Chapter Eighteen

“Where would you say would be the most romantic place in town to take someone you wanted to impress?” Bobby and Michelle sat outside, on the condo balcony the next morning, cups of coffee before them. “It’s been years since I’ve lived here, and I really don’t know anymore.”

Michelle took a sip of her coffee, thoughtful, as she stared out at the water and the mountain range opposite them. “Once upon a time, I would have said Canlis. It’s just a short walk from here, and it’s kind of an institution. But institutions aren’t all that romantic, huh?” She laughed. “No. It’s funny, when you asked that, one place popped into my head, right away, so that must mean something.”

“So?”

“There’s a little, kind of rustic place in Pike Place Market called Maximilien. It’s French, excellent food. But the place just has this ambiance that’s unforgettable. It helps that it has views to die for. Time your reservation so that you’ll be there for the sunset. The views are amazing—Puget Sound, the Olympic Mountains. And they have it set up, even if you don’t get a window table, there are mirrors all over the place so you can still have the view.” She put her hand over Bobby’s. “But make sure they give you a window seat.”

“Have you been there, Mom?”

Michelle’s eyes immediately teared up. “Your dad took me there. On our last anniversary. I had never been, and it was a surprise.” She looked far away, and Bobby assumed she was remembering the evening. In spite of how far he had come, Bobby still was surprised his mother loved his father as much as she obviously did and, for that matter, that his father was enough of a romantic to plan a night out like this for Michelle.

Now, now. That’s not the way you want to think. Remember the box. Bobby wondered if “remember the box” would become kind of a mantra for him now, any time he recalled his father.

“Yes, Maximilien. It’s the most romantic. Who are you thinking of taking?” she asked, playful.

And Bobby told her all about Wade.

Later, he called the man himself.

He got voice mail, as he had the last couple of times he called. He assumed Wade was busy getting ready for the new school term. There was a sinking feeling of dread inside him too. He wasn’t stupid, after all. But he couldn’t imagine why Wade would be avoiding him. So, as he had learned to do on this journey of late, he decided he would be optimistic.

“Hey, Wade, it’s Bobby. Hope you’re well. Listen, my time in town is running short, and I do want to see you before I leave. I’d love to take you to dinner, if you can spare the time. I’m thinking Friday. Let me know.”

Bobby disconnected and was surprised when his phone rang, not five minutes later. It was Wade.

“Hey! Good to finally hear from you!”

“Sorry. I was just coming in the door when you called. Listen, about dinner—”

“Don’t you dare say no. I just talked to my mom, and she steered me toward what she said is the best French in town, with, as a bonus, the best views. I really want to just have some quiet time with you, Wade. It seems our times together have always been so hurried and even a little bit strained.” Bobby’s voice became softer, and he hated the desperation he heard in his next sentence. “I need to see you.”

Wade was quiet for a moment or two, and then he finally said, “No worries. I’m free on Friday. Where did you want to go?”

And just like that, all of Bobby’s worries disappeared. Friday night would be a memorable one, a night, Bobby just knew, that would go down in his romantic history as a landmark. He already pictured their eyes meeting across a candlelit table. “Let me surprise you. What do you say we meet under the big clock at Pike Place Market at, oh, around seven?”

“Sure. Sounds good. Dress?”

“Don’t you dare wear a dress. You know I like ’em butch.”

Wade laughed. Finally, he had gotten a chuckle out of the guy.

“You always look good, no matter what you wear. But I would guess no shorts, something a little nice, but no need for a tie.”

“Got it. See you Friday.”

Bobby was thinking of asking if they could get together for lunch, a drink, coffee, or something before Friday, but Wade had already hung up.

*

Friday arrived with Bobby in the guest room with every article of clothing he had brought along strewn across the bed. Michelle peeked into the room. “Whatever you wear, you’ll look sensational. Sweetie, you could wear a bathrobe and look delicious.” She came up to him and pinched his cheek. “You got the best of both of us, that’s for sure. My handsome son.”

