Passing Time (10 page)

“Thanks.” He decided not to mention that he had no plans to come back here anytime soon. He had no choice now but to start making arrangements to return home. To an empty apartment, a job he hated, and a boss he despised.

When she’d closed her door, he gazed down the front path. Jake peered at him from inside the car.

Louis held up the keys and gestured to the house. Jake nodded before Louis climbed over the low wall dividing the properties and inserted the key into the lock. He found himself already braced for a certain smell. Vodka mixed with hairspray, dust, and mold. When he took a breath in the hall, all he detected was a slight taint of damp, the way houses smelled when they’d been empty a while. Floral paper lined the walls, and clean carpet covered the floors.

This wasn’t how Louis remembered things, although he did have to step over the pile of bills and junk heaped on the doormat. Familiar territory. The constant threat of bailiffs hanging over their heads though they never had anything worth taking. He took a breath, recognizing the slight taint of cigarette smoke on the air. A curious rustling noise sounded from the lounge. The house was supposed to be empty. Surely Mrs. Banks would have mentioned if his mother had a lodger or a boyfriend staying.

He crossed the hall and pressed an ear to the closed door. There was definitely someone moving around inside. Louis wondered if he should sneak back out and call for Jake, just in case backup was required. But then again, Louis would end up looking pretty damn stupid if the person on the other side of the door had every right to be there. No, he’d be better off dealing with this himself. Taking a deep breath, he gripped the handle and tentatively pushed down, opening the door to the room beyond.

“What are you doing?” Louis asked, though the question was an unnecessary one. Carter stood at a display unit on the far side of the room with his back turned. A trail of smoke swirled toward the ceiling, and Louis watched it for a while as Carter examined the ornaments lining the glass shelves, having a good old nose through Louis’s mother’s things.

When Carter didn’t answer, Louis turned his attention to the rest of the room. The walls were pale cream. A portable TV on a stand, a dead bunch of flowers in a glass vase on the coffee table. His mother’s reading taste hadn’t changed much, Louis mused as he approached a bookcase. The shelves were lined with Mills & Boon romances. She’d always loved a good romance. Probably because, after her husband left her, she never had opportunity to experience love in the real world again. As far as Louis knew, anyway.

Carter chose to come and join him then, finally acknowledging his presence. “Look at that,” Carter said, pointing at a particular book on the shelf. No, not a book. A photograph album. “Bring it over here.” He moved to the floral print couch and flicked his cigarette to the carpet. He stubbed it out with his foot before taking a seat. “Come on.” He patted the space beside him.

Louis opened his mouth to complain about Carter’s lack of respect for this mother’s house. But when he dropped his gaze to the carpet, there was no sign of a cigarette, let alone a smoldering burn. So he let his complaint go and instead carefully removed the album sandwiched between the romance books. He joined Carter on the couch and flipped open the first page. A black-and-white shot of a baby lying on a rug. Like a thousand other babies lying on a thousand other rugs. He’d seen this photo before. Not in an album, but tucked away in a drawer.

“What am I supposed to be looking at?”

“Turn over.” Carter urged him on with a twirl of his hand.

Over the page, a slightly older Louis grinned at the camera. He wore shorts and a T-shirt. His father stood behind, touching Louis’s shoulder, looking ridiculously young and with hair. They were on a beach. His mother had taken the photo back in the days when she could still hold a camera steady.

“Turn again.”

Louis sighed. He flipped the page, and there it was. The photo his mother had shown Mrs. Banks of her son and his lover. Carter looking elegantly suave in a sand-colored linen suit. Louis in jeans and a T-shirt, a few pounds overweight, his hair curling to his shoulders. The both of them grinning like loons. He’d slung a casual arm around his lover’s shoulders. They were in Venice, on one of the tiny bridges crossing the smaller canals. Carter had asked a good-looking local to take the picture. The guy had been happy to oblige. He’d been happy to oblige them in their hotel room all afternoon too, but that was another story.

Louis glanced at the illusion sitting beside him. He studied Carter’s profile, his straight nose, the arrogant tilt to his chin. He wanted to reach out and touch his fingers to the light trace of stubble and press his lips to that long, thin mouth. His groin stirred, and he shut the book.

“You two still not made up yet?” Carter asked with a little smile that told Louis he knew exactly what was going on beneath the photo album.

Louis adjusted his swollen dick. “I’ve had other things on my mind.”

“You’ve done nothing?”

“Not nothing. I did take your advice. I bought him something. Something he can wear. A thank-you gift. Or a good-bye gift. Call it what you will.”

Carter raised an eyebrow. “Can I call it a cock ring?”

“No. Although it was sickeningly expensive.”

“How—” Carter’s attention drifted somewhere over Louis’s left shoulder.

“Carter?” Louis frowned. “What is it?”

“Who’s Carter?”

Louis spun round on the couch. Jake stood in the doorway, leaning against the frame. He looked as though he’d been there awhile.

“I…uh…I didn’t see you.” How much had he overheard this time?

“I got that. You going to tell me who this Carter guy is, or what?”

Louis wondered what the “or what” option involved, but perhaps now wasn’t the time to ask, only to answer.

“Who is he? The Invisible Man?” He gave a snort of laughter. Louis lifted his gaze, and the laughter stopped. “Who’s Carter?”

“My partner.” The words tripped off his tongue far more easily than he’d expected.

Jake frowned. “Business partner?”

“No, not business.”

“Right.” Jake stuck out his bottom lip as he pondered. “So can this partner of yours hear you talking to him all the way from New York?”

“I doubt it.”

“No? Well, maybe he’s not listening anymore. Maybe he’s heard about you fucking another man and decided you aren’t worth the bother. Am I the only one?”

“The only what?”

