The Rebuilding Year (24 page)

“So yeah, I understand hitting bottom. And I wanted to quit. But I just couldn’t. So I had the surgeries, did the drudgery to get back in shape. I took the MCATs flat on my stomach with a special administrator because…”
my ass was still raw from harvesting the skin grafts. TMI.
“Because I couldn’t sit. I got into medical school, came out here, met your dad, fell in love.”

Ryan nodded when Mark stared at him. “Yes, in love. Not lust, not like. I love your father more than anyone I’ve ever been with. And if that makes me gay, I guess I’m gay.” His throat closed for a moment. He’d said it out loud.
This is about Mark. You do what it takes.
“A hell of a lot of pain and changes. But I wouldn’t trade what I have now for anything, not even to get the leg and that old life back.”

“I don’t
have
an old life to
want
back,” Mark said bitterly.

“No?” Ryan hitched his hip on the dresser and looked at the boy. “You’re not wishing you were a kid again, with Mom and Dad and Sis, and everything easy?”

“Yeah, that’s not happening.”

“No, it’s not,” Ryan agreed. “So now you have to decide what you want, that you can actually have. You can go back to California, with your mom and stepdad and sister, and the baby that’s coming. Your mom loves you. If you tell her you need to change things, find a different school, I’m sure she’d listen.”

“Hah,” Mark contradicted. “She listens to him. And he’s stuck on Loyola Prep. He thinks it’s the greatest, and it’s all my fault I don’t fit in.”

“He wouldn’t let you try somewhere else?”

“He says that’s quitting. And quitters never win, and winners never quit. He has a quote for everything, so he never has to really listen to me.”

“How about this quote?” Ryan suggested. “’The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over, and expecting different results.’” He surprised a laugh out of Mark. “You’ve tried that school for what, a year and a half?” Mark nodded. “Okay, so if it’s not getting better yet, it’s probably not going to. Time to try something different.”

“Tell him. He likes talking about
my kids at Loyola
. Like it takes anything except money to get in there.” Mark looked up, his eyes shiny. “He likes it more than he likes me. We’re not really his kids, of course, me and Torey. So it’s no surprise we can’t meet his standards. Now the new baby, it’ll have those good Carlisle genes.”

“He said that?”

“He thinks it.” Mark’s expression was bleak.

“Or you could stay here.”

Mark just looked at him.

“You’re John’s son. You are always welcome here. And I’m thirty, and in love with a man. John’s kids are the closest I’ll probably ever come to having kids of my own.” For a moment Ryan paused, blindsided by yet another truth. That had hovered in the background, in a mist of
there’s always time later. Except later would be…different.
Mark was still watching him with shuttered eyes.
Where was I?
“We’d really like to have you. You can try out the school here, like you planned. If that doesn’t work, we can maybe even consider home-school or online classes or something.”

Mark looked skeptical. “But…?”

Ryan leaned forward. “But if you stay here, you will be living with your gay dad and his boyfriend. No apologies. I won’t give up your dad for you, and I sure as hell hope he wouldn’t give me up either. You don’t have to like me. You certainly don’t have to let me be a second father to you. But you have to be civil, you have to accept that I may hug your dad or even kiss him in front of you. You have to know that there may be teasing, slurs, intolerance of us, and of you, from narrow-minded people out there. It comes with the deal.”

“People will think I’m a faggot too.”

Ryan let the language slide. He had the feeling it was deliberate provocation. “They may. There’s no end to the ignorance you can find out there. Most won’t, but they can still give you a hard time for the supposed sins of your father. It won’t always be easy.”

“They’ll think you and Dad…do stuff with me.”

“I hope not.” Ryan paused, trying to decipher Mark’s expression. “You’re not worried, are you?”

“Of course not.” But Mark wasn’t looking at him.

“Mark. Your father is the same guy he always was. When you thought he was straight, you weren’t worried he would molest Torey, were you?”

