Left on St. Truth-Be-Well (3 page)

He got halfway through the taco before darting his gaze up. Florida was still looking at him, eyebrows raised, like he could just sit there. Forever. Waiting. Waiting for Carson. Waiting for Carson to tell the truth.

Carson took another bite of taco.

And then spoke with his mouth full.

“Wull mmmm dnnn knoll dand!”

Florida had a full mouth, with a very defined upper lip. It quirked. It quirked well. And now it quirked upward as though it fully expected Carson to chew, swallow, and own up like a grown-up.

Bastard
.

He swallowed half a breakfast taco and said, “Well, I didn’t know that! I thought we were just making out in a broom closet! And then….” Shit. Stassy. He’d looked sort of freaked out.

“And then he took off to Florida from wherever you’re from to have a crisis.”

“Chicago. Is it not tattooed on my forehead?”

That full mouth pulled into a gentle smile. “No. City, yes.” Florida reached out and brushed his cheekbone with a long finger. “City is tattooed right here. But not which city.”

Carson knew his eyes got really frickin’ big. His cheekbone started to buzz from that casual touch, and he took several deep breaths to try to center himself.

“Chicago,” he said with an effort. “Born in the suburbs, moved to the city. Shitty apartment, decent apartment, Columbia College. Hell, I used to do the trolley tours. It’s in my blood.”

That lazy smile widened, and Carson jerked himself out of the full-lip trap only to find himself drowning in blue eyes. “Salt water’s in your blood. City’s under your skin. That leaves room for other things. You want to go look for your friend?”

Carson finished the last bite of taco and eyed him warily. That sounded… well, it sounded like a come-on, but not the kind Carson was used to from guys. It sounded almost like a girl’s come-on, but Florida possessed no girl qualities whatsoever.

“You, uh, coming with me?” Carson hedged, and Florida nodded, that hooded-eyed smile just growing deeper.

“Was planning on it. You ’bout done inhaling your breakfast?”

Carson looked at his mostly clean plate. “Yeah.” He looked around. It was the kind of place with a cash register, but Florida had brought his plates to the table. And then sat down and eaten with him. “You, uhm, want a tip?”

God. That laugh. Just sent ripples up Carson’s thighs and straight to his happy places. “Not that kind. Not from you. Hand me a ten and we’ll be good.”

Okay, it was an innuendo of some kind, but Carson was damned if he knew what kind. He handed over the ten, thinking that was a damned good bargain for a giant coffee and a full breakfast. “Uh… okay. So, Florida, you want to cross the street with me?”

Florida bit the smile on his succulent lower lip and nodded like the answer was obvious. “Sounds good. Let me go tell Marnie I’m off for the day.”

“You can just do that? Leave your shift?” At Ivan O’Leary’s, Carson would have to get someone to watch tables and make sure all his off-duty chores were done and tell everyone why he was leaving and—

Florida shrugged. “Yup. Marnie cooks breakfast, she gets the take from that. Jim owns the lunch part of the restaurant, he cooks that. I work when they need me. Breakfast is over, Jim and Marnie are changing in the kitchen, I can leave until lunch, and probably later. They’ll buzz me if they need anything. It’s Monday.”

Carson tried hard not to gape. It was so… so…
friendly
. His frail brain fizzled and died at the thought of that much friendly common sense in a business. He couldn’t grasp it. He’d focus on other things.

“So, if this place doesn’t eat into your time, what do you do with it?”

For the first time those sleepy eyes sharpened, and Carson could smell the faintest whiff of fanatic. For a moment, he was afraid.

“Surfing,” Florida said, completely serious. “Bodyboarding mostly, but when the waves get rough during hurricane season—man, I’m there. It’s like… like living in beauty, man. The only way to live.”

Carson’s mouth fell open like a virgin’s fly. “Uh….”

Suddenly Florida’s lazy-eyed smile returned. “Sensible guy like you, you probably got better things to do, huh.”

Carson was going to jump right on that, and then he remembered what he really did in his spare time. “I am nobody to judge,” he said, suddenly embarrassed. He loved it, loved the clubs, the laughter, that high after a really good set. For ten minutes he was funny, his life was worth telling to complete strangers, and he was adored. But “stand-up comic”? Yeah. That went right there next to surfing on the “how has my child squandered his life” list, right?

Those blue eyes grew intent, and Florida turned his head sideways. “There is a really good story behind that,” he said thoughtfully. “How about you tell me on the way across the street?”

