Finding Gary (The Romanovsky Brothers Book 4) (22 page)

“My brother,” Gary wheezed, nodding.  “My brother will know what to do…”

***

“I don’t understand Jack,” Gary said, later that night at Cedar’s Point, tracing each star in the sky from where his head was cradled on Reggie’s lap.  They were now at the cliff almost every night, and it had quickly become their favorite spot all over again, just like when they were kids.  “I can’t figure out if he’s a genius, or just a really, really bad lawyer.  Some of the questions he asks make me wonder whose side he’s even on.”

Reggie laughed again, raking his fingers through Gary’s hair.  “I think he knows exactly what he’s doing.  He asks us the tough questions to throw off the defense, but still manages to make us look good.  Our side is coming off sympathetic.”

“I think you’re giving him too much credit.  Maybe he’s just a jerk and a really bad lawyer.”

“I feel like he has an ace in the hole that he isn’t telling anyone about, and making everyone believe he’s a terrible lawyer is the best way to ensure they underestimate him.  That way, when he comes in from behind and castrates them all, they won’t even see it coming.”

A silence fell in, and they continued looking up at the stars from the hood of Gary’s car. 

“I don’t know how much more I can take…” Gary said. “This trial is going to end me before it’s over. Going back to that night… seeing the way Zoey was looking at me across that courtroom…  The way my family was looking at me…”

“Well, you did essentially come out of the closet on the witness stand.”  Reggie shifted, his weight denting the hood of Gary’s car even more than it already was.  He cuddled his shoulder into the soft blanket serving as a barrier between their bodies and the dusty hood, throwing his arm over Gary’s stomach.  He played his fingers into the dusting of hair under his bellybutton, chuckling when the warm night breeze caught his curls and made them dance.  “At least you didn’t catch a fist to the mouth like I did.  Maybe we should give them a break.  It’s normal for them to be a little shocked.” 

“They shouldn’t be shocked,” Gary said.

Reggie frowned.  “You told me they didn’t know you were gay.”

“No… Not about me being gay.  They didn’t know that, at all.  But… They knew…” Gary met Reggie’s eyes.  “That I’d never… that I hadn’t…” 

Reggie nodded, pressing him.

“When you came to my apartment that night… When we…” Gary took a moment.  “I’d never done that before.”

“With a man?”

“Or anyone.”

Reggie cocked his head back, his mouth falling.

Gary moved his eyes back to the sky.  “My brothers never gave me grief about it, but they knew I was a virgin.  They knew something was… off.  Before Leo allowed himself to become love-struck and castrated by Jessica Borgia, he used to have a harem of naked women in his apartment, 24/7.  He’d sick them on me all the time.  If it hadn’t occurred to me that I loved dick at fourteen, it definitely would’ve happened, at some point, in Leo’s apartment.  There was this one red headed girl, Sarah, who was always all over my jock.  She could never get me hard.  I never told her, but she knew.  She never said anything to Leo…” Gary frowned.  “I wonder where she is.  I liked her.”

“Gary,” Reggie smiled bashfully, nudging him.  “Why didn’t you say something?  If I’d known, I’d have lit a candle or… something.”

“Shut the fuck up.” Gary shoved him.

Reggie laughed.  “I’m serious.  We just went at it.  Like a couple of wild animals—”

“It was perfect.” Gary met his eyes.

The smile vanished from Reggie’s face.  “I thought so, too.”

“My family’s been calling me since the trial was adjourned. For the first time in a month, my phone is ringing.  I guess being a homosexual was the perfect way to get back in their good graces.”

“Why don’t you call them back?  Haven’t you been desperate for their forgiveness all this time?”

“It’s not genuine.  They’re only calling me because they think me being a gay man is some kind of handicap.  Some kind of fucking disease.  I don’t want their pity.”

