Chapter Forty- Four #2
point. It’s just too bad it was now, with all the rest of it.”
Lucas was silent for a moment before asking,
“All the rest of what?”
Oh. Lucas didn’t know. How would he have?
Mark had called Terry Groban, but there was no reason for Terry to
make an announcement to the residents of the house. And there’d
been an announcement in the paper, but Mark had never seen Lucas
reading the paper, or much of anything else. “My father,” he said
quietly. “He passed away last night.”
Lucas turned toward him. “Shit, Mark, I’m so
sorry.” His expression grew even more serious as he realized the
larger context of the day’s events. “And your mom…oh, fuck. She
must be…”
“She’s got a lot of reasons to be upset.
Finding out about me and you is just one more thing. It’s what
she’s focusing on right now, but I think it’s just because that’s
the thing she actually thinks she can control. She can’t do a damn
thing about my dad. This, though…”
“She can do something about this.” It was
phrased as a statement but Mark could hear the subtle question, the
request for reassurance.
He was only too happy to provide it. “No. She
can’t. She made it clear she doesn’t want to be around you. She
didn’t really have to say so, to be honest. I’m not that stupid.
But she can’t ask me to stop seeing you.”
“She can’t?” Lucas turned to look at Mark
with a raised eyebrow. “You’re seriously telling me she didn’t ask
you to dump me?”
“Well, yeah, okay, let me rephrase. She can’t
make me stop seeing you. She can ask, she can order, she can
threaten. But that doesn’t change anything.” He reached for Lucas’s
hand and wrapped his warm fingers around Lucas’s cold ones. “If
things go bad between you and me, it’ll be because of something
between you and me. Okay? Not something from the outside.”
“That’s kind of a weird way to put it.” Lucas
didn’t seem entirely serious, but he wasn’t completely joking
either. “Are you saying you’ve got a problem with something between
you and me?”
Mark shook his head with a tired smile. “The
only thing between you and me that I don’t like is all these
clothes. If we got rid of those, I’d be happy.”
“That’s why I came to the apartment,” Lucas
admitted, then hastened to add, “Not like a booty call. Just…I
wanted to be with you. Close.”
Mark frowned. “Before you knew about my dad?
Are you okay? Did something happen?”
“Nothing compared to your dad.”
“But something?”
Lucas looked uncomfortable. “Sean lost his
legs. And he’s a bit of a mess. I mean, obviously he’s a mess now,
but it sounds like he was before the accident too. And I was too
wrapped up in my own shit to notice.”
“He kicked you out of the house and beat you
into the hospital,” Mark said firmly. After learning those little
details he’d been less concerned about Sean as a romantic rival and
more worried about Lucas’s friendship with an apparent psychopath.
“He pushed you away, so how could you have known anything was
wrong?”
“Because he pushed me away. If it was hard
for me to be without him, I should have known it was hard for him
to be without me.”
And now they were veering back into the parts
that made Mark jealous. “It’s a complicated relationship, but that
doesn’t make you responsible for his mental health. Nobody but Sean
can make Sean healthy and happy.”
Lucas didn’t look totally convinced, but his
shoulders relaxed a little. “We shouldn’t be worrying about this.
Not now. I’m really sorry about your dad.”
Mark nodded. He wasn’t really feeling the
loss, not yet. He supposed it was because his father had been ill
for so long. They hadn’t been expecting this final blow, but they’d
already found ways to accept his absence from their daily lives.
“I’m sorry too. But just like my mom, I think it’s easier to focus
on things that we can still do something about. I mean, she’s wrong
in her choice of what to focus on, but…there’s nothing to be done
about my father. You and Sean, maybe we can do something
about.”
“Probably not,” Lucas said. He stared at the
altar a little longer, then said, “The clothes, though. We can do
something about the clothes.”
“Here?” Mark teased.
Lucas raised an eyebrow. “I think you’re in
enough trouble at work as it is.”
Mark couldn’t argue with that. And he
definitely agreed with the “get rid of the clothes” plan. It wasn’t
about sex, just comfort. But he didn’t move right away. Instead, he
looked up at the altar thoughtfully. It looked different than the
one at his own church. Less ornate, more modern. But both buildings
were dedicated to the same god. That was the most important
thing.
He wasn’t thinking of converting, but he was
pretty sure he needed to puzzle through some idea that was closely
related to all this. He looked over toward Lucas and saw the other
man watching him patiently. “You want to get out of here?” Mark
asked.
“Not if you want to stay. If you need to
think about something. Or I don’t have to stay with you if you
don’t want.”
“I’m tired of thinking,” Mark admitted. “At
least for now. Right now, I want to crawl into bed with you and
pull the covers up over our heads and stay there for about a
week.”
“Sounds good.” Lucas stood. “I’m in.”
Mark eased out of the pew and held his hand
out to Lucas, who looked at it suspiciously. “Not a hand-holder?”
Mark asked.
“You’re serious? We’re in a church!”
“They have gay weddings here. I don’t think
gay hand-holding is going to cause a big scandal.”
“And if someone sees you? I mean, recognizes
you?”
“My mother knows, Lucas. I’m sorry it
happened the way it did, but other than that I’m feeling pretty
relieved. I don’t need to hide this from anyone else.” Again, he
remembered Alex’s determination as he added, “I refuse to
hide this from anyone else.”
“Your bosses?” Lucas asked nervously. “Not
Father Groban, the guys above him.”
“If they don’t like it they can add it to
their list of complaints.” Mark stepped a little closer and let his
hand drop to his side. “If you aren’t ready to do this, I
understand. You’ve already had a lot of changes recently, and I
know your friends aren’t exactly accepting. But I’m ready. More
than ready.”
Lucas nodded slowly. “Okay,” he said. “If
you’re sure.” He stretched his hand out and Mark laced their
fingers together. It felt right.
“Positive.” They walked out of the church and
Mark tried not to think. Not about his father or his mother or his
church. He wanted to memorize this feeling, the pride and
excitement of making this sort of public declaration. Never mind
that there was no one in the church to notice them. Never mind that
the rain-soaked street was almost as abandoned as the church. He
and Lucas were together, and he wanted to shout it from the
rooftops. He tightened his grip on Lucas’s strong fingers and they
stepped out into the storm hand in hand.