13. Truly, Madly, Deeply #4
Japheth fumbled for it, suddenly hyper-aware of his own body.
His butt squeaked softly against the seat as he buckled in belatedly.
His brushed wool trousers felt too tight, and he arched his hips trying to squeeze out a little more elasticity from them.
His skin felt like it had been replaced with a thinner, more porous model that let in every smell, every vibration of the engine, every side-long glance from Rino and his heavy-handed hold that possessed his knee.
He kept his eyes fixed on the windshield as he couldn’t bear to look at the man, fearful his breeches would betray his growing feelings.
“So,” he managed, determined to distract himself. “Family dinner. Does your family know… I’m coming?”
“They know I’m bringing someone special,” Rino answered and gave his knee an encouraging squeeze.
Japheth’s heart did a little double clutch as he gulped, “Special like… special how? Special like… I have a good credit score and five-year plan in place? Or something special like… I’ll make an acceptable human sacrifice?”
Rino turned his head just enough for Japheth to catch the amused spark in his eyes and he said simply, “Perhaps both.”
Japheth choked on a laugh, “I knew I should have brought my RRSP statements. I’m shooting for early retirement.”
“You’re nervous,” Rino observed gently.
“I’m not nervous,” Japheth lied. His hands were folded so tightly in his lap they looked like a new origami shape.
“Just vibrating at a high frequency. Like a pronghorn on alert when there are coyotes lurking in the grasslands. I know it’s just for dinner, but meeting your family is a big step. I just want everything to go smoothly.”
Rino’s hand left his knee long enough to briefly cover Japheth’s.
It felt warm and steady, melting his complicated finger origami into a no less clammy but slightly calmer and clamshell-like pose.
He smiled, “Polpetto, if I wanted to hurt you, I wouldn’t invite you to meet my parents and then disappoint them when you weren’t available or alive for a second date.
I would never hear the end of it. ‘Rino! What have you done to the nice boy with the see-through shirt?’”
Japheth smiled despite the rolling anxiety as he anticipated they must be getting closer; the car had downshifted to adhere to the speed limits as they slipped through the small city.
“I’m a nice boy now? I thought I was trouble.
And how see-through is this shirt!? Oh, my goodness, I never should have worn this!
Why did I think I could pull this off? I’m sixty percent mesh! ”
“You are a nice man,” Rino assured him. “I don’t care what my family has to say about your clothes. I appreciate all the opportunities your outfit affords me to admire and imagine.”
“No one has ever spoken to me the way you do. No one has ever called me a meatball but I’ll let that one slide, for now, Lupino. I’ll try to live up to your admiration and your imagination,” Japheth winked.
Rino laughed, and some of the tension in the car dissolved. The town lights blurred past as they left the river valley and wound their way into a lush and leafier part of Greater Napanee, where the houses grew larger and the driveways longer.
“So, I’ve been thinking,” Japheth dithered and distracted his driver, “if I were to carve our initials romantically in a tree trunk, it would be R+J. And you know what happened to those two. It was tragic. An epic love story but also heartbreakingly bonkers. I don’t think that’s how I want our story to unfold.
Both dead? Or like either one of us dead, actually.
At least not imminently? I think passing in proximity has its merits.
But I’m thinking multiple decades from now.
And just so we’re on the same page, I’m not into poison.
Or sword fights, of the clashing steel variety.
Anyway, that got me thinking, why did you have me meet you under a bridge in the dark, so far from earshot and eyesight? ”
“Is that why you’ve been so flustered? You thought I was going to…?” Rino asked, alarmed. “You really thought I could…?”
“Well, I’m just trying to sort out the square root of you and me and as a duo, we’re somewhat irrational,” Japheth explained obliquely. “If you weren’t going to disappear me, why all the cloak and daggers for a meet up? Are you embarrassed to be seen with me?”
“What? No!” Rino shook his head fervently.
He hadn’t realized just how far down the rabbit hole Japheth had been burrowing.
“Japheth, I’m not embarrassed to be seen with you.
I have no intention of harming you in any way I could possibly imagine.
I’ve invited you as my plus one to meet my family because I really, really like you.
I asked you to meet me under that old bridge because Greater Napanee is a small town and in small towns, people gossip.
