What It Takes (14 page)

“Shush, you,” he says, then picks up the pens with a smile. Some sides to him she’s never seen, but some she’ll always know because they’re second nature. He’s a facts-and-figures guy all the way.

Dr. Schroeder turns out to be a tiny, gray haired and naturally gentle man. Milo supposes his bedside manner is excellent comfort to his patients. It doesn’t comfort him, though. He imagines what it might take to be an oncologist, constantly delivering bad news. What’s the loss rate for an oncologist? He makes a note to look that up later, then crosses it out. Stress he has in spades at this moment. There’s no reason to add more by looking at numbers.

“I’ve checked with Nancy, and it looks like we’ll be able to do the surgery by June,” Dr. Schroeder says.

“So soon?” his mom says, paling.

“We don’t want to put this off, Shelby,” he says gently.

“I know, I know.” She puts a hand to her forehead. “It seems a lot more real when we’re talking about surgery.”

“I know.” Dr. Schroeder smiles carefully, then turns to Milo. “I see you have a notebook at the ready, young man. I’m assuming you have questions?”

“Actually, yes.” Milo flips to the list of questions he’s been making all week. His mother laughs softly.

°

They drive home in quiet. She has a classical station that she prefers on low. Milo finds it slipping through him and lulling him into an autopilot haze. The scenery blurs past him; for once he doesn’t observe it with resentment.

When they get home he makes her some tea and then laces up his shoes. “I’m going to go for a walk.”

“Good.” She’s burrowed under a blanket.

“I’ll turn down the AC,” he says when he sees her tuck it over her shoulders.

“No, don’t. I’m not cold. Just want some comfort,” she says, smiling up at him. He hesitates.

“I’ll stay home—”

“Milo, go. This is going to be hard on us both, and I know you need time to yourself. We both need to figure out ways to get through this as best we can.”

Milo pushes back the sweep of hair falling over her cheek and tucks it behind her ear.

“I’ll stop at Winslow’s on my way home. I feel like making a ‘spoil Mom’ dinner.”

“You don’t have to spoil me.”

“But I want to.” He kisses her cheek and turns toward the door.

°

The beach isn’t quite deserted. Tide is at its highest, covering the rocks and debris and a good portion of the sand where he usually sits. It’s overcast. Far down the beach a couple walks in the shallows, hands clasped.

Ted’s wife seems nice, and he’s promised to go to their house for dinner soon. They have a little boy, just over a year old. Kathy showed him pictures with that special pride only new parents have. Dylan is adorable, but in the generic way all young kids are. Milo is embarrassed to have put off reconnecting with someone he once knew very well for so long. He’s regaining his footing here, slowly, and he has faith he’ll be steady enough to renew old friendships as his new self. Ted is a new person now, too—an adult with a wife and a child and a home: all things Milo struggles to picture when the Ted he remembers was a smart-mouthed kid, a rabble rouser and their class clown.

It looks as if Milo will be home for a while, and the truth is he’s a little lonely. Back home in Denver, Milo’s begun to feel the empty spaces in his life friends can’t fill: here, he feels them in every way. Aching for something he can’t have is useless, and there’s no reason to punish himself by lingering over it. For now, a few friends while he’s here will do.

The water quiets him with its rhythmic movement. The tide starts to let out, and the sun peeks through scattering clouds. Milo is startled out of his calm when he hears a laugh peal down the beach. The couple he saw earlier is closer now, kicking water at each other in a playful game. He watches as they come closer, and as the sun makes a sudden brilliant appearance, he recognizes with a shock that he knows one of them.

Because one of them is Andrew.

chapter nine

M
ilo has to resist the urge to run when he sees Andrew stop stock-still in the water, not moving when his companion splashes him.

Milo closes his eyes and then pushes himself to stand. Sand clings to his pants and he takes a moment to brush it off, internally scrambling to figure out the protocol for this. Excitement mixes with panic. His heart is in his throat like an angry hummingbird, choking his breath. The seven years between them is a chasm he learned not to want to cross, much less approach, and now he’s suddenly on its edge.

