Random Acts of Love (Random #5) (30 page)

“I didn’t miss Marlene’s tits.”

“How can you miss them? For a tiny little woman she’s got breasts the size of beach balls.”

“Can we not talk about Josie’s mother’s boobs?”

“Hey. At least we’re in a bathroom.” He stood and lifted the toilet lid. “Puke if you need to.”

I was nauseated, but not from Marlene’s nude body. I was sick to my stomach with fear. Fear that Darla wouldn’t take us back. Fear that we’d fucked everything up so badly with her that it really was over. Fear that I’d screwed up my entire life up with despair over losing her.

And the very real fear that Marlene might very well get that man sandwich if we didn’t find a way out of this.

But mostly fear of rejection from Darla.

“What are our chances?” I asked Joe.

“Of getting out of here? I’d guess—”

“No. Of Darla taking us back.”

He blinked and let a bunch of air out through his nose. “I don’t know. We’ve been so focused on just getting here and finding her that I haven’t thought much about what we’ll say when we do see her.”

“Do you want her back?”

My words hung in the air, suspended like water in a cloud. As the seconds ticked by, I found my hands folding into fists, my elbows tensing, my shoulders tightening—all of the different parts of my body spasming in out of sync, without rhyme or reason. My mom once told me that pain and stress come out in the body, even if the mind doesn’t acknowledge them. 

Another thing my mom was right about.

“Yes. Of course,” Joe finally said, his voice thick with emotion.

“Don’t say it because it’s the expected response.”

The look he shot me was raw and challenging.

“Don’t patronize me, you fucker. I wouldn’t have gotten you out of jail, explained how I found my mom’s chicken, driven six hundred miles with you and found myself hiding in a women’s bathroom in a dive bar if I didn’t want her back.” 

I let out a huge sigh, unaware I’d been holding my breath. “Good.”

“What about you, Trev?”

“What about me?”

“You sure you want to get back together with her?”

I opened my mouth to protest, and then it hit me. We weren’t asking each other these questions because we seriously thought the other person didn’t want Darla.

We were asking ourselves if we were ready for what it meant to openly
claim
Darla. If she’d let us. We may have blown it. I’d given her lots of space after she left and maybe that was a mistake. Coming here and being face-to-face rather than struggling with the limitations of texts and voice calls felt right. It felt solid. 

Risky.

Very risky. We were pulling our hearts out of our chests and handing them, beating, before her.

“What about me?” Joe asked, his voice so low, so deep I barely heard him.

“What about you?”

He gave me a look so serious I flinched. “You. Me. How do you feel about
me
?”

I made a weird sound, like a hiccup. If Joe had shot me I couldn’t be more shocked. We’d carefully avoided any talk about us in this threesome. Joe used his jealousy to wall that off. To create a subdivision between how each of us related to Darla and how we related to each other.

Or, rather,
didn’t
. We didn’t relate to each other except through bickers and fights. And yet he was my best friend.

Aside from Darla.

“How do I feel about you? What, exactly, do you...” I lost my voice, because the ragged pain in his eyes told me I’d said the wrong words.

“Look,” he said, his voice filled with emotion, “we’re a threesome. But we’ve been acting like two twosomes who intersect at Darla. I’m gone in Philadelphia most of the time and the two of you have gotten closer. That feels like my heart is being eaten bite by bite by fire ants. We’re both taking a year off law school and we’re going on tour. Assuming we can grovel and get her back, Darla will be around us both. Nonstop. Full-time for nearly a year on the road.” 

I frowned. “So....?”

“So no more imbalance. I feel like a third wheel in this relationship and there’s no way I’m living like that any more. Even if it means
I’m
the one who has to walk away.”

Holy fuck.

Joe just
emoted
with me. Brutal honesty and vulnerability weren’t his forte. Two years ago we stood in the hallway on the other side of this bathroom door and realized there was no jealousy as he kissed Darla. We found ourselves in new emotional and romantic terrain. We’d spent the last two years navigating geography, jobs, law school, the band, and our emotional development within the relationship and as separate people.

It turned out Joe had a deeper inner life than I’d ever given him credit for possessing.

I met his eyes and decided I’d emote right back.

