Chartreuse (7 page)

     Rowan couldn’t help but to chuckle from that
reaction.  It was like watching a child discovering ice cream for the first
time.

     “How old are you?”  Rowan finally asked.

     Kasen seemed to be caught off guard with the
question, but he swallowed quickly, licking at his lips before answering, “I’m
nineteen,” He replied.

    
Whoa. 
Rowan really needed to get better
at guessing ages.  He had guessed twenty one initially.  But it was easy to
tell that Kasen was quite young.  
At least he’s not under eighteen…

     “How about you?”  Kasen asked, taking another
bite of food.

     Rowan couldn’t help but to chuckle as he shook
his head.  “I’m twenty six,” He admitted.

     Kasen just nodded, going back to eating his
waffle.

     Well, he could have reacted to that a lot worse
than he had, right?  Rowan took that as a good sign as he continued eating his
meal.  Waffle House food always made him happy.  It was no Denny’s, but it was
the second best thing he could get in this part of Alabama.  That’s what he got
for trading in his old life. 

Chapter
Eight

     Kasen wasn’t even sure how this had all
happened.  How had he ended up in a Waffle House with Rowan at three in the
morning?  Though he wasn’t going to question it; Rowan seemed to enjoy his
company just as much as he enjoyed Rowan’s. 

     He reckoned that’s what mattered most.  Not to
mention the fact he was out of Chartreuse for the first time in his life.  That
was a pretty big feat in itself.  He could’ve gone to France with his senior
class had his mother given him the money to do so. 

    
“That’s a waste of money.”
She’d said. 
“I
work too hard for my money for you to go blowing it on bullshit, Kasen.”
 

     He pushed those thoughts from his mind as he
shook his head, taking the last bite of his waffle before pushing the plate
aside.  He was more full than he had been an hour ago, and the last bit of milk
was going into his stomach right at that second as he sighed.  He smiled at
Rowan, who smiled back and Kasen could feel his stomach going into a fit of flutters. 
He was pretty sure he couldn’t blame that on the food.

     He tapped his fingers against the table top
nervously as he chewed at his lip, blue eyes moving to focus on the napkin
dispenser as he listened to the tunes currently playing.  Dear lord, why on
earth were they playing the Backstreet Boys?  Not that Kasen had anything
against them, because he didn’t, he just preferred something a little more
mellow at the moment.  It was weird how music could affect his mood.  He licked
his lips, glancing up to find that Rowan was staring at him.

     He felt his cheeks heating up as he lowered his
gaze again, chewing hard at his bottom lip. The flesh was helpless against the
pressure his front teeth were providing.  He finally cleared his throat and
smiled, looking up again to see that Rowan was taking a drink of his coke.    

     “So I hope Chartreuse is being good to you so
far,” He said, his voice cracking a bit.  What the hell was that?

     Rowan nodded, putting his glass back down, “Oh
yeah, the people are great here.  It’s not something you find in Boston,
really.  There are the nice people, but they’re not nearly as hospitable as the
folks I’ve found here,” Rowan’s smile returned, just as warm and friendly as
before, and Kasen swore his heart dropped into his stomach, drifting on top of
undigested waffle and pecans.

     “I’m glad to hear that,” Kasen nodded.  He dug
his nails into his palms as he let his hands rest against his lap.  He’d talked
to people before, why was he finding right now to be so difficult?   He let his
tongue dart out over his lips again as he watched Nikki return once again.

     “Can I get you boys anything else?”  She
asked.  She looked tired.  But certainly, a woman who worked this late at night
would feel tired, wouldn’t she?  

     “Do you want anything else?”  Rowan inquired,
to which Kasen shook his head.  Rowan glanced back to Nikki, shaking his head,
“I think that will be all.  We’re ready for our check now.”

     As Nikki walked away, Rowan glanced down at his
watch and let out a low whistle.  “I didn’t realize it was already four thirty,”
He said.   “I’m sorry if I’ve kept you out past your bedtime.”

     Kasen was quick to shake his head.  “Oh no,
it’s fine.  I always stay up late.”

-------------------

    Boston wasn’t like Alabama. Not even a little
bit. No strangers greet you in Boston or strike up spontaneous conversations
with you while you pump gas. To him the streets had been lined with hard faces
whose first inclination was apathy and second, dislike. Camaraderie there was
earned by lineage or years of residency, and in his case innumerable pointless
fights and getting thrown out of the townie bars enough times to finally
establish himself as a fixture, as one of those who belonged inside.