I just wanted you and I to have an opportunity to spend some time together, to get to know each other before we had the whole Land O’Lakes region talking about it and telling us how we should feel.
After all, you’re almost famous now and I’m pretty popular at the dealership and the hockey rink.
People talk. I’m pretty sure I know how I feel about you, but I don’t want to give anybody anything to talk about until you can be sure how you feel. ”
Japheth sat back in his seat, thoughtfully.
It made sense. It was also exactly what someone driving him to an unmarked grave would say in this scenario to assuage him.
For a moment, Rino was quiet. His profile, lit by passing streetlamps, looked suddenly older than his thirty-something years, the hard line of his jaw tensing nervously.
Japheth took a deep breath, summoned his courage, leaned over and put a hand on Rino’s knee. “So,” he said, cautiously testing the waters once more, “Is this dinner a big deal for you? I mean, I get that it’s a lot to bring someone home. And I’m excited to meet them.”
“I’ve never brought someone home before.
I honestly don’t know how it’s going to go so, I admit, I’m a little nervous, too.
When it comes to my love life, since I haven’t really had one, my family has had no opinions, nothing to say.
We talk about cars, money, food, and the Pope.
We talk about Jesus like He’s a cousin who moved to Toronto and got weird, but in a good way.
We do not talk about…” he waved his hand gesturing to himself, then to something out the window and then in a palms-up, indeterminate way, “...you know.”
“The weather?” Japheth offered.
Rino shot him a look, “Gay, Japheth. We do not talk about me being gay.”
“Right. Yes. That,” Japheth felt the words land between them with a strange mixture of heaviness and relief. “That’s… familiar.”
Rino turned down a tree-lined street, the car gliding like a shark through glassy water in the idyllic neighbourhood.
“Growing up, I never knew who I could trust to talk about it, so I just didn’t.
In Greater Napanee, I didn’t know anybody like me.
Not on my hockey teams, not at the dealership, not at church.
People assume all kinds of stereotypes. That I drive a hard deal, when I’m just trying to make money for my family and ensure that our tithing totals up to adequate amounts for all the town’s needs.
That I’m ruthless, when I just had to learn how to defend myself when the gloves came off at the hockey rink, or with some blowhard who had too much to drink at the bar, or in the dog fight pit of a locker room in high school.
That I’m some kind of womanizer, the Italian stallion who must be an incredible lover, and jumps from bed to bed around town just because I look like… ”
“David Gandy? Antonio Sabàto Junior?” Japheth supplied.
“But the truth is, even though I’ve always had my family, I didn’t have anyone to talk to, not really. You know, about… wanting different things,” Rino explained.
“Guys, you mean?” Japheth swallowed.
“Yes, but also not wanting to feel like a… monster,” Rino corrected, voice very soft now. “People make a lot of assumptions. I’m tough because I’ve had to be.”
Japheth’s hands loosed in his lap, and he felt ashamed of his suspicions.
He stared at Rino, taking in the man behind the expensive cologne and the suit and the flashy car and the threatening conversations with lawyers.
For a flicker of a moment, the muskie man became a boy in a small town who had learned to wear his teeth on the outside.
“Rino, I’m sorry. You’re no monster. I’m horrible at this. It’s my first real date, so I don’t know what I’m doing and I’m sure I’m getting so much wrong. Can we start again, from, like right now?” Japheth asked, turning in his seat.
Rino slowed the car to a stop on the side of the street. He looked over at him, eyes dark and intent and whispered, “I’d like that.”
“Thank you. Now, just to clear the air. May I ask, when you mentioned jumping from bed to bed, have you had a lot of experience?” Japheth bit his lip nervously, “because I’m very green in that area.
Like there might not even be any grass growing yet.
No sprouts. Seeds of ideas, definitely. But green. I’m a virgin. What about you?”
“I’ve never done it either. I want to, obviously. But yeah, I thought I’d save myself for marriage? But now, I’m not sure. I just… yeah, lots of seeds of ideas but also green,” Rino admitted with a bashful tilt of his head.
“I think chastity is sexy,” Japheth offered. “I had a T-shirt with that written on it but it’s super old and worn out now. If we ever need to whack each other, we could use that.”