Bitter Taffy (26 page)

I
T
WAS
like saying his name—even in Rico’s mind—was all the magic the universe needed.

The trip back was full of details: where Rico would leave his car, since Derek’s garage only held one car and Rico had covered parking behind the apartment. Where Clopper would go and how visiting rights would work, and would the big doofus even care one way or the other as long as one of the four of them was actually in the room. How Jake the cat got to stay at the apartment too, because Derek’s one flaw as a human being was a slight cat allergy. He said he could buy the medication to fix that, but Rico said that if he did, it would be for a cat he helped pick out, and Jake sort of loved Adam and Finn most anyway. This was a slight fabrication. As far as Rico could tell, if the cat was allowed to sleep for at least twenty-two hours a day, he was all good, but Finn seemed especially happy to keep the big comatose drool monkey, so that worked out.

The planning made the trip go fast, as did the gentle kidding about how now Finn and Adam could have loud hyena sex again as well as free use of the couch if they needed. Rico took some ribbing about being sure he wasn’t going from one couch to another, but he didn’t laugh at that.

“No,” he said simply. “I’ve finally found a home.”

The noise in the car quieted, but since it was right at the exit into the city, the silence didn’t last long.

As they pulled up to the apartment, Finn said, “Hey, Adam, who’s that guy? In the slacks and the polo shirt? He has to be sweltering—God, it’s 110 today.”

Rico glanced up at the front porch and then hurt his neck doing a double take as Derek swung the car around. “Oh holy fuck,” he breathed, sure it was the last time he
could
breathe. “That’s Ezra.”

T
HERE
WAS
a thump as Derek drove the car up on the curb and dropped it back onto the street.

“I bit my tongue!” Finn wailed, and Adam checked for blood as Derek straightened the car.

“Ezra your ex?” Derek asked, sounding a little panicked.

Rico turned toward him, planning to laugh off the fear in his voice, but then he caught sight of Derek’s face.

He was terrified.

“I should go see what he wants,” Rico said, squeezing his knee. “And then I’ll get my suitcases. We can bring them back to the—”

“Don’t worry about it,” Derek said. The car was idling in park, and Derek was looking stoically ahead. “However this goes, call me later, okay?”

“However this—”

“Rico, I’m sorry to interrupt,” Adam said quietly, “but he’s going to need some Advil and some ice. He’s bleeding.”

Derek and Rico looked at each other in horror and then looked back at Finn, who stuck his tongue out apologetically. Yes. Bleeding.

“Holy fuck that looks painful,” Rico said. “I’m getting, I’m getting!” He hurried out of the car and pulled the seat down so Finn and Adam could duck under the convertible top and flee for the house. “You,” he said to Derek, “turn off the car and go inside with them—I swear, this won’t take a minute!”

Derek’s face held no recrimination, just a bone-deep sadness. “You… I mean, I should have waited,” he said, almost to himself. “You weren’t ready. I should have made you call him again.”

Oh Jesus. “Derek—c’mon, man, give me the benefit of the doubt!”

Derek’s eyes were bleak. “I do, Rico. But he’s your first love—and he came back for you. No contest, right?”

And with that he put the car in gear and started to pull away from the curb. “I’ll bring Adam and Finn’s bags to work tomorrow.” And then he drove away, giving Rico no choice but to close the door and turn to the forlorn figure sweating his way down the sidewalk.

“God
dammit
!” he snarled, turning to Ezra with murder in his eyes. “Do you have
any
idea what you just did?”

Ezra recoiled, his lower lip trembling, and Rico felt like shit. Hell. He hadn’t done anything wrong except love his father and be afraid.

And tell Rico to go away.

“I’m sorry?” he said, sounding improbably young.

Rico scrubbed his face with his hands. “How did you find me?”

Ezra shrugged. Yes, his eyes were still shocking blue, and his long face was still vulnerable and pretty. But the place he’d held in Rico’s heart wasn’t open for him anymore, and his looks didn’t catch Rico’s breath or make him want to run to the moon and back—or come out to his parents.

He’d done that already. He’d done that for himself, and then he’d held on to Derek and Adam and stayed out.

Rico would run to hell and back for Derek; he hardly wanted to walk up the stairs to talk to Ezra.

“This was the last address on your résumé,” Ezra said, eyes pleading for understanding. “You talked about having your cousin house-sit—I took a chance.” Ezra pointed to the stoop, where Miguel was walking Clopper down the stairs. “That guy said you’d be home soon.”

