A Clean Break (Gay Amish Romance Book 2) (7 page)

“I’m sorry—did I say something to upset you?” Jen asked with a frown.

“No.” David cleared his throat. “My mother and sister got hit by a car in their buggy in December.”

Red sauce splashed the stove top as Aaron dropped the wooden spoon and whirled around. “They did? Are they okay? Abigail didn’t mention it. But come to think of it, she hasn’t written in a while since she’s busy with the new baby. What happened?”

David hesitated, his body almost vibrating as he tried to find the words. It was as though he could hear the sirens right there in the kitchen.

Isaac spoke up. “Snow came all of a sudden, and the car didn’t see them in time. Mary got thrown, but she landed in a snowbank and she was mostly okay. It was a miracle they said. But David’s mother broke her leg very badly. We weren’t sure at first if… But she had surgery and she’s healing now. She’s in a wheelchair, but she should walk again soon.”

Aaron clenched his jaw. “Maybe if Zebulon would use orange triangles on buggies, it wouldn’t have happened. It’s ridiculous. Other Amish use them, but Swartzentrubers have to be so damn stubborn.”

“I don’t know if it would have made a difference in that weather, but I don’t understand it either,” Isaac said.

Jen touched David’s shoulder lightly. “I’m sorry that happened. It must have made it even harder to leave.”

Head down, David nodded.

“I’m sure Eli Helmuth is over there every day,” Isaac added quickly. “They’ll probably be married soon, and then you don’t have to worry.”

The thought of not worrying made David want to laugh humorlessly, and he pressed his lips together. He couldn’t imagine the day would ever come.

“Your father died a few years ago, right?” Aaron asked. The sauce bubbled, and he picked up the spoon again. “I was sorry to hear it. I know how hard it must have been for you, being the only man left in your family. Especially after Joshua…”

David blew out a long breath. “I really tried. I wanted to stay for them, but I just couldn’t
.” I failed them. Failed Father
.

“There’s never a good time to leave. Trust me.” Aaron smiled softly. “But I’m so glad you did. Both of you. A lot of people are really happy in the plain life, but some of us just aren’t made for it.”

“You know what I think we need with dinner?” Jen asked with a slap on the counter. “Wine.” She hopped off her stool. “Bordeaux always goes well with your sauce, right, babe?”

Aaron chuckled. “It does, but we’d better go easy on them. You guys don’t have to drink anything if you don’t want to.”

Jen held up her hands. “Right. Don’t let me peer pressure you. You probably don’t know what that means. Let me rephrase: don’t let me pressure you into doing anything you’re not comfortable with. And Isaac, you’re only eighteen, but I think a glass of wine at home is okay.”

David smiled. “I don’t think a glass will hurt.” He raised an eyebrow at Isaac.

“Sure.” Isaac shrugged. “Jen’s a doctor, after all.”

“
Exactly
. Doctor’s orders.” She whispered loudly to Aaron, “I like them already. They listen to me.”

Laughing, Aaron said, “
Bahaef dich
.”

“Hey!” Hands on her hips, Jen glared at him, although she was still smiling. “No secret Amish German. Uh, not that I want to stifle your heritage. But no making rude comments about me. I demand all rude comments be in English so I can respond appropriately.”

“I just said to behave yourself. And does that mean your family will stop speaking Tagalog in front of me?” Aaron asked. “That’s what a lot of people from the Philippines speak,” he added to Isaac and David.

Jen raised an eyebrow. “Touché.”

Isaac whispered, “Huh?”

David could only shrug.

“It means…good point. Basically that the other person is right,” Aaron said.

“I think it’s a strong statement to say that you were
right
. We need more debate before we make a determination. Let me get the wine. Wine will help.” Jen went through a door just off the kitchen and down into what appeared to be a cellar.

David had slipped in and out of German and English so easily his whole life. It was always German at home and church, and English at school and everywhere else. He hadn’t even thought about the fact that he would likely lose the German out in the world. He felt a strange hollowness in his chest.

Soon Aaron heaped spaghetti and sauce onto plates, and David stood by one of the middle chairs at the dining table, with Isaac across from him.

“Sit, sit!” Jen said as she pulled the cork out of a bottle of wine by the counter.

David and Isaac looked at each other, hesitating. David realized with a sinking sensation that after his belated morning prayer, he hadn’t said his silent prayer at breakfast or lunch. He bowed his head now to recite the Lord’s prayer in his mind, speeding through the familiar words. He looked up to see Isaac finish a moment later.

