Left on St. Truth-Be-Well (14 page)

“It’s a long way to Chicago.”

“You came down here to get a guy you felt up in a broom closet. You think I couldn’t go up there to get a guy I fell in love with?”

Carson’s mouth went dry, and he knew his look was naked, but he couldn’t help it. “You’d better come get me,” he muttered. “You’d better. I’ll forget who I am when I’m not with you. I’m not that strong. That’s why I grope guys in broom closets and need you to tell me what to do in bed and—”

This kiss was stronger, harder, and Carson got lost in it for a moment, long enough for Stassy to move to the other side of the car.

“Carson, we going? We need to stop for food, man. I’m starving.”

Carson pulled back and rested his forehead against Dale’s chest.
So much for being a big bad grown-up
, he thought, trying not to let his eyes burn or his breath hitch or any of that other shit.

“I know who you are,” Dale said softly. “You’re the guy who shoved me in the bushes trying to protect a kid you felt responsible for. You’ll be fine.”

One more kiss and Carson was in the front seat of the Element, finding his station on Pandora and listening to Carolina Liar singing “I’m Not Over.”

He kept that song in his head all the way down the road.

One month later

D
ALE
hadn’t called in two days.

That first night in the hotel room after they’d left St. Aubrey, Carson had gone for a short run after he and Stassy called it quits on the driving. He been running through Nashville, sweating like a champion and trying really hard not to think about what Dale was doing and how much more awesome surfing was than running, when his pocket buzzed.

“Yeah?” he panted.

“Hey, Chicago, you better not be having sex.”

“I’m running, smartass.”

“I knew that, but I’m serious about the sex.”

“I’m not running from you, asshole. I sort of like you, mostly.”

“Who goes back to a job waiting tables?”

“Anyone who knows his boss is leader of the mob. Don’t give me shit, I miss you enough already.”

And that had been the beginning. Dale had called every night since.

Carson got Stassy back to Ivan the day after they got back to Chicago. Ivan had thanked him gruffly and deposited a fuck-ton of cash in Carson’s bank account, which Carson hadn’t been expecting.

When he’d seen the receipt, he’d written a check for the amount and had a little one-on-one with Ivan.

“You know, uhm,” he’d said tentatively, standing in Ivan’s little manager’s office rife with cigar smoke, city smoking ordinances be damned. “I don’t need this. You can have it back.”

“Forget about it. Think of it as a deposit for the next job I need you to do.”

Oh hell. No. Not doing this. Time to pony up. “I’m sort of thinking about moving out of the city. It was great doing you a solid, Ivan, but I’m not really going to be your go-to guy, okay?” He smacked a check down then, returning most of the money. He kept a little for expenses, but that was all.

Ivan grunted, chewed on his cigar, looked at the check, and then regarded Carson through tiny eyes. “Nobody moves out of Chicago. You get your ass out of here, I’ll leave you alone. Until then, I call your name, you jump!”

Carson nodded, suddenly afraid. He got off his shift that day, called a real estate agent, and started to see about subletting his apartment.

“You’re paying way more than it’s worth,” the real estate agent said. “Where’d you make that shitty deal?”

“Ivan O’Leary got it for me. I thought it was a great deal!”

“Not since he owns the building. Jesus, kid, he’s reaming you dry. I’ll see what I can do.”

Dale was unsurprised. “You got flunky written all over you, Carson. You gotta get out of there, or you’ll be running drugs and laundering cash next.”

“I’m not that easy!” Carson protested. He was lying in his little bed in the corner of his studio, looking out at the skyline lit against the darkness. He was letting his hand drift restlessly against his chest, toy with his nipples, slip under the waistband of his boxers and fool around down there. They weren’t having phone sex, per se, but just hearing Dale’s voice made him want to be touched.

“You are. The right guy tells you what to do, and you do it. You’re just lucky you found the right guy before Ivan claimed you for good.”

That thought killed Carson’s libido right quick. “What am I gonna do?”

“Don’t worry. I’ve got a plan.”

“Care to clue me in?”

“You done saying good-bye to your city yet, Carson?”

“I want to show it to you. Grant Park is something special. It’s got that big shiny bean, and the look out to the lake. The fountain’s going and it’s gorgeous.”

“I’ll take that as a no.”