Of all things, Carson found himself nodding, agreeing to anything, absolutely entranced. “Yeah, sure, okay.”

Oh, that smile… it was starting to make blood flow everywhere: his face, his skin, all points south. Carson was thinking about broom closets and bathrooms and suddenly those places didn’t seem to be enough.

He surprised himself by standing up.

Florida went inside and took off his polyester white apron as Carson waited for him. Together they walked out the little wooden gate of the picnic terrace, and Carson turned up the street toward the crosswalk.

“Where are you going?”

Carson turned around. “Have you ever gone walking in Chicago?”

“That would be a no.”

“Well, every time you come to a crosswalk, half the city jaywalks. Just goes. But I’ve taken cabs in that city, and those fuckers don’t give a shit about pedestrians just like pedestrians don’t give a shit about them. I don’t jaywalk. I don’t ever want to be a siren at 3:00 a.m. down Upper Wacker and Wabash, are you hearing me?”

“Loud and clear,” Florida said. And then he just crossed the damned road. Carson looked both ways, realized he couldn’t even see a car in either direction of the coastal highway, and caught up with him halfway across the street.

“Nice,” he muttered.

“Don’t know if you noticed, but this ain’t Chicago.”

“Bite me.”

Florida laughed. “Maybe. If it comes to that. Now what’s your scary hobby? C’mon, spill!”

Carson grunted. “Stand-up comedy.”

He watched as those blond eyebrows rose, and Florida slowly rolled that marble around in his brain until something stuck. “Giving or receiving?”

“Giving. Man, it is such a rush. You get up on the stage, and it’s, like, ‘Carson O’Shaughnessy’ and man, you get people to laugh. It’s like nothing in the world. It’s like you were put there to totally make their day better. I love it. Most awesome thing on the planet.”

“Mm.”

They were out of the street—which made Carson a damned sight happier—and he led the way around the back of the hotel. He knew where Stassy’s room was, and it was accessible from the outside. He also wanted to see if maybe Stassy was waiting for him. This was about where he’d been hiding when Carson had seen him from the café. Carson didn’t see anything now, so he risked a look at Florida’s face.

“Mm, what?”

“Carson O’Shaughnessy. I’ve never heard anything so Irish.”

Carson snorted. “It’s not my real name. I mean, it’s on my driver’s license, but it’s not really mine.”

Florida’s mouth puckered skeptically. “You will explain that.”

Bossy fucker, right? But Carson didn’t seem to be able to disobey. “Okay, so it’s like this. My dad died, like, five years ago, but before he went, he was dating this really awesome woman. Bridget O’Shaughnessy, sweetest woman in the world. But, well, Dad died. Sucked. Now, Bridget has other kids and folks and shit, but, like, the month after the funeral, it’s my birthday, and she calls me up and they all take me out for my birthday. And then I go over there for Thanksgiving. And Christmas. So, I guess on my birth certificate and my bank account, the name is Carson Saunders, but on my driver’s license and when I’m on the stage, I go by Carson O’Shaughnessy, because, seriously. Awesome only comes in so many flavors, right? You’ve got to savor them when they’re presented to you.”

He risked a look at Florida’s face, unsure of his reception. He didn’t tell a lot of people that story, mostly because it didn’t come up. Or, it did, because he did look Irish mostly with the five foot six inches and the fair skin, but, well, Florida invited confidences, didn’t he.

Speaking of….

Carson stopped before they rounded the corner to the side of the hotel that faced the beach. “What?”

Florida blinked and tilted his head, and Carson noticed that hidden under the stubble on his chin was a cleft as deep as a baby’s asscrack. He wondered if Florida ever shaved that thing. Was there a special class for shaving a baby’s ass cleft? Special blades? When Florida smiled, the divots on either side of his mouth deepened, and that couldn’t be easy to shave, either. Did that explain the stubble? Was it more about self-preservation than vanity or lack thereof?

They watched each other under the hazy sunshine, in the whooshing silence of the ocean, and Carson realized that, yes, he had asked the last question and it was Florida’s turn to speak. He opened his mouth to ask “what” again, and Florida’s slow smile stopped him.

“You got some depth there, Chicago. Nice to know.”

Carson narrowed his eyes. “Way to get cryptic there, Florida. Consider me your diving pool, then.”

Florida snorted, and quirked that smile again. “Thinking small, Chicago? Why can’t you be my ocean? Or at least my Great Lake.”

