Too Soon For Love (14 page)

Michael counted the rings as he took off his jacket. Two.

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Three. Four. Then silence as the voicemail picked up. He hung his coat on the coat tree and walked into the study.

Crossing to the desk, he pushed the power button and booted Phillip’s laptop.

“Windows screen reader ready,” the computer announced.

Michael pressed the enter key then sank into the big comfy swivel chair, the same chair he’d given to Phillip three Christmases ago, and waited for the computer to finish booting. Setting his fingers on the keys, he moved the cursor around the desktop.

Internet Explorer. Excel. Windows Media. Inbox.

Michael’s fingers stilled, the cursor hovering over the email icon.

Phillip was famous for his quirky messages, emailing Michael even when they were both in the house in their separate offices.

Sometimes the email would contain a link to an article or blog Phillip thought would interest him. Sometimes it was a brief news item designed to make Michael smile. Occasionally the email contained a link to a YouTube video. It could be anything.

But no matter what it contained, the email was always signed with love. Although in the past year and a half Michael had begun to doubt the sentiment, the signature had never changed.

All those emails would be in Phillip’s sent items folder. He could read them and hear Phillip’s voice again. And ache with grief again.

No, he couldn’t handle the email today.

Today he would do something else, something that was dry and unemotional, something that would not hurt his heart.

He moved the cursor off the Inbox. Photos.

Now here was something he could handle. After all he didn’t have to see the pictures to deal with them. There would be a lot, he knew. Phillip had been sentimental about his pictures and never went anywhere without his camera.

But because he couldn’t see them, the pictures meant nothing to Michael.

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Karen and Jane, on the other hand, would probably like to have copies of the photographs that meant so much to their brother. He could burn the whole directory to a DVD and give each of them a copy as a sort of peace offering.

Not that he was sorry for what he’d said to Jane at the party, what she had no doubt told Karen and the rest of the family. But he was sorry they’d fought. He regretted hurting her feelings, which he was certain he had. Jane had a soft heart and never held onto her mad for long.

Maybe the caller had been Jane wanting to make it up with him.

Michael picked up the phone and heard the staccato beep, beep, beep of the dial tone which meant he had a message. He punched in the code and waited.

“Michael, it’s Alan.” There was a pause. “It’s nothing important. I was just calling to see how you were doing. But I guess you’re not there. Okay, well, take care.” There was another long pause and Michael heard Alan take a breath. “You can call me, if you want. I’d like it if you did. I have something I need to talk to you about.”

The message ended.

Michael hung up the phone and pressed his fingertips to his temples. Alan had called him. And had asked him to call back.

Before he could give himself time to reconsider, Michael picked up the phone and dialed.

“Hello? Michael?”

Alan sounded a little breathless, like he’d run for the phone.

Except he’d answered so quickly, he must have been right next to it.

Michael’s heart began a hard and fast drumming. “Yeah, it’s me. You must be psychic.”

“It’s easy to be psychic with caller ID. Though sometimes I think I might be psycho.”

Michael chuckled. He liked Alan’s voice, liked his sense of too soon FoR Love
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humor too.

“I forget about caller ID sometimes.”

“I guess so. It doesn’t do you much good, does it?”

“Actually, Phillip bought this phone that speaks the caller ID.

So like when you call it would say, Alan Stuart. But it was so annoying always yelling stuff out at the most inopportune times we unplugged it and never plugged it back in.”

Now it was Alan who chuckled. “I guess it could be a little disconcerting in the middle of a romantic moment for the phone to start yelling at you.”

“It was.”

They both fell silent.

“So …” Alan drew out the single syllable. “How are you?”

“I’m good.” Michael took a breath. “But I’d be better if you’d have dinner with me.”

Alan was on edge as he pulled open the door to the restaurant and stepped inside. The scent of grilling meat greeted him and his stomach growled.

He scanned the tables as well as the cozy bar that accommodated no more than ten and was currently half full.

He didn’t see Michael anywhere.

