THEY HAD him lie on the table and explained again what they were going to do.
It really sounded horrible.
It was something called an endoscopy. They were going to run a tube down his throat with an itty-bitty camera attached to scope out what was going on someplace inside him. The anesthesia was to make sure he didn’t gag at having something pushed down his throat. He wanted to make a joke, but he just couldn’t.
The gadget they were going to put in his mouth was terrifying.
It looked like something for a Dom/sub game—something to force and keep someone’s mouth wide open so that his Dom could facefuck him. But this wasn’t a dick going down his throat, and the scary-looking guy who was going to do it proved that his theory that only hot guys could work at the hospital was wrong.
I won’t remember this, was his mantra. I won’t remember this. That’s what the anesthesiologist told him. Whatever they were giving him would make it so that he didn’t remember any of this.
But then that thing was being put in his mouth, and it wasn’t fun, and then they were bringing the tube and his eyes went wide and he made the noises he could.
The second medical guy looked at him in surprise and asked, “Don’t you feel the meds?” and he shook his head no and then…
…nothing.
THEY CLIMBED into Scott’s absolutely lovely cream Lexus ES 350. It wasn’t quite what Kevin was expecting. But then, cars weren’t important to Kevin. And besides, everyone parked their cars up top and far to the south of the plateau at Festival. People walked. They didn’t drive around. So he didn’t know what kind of car Scott had. It just wasn’t what he expected.
He went to climb in the back, but Cedar insisted he get up front. “You’re nine feet tall.”
Kevin laughed. “I’m six foot. Not that much taller than you.”
“So let me be nice,” Cedar said and ran fingers through his fauxhawk. “I’m not nice very often.”
“Don’t let him fool you,” said Scott. “He is love personified.”
“You’re prejudiced,” Cedar said, and while they debated this, Kevin got in back. He wanted the two of them together. Like he wanted to be together with Wyatt.
I want that.
I need that.
So he didn’t even want to keep them from being in the front seat together.
They weren’t on the road long when they asked. He knew it was coming. How could they not ask?
“So, Hodor,” Cedar asked, turning and looking into the back seat, “you and Wyatt, huh?”
“I hope so,” Kevin replied and gave Cedar a single nod.
“Ahhhh….” This was Scott. “When did this happen?”
“This?” Kevin asked, knowing exactly what Scott was wanting to know.
“Are…. Well, are you and Wyatt…?”
Scott paused and Kevin waited for him to finish.
“Are you two fucking?” Cedar finished for him.
“Cedar!” Scott cried. “For God’s sake!”
“Well, that’s what you wanted to know, right?” Cedar looked back at Kevin but cocked a thumb at his lover. “That’s what he wants to know. I mean, I want to know too, but that’s what he’s beating around the bush about.”
“Cedar! Please!”
Kevin didn’t know how to answer. It’s none of your business? Since just the other night? He found himself freezing up, his old tongue-tied ways returning. It really wasn’t any of their business. And yet he wanted to declare his love for Wyatt from the mountaintops. Maybe if Cedar hadn’t said “fucking”?
“Forgive Mr. Unsubtle here,” Scott said. “It’s just that…. Well, Wyatt is very important to us.”
“He’s very important to me too,” Kevin replied.
“We all feel protective of our bear.”
Kevin nodded. “It’s hard not to want to protect Wyatt. He brings that out in people. I know I want to protect him.”
“You sure as shit got him to the hospital,” said Cedar, bobbing his head in the affirmative.
“Wyatt’s been hurt,” Scott continued. “Bad.”
“By that motherfucker Howard.”
There was a pause.
“Yeah,” Scott said. “By that motherfucker Howard. I fucking hate him. We all do.”
“He’s a pretty despicable person,” Kevin said.
“None of us have been able to figure out why Wyatt was with him in the first place.”
“It’s because Wyatt is a pretty wounded guy,” Kevin said. “And for some reason he felt he deserved whatever Howard did to him. He told me that Howard rescued him and gave him all his dreams. And then took them away.” Was he betraying a confidence by saying this? He didn’t think so. “He didn’t think he deserved any better. But I hope to show him different. If he’ll let me.”
Another pause.
“You really do care for our Wyatt?” came Scott’s cautious question.