“When I’m with Darla, I’m with you, too. You might not be in the bed, but you’re in our hearts.”

His face twisted into a surprised look of hilarity. “That sounded so bad, Trevor. Like a Hallmark card. A fucking Hallmark card for threesomes.”

I threw a roll of toilet paper at him. “Fuck you. I’m trying.”

He dodged it neatly. “Yeah. You are.” He stopped laughing. “If Darla takes us back, are you really ready to go public? Tell your parents and live openly as a threesome?”

I sighed. Raised voices from beyond the hallway caught my attention, but then the sound died down. Joe looked at me with expectation.

“Yes.” I swallowed and ran my hands down my legs, beginning to pace. “I think we’ve made a huge mistake torturing ourselves all this time. We should have just ripped the Band-aid off and told them. What can they do? They have less and less power over us.”

“True. If the band takes off, we don’t need their money.”

I nodded. “Even if the band doesn’t, we have to do this, and we have to face the consequences. And if they really do love us, they’ll accept this. It’s not like their denial or anger is going to make me stop loving who I want.”

“No kidding,” Joe added.

“We lived our lives by their standards all those years. It’s time to live by ours. Openly.”

Joe came over to me and gave me a huge hug. He was warm and smelled like sweat and fear. His body felt strong against mine, fearful but determined. Cautious but unyielding. We were doing this on our terms

And we had a lot of shit to eat with Darla.

Joe pulled out of the hug and I said,“It’s a bachelor party. We’re in the women’s bathroom. Darla’s uncle and soon-to-be stepfather are out there. Alex—”

“We turned Alex into our sacrificial lamb,” Joe said soberly. “Made him our Wicker Man.”

“It’s not like he’s out there screaming ‘Not the bees!’”

“I think he came damn close to it, though, when she rubbed those pasties on his—”

BAM! BAM! BAM!

It sounded like Bigfoot was trying to break down the door.

“Come on, boys! Have some fun!” Marlene said. “Besides, there’s a show to watch. Mike and Darla are goin’ at it.” 

Joe ripped the door open. There stood Marlene, half covered in some kind of flannel blanket, Josie tugging on her arm.

I heard Mike screaming at someone.

Darla screamed back.

Joe sprinted toward the sound and I followed, pushing past Marlene. Joe rushed up to Mike and Darla, who were an inch from each others face, mouths set in anger and jaws clenched in combat.

And then Mike turned and looked at us with eyes that said we were as good as dead.

Darla

“You got a problem with Darla?” Joe said in a voice so menacing my entire body tightened, butthole and pussy and throat most of all. He walked right up to Mike and got in his face. It was like watching David confront Goliath.

A very drunk, outraged Goliath.

“No,” Mike spat out. “I ain’t got no problem with Darla.” He shoved Joe’s shoulder. “But I got a big fuckin’ problem with you.”

Fear flared in Joe’s eyes. Even in the dim light of the bar I could see it. Or maybe I just felt it.

This was not exactly how I pictured my reunion moment with Trevor and Joe.

But you take what life throws at you, and in about three seconds Mike was gonna throw five knuckles in Joe’s face.

“What’s that?” Joe asked, not backing down. He stayed right in place, ready for whatever Mike was about to do. I was vaguely aware of Trevor, a few feet away, ready to jump to Joe’s defense. They were here. Here! But why?

“You been using my niece to—”

“HOLD ON THERE!” me and Mama shouted in unison.

Mike’s neck whipped back.

“Nobody’s been using me, Uncle Mike. I am who I am and take full responsibility for my choices,” I declared, Mama moving next to me, her arm around my shoulders like a support beam. 

“But these two—”

Trevor moved closer in solidarity with Joe. “We’ve been loving Darla. Not using her.” Trevor looked at me with a pained expression, pleading eyes making sure I knew this was the truth.

And I did know. That wasn’t the problem.

“It’s unnatural!” Mike spat.

Calvin stepped up as Mama took in a long, sharp breath and got ready to give it to Mike with both barrels. “Mike,” he said softly, putting his hand on Mike’s beefy shoulder. “I think we can all agree that Darla’s said her piece about whatever you’re worried about. I know you’re only saying this because you love her.”