Adam was talking to Miguel and shooing Finn up the stairs and petting an excited Clopper all at once, and Rico nodded to him and waved him on. Rico could do this, and it wasn’t going to hurt anywhere near like he’d once predicted.

“Yeah,” he said, trying not to be cruel. “Me and my boyfriend took Adam and Finn out to a game in San Francisco.”

Ezra grimaced. “Uh… so, your boyfriend. You’re out?”

Rico nodded. “To everyone,” he said softly. “My dad and grandma disowned me, but fuck ’em. My mom stood tough in the end.”

Ezra couldn’t seem to stop studying his feet in their shiny wingtips. “I, uh… well, after you left, I… I mean, I tried to toe the line for a little while. But I couldn’t.” He shot Rico a naked look. “I missed you so bad. You were the only reason I could work there. I had no idea how horrible it had been… how close I was to dying every day. And then you left, and I….” He swallowed and held out his hands. His knuckles were healing from what looked to be injuries that would come from hitting something. “I lost it one day,” he said, shrugging like it was no big deal. “I just started banging on my cubicle until I’d destroyed it, and I was bleeding and crying, and nobody knew what to do. And my dad sent me to the doctor, and the doctor sent me to the shrink, and the shrink talked to my dad for fifteen minutes and then came to me and told me I could come out and make another future or the next time I wouldn’t be able to stop. And when the dust cleared, I realized….” He shook his head. “I hoped….”

Rico closed his eyes and swallowed. “I’m so sorry,” he said softly. He’d had no idea how fragile Ezra had been. None. “I… I should have known.” How could he? “If I’d been a better person, I would have known,” he said, fractured for a moment. Destroyed.

“How could you?” Ezra said, raising his hand to cup Rico’s cheek. “I didn’t know. It wasn’t… I mean, I would have done it earlier without you. I just… I kept thinking, ‘I need something to make me feel alive.’ And then you did.”

“And then I left.” Fuck.

Ezra shook his head and waved his hand like he was swatting flies. “No—this is
not
about guilt!” he said, sounding angry. “I told you to go—you didn’t think you had a choice. I don’t want to guilt you into this. I… I spent the last four months getting
better
, dammit, and I don’t want this to be a consideration.”

Rico closed his eyes, saw the vulnerability in Derek’s face as he’d pulled away. “Good,” he said quietly. “Because the guy who just drove away—he… I can’t hurt him. I’d die before I hurt him. Not even for….” He swallowed. In March it would have been a very different story.

Ezra nodded. “Not even for me. I get it,” he said softly. “He’s a good guy?”

“Oh God—you got no idea,” Rico said, his throat raw. “He’s… I mean, maybe someday I’ll tell you all the good things this guy is. But I can’t. He just drove away thinking I’d choose you, and I can’t let him do that, you understand?”

Ezra, God love him, wiped his eyes with his palms and nodded. His chin crumpled, but he nodded. “Yeah. I… uh, you got some recommendations for a hotel or something?” he asked after a minute. He gestured to the stoop, where three big suitcases stood. “My apartment, most of my clothes, I left all of it behind. I think my dad’s burning it or something. I… I sort of got nowhere to go.”

Rico half laughed. “I’ll tell you what,” he said, taking a tentative step forward. He didn’t want what he was about to do to be misconstrued. “I, uh… I’m about to move out of my apartment. I’m leaving behind a really comfortable couch, a couple of drawers, and my big fucking dog to guard my cousin and his boyfriend. You can have my spot, okay?”

Ezra gaped. “No, seriously—”

Rico shook his head. “No, seriously. And you know what? My cousin works in a candy store—it’s not great pay, but I’m pretty sure they have a spot for you.”

“A candy store?” Ezra wrinkled his nose.

Rico had to laugh. “Yeah. I’ll let him explain it.” He called to Miguel, who had Clopper out on the lawn, probably so he could take a dump. “Miguel, look. I’m going to walk Clopper over to Derek’s. I’ll probably be gone until tomorrow, and then tell Adam I’m coming back to get my stuff, okay?”

“Yeah, no problem,” Miguel said, drinking in Ezra’s misery with concern. “Uhm, this is—”

“This is Ezra Kellerman,” Rico said, standing back and letting the two of them shake hands. “He’s a real good guy, and I need you to tell Adam he’s sleeping on the couch until he’s got himself a place to stay. I’ll pay the rent, no worries.”