“I do. I love him, Scott. I think I have for a long time.” A long time. “And it makes me happy that you guys have been taking care of him. Wyatt told me that. He said he wouldn’t have made it without you guys. The Fabulous Four.”
“Plus three now,” Cedar said.
“Well I hope it can be four now,” said Kevin.
Another pause.
“I know that none of you know me—”
“I know you,” Cedar said. “I’ve always thought you were a nice guy.”
“But you don’t know me. Nobody at Festival does because I keep mostly to myself. I want to try and change that, but it’s not easy for me. But Wyatt helps. He gives me… confidence. He makes me want to be more outgoing, you know? And I want to be there for him. Protect him. And I am glad you’re suspicious of me—”
“Not suspicious, really,” Scott interjected then. “We’re just…. We don’t want him to get hurt again and—well—suddenly you’ve appeared out of nowhere, and we’re all pretty surprised. Wyatt isn’t exactly secretive about his life, and it was a shock to see you and to realize that something has happened with you two. And we’re worried and—”
“And I’m glad. I’m glad that you worry about him. And I am sure I’m a surprise. Hell! I’m as surprised as you guys. More! I’ve harbored a crush for years and—”
“Really?” Scott asked.
“Yeah.” Cedar nodded. “I believe it. I’ve watched you give Wyatt puppy-dog eyes for a long time.”
“You have?” Scott looked at his lover, agog.
“—and I don’t know how it happened, and frankly I’m worried to fucking hell that I’m his rebound, but I’m praying I’m not.”
And fuck! I just said all that out loud!
“Wow,” Cedar said with a very sweet smile, eyes alight. “I can’t believe you just said all that out loud!”
“God, you guys,” Kevin said, and apparently his spewing of the mouth wasn’t over! “I love him. I really do. I love him so much.”
Another pause. This one went on for about a million years.
Then Scott said, “Well, good, then.”
And they drove to Camp and picked up the cars. Not only had Gryphon and Saffron dug them out, but they’d even packed them.
“You guys…,” Kevin said and then didn’t know what to say. What was there to say?
“It’s okay,” Gryphon replied. “We only want to help.”
They asked how Wyatt was doing, and Kevin explained as best he could and then told them he needed to leave. He had to get back to the hospital.
“Of course you do,” Saffron said. “Get back to him. But I’ve got something….” She dashed down the little path to her home and then was back, running. She was carrying the Thermos that she’d lent them earlier. “Hot chocolate,” she said, pressing it into his hands. “And it’ll stay hot for a while. This is a damned old Thermos. It was my parents’. Made when a Thermos really kept things the right temperature for damned near ever. Just get it back to me, okay?”
“I will,” he said, and then he hugged and kissed them both because Gryphon wasn’t settling for anything else. And then Kevin climbed into his big F-150 and with Scott in his Lexus and Cedar in Wyatt’s Mini Coop, they hit the road.
Because Kevin knew something was up.
He had to get back to Wyatt.
WYATT AWOKE surrounded by the ugliest curtains he had ever seen in his life.
“Geez,” he said. “It’s obvious no gay man ever picked these out!”
He said it just as a nurse appeared at the one side the ugly curtains weren’t hanging.
He swore she almost hurt herself laughing.
Then something wondrous happened.
She brought Kevin.
“Hey, Baby Bear,” he said, taking Wyatt’s hand.
“Keeeee-vin,” he said—he felt himself drifting off again. “You were supposed to help get the cars.”
“I did, Wyatt. You were out for quite a while.”
Wyatt smiled.
“That’s a good thing, right?” he asked.
“Yes.” He squeezed Wyatt’s hand. “But don’t ask me to do it again.” The look on Kevin’s face was very serious.
“I won’t. You’ve got your car and—”
“Don’t ask me to leave you again.” To Wyatt’s shock Kevin got down on his knees, held his hand even tighter, and kissed him ever so lightly. “It was horrible being away from you. And I don’t want that again.”
Wyatt could hardly breathe. His heart was pounding.
“Okay,” he said.
And then Kevin kissed him again.
Before they took him back to his room, the nurse bent nearly as close as Kevin had. “I’d hold on to him, sugar.”
Wyatt smiled. “Giiiirrrrrrlllll,” he said.