Bobby could actually feel heat rising to his cheeks at his mother’s flattery.

“This is important, Mom. I want to look good for him.”

“That’s sweet. I didn’t think young people cared as much about clothes these days. I thought it was all about comfort…and tattoos.” She moved to the bed, sorting through what Bobby had laid out. She lifted a moss-green linen short-sleeve shirt and paired it with black jeans. “Wear these. Simple. Masculine. Comfortable.” She winked. “And quick and easy to get out of.”

“Mom!”

“Oh please, now is not the time to pretend to be Mary Poppins. It’s a little late for that, sweetie.”

They both had a laugh over that. Bobby looked down at the clothes and saw his mother was right. Simple would be best. He had a pair of black leather sandals that would look great with the ensemble.

His mother paused in the doorway, turning to say, “And underwear—if you do wear it—make sure it’s clean. One never knows.”

Bobby played dumb. “Knows what?” He had the sudden feeling he and Michelle were on the road to becoming not just mother and son, but very good friends.

“When you might be struck by a bus, of course. What did you think I meant?” She didn’t wait for his response, but left him to get ready.

*

Bobby arrived in front of the big clock in front of Pike Place Market, which had now become iconic as a Seattle landmark, fifteen minutes before seven. He was eager, anxious, and wanted to be sure he was positioned so he could watch Wade walk toward him.

All around him, tourists swirled, chattering, stopping to take pictures. One walked up to him and asked where she could find the original Starbucks. Behind him, the fish market had, as usual, attracted a crowd, as the workers there made lots of noise and created a big show out of tossing huge whole fish back and forth. Bobby didn’t quite understand the appeal, but the tourists lived for it. It must be on everyone’s must-see list when they came to town.

He saw Wade coming down Pike Street, and for a moment, time stopped, and all the people around him blurred as if by magic, making him stand out. Wade too had dressed simply, in a white cotton button-down shirt and jeans. A gust of wind off Elliot Bay lifted his hair off his forehead. Bobby liked watching him like this, catching him for a moment unawares. Bobby admired his confident stride and how the sun had darkened his skin even more since he had last seen him.

He was stunning. He practically glowed. And, apparently, Bobby was not the only one who thought so. As Wade progressed through the crowd, he saw at least three heads swivel to watch the man’s progress, one of them male.

At last, Wade stood before him, a big smile on his face. They said nothing, but Bobby was delighted that Wade’s first move was to pull Bobby toward him and give him a peck on the lips. Bobby wished for a more lingering kiss, but they were deep in public throngs, and any further display of affection, even in a city as liberal and tolerant as Seattle, might turn heads for the wrong reason.

“It’s so good to see you,” Bobby said. “So very good.” He touched Wade’s arm lightly, the connection of their skin electric, to lead him into the marketplace and to Maximilien.

*

The view—and the sunset—delivered on its promise of spectacular. Bobby had booked a table at one of the windows, and he and Wade watched, wordless, as the sun set over the Olympic Mountains, etching the sky with hues of slate blue, lavender, and tangerine. Those same colors reflected on the waters of Puget Sound and off the windows of a ferry, gliding soundlessly across the bay.

The room was actually hushed for a few moments as the sun made its descent behind the jagged and majestic peaks.

It was amazing that something that really happened every day could still stun with its beauty, leaving the viewer in a state of awe and wonderment, almost childlike.

As they watched, Bobby placed a gentle hand atop Wade’s, rubbing the coarse dark hair. Wade drew his gaze away from the setting sun to meet Bobby’s eyes, and the two men stared at one another for long, delicious seconds.

Talk over a duo of foie gras and sea bass for Bobby and cassoulet for Wade, had revolved around Wade’s upcoming school year, how Bobby was tiring of his work in corporate marketing and his desire to make a change, to do something more meaningful with his life.

They had danced around talking about each other and where their future was headed.

