Marie Sexton - Coda 06 - Fear, Hope, and Bread Pudding (9 page)

But that was wrong too. He wasn’t a fan of restaurants to begin with. He thought they were loud and impersonal. He always preferred to stay home, especially for any kind of important occasion. There was nothing he hated more than trying to have a private conversation in the middle of noise and chaos.

I turned to Taylor. “How about if I have something delivered? Pizza or Thai?”
Taylor shook her head. “Thai doesn’t like me much these days, but pizza’s fine.”

“What do you like on it?”
“Pineapple, artichoke hearts, and roasted garlic.” She blushed a bit and shrugged. “I never believed in those crazy cravings you hear about, but I swear, I can’t seem to get enough pineapple. I ate a whole one for lunch the other day!”

Normally something like that would have sent Cole on a crusade. He would have been on the phone not only ordering pizza, but making sure it had more pineapple on it than any crust could hold. He would have been sending me out the door and down the street to the grocery store to get a fresh pineapple to add to the fruit salad for dessert. Then again, the Cole I was used to wouldn’t be standing halfway between us and the kitchen, looking lost.

“I’ll order it,” I said.

“No!” Cole said, and I froze, halfway out of my seat. “I’m sorry, Jonny. You stay sitting. I’ll take care of it.” He practically ran from the room.

The pizza came. We sat at the table and washed it down with cans of soda, but nobody ever managed to relax. The tension was paralyzing. I wished over and over again for my father’s comforting presence. Cole rarely apologized for anything, but that night he said the words “I’m sorry” more than anything else. Other than that, he hardly seemed to speak. Every time he did, he glanced at me afterward as if seeking my approval. Thomas tried to steer us through small talk, but it all came out stilted and tense. And through it all, I could feel Taylor watching us. I could see her becoming more and more uncomfortable.

Nobody ever brought up the adoption or the baby. It was ridiculous. It was the reason we were all sitting together, and yet the subject felt off-limits.
After dinner
, I kept telling myself.
After dinner, we’ll sit in the family room, and Cole will get ahold of himself, and we’ll sort this all out.

But it wasn’t to be. No sooner had she finished eating than Taylor stood and said quietly to Thomas, “I’m ready to go.”

 

After nearly two hours of horrible awkwardness, those four words broke through whatever trance Cole had been in.

 

“Honey, no. Please don’t leave yet. Maybe I can whip up some dessert and—”

 

“Thank you,” she said. “But please don’t bother. I have to work early, and it’s best if I get home.”

He nodded, such a tiny gesture, but I could sense the weight of his grief. I showed them to the door. I closed it behind them. I rested my forehead against it and tried to prepare myself. I counted to ten, and I turned to reach for him.

“Stop!” he said, holding his hand up to ward me off.

It was a moment out of our past, a flashback to the days when he’d pushed me away more often than not. It hurt me more than I could say. “Cole—”

“No.” His voice broke and he took a step backward. He touched his fingertips to his lips, but not before I saw the way his chin quivered. “Not yet, Jonny. Please.”

“Tell me what you need.”
“I need to be alone.”
I didn’t think that was what he needed at all. What he needed was

to let me hold him. To give voice to his grief, to come apart in my arms, to cry and yell until he was exhausted from it all, but he’d never allow himself such a thing. Even now. Even after everything we’d been through, he couldn’t let me see him that way. It broke my heart, but pushing him would get me nowhere. It would only make him angry. He’d throw his hair out of his face and say something hurtful just to drive me away.

So I let him go.

 

I stood in our living room and watched the man I loved go down the hall to our bedroom. I watched him shut the door behind him. And I was left to grieve in solitude.
Chapter Seven

Date: December 30
From: Cole
To: Jared
It’s too terrible to talk about. All I can say is, I’ve never hated myself more than I do right now.

I
POURED myself a drink and tackled the mess left over from the ruined dinner. It was still my habit to do the dishes after Cole cooked, but rarely had I done them with such a heavy heart. I cleaned in silence, wiping up splatters of sauce we’d never eaten and dumping soggy pasta down the disposal. I didn’t know how long he needed, but eventually, the kitchen was clean, and my drink was gone.

