Chapter 6
Six
“R
ico, is everything okay? I’ve left a few messages. Please call me when you get a chance.” Evan disconnected the call and sighed in exasperation, hating that his voicemail sounded desperate.
After he had to cancel their date on Thursday, he thought everything was okay, but when he called Rico on his break, he got the man’s voicemail with no callback. Evan shrugged it off, thinking the bar might have been busy. But when he left another message on Rico’s voicemail the next day, asking if they were still on for that evening, he received a text back saying Rico needed to cancel, but with no further explanation. It was now Sunday morning, and Evan still hadn’t spoken to him. He only got the occasional text saying Rico was busy and couldn’t take time from the bar to see Evan.
The disappointment rolling through him physically hurt. Even though his relationship with Rico was new, he honestly thought they had something good developing between them. But it seemed like he was getting the brush off now, and he didn’t know why.
“Morning.”
Evan looked up from the kitchen table to see Brian stroll in. The boys slept over at Evan’s place last night because Susan had gone on another date with the new man in her life. When Evan spoke to her on the phone yesterday, she sounded happy. It made him smile because that’s what he wanted for her, but after hanging up, a flash of jealousy went through him. He thought Rico was special—what they had was special—but was it just a fling and wishful thinking on Evan’s part?
Maybe he’d go to the Cock & Bull later to see if he could corner Rico there and find out what was going on. Had Evan done something wrong? He didn’t think so.
God, this sucks. The first guy you actually want to date—like seriously, date—and you start falling for him, and then things go to shit.
As Brian sat at the table, Evan tried to paste on a smile. “Good morning. How’d you sleep?” A lazy shrug was his answer. Getting to his feet, he opened the refrigerator. “Bacon and eggs or pancakes?”
“Bacon, eggs, and pancakes?” Mark said hopefully as the fourteen-year-old appeared in the doorway. “Hash browns, too, if you have some.”
Evan laughed. It’d been a long time since he was a teenager, eating everything in sight, but having two growing boys meant he had to keep the fridge and pantry stocked for whenever they visited or spent the night. “Three hungry-man specials coming up.”
Pushing the MIA Rico from his mind for the moment, Evan gathered the ingredients he needed to make his kids a big breakfast.
The pounding on his condo door gave him a headache, and Rico wished whoever it was would just give up already. His hopes were dashed, though, when he heard the lock disengage, and Scout pushed the door open, then closed it behind him. He was dressed in jeans, a Turner Continental T-shirt, and sneakers, which meant that today, he was free of any obligations that required him to wear a suit, or at least dress pants and a TC polo shirt.
Rico scowled at him. “I gave you a key for emergencies only.”
“This is an emergency,” he replied dryly, dropping down on the couch across from the recliner Rico spent the day sulking in. “You see, the man who’s like a brother to me is fucking up the best thing that’s ever happened to him, and I need to know why.”
“What are you talking about?”
Scout frowned. “Alex and I stopped by the bar, and Gino told us you’ve been home sick the past three days. Then, before I have a chance to say ‘What the fuck?’ because you didn’t say anything to me about being sick, Alex gets a phone call from Evan, asking if he knows if you’re okay. He’s worried because he hasn’t been able to get you on the phone. And when he tried to stop by, he couldn’t find you at the bar, and you wouldn’t answer your phone when the concierge called to see if it was okay for them to send him up. So, tell me, brother, what the fuck is going on?”
He rolled his bloodshot eyes and sipped the beer he cracked open a few minutes earlier—his third of the day. “It wasn’t working out. End of story.”
“Bullshit, Rico. This is me you’re talking to. You floated around on cloud nine for two weeks—something I’ve never seen you do—and now, suddenly, it’s over? What happened?”
Rico considered lying to his best friend, but he owed it to him to be honest. “His kid stopped by the bar the other day and warned me off his dad.”
Scout’s eyes narrowed. “What? Why’d he do that?”
“He doesn’t want his father dating an accused rapist.”
“Aw, fuck. He seriously said that?”
