Zach mattered.
And yeah, I was going for Robin. Robin, who wouldn’t return my texts. Robin, for whom my love wasn’t enough. Robin, who’d tried harder than anyone to get through to Zach. Robin, who loved deeply and silently.
“I asked Robin if he wanted to ride with us,” Melissa said as I got on I-84.
“What’d he say?” The hairs on my neck stiffened like soldiers ready for incoming bad-news grenades.
“That he’d be fine.” She said fine like it had twenty syllables. “He’s been fine all week. I’m pretty sure, fine, okay, yeah, and no are the only words he’s spoken to me in days. I’m worried about him.”
“Me too.” As the city gave way to suburbia, with miles of houses and neighborhoods, my worries mounted.
“I asked him to go to one of the meetings at the center and he just shrugged.”
“Hell. Sorry.”
Melissa laughed bitterly. “After this week I think we’re all entitled to a little cursing. He’s shut you out, too?”
“Yeah.” Bile rose in my throat and my stomach churned with a bitterness no amount of antacids could fix. My worry for Robin was an all-encompassing ache, and my memories of him, of what we were together, of what he was shutting out, seemed way too fragile to share. “You mind if I turn on some music?”
I turned up the radio, tuning it to a bland, easy-listening station. We passed the rest of the drive in near silence.
The funeral home was a long, low-slung, oversize ranch-style building with tasteful arborvitae and manicured walks. An older gentleman in a black suit had us sign the guest book, then ushered us to the small chapel. I’d been right; the crowd was sparse, maybe thirty people, most of whom looked like Zach and his mother. A few people I recognized from the shelter, including a quartet of young guys in ripped jeans and dirty parkas. Robin stood talking with them, looking achingly handsome in a gray suit. He’d put some product in his hair and he looked older. More aloof and regal.
Melissa went over and hugged him, but he held himself stiff as a broom handle. I wished I could be like her and swoop in for a hug, but instead I hung back. The rest of the world probably couldn’t see it, but I could tell how Robin was propping himself up: spine tight, eyes narrow, hands clenched. I could picture him drinking his coffee black, listening to that electronic crap he liked, psyching himself up to be here. The look in his eyes said he wanted to run but didn’t dare.
Melissa and I paid our condolences to Zach’s parents. Zach’s mother seemed as fragile as one of my sugar flowers, looking decades older than when I’d seen her last. We made our way to the tiny chapel and sat in the same row of folding chairs as Robin, but he didn’t once meet my eyes.
The same gentleman who’d been overseeing the guest register gave a short welcome. A high-school friend read a short speech scribbled on a sheet of notebook paper. After the words had been said and more than a few tears shed, the crowd slowly filtered out. Hardly seemed like enough for the magnitude of the loss. Robin went over to Zach’s mother, saying something to her in low tones. She waved him away.
“Robin.” Melissa stopped him as he walked past. “You okay? You want to get some coffee?”
“Nah. Thanks, though.” He shook his head. His eyes locked with mine and I felt something pass between us. It wasn’t heat precisely, or even need. Wasn’t apology or understanding, but there was this near-palpable awareness. In that instant, I saw all the pain he’d tucked away, all his sadness and longing. I thought he was going to let me in, acknowledge my presence, but then he glanced away.
“There’s a meeting tonight at the center,” Melissa added. “Maybe you could mention it to Zach’s friends over there?”
“Will do.”
“And maybe you can come?”
“I’ll see.” He walked over to the group of guys from the shelter, not looking back at us.
“Okay, I’ve gone from worried to flat-out panicked,” Melissa said as we walked back to my car.
“I’m not worried about him using. You shouldn’t be either,” I surprised myself by saying. In that spilt second when Robin had let me see inside him, I had glimpsed a spine of steel. I wasn’t worried about Robin using, not like Melissa was. I was worried about how else he might torture himself, because what he was wrestling with seemed larger than grief, larger than Zach and the tremendous hole he’d left behind.