WYATT HAD a late lunch and it wasn’t much—a sandwich of sorts because he’d missed lunch, and he was pretty pissed about it. He was starved. Kevin let him know he’d have a good dinner, and he even brought him a piece of so-so pizza (he consumed it anyway) from the cafeteria and some soft serve. It wasn’t peanut butter, but it wasn’t bad. Cheesecake. And of course there was hot chocolate. And it really was hot.
The menu actually had some pretty good options. He ordered the roast and mashed potatoes and candied carrots. And ice cream for dessert.
But then, right before dinner, they came in to let him know.
“It’s your gallbladder, Mr. Dolan-Owens.”
“Huh?” he asked, looking away from Kevin, who was reading to him from what he’d come to think of as “their” Stephen King novel.
The surgeon—at least that was how he introduced himself—was a very big, very heavyset bear of a man with a beard streaked with gray, and he told them that they had figured out what was wrong. It was Wyatt’s gallbladder. “It needs to come out. Pronto.”
“Pronto?” squeaked Wyatt, and his voice broke besides.
Gallbladder. That was what Saffron had said. Then “pronto” hit him again, and he asked when that was.
“First thing in the morning,” Dr. Lyons (who should have been named Bear) said. “We thought it might have to wait until day after, but a patient had to be bumped, so the slot is open and we’ve put you right in it.”
“But tomorrow?” A fear so great it made Wyatt want to burst into tears began to mount upon his shoulders. But then Kevin sat on the edge of his bed and laid a hand on his chest and kept the dark thing at least partially at bay.
And then there was some explanation about how it was no big deal, that he’d done hundreds of such procedures, it was done laparoscopically, and if everything went as well as he expected, Wyatt could be home day after tomorrow, and didn’t that sound good?
The going home sounded wonderful and now there was a big warm presence helping fight off the dark fear, but he had no idea what lap-ro-scop-ick-ly meant.
So then Dr. Lyons said that meant that instead of an incision, his gallbladder could be taken out through a very small hole, and that in six months he wouldn’t even be able to tell where it had been done.
“Really?” Wyatt said, his vanity joining the brawl. “Because I don’t want a scar.”
“Oh, scars can be sexy,” Kevin assured him, but for once Wyatt ignored him.
“I mean it.” The very idea of surgery terrified Wyatt, and not for the first time did he reflect that his father was far away in a hospital of his own facing who knew what? But the idea of no scar? Or at least one that would go away fast? That was good. “My chest is my best feature,” he said proudly, although it came out as a whine.
“Hardly,” Kevin said and squeezed his shoulder.
“We’ll have some paperwork for you to sign, and no eating after midnight. In fact, let’s make it nine.” He consulted with the two people standing with him, then said, “I’ll see you tomorrow, then, Mr. Dolan.”
“Dolan-Owens,” he called after the big man, and as soon as he was out of the room, Wyatt burst into tears.
KEVIN, ALL six feet of him and all those muscles, somehow climbed into bed with him and held him close. He assured Wyatt that all would be well, that everything would be okay, and he so wanted to believe it. Then he asked once again if Wyatt wanted him to call his parents.
“No!” Wyatt said adamantly. “Do. Not. Call them. I mean it!”
Kevin didn’t like the idea, but he told Wyatt that he wouldn’t.
He hated the fact that Wyatt had to go through all this, and he hated that he didn’t want his family to know what was going on, but it wasn’t like Kevin’s own family would have jumped aboard a plane. Yeah, right! So he hated instead that both their parents were missing out.
And then he decided—remembered—to just accept and know that the Universe was unfolding as it should.
“I’ll be here,” he told Wyatt. “I will be waiting right here. I’ll keep the bed warm for you.”
“You will?” Wyatt asked him, eyes filled with tears and fear and something else. “You promise?”
Promise? Was that it? Was Wyatt somehow assured that it would be okay because Kevin would keep the bed warm for him?
“Yes, Baby Bear. I promise.”
So he held Wyatt close, and asked him if he wanted Kevin to read to him, but Wyatt decided he wasn’t in the mood to hear Stephen King. So Kevin read him a romance story by someone named Jude Parks, and that made Wyatt happy—or if not happy, at least a little happier.
It was a funny book, and sweet as well, and that was what Wyatt needed.