“No.”

“Then he’s no more likely to molest you just because he’s gay.”
Lighten it up.
“As for me, well, I’m sorry, Mark. You’re a cute kid and all, but, um, look at yourself and then look at your father. You need about ten years and a hell of a lot of gym time to come close to matching him.”

“This is so fucked,” Mark said. “Why couldn’t he fall for a girl, like a normal guy?”

Ryan laughed. “I’m not getting a sex change, even for you.”

Mark snorted, and when he looked up his expression was warmer. “You’d really be okay with me staying?”

“Sure. I like you. I enjoy listening to you play guitar. I can’t wait to see what you’re going to make of your life. And if you’re here, and happier, then your dad is happier too. That means a lot to me. Enough to share the leftover pizza and pick your dirty socks up off the floor.”

“I don’t know.” At least Mark’s tone was more pensive, less bleak.

Ryan slid down off the dresser. “You don’t have to decide now. Call your mom and talk to her. Maybe your stepdad is more flexible than you thought. Give it some time. You can always change your mind again, but what you decide now will chart your course for at least the next few months. Don’t rush into things.”

Mark nodded slowly. When he looked up, his voice was a little shy. “You really like my music?”

Ryan punched him lightly on the arm as he went past. “Come on, Marcus. You don’t need me to tell you you’re damned good. Now you just need to decide what to do about it.”

Mark shut the door behind Ryan, but Ryan didn’t hear the lock. The sound of guitar strings resumed. Ryan recognized Mark’s own touch, the occasional error as he picked out a new piece. The playing sounded more pensive than angry. Ryan made his way down to his own room and pulled out his cell phone.
God, John only left twenty minutes ago.
It felt like hours. He waited, pacing, until he was sure John would have arrived. Until he was certain the man wasn’t out driving on the ice. Then he speed-dialed.

“Hello?”

“Hey, babe,” Ryan said softly. “You got a minute?”

“Sure.”

“You sitting down?”

“Okay, why do I get the feeling I won’t like what’s coming?”

“Remember a little while ago, when you kissed me goodbye on your way to work?”

“Yeah?”

“Well that was a CD playing in Mark’s room. He was standing on the steps watching us.”

“Oh hell.” There was a long silence. “What did he say? Do you want me to come home? I should probably come home.”

“No, I don’t think so,” Ryan said. “I talked to him, calmed him down. I think it’s good for him to be alone for a bit, get used to the idea. But later, you will need to talk to him.”

“What did you tell him?”

Ryan swallowed.
You said it to the boy, now say it to the man.
Why was this harder? “I told him that we were lovers, but only since January. I told him that this was something real, not just sex. I told him I love you.”

There was a long pause. “Really?”

“John, I love you.”

“God, I wish I was there when you said that.” John’s voice was rough. “Did you tell him I love you too?”

Ryan’s heart felt tight. “I might have mentioned it. But, John, you will have to talk to him about Cynthia. I told him a person can be bi, can love a woman and then a man, and not be lying either time. But he’s upset. So it would be good if you figure out what you’re going to say.”

“It would be even better if I had time to figure out the truth myself, about Cynthia.”

“Well, if there ever was a moment for introspection, this is it. If you come home as planned, you have about six hours to think. Use them wisely.”

“Ryan.”

“Yes?”

“Thank you. I’m sorry you’re the one that had to deal with this first, and thank you for talking to him.”

“No, I think it was good,” Ryan said. “He would have been a lot more emotional with you. And on the bright side, now I can kiss you when you get home.”

“I’ll be thinking about that.”

“Don’t rupture anything.”

John laughed.

“Listen,” Ryan said. “Call me when you’re leaving work, okay?”

“Definitely.”

Ryan sat listening to the dead air over his phone. So, that was that. Bridges burned.
I’m gay, I’m in love, and I’ve said it out loud.
Surely it would all be downhill from there. Like fitting an angry teenager and a gay sex life in the same household. Like deciding what to do in a couple of years after medical school was over and he had to find an internship.
Like telling your own father about John.
Okay, Ryan decided, there was still a lot of uphill in that downhill.

