Chapter 48 Kit
Kit
I spent almost a whole season in the same hundred-mile radius in Washington last fall. That was the longest stretch of time spent in the same area.
I never lingered long.
Except for Washington. Specifically, Port Townsend. I would leave every few days, but a couple days later, my van would be right back parked somewhere.
It was there that I met Marvin and John. Marvin was a big, burly man with a bald head and a scar on his top lip that left him with a permanent snarl, and John was the soft pianist who loved him.
Marvin was ex-Marine. You could see it in the way he got up at exactly the same time every day. In the way he kept his shoes lined up just so, or the way he straightened his spine when John said his name.
He was rough in all the ways one would notice, and absolute putty in John's long, slender hands.
They were like oil and water. They shouldn't mix. They didn't mix. And that was the beauty of it. They each stayed exactly who they were but flowed together anyway. John was the splash of iridescent to Marvin's clear world.
I found myself going back over and over again. It was brutally wonderful to see their world, even just from the outside looking in.
It started when my van needed gas, I needed food, and my wallet needed money. I was too embarrassed to call home for help. Again. My van was running on fumes and desperate vibes. I like to think Fiona made it into the gas station parking lot because I was behind the wheel cheering her on.
I parked, hoo-rahhed, then had to get my shit together and figure it out.
Figuring it out led to me walking the streets until I stumbled on a shop called Locks & Keys.
I almost walked by, like I walked past the rest of the shops on that street, but the big HELP WANTED sign had me pausing, backing up, and peeking in the window.
What I saw first was a middle-aged man with sandy blonde hair, head tipped back laughing. Then I saw his hand that wasn't in a sling on the shoulder of a mountain of a man.
The mountain was sitting on a bench that seemed too small for a man his size. He was playing the piano. If the man behind him was any indication, his head shakes and laughs were enough to deduce that the piano player wasn't very good.
There were several pianos in various shapes and sizes in the shop. And a wall of nothing but doorknobs and locks behind a counter.
Sandy man leaned down and smacked a kiss on the head of the other man, which had him leaning his head back for a proper, upside-down kiss. That's how they found me. Palm flat on the glass, looking in like one of those cartoon characters with heart eyes popping out of his head.
It broke my heart and built it back together with every interaction I had with them.
John had surgery on his wrist, and Marvin had a bad back. They needed help while they both recovered.
I was that help.
I use ‘help’ very, very loosely.
I don't even know why they kept me on, if I'm totally honest. I'm the type of man that could confuse a screwdriver and wrench. And I did. Marvin was baffled, John endlessly amused.
“Do young kids know anything anymore?”
He asked it in a very serious, no bullshit way that had me chuckling with John.
Marvin spent two weeks showing me the differences between tools and how to use them. I even now know what a castle nut and cotter key is, thank you.
But more than that, they showed me what true love looks like between two men. Not that love between men is any different—and that was the whole point.
It's tender. It's whole and big and full. It can be loud, even in the silence, and quiet when eyes meet across a table of people laughing.
John told me how he had loved Marvin his whole life. Marvin didn't choose him in that way until they were both in their 40s, Marvin had a marriage, two kids, and a divorce under his belt.
John had been ready to spend his life in love with a man that loved him platonically because, “I was bound to feel pain.
I got to choose the pain I felt, and there wasn't a life that I would choose to live without him in it.” He chose his hard.
John stood next to Marvin as his best man at his wedding.
He held the babies the man he loved made with his wife.
He chose to love Marvin in the purest, most selfless way, until one day, Marvin looked at him back and saw him.
Marvin rolled his eyes when he walked in to see me sobbing in a tissue and John smiling, rocking us on their front porch swing patting my shoulder.
I finally left, looking at them waving at me from the rear-view mirror, and didn't go back.
It hurt too much.
I'll never forget the way John looked at Marvin. Or the way there was no scar deep enough that would stop Marvin's smile from stretching for John when they spoke.
I'll also never forget how to change a doorknob.
I felt like a kid getting yelled at by their dad to just hold the flashlight still in this precise spot that will change with no warning, but you should just know.
I stop running at the bottom of the stairs and pull an earbud out in time to hear Bowen curse. He's kneeling in front of the door with various tools and a doorknob next to him on the porch.
