Promise Rock 03 - Living Promises (MM) (31 page)

Jeff: Hope and Pie

T
HANKSGIVING
at The Pulpit was
exactly
what everybody needed. Crick was there, looking tired but at peace, and Jeff was mightily impressed with his inner strength, even when Benny told Jeff privately that it was because Crick had gone back to the hospital because he couldn't sleep when Deacon wasn't in the house. Still, he was up, around, talking, albeit distractedly, to the family, and, yes, looking very, very grateful.
The talk was quiet, but they kept making each other laugh, so it truly was joyful, and the food was
awesome.
Of course, Amy, Benny,
and
Jeff had all been cooking their hearts out with worry—even after much of what Jeff and Martin had brought had been donated to Promise House, there was still enough to last The Pulpit until Monday on ham and turkey, stuffing, and sweet potato dishes alone.
Martin had greeted Jeff with an enthusiastic hug—and then sort of a sly, guilty look, and Jeff's heart sank.
He pulled the boy aside and said, “When are you going home?” Martin shook his head. “Not yet.” And then he smiled, genuinely and with his whole heart, when Jeff's shoulders sagged with relief.
“You're going to miss me?”
Jeff nodded. “Well, yeah, kid. You brush the cats, you live on cold cereal, and you come to all my family gatherings. Best. Roommate. Ever.”
Martin looked at his feet bashfully. “You're not bad either,” he said to his size thirteen toes. “I don't want to leave yet. I… don't feel like we've said everything yet.”
Jeff swallowed hastily and nodded. “You're a really smart kid, you know that? Kevin used to say you were going places he'd only work security for. I… I'm so glad you came.” Jeff laughed at himself a little.
“Does that make me a selfish bitch?”
Martin grinned, a little cocky now that he'd actually lived with Jeff for two weeks and not “caught the gay,” as it were. “Naw… not selfish.
Maybe still a bitch, but that's just how you roll.”
Jeff's laugh was absolutely delighted. “Happy Thanksgiving to you, too, you obnoxious little shit. Go get me a soda.”
Martin trotted off, and Collin came up behind him—they'd driven separately, and Jeff had arrived a few minutes earlier—and put strong, warm hands on Jeff's shoulders. Jeff melted into his touch, surprised by the complete level of trust inside. Maybe he just didn't have room for anything else.
“When's he leaving?” Collin asked, like he was shoring himself up for the worst.
“Not yet,” Jeff told him, and it wasn't his imagination. Collin blew out a sigh of relief and wrapped long arms around his chest in a welcome hug.
“Good. I'd miss him—he's good people.”
Good people
. Jeff turned around in Collin's hug and searched those pretty golden eyes. “His brother was the same,” Jeff said quietly.
“You're just like them.”
Collin looked stunned for a moment, and before he could take it the wrong way or get too serious when Jeff was finally feeling good about them, Jeff cracked a grin. “Except for the short haircuts and the real deep tan, of course.”
Collin's smile was crooked, and Jeff kissed the droopy side of it.
His family was happy and at peace, and he wanted Collin to be the same way. Sex (making love) that morning had been… amazing. Perfect.
Transcendent. As far as sex (making love) with a real, breathing human tended to go.
Jeff would crack a joke or something about how good sex shouldn't break Collin's smile, except….
Except he couldn't lie to the kid like that.
“You're one of the best men I know,” Jeff said seriously. “And you've seen the company I keep, so you know that's saying something.
Now go get me a plate of appetizers before I get all gooey or something, because I'll never forgive you for that.”
Collin wandered off to trade elbows—and talk about cars—with Shane at the counter, which was filled with appetizers, and Crick wandered over to plop down on the couch nearby and pat the seat. “Sit, Jeffy.”
Jeff executed an intricate bow. “Whatever you say, my liege.” Crick's sound wasn't quite a laugh, but Jeff would take what he could get. “Oh my God… guess what Jeffy did during his nap.” Jeff was suddenly too hot inside his cashmere sweater. “It wasn't my fault,” he said, trying for insouciance. “I was giddy with relief. My judgment—”
“Is awesome, Jeff. It's about time you gave him a chance.” Jeff sniffed. “Well, for the record, his original chance came on Monday night, you know that, right?”
Crick laughed tiredly. “Yeah, Martin may have said something to that effect. Why?”
Jeff's shrug tried for light, but it felt like he was shrugging with the world on his shoulders. “Because you can't really talk about my judgment being impaired when I went out on a date, didn't get drunk, and stayed the night, can you?”
