Chapter 9
It was almost ten when Bennett turned the key in their front door. An unexpected visit home but no less welcome. Standing a second longer on the porch, he inhaled a giant gulp of salty sea breeze, then stepped inside, flipping on lights as he juggled the box of leftover pastries Marsh had sent them home with.
Gino entered behind him and rolled their luggage to the foot of the stairs. “How many hours have we been awake?”
Bennett groaned as he set the pastries on the kitchen island. “I lost count somewhere around thirty-six.”
In truth, they were closer to forty-eight with only catnaps randomly stolen over the past two days.
Gino’s arms circled him from behind, his chin resting on his head, the two of them staring out the windows at the moonlit Pacific, the lights of tankers and oil rigs twinkling far off in the distance. “We’ll just have to sleep for the next day and a half to make up for it.”
Tipping back his head, Bennett kissed the underside of Gino’s scruffy jaw. “We have to be in Seattle tomorrow.”
He chuckled at Gino’s heavy sigh and turned into him, burying his face in his chest.
Gino dropped a kiss on his crown. “We can resch?—”
“No, we’ll make it,”
Bennett said, glancing up and seeing the worry in Gino’s eyes, realizing he’d misconstrued Bennett’s need for closeness. It wasn’t distress driving him into the warm embrace.
It was contentment, pure and simple, after spending the entire day celebrating new life with their family, with those who had welcomed him with open arms these past thirty years.
And now he was home, in the place he loved most, with the person he loved most in the world, and he wanted to share that peace and happiness with him.
Something that had seemed impossibly out of reach just a few months ago. “We’ll get a good night’s sleep in our own bed, then catch a flight up in the morning.”
Arms tightening around him, Gino started walking them toward the stairs. “Something else I’d like to do with you in our bed first.”
Bennett liked the sound of that.
Liked the sound of the knock at their door a whole lot less.
“Awfully late for visitors,” he said.
Brow creased, Gino released him and crossed back to the door.
Bennett couldn’t see around him, but the distinctly Midwest “Yo, G-man, welcome home!”
clued him in to their visitor’s identity. He grabbed a pastry out of the box, then moseyed over to Gino’s side. “Hey, Casey,”
he greeted their neighbor.
Casey was a walking SoCal stereotype. Blond hair, sun-kissed skin, blue eyes, and a big smile, and if you saw him at sunrise or sunset, a wet suit hanging from his waist. This late at night, he was in board shorts and a tee, the latter advertising a surf gear company. “Didn’t expect you guys back for another couple weeks,” he said.
“Brief detour,”
Bennett said around his bite of kouign-amann.
“June had the twins,”
Gino explained.
“Oh, yay, congrats, dudes.”
He extended his fist for bumps, each of them returning one. “Well, I was just bringing this over.”
He held out the stack of mail in his other hand, then ducked back out the door to bring in a large box. “Figured you might want this package sooner rather than later.”
“You figured right,”
Gino said, and Bennett glanced up to see his husband smiling wide. It wasn’t a poster tube, obviously, but Bennett wondered if it might be another memento like the ones Gino had been gifting him all tour long. “Thanks, man.”
They made plans to catch up with Casey for coffee in the morning before heading to the airport, then closed the door and locked up behind him. Not a minute too soon, Bennett’s curiosity killing him. “What’s that?”
he said, gesturing with a sticky finger at the box.
“A surprise for you,”
he answered, grin impossibly wider, as he picked up the box and carried it to the table. Light, then, whatever was inside, despite the size. “Was going to give it to you after our last show in San Diego.”
“But Boston is gonna be our last show now.”
“So, I’m guessing by your logic, you think you should open it now.”
He rose on his toes and pecked his husband’s lips. “You know me so well.”
Gino lightly shoved him toward the sink. “Wash your hands first, pastry monster. You and Marsh together are dangerous.”
They were both still laughing when Bennett returned to the table, box cutter in hand. “Is it a framed concert poster?”
“Not exactly,”
Gino said as he plopped into one of the chairs. “And be very careful with the knife.”
Bennett nodded, then carefully sliced through the tape at one end of the box. He set down the cutter and slowly drew out the bubble-wrapped, framed something, foam bumpers on each corner. He popped those off, then ran a finger under the piece of tape keeping the bubble wrap secure. Inside was definitely a framed picture of some sort, wrapped in butcher paper with a kitchen twine bow.
Pausing, Bennett glided his fingers over the thick brick red paper, remembering his dad, remembering how Middle Cut had come by its name. Gino’s hand landed on his back, a comforting, commiserating weight, no doubt remembering the same, remembering all those afternoons they’d practiced on the loading dock of the butcher shop Bennett’s late father owned. The other businesses at the industrial park where it had been located loved the free music; the neighbors where they’d each lived, not so much. “I miss them.”
“I know you do, baby. They were good people.”
Good people who’d had Bennett in their forties. They’d passed a few years back, ten months apart, his mother first from cancer, then his father from a stroke. More likely a broken heart—the pair never could be apart for too long.
Bennett understood that, even better now than he had several months ago. Giving Gino those divorce papers had been the last thing he’d wanted. In retrospect, it probably would’ve broken him for good if Gino had taken those papers, signed them, and left. But if that was what Gino had needed, Bennett would have given it to him. Would give him the world.
And his heart, forever.
“Open it, babe,”
Gino said, rubbing his back.
His hand was shaky as he untied the ribbon and peeled back the paper, and he was glad for Gino’s swift reflexes; his husband surged to stand beside him when the picture inside was revealed, when Bennett gasped and tears instantly filled his eyes.
“How?”
was all he could manage around the lump in his throat.
“Pays having FBI agents in the family, especially when they’re friends with a bunch of hackers and bounty hunters.”
Laughter escaped past the lump, the thought of Levi and Marsh leading a team to find a beat-up, yellowed sketch of the primal cuts of a pig, with Bennett’s red crayon OINK scribbled in one corner.
This precious, assumed-lost memento once again in his hands.
“You remember that day?”
Gino asked.
“Like it was yesterday. We were at the shop, doing history homework, and I looked up at this picture over Dad’s counter and said, The band is called Middle Cut.”
“And that was that.”
“And that was that,”
he repeated as he skated his hands over the sketch he’d drawn.
Until Gino carefully slipped it from him and set it on the table. He twined their fingers together and lifted their joined hands to his lips. “Middle Cut was there before our first tour, and it’ll still be there after this last one. It will always be where we are.”
He lowered their hands over Bennett’s heart. “Because it’s right here.”
Bennett leaned forward, returning the kiss to their hands, then to his husband’s lips. Their love, their music would be right here with them, always.