Mike deflated a bit, his puffed up back slowly relaxing. “Yeah,” he said gruffly. “Of course I love her. She’s my little girl. After Charlie died, I was it. I was the closest thing to a daddy she had.” His eyes flickered over to Josie, who stood watching, Alex and Marlene on either side of her. “Josie, too. And to think that these two little pieces of shit been playing some game with her, like she’s something to experiment with and get your jollies off—”

His anger came back. Calvin patted his shoulder and simply said, “Darla says that’s not the case. Do you believe her?”

I was starting to really understand why Mama loved Calvin.

Mike took in a few fevered breaths, his face flushed. He looked about two good screams away from a heart attack.

“Yes.”

“Then shut up,” Mama said. Calvin didn’t react, which showed me he really did know her well. You would think that would make Mike angry, but he just curled in a little more. He knew he was wrong.

“We love her,” Joe said, still in Mike’s face. “We have for a long time. She dumped us and we’re here to convince her to take us back to we can go back to the way things were.”

Go back to the way things were.

“This is the weirdest fucking bachelor party I ever been to,” Pete Durand muttered, then slipped over to the bar and raised his hand for another.

“I don’t want things the way they were,” I piped up. Mama’s hand went stone still on my shoulder. 

Trevor and Joe turned to me, their eyes filled with a kind of naked vulnerability that made me lose my breath.

“How about you do this in private,” Mama whispered, giving me a squeeze.

“Can we talk to you?” Trevor asked, motioning toward the door.

I nodded and gave Mama a hug. “Josie’ll take me home. You go. Do what you gotta do,” she whispered in my ear. “And don’t let anyone make you think you can’t.”

Tears filled my eyes. I let go of her and walked over to Uncle Mike. Gave him a bigass hug that he reciprocated.

“We okay?” he asked.

I snorted. “We’re both stubborn as fuck and we’re never wrong. Of course we’re okay. We’re the only two people in the world who are.”

He smiled and I turned to Calvin. Opened my arms for a hug that he accepted. He smelled like mothballs and glue, which made me shiver a bit. His hands cut open dead beasts all day.

And yet he was the happiest person in the room.

“Thank you,” I murmured in his ear.

“Any time,” he said back.

And with that I walked out of Jerry’s Bar, stepped over old snoring Jack, and waited for my fate.

Joe

I was pretty sure I was about to become ground up Joeburger for a flower bed somewhere on the town green here in Peters until Calvin stepped in and calmed Mike down. My jaw felt tighter than my mom’s reconstructed hymen and I needed to vomit.

And not just from making that analogy.

Darla bit her lips and didn’t say a word until we were out by my car, the only light in the parking lot spotlighting us. She looked amazing, in a t-shirt, flannel shirt, jeans, and with her hair tied back. Same old Darla.

We weren’t the same old Joe and Trevor.

She stood next to my car, folded her hands in front of her, and waited.

Silent Darla wasn’t part of my world, so I just stood there, wondering what to do next. So, apparently, did Trevor.

No one said a word for at least a minute. Soon, we heard raised voices from the bar.

“Mama and Mike,” Darla said finally, breaking the quiet.

My heart pumped blood so fast my head felt like it was spinning. I thought about the short time since she’d broken up with us, and how much had happened. I watched Trevor’s face out of the corner of my eye and how he struggled. I began to breathe in concert with Darla’s breath, wishing I knew what I could say that would erase time, rewinding us back to the moment I made the mistake of trying to crash that dinner party.

Or even further back, when Trevor was invited.

Or two years back, when Darla moved to Cambridge and we played the most dangerous game of thinking we could grow in our relationship with her, without making it public.

It’s not even the shame, is it? I thought that was what drove my double life, but now, looking at Darla and Trevor, and knowing how badly I wanted this to work, I had a moment of clarity so pure I almost started to weep. 

It wasn’t fear.

It wasn’t shame.

It wasn’t paralysis.

It wasn’t any of those at all. It was the simple truth that I didn’t know a single person who followed a path like the one Darla, Trevor and I had, and as a result I had no framework for putting us into a category. A space. A slot.

We couldn’t be catalogued or indexed, neither inventoried nor recorded. We presented a relationship so unique in our social circles that Darla’s uncle was screaming at her mother over it.