Family Man (4 page)

Rachel waited for half a minute before replying. “Vinnie, are you telling me…” She trailed off, not finishing.

Vince gripped the rails until his knuckles were white. “No. I mean, I don’t think so.” He sighed and sagged forward. “Hell, Rach. I don’t know what I mean. All I know is that I’ve felt weird ever since then. All messed up. The way I heard them talking from the other room. I don’t know. It doesn’t make any sense at all, but I keep thinking…” He pushed off the rail and turned away, grabbing the box of cigarettes.

He took his time lighting up, lingering a little in the corner, bracing his arm above his head against the wall as he tried to collect himself. He didn’t notice Rachel leave the balcony, but she must have because when she nudged his arm, she was handing him his refilled glass of scotch, and when he turned back around to sip it, he saw the bottle sitting on the table.

She leaned against the door, idly trying to light her own cigarette. When Vince tried to take the lighter to do it for her, she waved him off and motioned to his drink. He sipped at it, watching her.

“I mean, I’m not,” he said, not exactly sure it was true, but feeling better for saying so. “I played around when I was at school, but it didn’t mean anything.”

“You’re telling me you had sex with guys in college?”

Vince nearly dropped his scotch. “No.” He set the drink down, took a heavy toke on the Havana Oval and grabbed the lighter from Rachel, cupping his hand around it as he sparked the flame for her. “No, not ‘guys’.
Guy
. One. And it wasn’t sex. It was just playing, like I said.”

Rachel inhaled, lowered the cigarette and blew smoke out of the corner of her mouth. “What’s playing? Are you talking hand jobs, or blowjobs, or what?”

Vince retreated back to his corner and kept his eyes on the floor of the balcony. “Both. I mean, I never gave one,” he added quickly. That had always seemed so important, and it was a lifeline right now. “But there was this guy. We’d jerk each other off a lot, and…” he reached for his scotch and took a deep drink, “…sometimes he’d blow me. But it was just fucking around. I think he was gay, but…you know.”

Daring a glance at Rachel, he saw that no, she didn’t know. She didn’t look disgusted, but she did look confused. “I don’t get it. He was gay, but you were…what?”

I don’t know.
“Horny.” He drew again on the cigarette. Then he shrugged. “He wanted me to fuck him. I didn’t want to. That was too far.
That
was gay.” He ashed out and glared at the floor. “I wasn’t gay. I dated girls, Rach.”

“But you played around with a gay man.” When Vince started to panic again, she held up a hand. “I’m trying to understand, sweetie.”

So was Vince. He let his head fall back against the wall. “I mean, hell. I don’t have any idea how many women I’ve dated.” Panic swelled, terror racing up from his feet like a fire. Bolstered by high-quality scotch and Nat Sherman’s finest tobacco, he made himself say the rest. “But I’ve always noticed guys too.”

He felt like he’d jumped over the rail of Rachel’s balcony. For the first time in his life, he wished she weren’t as one with silence as he was, wished she had their mother’s penchant for filling spaces with questions and observations. Rachel was quiet a long time, so he made himself wait, and breathe.

The scotch and the Havanas helped.

“Okay,” Rachel said at last. “Here’s what I need help with. Are you telling me that you like women
and
men, and that’s what you realized when you were at this couple’s house, or are you telling me that you like men and have all along but liked women enough that you could fake it and don’t want to anymore?”

Vince felt dizzy. Almost sick. Because that was the question, wasn’t it? He’d been telling himself he was trying to work out if this was some stupid…phase? Crazy idea? Psychosis? Something along those lines. But leave it to Rach to skip right over that and into the belly of the beast.

“I don’t know,” he whispered at last.

He wanted her to come over and hug him. To ruffle his hair and tease him and call him silly and promise him it would all be okay. To reassure him that he wasn’t… Hell. He didn’t even know the word for it. Messed up. Delusional.

Wrong in the eyes of God and his family.

She didn’t, though. She wasn’t forming the sign of the cross with her fingers and backing away, but she was quiet and thoughtful, not comforting. “Well,” she said at last, “I have to say, I didn’t see this coming.”