I'm panting like a dog, and my feet are screaming from the blisters that aren't healed yet.
But my head is in that pleasant, mushy place it goes to after a good run.
The first stair gives away my presence, I guess, because when the wood creaks under my weight, Bowen glances back.
Blue eyes scan me from head to toe in a quick sweep that has my stomach flipping.
Just as quick as the look came, he turns back to the task without a word.
“What are you doing?” I ask just to fill the silence. It's obvious he's getting bested by a doorknob.
I know the feeling.
His face is flushed with annoyance. It's one of the only times Bowen has ever blushed, not from embarrassment but from being pissed off.
“My fingers are too big for this stupid fucking pin.”
I wipe my face with my arm and move up the rest of the steps. For the first time since I was woken up by him on the dock, I move into his personal bubble. The hairs on my leg feels like they stand on end when I stop next to him.
“Can I help?”
“No.”
He tries again to hold the small pin in his hand, then grasp it with his fingertips. It's an older model handle, not as straight forward as the newer ones. It's the kind of mechanism that keeps locksmiths in business.
“I've done this before. Let me help.”
“No,” he says again, then groans and drops his head between his shoulders. The unmistakable ding of something small hitting the wood.
Ever drop something small and you see it fall, but when you look it completely vanished? Yep. That's how Bowen ends up on his hands and knees, and I'm left looking anywhere but at the man.
I'm only a man, alright? A young, healthy male. I can only handle so much in a single day. Naked Bowen was enough. Bowen crawling around, the way those shorts hug his very well-defined ass?
It's stifling out here.
“Found it,” he says more to himself than me.
He fumbles it again, and I finally crouch down next to him and glare. “Stop being stubborn and give me the thing. I told you, I've done this before.”
He looks completely unconvinced but holds out his hand and drops the small metal piece in my open palm. I choose to ignore the way he did it, like he was purposely avoiding coming into direct contact with my skin.
He stands with a grunt, and I crawl over to where he was. The wood is warmer under my knees here. Is it pathetic that I get a small thrill from kneeling where he did?
Ya know what? Don't answer that.
I stick my tongue out in concentration and try to pretend that it's Marvin behind me hovering, and I'm trying to not fuck up.
“Marvin's fingers were huge. He never had a problem doing this.” I nearly drop it but push out a gust of air when it falls back into my hand.
“Who is Marvin?”
“A guy,” I answer absently, then grin when the pin slides in where it's supposed to. “Fuck, yes!” I jump up and hold my hand in the air. “Five it, dude.”
He does not, in fact, five it.
“A guy?”
“What?”
“Marvin.”
“Oh, yeah. A guy I met in Washington.”
“With big fingers?”
I scrunch my nose and squint up at him. “Yes? He was good about fitting them in tight places.”
Bowen's eyes widen slightly before he turns and jogs down the steps.
My face stays scrunched in confusion for about ten seconds before what I said repeats in slow motion in my mushy brain, and my own eyes widen.
Ohhh. Oh, no.
“Wow,” I breathe, all but stumbling down the stairs after him. He's already around the side of the cabin and making his way to the shed.
“That was, like, not an anal reference.”
Bowen looks back at me, very unimpressed. “Dude.”
“That's what you thought, right? Tight spots sounded way anally. I did not mean that in a butt way. Marvin was—”
“Kit, shut up.”
“Right.”
Yes, please shut the fuck up, Kit. Dear God.
“But if it was anally, who cares? I've heard about your sexcapades before.”
I feel like I need to go to the nearest confessional for even suggesting anything to do with my ass and Marvin together in the same sentence.
What part of shut up do you not understand, Kit? Damn.
“Not from me.”
I'm still three steps behind him. “Oh please, we all heard Delaney that one time. It took very little imagination to figure it out.”
His jaw flexes.
My stomach sours just thinking about it.
“But this is what friends do, right?” I ask, a little breathless.
“Talk about anal fingering and how loud my high-school girlfriend was during sex?” Bowen asks dryly.
My face positively burns. If given the chance, my brain could get lost wandering down some wild places right now that it absolutely does not need to think about. Instead, I latch on to a subject change with both hands.