Chapter Eighteen
Bailey
I slurped my pho. “This is the best. I could have it every day.”
Keston had finished his and was crunching on a spring roll. “We have some good places down by me. But this is good too.”
“Maybe we’ll try them sometime. Do a comparison.”
He didn’t agree or even respond, and I wondered again why he was so intent on keeping me away from where he lived. I’d only been there one time, and even when I visited him at the shop, I felt he couldn’t wait for me to leave. I knew he liked his privacy, but nonetheless, it didn’t make sense.
“You finished?” He shoved his takeout containers in a bag. “I’ll take your stuff.”
“Yeah, thanks. The recycling goes in the blue bag. I’ll take it out later.” Yawning, I stretched my arms over my head. “What a day. I could go for a beer and just vegging on the couch.”
Finished with his cleanup, Keston returned to the table. “Fine. Get your beer, and you can tell me what the hell happened the other night, because I still can’t figure it out.”
Dammit. I should’ve known he wouldn’t give up. But I kept my cool. “Yeah, no problem. You want one?” I opened the refrigerator.
“No, I’m good.” He sat on the couch. Waiting. Hard eyes pinned to mine as I approached.
“Yeah, you are,” I teased, but he didn’t smile.
“You don’t need to make a joke about everything, you know.”
Sure I did, but he didn’t need to know that. “I’m not. It was amazing before.” I sat next to him, but he shifted away.
“Bailey. Saturday night you almost had a breakdown because you thought your sister was in trouble. Then she talked about your mother.”
“You heard all that?”
The harsh lines of his face softened. “What’s going on? You can talk to me.”
I wasn’t used to this…this intimacy. No one I’d been with previously had been interested in knowing me beyond which drawer held my condoms and lube. Their interest never extended past what happened between the sheets. Yet now I had Keston asking me to open up, and I hesitated.
“Why?” I gulped down my beer. “It’s not like anything’s going to change.”
“That’s what I used to think. When I was a kid, I was angry.
All the time. I kept everything bottled up—my mother dumping me, no father, kids teasing me ’cause I didn’t have money to go places or wear cool clothes.
And all that rage built and built until I exploded.
Hitting people, tagging, stealing, anything to stop the—”
“Pain,” I finished for him. “Yeah. I understand.” I pinched my eyes.
“Because…?” Keston urged. “Listen, if you’re worried I’m gonna tell anyone, don’t be. I know what it’s like to live inside your head with too much stuff floating around. Thinking you’re not good enough, that you’ll never be, because of who you are and where you came from.”
Going to a commuter college, and with my father dying, I’d come and gone and hadn’t socialized much.
In law school, I’d broken free and decided to be the fun one.
The gay friend always up for a good time.
No one in my fraternity had pushed to talk about ourselves—we’d all known Weston was rich and a senator’s son and that Brenner was quiet and brilliant.
The other guys were legacies, with girlfriends. And then there was me.
No one cared about the real Bailey Marks. I was the one with a joke and a smile, and that was what I’d let everyone see. There’d never been a need for me to shed my skin. But there’d never been anyone like Keston in my life before.
“My mother left when I was four. Just walked out on us one day and never came home. My father was a cop, but she wanted him to become a detective, a chief in the department, up, up, and away on the ladder of the NYPD, but he liked being on the street with the people. A patrol cop. So she bailed, to find better, richer prospects. He was the best dad and worked so damn hard. Our neighbor would watch me after school, or if I was sick, my dad would stay home. Money was always tight.” I twisted my hands in my lap and shifted in my seat. “Then 9/11 happened.”
Keston’s eyes grew wide. “He was there? Jesus…”
“No. But his precinct was close by, and they all went to help, you know? With the rescue at first, then the recovery. He worked on the pile, breathing in those fumes.” I wiped at my eyes.
“He contracted a lung disease that eventually killed him.” A laugh escaped.
“That’s when my mother decided to reappear, with Belinda in tow.
She’d heard—no idea how—that my father had a 9/11 illness and was eligible for a nice, fat payout from the fund set up. ”
“Damn, that’s cold.”