“Rico, you don’t have to—”

Rico cut him off by hugging him sure and tight and kissing him platonically on the cheek. “You and me aren’t ever going to be a thing again,” he said softly. “But I still care what happens to you. This is a good place. Adam and Finn’ll take care of you. But I’ve got to go get Derek. He thinks I’m walking out of his life. I can’t let him think that, you know?” Rico knew what it felt like.

Ezra nodded and held on extra tight for a minute.

And then let go.

Rico smiled at Miguel for a minute. “Make sure Adam knows me and Ezra are cool, or he’s going to think this is bullshit,” he cautioned. Then he took Clopper’s lead and started walking.

He’d measured once in Derek’s car. Derek lived about a mile away. He could be there in twenty-five minutes if he didn’t want to kill himself and Clopper in the heat.

Derek found him in the front yard, hosing himself and Clopper off and trying not to pass out.

“Oh my God, don’t you have a car?”

“I’m leaving it at the apartment, remember?” Rico panted, bending over and letting the hose play on the back of his neck and then turning his head to gulp some more water. He’d actually stopped and run him and Clopper through someone’s sprinklers on the way, but the refreshment hadn’t lasted long. Fucking
Jesus
, Sacramento could suck in the summer.

“I thought you were leaving the dog at the apartment too,” Derek said, and Rico grunted. He’d gotten a good look at Derek’s face, and for all his bullshit, his eyes were red-rimmed and his cheekbones stood out on high alert—a man who was pale and sad and crying.

“I thought it was shared custody.” They
had
worked out the details on the way home, right? “What can I say, Derek, the dog needed to crap and I needed to tell you not to be an asshole, because I wasn’t leaving you.” He’d actually planned that better a thousand times in his head on the way over, but he still had spots dancing in front of his eyes and apparently the pretty words had been cooked out of him, like fat.

“You just left your ex-boyfriend on the lawn?” Derek asked in horror.

Rico scowled at him and then decided he might not get sick if he stood up, as long as he kept the hose going. “Well, I gave him my spot on the couch,” Rico said, not sure how this would go over. “And I told Adam to get him a job. But….” He’d spent some time on the walk over getting indignant, and now that came back to him as well.

“You
left
me, you asshole. Jesus, the next time some ghost from the past shows up on our doorstep, would you do me a favor and stick around long enough to fight for me?”

“I was
trying
to be a good guy!”

“You
are
a good guy! Stop trying so hard—you do too much!” Rico’s voice pitched plaintively on that last note, and a reluctant smile played with the corners of Derek’s mouth.

“Here, baby,” he said softly. “Let’s go through the garage to the backyard, and you can take off your clothes and get inside to the air-conditioning.”

“That would be much appreciated,” Rico said, trying for dignity. “That right there would make you a good guy.” He wasn’t sure if it was the brush with heat stroke or the brush with the ex-boyfriend or the
watching Derek drive away thinking it was the end
, but he felt dangerously near tears himself.

Derek’s firm hand on the small of his back helped take the shakiness away, and so did a big glass of ice water and a cool shower.

Twenty minutes later Clopper flopped on the cool tiles of the kitchen floor, eschewing the bed Derek had bought him for his visits. Rico sprawled on the couch next to Derek, wearing a towel and nothing else. He sipped his third glass of water and prodded Derek’s shin with his toe.

“You going to tell me why you left me on the lawn talking to my ex-ex-ex-boyfriend?” he asked softly.

Derek’s expression should have been sheepish, but it was, in fact, that bare, vulnerable look that Rico had caught only glimpses of before. “You know,” he said, failing at a casual smile, “it’s… it’s like when I caught my old boyfriend cheating and knew it was my fault. I… I knew you were on the rebound, but…. God, I just wanted you so bad. Just that first meeting. Went home and dreamed about you. Called you out of the blue. Wanted to hear your voice. And I told myself it was okay that I got you on the rebound, because you weren’t bouncing back across the country to see him again. You were making this your home, right? But there he was… I mean, what right did I have to get in the way? You’d put off moving in, and it was like… I don’t know. A sign.”

Rico grunted. “Yeah—it was a sign that you haven’t been listening to me.” His prodding on Derek’s shin became a slow caress. “You and me, Derek? We’re the best thing I ever could have imagined. Ezra and I were… like you said. I wasn’t home.
He
wasn’t home. You are.”