Jacob's Ladder (19 page)

The shit.

I went back and found my brother had settled our tab and was getting up, ceding the table at last to a group of tired and sweaty kids who had been dancing.

“I thought we probably ought to go.” He looked back at the table with longing, as though he was reluctant to head home after a great vacation.

“I could use the walk.” I was none too steady on my feet and ready to go.

Someone called from behind us as we slipped out of the club and into the cold sea air, “Yasha!”

Dan and I both snapped around. My brother looked like he was expecting a ghost. At least I wasn"t the only one who heard the similarity in the way Zeyde and JT spoke my name.

“
Jeez
,” Dan whispered as he took in JT.

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Z. A. Maxfield

“I thought I saw you.” JT squired his lady friend toward us. “Then I realized it had to be your brother.” He held out his hand, and Dan took it. “JT, and this is Stephanie.”

“Dan. Pleased to meet you.” My brother took her hand as well.

“We were just leaving.” I admit you can always count on me to point out the obvious.

“So early?”

I looked at Dan, and we started laughing, probably more than we would have if we"d been sober. “We"ve been here since lunchtime.”

“Got our swerve on.” Dan snorted through his nose and demonstrated, swinging his arms and twisting like a speed skater.

“Some more than others.” I stared at Dan.
Who was this person
? “Time for a walk, Danilo.”

“We could drive you,” JT offered.

Stephanie didn"t think much of that idea. “We just got here, Jason.”

“It will just take me a few minutes. Why don"t I get you a drink and then run them home?”

If that wasn"t the most spectacularly bad idea I"d ever heard, I didn"t know what was.

“Jason.” Stephanie frowned.

He leaned toward her. “Last week Yasha was half-dead. Now he"s running around all over town. Let me take care of this so he"s not overtaxing himself. I don"t want to have to take him to Emergency again.”

I rolled my eyes, and when they came down and back into focus, Stephanie was doing the same. “Fine, whatever. If you take too long, I"ll go home with someone else,” she warned.

JT flashed her a smile, unperturbed. “Thanks.” To us he said, “I"ll be out in a sec, once I have Steph situated.” Then he dived back into the bar. I caught Dan by the arm and started walking.

“What the hell was that?” he asked.

“That?” I glanced back to the door where JT had disappeared. “That was Genus Homo, species
Whowantstofuckus
, subspecies
Closeted Headup Hisassia
. Let us move on to the cages with the interesting animals.”

“You"re kidding me.” Dan pulled his arm away and sauntered down the street like he owned it. He could be cooler than cool, for which I"d always envied him.

“How could I make that up?” I asked. “It"s all „I want you, but I hate myself"

with guys like that.”

“Not everyone has your courage.” Dan looked at the ground.

“It"s honesty, not courage. You don"t drop your date off and stop by a guy"s place for a blowjob after.”

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107

Dan"s whole body tensed. “He does that?”

“Yeah, well. No. Not really.” I could see I was making things worse. “That"s Carl"s son. The guy who owns the motel? He"s got feelings he doesn"t understand and a strong religious nature. He"s scared, and he talks to me. I don"t know why.”

“Maybe because you understand. You went through a lot to be who you are.

You took a load of crap in high school.”

“This town is full of gay guys he could talk to.”

“Is he Jewish? Maybe it"s because you are.”

I stopped moving. “Maybe. I never thought of it that way.”

“You stood up to Mom when she went on and on about violating the laws.”

“Zeyde was on my side.”

“Neither of them approved.”

“They said it wasn"t what they had planned for me.” I couldn"t see the stars, even though I looked. The marine layer—the thick, chronic cloud cover that wasn"t low enough to be called true fog—was too dense. It made distant sounds, like the highway noise and the rumbling of the waves more audible, but draped like a blanket over town, obscuring the sky. “They didn"t make me feel wrong exactly.”

“You"re whitewashing it. You were getting beaten up at school and fighting all the time.”

“It was a godsend that Zeyde wanted to go to Israel. I know Mom was relieved to be rid of me for a while. That distance made it so much easier for us to be together when I came back.”

“Yeah.” Dan snorted. “A godsend.”

I didn"t like the way he"d said it. “What do you mean by that?”

“Zeyde never planned to go until you were done with college.”