“Maybe it’s not pity.  Maybe it’s simply the perfect excuse for them to swallow their pride and do what they’ve been itching to do all along—forgive you.  They love you, man.  I promise you they’ve been looking for a reason—any reason at all—to bring you back into the fold.  And now they’ve all got one.”

“All but Val.  He’s the only one who hasn’t called.  He has not spoken a single word to me in weeks.  Literally, not a single one.  Not ‘good morning’.  Not ‘how you been’.  Not ‘pass the salt’.  Nothing.”

Reggie sighed. 

“Swear to God,” Gary grumbled.  “I think, this time, it’s real.  I’ve pissed him off to the high heavens, more times than I can count.  But he always circled back.  Eventually.  This time… Never.  He’s never going to forgive me.”

“I have a feeling when Zoey hears his testimony… when she hears what happened that night… she’ll start seeing Val with new eyes.”

“You don’t know Zoey.  She’s an angel until you cross her.  She’ll never forgive him.  Or me.  She won’t even speak to Ma, who was just as blindsided by all this as she was.”

“What Val did that night, though…

They searched each other’s eyes, but no more words came.  Reggie fell onto his back, and they entwined their fingers.

“Gary,” Reggie’s whispered voice trembled.  “If I could go back…”

Gary tightened his fingers around Reggie’s, silencing him.  “I don’t want to be sorry anymore.”

A silence fell in and stayed around.  Then, Reggie whispered. 

“Me either.”

***

The next evening, the Romanovsky clan did a stand-up job pretending not to be shocked at the news Gary had blasted them with in court the day before.  They’d accomplished their most pleasant family dinner yet, with no expletives flying across the table and no steak knifes brandished for the sole purpose of drawing blood.  For the first time, Bette had kissed Gary’s cheek on her way upstairs to bed, and the rest of his family had all shown him some form of love, too.  All in their own different ways.

All but Val.

Gary licked his lips as he finished up the last of the dishes.  After weeks of family dinners teeming with formidable animosity, animosity he felt responsible for, Gary always volunteered to do the dishes.  They had a state of the art dishwasher, but he preferred doing them by hand.  Something about the warm water, the soapsuds, and the vigorous scrubbing was therapeutic for him.

Plates and silverware clattered in the quiet kitchen and Gary found himself so lost in the oddly soothing sound that when a body suddenly appeared next to him, he sucked in a stunned breath through his nose.

“Jesus,” he said, looking to his left, wondering which family member had snuck up on him. 

When he caught sight of Val, the sponge in his hand came to a grinding halt on the pot he’d been scraping.

Val didn’t meet his eyes, opting instead to lean back against the counter, staring forward with both his arms and legs crossed.  His eyes moved back and forth, betraying the flurry of thoughts running through his head.  Thoughts he, for whatever reason, wasn’t ready to voice.

The silence went on for minutes. Gary allowed himself to drink in the profile of Val’s angry face with abandon.  It was the first time in weeks that his big brother had been this close to him without blind hatred splashed all over his face.  All over every inch of him.  It didn’t matter that Val wasn’t returning his gaze. 

Gary clutched the edge of the counter, and when his staring crossed the line from brotherly to creepy, he dropped his head. 

“Saw Marcus yesterday,” Val said.

Gary’s eyes shot up, and this time, Val’s golden eyes were riveted to his.

Val licked his lips, swallowing back a lump in his throat.  “Swear to god; he’s a foot taller every week.”

Gary’s lips pulled tight when he felt emotion rising to his eyes, and thankfully, he was able to fight it back.

Val went into his pocket and pulled out his cell phone, sniffling, swiping the back of his hand under his nose.  “I take a shitload of pictures…” He laughed to himself, holding up the phone with slight embarrassment, making a silent offer.

Gary’s nails dug into the sink; he bit his bottom lip, and because the words were trapped in his throat, he nodded vigorously, only able to bite back the tears when Val pulled up his camera roll.