He was in bed with the lights turned off and his back toward me. He wasn’t sleeping though. He was too still and too stiff. I undressed and climbed into bed. I watched his back for a moment, waiting for some kind of sign. When none came, I moved closer to him.

“No,” he said.

I wrapped my arms around him and pulled him tight against me. “Yes.” I kissed the butterfly on the back of his neck. I slid my hand down his stomach to cup his groin.

“I can’t possibly have sex. Not after what happened.” “But this is when you need it the most.”
“Is that what you think?”
I kissed his neck again as I caressed him. “It’s what I know. Your

mind’s running in circles right now, thinking over and over about what went wrong.”

“Of course it is.”
“It’s time to make it stop.”

He sighed in frustration, but part of his annoyance was because it was already working. He’d wanted to lie there and chastise himself all night, but already his body was responding to my touch, his cock growing thick and stiff in my hand. Already his breathing was changing, his voice growing thick with desire, although he was still tense against me.

“I’m a terrible person,” he said.
“Why?”
“For being so easily distracted.”

I chuckled against his neck. “I’m pretty sure that just makes you male.”

 

“I don’t know if I can, Jonny.”

I didn’t argue with him. Not with words, at any rate. But I kept my hands moving. Not quite stroking. Something lighter. Urging. Caressing, until he was fully erect and moaning breathlessly. I fingered his nipples and petted his stomach. I let my fingers play over every inch of his hairless groin until he finally began to relax.

I nudged him onto his stomach and lay on top of him. I kissed him—the back of his neck and his shoulder blades. I massaged the tight muscles of his shoulders and lower back as I made my way down, kissing each knob of his spine, lingering at the gentle curve at the small of his back. I circled his hips, whispering quiet, loving words against his skin.

Slowly, I began to feel him let go.

I turned him over, and this time I worked my way up. I kissed the smooth, shaven skin of his groin. I nuzzled the silky warmth of his stomach and kneaded his hips. I devoured his neck, skirted his jaw, dropped kisses on his cheeks until he put his arms around my neck. “Jonathan,” he whispered and pulled me down into a kiss.

Even now, this often felt like our most intimate act. Even when my fingers or my cock were buried in his body, it was being allowed to tease my tongue over his beautiful, full lips that made me quake with desire. It was feeling those lips part beneath mine, knowing he was inviting me in, even if only for the smallest of tastes, that made me ache.

I kissed him gently. I could still sense his shame and his grief. His anger at himself and at his helplessness. It was less profound now, yet still there, just below the surface. I didn’t want to soothe it. I wanted to rouse it. I wanted to coax it out of him, like poison from a wound, to give him a way to vent it, held here safe in my arms.

“I love you so much, Jon.”
“I love you, too.”
He was close now—not necessarily to his climax, but to that place

where he’d finally allow himself to let go and truly enjoy what we were doing. Not simply going through the motions, but actually
needing
the deliverance I was offering. I began moving back down. Kissing him, pushing and pressing against his barriers until I was at his groin, smelling the sweet, erotic musk of his sex. I slid my hands underneath him to grip his cheeks. I put my lips against his frenulum, feeling moisture, breathing salt. I stayed there, nipping and teasing. I waited until he was moving with me, moaning softly. Until he threaded his slender fingers into my hair and pushed.

And finally, I allowed him in. I let him thrust deep into my throat.

His restraint was gone. His cry of pleasure was throaty and gratifying. I pushed my own erection against the silk sheets, longing for the first time for regular old cotton. For something that would grant me some real friction. He held my head and thrust into my mouth again and again, his cries growing louder, his movements faster and more urgent. This was what I’d wanted—this sudden liberation of all the energy he’d stored up—and I began to slide my right hand down the bed, underneath myself, to grant myself the same kind of release.

He suddenly stopped thrusting. He didn’t exactly let go of me, but he grasped at me, pulling at my arms and the bed. It was as if he was trying to climb me, but from the bottom. “Turn around!” he breathed impatiently.

