Chapter 3
“How long have you been in the reselling business?” Trace asked. “This is a pretty sick space.”
“Technically, I’ve been doing it off and on since I was in college, both for extra cash and the thrill of the hunt. It’s been my full-time job for about three years, mostly because of my divorce.”
“I’m sorry to hear that. The divorce, I mean.”
“Don’t be.” I’d lost a lot in the divorce, including a relationship with my stepson, but I’d regained so much, too. “I’m free to be me again.”
“I hear that.” His eyes reflected keen understanding. “You said mostly the divorce. What’s the rest of the reason you do this? I can’t imagine it’s what you majored in.”
“My parents.” Heat flooded my chest, and an unexpected wave of grief made my eyes sting. I didn’t tell business acquaintances about this part of my life, especially not new ones. New, hot ones who wanted to dig into my puzzles for old letters. Trace’s inquisitive eyebrow quirk kept my motor mouth going. “They passed away unexpectedly a little over a year ago. They both loved junking and antiques, but my dad especially encouraged it. In a way, I still do this to honor them.”
“Wow, that’s really cool, Atticus. Not your parents dying, obviously, I’m so sorry about that. But you doing something to keep their memories alive. You all were obviously close.”
“We were.” Something in Trace’s tone suggested he hadn’t been close with his own parents, and I managed to bite my tongue and not scare him off again with rude questions. “I was lucky in a lot of things, so I try not to take much for granted. And to help others when I can.”
“Such as allowing a curious new friend to rummage around in your puzzle stash?”
“Exactly.” I led him over to said stash. “They’re all right here. Every box with a big P written on it, and there are a bunch of loose ones, too. Oh.” The small tote of random paperwork I’d saved while sorting was on my main work table, and I snatched it up. Handed it over to Trace. “Here’s more pieces for your big puzzle. Good luck.”
Trace hefted the tote once, testing its weight. “You aren’t helping?”
“I was going to, but I had to reschedule a video chat from this morning to five o’clock, so I have to go inside for a little while.”
“You’re trusting me alone with all your stuff?”
I shrugged. “I have security cameras.”
“Yeah? Ever capture anything salacious on them?”
“Caught two stray cats fucking one night.”
Trace laughed out loud, and the sound danced around my garage like it had danced around the auditorium last night. I really liked the way he laughed. “Cats were fucking inside your garage?”
“No, outside. I don’t have cameras inside.” If I was reading his signals right, this shouldn’t go over like a lead balloon. “What happens inside the garage stays inside the garage.”
His nostrils flared. “Duly noted.” We held eye contact long enough for my belly to squirm with excited wiggles.
Then my phone blared out an alert. “Uh, yeah, my phone call.”
“Enjoy the call. Hopefully, by the time you’re done, I’ll have a lot more letters to show you.”
“And then you’ll let me in on what’s got you so invested?”
“Yup.”
“Okay then. See you in about an hour.” After another moment of intense eye contact, I took my coffee with me to the house, leaving someone new alone in my private workspace for the first time. I had no real reason to trust Trace already—but I did.
By the time I finished my call, my stomach was rumbling for dinner. I could toss a frozen pizza into the oven for us both, if Trace was still working his way through the puzzle stash and wanted to stay. Maybe offer the guy a soda from the garage’s mini fridge. But any thought of food vanished when I pushed open the garage door and spotted Trace sitting in on the floor, surrounded by cardboard boxes and stacks of puzzles, tears running down his face.
“Shit, man, are you okay?” I picked my way around the mess to squat in front of him, trying to suss out the situation in case he’d fallen or something, and my insurance was about to get involved. “Are you hurt?”
Trace looked up, his tear-filled eyes breaking my heart a little, and he rasped, “I’m not hurt. These letters, Atticus. Fuck.”
“Letters?” I focused on the folded notebook paper clutched in one of his hands. “You’re upset about an old letter?”
“It’s what’s in the letter. Sit down.”
I did, unsure why I listened when he told me to do something, folding my legs into a semi-comfortable position. He was surrounded by at least eight more puzzles, each with a letter on top.
Trace wiped his nose on his shirt sleeve, and then he started to read. “April fourth, nineteen-eighty-seven. Dearest Teddy. I was with Jerry when he died. I’m glad you weren’t here, even though you said you’d come. Bearing it alone was almost too much, but I couldn’t stand for you to bear witness to the same horrors as I, especially with you so far away. Jerry is finally at peace, no longer suffering so greatly. So atrociously. To see his skin peeling away like wet tissue paper when they tried to move him…it’s the stuff of nightmares.”
My own skin crawled as my stomach erupted into a boiling inferno. The date of the letter, the horrific death. I didn’t have to ask what Jerry died from.
“Some of the nurses can’t stomach it. It’s selfish but I’m glad Jerry’s suffering is over. Mine, as well, for this friend. But how many dozens more will follow? Faces I’ve known, danced with, wept with, dreamed with. And the thousands of faces I’ll never know?