“Yup—announced it to the whole damn bar.” Rico sighed. “At least it was almost empty at the time, and Jeremy cleared things up for anyone listening, but not until after Brian left.”
“Brian? That’s the kid’s name?
“Yeah.”
“Okay. So, I take it you haven’t told Evan about all that yet.”
“Nope.” He picked at the label on the beer bottle. “It’s not exactly dinner conversation or something to bring up before or after fucking each other’s brains out.”
“Jesus, Rico. You’re innocent. That was proven. You didn’t even go to trial. Explain what happened to Evan. He’ll understand.”
“You didn’t see that kid’s face, man. I don’t think there’s a thing I can say to make him believe I didn’t rape that girl.”
Scout jumped up, grabbed the beer bottle from Rico’s hand, slammed it onto the coffee table, and then got into Rico’s face. “You. Did. Not. Rape. That. Girl. You have the proof you didn’t. If that kid doesn’t believe you, then so what?”
“Don’t you see? If he doesn’t believe me, how can I have a relationship with his father, knowing that the kid will always look at me and think the worst?” Hot tears scalded his cheeks. He tried to erase his past, but it still kept coming back to haunt him.
“Then make him believe you. Get the fucking file and shove it into the kid’s face. Stop thinking you don’t deserve to be happy because of what happened, Rico. It wasn’t your fault. Stop blaming yourself.”
Taking a deep breath, Rico held a thick file in the crook of his arm and knocked on the door to Evan’s apartment with his free hand. It was two days since Scout tore him a new asshole for fucking things up, and Rico finally summoned the courage to try to fix what he broke. He picked up the phone several times to call Evan before convincing himself he needed to do it in person. Thankfully, Evan texted him his address last week when they were supposed to have dinner there.
He heard muffled voices behind the door, and then it swung open. When Brian spotted Rico standing there, his face reddened as he frowned. “What the fuck are you doing here?”
“Brian!” Evan’s voice came from farther inside the apartment. “Who’re you talking to like that?” There was a pause, and then Evan appeared behind his son, who had rage rolling off him in waves.
Evan’s brow furrowed. “Rico? What’re you doing here?”
“We need to talk.”
“Um, okay.”
He went to brush by Brian and move out into the hall, but Rico stopped him and gestured toward the teen. “With Brian.”
Evan glanced back and forth between Brian and Rico, who were in a Mexican standoff—neither willing to back down. “What’s going on? You two have met before?”
Stepping forward, Rico forced the teenager to move back into the apartment. Evan stood there, confusion etched on his face as Rico closed the door. “Your son came to visit me at the bar the other day.”
“What? Why?”
Rico’s gaze stayed pinned to Brian’s angry one. “To tell me to leave you alone.”
“What? Why would you do that, Bri?”
As Rico expected, the kid exploded. “Because you deserve better than someone who’s a fucking rapist, Dad!”
Evan’s eyes grew wide as he stared at his son. “Wha?—”
“Evan, sit down.” Rico put a gentle hand on the other man’s shoulder. “Both of you, please, while I explain what’s going on.”
Still stunned, Evan nodded and grabbed Brian’s arm, turning him toward the living room. Once they sat on the couch, Rico glanced around. “Is Mark here? He should probably hear this too.”
Evan shook his head. “He’s at a study group tonight.”
Placing the folder on the coffee table, Rico took a seat on a recliner, leaned forward, and rested his elbows on his knees. “Brian found out I was arrested when I was twenty years old. I was accused of raping a sixteen-year-old girl.” Two sets of eyes were on him—one filled with hostility, the other with shock. Swallowing hard, he continued. “I worked at a coffee shop—one of two jobs I was holding down to pay for college—and this teenage girl came in often. Sometimes with her friends and sometimes alone. It was a Tuesday. March twenty-ninth.” That day would forever be etched in his mind. “She came in after school and got the iced coffee she always ordered. It was raining out, and she had an umbrella and her book bag. Even after all these years, I can still see her so clearly in my mind. She used to flirt with me, not realizing I was gay. I got better tips if I flirted back with people, no matter their gender, so most of our customers didn’t know if I was gay or not.