Jen hovered by the table with the wine in one hand and a basket of bread in the other. Her smile was apologetic. “Sorry. Didn’t mean to interrupt. My family only really says grace on the holidays, so I’m not used to it. But you can pray out loud if you want. We don’t mind. We want you to be at home here.”

“It’s always silent when they pray at meals,” Aaron said as he brought two plates of steaming spaghetti to the table. He smiled ruefully. “Wow, I haven’t thought about that in a long time.”

They
. Aaron had spent the first nineteen years of his life Amish, but in ten years gone it had ceased to be an
us
. As David pulled out his chair, he wondered if he’d feel that way too. He supposed it was inevitable. He could see the sadness on Isaac’s face as they took their seats, and he extended his leg under the table to rub his bare foot briefly against Isaac’s.

Isaac smiled softly, and then cleared his throat. “These chairs are nice. So comfy.”

Indeed, the dining chairs were padded with a thick material. David had never built any with cushioned seats. He knew it was silly considering the scope of his sins, but he’d felt a little better creating furniture in his secret workshop at June’s that was still plain.

Jen poured wine into their glasses before taking a seat at the end of the table with Aaron at the other. David sipped his wine. It was very strong, and he wasn’t sure he liked it. He took a bite of the crusty baguette, which Aaron had sliced and baked. Now
that
, he liked. He couldn’t stifle his groan as he chewed the butter-soaked bread. “Is this what the English call garlic bread?”

“Yep.” Aaron plucked a piece from the basket. “Delicious, huh? Garlic butter is one of humanity’s greatest inventions.”

“It’s my new favorite thing.” Isaac took a vigorous bite. “I can’t believe you cooked all this,” he mumbled.

Aaron laughed. “Well, the salad’s from a bag, and the spaghetti and garlic bread are pretty easy. And thank you for getting the bread.” To Jen he added, “They survived their first foray into the city alone. Although apparently they had to outrun a marauding gang of baguette thieves.”

Jen whistled. “Close one, huh? Gotta keep those baguettes under wraps.” She swirled the wine in her glass. “I feel like there’s a ‘is that a baguette in your pocket, or are you just happy to see me?’ joke in there, but I’ll refrain.”

Aaron laughed. “Masterful restraint, darling. As always.”

David smiled as Jen blew Aaron a kiss across the table. They seemed so
free
in a way he’d never witnessed before. So open and warm. He’d never seen Mother and Father even touch affectionately, although he knew they must have done more in private considering they’d had so many children.

As he ate, David found the wine went down more smoothly. He savored the beef sauce and listened to Jen tell a story about a patient who went crazy on the full moon, although he wasn’t sure what the moon had to do with it. Isaac looked a little confused as well, and they smiled at each other.

“Oh my God, you guys are going to give me a cavity. But in the best possible way.” Jen drained the wine bottle into her glass. “Hold on, more wine is needed, yes? Yes. Who was I kidding only bringing up one bottle?” She pushed back her chair, and her slippers slapped on the wood floor.

“A cavity?” Isaac whispered.

“She means you’re sweet,” Aaron answered. “The way you two look at each other, it’s…”

David tensed as his mind completed the sentence.
Wrong. Abhorrent. An abomination before the Lord
.

“Wonderful,” Aaron finished. “You have no idea how happy it makes me that you found each other. Being gay and alone in an Amish community would be…” He shuddered. “I can’t imagine the loneliness.”

David and Isaac’s eyes met. David reached for his wine, gulping what was left. He spoke without meaning to. “It was a little easier before anything happened. Like how you don’t really know what you’re missing if you’ve never had something. But once you have…”

His despair in the weeks after the accident had been like a hard object lodged in his chest, choking him with each breath. The ghost of it lingered, constricting his lungs even now as he remembered.

Isaac’s warm fingers grasped his across the table, and David was able to breathe again. The certainty that they’d made the right choice—the only choice—settled over him like warm honey. He glanced at Aaron, who only smiled kindly. But after a moment, Isaac let go of David’s hand.

“I really hope you’ll both be comfortable to be yourselves here.” Aaron speared a piece of lettuce, but didn’t eat it. “I know you had it even worse in Zebulon than it ever was in Red Hills. Swartzentruber rules are so strict. I feel like even though I grew up Amish, there are some things I can’t understand about your experience. I’m trying, though. But tell me if I’m getting stuff wrong, or if I’m not being helpful. I don’t want to pressure either of you.”