I’d also seen something else in his eyes, something that made it so I wasn’t shocked to find his car idling in front of my house when I arrived home after dropping off Melissa at the center.
“I’m still mad at you,” he said as he came loping up the broken sidewalk.
“Fair enough,” I said cautiously.
“And I’m really, really not fit for company today.”
“Okay.” I unlocked the door, let us both into the house. If Robin noticed the work I’d done on the entry, he didn’t say anything.
“But please don’t send me away.” He said it like sending him away would have been possible for me, like it was possible I could ignore the agony in his eyes. My heart thudded painfully.
“Never.” I reached for him and he came readily, with grasping, greedy hands. He pushed me hard into the wall, kissing me with a desperation I could feel all the way to my bones. His teeth scraped my lip and I tasted blood, but it did nothing to deter my own rising lust. His need was a visceral thing, clawing at me, yanking at my tie and buttons. He was on his knees with my belt undone before I realized what he was after.
“Hey, wait—”
“Don’t say no.” He looked up at me, his eyes huge pools of pain and need.
Never. My stomach muscles tightened. I could turn down the sex easily. But him? That raw hurt rolling off him? Never.
“Bedroom . . .” I barely had the word out before he was swallowing me deep, his hands demanding on my hips. I knew what he wanted and I couldn’t deny either of us, rocking my hips in slow glides.
But he wasn’t satisfied with that by half, yanking on my hips, moaning around my cock.
I fisted my hands in his hair, which made him moan more. I yanked lightly, trying to get some control back, get him to slow down before I came in thirty seconds.
“Oh, fuck, do that again.” He pulled back long enough to look at me with pleading eyes. Yeah, I knew what he wanted.
“You want more? Want me to fuck your throat?”
He nodded. “Go hard.”
“Okay, baby.” I grabbed his hair harder, pulling him down my cock. The slick drag of his tongue made my whole body shudder. “Ready? I’m gonna go deep now.”
He moaned, long and low around my cock, inhaling hard. He trembled under my hands.
Oh, God, I wasn’t gonna last with the way he was so hungry for it. I started fucking him in earnest, pushing forward into the tight heat of his mouth, grabbing his head, holding him there until I felt his throat spasm, then letting him slide back for a deep gasp before he was scrambling forward again.
“Doing so good. Such a good boy.”
He whimpered around my cock, and it was the sexiest fucking thing ever. I tried to read his gasps and moans and licks to give him what he needed. I pushed deeper, making us both moan. My balls lifted and I felt a warning tremble in my dick.
“Gonna come. You want that?”
“Can . . . you . . . go again?” His voice sounded like it had been through a food processor. “Come now, but go again in a bit?” His eyes were wild and glassy and his words were warm against my dick. I would have promised him damn near anything to get off.
“Oh, yeah, baby. I’ll take care of you after, I promise.” My words sounded rough and slurred, like I’d had three shots of Jack.
“Better.” He dove forward again, swallowing hard around me, stretching so that his lips brushed my pubes. Then his tongue came out, just the tip, just enough to sweep along the top of my balls.
“Oh, fuck.” The angle meant I felt his teeth a bit more, but the novelty of the action made up for the pinch. His tongue retreated and the pressure around my shaft eased. He inhaled big and I went deep. I held him there extra long, feeling the spasm around my cock, feeling the pressure in my balls build again. When he pulled back for a breath, I was ready, hands urging him forward again as I shot down his throat.
It wasn’t wave after wave of release so much as like a pressure valve had been opened. I still had a helluva lot I wanted to do to him, even as euphoria surged through me and rendered me stupid for a few moments. My shirt was unbuttoned, my pants opened and a mess. Robin’s nice pants had paint flakes all over them, and I’d rumpled the shoulders of his dress shirt something awful.
“What would you like, honey?” I touched his hair. He rested his head on my thigh. “A shower first, maybe?”
“I want you to fuck me.” His voice was strained yet firm.
My stomach dropped lower than the basement and I swallowed around the lump of sand in my throat.