“I’m sorry for such a depressing letter, but I thought you should know Jerry’s gone. He was your friend too, even if only through my letters. Thank you for the new photo. It helps in the dark times when it’s difficult to picture your smile. I miss your voice the most but understand why we cannot telephone. I hope this newest package finds you in good health and better spirits than I send it. Yours always, X.”
It took a while to find my voice. “X?” I asked. “The letter is signed X?”
“Yeah.” Trace cleared his throat hard. “They’re all addressed to Dearest Teddy, and signed X. Every one that I’ve found so far. And except for two from ’88, they’re all dated 1987.”
I swallowed hard, mouth dry, insides shaky. “It was AIDS, right? That Jerry died from?”
“Has to be. I’ve heard stories of how some people died of it back then, when there was no real treatment, nothing to do but try and mitigate the worst of the pain.” Trace wiped at his eyes again and sniffled, and I wished I had a tissue or something for him. “Ignorance and hate killed an entire generation of gay men during this period. Does anyone even remember Jerry anymore?”
“We do.” Without thinking, I reached out and squeezed Trace’s knee. “Maybe it wasn’t how X intended, but he left a legacy for Jerry. And Teddy, who I’m guessing was the owner of the storage locker I bought.” For the first time in my life, a weird sensation passed over my entire body. Like Teddy’s ghost was lingering nearby, watching me disperse the remnants of his life like ashes in the wind.
“Those papers weren’t for a Teddy or a Theodore. It was someone’s collection of old letters sent during World War Two, mostly from England to an address in Pennsylvania. I doubt they’re connected to our Teddy.”
Our Teddy. And as intriguing as letters from that time period were to the reseller in me, this was more important. “Teddy and X were clearly close.”
Trace nodded slowly, fingers lightly tracing lines on the notebook paper with one hand, while the other covered mine. Keeping my hand on his knee. The touch was almost electric, and I turned my hand over so we were palm to palm. “I wish I knew more about X,” he whispered. “Were they a nurse? An ex-lover? He or she? None of the letters I’ve read are specific enough. Everything X writes is about Teddy or other people they knew.”
“Then let’s keep looking.”
More than satisfying my own growing curiosity, I needed to find answers for Trace’s sake. We held eye contact—and hands—a beat longer, and then Trace reached for an unopened box.
I’d never been so invested in solving a puzzle in all my life.
We ate the pizza, plus most of a bag of tortilla chips with a jar of salsa, and at least two sodas each by the time we both decided to call it a night. Stacks of puzzles stood all over my garage floor, many of them sorted by Trace during our search for letters, putting them in piles by animals, people, recognizable locations, and general artistic expressions, which was a lot more than I would have done with them.
There was also a small stack of media-related puzzles, including a few from 80s franchises that could have monetary value if all the pieces were there—something I’d do another day, when I wasn’t seeing imaginary puzzle pieces floating in front of my eyeballs every time I blinked.
The other major staging area was like a map of sorts. Trace had kept all discovered letters with their puzzle, and he’d moved them into chronological order. We’d read bits of some of the letters as we found them, but mostly we had created a story line to follow at a later time. Maybe when we both weren’t yawning every twenty seconds.
“I wonder if my sister could help us find X,” Trace said absently, as he surveyed our organized chaos.
“Is she a private investigator?”
“No, she’s a partner in an urban planning group that does a lot of work with community centers and nonprofits. But the guy she’s been seeing has a lot of cop friends. Maybe he knows someone.”
I stood there, a bit in awe of his commitment to knowing everything he could about Teddy, X, and the nature of their relationship. There might be more to discover in the unread letters, but so far, X had been very careful to hide identifying details. “This is really important to you, isn’t it?”
“Yes. And you’re officially intrigued, right? I don’t have to buy all these puzzles off you?”
I chuckled. “No, you don’t, and yes, I’m hooked. I’m also about to pass out from sheer exhaustion. Can we pick up our investigation tomorrow?”
“Okay. I get off at four again.”
I checked my phone calendar because my brain was mush. “I’ll be here.” When Trace turned a slightly panicked glance to the floor, I added, “Don’t worry about the mess. It won’t be in my way tomorrow.”
“Great, thanks.”
Trace walked out first, and I took a minute to turn off the lights and set the alarm code. Locked the garage door. He was waiting by his car, and I joined him there, a lot unsure of myself, like I’d just walked him to his car after our first date. “Thank you for indulging me on this,” Trace said. “You didn’t have to, but you did.”
“It’s no trouble. I’m invested now, too, remember?”
He gazed at me with so many things flickering in his expressive eyes, and I swore they briefly dropped to my lips. I swallowed, unsure what to do next, worried I’d scare him off if I was too forward—or he’d think I wasn’t interested if I was too chicken-shit to?—
He stuck out his hand. “Thank you. See you tomorrow.”
Damn it. “Yeah, see you.”
I remembered that handshake—the firm grip, the warm skin, how something seemed to ripple from each point of contact all the way to my balls—until the moment my head hit the pillow, and then I dreamed of Trace Johnson’s wickedly sweet smile.