Vince couldn’t take it anymore. “Rach,” he whispered.

Thank God, thank
God
, she did come over to him then, extinguishing her Havana in the silver ashtray she kept on the sill before she took him in her arms, making gentle shushing noises as she stroked his hair and kissed the side of his ear. “It’s okay, baby,” she promised softly. “You’re okay. Straight, bi, gay—I’m going to love you no matter what you are, forever.”

Her words were a relief and a terror at once. “I’m not gay,” he objected, his voice rough.

She kissed him again, on his temple this time. “You might be, hon. And don’t freak out like that. I know this has to break every piece of the Italian macho code they programmed into your DNA, but let me be the first to inform you that gay men can be pretty macho too.”

“But I don’t
know
that I’m—that,” Vince insisted. He sounded a little whiny, he knew, but Jesus. Not
that
.

To his surprise, Rachel got angry. “Gay, Vincent. You can say it without bursting into flames. Gay. G-A-Y gay.” She reached for his scotch and drained the last of it. “You insult half my advertising team when you act like it’s a disease instead of an orientation. And let me promise you, if you persist in thinking gay equals effeminate, I’m going to have Steven show up at your apartment in his leather gear and Dom your ass into next week.”

Vince had no idea what she was talking about, but he got the message loud and clear. He nodded curtly. “I don’t mean to disrespect your friends,” he said, and he meant it. “It’s just hard for me, Rach. And I don’t
know
what I am. I really don’t.” He crossed to the bottle of Oban, took his glass back from her and poured liberally. “But hell, what if that’s been the problem all this time, why I can’t stay with a woman?”

Rachel snorted. “You can’t stay with a brand of shampoo, Vinnie. You have commitment issues that have commitment issues.”

Vince ignored that. Because he’d gotten a lot of mileage out of this idea, that maybe the problem wasn’t the girl but that she wasn’t a guy. Scary as that was, it wasn’t anything compared to the idea that he wasn’t an ass, he was just barking up the wrong tree. Well, it wasn’t scary until he sat with it for a few minutes too long. “What if it made the difference, Rach?”

She pursed her lips and held up her hand. “Back up, Vinnie. Back way up. Two minutes ago you couldn’t say ‘gay’, and don’t think it hasn’t escaped me that you can’t say the word, but now dating a man might change your whole life?”

Well, put like that, it did sound bad. Vince sighed.

“And don’t do that either,” she went on. “Don’t go giving up before you start. You know, you might be partly right. This could be the way to go for you. At the very least you might not propose on the second date for a change because you’re so sure rainbows will start flying out of your ass.” Rachel reached out and rubbed his shoulder. “How about you explore this? How about you go check out a gay bar sometime and see?”

Vince thought about it a moment, then nodded. It did make a kind of sense. He could check it out. Go into a bar where no one would know him and see. See if it clicked. See if it felt like coming home or going to hell. See if he flirted with men as well as he flirted with women. He swallowed hard. Okay, maybe he wouldn’t even flirt the first time. But Rachel was right. He could go check things out.

Clutching his scotch tightly, he nodded.

Rachel smiled and turned her gentle stroking of his shoulder into a soft punch. “There you go. See? It’s going to be okay, Vinnie. One way or another. I promise.”

Vince nodded again.
It’s all going to be okay.

Jesus, he hoped so.

Chapter Five

The club scene wasn’t exactly my speed, but we all have to make sacrifices.

I had three best friends, and we tried to take turns calling the shots. Last weekend had been World of Warcraft, because Josh and Tara loved to play. Dillon and I made the best of it. Friday night, they’d all followed me downtown for a midnight showing of an action film, even though they hated it. Tonight we were at After Hours, mostly because Dillon wanted to get laid.

It’s not like I can’t dance, or like I’m too much of a prude to drink, but the club Dillon picked was a pure meat market. Every guy there was cruising.

Every guy but me, I guess.