“Wow,” Andrew says once they’re close enough to hear each other. His companion trails along, confusion clear on his face. Andrew has changed in the last few years, but subtly. His hair is blonder, long and deliberately tousled. He seems slightly taller, and his once long-limbed, almost too-thin frame has settled into something lithe and devoid of angles. “Um. Wow.”

Milo is equally eloquent. “You’re here?” He winces and shakes his head. “That was dumb. Of course you’re here. I mean, um.
Here
.” He snaps his lips together. Andrew’s cheeks are a high pink.

“Same,” Andrew says.

“All right,” the man next to him kicks in. “We’ve established that we’re all here?”

“Oh, oops.” Andrew smiles at him, strained but familiar. “Um, Milo, Dex Howell. Dex, Milo.” His hand does a thing, the thing it does when he’s nervous. Milo swallows hard. It’s a gesture he saw hundreds of times growing up. For a startling moment he feels young again. He gathers himself enough to reach out a hand to shake.

“Milo, huh?” Dex says. His eyebrows lower, then he smiles. He must know who Milo is: that expression was clear. Next to each other they seem night and day; Dex is black haired and brown eyed, stockier than Andrew and shorter than them both. They shake hands, both putting a little too much strength in it. He thinks of the picture they made, silhouettes against the sun, playing on the beach. Andrew’s lover? Partner?

“I’m stuck at wow,” Andrew says then. Milo shoots him a look. This is probably the most awkward Milo has ever felt. He wonders wildly what happens now. Talking? Sitting in the sand and reminiscing? Walking away and pretending this never happened? Andrew here in Santuit was not a possibility he’d considered. His mom would have told him if she’d known, right?

“Are you visiting your mom?” Andrew says. They all squint against the sun, which bursts through the clouds again.

“Yeah.” Milo is not about to go into details. Not when the air is this thick between three people who are two-thirds strangers. Andrew’s skin is darker than Milo remembers; it’s still tan, even coming out of a long winter and late spring. He still looks younger than his age, but he’s no longer boyish.

“I thought you usually had her come out to you?” Andrew says, then looks away. The admission that he knows such a thing is startling.

“Change of pace, I guess,” Milo lies. The words stick uneasily.

“Well,” Dex butts in, “it’s been a while since you guys saw each other. You should catch up sometime.”

“Uh—” Milo starts.

“We have plans tonight.” Dex rolls right over Milo’s interruption. “But we should meet up.” Milo doesn’t miss the emphasis on the
we
.

“Oh, definitely,” Andrew says. Milo can’t read the tone. The wind tosses his hair and the sun catches the lighter streaks.

“Great,” Milo says, trying for authentic enthusiasm. The panic is starting to tingle and grow. He needs to get away so he can pull himself together.

“You at your mom’s?” Andrew asks.

“Yeah.”

“We’ll call you there, then.” Again with the
we
.

“Yeah. Great. Sure.” Milo sucks in a breath and balls up one hand. “I have to go; I was about to leave. I’ll talk to you soon.”

“Looking forward to it,” Dex adds. Milo wants to imagine there’s bitterness in his tone, but there’s not.

Once they’ve walked away, Andrew shoots one last unreadable glance over his shoulder. Milo stumbles up the path to his car with the deep sand sucking at his feet and making it a slog. By the time he reaches the car, he’s out of breath. It’s his once-constant companion, anxiety, coming back to run his life, constricting his lungs.

He thinks of the view from his home in Denver, how calming it is, how in that life anxiety and fear are more memory than reality.

Fuck.

° ° °

“So that’s
the famous Milo,” Dex says, folding his sweater and putting it onto his shelf. Andrew has to pop his head into the closet to hear him.

“What?”

“I said, so that’s the famous Milo.”

God, not now,
Andrew thinks. Although he supposes it’s never going to seem like a good time. “Famous?”

“Well, you’ve told me all about him,” Dex points out. It’s true he has. Moving on has never meant forgetting to Andrew. Well, maybe forgetting certain things. But he never planned on deleting his childhood best friend from memory, even when he unfriended him on social media, forbade friends from mentioning him and buried what he’d let go deep inside.

