CHAPTER 12
Aaron
I once grabbed a navy-blue sock and a black sock while getting ready for an early shift at Mercy Hospital in Seattle, where I worked. I didn’t notice until halfway through my workday, but it was all I could focus on after that. I never realized how much of a contrast there is between navy blue and black before that.
Right now, I feel like I’m wearing that mismatched pair of socks again, even though it’s so dark in this club that no one would notice if I were. Pulse is an accurate name for the place. The loud bass of the dance mix music has been reverberating in my eardrums since the second I walked inside. Not the ideal place for talking, but then again, Easton and I won’t need to use our voices, I remind myself.
If he ever shows up…
Scanning the crowded club from my barstool again, I check to see if I missed his arrival. The patrons are predominantly male. I’ve been offered two drinks already in the hour I’ve been here, and the redhead at the bar either thinks I’m someone he recognizes or is trying to send a not-so-subtle hint that he’s interested. There are straight couples here, quite a few on the dance floor, but it’s apparent the club is queer-friendly and I’m on the radar.
“Ready for another? You’ve got one coming if you want it,” the bartender says, motioning his head toward the redhead at the end of the bar.
Fantastic. The perfect, quiet, getting-reacquainted evening I was hoping for with Easton. Minus Easton. Did he dupe me and send me here on my own as payback for bombarding him yet again?
“Uh, no. I’m good. Thanks. I’ll have a Sprite , please, but let me pay for it. Okay?”
Pulling out my wallet, my face heats, knowing I’m being watched. I haven’t been single in a club for ages. I don’t even remember how to turn someone down or know what could happen if it doesn’t go well. The last thing I want, if Easton actually does show up, is to be half-buzzed while stuck chatting with another man. That wouldn’t look like a sincere flag of friendship.
Glancing down the bar, I give the man an apologetic smile and wave of thanks, and then point to my wedding ring. He smirks and gives a shrug, but then looks out at the crowd like he’s already searching for his next mark. I’ve never been so grateful to be easily forgotten.
A flash of light by the entrance catches my eye. Each time the door has opened, it lets in a flood of the exterior light. This time, a gaggle of people is illuminated by it, two of them familiar. One is the woman who works the desk at S&H and the other is Easton’s… well, I’m not sure what he is. He’s the long-haired man who was in Easton’s apartment that morning, the man whom Easton devoured with his mouth, mere feet away from me. His arm is around a slender woman with long, sleek black hair, though. Her arm is wrapped around the back of his waist, her hand hugging his hip. I don’t even have time to contemplate if Easton knows when he walks in right behind them, laughing at something another tattoo artist said that I recognize from his shop. I guess that answers the question of whether he’s aware of where his business partner’s interests are focused at the moment.
His party approaches, angling through the crowd. I stand from my stool with every intention of flagging him down, but he looks over, saving me the trouble, and flashes me a smile and a wink. The stupor I’d started sinking into over the thought of being blown off evaporates with that wink and something like joy flutters in my chest. It resembles something like a sense of belonging.
How bizarre. We’re veritable strangers, yet I know him better than anyone else I’ve seen since moving back, short of my family.
A bubble of anticipation creeps up my throat knowing I might get to fill in some of the blanks between what I knew of Easton years ago and now, as long as I don’t mess this up and mention Hampton. Except, I’m left with a sinking feeling when he and his friends walk right past me without slowing or as much as a word or another glance.
Odd. Not exactly what I’d call an invitation.
I watch, suspended in an awkward limbo, as they proceed to a cordoned-off section at the front of the club where a bouncer attends a roped gate that leads to a series of oversized booths. He gives Easton and his friend both a high five and releases the rope to allow them entrance.
Still… not a look from my stalwart former patient. Great. What do I do?
I wait, assuming he might return to the bar to get drinks for himself and his friend, but then I spot a waitress approaching the booth they sat in.
He saw me, right? He didn’t wink at someone else and miss me, did he?
Shit. Am I being duped? Was this another ‘I asked you to fucking leave’ gesture but just played differently?