Bobby felt like now was the time. The beauty of the sunset, the light pressure of his foot against Wade’s, and several glasses of wine loosened his tongue, giving him courage.

“I’ve really missed you. After you left Chicago, it was like you took a piece of me away. And tonight, tonight, I feel like that piece is back.”

“I complete you?” Wade teased, chuckling.

“Stop! I’m trying to be serious here.”

Their waiter came along and cleared away their plates. “Would you gentlemen care to see a dessert menu?”

They had shared a bottle of pinot gris with dinner. Bobby said, “I’m not interested in dessert, are you?” He raised his eyebrows. “At least not here.” He felt his face flush as Wade didn’t respond to the latter comment. Perhaps he hadn’t heard, even though he had shaken his head no to the idea of dessert. Bobby looked up at the waiter and said, “Do you have Veuve Clicquot?”

“Of course.”

“Bring us a bottle, please.”

“Right away.”

As the waiter left them to fetch the champagne, Bobby turned back to Wade. “It’s my favorite bubbly. Hope you don’t mind. Now, where were we?”

Wade looked neutral, his handsome features betraying nothing. He glanced out the window, where the sky, near the top, was darkening to navy. The mountains were silhouetted now in pale gray light.

Bobby said softly, “I was telling you how much I missed you.” He picked up Wade’s hand again. “And how good it feels to be back together.”

Wade smiled. “That’s sweet.”

Bobby waited for him to go on, but after a few moments passed, he continued. “I’ve been thinking a lot, you know, about life in general and things. And I have come to the conclusion that I’m not getting any younger and I should go for the things that matter.

“I was actually considering coming back here to Seattle. My mom would love it, but more importantly, I’d like to be close to you, to see where things might go.” He smiled and squeezed Wade’s hand. In a voice barely above a whisper, he said, “You’re a special man. Special to me. And I think there’s tremendous potential here.” He stopped short of telling Wade he loved him. Even Bobby knew it was too soon for such declarations, but looking at the man across the table, Bobby knew he was falling for him.

Falling hard.

Bobby wished Wade would say something. But he was silent, not saying a word as the waiter came back with the champagne and poured a flute for each of them.

Bobby raised his glass. “To coming home.”

They clinked and sipped. “So, you haven’t said much about my idea of maybe moving back.”

“I think you should do what you want to do.”

Bobby stared down at the table, and the denial he’d been cultivating all evening collapsed in front of him like a house of cards. It was clear that Wade didn’t reciprocate his feelings—or at the very least, not at the same level as Bobby. He felt pathetic as the desperate words tumbled from his lips. “Wouldn’t you like to see me come back? We could get to know each other better, date, you know, a real courtship.” He laughed at the old-fashioned word, but inside, his heart raced. A line of sweat trickled from his neck down to the small of his back. He gulped the entire flute of champagne and poured himself another glass.

Wade hadn’t touched his, a fact that had not escaped Bobby’s notice. And now, Bobby could see discomfort stamped on Wade’s features. Wade shifted in his chair, his gaze wandering out the windows, at the other diners, at a waiter passing by with a plate of steak tartare.

Finally, Wade looked at him, his gaze level, his expression elevated from discomfort to resolute. He drew in a breath and said the words that had struck terror into the hearts of lovers since time immemorial. “Bobby, we need to talk.”

No. I don’t want to hear this. I don’t want to talk. I want to hug, kiss, fuck, walk along the waterfront hand in hand in the moonlight. I want to chart a course for a future together. I want you to make my dreams come true. I want to lay the foundation for a life together. Oh, Wade, I want you. Bobby took another long swallow of champagne. Now, it tasted bitter, like carbonated vinegar on his tongue. “What?”

Wade said, “Bobby, you’re a great guy—handsome, funny. You’re everything I hoped for in a man.”

Maybe he isn’t going to say what I thought. Maybe it’s just me, being a pessimist again, hating myself so much that I couldn’t imagine someone loving me. Bobby sat up straighter, listening.