“
What
?”

“You sped up his timetable by about six years, Jakey. Didn"t you know?”

“No, I didn"t know. Of course I didn"t.”

“Both Zeyde and Mom thought it would be easier for you in Israel.”

“Easier?”

“Being gay.”

“It was. Well. That
was
easier. Plus I was glad to stay with Zeyde.” I continued walking and failed to notice that JT"s truck crawled along next to us. It stopped when Dan acknowledged him and put a hand on my arm to pull me toward it.

“Here comes your guy.”

“He"s not my guy. I"ve never met anyone more confused in my life.”

“Yeah, you have.” Dan opened the door and jerked his chin to let me know I should go first. “You just don"t know it yet.”

I didn"t have time to think about what he meant, because JT spoke right away.

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Z. A. Maxfield

“So, how are you finding St. Nacho"s, Dan?”

“I keep a magnifying glass in the glove box of my car, JT, and I just use that.” For some reason I couldn"t fathom, JT found that hilarious. He got control of himself by the next stoplight. “It is kind of a small town. I can"t get over how much you two look alike.”

“The similarities don"t end there. We have the same parents, for example.”

“Dan.” I nudged him hard.

“Ow.” No one said anything else until JT parked his truck in front of my motel room. My brother and I got out and leaned back in the door to say good-bye. JT"s expression was unreadable. He shook Dan"s hand and then mine.

“So I guess you"ll be leaving tomorrow.”

My brother hadn"t surprised me in a long time, but when he took his hand back from JT and said, “No such luck, Closet Lad. We"re here to say. Pick a team.” Well. Yes.
That
surprised me.

Then he shut the door of the truck and gave a little wiggly-fingered wave.

My heart slammed against my rib cage, and I remembered what it was like to be Daniel Livingston"s baby brother. Like hitching a ride on the back of a comet without a space suit.

Here we go.

JT stepped down from the truck on the driver"s side, and he came around, his arms folded and an expression on his face that mirrored my brother"s. He resented the hell out of us right then.

“"Scuse me?”

For some reason Dan thought
that
was hilarious. “You"re excused.” Maybe reckless mouthing off was a family trait?

I put my hand on my brother"s arm. “Dan, go to your room. I"ll call you first thing in the morning and we"ll go for breakfast.” Dan spoke to me but never took his eyes off JT. “I don"t think so.”

“Dan—”

“I don"t know what your problem is.” JT frowned. “All I"m here to do is give you a lift home.”

“In that case, thank you very much. Jakey, go get some sleep.”

“Jeez.” I pulled my key from my pocket. “Dan, you"re a rude pain in the ass.

Take your own advice. Get some sleep. Mary Catherine doesn"t expect me tomorrow, so I"m sleeping in.”

I heard Dan mutter something like, “Sleep tight,” but I opened my door and stepped inside, then locked it behind me.

I couldn"t hear the rest of what they said, even with my ear pressed to the door, but eventually JT"s truck engine fired up, and he pulled away. My brother"s footsteps were heavy on the cement stairs at the end of the row of rooms.

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109

My phone rang five minutes later.

“Hello?”

“I wanted to talk to you.” JT"s voice.

“Don"t you have a girl waiting for you at Nacho"s.”

“Yes.” I heard a percussive noise that sounded like a fist hitting a steering wheel.

“Isn"t she expecting you to take her home?”

JT hissed a sigh. I wondered if he used a Bluetooth earpiece. “She"s not expecting anything else.”

“No?”

“No. I don"t usually… It"s a first date. I go on an awful lot of first dates, Yasha.”

“Where the hell do you find all these girls in such a small town?”

“She doesn"t live here. She"s from Goleta.”

“That"s a hell of a drive.”

“We met in the middle. Her car"s parked at a diner off the 101.” I thought about that. “Why don"t you man up and go out on a first date with me?” I asked. “If nothing else, I"m local, and I put out.” He gave a little halfhearted chuckle, and I felt for him. “Can I come over later after I drop her off?”

“For what? If I"m staying, no way I want to do a one-off with Closet Lad.”

“Maybe we could talk?”

“I"m not convinced that would be a good thing, after the things you said last night.”

“I"m sorry about that. I was on what my dad calls my high horse.”