My dignity tells me to leave and accept my humility, but I’ve nearly run out of dignity in the last year and a half. I also promised myself all week that I was going to find the courage to face him again to make up for setting him off with that stupid electrolarynx.
The flash of a memory assaults me as I remember the sweet kid I spent so much time with years ago. I can still remember the storm in his eyes one cold spring day when he was frustrated with his progress and still burning with rage over his accident and the death of his mother. I don’t even recall what I said to him to get through to him that day, but I’ll never forget the way his hostility slowly melted away. It came to a point, and then it was like the flip of a switch—a carefree shrug, a wry grin, and then some crack at my expense and he let me in. I had to earn it. How could I have forgotten that?
You had to earn everything with Easton. I took for granted that he let me earn his audience while he wouldn’t let anyone else at Hampton.
Striding over to the roped barrier, I don’t calculate any dialogue. I just move with purpose. I want to earn his respect again. Hell, maybe I just want to respect myself. Maybe for once in a long time, I just don’t want to think about everything I say or do.
Memories of arguments with Jason taunt me in a quiet hush, along with all the doubts I carried over the last few years of our relationship. Doubts that turned into poisonous seeds that took root in my soul and infected every bit of confidence I had in each aspect of my life until I became a sad being who only existed to make a marriage work. And then I became a sad being who reaped the weight of all those regrets when his husband died, strangled with equal parts guilt over my unhappiness and grief over the good times.
Shaking off the thoughts, I focus on the bouncer. I do not want to be mental right now. I don’t know whether I’m doing this for me or Easton, or because I really do need a friend. Maybe I’m doing it because it scares the shit out of me since it means I’ve taken a step toward really living for the first time in forever.
“Hey, I’m supposed to meet my friend,” I yell at the bouncer and point toward Easton.
Said friend glances over, laughing at something someone said. What I’d give to know what that sounds like. The bouncer looks over at Easton for approval. Easton raises his hand with a let-him-pass motion, loosening the tight knot in the pit of my stomach.
As I pass through, every jittery apprehension I had returns, my false confidence abandoning me when I need it most. This was my idea. I asked to hang out sometime. Why didn’t I register that meant making small talk with someone who clearly has nothing in common with me?
He slides deeper into the half-arch booth as I approach. The welcoming gesture brings me a modicum of ease, knowing it means my presence is being accepted.
“Hey!” the woman from the shop desk calls from across the table. “I’m Shannon, by the way!”
“Hi. I’m Aaron.”
The muscular tattoo artist they came in with has an arm slung over the back of the booth behind her, making me wonder if they’re a couple. He reaches out his inked-up hand to shake mine.
“Fro,” he states, making me give his buzzed sandy haircut a second glance, at which he grins before settling back.
Instinct has me looking at the last of Easton’s party, but they’re indisposed. The guy that Easton lip-locked is currently doing the same to the woman with the long black hair, both oblivious to everyone around them.
Sitting back in the booth, I decide introductions aren’t important right now. The back of my shoulders touches something solid that doesn’t feel like the booth padding. I find Easton smiling at me, his arm resting on top of the seating behind me.
That’s Wolf and Melissa. They don’t come up for air often.
Laughing at his joke, I hate the anxious way it sounds. I feel so awkward. It doesn’t help that the question on my lips is if he joins them, so I bite the inside of my cheek and glance out at the dance floor.
A brush of skin against my hand snaps my attention back to the table. I find Easton palming my glass and bringing the straw to his lips. I didn’t even think to offer to get him a drink. Fail number one on my part… or fail number three, I guess.
Coming up, he narrows his eyes at the clear bubbly liquid and then scrunches his face up at me with a shit-eating grin. Sprite. Right. I’m such a party animal.
“I…already had one while I was…while you were still at work.”
One? Wow. He grins, sighing animatedly.
I don’t mind that his humor is at my expense as long as he’s showing me this lighter side of him. It feels like I’ve been let into a locked city.
“Thanks for letting me join you guys. You all work at S&H I take it?”