“And I think we would have really had a shot. But sometimes life has a funny way of throwing in a curve ball when we least expect it.” Wade traced a pattern in the table’s surface for a moment, staring down. When he looked back up, he was smiling, and Bobby could see that Wade found it hard to contain his joy. “I met somebody, Bobby. We had a couple dates right before I came to Chicago, and it was cool, but things hadn’t really gelled. I didn’t know where things would go.

“But when I came back, it was like everything fell into place. And I fell for him. Hard.” Wade shook his head. “He’s perfect, Bobby. I think he’s ‘the one,’ if it doesn’t sound too hokey to say that.”

Wade took Bobby’s hand again, squeezed it, and let go. “I know you had hopes for us, and I did too. But David just took me by surprise, took me by storm. Hell, we’re talking about living together.”

“David?” Bobby said dully.

“Yeah! I was hoping maybe you’d want to meet him. We could grab a drink on the Hill after we finish up here.”

Bobby felt the rich food he had eaten roil in his stomach and tasted a splash of bile at the back of his throat.

This was not happening.

This was a nightmare.

Bobby shook his head. “I don’t think so.” He knew his voice came out toneless, dead.

“That’s okay. Maybe another day before you leave.”

Bobby stared at Wade, as if in just a few minutes and with only a few words, he had changed into someone else entirely. Someone Bobby hated. “Are you really so stupid?”

Wade looked stunned, hurt. “Excuse me?”

Bobby, with a shaking hand, pulled out his wallet, glad he had gone to the ATM prior to this dinner. He took out three hundred-dollar bills and slapped them down on the table. “That should cover dinner. There should be enough left over to buy David a drink when you meet him later. Tell him I said hi.”

“Bobby, don’t.”

Bobby realized if he didn’t get out of the restaurant right now he would be sick. He stood, crossed to Wade, and squatted. He grabbed Wade’s chin and kissed him, passionately, deeply, his tongue halfway down the man’s throat.

Wade jerked back and away. “What’s wrong with you?”

“I wish I knew.”

Bobby turned and hurried from the restaurant.

*

He didn’t know if the Stallion had been his destination when he made his way from the very romantic restaurant, away from the hordes of tourists converged on the public market, who all suddenly seemed too happy for their own good, away from Wade, but now he found himself on a seedier part of Summit Avenue, in front of the bland façade of the bathhouse he had visited last time he was in town.

At least tonight, he thought, Wade probably won’t be inside to witness whatever I get myself up to.

And what he wanted to get up to—his weeks of therapy, sessions with SAA, long talks with Aaron, all be damned—was to take as much cock as he could before dawn sashayed back into town, lightening the sky for decent people. People unlike him.

Bobby thought a good gang bang, one cock after another, a cock up his ass and one down his throat, multiple times, multiple loads would be just the thing he was longing for, just the thing to deliver sweet oblivion. He grew excited as he paced outside, the summer breeze warm and dry, imagining come dripping from the corners of his mouth and from his ass.

Why had he been denying himself? For what?

This is what I’m good for, what I really want—and what’s wrong with that, anyway? Leave that love shit for those who know what to do with it.

Bobby was about to head inside, no second thoughts, when a guy crossed the street, coming toward him.

For a moment, his heart leapt because, through the darkness, he thought it was Wade. But then, as a streetlight revealed the man, Bobby saw that this guy couldn’t have been more different from Wade.

He was probably about six two, and looked like he weighed about one hundred sixty pounds. He wore a beaten-up, dirty tank top and baggy jeans that were just barely succeeding in hugging his hipbones, dragged down farther by the big chain that held his wallet in his back pocket.

One arm had a sleeve of tattoos, but it was too dark to make out what they were. Bobby could make out, though, the ring of tattoo stars that moved, like a constellation, around his throat. His hair was a riot of reddish-brown spikes. When he got closer, he smiled with brown teeth. “Dude. You goin’ inside?”