“The saddest thing is that they never officially divorced. My father couldn’t bring himself to do it. So he died, and she got half his pension, the house, and the 9/11 settlement. I was in college, impotent to do anything. And my dad asked me to take care of Belinda. I couldn’t say no.”
“So you help her out?”
“Yeah. ’Cause as you can imagine with a mother like ours, she’s had a ton of her own problems.”
“And your mother? She still in your life?”
Merely talking about my mother gave me cramps and heart palpitations. “Pfft, barely. She lives rent free in the house—my father’s house. But now she wants to sell it.”
“And you don’t.” Keston nodded. “Can’t say I blame you.”
Funny how it felt good to bare my soul, like a bloodletting releasing the poisons.
“It’s the last memory I’ve got of my father and me. My mother forgot about us, but I never did.” I pushed my shaky hands through my hair. “Look, that’s enough of my sob story.”
Unable to sit still any longer, I ran away from Keston’s sympathy and pity. I couldn’t bear either one. I had my hand on the doorknob when Keston grabbed me around the waist and hauled me away.
“You have no socks or sneakers on. Where the hell are you going?”
Feeling like a complete fool, I returned to the couch, Keston following.
“What’s the deal with your sister? Aside from giving her money, I take it you watch over her?”
“Yeah. Belinda’s still suffering the effects of being an unwanted child. She keeps falling for every guy’s line, no matter how fake. She so desperately wants to be loved by someone that she’ll do almost anything. Including staying with some jerk whose mouth is bigger than his brains.”
“You mean that guy who was at her apartment.”
“Jonas. Her ex. They’ve been on and off for years.
I could never prove that he actually touched her because she refused to say, but he’s scared her with his temper so badly that she finally got a restraining order against him—which as I told you, she insisted I have the court lift.
Now this engagement. Color me suspicious, but she told me to butt out. ”
“And you’ve been giving her money?”
A valid question, and the answer would make me sound like a sucker.
“She’s had trouble keeping jobs. I couldn’t let her live in a shelter, and she and our mother can barely be in the same room without screaming their heads off.
I found her that place after I got her out of Jonas’s apartment.
I pay for it and give her money.” I attempted to lighten the mood.
“And there you have the whole sad story of Bailey Marks.”
“I don’t see it like that. You’re a nice guy, and your sister is lucky to have someone like you.”
“I think so,” I joked, but Keston frowned.
“Don’t downplay it. If I’d known Grady when I was a teenager, who knows? I might not’ve gotten into all the trouble I did.”
“But you found someone else to help you.” It was time for Keston to spill his guts like I had. “Carlos.”
Keston’s eyes flickered. “Yeah, but…”
“No buts, Keston. I had no one. Carlos taught you not only how to love him, but how to love yourself. My dad was the best, but I couldn’t really talk to him about personal stuff. He got sick and I never told him I was gay.”
At some point while I was talking, Keston rested his hand on my nape and began a slow massage.
This touch was different from the others, warmth flowing from his skin to mine, but without anything sexual.
He was letting me know he understood and was there for me.
I couldn’t explain how his simple gesture altered everything between us.
Keston was fast becoming my compass in the wandering roads of my life, leading me to a safe place.
“Carlos saved me. More than the job, he gave me a way forward, out of the bitterness and anger that had become the parameters of my world. He showed me another path. And when I was older, he gave me his heart.”
“You’re very lucky,” I said. “I’ve never had that.”
“I know I am. But why do you think that? You’ve got good friends.”
“Friends, yes. But good friends?” I huffed out a fake-ass laugh and shook my head.
“If you’re talking about Weston and Brenner, nah.
We were friendly during law school, but with West and Brenner too intent on one-upping each other and me being gay, I always felt a little on the outside, looking in.
We reconnected once Weston moved to New York, and yeah, we’ve definitely become better friends, but I’ve never told anyone any of this. Only you.”
Keston stopped the gentle movement of his fingers. “Why?”
It would be so damn easy to make a joke of it. Like I always did when it came to things I didn’t want to talk about. But dammit, I was tired of holding it all inside. So what if I told him how I felt?
“Because.” I shifted away to look him in the eye. “I knew you’d understand. I have feelings for you. More than just sex.”
Keston didn’t break our stare-down. “Is this part of that dating thing we said we were trying?”