Shattered Glass (51 page)

Now it rested ominously in Peter’s lap. Like he expected it to hold some clue to our future.

“I’ll get the release forms,” I said, standing up.

He ripped open the package before I could escape. “This is why I want to be with you, Austin. Not because of money or emotional debt.” He fingered one dingy ear of the slippers I had rescued, his smile taking my breath.

My stomach flipped a few times. “Because I dry cleaned your slippers?”

“Because you value what’s really important.” He inhaled and

exhaled loudly and set the slippers on the bed beside him. “Now I have to ask you for one more thing.” “If it’s a three-way with Darryl, I am not going to be the girl.” The severity of his gaze made me glad my nose wasn’t within flicking range. But, since his tongue could be just as sharp as his fingers, my ears were already preparing for his barb. “I think you should go see your mother before she dies.” There was no preparing for that.

“No,” I said, keeping the rage out of my voice with herculean effort. “Are you ready to go?” I held out my hand. He passed me the gym bag, keeping hold of the handles as I grabbed it. I couldn’t jerk it away without jarring him. I let go. “I don’t have a mother.”

“Not for me. Not for her. For you.”

This could be an argument by being stubborn, or I could convince him how bad an idea it was. I sat next to him, staring out the window. “You want me to tell off a dying woman?” “If that’s what it takes,” he said. “You’ve been here six weeks, every day, and didn’t even visit when you tested to donate your liver to her! She’s one floor up.” “There are a lot of strangers one floor up. Am I supposed to visit them, too?”

“You walked right past her room.”

“We should talk about something more important. Like who is supplying your information.” There was only one person who could have told Peter I had been upstairs. “You know what I find ironic? My homophobic father has spoken to my male lover

more times in two months than he has to me my entire life.” “You know what I find ironic? My homophobic mother offers you her cabbage rolls as a truce and you respond by asking her if it was ’tacit approval‘ to suck my cock.” “She shoved a phallic symbol my way and told me to eat it.” “If your idea of a cock is a stuffed green leaf covered in red sauce, we have more to discuss than monogamy.” “You used ironic incorrectly.”

“Shit happens!” He spat. Oops. I had hit the Peter-thinks-I-think-he’s-stupid button.

“Then again, so did I.”

He narrowed his gaze and blew out a breath. Our relationship was a series of volatile reactions. With the rollercoaster ride my pulse was on, I could honestly say that I liked it that way. These days our arguments were heated, but not cruel. Our makeups were even better.

He chewed his inner lip. A sign I always took as him figuring out how to get me to do something. “I think you should see your mother. Something is making your dad get involved with all of this.”

“You’re a manipulative asshole, you know that?” “You love it.”

“Only when your manipulations are to get into my pants.” “Yes, my so clever manipulations to get into your pants.

What were those again?”

“Breathing. Talking. Existing.” Snagging his suitcase, I swung off the bed and hid his shaved head with my baseball cap. As I fit it over his brow, I made him laugh with a wiggle of my brows.

He straightened the cap and tucked his hands into his

pockets. “Well?”

“Yes, you’re still hot. Too tall. A little too skinny now. I miss your hair. But the scars are sexy.” I feigned innocence with a grin while he stood there, waiting. My hand dropped, the bag bouncing heavily against my leg. “Let it go, Peter.” He looked away and nodded. “Okay.”

Releasing the bag, I leaned in, tucked my hands behind his neck and pressed my mouth next to his ear. “Let it go.” He turned and caught my lips with his. A second later, the ground tilted and I was wrapped in him.

I never tired of kissing Peter. His myriad of tastes and scents, of touches and sounds overwhelmed the senses. I sometimes felt the strange sensation of levitating when I tried to take in everything. Erotic meditation I called it.

His rough hands gripped my arms, pressing me closer. He smelled of hospital soap and over-the-counter lotion. He gasped, and his breath excitedly exhaled, heating my lips. He tasted of lime Jell-O. I considered buying cases of it just to relive this kiss. But the next kiss he would smell of lemon or cinnamon or aftershave, and he would moan, or whisper my name instead of gasping; and he would taste of mouthwash or the Pixie Stix he shared with Cai or whatever soda he was drinking. And then I’d want a case of those.