His stomach did a little nervous jig. No reason to panic, he lectured himself. Michael just wasn’t here yet.

Though he’d offered to come by the house and pick him up, Michael had said he would meet him at the restaurant, a quaint little Italian place no more than a five minute drive from the house. He was probably in a cab right now and would be walking in any minute.

“Just one?” The hostess raised her eyebrows and picked up a menu.

“I’m meeting someone. I think I’ll wait at the bar until he gets
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here, if that’s all right.”

She smiled and replaced the menu. “That’s fine, sir. Just let me know when you’re ready.”

Alan winced. When had women in their early twenties begun calling him sir?

He slid onto a stool at the bar and smiled at the bartender, a lovely young man with sky blue eyes and a dark ponytail.

The tender returned his smiled, holding eye contact just long enough to create a pleasant zing of awareness in Alan’s gut.

“What can I get you?”

“Have you got a decent chardonnay?”

The young man nodded and filled the order with swift efficiency. He had nice hands and muscular forearms lightly dusted with dark hair. Those hands with their long sensitive fingers made him think of Michael. Where was Michael?

Alan paid for his drink then sat back and sipped, his gaze riveted to the door.

What if he’d changed his mind?

Or what if something had happened to him?

But that was ridiculous. Michael was a grown man. He could certainly make it from his house to a restaurant that was no more than five minutes away. And if he knew Alan was worrying about him, no doubt it would piss him off.

There was no need for him to worry, Alan assured himself. If Michael were any other man, a sighted man, the thought wouldn’t ever have occurred to him. Rather he might have assumed he’d been stood up.

Alan repeated these rationales to himself as he drank his wine, the minutes ticked by, and still Michael didn’t arrive. When his glass was empty and Michael was twenty minutes late, Alan took out his cell phone and dialed Michael’s number.

The phone rang and rang and rang. Finally the voicemail picked up. Alan hung up without leaving a message.

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See, he’s already on his way. Nothing to worry about.

He didn’t have a cell number for Michael, only the house number.

Gritting his teeth in frustration, he returned his phone to his jacket pocket.

“Can I get you another?” The handsome young bartender picked up the empty glass. Again, he held Alan’s gaze.

He could have another chardonnay, give Michael a few more minutes …

“I probably shouldn’t. Thanks anyway.”

“My name’s Tim,” the bartender said. He wiped rings of moisture from the bar, his rag moving in slow circles over the dark, glossy wood. “I don’t think I’ve ever seen you in here before.”

“I’ve never been here before.”

“I get off at nine.” There was that smile again with a generous side-dish of heavy eye contact.

“I’m actually waiting for someone.” Alan spoke very slowly and tried not to imagine what those pretty lips would taste like or how they might feel wrapped around his cock.

The door opened and Alan snapped to attention. But it wasn’t Michael. It did however serve to bring him back to himself.

He slid off his barstool. “Maybe some other time.”

“Sure, just name the time.” Tim gave him one more dazzling smile before he moved off down the bar.

Alan walked outside into the chilly March evening. Dusk had fallen but night was still a ways off. Pulling his keys from his pocket, he unlocked his car. It wouldn’t hurt to drive to Michael’s house, just to make sure everything was all right. Just to make sure Michael was all right. If that made him a worry-wart, then so be it.

He got behind the wheel, started the engine and flipped on the heat. Frigid air blasted from the vent. He shivered and quickly
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turned it off. He drove out of the small parking lot and turned in the direction of Michael’s house.

The roads in this neighborhood were not especially well lit and there were lots of trees. As he drove Alan concentrated on his surroundings to be sure he didn’t miss his turns. If he hadn’t been paying such close attention, he might never have seen the figure standing at the side of the road. The man was shrouded in shadow and mostly hidden behind a towering evergreen. Yet despite all that and the rapidly falling darkness, Alan had no doubt it was Michael. Not on the road, not even on the shoulder, but in the grass, or mud, amid piles of half-melted snow, he was walking slowly with his white cane out in front of him.