“Is that a bad thing?” Crick asked quietly, and Jeff gave him a weak smile.
“It will be if I break his heart.”
Crick let out a weary sound. “Don't do that, Jeffy. I've done it. The results sucked.”
“It would be for his own good,” Jeff protested almost inaudibly.
Collin and Shane were really getting excited about something. Shane was waving his arms around—he was even a little taller than Collin—and making engine noises, and Collin was nodding approvingly. Even Martin was getting into the act. Jeff couldn't read lips, but he got the idea that they were making something go fast. Very, very fast.
“Bullshit,” Crick snapped, looking in the direction Jeff was. “It would be for your good, because you're terrified. Any idiot can see it.
And I don't blame you, okay? But I think better of you than that. Collin's not Kevin. For one thing, he's got „don't scare easy' written all over his face.”
“Kevin wasn't a coward,” Jeff defended, but he found his tongue tangling over the words as he said them.
Crick sat up then, since Jeff hadn't leaned back, and rested his forearms on his knees. “Look, Jeff—I'll say it again. Don't make a liar out of me. You are so much braver than I am, and you're so much braver than Kevin was too. You just need to realize it, that's all. Now grab your balls in one hand, your heart in the other, and own up to the fact that you could really love this guy—and that he's worth it. Okay?”
Jeff looked up at Crick and realized that he was exhausted and querulous and that Jeff had maybe tread on his last nerve after a truly horrific day.
“Of course, sweetness. It's your day. For you, I'll be General Patton himself.”
Crick bobbed his head. “Thank you. 'Preciate it. Now since no one's bringing us any food, let's get this barbecue started!”
They sat down at the table, and for a moment, nobody moved. They looked at each other helplessly—everyone from the men, all of them, dressed in their best jeans and good button-down shirts (Jeff was the only one in slacks), to the women, who were dressed nicely and had put makeup on (Benny was even wearing an actual dress, with flowers on the skirt and everything), to the little girls, who were both dressed in those frothy, rustly princess-type dresses made of pink taffeta and lace— and realized for a moment exactly why they were there.
Benny spoke first. “God, we don't pray, uhm, at all. Ever. But we're all thankful. You brought Deacon through, and you gave us each other if… well, you know. We won't talk about that. Thank you. We're grateful. Please don't ever scare the crap out of us like this again. Amen.”
Jeff smiled as he said, “Amen.” Only Benny.
They were midway through dinner when Collin, who was sitting at his left, suddenly jumped a little and swore.
“Problems, Sparky?”
“I forgot to call my mother,” Collin groaned. He excused himself from the table for a moment and then came back looking apologetic. “Did she forgive you?” Jeff asked quietly, under the quiet hum of talking family.
“Sort of.”
“Sort of?”
“She sort of has a request.”
“And…?” Jeff made a gesture, and he and Martin met puzzled eyes.
“She requests our presence for pie, if we have to eat it at eleven o'clock at night. But she'd prefer nine.”
“Pie?” Martin looked up, happy. “I like pie!”
“You already ate a pie!” Benny said from across the table. “And you're going to eat more for dessert. Isn't that enough pie for you?” “Apparently not,” Jeff told her. “He wants to eat pie at Collin's house too.”
“Well you have to go!” Shane said, surprising everyone. “It's his mother!” He looked around for support and was met by bemused and puzzled faces. Jeff realized, almost sadly, that a lot of the mothers at this table were either deceased or MIA. That alone would have made up his mind for him, but then:
“Only you, beloved,” Mikhail said softly, a surprisingly sweet smile crossing his face. “Only you would have such reverence for your boyfriend's mother. Let Jeff go where he wants for dessert. As long as he gives us all details over Sunday dinner.”
Jeff grinned at the little man. “With you, Princess? I might even take pictures.”
Mikhail's grin was all evil, as if to make up for the sweetness.
“They had better be of Collin's mother. There are some things you cannot un-see.”
Martin, Andrew, and Jon all put their hands over their eyes, almost at the same time, and Martin's cry of, “Ow! Ow! Ow! Ow!” made Jon and Amy's daughter look at him with curiosity and pity.
“Ouchie?” she asked her mother, and that made the table break into laughter. And pretty much decided the matter as well. Which was how Jeff got to see Collin's house again, and this time enter the house proper through the front door instead of sneaking up the back garage stairs to get laid in Collin's apartment. (Somehow meeting Collin's mother in the house itself made that entire act feel a lot more like Jeff's college years, a thing that didn't particularly please him at all.)