“The only guy you fuck behind your boyfriend’s back.”

Is that all
? Didn’t he want to know why? Why Louis’s sat on the couch talking away to himself like it was the most natural thing in the world? All he wanted to know about was if there was anyone else?

“This isn’t what you think,” he began. “I—”

“I thought you were someone special, Louis. And now I know the only thing special about you is you talk to your absent boyfriend like he’s right here in the room. That’s not even so special. It’s fucking insane!”

“Yes, I suppose it is,” Louis said, which only seemed to further incite Jake’s anger.

“Is that all you’ve got to say? All these weeks we’ve been together, you never once mentioned you were already in a relationship. You even told me you hadn’t had sex for a year. How stupid does that make me?”

“You’re not stupid,” Louis said softly to his hands he had clasped together and rested in his lap. Odd that he should feel so relaxed.

“Well, I must be. I fell for your lies, didn’t I? How could you do this? Not even to me but to him. Your boyfriend. If you love him so much you even chat to him when he’s not here, what the fuck did you want with me? Oh. I just answered my own question, didn’t I? Sex. Our summer fling was exactly that. If I’d have known there was another guy involved, I would never have slept with you in the first place. I’ve had this done to me, Louis. I told you that before we even had sex. Why aren’t you saying anything? Aren’t you going to even try and defend yourself?”

“You’ve not given me a chance to speak yet.” Louis continued to stare at his hands. Perhaps relaxed was the wrong word. Distant was a better one. So distant, in fact, that Louis barely noticed when Jake resumed talking. He merely watched as Jake paraded around the room, red-faced, teary-eyed, and waving his arms around as if to punctuate his bitter words. For Louis was sure the words were bitter even though he couldn’t hear them. He felt strangely numb, as though his body belonged to someone else, and he was just lodging there for a while. In a moment, he might get up and walk away, and Jake would still be ranting out his hurt and his anger to the body on the couch. Louis wondered what sort of a man was worth all this upset and pain. Louis wasn’t. Not to someone as warmhearted and loving as Jake.

When Jake finally paused for breath and Louis hadn’t so much as twitched, he raked his hands through his hair. “You know what?” He sounded on the verge of tears. “I’m done wasting my breath here. It’s been a tough day, and I’m sorry your mother died, but what you did…you—”

“Are you done insulting me?” The numb haze began to clear, and Louis assumed his body was his own again.

“Yes. I’m done. Done with you. Say hi to Carter when you get back, although I don’t suppose I’ll get much of a mention, will I?” Jake spun round and stamped off into the hall. The front door wasn’t far away, and beyond that, the car. If Louis allowed Jake to drive away, the chances were he’d never see him again. He didn’t want that. Having Jake’s body pressed close to his on Mrs. Banks’ front path felt too good. He needed to experience that closeness again, if only for one last time.

“He’s dead,” Louis called, loud enough Jake couldn’t fail to overhear.

A moment later, Jake reappeared in the doorway. “What did you say?”

Louis took a deep breath. Too late to stop talking now. “Carter. My absent boyfriend. He’s dead. The reason you catch me talking to myself is because I still talk to him as if he were with me. I talk to him because I need to. Because if I didn’t, I might as well not be here either. Which makes me more crazy than asshole, doesn’t it?”

“I don’t know,” Jake whispered. “Does it?”

“Judging by the way you’re looking at me, I’d say so.”

“I’m sorry.” He stood rigidly in the doorway. “I don’t think you’re crazy.” He went on staring as if he expected something else to happen, like Louis to resume his discussion with his phantom lover. Louis did no such thing. He sat on the couch and stared right back, forcing Jake to break the silence. “So, how did…how did he die? I mean, was it…?”

“AIDS?”

“No!” After a pause, he added, “Was it?”

“Your next question would be to ask if I’m positive, right?”

“You mean, you’re…?” Jake pressed a hand to his mouth; his face drained of color. He looked like his legs were about to give out from under him.

“I’m negative,” Louis said after several heartbeats of silence. “Carter didn’t die of AIDS. He had cancer. Ball cancer, if you want specifics. At least, that’s how it started.”

Jake’s hand fell away from his mouth. “I’m sorry,” he said, with something like pity replacing the fear in his eyes.

Louis snorted. “What have you got to be sorry about, besides making a beeline for a screwed-up, broken, borderline alcoholic? A guy who talks to thin air on a regular basis and listens to the air talking right back in his dead boyfriend’s voice.” Louis peeled the album in his lap open and stared at the photograph. A few moments later he felt Jake’s weight settle beside him.

“Here.” Louis slid the album across. “That’s him.”

Jake studied the photo and traced a fingertip around the line of Carter’s cheek. “He’s gorgeous.”

Odd, Louis thought. Jake was a beauty too. Not as classically handsome as Carter perhaps, but a head turner all the same. He leaned over and brushed a rogue strand of fair hair from Jake’s face.

“I found the lump one morning when we were fooling around,” he said, launching right in before he could change his mind. “Carter had been reluctant for me to touch him for a while. He knew I’d demand he go get himself checked. The doctor diagnosed an infection and gave him a course of antibiotics. A week later, he was in so much pain I drove him to the emergency room myself. He was admitted and had a biopsy the next day. I think we’d both already guessed what he had by then. Just didn’t want to admit the truth. Cart ended up having a ball removed. Given the choice, he’d rather have lost an arm. As it turned out, losing a ball was the least of our problems. The docs told us his cancer had spread to the lymph nodes in his stomach and lungs. He had surgery to remove the tumors, and following that, the chemo. And radiotherapy. He was sick all the time. He lost his hair, and looking in a mirror almost killed him. He made me get rid of every mirror in the house. Even the bathroom cabinet, which made it hell to shave.”