In spite of the brown teeth and in spite of the current of acrid aroma—a mix of body odor and something unidentifiable, something chemical—that rode across the couple of feet separating them, and even in spite of the aura of sickliness that the man exuded, Bobby, in his current state, found the guy hot, a temptation, a very bad boy gone to ruin, and he didn’t give a fuck. The guy pulled out a pack of Marlboros and lit one up. “Well?”

“Yeah. I was just headin’ in.”

The guy surveyed him, looking him up and down. “They’re gonna eat you alive in there, man.”

“What I was hoping.”

“Chip.”

“Bobby.”

“The Stallion usually doesn’t get specimens like yourself. You are definitely a cut above.”

“Thank you. You’re not so bad yourself.”

Chip snickered. “Fuck.”

They stood silently for a couple of minutes. Bobby watched as Chip smoked. Finally, Chip patted his front right pocket. “You party?” He leaned in close to Bobby.

Bobby had never been big on drugs. He had been with many guys high on T, on G, on E, the whole fucking alphabet, but had never indulged in anything more than a bit of pot and alcohol himself. Sex alone had always been enough.

But maybe tonight should be different. After all, how often does one get dumped unceremoniously by the man one hoped to love?

“Fuck yeah,” Bobby said. “You got favors?” he asked, using the lingo he had heard bandied about online.

Chip dragged deeply on his smoke, blew a cloud toward Bobby. “I’m the candy man, dude. You want a slice? A gram’s eighty dollars.”

Here he was, perched on a precipice. Everything inside him was telling him to just say “Aw, fuck it,” and leap. Just descend into oblivion. Into hot sex. Into his body amped up on meth, sweating, insatiable. It all sounded good.

Until it didn’t. Until an image of a Cole Haan shoe box came to him and, inside it, years of love, hidden away.

It sounded good until he looked at the sores on Chip’s arms, the way his hand trembled as he took the cigarette from his mouth, the look of desperation in his yellow-cast eyes, at the sweat that coated his skin like glue, stinking. He was high, of course. He sought oblivion too.

Just like Bobby.

All at once, Bobby realized something—he was not like Chip. Not anymore. But he could be. So easily. All he had to do was give in to self-loathing, give in to lack of respect for himself, lose the possibility that someone could love him, just say “fuck it.” He could live for the moment. Go inside with Chip, buy a Baggie full of crystalline rocks, crush them up and snort them, then go on the prowl for dick.

He would forget everything, save the hunger for dick.

But something stopped him. It wasn’t just the rotating images of faces in his mind—Mom, Dad, Aaron, Caden—but the thought, for maybe the very first time, that he was past this. Sure, he could get high, play the power bottom all night long to a shitload of strangers, but when morning rolled around, he’d still have to deal with his disappointment over Wade.

He’d still have to wonder what the next step in his life should be.

Only that next morning, when his ass was raw and sore, eyes bleary, he knew he would not feel elation or satisfaction, or even nostalgia.

All he would feel was remorse—and the fear that maybe he had picked up more than some nasty memories on his debauched night.

His same hopes, his same problems, would still be there waiting.

Doing this, this bathhouse adventure, this drug, wouldn’t change anything. He never used to know that, but he knew it now.

And that knowledge couldn’t be ignored.

In spite of Wade’s proclamation earlier, Bobby knew that someone would love him. People already did. That special man he longed for, though, would not be waiting inside the Stallion. That much he knew for certain.

He would wait out there.

Somewhere.

All these thought processes coursed through Bobby in a blink, some only felt and not articulated. He put a hand on Chip’s bony and damp shoulder and squeezed it, looking into the dealer’s rheumy eyes. He felt compassion for the man, a kind of sweet sorrow, and the hope that Chip might someday find the path to something better, something more real than the false promises a bathhouse and a gram of crystal meth offered—before it was too late.

“You know what, bud? I’m gonna pass.”

He didn’t wait for a response, but simply turned and walked away, heading for his car, heading for home.