As Gary drank in the first photos he’d ever seen of his nephew, somehow, even if only for a moment, everything was okay.

18

Another day in court had Zoey feeling completely overwhelmed.  Taj had reminded her every week that she wasn’t required to attend these trials.  That she was probably doing herself more harm than good.  But the masochistic side of her wouldn’t have it any other way.  She still hadn’t heard the whole story about that night because she’d cut the family off completely.  Val had attempted to talk to her about it, too, but she’d brushed him off.  Now she knew she could no longer avoid it.

After hearing Gary’s side of the story during his testimony the week before, she wasn’t sure she could stand another day of this.  She’d had no idea Gary had actually met her mother before the accident.  That he’d looked her in the eye and shaken her hand.  Zoey wondered if her mother’s hand had been warm during that handshake.  If Gary had felt the blood rushing through her body in her heated palm.  The blood he would soon be responsible for bringing to a grinding halt.

Zoey yanked open the door to the women’s restroom in the courthouse, inhaling sharply.  She tried to push the thought of Gary from her mind, but when she caught eyes with the man stepping out of the bathroom across the hall, that became impossible to accomplish.

Val lingered in the doorway of the men’s room, making his exit, as well.  He held Zoey’s stunned eyes across the hallway, frozen in place; the beds of his fingers keeping the door behind him cracked open.

And there it was.  The butterflies she had no idea why she still felt.  The immediate tremble over every inch of her body.  And her heart…

Her heart…

Zoey crossed her arms tight, letting the door to the women’s restroom swing closed behind her, narrowing her eyes.  “I guess the bathroom hallway is the official ‘uncomfortable run-in with a Romanovsky’ spot.”

Val didn’t smile, letting his door close behind him, too.  He didn’t move.

Neither did she.

When the silence stretched on for over a minute, Zoey snuck a look at him from the corner of her eye.  When she saw his intense gaze locked on her, her eyes fell.  She shuffled her feet.  Her hands came down to her sides and tightened to fists.

“You were right,” she said, looking up just in time to see Val jolt.

He hadn’t been expecting her to speak; that much was evident in the sudden jump of his eyebrows, his deep inhalation, and his own tightened fists, which he covered with the opposite hand the moment it began to shake.  He chewed the corner of his bottom lip.

Zoey stabbed her fists towards the ground.  “Marcus and I need to be in a safer building.  In a better school district.”

“I have a penthouse in Hell’s Kitchen.  Paid for,” he said, immediately.  “New construction.  Four bed; two bath.  Whole Foods is on the ground floor.  Overlooks Central Park.  Secured entry and a doorman.  The address will look better on applications once we start applying for pre-schools.”  He searched her eyes.   “I’ve been to the bank, and the monthly wire transfer will increase to twenty thousand starting on the 1st.”

“We don’t need that kind of money.”

“You will in Manhattan.”

“Sounds like you’ve got it all figured out.  Of course you do.  You’ve always been five steps ahead of me, haven’t you?”

Val swallowed, letting that blow by.  “I can have movers in Brooklyn first thing tomorrow.”

“I don’t have anything packed.”

“I’ll pay them to suck it up.”

“Four bedrooms seems like a lot.  We don’t really need that much room.  It’s just me and Marcus.”  She laughed softly.  “And Taj.  So, come to think of it, I guess four bedrooms is perfect.”

Val lowered his eyes, his jaw tightening.  He frowned, then chuckled softly.

Zoey read his face. “I’ll see you in the morning.  Or I guess I’ll see you in court.”  Her heart sped up, and she began toward the courtroom, heels clicking.

“I’m paralyzed.”

Zoey froze in her tracks, turned, and shot her eyes to him, stunned.

Shoulders hunched, eyes tortured—all pleasantries had disappeared from Val’s face.  He croaked in a failed attempt to speak, voice hoarse with emotion when the words finally came.  “I’m
paralyzed
, Zo…”

Zoey’s eyes fluttered closed, and she tried to push away the pain in his voice, the same pain she could feel permeating through every inch of her body, and every millimeter of space that wafted between them, keeping them both from the comfort of each other’s arms.