Carson swallowed against a sudden punch of unwanted attraction. This—the banter, the innuendo—this wasn’t what he did with guys. Usually, if it was a guy, it was a quick bang, a hand job as handshake sort of thing. But this?

Carson turned abruptly and tried not to scrape his shoulder against the wall. “Here,” he said, trying to get rid of the awkwardness. “We, uhm, when we come out here, we can cross the courtyard, and Stassy’s room is on the other side of the L.”

“Seems like the long way around.”

“Yeah, well.” Carson grunted and decided to ’fess up. “I thought I saw him, when I was eating. It was across the street, so I can’t be sure, and maybe I just wanted him to be okay, but I thought I saw him.”

“Mm.” Florida was quiet for a moment. “Maybe he doesn’t want to be found?”

“Yeah, well, if Ivan O’Leary was my uncle, I would have run away in middle school, but that’s not usually Stassy’s style. He’s a sweet kid, likes to make people happy.”

“Did he make you happy?”

“Jesus! Nosy much?”

“I’m just wondering. That’s not a crime.”

“Yeah, well, he suddenly thought it was. We were… you know, making out, getting ready to get down, and suddenly he just panicked the fuck out. I mean, it couldn’t have come as that much of a surprise, you feel me?” He paused for a second and heard Florida’s reply without him even saying it. “And don’t say you’d like to. It would be insincere and demean us both.”

Florida’s low laugh danced in his belly and Carson had a sudden vision, himself face forward against the building, Florida behind him, inside him, pumping slowly away while those strong arms wrapped around his shoulders and those big tanned hands splayed on his chest. Oh God. This was so unexpected.

“Anyway,” he continued weakly, “Stassy freaked out and ran. I tried to call him that night, to tell him, hey, it’s no big deal, I thought maybe meant yes and I was sorry, but he didn’t answer and the next day he disappeared. So when Ivan asked me to go look for him, I figured it was sort of my job anyway.”

“So was it really no big deal?”

“It wouldn’t have been if he hadn’t run away,” Carson said honestly, and Florida nodded like he could accept that. Arrogant little prick, right?

“Hm… you really are at least a Great Lake.”

“Yeah, well you’re like the Loch Ness, all smooth and dark on the outside, but there’s got to be a monster in there somewhere.”

Florida’s laugh rang through the courtyard as they turned the corner, and Carson shot him an annoyed glare. At least he tried for annoyed. What he was pretty sure happened was that he looked turned on.

They cut across the big green that opened toward the ocean, their route forming the third side of the isosceles triangle partially formed by the hotel. A defunct kids’ playground rotted in the middle, the hard fiberglass faded and big chunks of the structure missing and yellow ropes declaring it a hazard. An outdoor pool sported lots of fallen debris and a haphazard sign that told people to swim at their own risk. Carson had seen an indoor pool in the building next to the outdoor one, but Carson didn’t know what you’d catch if you swam there.

Some of the upstairs rooms had wind chimes hanging outside and window decorations, and Carson got the feeling this place was a home to more than the cockroaches. As they neared room 113, though, that’s not what he was thinking.

What he was thinking was, wouldn’t it be awkward if Stassy opened the door, embarrassingly happy to see him, and declared he, Carson, was the love of Anastacio Malinowski’s life? Especially given how appealing Florida’s laugh was becoming and how Carson kept turning his head just so, to see if he could catch a hint of the guy’s sweat. (Pathetic. Just pathetic. When did that become a turn-on?)

He didn’t have time to think about it long because they were there, and he didn’t believe in dithering because of a little bit of mortification, otherwise he’d never get on the stage.

He knocked crisply, and although he wasn’t surprised when nobody answered, he was a little bit surprised when the door swung quietly open.

“Jesus,” he muttered. “Seriously. These people don’t believe in a goddamned locked door? Is that some sort of Florida thing or some sort of weirdo parrot place thing?”

Florida was suddenly right on his back, and Carson shrugged his arm. “We don’t know each other that well—”

“Aren’t you going to go inside?”

“Well, I was gonna call out first, but… oh my God, what is that smell?”

Florida wasn’t backing off, so Carson literally stumbled into the room and tried not to gag.

The room looked like it had been cleared out in a hurry: chair knocked down by the little table, towels all over the floor, and papers too, a copy of
A Separate Peace
upside down and open by the bed. Carson catalogued these details like they would help him not look at the corpse on the bed.