As Alan pulled his car to the side of the road, Michael turned in his direction and raised a hand. He waved and shouted something.

Alan flung the door open and jumped out of the car. “Michael, it’s Alan.”

He raced over the snow and through the mud, slipped once and caught his balance before he went sprawling.

Michael was coming towards him, his face showing such relief that Alan was instantly swamped with guilt. Why hadn’t he come sooner? Why hadn’t he insisted on picking Michael up?

They met at last just beside a huge mound of dirty snow. With no thought except relief that he was safe, Alan pulled Michael into his arms.

“Michael, are you all right? God, you’re freezing. What are you doing out here? What happened?”

Michael’s arms went around him and he held on, saying nothing. His cane lay in the mud where he’d dropped it. He was shivering.

“Are you all right?” Alan asked again. He could hardly get the question past the lump in his throat.

“I’m all right. Alan, God.” Michael’s grip on him tightened.

He clung to him.

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“What happened?”

“I … I guess I got disoriented. I don’t know. Can we get in the car? I think my feet are frozen. I can’t feel my toes.”

“Sure. Yeah. Sorry.” But he had trouble letting Michael go.

Finally he did but rather than offering his elbow, the way he normally would, he took Michael’s hand and intertwined their fingers. “C’mon. The heat’s on. We’ll get you warmed up.”

“Wait. My stick, I dropped it.”

“I’ve got it.” Bending down, Alan picked up Michael’s cane.

Back in the car, he cranked the heat up to blasting then turned to the man in the passenger seat. Michael was holding his hands out to the vent. They were red and raw with cold.

He had about a million questions, but he started with, “Why don’t you have gloves?”

Michael laughed. “Only you would find me in the middle of the road, in the dark and start out with where are your gloves.

Christ, Alan.”

Alan felt a smile tug at the corners of his mouth. “Yeah, well, we’ll get to the other questions. But first things first.” He took Michael’s hands between his and began to rub warmth back into them. “So where are your gloves?”

“I can’t wear gloves when I use the stick. I can’t feel anything through them so I don’t wear them.”

Alan huffed out a laugh. “Very practical, I guess, even if it does result in frost bite.” Michael’s hands felt marginally warmer but Alan didn’t let go. “So tell me what happened.”

“I was walking along the side of the road, doing fine, when I heard a couple cars coming. I know the road’s not that wide and they were behind me. So I stepped off to the side because I didn’t know how close they were or if they could see me. Is it dark already? It’s hard for me to tell at this time of day.”

“It is now, though it probably wasn’t at the time. How long ago was that?”

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Michael shrugged. “About forty-five minutes, maybe a little less. I sort of lost track and my fingers were numb so I couldn’t see my watch.”

Jesus. Forty-five minutes.

“Anyway,” Michael continued. “I got turned around and I couldn’t get back onto the road. This is a pretty quiet stretch and there was no traffic, so after I wandered around for a while I decided to wait for a car to come by. But I got cold and I figured fuck that, and I started walking again. I’d either find the road or a car would come by or something. I wasn’t going to stand there and just freeze. Then I heard your car and I was like, thank God, finally.”

“Why didn’t you call? Don’t you have a cell phone?”

“I left it home accidentally. I’ve got the case.” Drawing his hand from Alan’s, Michael pulled the cell phone case from his pocket and flipped it open. “Doesn’t work too well without the phone part.”

“I thought you were taking a cab to the restaurant.” Alan pulled the car back into the road and turned toward the house.

He’d lost his appetite and Michael needed to get warm.

“It’s a five minute cab ride. You couldn’t even get a cabby to come out for a fare like that. Besides, it would have been fine if I hadn’t gotten turned around.”

“I would have come to pick you up.”

“I know you would have. But I’m thirty-one years old, Alan, not six. I didn’t need you to come and pick me up.”

“Well, from where I’m sitting, it sure looks like you did.” He knew as soon as the words were out it was the wrong thing to say.

“I didn’t mean that.”