On Saturdays, I had a routine of hitting local yard sales, shooting down to a flea market south of the city if the yard sales were few and far between, and then usually stopping by my vendor booths to swap out merchandise. I got caught up chatting with one of the antique mall owners that afternoon, so I was running late getting home to meet Trace. I’d also skipped lunch and was hungry as a spring bear, so I swung by a favorite pizza joint. The strip mall had a liquor store two doors down, so I got a large supreme and a six-pack. I also texted Trace that I’d probably be about ten minutes late, but I had dinner with me.
Trace was sitting under the shade of a tree, instead of in his car with the air conditioning, and he grinned when I climbed out of the car with sustenance. His smile dimmed when I handed him the six-pack to hold so I could unlock the garage and let us in. The problem didn’t hit me until we were noshing on slices, and I offered him a beer.
“I don’t drink,” Trace said flatly. “I’ll take a soda, though.”
“Shit, sorry, I shouldn’t have assumed.” Pizza and beer went together, for me, like macaroni and cheese, or milk and cookies. But that wasn’t everyone’s jam. I got him a cola from the mini fridge.
“It’s fine, I’m used to it. Drinking wasn’t really my issue, but it’s better to abstain anyway.” I bit my tongue, because I’d chased him off once with the nosy question, and Trace impressed me by adding, “I was a heroin addict for eight years before I got clean. Been sober for five.”
Damn. “Thank you for trusting me with that. Um.” The math confused me, though, because he didn’t look that old.
“I can see the question marks floating over your head. I started using when I was fourteen to escape the shithole that was my family life. I didn’t know I was trading one living hell for another, not until I ended up homeless. Desperate. Sleeping behind dumpsters and eating in soup kitchens.”
His story collided with his attachment to letters written during the height of the AIDS era, and my heart lurched. I couldn’t make myself ask, though, not something that insanely personal. Not when we were still just friends.
“But I was lucky,” Trace continued, his serious expression gentling. “When I hit rock bottom, my sister April was there. After a few months in jail, she helped me get into rehab. Gave me a place to stay while I got my life in order, got the job at Half-Dozen. I owe her my life.”
“I’m glad she didn’t give up on you. Some people don’t have that unconditional support.”
“Didn’t you?”
“Mostly. My marriage obviously went to shit, and for a lot of reasons I’m not diving into tonight. But my parents were great, loving and generous. I just wish I’d come out and told them I was bisexual before they died, so they knew all of me, not just the facade I presented to the world.”
“Will you hate me if I say I’m envious? My parents weren’t around, and when they were they were either fighting, drunk, usually both. It was easier to not be home, but I didn’t find anything out there but trouble and drugs.”
“I’m sorry.”
“Don’t be. I’m not. Can’t change any of it. My bad choices put me on the path to right now, and while my bed feels really empty most nights, I’m…settled. Things could be and have been much worse.”
The empty bed comment wasn’t lost on me, and the dark intent in Trace’s eyes drew me in. At some point, we’d both put our pizza slices down and stood closer together. I could reach out and touch him. Hold him. Kiss him. “You said before that dating is complicated for you. That why your bed’s empty?”
“Yes. Casual sex is one thing, but most people bail when they see the kind of baggage I haul around. Which is why I’m upfront about things when I’m interested in someone. Saves hurt feelings later.”
Hope and terror collided in my head, and the only words I could manage were a dumb joke. “I thought you were just interested in my puzzles.”
“You’re the most interesting puzzle in the room, Atticus, and I really want to know more. Not just about Teddy and X, but about you. I’ve been intrigued by you since Dottie introduced us that first night.”
“That first night when you walked away from me?”
“I’m sorry about that.”
“No, it’s okay, I was really rude.” I reached out before I could stop myself, and I clasped his hand. Gave it a gentle squeeze that he returned. “Thanks for giving me another chance. For being honest with me. And if it helps at all, your baggage doesn’t scare me. We all have it. It’s always there. But it doesn’t have to weigh us down.”
Trace sucked in a harsh breath, and then I was surrounded. His arms wrapped around my waist at the same time his mouth covered mine. I expected harsh and demanding, but the embrace was as gentle as the kiss. A quiet questing of his lips against mine that stole a breathy moan from my throat that I barely recognized. I’d never had such a sweet, curious first kiss in my life, not even when I was ten-years-old and kissing a classmate for the first time. Not my first boy kiss. Not my first girlfriend kiss. Not my first kiss with my ex.
This discovery with Trace was the first kiss I’d always wanted, and the one I would never, ever forget.
When it finally ended, we were breathless and hard, and our hands were tangled in each other’s clothes. I could have stood like that forever, holding him, anticipation zinging through my bloodstream, facing endless possibilities as to where this might go. I could have gone straight to my knees and sucked Trace off, and he probably would have let me, but that didn’t feel right. I got the sense Trace had had enough quick encounters to last him a lifetime. I know I had.
I didn’t want quick and dirty, not this time. Not with him.