That evening, John let himself into Ryan’s room. Ryan was stretched out on the bed, making notes from a fat textbook. His black hair fell in his eyes. One muscular forearm supported the weighty volume on his knees. John stopped and just looked at him.

His lover glanced up from the bed, and set aside his notebook. “How’s he doing?”

John sighed and dropped onto the foot of the bed. “Okay, I think. He doesn’t seem to be too homophobic, thank God. But he’s confused at how I could change like this. And he’s still worried that I lied and tricked his mother somehow. And although he won’t admit it, he’s worried I care about you more than him. I could just feel him hovering on the edge of making me choose between you. He didn’t say it, but maybe because he was scared that I would choose you.”

“Like his mother seems to have chosen Carlisle.”

“Yeah. God, I didn’t think…no wonder he’s scared and pissed off.”

Ryan scooted over and slid an arm around him. “And how are you, Johnny?”

John leaned into him gratefully. “I’m okay. Scared. I don’t want him going back to a place he hated enough to run away from. But I don’t know if he’ll be willing to stay here.”

“I don’t think you’re giving him enough credit. He just needs time.”

“I hope so.” John closed his eyes and inhaled the smell of Ryan’s skin. “It’s maybe a good thing I was at work so long there wasn’t time for guitar shopping. We’ll go out tomorrow, get that guitar. It’ll give us something to talk about that’s not…us.”

Ryan’s mouth brushed his hair. “Good thought.”

“Jesus,” John said. “I want you. I thought it would be easier, now that he knows, but I can just imagine him in there, waiting and listening, wondering what we’re doing.”

Ryan paused. “Shower?”

“Huh?”

“You always take a shower after work. A long shower. With lots of fan and falling-water type noises.”

“And?”

“We could maybe take the edge off now.” Ryan’s mouth was warm across his temple. “Then tonight we sleep in separate bedrooms again. So the kid can relax a bit.”

John pictured it. Heat and water and Ryan. “Think you can sneak into my bathroom?”

“I think it could be arranged.”

“Five minutes.” John hauled himself up off the bed. He paused in the hall to knock on Mark’s door.

“What?”

“Need anything? Because if not, I’m going to take my shower.”

The return to loud chords could be taken as a no. John headed down to his room to undress. He dropped his clothes on the floor. The bottom of those jeans were soaked to the knees. He looked down at himself.
Yeah, thinking about clothes, right.
He was stone hard and ready.
Five minutes.
He went into the bathroom and turned on the fan, leaving the door unlocked.

It was closer to fifteen minutes before the door handle turned. Typical. Ryan was all about anticipation. At least the times when he didn’t just slam John down on the bed.
Oh yeah.

Ryan came in, dressed but feet bare, and locked the door behind him. “Now I like this.” His eyes swept over John’s bare body. His voice was the hot growl that John had missed.

John plastered himself against the man, rubbing his naked dick against rough denim. Ryan took his mouth roughly. Ryan’s hands found his ass, digging in.

“God, God, God,” he was moaning against Ry’s lips, around the probing tongue. It came out as wordless groans. He fought to keep it soft.

“Water,” Ryan whispered, pulling back. “Turn it on.”

John stepped to the shower and started it, fumbling with the taps so he could watch Ryan undress. It was worth watching. Broad, hard chest, lightly furred with dark hair, fat brown nipples hardening in the cool air, round biceps, muscular forearms, flat stomach, and then,
Jesus, yes,
Ryan was going commando. Black denim dropped to the floor.

Ryan’s hand on John’s chest held him at bay. “Get in the water.”

John stepped in, letting the streams flow over his head and down his chest. He blinked water out of his eyes. Ryan stepped in facing him. “Kiss me.”