I was still in that dazed, erotic meditation, freefalling when Cai interrupted. “Oh. Um. Sorry.” He scratched his head and bounced up to his toes. “I just…Darryl and your mom…I think he might, um…hit her.”

Peter looked from Cai to me. His laughter trailing to a knowing smile. “Breathe, Austin.”

I tossed Cai the keys to Arturo. They bounced off his chest and fumbled into his hands by accident rather than design. “See if Darryl will let you drive home. We have something to do.” Peter stuffed his hands back into his pocket, laughing at the speed of Cai’s departure. “Your mother?” I nodded.

“What changed your mind?”

I traced his lips with my thumb. “Erotic meditation.” “It’s a little sad that after making out for five minutes, you’re ready to do anything for me,” Peter teased.

“I haven’t had sex in six weeks. My erections are boring holes through my pants. Pulling up your sleeve at the right moment might convince me to sign over my checking accounts.” “Good to know.”

“But I’m not doing this for you.” I turned his hat backward and trailed my fingers lightly down his neck. “We have enough baggage without my mother.”

“Okay. I mean…good. Yeah. Whatever. Okay.” He bit his lip.

Jesus, he was cute. “Speaking of sex, how about a hand job in the elevator?”

He dragged his fingers through my hair and pushed down.

“How about you suck my cock right now?”

Are You My Mother?

My father stood when I entered the room. I used that excuse to avoid looking at the bed and concentrated on his wary head tilt.

His eyes floated past me to the doorway where Peter leaned casually with his hands in his pockets.

“Son, I do not think it is appropriate for you to bring—” “My faggot boyfriend in here to flaunt my faggot lifestyle?” Crossing my arms over my chest, I leaned back against the wall furthest from them both. “You should thank him. He’s the reason I’m here.”

“It is inappropriate to bring a stranger into her room without her permission,” he ground out.

“Desmond, would you fetch a nurse?” My mother laid a hand on his arm. I willed her gnarled fingers to wither and crumble under my glare.

My father barely hesitated before striding out the door.

Peter caught my eye. I looked down and gave him a slight nod to indicate he could leave me alone with her. He slipped backwards out of the room. When the tip of his sneaker vanished around the corner, I finally allowed my eyes to rest on her.

She wasn’t the beautiful, composed woman who graced my father’s arm at charity functions so long ago. Her eyes were hazel baubles surrounded by a brownish-yellow sea. Her skin had a taint of jaundice, and deep lines burrowed into her forehead and at the corners of her eyes. Botox must not be a good mix with liver failure.

My analysis complete, I kept my neutral expression and waited. I wasn’t going to give her the upper hand by speaking first. I would not reveal the depth of rage; it was so profound, my upper lip twitched with the urge to sneer. I would not give her a goddamned thing.

“You look like my brother,” she said.

“That’s…” Interesting? Who gives a crap? About twenty-six

years too late?

“Neither here nor there, I know.” She waved a hand blithely and took another sip. “You don’t want to hear about Denny or me. You’re pissed off, and you want to let me have it. Probably with buckshot.”

“Mother’s intuition?” I said coldly.

She barked a laugh and took a long gulp from a pink plastic cup when the coughing fit started. The soft color was striking against her pale lips. “Sound like Denny, too.” She put the cup down and closed her eyes. “He was a homosexual. Died of AIDS in…’88? ’89?”

Her words were a rain of stunning blows. I couldn’t speak. I wanted to ask about Denny, about her family, but my tongue was glued to the roof of my mouth. My fingers bit into my palm and arm.

“If you come back, I’ll show you some pictures. Tell you what I remember about my folks and Denny.” “I won’t be coming back,” I said stubbornly, even while another part of me longed for knowledge. And yet another part —And by the way, where the hell did that part come from?—longed to accept her “come back” invitation.