God, that was a stupid question. He knows I’ve seen them all there. I’m nailing the small talk already.
Nodding, he leans back in the booth, no doubt as enthralled by my segue as I am. His face lights up, however, when the waitress approaches with a tray loaded with drinks. Drinks and a whole lot of shots.
“Easton? Who’s your friend?” Melissa calls from across the table as the waitress unloads her tray.
“Hi, I’m Aaron,” I repeat like a parrot. At least I have that phrase down.
“Melissa,” she chirps, flashing me a dainty wave. “And this is my boyfriend, Wolf.”
Wolf hoists his beer bottle up in a salute, but I don’t miss the guilty look on his face. I sneak a glance at Easton to see if I can decipher anything between the two of them and find him smirking at his business partner. Wolf’s eyes narrow, his frown looking unimpressed and an evident raucous under the table tells me he just kicked my booth companion.
I try not to gawk at Easton’s profile, but can’t help myself. He takes notice and shrugs, staring out at the crowd of people dancing.
I’m not his type, he signs casually.
That does little to draw my baffled attention away. Sliding a shot in front of me, he withdraws his arm from behind me and smirks as he lifts one up for himself.
There’s a devilishness in his eyes as he looks at me. He’s shit at getting you to leave too, apparently, he confesses.
I don’t know whether to laugh or drown in my utter foolishness, remembering that kiss from last weekend. He kissed his straight friend just to get me to leave? That’s… rash and, I suppose, hilarious if I were outside looking in. As he gestures for me to pick up the shot of liquid, I stare blankly but oblige his wishes just to prevent myself from looking like a statue.
As the alcohol burns its way down my throat and I gasp, I still can’t shake the importance of his confession. Does he even realize what he just told me? Easton hated me before I even walked into his apartment.
Why?
Shuddering, I feel the liquid balloon in a ball of warmth in my belly. No sooner do I recover and another shot is slid into my reach.
“Oh, no. I’m fine. Thanks,” I tell him. “I had…”
One. I remember. Loosen up. The night is young.
‘Young?’ I’m usually in bed by now. I was never one to fall for peer pressure when I turned the legal drinking age, but I casually palm the shot glass just to claim it as I watch him down another.
“Do you come here often? I don’t remember this place being here.”
It opened about five years ago. I did work on the guy who owns it.
“ S&H . Does that stand for something?”
The corner of his mouth ticks up, his fingers drum in a frenetic motion on the table as his head bobs to the beat of the music. I can’t seem to look away from the angles of his face. The shadows under his cheekbones, the smooth-looking texture of his skin, the cords in his neck, the dark curtain of lashes lining his intelligent eyes. He’s exactly the same, but completely different. He was always real, but is somehow even more so now. I never contemplated my patients’ looks. I saw only cases, only symptoms or struggles that I needed to remedy. Maybe because he’s no longer a patient, I’m seeing him with different eyes. Easton Bennick is beautiful. Strikingly so.
Yeah. Speak no evil—hear no evil, he replies, gesturing toward Wolf on the last of the idiom.
Looking across the table, there’s barely any space between Melissa and Wolf. They’re practically nose to nose as she whispers something to him. Except, no one would be able to hear a whisper in this place with the volume of the music. His gaze is focused on her mouth.
He’s lip reading.
His profile affords a clear view of his left ear. In the hollow of it, I spot a tiny device.
Hear no evil .
He’s deaf. Easton looks pleased with himself when I glance back at him, obviously seeing the understanding in my face.
I don’t know whether it’s from my years of working with the non-verbal or if it’s because I know Easton isn’t the kind of person to just blurt out facts. It makes sense now, however, how his friendship with Wolf may have come to pass. It also explains why Easton’s signing far exceeds the few ASL words and phrases I taught him.
I’m both glad he found a friend he felt comfortable around and sad that it means he might have isolated himself on purpose from people who were more verbal. Frowning, I bring the shot to my lips, determined not to get caught looking analytical. I promised both him and myself that I’d leave Hampton out of this hangout.