“Then you’d be wrong, asshole. I just… I mean, I just want you to see it, is that so bad? I grew up here. I love it. Don’t you want to see it?”

“I want to see you.”

“Yeah, well, I want to see you too.”

They rang off after that, and Carson stood up restlessly. He walked to his window and looked out, still proud of the view even now that he knew Ivan owned the building. He wasn’t in The Loop, which was too bad, but this place at Near Northside had a pretty good view. Of course, the adage went that there were no bad views of Chicago, and he tended to believe it. From the tenth floor of a fourteen-story building, he could make out landmarks: the Mies van der Rohe buildings, which were his favorites; that monstrosity with the diamond face that almost killed pedestrians with icefall ever year; the one with the sides curved that was meant to cut the wind. He loved them all. He picked them out, tracing their outlines against the glass. It was late April, so it was still chilly at night, and he could feel the chill against his finger and on his feet as he stood there in his boxer shorts.

If he closed his eyes, he could imagine Dale at his back, pulling him against a hard chest, and he could imagine feeling safe.

The next morning he called Bridget, and they had lunch walking along the river by Wacker and State, across from Marina City. It was cold enough to need a jacket, and he had to smile because Bridget’s scarf was a Degas print with a yellow background, and she wore it with style. Bridget O’Shaughnessy, petite, redheaded, green-eyed with an elfin little sliver of a face, always wore originality with panache.

“Thanks for the dog, Carson,” she said, biting into her Chicago-style dog with the onions and the tomatoes and the relish and the celery salt. Who didn’t love their dogs that way? “Why are we here?”

Carson took a bite of his own and chewed. “So, how’s the kids?”

“Ungrateful and not nearly as much fun as you. And before you ask, the husband isn’t doing so well. The winters ’bout kill him here. What’s up? It’s not Mother’s Day, and you usually save your voluntary emotional contact for Mother’s Day, my birthday, and the holidays. What’s doing?”

Carson cringed, feeling a little guilty, and decided to spill so she didn’t bring up any of his other shortcomings. “I’m thinking of moving to Florida.”

Bridget swallowed a bite of dog and smiled at him, wiping the corners of her mouth delicately with a napkin. “Yeah? What’s her name?”

“His name is Dale.”

Her eyebrows went up, but nothing else happened. “Yeah? Can he keep you straight?”

Carson tried not to spit out his dog. “Not if he’s a he, Bridget—”

“Don’t be a smartass. I mean, can he keep you from fucking up? Because I’ve got to tell you, you made it through college, baby, but you’ve been a little lost ever since.”

Carson looked out around them, at the green river, the wide street, the buildings.

“I know where I’ve been. I’ve been right here,” he said, thinking that the Cubs were playing and he should be there, but he was tired of getting his heart broken.

Bridget finished her dog, and she crumpled the paper in her hand with her napkin, then turned to Carson and straightened his leather jacket and adjusted his scarf around his neck. “A city isn’t a life, baby. I love you. Go to Florida. Me and Mister’ll come visit you in the winter.”

Carson smiled. “Be snowbirds?”

“Exactly. Don’t worry. You’re still Jimmy’s kid, and I still love you.” She gave him a kiss on the cheek. “It’ll be an adventure. You’re always good with those. Remember when you took the bus to New York when you were in high school? You wanted to see Chris Rock, and he wasn’t coming here that year.”

“Yeah, he was damned good too.”

“Well, you know what you’re doing when it’s a people, Carson. If you’ve got a people there in Florida, it’s a good choice. Let me know when you’re leaving, I’ll come see you off.”

She kissed his cheek again and clicked off toward her job in the John Hancock building where she worked as a buyer for Neiman Marcus. It was a twelve-block walk, but she’d be there in fifteen minutes at the rate she was going in those high-heeled boots.

Carson watched her go and felt his chest thump a little. If he wasn’t afraid of owing Ivan already, he’d borrow his SUV, take it back to his dad’s little house in the suburbs, and tool around and remember those brief years when Bridget had been home and his dad had been happy.

But he didn’t really need to, he thought, leaning against the bridge rail and looking into the murky water. Sometimes the locks would let out a burp and there’d be an ominous bubble and blork from the bottom, but he figured that was the price you paid when you reversed a river’s course. Sometimes there was a little resistance, that was all, but just like shipping all of Chicago’s muck down to St. Louis to be made into Budweiser, the result was a clean Lake Michigan and a cleaner Chicago.