“Anyway, after she left, it was the end of my shift. I was exhausted because I’d been up late studying for a test, so I went home. I was still living with my aunt and uncle at the time. Everyone was either at work or school, so no one could confirm I was there.” His gaze fell onto Brian. “I already told your dad that my folks were killed in a car accident when I was a sophomore in high school—my aunt and uncle took me in.”
The kid didn’t seem affected by that bit of information, so Rico shifted his gaze to Evan, who listened intently. “On her way home, the girl was attacked, raped, and left for dead in an alley not far from the coffee shop. She was in a coma for a few days, and when she woke up, she told the cops I was the one who did it. She even picked me out of a photo lineup.”
He took a deep, ragged breath and let it out slowly. It had been a long time since he’d told his story to anyone. “So, they arrested me and charged me with rape and attempted murder. I was fingerprinted, photographed, and tossed into a cell. From there, I was arraigned and taken to jail because the bail was set too high for my aunt and uncle to get me out. I was in there two days before my friend Scout found out.
“His parents had known me for years and knew I was gay and wouldn’t have ... wouldn’t have raped anyone, especially not a girl. They hired a lawyer and bailed me out of jail. It was three weeks later that the DA’s office got the lab results back on the rape kit done on the girl at the hospital. I wasn’t a match—not even close—and all the charges were dropped.
“What they think happened was, since I was the last person she interacted with before the brutal attack, her mind focused on me because I was the only one she could remember talking to that day. They eventually connected the suspect to three other rapes before they caught him. He’s serving life in prison because one of the girls he raped and beat didn’t make it.”
Evan reached over and grasped Rico’s hand. Rico held onto it like a lifeline. His eyes watered when he realized Evan believed him. Unfortunately, Rico wasn’t done yet. “There’s more. A year after the attack, the girl committed suicide. She left two letters behind—one for her parents and one for me. She couldn’t handle the aftermath of the rape anymore, nor the fact that she almost sent an innocent man to prison. She begged me to forgive her.”
“My God.” Evan took several deep breaths before turning to Brian. “How did you find out about the arrest?”
The teen’s gaze was now on the floor. “I did one of those background checks on him and Steve, the guy Mom’s dating. It said he’d been arrested.”
“That information’s still out there for anyone to see even though the charges were dropped?” Evan’s eyes were wide in disbelief and outrage.
Rico nodded. “Yeah, but it’s not supposed to be. Not long after Christina—that was the girl’s name—killed herself, I started seeing a guy. He did one of those searches, too, after our third date. Apparently, the record wasn’t expunged like it was supposed to be. The guy got a few of his buddies together and came after me to dole out some justice. They wouldn’t listen when I tried to tell them it was a false arrest. Beat the crap out of me and put me in the hospital for a few days. They didn’t think I’d have the courage to press charges, but I did, and they did prison time. My record was finally expunged, but once it’s on one of those random background-check sites, it’s almost impossible to get it off.”
The hand still holding his squeezed. “Shit. How the hell did you get through all that and come out of it okay?”
Rico snorted, then wiped his wet eyes with his free hand. “My family and Scout. My best friend was there for all of it, and I’ll be grateful to him forever.” He pointed to the file on the coffee table. “Brian, all the proof of my innocence is in there. I’ve kept everything in case I ever needed it. I care about your dad—he means a lot to me. I was going to tell him about all this at some point, but it’s a heavy subject, and I just hadn’t found the right time to drop it on him. But now that it’s out, I don’t want this hanging like a dark cloud over our relationship. Can we put it behind us?”
When the teen lifted his head, tears rolled down his cheeks. “I’m—I’m sorry, Dad. I thought I was protecting you.”
Releasing Rico’s hand, Evan pulled Brian into a tight embrace. “It’s okay, son. It’s okay.”
When he glanced over his shoulder, Rico’s gaze met his, and he nodded. It was going to be okay.