“I don’t see how that makes him
the famous Milo
,” Andrew says, air quoting defensively.

“Andrew.” Dex takes him by the hand and leads him to their bed, patting the spot next to him. Dex’s hair is always neat and orderly, but Andrew smooths it with nervous fingers at his temple where the slightest hints of grey are coming in. “I’m not dumb. I know it has hurt, losing contact with him. I could tell how surprised you were. You can talk to me about it.”

“Hm.” Andrew puts a hand on Dex’s cheek and looks into sweet, steady brown eyes that rarely look at him with anything but genuine care. “I was surprised,” he admits. “I’m not sure how I feel about it.”

“Seeing him?”

“Yeah,” Andrew says and then kisses Dex. “I don’t know what brought him back here, but it’s probably not a good thing.”

“Why is that?”

Andrew shakes his head. “Let’s not talk about this tonight.” Milo’s story isn’t his to tell, and their story is more complicated than he could explain to Dex. Telling him only bits over this last year has seemed like a lie. A lie of omission, meant to spare his own heart.

“I don’t mean to upset you,” Dex says, then kisses him back. Andrew closes his eyes and breathes him in, the steady comfort that’s
Dex
. He focuses on feeling his lips track down his neck and the light touch of his hands lifting Andrew’s shirt as he lays Andrew down. Dex is the one who has been with him longest, who has loved Andrew despite his initial fears and his long-time inability to commit.

Dex makes love to him as if he’s precious tonight. He saturates every one of Andrew’s senses until he is senseless, and his pleasure peaks with Dex’s name on his lips.

It’s only after, when Dex is lax in sleep beside him, that Andrew remembers what it was like to fall asleep with another man he’s worked fruitlessly for years to push out of his heart.

° ° °

It takes
two days for him to contact Milo. He tries to learn what’s going on through town gossip, but he’s not really able to probe without giving away his hand. It’s Dex who makes him call, after Andrew repeats that something awful must be going on. He only tells Dex that Milo had a very difficult life here and had to move on.

“Well then, he’ll need a friend,” Dex says sensibly. Andrew can tell that Dex’s initial sense of unease has bled out. Andrew’s done everything he can think of to reassure him without words—touches and thoughtful gestures and open intimacy that he sometimes shies away from. Fucking, he can do; Andrew gets that. Tenderness and vulnerability are incredibly hard for him and something Dex wants more often than Andrew can manage, even after all this time.

Andrew fiddles with a pen while he dials. Dex is at work, so he’s alone. He cannot handle an audience for this.

Shelby answers on the fourth ring. “Hello, this is Shelby at Graham’s Bed and Breakfast.”

“Mrs. Graham. It’s Andrew,” he says. His voice is shaky. Hers is a little breathless. He hopes he hasn’t made her run to the phone.

“Oh my goodness, Andrew honey, it’s so good to hear from you.”

“It’s good to hear your voice, too.”

“I’d heard you were back.”

“Yes, a few months ago. We’re settling in.”

“We?” she asks, only curiosity in her tone.

“Uh, yes, my boyfriend Dex and I.”

“Oh, wonderful. I should have you both over for dinner sometime. I assume you know Milo is home?”

“Yes, actually we ran into him on the beach a few days ago. We talked about getting together to catch up. That’s why I’m calling.”

“He went for a walk a bit ago. Do you want me to leave him a message?”

“That,” he says as he clears his throat and squints hard at his ottoman, “that would be great.” He rattles off his number and promises to come over to see her sometime.

°

He has several articles due in the next few days and he hasn’t updated his blog all week. He has a religious schedule of posting somewhere every few days. As far as his personal blog goes, he’ll have to figure out what the hell he’ll say. He’s never held back from talking about his life. There’s something about his candor that draws readers. There’s something about the distance between his heart and his words and the readers that has always made him feel safer about exposing himself to that world.

Milo’s sudden reappearance—or his reaction to it—isn’t something he thinks he can share yet.