Maybe shipping Carson to Florida would result in a cleaner Carson, right?

Or maybe it would just result in Carson getting laid regularly by someone he not only could stand on a day-to-day basis but craved like potato chips and pizza, except more often, and less fattening.

Maybe he just wanted to be with Dale, and it really was that simple.

“Ivan,” he said, braving the office again that night before work. “I want out of my lease.”

“So you figured that out, did you?”

“It was a low thing to do. Forget owing me a solid, just let me get the hell out of Chicago.”

Ivan shrugged, the fine brown wool of his bespoke suit barely rippling. “You really want to go, you’ll go. You don’t need my blessing.”

“I need my fucking deposit, Ivan. I gotta ship my stuff down and buy a bus ticket. You ever think of that?”

“Hey, I gave you money—”

“I don’t like your strings!”

“I think you’re wasting a prime opportunity here.” Ivan wrinkled his whole butcher’s block face and swallowed some more of his cigar, and don’t think that didn’t make Carson queasy as all hell. “I need someone to drop off a suitcase in Jersey. I think you could be the guy.”

“I think I’m not doing you any more favors, and the next time I leave the state, it’s gonna be Florida, that’s what I think.”

Ivan shrugged again. “We’ll see. You’re still working here in two weeks, it’s gonna be Jersey. If you’re gone by then, it can be anywhere the fuck you want.”

Carson turned resolutely on his heel and figured he’d be shipping his stuff and buying a bus ticket by the end of the week. “Florida,” he said in a voice that brooked no argument. “I’m gonna be in Florida, on a fucking surfboard, beating the fucking gators over the head until they get out of my fucking way.”

He came out of the office, tying his apron around his waist and wondering if Dale would forgive him for blowing someone to get bus fare, when Maria tagged him on the shoulder.

“Hey, Carson, there’s a guy over on table 22. Says you’re the only one he wants to wait on him.”

Carson’s heart jumped into his throat. “He alone?”

“Naw, but the other guy was asking after Stassy. I told him Stassy worked tomorrow, and he looked real disappointed.”

Carson’s whole body started to vibrate, his stomach cold with Christmas and first snowfall and the first flower of spring and his first wave with a board under his feet and his first stand-up gig, all at the same time.

“Hey, Maria, you first off tonight?”

“Yeah, why? You want to change shifts?”

Maria was a dark-haired bosomy girl with two kids and a mustache. She always needed the money.

“Yeah,” he said. He didn’t tell her she could have all his shifts for the next two weeks of the schedule and any shifts he had coming after that. He was going to Florida.

He rounded the corner from the office to the front of the house and grimaced. He’d just been triple sat with two big parties and table 22, and holy fucking hell.

He said hi to the parties first, gave them drink menus, and made his way back to 22.

They were both casually dressed in jeans and hooded sweatshirts. Toby had gotten his hair cut, and he was sulking over the menu, but Carson mostly ignored him.

He wasn’t interested in Toby at all.

“Hey,” Carson said, letting his grin escape.

“Hey yourself,” Dale said, those damned blue eyes taking him in. He shook the sun-bleached curls out of his eyes and smiled challengingly. “You been taking care of what’s mine?”

Carson nodded, eager as a puppy. “I wouldn’t damage your property, Dale. I swear. I wouldn’t even take it to Jersey.”

Dale’s eyes widened. “You get offers to go to Jersey?”

Carson swallowed, suddenly aware of how very, very narrowly he’d missed being a mob flunky. “Yeah, but I already turned ’em down.”

Some infinitesimal tightness relaxed in Dale’s frame, and Carson wanted those long brown arms around him like nothing else. “That’s good to hear. I might have some plans for you after all.”

Carson swallowed, wanted to kiss him badly, but didn’t. “Well, whatever you want,” he said, his voice gruff. “It is your property, after all.” A sound from the crowds called him back to the here and the now. “Here,” he said brightly. “Let me get your drink order. I’ll be back in a bit.”

He sort of ran his ass off for the rest of the night. He got Dale and Toby their drinks and their dinners, but mostly he jogged between tables with trays and trays of sodas and white wine spritzers. (O’Leary’s served the best corned beef on the planet but didn’t always attract the most erudite crowd.)