Gasping for breath after the fire in my throat subsides, I let out an embarrassing groan. How does he look so fit if he drinks this stuff on the regular?
Got any hair on your chest yet? he asks, grinning.
I’m too young to be a prude and too old to be competitive. I can at least not be boring, though. “A few after that, I think.”
Sighing, I lean back against the upholstery, letting the effects of the liquid ooze its way into my veins. The sedating sensation is a welcome one, uncoiling tight nerves that have been tense for so long that I didn’t think they’d ever give me a reprieve. Alcohol was only ever a social affair for Jason and me, with the occasional glass of wine at dinner. I never contemplated it after he died. It seemed like it would be a dangerous way to handle grief, and I was a big enough mess without it. If I knew I could have some self-control, I might indulge now and then, given how I feel at the moment. The movement of the dancing patrons in front of us almost seems hypnotic as I stare in a blissful haze, free of worry for the first time in a long time.
I’m jostled when a body presses against my side, only to find it’s Easton. He’s shifted closer to me. A surprising spark of static filters through me at the contact and the proximity until I catch him nodding toward the dance floor.
Oh, brother. He’s trying to get out of the booth and I’m sitting here like a lug. I scramble to move and let him out. It’s still strange to see him eye level with me. He was either in a wheelchair or hunched on his crutches back when I knew him before. We’re the same height now.
Just as I move to reclaim my seat, his hand hooks under my upper arm.
Come on, he gestures and angles his head toward the dance floor.
“What? Oh…no. No, I’m not much of a dancer.”
Maybe in the kitchen to something less fast-paced… back before life pulled the rug out from under me, I don’t add. His mischievous smile returns, however, accompanied by another tug on my arm.
You can go back to Hampton and put all my new moves in my file.
Grudgingly, I concede, taking his outstretched hand. I blame guilt over his mention of Hampton for part of it. The other part is possibly because of the smile he gives me and those eyes… I never noticed how they can draw you in. Mostly, I just tell myself that I want to keep him smiling to make up for any of the grief I caused him.
Bumping past a few patrons, he releases my hand once we’re deep in the mix of the crowd. It is sensory overload upon the realization that I am fully out of my element. Some remix of M?neskin’s Beggin’ is thumping all around us. Easton’s promise of new moves doesn’t disappoint. He bursts into fluid movements as frenetic as the light in his eyes that both mesmerize and intimidate me. I tell myself that my one drink and the two shots I downed are making my hips sway in a comparable manner, but likely resemble a junior high student at their first dance. Whatever he sees, he approves of or is thoroughly amused because his smile brightens. One of his moves brings him in closer, but he doesn’t retreat. His chest is nearly flush with mine. He’s so close I can feel the heat of his body and the brush of his thighs as he shifts and those deep sea-blue eyes of his lock onto my gaze like I’m the only thing in his focus. It’s freaking intense and… and something . Something else that I can’t name.
I feel centered suddenly. It’s as though he cast a line, caught me, and reeled me in with one look, like he knew I was floundering. I’m no longer bobbing out of time. The music is flowing through me, through both of us like we’re one.
It’s probably him. He’s clearly the better dancer and more in his element than I am—one of those guys who can make any dance partner look good. I’m just along for the magical ride, getting a hit of his glory. If that isn’t alcohol talking, I don’t know what is.
The spell thickens when he spins and slips behind me. For a second, I think the line has been severed, that I’m back to free-falling on my own, but I feel hands on my hips. A chest pressed to my back. I should have no idea that it’s Easton, but I do, without a doubt, even without looking back. I can feel it in his presence as though my body knows his.
There are so many sensations I thought I’d never feel again in my life. Joy has predominantly been the one I’ve mourned saying goodbye to forever. Laughter, another. Arousal, however, I think I parted ways with far longer ago than I care to admit. If I admit it, it makes me the bad husband I’ve avoided acknowledging that I was. You’re supposed to love and want your husband through thick and thin—through droughts and floods. I didn’t even care that our spark had died. I loved him anyway. At least, that’s what I told myself, but is it love when you no longer crave your husband romantically?