“You’re not,” Isaac said. “Not at all.”

“I don’t know what we’d do without you,” David added. “There’s so much I don’t know.”

Aaron patted his arm. “You’ll learn. And I should tell you there are a lot of stereotypes about the Amish here in the world. Most people think it’s quaint, or
cute
, and that we’re all the same. They’ve seen things on TV, and they think that’s what it’s really like in every Amish community. There are a lot of misconceptions.” He laughed. “I sound ready to give a lecture on the subject.”

“You are a teacher, after all,” said Isaac.

“Never fear—I have returned from the trenches with provisions.” Jen swept into the dining room with a new bottle of wine and the corkscrew.

Isaac picked up his fork again. “So, you two met at the hospital, right?” Isaac asked.

“That’s right.” Jen poured more wine for everyone. “Aaron got his bike wheel caught in a sewer grate and took a header onto the pavement. Paramedics brought him in with a nasty gash on his forehead, and a distal radius fracture.”

“Broken wrist,” Aaron translated.

“Did you like him right away?” Isaac sipped his wine with a grimace.

“Well, I thought he was cute.” Jen winked at Aaron. “Obviously. I mean, look at that face.”

Aaron was certainly handsome, with his bright smile and the little cleft in his chin. Was it wrong to acknowledge that Isaac’s brother was attractive? Did it make David disloyal to Isaac somehow, even if he had no interest in any other man? He had another swig of wine, the gentle burn calming his mind.

“But she figured I was just a kid. This was…wow, six years ago now. I was twenty-three, and in my second year of college. It took a while to get my GED and figure out what I wanted to do. Math was my best subject since numbers are the same no matter where you grew up. Not that we learned more than the basics as kids, but it gave me a start. I heard math teachers are in higher demand these days, and I thought I could be good at it.”

“And he is. Those kids love Mr. B.” Jen spun spaghetti onto her fork using a big spoon as a base, smiling proudly. “I think it’s because he knows how hard it can be to learn new things.”

David picked up his spoon from his place mat and copied her motions. He’d wondered what the spoon was for, and had hoped there was more ice cream coming. The spaghetti formed a neat circle when he spun it, with only one strand hanging down. He felt foolishly pleased.

Aaron shrugged, but a smile played on his lips. “Anyway, back to the hospital. There I was in the ER, which was packed. I was on a stretcher beside an agitated old man who kept trying to get up and leave. The nurses were so fed up with him, but then this doctor comes along and sits with him. My first thought was that she was beautiful. I mean, look at that face.”

With his stomach full now, David sat back and sipped his wine, listening contentedly. Under the table, he and Isaac idly rubbed their feet together. Isaac smiled, keeping his gaze on his brother.

Aaron went on. “I was listening to her talk to this poor old man, and she was so patient. It was chaos all around us, but she was like the eye of a storm. Totally calm. In turn, that calmed him down. She didn’t raise her voice once, and by the time he agreed to treatment, I knew I had to know everything there was about Dr. Paculba. Not that she made it easy.”

Jen laughed as she pushed back her chair a few inches to cross her legs. She was still wearing her pajamas and
Frak me
shirt, and she dabbed at a splash of wine on the green cotton. “In my defense, I wasn’t in the habit of picking up dates at work. I wasn’t really in the habit of picking up many dates at all, much to my parents’ chagrin. Once I got the cast on his wrist and discharged him, he would not stop asking for my number. Finally I wrote it on his cast, and told him he could call once it was off.”

“I thought that bone would never heal.” Aaron scowled.

Isaac laughed. “So you called her right after it did?”

“Yep. She was all, ‘Who is this? What do you want?’ I reminded her that she said I could call, and she agreed to meet me for coffee.”

David swirled his wine the way Jen and Aaron had. He wasn’t sure what it did, but it seemed like the wine tasted better and better with each sip. “Then what happened?”

“I met him at a coffee shop by the wharf,” Jen answered. “I set an alarm on my phone so I could fake a page from the hospital, because I couldn’t imagine I’d have anything to talk about with this kid. I was thirty, and according to my mom, I should have been looking for a husband. Little did I know I’d found him. When the alarm pinged, I shut my phone off.”