“I"m not some indiscriminate loser.”

“I know that. I regret saying anything that made you feel like that.”

“Thank you for that.”

“You"ve been very patient with me.” He sighed audibly. “I"d like to make it up to you somehow.”

I was silent for a while, but he didn"t rush me. “Don"t pull your truck up, or my brother will know you"re here.”

“Hey. Are you ashamed of me?”

I did that thing—that stupid thing—where I looked at the phone as though I could see through it to the person on the other side. “Are you fucking
kidding me
?”

“Yes. I am kidding. I"m sorry, Yasha. That was in bad taste.” My grip tightened on the phone, but I smiled. “It was pretty funny actually.”

“Kinda.”

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Z. A. Maxfield

“Yeah.”

“See you later?”

“Later.” I hung up.

St. Nacho’s 3: Jacob’s Ladder

111

Chapter Seventeen

I admit to hitting the shower. I scrubbed behind my ears and between my toes and…everywhere. I slipped on a T-shirt and a loose, low, comfortable pair of jeans and watched the news and then some show on Biography about notorious serial killers.

It was pretty easy to imagine JT laughing and drinking with Stephanie, the girl of the day, just as it was easy to imagine he"d lost track of time, or he"d changed his mind, or worse still, he"d decided to take what Stephanie was offering before or
instead
of coming over.

And if he did?

It would be no different than what he"d been doing all along. At some point I had to admit that I was entertaining hopeless fantasies and JT was playing with me. It had been tried before, but—usually—unsuccessfully. If I hadn"t met JT under such unusual circumstances, if he didn"t remind me so much of the one person who had meant everything to me growing up, then he might have been unsuccessful as well.

I meant what I"d told him, though.

If he spent the night with me, I wasn"t about to hide my feelings for him. I worked with a number of shrewd, shrewd women at Miss Independence, and he wouldn"t stand a chance.

I jumped about a mile into the air when JT knocked softly on the door. When I answered my heart was still pounding hard, but not because I was scared.

JT waited on the other side, holding two six-packs of Michelob AmberBock beer.

“Are you moving in?”

JT"s face heated up predictably. “I just thought…” He pointed to the area next to the television. “You have a fridge. I thought you might like some beer, since you might be staying. Housewarming gift.”

I watched as he pulled the bottles out one by one and stored them in the fridge.

“Did you figure out what you want to talk about?” There was no reason to make it easy.

“Come on, Yasha.” He took my hand in a tight grip. “You know what I want.”

“Yeah.” I pulled him to me, and there wasn"t a need for words. It didn"t matter to me how many prom queens he squired around town. I"m sure it didn"t matter to 112

Z. A. Maxfield

him that my brother would kick his ass come morning. There was something compelling us together, something that caused me to tighten my arms around him and close my eyes and breathe him in like air. To soak him up like sunshine.

“I feel right when I"m with you, Yasha.” He hid his face against the skin of my neck. “Nothing else seems to make a damn bit of sense.”

“C"mere,” I told him, pulling him down to the sheets. I was already fumbling with the buttons of his dress shirt, pulling it from the waistband of his gabardine trousers. He had on a nice, supple leather belt with a pretty, sleek gold buckle. It only took me a minute to pull it through the loops. I dropped it on the carpet while he unbuttoned his fly. As soon as he unzipped, I knew I"d mouth his dick through his shorts. They were tight briefs, gray, with a burgundy stripe on the elastic. It took some work to forget he"d worn them for his girl.

He toed off his shoes and slithered out of his trousers while I followed the thin line of hair from his navel to his balls. He fidgeted, and I became aware that he had no idea where to put his hands. When I looked up at him, his eyes glittered with unshed tears.

“What on earth?” I pulled him into my arms. “Talk to me?” He shook his head and clasped his hands together.

“You came here, remember?”

“I know,” he said hoarsely. “I want this. I do.”

“One date, even one guy, doesn"t make you gay, JT. Curiosity might be a natural thing for you. You aren"t condemned by it.”

“Shut up and kiss me.” JT scrabbled at my clothes, first yanking my shirt over my head none too gently and then fidgeting with the fastenings of my jeans. “You promised. You said if I came back, you"d bend me over the desk and—”