“Suit yourself. You got some cousins and an aunt. I’ll just leave you notes with the albums.” She pursed her lips and shrugged delicately.

Her fingers swished around in the cup. I heard ice click against the sides. It was the only sound in the room. My rage magnified with each clack.

“Are you human?”

“You think I should be groveling for your forgiveness and

giving you a list of excuses about why I abandoned my family.

That isn’t going to happen. I didn’t want to be a mother.” “No shit.”

She fished into the cup and popped a few slivers of ice into her mouth. The crunching sound raked along my spine. “That’s as much of an explanation as you’re going to get.” “I’m so glad we settled this.” I pushed off the wall, determined to get out of there before I strangled her. Before I could open the door, she hit me with another stunner.

“Don’t you want to know about your brother?”

Baggage for Two, Please

“How old is he?” Peter asked.

The restaurant we stopped at on the way home was filled with family units. My eyes settled on a nearby couple with two rambunctious children. “Six.”

“How old is your mother?”

“Forty-five.” One of the boys tipped sideways and held onto his seat while looking upside down under his chair. The mother, a woman not much bigger than her child, leaned over and blew a raspberry on the boy’s back. He giggled and nearly fell off.

While observing the little kid, all I kept thinking about was Peter. Peter and me. After all the shit we’d gone through, was there even a Peter and me now? I couldn’t look at him. So I watched the little boy’s antics. Until Peter forced my attention back to him with a gentle tap of my hand.

“Earth to Austin.”

“I agreed to take him.”

“Tell me something I don’t know,” Peter replied. “What’s his

name?”

“Stuart.”

“Your father agreed to your having custody?” “He didn’t have a choice. She’s got maybe a few days left since my liver wasn’t a match. If she dies—when she dies—she threatened to leave her half of the practice to me if he didn’t sign over his parental rights.”

“Sounds like she’s trying to make things right for at least one of her kids.”

“Yeah. Hard to stay angry with her after that,” I agreed.

Actually, it was hard to stay angry with her at all. It wasn’t her fault she was fertile.

“Where is he now?”

“Boarding school in the UK. She said he knows about me.” “I don’t get someone who doesn’t want kids having a second one.”

“She was nineteen when she had me. Married to a man who worked ninety hours a week. She said she was star struck by my father and his money and position. Then they tried reconciling a few years ago. She said he just wanted her half of the business.” I told him about my uncle.

“That explains her being okay with your being gay.” He was smiling, but the way he pushed his French fries around the plate, I knew the smile was for show.

Looking down at my plate of lasagna, I felt queasy. “Which of us is going to address the elephant in the room?” “Which one? I see a dozen elephants.” I picked the first one to come. “We can still…” “There it is.” He shoved his plate away roughly and picked

up his phone. I blocked his screen with my hand.

“Don’t.”

“Don’t what? Be angry you’re breaking up with me? Think I’m going to beg you, Austin?”

“I’m not breaking up with you. I— Jesus Christ, I found out an hour ago that I have a six-year-old brother and ten minutes after that I was getting custody. Can you cut me some slack if I don’t want you to feel obligated to—” “I don’t feel obligated to be with you, Austin Glass. How many times do I have to say it, you fucking moron!” The hush that fell over the restaurant had me looking sideways and lowering my voice. “You’re twenty years old. I can’t expect you to be prepared to raise a six-year-old boy with me.”

“Yes, absolutely. Because my track record proves that I have a problem parenting, and I so dislike the idea of children altogether. By any chance was that degree you keep bragging about
honorary
?”

“Touché and ouch.”

“You can break up with me because you think we won’t last and you don’t want to subject a six-year-old to that. Or you can break up with me because you can’t handle being gay and raising a six-year-old. Or that you can’t handle a relationship at all. But don’t blame
me!
I’m twenty, Austin, but I’ve lived more in my twenty years than you have in your thirty.” “Twenty-six! I’m twenty-fucking-six.” “You’re exhausting me. I’m worn out fighting for this relationship. You need to fight for it. It’s your turn.” “I worry we won’t last, and I have no idea what being gay