Twenty-One #4
“Aww, love, don’t cry.” He sighed and pulled back, wiping at my eyes with his fingers. “And don’t move.”
I watched as he got out, walked around the front of the car, and opened my door to look at me. I couldn’t take my eyes off him.
His long exhale of breath. “I’m sorry I slept with Maggie. So sorry. Please forgive me.”
“There’s nothing to forgive. We weren’t together.”
“No, I know but… I still…”
“Sam?”
“It felt wrong and—forgive me.”
I nodded, reaching for him, and he lifted me down to stand in front of him.
“Did you… Was there anybody—”
“No.” I cut him off, my voice barely there.
“No one in your bed since me?”
“No.”
The look on his face that he couldn’t hide, the relief, the smugness, made me smile.
“C’mon, let’s go inside.”
He tucked me next to him and supported my weight, keeping me from putting any pressure on my ankle. He kissed me in the elevator, in front of his door, and grabbed me once we were inside his apartment. With his hands on my face, he was smiling down at me as I stood there.
“You’re very happy,” I said, because it was obvious.
“I feel good,” he confessed, helping me take off my trench coat and then scooping me up and putting me down gently on the couch. “It’s like this huge weight just lifted off me.”
I waited, smiling at him.
“What?”
“Is there more?”
“Yes,” he muttered, “but lemme get you taken care of here.”
I sat there and watched him drag out a machine that he filled with ice and water.
There were tubes that led to a wrap that he put around my ankle.
He talked while he moved around, explaining how he’d torn his meniscus as well as his ACL while he was chasing some guy down an alley.
He’d gotten twisted up in a fence, and the guy’s partner had pushed him back while his foot was planted.
It sounded painful, and he smiled in agreement when I said so.
When I was reclined on the couch, my foot elevated on pillows, the wrap pulsing ice water around my ankle, staring at the fire he’d made, I felt really content.
I had directed him in the process of making the tea, and he was in the kitchen when the thundering knocking came from the front door.
I thought I was going to jump right out of my skin.
“Calm down, it’s all right,” he soothed me, having come out of the kitchen to put both hands on my shoulders. “It’s probably Dom.”
And as soon as he opened the front door, Dominic shoved past him and crossed the room to me. He looked furious.
“Goddamnit, Sam, what the fuck is going on?” he roared, pointing at me.
“How do you mean?” Sam asked, smiling at him, closing the door gently behind him.
“Don’t fuck with me!”
Sam nodded, walked over, and took my hand. I couldn’t stop staring at him.
“I’m keeping him, Dom. I got no choice.”
“Why?” his friend raged, charging back to the door, then crossing the room again, beginning to pace, his face reddening as he clenched and unclenched his hands into fists.
“I love—”
“No, wait, don’t tell me, just—are you kidding with this shit? Sammy…” He was desperate suddenly, and I heard it in his voice. “You can’t be a cop like this. There’s no way you’re gonna give it all up for a fuckin’ piece of faggot ass.”
Sam dropped my hand and charged over to his friend. He grabbed his jacket tight, his knuckles white. “You don’t get to say that shit in front of Jory. You wanna be gone, go, but you don’t get to be here in my house and fuckin’ insult him. That’s not gonna happen.”
They stared hard at each other for long moments before Dominic shoved him back.
“You don’t fuck men, Sam. I would’ve known that. There’s no way I wouldn’t know that.”
Sam sighed heavily, raked his fingers through his hair.
“Listen… I tried it how everyone wanted me to be. How you and my family and the guys and Maggie and everybody else thought I should be. I was trying so hard, every day, turning myself inside out…and it was awful. It was the worst. It was fucked up, and I felt like shit all the time. It never went away,” he confessed, his voice ragged and brittle.
“I can’t do that anymore, Dom. I can’t live like that just because it’ll make everybody else comfortable. I can’t.”
Dominic looked at Sam, then me, then back to Sam. “And I can’t be your partner anymore, Sammy. Not like this. I can’t watch you throw away your career over some fuckin’ faggot you brought home and got an itch for and—”
“Get out!”
“You better put in for a change of partner tomorrow, Sam! Tomorrow!”
“Get the fuck out!”
Dominic stormed out the front door, throwing it open, letting it slam against the wall and vibrate to a half close. I watched Sam walk over and close it gently, click the dead bolt, and then turn off the light so that only the fire and the light above the stove illuminated the room.