Then some nurse or other came in and needed a blood draw, and Wyatt bore it, and Kevin was glad he didn’t get upset again, because he surely hated getting poked by needles. He even complimented the nurse on her haircut, and she laughed and patted at it as if she were trying to remember what she’d done with it that day. Kevin marveled once again at what Wyatt did to people.
His little bear—and God, he prayed that Wyatt was his little bear—nodded off a while after, and Kevin climbed carefully out of bed. His left arm had gone to sleep, but he hadn’t wanted to upset Wyatt by getting up.
Kevin read a little from Leap and the Net Will Appear! And then it quite suddenly hit him that he hadn’t talked to Theresa in days.
He went out into the hall and stood in a place where he could watch Wyatt while he made his call. Theresa answered right away and asked how gay camp had gone, and he told her just how it had gone.
She was pretty stunned, to say the least. By all of it. She let him know she couldn’t pick out what surprised her the most.
“Who is Wyatt?”
“I’ve told you about him.”
“Never,” she swore.
And looking at Wyatt’s sweet face, jaw shadowed by days of not shaving, through the open door, Kevin couldn’t imagine how that could be true. How could that be? How could he have not talked about Wyatt? At least since he’d broken up with Cauley.
“Little guy,” he said. “Was in a relationship with a total turd. A cub.”
“A what?”
“A young bear.”
“Wait a minute….” Her voice faded. “Maybe…. Maybe something about a little cute bear…. Sings crazy songs onstage?”
“Yes!” cried Kevin and then ducked his head at the annoyed look from a passing nurse.
“Wait…. You’re telling me that you—Kevin Owens—are in love?”
“Yes,” he said and could almost see her face.
“Well, hot dog,” she said. Then: “Wait. Crazy. Songs. On. Stage. You’re not getting involved with another—” And thank goodness she had the good grace not to finish her sentence. Another Cauley. Some respect to the dead at least.
“No,” he said. “Wyatt doesn’t have a tenth of the ego.”
“Which could send him right to the same me—”
“Theresa! Enough. Stick with the ‘hot dog’ and be happy for me. And I am happy.”
“Except for the part where he’s in the hospital,” she replied.
“Yeah. Except for that.”
“I’ll pray for him,” Theresa said. “And I’ll light a candle too.”
“Thank you.” He smiled and felt some warmth in the midst of the worry that was so hard not to feel.
“Do you need me to fly out?” she offered. Of course she did.
“There’s nothing you can do,” he said. “But I’ll keep you informed.”
“Any idea when you’ll be coming home?”
The question made his stomach turn into lead. Home. Away from Wyatt. “At this moment I have no idea. And it’s not like I have a nine-to-five job.”
“Nope. That’s mine. Speaking of which, I have some work to do here.”
“Okay,” he replied.
“Love you,” she said.
“Me too.”
They switched off and he went back to Wyatt’s room, and just as he did, Wyatt’s cell phone began to vibrate on his tray table. He picked it up, not wanting even that much noise to wake Wyatt up. He needed his rest.
He looked at the screen and his eyes went wide. Shit.
Mom flashed in blue.
God.
He answered without thinking about it. “Hello?”
“Hello?” came a strained response. And was that… a sob? “Who is this?” It was a woman’s voice. Of course it was. “Mom.”
“My name is Kevin. I’m… a friend of Wyatt’s.”
“I see.”
“This is Wyatt’s mother?” he asked.
“Yes,” she replied. “Can I speak to Wyatt?”
“Ma’am, he’s asleep.”
“Well, can you wake him? This is—” And then she did sob. “—important.”
In that moment Kevin decided to lie. Partially. Because he was having a bad premonition about this call. “Ma’am. He’s in the hospital.”
He heard her breath catch. “What?”
“He’s sedated. He’s having his gallbladder out tomorrow morning early.”
“Oh, my precious Lord,” she said with a gasp. “Why? Why?”
Was she asking him? “Because he needs to have it out. I don’t know why—”
“Why does the Lord sometimes choose to put so much on our plates?”
He had no clue. Not one single one. “Ma’am, is there something I can tell him?”
There was a long pause. “Wait until tomorrow to tell him,” she said then.
My plans exactly, he thought, and then told her precisely that.
“It’s his father,” she said, and that time he did hear the hitch in her voice. And a strangled sob.
“Ma’am?”
“He’s dead. Wyatt’s father died a half hour ago.”