That feeling wasn't mitigated in the least when Collin entered without knocking, as though he knew the door would be open. Natalie Waters was sitting on a recliner with her knees drawn up underneath her, looking much like she had that day in the diner when Martin had arrived.
Her hair was dyed a dark red-brown, and her fine, brown eyes shifted from the television to the doorway as they walked in.
She had a cat on her lap—a huge old long-haired ginger tom—and that made Jeff like her almost immediately. The cat took one look at Jeff, hopped down, and ran over to nose-hump his shoes, and for the first time since, maybe, pre-adolescence, Jeff was embarrassed in front of a friend's mother.
“Uhm,” he said into the amused silence. The cat's purring was making the floorboards vibrate, he was absolutely sure.
Collin's mother laughed delightedly, put her hands on Jeff's shoulders, and reached up to kiss his cheek. “You've got cats!” she said, and Jeff smiled shyly and nodded.
“They're not cats,” Martin said in disgust. He bent down and picked up the ginger tom, flipping it on its back and cradling it like a child. That cat loved it, going so far as to let its head flop backward and drool, just like Katy did when Martin tried the same tack on her. “Jeff's animals are like… like fur mountains or hurricanes, or… fuzzy acts of nature—”
“Or purring boulders,” Collin took up, in complete agreement with Martin. “Or fur-covered lard factories or witness protection programs for fleas—”
“They do not have fleas!” Jeff made his voice indignant, but he knew what they were doing, and he loved them both in that moment, just like family, because he was no longer nervous, and he now had something in common with Collin's mother, and maybe, just maybe, it was going to be okay.
Over pie (and he'd passed up Benny's chocolate cream pie for Natalie's apparently famous pumpkin mousse, so he was glad it measured up), he thought that maybe he should give Collin's mother a medal for making it okay.
“He tried to fly over the garage?” Jeff repeated blankly, looking at a rather embarrassed Collin, who was probably on his third piece of pie.
(There was also banana cream and apple—Collin seemed to be eating one piece of each. Martin seemed to be eating everything that was left.) “More than once,” said Natalie dryly. She reached over and ruffled her son's hair, and Collin pulled away from her, sounding young for the first time since Jeff had seen him in the diner, the day Martin had arrived. “Jeez, Mom! Do you mind? With the hair?”
Sure enough, Collin's glossy hair was now in a fuzzy halo near the part in the middle, and Collin was trying to smooth it down. Martin smirked. “You can do that to me, Ms. Waters.” He rubbed his palm over his short-cut hair, which had what looked to be a crop circle carved into it this week. “See? Doesn't ruffle.”
Natalie grinned at him with full-wattage warmth, and Jeff watched as Collin just seemed to melt a little. God, how could you resist a boy who loved his mother?
Jeff offered to do cleanup, and he didn't need a libretto to read the mom-to-son eyeball contact that sent Collin into his old bedroom to show Martin all of his old model cars. Here it came. The grilling. What he got was a hug instead. “I'm so glad you came,” Natalie murmured, and Jeff smiled at her weakly.
“Starving teenager and all?”
Natalie's cheeks became hard and shiny apples when she smiled completely. Jeff had noticed that Collin's did the same, and he just wanted to kiss that appled cheek right now with all of the sentimentality he swore he never possessed.
“What he eats, I won't. Collin's sisters will probably write him thank-you notes tomorrow after we go shopping.”
Jeff shuddered. “Black Friday? Really? Brave women!” “We survived Collin's childhood!” she said lightly, and Jeff had to agree.
“You've done a good job raising him,” Jeff said, feeling awkward.
“He's… he's a good boy.”
He was discomfited by her suddenly shrewd look. “He's a good man,” she said pointedly, and Jeff flushed.
“Yeah. Yeah, he is.”
“See, the thing is”—she picked up a dishcloth and started to dry dishes and put them away as she spoke—“Collin was there when his father died.”
“Oh my God!” Collin hadn't mentioned that.
“Yeah, it was, uhm, a massive coronary. Gray just went over while he was driving Collin to school. It was strange,” Natalie continued, like her voice wasn't a little shaky, even so long after the fact, “Collin—the way he reacted to it. I remember, when I told him that his father had died and that he'd tried very hard to make sure the car stopped so Collin wasn't hurt. Collin just looked at me and said, „That can just
happen?
People can just
die?
' And it was like he spent the whole rest of his childhood
inviting
death, just because he was so angry at how random it was, you know?”
Jeff swallowed, thinking about Collin's cockiness, his confidence, his bold humor. He'd gained that challenging the biggest baddie of them all, hadn't he? He'd taken Death on the chin, and when Death had said,