“I’m so sorry,” I said softly. “What can I—”
“Stop.” His voice had been broken, then filled with fury, and now it was tender and gentle, soothing. “It’s okay. We’re okay.”
He walked to me, dropping to his knees beside the couch, letting me reach for him, pull him close, his face in my chest as I rested my chin in his hair.
“Sam, maybe I should—”
“It’s like I thought it would be with him, J.
” He sighed deeply, clutching me tight, lifting his head to kiss my throat.
“There are no surprises with him. My family surprised me—they’ve been amazing, and more importantly, what I expected, right?
What I hoped for. I mean, they’ve loved me my whole life.
What kind of horrifying disappointment would they be if any of them actually cared who I love?
You being a good person, that should be the only criteria anyone should care about.
The rest of it, who you are, what sex you are, who cares? ”
“People care,” I told him. “I have a lot of friends who don’t have parents anymore, don’t have siblings, because it mattered.”
“And I’m really sorry for them. I can’t imagine losing love over—no, that’s not true.
I did conjure it up in my brain. But even scared, I knew, my mother, my sisters, there was no way they would ever turn their backs on me.
That couldn’t happen,” he said with a catch of breath.
“The only one I was really worried about was my father.”
I stared at him.
“I know what you’re thinking.”
“Tell me,” I pressed, my fingers stroking over his jaw, up the side of his face to his hair.
It was longer than I’d ever seen it, right below his ears, an artful mess, going in many directions at once.
He looked rumpled, like he’d just rolled out of bed, and it was very sexy.
I wanted to comfort him, yes, but I wanted to go to bed with him just as badly.
“You met my dad,” he said with a grin. “Can you imagine how pissed he would be if he knew I ever doubted him or his love?”
“That’s true,” I agreed, thinking of the loud, boisterous man I’d met who had hugged and kissed Sam many times during our visit.
“Yeah,” he rasped, his voice gravelly, a bit overwhelmed, thinking about his family. His eyes were welling with unshed tears, and looking at him, seeing how grateful he was but how sad at the same time, was breaking my heart.
“I’m sorry that you’ll lose some of your friends, starting with Dom.”
He nodded and took a breath. “I just—the thing is, if what I do in my bed is something he cares that much about, I don’t know what I can do.
Would I throw away our history if the roles were reversed?
” He thought a moment. “I don’t think so.
I would hope not, but who knows? I’m not gonna sit here and pass judgment on him, be a hypocrite, because it’s something I might or might not have done. I’m just gonna let him go.”
“Maggie must’ve called him, like, seconds after you left her.”
“Probably.”
“You’re not mad at her?”
“What’s to be mad about? I made my decision. The truth was coming out.”
“And tomorrow? What happens when Dominic tells everybody about us?”
He leaned back and looked at me like I was nuts.
“Are you kidding? He’s not gonna tell anybody.
He’s just gonna let me request a partner change and leave it at that.
Me being bisexual isn’t as bad as him not knowing and being my partner all this time.
It’s gonna stay quiet until I say something.
He would never out me. People would think he didn’t speak up before because he’s the same way. ”
My relief made me shiver. “This is all so—why does he care? Why does anybody?”
“Way of the world.”
“And what will you tell your captain? Why will you say you need a change?”
“J,” he said, cupping my face in his hands, smiling at me, “I hafta tell my captain that Dom doesn’t want to work with me anymore because my partner is a man.”
“No. Why would you put yourself—”
“Because I do. And we’ll see what happens after that. For right now, though, I just wanna be here with you and not worry about it.”
I nodded.
“Can I sit with you?”
I lost it. The tears came in a flood.
“Oh, baby.” His voice was like honey as he lifted me up and then settled me so I was leaning against his chest. He draped an arm over my shoulder, gently rubbing circles over my abdomen.
The other hand stroked through my hair, petting me, both movements meant to calm and soothe me.
“Don’t cry, everything’s gonna be okay.”
“You should be losing your mind.”
“I did that already. Didn’t you hear me tell Dom?”
I took a breath. “You tried really hard to forget me.”
“No,” he corrected me, leaning my head back, his hand in my hair. “I could never do that. I wouldn’t want to. That was the point. You’re it for me. The one. It can’t be changed.”
“I want to know what you were doing while we were apart,” I begged him.
“What were you doing?”
“Being miserable.”
“Same for me,” he said, kissing my head. “I was walking through my life on autopilot. Nothing felt real but the job, so I buried myself in that and did the minimum everywhere else.”
“You should have just come to see me.” I tried to keep the bitterness out of my voice.