  Boston was a proud town which had suffered through
much over the years. Its residents had endured decades of drought for the Sox,
Pats, and B’s (and they were not so much teams as ways of life in Boston), so
that the city’s inhabitants had come to accept defeat a priori, vowed never let
hope sneak in, and when they occasionally forgot their vow and that hope was
undoubtedly crushed, they knew it would be that way all along, of course. Then
victory upon victory finally came and they were well-deserved and savored like
a child’s first taste of beer from his father’s tallboy of ‘gansett – cherished
as shining memory but slightly bitter. Those that had lived in the city their
whole lives ignored the waves of tourists in duck boats every summer, taking
photos of every banal attraction or building, and so what if some of those
photos proudly starred them providing a proper, nonverbal Boston greeting?  Bostonians
silently hated the hapless flocks of college students every September, with
their giddiness that had yet to be dulled by the harshness of cold and weight
of years, with their drunkenness tuned too high for a city that kept its
alcoholism ever present but just under the skin. Yet of all the things to be
suffered through, the weather was the worst of it.

  Winter doesn’t exist to those who live in Boston –
isn’t spoken of, isn’t even considered as a possibility – until suddenly they
are surprised to find that it does exist and has descended upon the city for
another year, once again too early. At that point winter defines everything about
Boston and its people, who trudge through the days as time seems to slow down
(unlike the mass holes on I-93 or 95 who persist in the belief that inclement
conditions are a figment of their imagination), darkness is ever-present, and
the heater never seems to go high enough. The slop of daily wintry mix hardens
atop the drifts of snow from the last major storm with hasty cuts continually
being shoveled out for cars and then adorned with an array of space-savers to
mark ownership (and God help you if you ignored those signs of ownership). It
is an annual ordeal, a yearly battle that Bostonians fight and hold as a
grudging tradition, deeper seated in their hearts than the memories of the
Revolution and the otherwise long history of the city. It is more half of who
they are.

  Then just as suddenly, the winter is gone and
spring finds the streets awash with the accumulated weight of October through
March, too much for the drainage system of the city to bear, so that the water
from blackened snow piles translates itself into a filthy stagnancy along the
side of every street. That is of no matter though as the restaurants pull up
their shutters for the season, the smell of seafood and beer wafts about the
mismatched cobblestones of Faneuil Hall, and summer finds the city opening like
a flower or an eager college girl. No place appreciates the summer like Boston,
because Boston knows in its bones what the alternative is.

     Alabama seemed to take its warm days for
granted, and he found that he was slowly beginning to do so, too. But when he
had lived in Boston he had made every one of them count.  Cracking open
lobsters at Elliott’s on the waterfront during a sweltering day in July,
watching the street performers draw awed crowds, his laughing and then daintily
sipping his lemonade through a straw.

     Awful right field seats in Fenway, paying $7
for weak beer after weak beer, watching the game with his upper body turned
toward him as the seats required, catching the faintest hint of sweetness from
his hair and the shampoo he used. Feeling out of place at his favorite brunch
spot in Cambridge, filled with its ranks of alternative, hipster types and
their ubiquitous piercings and mismatched outfits, but feeling that awkwardness
melt away as he found him smiling not with disdain at his Charlestown accent
and stories of his youth, but with the doe-eyed gaze of someone as enamored
with him as he was with Elliott. He had loved the city then, loved every one of
its dive bars and hole-in-the-wall restaurants, the Green Line and the party
buses, the vagrants and the belligerent drunks. He had loved it as a part of
loving him but he would never be tied with the city from this point forward in
his mind.

     He could never go back.

     He could still remember it so freshly in his
mind.  Even though it had been three years since that fateful day.  He’d come home
after a long day of exams.  He had been so exhausted.  All he wanted was to
curl up in bed with Elliott and watch movies, or just talk.  It didn’t matter,
because anything with Elliott was surely better than the stress he had to go
through with school.

     He unlocked the front door with his cherished
key and stepped inside, rubbing at the back of his neck as he sighed.  He
tossed his keys onto the table that was positioned conveniently there at the
entrance, and then he shrugged out of his jacket, putting it on the coat rack
as Elliott always preferred before he moved into the kitchen for a glass of
lemonade.