“I can’t…” Val nearly ripped his dress shirt from his chest, tugging.  “I can’t function. If I can’t have you and my son I don’t… I don’t want to live anymore.”

“Val, stop it.” Zoey nearly cursed the tears that stung her eyes.  “I may have tried to keep him away from you in the beginning, but I’m seeing clearer now.  You’re his father, and he needs you.  How I feel isn’t what matters.  It will never be what matters.  Regardless of how I feel; I want what’s best for Marcus, and what’s best for him is to have his father in his life.  I won’t try to keep him from you anymore.  I’m not ready to increase your time just yet—an hour a week is all I can take right now—but it won’t be forever.  As he gets older, once this awful trial is over, I’ll be stronger and more comfortable with you seeing him more. If he can’t have a mother and father under the same roof, I at least want him to have structure when he’s forced to bounce back and forth between the two of us, but…” She crossed her arms tighter over her chest.  “But I’ll never try to keep him away from you again.”

“And you?”

She blinked, and when she was met with silence, shook her head with a frown.  “Me?”

“I’ll see Marcus on weekends… every other holiday… whatever bullshit our attorneys cook up…” He motioned to her.  “But… You?  When his voice broke, he looked away.  “What about you, Zo?”

Zoey felt her body take on a tremble from head to toe.  “I’m not trying to hurt you.  Okay?  I’m never out to hurt you.  Nowhere near as badly as you’ve hurt me…  So please understand that when I say what I’m about to say.”  She paused, tears coming to her own eyes as she shook her head.  “I will never, ever… ever be yours again.  I will never be your girlfriend; I will never be your wife. We will never make love again for as long as either of us is alive. There is not a word in existence you could say, or a thing in the world you could do that will ever change that. I will never be yours again, Val.”

Val smashed his lips together.

“I need that to be… Completely. Clear.”  A tear tumbled from her eyes.  “Never,” she wheezed, slapping it from her face.  “I need you to accept that—”

“I don’t.”

“I need you to accept it—“

“I won’t.”

“And I need you to let me… let you go.  I need you to let me do that, Val.”

A silence passed between them, Val’s hand still on the door handle behind him, which was beginning to tremble under the weight of his hold.  Then, he shook his head, whispering, “I don’t have any fucking idea how to do that, Zo.”

He moved like a flash, closing the space between them with a couple of long strides and getting her wet cheeks cupped in his hands in an instant.

Every bone in Zoey’s body told her to snatch away, to step back; to remove herself from his proximity before she found herself gone for good.

Then, as she felt his warm breath tickling her face, his scent filling her psyche, and his golden eyes falling to her lips, she worried it was too late.  She found herself paralyzed, reduced to nothing more than a heaving chest and melting heart. 

Val leaned in, pressing his forehead softly to hers, brushing the back of his thumbs over her face tenderly. 

Zoey lifted her hands and let them linger inches away from his chest, seeing his breathing pick up at the anticipation of her touch.  And she did.  With a gasp, she pressed her palms to his chest, her lips curling as she felt that familiar strength under her hungry fingers.  She let them trickle over every sharp dip and curve, already knowing what every part of him looked like under that button down because she’d tasted every inch.  Her eyes involuntarily hooded, teeth clenched, and then, after digging as deeply as she possibly could, Zoey pushed him back.

Val caught her wrists in the nick of time, stopping the blow from throwing him back, forcing her to take a step forward and plant her feet against his weight.

She slowly lifted her eyes and searched his before whispering, just softly enough to live in the air between their faces for a moment, “No.”

***

The agony of Zoey pushing him away in the hallway was still etched across Val’s face on the witness stand.  He’d taken his seat more than five minutes earlier and was currently waiting for Jack to finish getting his notes together.  Val’s eyes remained locked to the back of the courtroom, eyebrows pulled, speaking words to Zoey that neither of them needed him to say out loud.