It wasn’t something we did often, but I readily obeyed, rotating to present my groin to him as I swallowed his length again. His fingers dug into the backs of my thighs. It was all I could do not to thrust too fast and too hard into his mouth when I felt the warmth of his lips on my aching cock. After that, I was lost in the taste and the smell of him. The softness of his skin. The low cadence of his moans. The feeling of his slim body in my arms. The way he moved against my lips, and against my tongue. The salty tang of his pre-cum in the back of my throat. And through it all, the almost overwhelming pleasure of him sucking me as if it were the only thing in the world he wanted to do. I wanted to draw the rage and the helplessness from him, and he was just as anxious to replace it with whatever he could draw from me— strength, or patience. Love, or comfort. Maybe something else entirely. It didn’t matter. All that mattered was that I’d broken through his walls and been allowed in. We were one again, sharing every breath. Every sigh. Every moan.

“See?” I said when it was over. “Don’t you feel better?”

He moved to put his head on my shoulder. He lay heavy and limp on top of me, his tension gone. His sated body felt lithe and supple and warm. “I hate it when you’re right.”

I laughed. “I know. And you’re welcome.”

He sighed in quiet contentment as I wrapped him in my arms. I ducked my head and breathed in the subtle scent of strawberries. I held him while he drifted peacefully off to sleep.

Whatever had gone wrong today, I was determined to fix it.

 

I
CALLEDThomas the next day. I wasn’t surprised at the wariness in his voice when he greeted me.

“She has to give us another chance.”
“I’m working on that, Jon, but I can’t make any promises.” “You said she liked us on paper!”
“Well, yes….”
“But not in person.”

It was more a statement than a question, and Thomas sighed. “You weren’t what she expected.”
“We weren’t what I expected either. Please.”
“I’m doing my best, Jon.”
“Can I call her?”
“Absolutely not. That’s out of the question.”
“Okay. That’s fair. But would she be willing to call me?”
“I’ll ask her.”
“Was it dinner? Was it not having my dad there? What?”
He sighed again. “Her exact words were, ‘Cole seems like he’s afraid of Jon.’”
I laughed. I couldn’t help myself. “You have to be kidding.”
“I’m not. She suspected that you bully him.”
“I wasn’t bullying him, was I?”
“He kept apologizing, and he was deferring to you on everything. I realize I don’t know the two of you that well, but I’ve never seen him act like that.”
“That makes two of us!”
“And of course, there was the bruise.”
“But that was an accident!”
“That’s what every battered spouse says.”
“But—
What?
No! Thomas, you can’t seriously think—”
“What I think isn’t nearly as important as what Taylor thinks. And what she saw was a smaller, more feminine man—no offense—”
“None taken.”
“—who had a bruise on his eye and who couldn’t stop apologizing to his taller, more masculine partner.”
“Oh my God!” I wasn’t sure if I should laugh or cry. Spousal abuse was no joke, but her assessment of our relationship was miles from the truth. “She couldn’t be more wrong.”
“I’ll let her know that you’d like another chance. And I’ll give her your number. That’s all I can do.”

F
ORtwo days, I didn’t hear anything from Thomas, and for two days, Cole bustled about our house as if nothing had happened, brandishing false cheer like some kind of shield. My father returned from Europe. I waited until Cole was in the kitchen to whisper Taylor’s assessment of our relationship to him. He nearly choked on his wine.

“You would never raise a hand to him!”

 

“And if I did, you can bet he wouldn’t hang around waiting for it to happen a second time.”

 

“Maybe I can talk to her. Maybe—”

“No. I don’t think that’s an option. Either Thomas will convince her, or he won’t.”
By the third day, I figured it was over. I was about to call Thomas to confirm that she’d refused to meet with us a second time when my phone rang.

“Hello?”

“Jonathan? This is Taylor. Thomas told me you wanted to talk to me.”
“Yes!” I was in my office in what would have been the third bedroom of our house. I got up and glanced out the door, trying to determine where Cole was. Not within sight, and hopefully that meant not within earshot either. “Thank you so much for calling!”
“You can thank your friend Julia. She’s the one who talked me into it.”

I made a mental note to kiss my former neighbor the next time I saw her. “Cole’s so upset about what happened the other night—” “It wasn’t his fault!”

I smiled at the way she jumped to his defense until I remembered her assessment of me as a bully. “I know that. I’m not saying it’s his fault. It’s not anybody’s fault. It’s just….” I floundered. I’d had this conversation in my head a hundred times. How could I not know what to say? “How many meetings have you had with potential parents before us?”

She hesitated, although maybe it was only so she could count them. “Nine.”