     He’d kicked off his shoes near the beginning of
the hallway, which Elliott would scold him for but he could move them later. 
Right now he just wanted their bed, and Elliott’s arms around him.  He traveled
down the hallway and reached for the door knob, but he stopped when he heard a
giggle.  A very
feminine
giggle.  His heart froze inside of his chest,
becoming a heavy, painful lump of devastation.

     Elliott was known for the occasional
comedy-romance, so maybe it was just the television.  But then there was a
moan
,
and Rowan’s blood ran cold. 
Oh, God. No. Please no.
  Though when he
pushed the door open, his sudden fears were confirmed.  Elliott was tangled up
in the sheets with a young, very attractive red head.  She was arching her
back, her nails digging into Elliott’s upper back as he slammed his hips into
hers.

     Rowan stood there for several seconds, mouth
agape, and tears glistening in his eyes as he tried to take it all in.

     “Oh, fuck. Right there, Baby. You know how I
like it,” She purred like a kitten.  A very disgusting, red haired, home-wrecking
kitten.

     “Oh, yeah.  I know,” Elliott was growling as he
gripped the head board, slamming into her again.  They probably wouldn’t have
known he was there, but the shattering of the glass as it hit the floor,
sending lemonade everywhere made Elliott’s head snap up and he froze.  He’d
been caught.  The red head let out a small gasp, her eyes nearly bulging out of
her head when she met Rowan’s furious gaze.  She was like a deer caught in
headlights, not even being dignified enough to cover her breasts.

     “Rowan..”  Elliott started, immediate remorse
in his voice.  “Rowan, Baby, I can—“

     “How could you?”  Rowan asked, his voice
breaking.  He swallowed hard, though that was painful to do.  He slumped
against the door frame.  “After two years, Elliott?  Two years…”  He turned and
hurried from the bedroom, staggering blindly down the hall as tears flooded his
cheeks.  But he caught the small voice of the red head. 

     “You’re gay?”  She asked, a bit shocked.

     He could hear the sound of Elliott’s bare feet
hitting the floor as he pursued him, but Rowan did not stop.  He was grabbing
up his shoes, wiping at his eyes angrily as he plopped down on the edge of the
couch for the briefest of moments, struggling to get his shoes on.

     And then Elliott was there, his hands on
Rowan’s shoulders as he pleaded with him.  “Baby, please don’t,” He said.  “I’m
so sorry.  I…Fuck.  I’m so sorry.  I’m stupid, okay?  She means nothing to me.”

     When Rowan finally had his shoes on, he put his
foot down hard before he glared up at Elliott.  It must have been a mean glare,
because Elliott backed off immediately.

     “She means nothing to you?” He asked.  “And
I
do?  You don’t do this to
someone you love, Elliott.  You don’t hurt them.  You don’t cheat on them.  And
you sure as hell do not bring home some
girl
to fuck in
our
bed.”

    
Elliott was quiet for a moment, and Rowan just stood there staring at him,
“Don’t give me that bullshit, Elliott.  If she meant nothing to you, she would
not be in our bed.  She would not be causing this to happen right now,” He was
crying again, voice threatening to give out on him all together.  He pointed
towards the door then, fingers trembling.  “I’m going to leave now.  And when I
come back, it will be to get my CD collection and the few outfits I have here.
I won’t come back to talk or work anything out.  This is done. We’re done.”

    
Elliott moved towards the door, and it apparently didn’t matter to him that he
was naked, and that he was glistening with sweat from his acts of infidelity,
“I’m not letting you leave,” He said, his blue eyes frantic.

    
“If you don’t move, Elliott,” He said lowly, “I will move you myself.”  He
picked up his jacket before he reach down for his keys.  “Unless you’ve forgotten
my six years of boxing,” He glanced up at him again, his jawline tight.  His
face was red and more tears were still trying to fall from his saddened brown
eyes.  The light had left them entirely, and Elliott would never see it there
because of him again.

    
“I’m so sorry,” Elliott whispered, brows furrowed.  “I love you so much,
Rowan.  I do.  It won’t happen again, I swear.”

    
Rowan moved closer to the door, reaching down to grip the knob as he gazed
right into Elliott’s eyes, their noses an inch apart as he wrinkled his own in
disgust.  “Once a cheater, always a cheater,” He whispered.  “We’re over.”