Throat thick, mouth dry, pulse skittering erratically, I am reintroduced to that forgotten phenomenon. It hits me with the force of a frigid burst of winter wind, blasting you when you first leave the warmth of your home. I’ve drunk more than one drink and two shots in my life without getting light-headed. The way my knees threaten to buckle when Easton’s stubble brushes against the side of my neck and I feel his hot breath ghost my skin has nothing to do with alcohol consumption. I can’t breathe, but it’s not the suffocating kind of shortness of breath. It’s the top of a roller coaster kind of gasping, the knowledge that something exhilarating comes next.
And that … is when I do stop breathing.
It’s a panic attack like none of the others. This isn’t what I came here for. I’m not supposed to be… turned on. I… I’m grieving. Or should be.
If I’m being honest, all I’ve been doing is feeling sorry for myself and trying to understand all the riddles left behind by Jason’s death. That bit of truth only makes it worse. I should be feeling more sorrow over losing him rather than concern over what bills he racked up will find their way to me next. I did grieve at first, but then it turned into an unsolvable mystery that left me practically homeless. And what am I doing? Getting aroused by a guy who I told I wanted to be friends with.
I’m about to turn around and make polite apologies and excuses to Easton when I feel his arms close around the front of my waist. That should not feel so good that it quells my panic. I said friends . I never had any intention of thinking of him as anything other than a friend. I’m not only letting Jason down but Easton, too. Why did I think I was figuring anything out? I’m still as big a mess as I was last week.
Gripping his hand, I start to pull away but freeze at the feel of a soft lip at the shell of my ear. It drags slowly upward, teasing. My God, he’s…is he coming on to me?
I’m freaking frozen like a pheromone-induced baby gay who just got a whiff of his first all men’s rave. When I feel Easton’s cheek brush against mine, his lips mere inches away from my own, the panic returns in full force. He… wants to kiss me. It would be the first time I kissed someone other than my husband in eight years. Damn me to hell for being excited about it.
“I…I need some air,” I blurt, pulling away.
I don’t even look back, barreling through the crowd with the urgency of needing to get out of a mosquito-riddled jungle. The glow of an EXIT sign above a side door near the bar is a beacon to my starved lungs. The thumping music and throng of the club are muffled background noises to the pounding of my heartbeat in my head as I push through the door and out into the alley.
Staggering, I feel the coarse texture of the brick wall and gulp in the cool night air. I am such a fool, a fucked up, emotional fool. What will that poor kid ever think of me now, watching me race out of there? The friend proposition is surely blown out the window. Kid—what a joke. He’s not a kid. He’s a man who has a better handle on himself than I ever did. He can tell people to fuck off when they piss him off. Every time Jason’s mother calls, I shrink like a caterpillar.
He probably didn’t even want to kiss me. He was just dancing, dirty dancing like everyone else here was, like everyone does to this kind of music.
He hates you, remember?
Sagging against the wall, I lean my head back and pinch my eyes closed. A sour laugh bubbles from my throat. I guess I had one sliver of dignity left, but I’ve successfully stomped on that tonight. This was me, all me. Maybe getting horny is some latent phase of grief that hits a year and a half after the loss of someone. People told me I might find someone else. I used to get mad about it. I have no desire to find love ever again. I’m not so ignorant to understand that there is a possibility I could kiss someone again someday. It could happen. Maybe ten years from now, when I’m not a dumpster fire, but not like this . Not like an inferno that creeps up on me the first time I go out to a crowded public place with a guy who, for all intents and purposes, I barely know.
“Holy shit, Aaron,” I curse under my breath, pressing the heels of my palms to my eyes.
The door hinges creak, flooding the alley with the end of the sex-riddled song that broke my brain moments ago. Out walks that beautiful face, no longer behind me, no longer unavoidable.
My pep talk and momentary freak out prove as weak as I am because even though my guilt and sense of diligence tell me to book it to my car, I look directly at his mouth. The mouth I still want to kiss.