Milo calls about an hour after Andrew left his message. He’s finally managed to make some headway on one of his pieces when the phone wakes him from his work zone trance. That’s what Dex calls it, because it’s hard to rouse him from it.

“Andrew?” Milo’s voice is steady but unsettling. Familiar, but not.

“That’s me,” he tries for a light tone. “You called me,” he says like an idiot.

“You called me first,” Milo points out. There’s a bantering tone in Milo’s voice. He’s definitely regained footing since their run-in at the beach, where Andrew could tell he was shaken. Hell, they both were.

“Well, we did promise.” Andrew winces at the
we
.

“So what’s up?” Milo says after a too-long beat that’s incredibly awkward. At least for Andrew.

“I thought we should get together. Catch up,” Andrew says.

“Yeah. How about lunch? Unless you have to work—?”

“No, lunch is good, my job is very flexible. I don’t know about Dex; I’ll see if he wants to come along?”

“Sounds good. Let me give you my cell number and you can text me. I’m free as a bird for the time being.”

Andrew is dying to know what’s going on, but he can’t really ask over the phone.

“Free as a bird?”

“Shut up.” Milo laughs. Andrew sighs and absorbs the sound.

“All right, I’ll text you after I talk to Dex,” Andrew promises.

“Awesome.”

Andrew sits, staring at his phone. How should he handle this? The truth is he doesn’t want Dex there. Not for this meeting. He and Milo have a lot sitting between them and he doesn’t know how to navigate that with his boyfriend there. Andrew is tempted to search the Internet for some sort of guide, but he doesn’t think there is one for
how to juggle a man you loved for years and the one you love now but don’t want to know about it or get involved.

In the end he texts Dex,
Milo is free for lunch, can you get one off this week?

No I’m swamped. No dinner?

I don’t think he can. I don’t know what’s up.

There’s a long pause before the next comes.

Go ahead and meet him for lunch. Maybe we can do something all together another day
.

Andrew sighs with relief. It’s hard to read tone through text, so he’s not certain what Dex really feels. He opens his contacts, adds Milo’s number and texts him.

This is Andrew. Lunch is good. What day?

Like I said, any day is good. Even today.

Andrews closes his eyes, thunks his head on his desk and takes a deep breath.

Tribute? Is that good?

Oh, we’ve become fancy with age have we?

Andrew laughs.
Fancy enough for Tribute. Maybe not ready for Ashe’s. Plus they have excellent white wine sangria.

Well you had me at sangria. Noon?

Sure. See you there.

°

Andrew spends twenty minutes in his closet staring blankly at his clothes before he pulls himself together with a strong chastisement. This isn’t a date; it’s Milo. He doesn’t have to dress to impress.

But he wants to. To show who he’s grown into. A small and bitter voice thinks,
to show how I’ve grown without you.

In the end he picks a three-quarter sleeved T-shirt in soft, deep purple cotton and shorts. His hair is a too-long disaster; he’s overdue for a cut. He does what he can, looks himself over and tucks his wallet and phone into his pocket. He can do this.

°

Milo has to deal with his mom being sappy about his old friendship with Andrew when he tells her where he’s going. She always loved Andrew, even when his father wouldn’t allow him to visit after Andrew came out. Despite the distance between them, she had to have known Andrew was Milo’s refuge.

By the time he’s extracted himself from her, he has five minutes to get ready. He changes out of the ratty shirt he was wearing into a deep blue polo, throws on some sneakers and rushes out the door. Wondering what will happen, what he can possibly say, takes up most of his thoughts. Right behind that is an excitement he can’t deny. They promised to move on for good reasons. He’s a different man; he assumes Andrew is. A trip down memory lane and reconnecting with a childhood friend sounds like something he’s more ready for than when he sat on the beach a few days ago, contemplating calling Ted. Meeting Andrew is more fraught in many ways, but oddly, also easier.

Andrew is sitting on the patio, under the arch of the gorgeous old maple that dominates the front of the restaurant.

“Is outside okay with you?” he asks when Milo sits.

“Of course,” Milo says. Andrew’s already got his sangria. The sun is stippling between the leaves, at times bright and then shading green.