“Good morning, Val.”

Val was surprised at the sight of Jack in front of the witness stand, wondering when he’d moved from the prosecution table.  As he shot Zoey another look, it occurred to him how quickly real life escaped him whenever she was in the same room.

He cleared his throat and returned Jack’s good morning, praying that they could get this over with as quickly as possible.

In the hallway, Zoey had pushed him away, but not right away.  Val hadn’t missed that.  He hadn’t missed the passion that still lingered in her eyes, even if it was hidden under several shovels of anger and resentment.  He hadn’t missed her inability to keep her hands off him, even as her conflicted face illustrated her desire to do the exact opposite.  He hadn’t missed the way her long nails pushed into his biceps, the way they always used to whenever they made love.  It was a clue she’d never known she gave him.  He always knew she was close; one stroke of her throbbing clit away from a spine bending release, when he felt those nails digging into his chest.

Even then, his dick grew hard, longing for those days, yearning for a road back. 

When Jack asked Val a question, pulling him back to reality, it occurred to him that Gary had been right all along.

The only road back to Zoey was the god’s honest truth.

Val wished he could go back and give her that truth ten years ago.  He wished he could go back, listen to Gary, and tell Zoey everything when he still had the chance.

But he couldn’t go back.  So instead, he drank in Jack’s question about that night, ten years earlier, pondered the answer, met Zoey’s eyes across the courtroom… and told the truth.

***

10 Years Earlier

“Sir, there’s no rush or anything,” Val placed his hands over his heart.  “But we closed five minutes ago… so…” 

He motioned to the doors of the coffee shop, working overtime to keep the bullshit smile plastered on his face.  When the man began gathering his things, huffing and puffing the whole way, Val clenched his teeth. 

“Thank you,” he said, standing and making his way across the small shop and back behind the counter.

He’d already finished his closing duties. Clanking dishes as loudly as possible.  Stacking chairs on tables as noisily as he could manage.  Sweeping the floors as close to the feet of the man as he could.   But that man had still refused to take the hint.  There was nothing Val hated more than a patron who forced him to kick them out verbally.  He avoided confrontation whenever possible, and couldn’t stand it when he was strong-armed into it.

“Goodnight, sir.  Come see us again.”  The fake smile reappeared on Val’s face when the man stomped out.

Once the door closed behind him, Val rolled his eyes. 

He crossed the diner, locked the door, then moved to the table.  Of course, it had been left a mess.  No tip. 

“Fucking douchebag,” Val grumbled. 

After cleaning up after him and stacking the last of the chairs, cursing his existence the whole way, Val reminded himself to be patient.  He heard his father Tony’s voice in his head, telling him that men who were quick to anger were only playing themselves. That real power lay with the man who maintained composure and let the fool prove he was a fool. 

By the time he circled the counter to gather his things no whispered profanities remained.  His curled lips relaxed, and he was able to breathe easy.

He reminded himself why he’d taken this job in the first place.  Roman would be going off to Harvard soon, and then it would be him and Leo’s turn.  His father tried his best not to show it, but Val still saw the lines growing deeper between his eyes with every year the reality of college tuition came closer.  Though his four children had never wanted for anything in their lives—food, love, shelter… college was a whole different ballgame. Putting four kids through college—one of whom had landed an Ivy and three more well on their way, was scaring Tony Romanovsky to death. 

He would die before he said it out loud, but Val could see it.  When Val first announced he’d found a part-time job, Tony had insisted he didn’t have to, but those lines between his eyes had eased ever so slightly.  Val had seen that too.

It was worth the rude customers and long nights.  It was worth the struggle to keep his eyes open in class the following day.  It was all worth it because, one day, when he finished college, he would give back to his parents everything they’d given him.  Times ten.