Next to me, Tara and Josh had their heads together and were talking about something—probably gaming. They’re straight, and I’m pretty sure they’re crazy about each other, but they recite the “just friends” line like it’s the fucking gospel. Who am I to argue? Out on the dance floor, Dillon was practically swallowing some guy’s tongue.

I checked my watch. Only eleven o’clock. If we were lucky, Dillon would decide to cut to the chase and leave with the guy soon, and Tara, Josh and I would be off the hook. But I doubted that was going to happen.

“I’m going to get a drink,” I said to them. I probably should have offered to bring one back, but Josh already owed me too much money.

I fought my way through the crowd, doing my best not to make eye contact. Sometimes, that seemed to be all it took for some guy to think I was issuing an invitation. Still, I could feel their eyes on me. I saw the way a couple turned to watch me pass.

“Hey, sweet thing,” one said. “Let me buy you a drink.”

I ignored him and kept walking.

I finally made it to the bar. “Coke, please.” The bartender stared at me like they always do when you don’t order alcohol—like I’m some kind of idiot. “Just a Coke, please,” I said again. He managed to avoid rolling his eyes at me, but not by much. He pulled out a glass and started shoveling in ice. If they’re nice about it, I tip them. If they give me the soda for free, I tip them. But he charged me and was a dick to boot, so I didn’t bother.

I was just turning to head back to our table when I spotted him: dark hair, dark skin, sitting on the barstool looking so out of place, I wondered how I hadn’t seen him before.

“Vinnie?” I yelled, moving around the barflies in between us to get to him. “Vincent Fierro, is that you?”

What a stupid fucking question. Of course it was him. And when he turned to me, the blood drained from his face like I was the goddamn ghost of Christmas past. “Trey,” he said. “What are you doing here?”

Well, at least we were tied on the stupid-question front. There wasn’t an empty stool next to him, so I angled myself into the narrow space between him and the bar. “I’ve never seen you here before.”

“It’s my first time.”

“I didn’t realize you were gay.”

All the color that had left his cheeks came back with a vengeance. The glare he turned on me would have made me back up, if I’d had anywhere to go. “I’m not.”

I laughed. What the hell else could I do? “Oh yeah? Let me guess. You wandered in here by mistake, saw all the guys practically having sex on the dance floor, and thought you’d just pull up a seat for the hell of it, right? ’Cause that’s what all the straight guys do.”

He clenched his jaw, turning away from me, and I felt a twinge of guilt for having goaded him. Big tough guy like him, big Catholic family, it couldn’t be as easy for him as it had been for me. My Gram had barely batted an eye when I’d come out to her, and that had been six years ago.

“It’s cool, Vinnie,” I said. “I get it.”

He seemed uncertain, and I did my best to be reassuring. “Let me buy you a drink.”

He winced, glancing around the bar like he was searching for an escape hatch. “I don’t think I’m staying.”

Christ, offer to buy a guy a drink, and he’s ready to bolt. He probably assumed I was trying to get in his pants. Of course, I’d been in that position a billion times myself, so I didn’t take it personally. “You don’t have to go. I’ll leave you alone—”

“No!” I had a feeling the word had escaped without him meaning for it to. He looked like he regretted it. I wasn’t sure what to say. I wasn’t sure if assuring him that I wasn’t cruising was what he wanted to hear or not.

He took a deep breath and blew it out. “I didn’t mean because of you,” he said at last. “I just mean, I really hate this scene. What the hell kind of music is this anyway?”

“Club music.”

“I keep wondering if this goddamn song will ever end. It’s been going on for at least an hour.”

I laughed. “No, it hasn’t. This is some club mashup of ‘Umbrella’ and ‘Single Ladies’. That last song was something by Lady Gaga. The one before I think was—”

“You mean these are
real songs
?”

I laughed. “What else would they be?”

He rolled his eyes. “I thought it was a techno loop clubs played when they couldn’t afford to hire a real DJ. Or a band. I didn’t realize people actually
listened
to this shit.” He shook his head, rubbing his forehead with his fingers. “Fuck, I’m old.”

The music wasn’t exactly my speed either, although I’d long since grown immune to it. “What kind of music do you like?” I asked.