24. Beau
Beau
Seeing Clark fight through his fears to listen to his son was a privilege. A privilege that was breaking my heart. River was going to get his happily ever after, but this man, I was pretty sure I’d just fallen in love with, was not mine to keep.
Right on cue, Clark spoke.
“River and Miguel, can you give me and Beau a few moments?”
Miguel’s eyes ping-ponged between Clark and me. He nodded, understanding. “Of course.” Grabbing the walking stick, he asked, “River, do you want to go with me to get a coffee downstairs?”
River took the stick, and Miguel slid his arm around River’s waist. With a short goodbye, they left us.
My heart sank. This was happening all too fast. I thought I had more time, but the accident ruined even that.
I stared at the hospital linoleum. Might as well get it over with.
“Clark, you don’t have to say it. I know this was just a vacation fling, and it doesn’t mean anything and…”
“Will you shut up?”
I whipped my head up. “What?”
Clark tried to adjust the bed again, but hissed.
“Is it your arm? Your head?” I asked, hurrying to his bedside. “Should we get the nurse?”
“Arm. And no. I just need to be more careful when I adjust the bed.”
I helped him re-settle, waiting until the painful tightness across his mouth relaxed.
“Thank you.” He touched the bandages across his forehead and temple, wincing. He looked so small in his hospital bed.
“Clark—”
“I need you to shut the fuck up, Beau. And I really need you to stop saying that this thing between us doesn’t mean anything.”
“Clark, be reasonable…”
He responded with a glare that could have cut out my spleen.
“Reasonable was for before. Before my ex-wife decided to listen to her shitty ex-boyfriend and nearly killed our son. Before I watched my son put himself back together. Before I had to choose between forcing my son to go back to school without any of his friends or getting a GED.” He made a sad trombone sound that was funnier than it had any right to be.
“And reasonable was way before putting my son in a car and driving a thousand miles to a ranch in Colorado. I think I’m done with reasonable. ”
“What are you saying?”
This glare made the other glare look loving in comparison.
“Do you really think I’m going to abandon my son? Let him move out here to Colorado all by himself?”
“Clark, you have a business. You’re the CEO. The owner. All those people depend on you.”
“All those people work from home.” He held up a finger. “Actually, several have moved out of state to be closer to family.”
“Wait,” I said, confused. “You would pick up your whole life and come to Colorado for me?”
“Hell no.”
I might’ve believed him if he weren’t bright red and grinning like a lunatic.
“I would, however, come to Colorado for my son.” Plucking at his sheets, he continued, “You’re really just a nice bonus.”
The way his eyes devoured me said otherwise. Like, maybe, I was really more than a bonus.
My heart felt as if it was gonna beat out of my chest.
“Clark, don’t play with me. Think about what you’re saying. Think about what you’re about to do.”
His expression went from playful to serious in a heartbeat.
“I have been racking my brain since the beginning of the year. How do I bring my son back? How do I give him back the pieces of him that have fallen away? How do I make him whole again?” Tears brimmed and spilled.
“And the answer is awful. The answer is … I can’t.
I can’t make him whole again. I can’t give him back the pieces he lost of himself. ”
Clark sniffed as he fussed again with his sheets.
“River can, though. Maybe he can’t get everything back, but he’s the one who has to do it. And he’s decided that this is the place where he wants to put himself back together.”
“Clark—”
“And you’re right,” he said, talking over me.
“We need to have a bunch of conversations, and neither of us should be making any promises right now, but I have never seen my son so happy. Not just since the accident. Ever. It never would’ve occurred to me that he would apply practical thinking to his art.
An art therapist? How brilliant. How generous. How lovely.”
My thoughts went to the pieces I saw when I was looking over Clark’s shoulder.
That first piece, that rough sketch of a boy bent over double.
And I saw it. Clark, with his stupid leather tennis shoes, his sharply creased khakis, and his perfectly done button-downs.
Even though his relationship with his ex-wife was already over, her death would have, of course, reverberated throughout his entire life. Because he let himself feel everything.
Because that was the kind of man he was.
It was the kind of man his son was becoming.
“So…” I couldn’t believe I was going to say this out loud. “You really wanna give this a try?”
Clark’s thoughtful look morphed into a smile. Bright. Happy. Mischievous.
“I already told River that if he and I lived in Denver instead of Chicago, I would’ve already started figuring out how to make this work out with you.
To see if it could go somewhere. And … maybe it won’t.
Maybe we’ll get to Fort Collins, and you and I will start seeing each other, and you’ll hate me. ”
I made a sound, like a goose honking or something.
“Impossible,” I said, my voice unexpectedly warbly. I’d never meant anything more in my life.
“Don’t act like it’s not possible to get bored with me, Beau. I wear khakis, like, every day.”
The concerned way he warned me about his khakis broke something inside me. I started laughing, even as the tears spilled. “I’m sorry. I’m really… It’s not funny.”
Clark somehow brightened even further. Despite the noisy machines keeping track of his heartbeat and breathing. Despite the antiseptic smell of this room. Despite the thread-worn hospital gown and the cast on his arm, he looked like a kid at Christmas.
“It is funny,” he said, as I continued to swing between crying and laughing. “My son’s been nagging me about my khakis for years.”
That made me laugh harder. And cry harder. Fuck.
Oh my God. Was this really happening? Could we…?
Tears overtook the laughing, and I stood there, staring. Terrified that he was gonna claw it all back.
Clark just looked at me. Watched me process my emotions. And quietly held up the sheet on his bed. An invitation. To something real.
I crawled under the sheet with him, careful, so as not to jostle his broken arm. I kissed his nose and his cheeks. His forehead. His lips.
“I would love the opportunity to peel your khakis off your body,” I whispered, looking into the eyes I hoped to wake up to for the rest of my life.
“Oh, God.” River was standing in the doorway, leaning on his walking stick as he held a fountain soda, looking bereft. “I should’ve knocked.”
Oops.
Miguel, bringing up the rear, bumped into River, causing him to spill the drink in his hand. Suddenly, everything felt like sketch comedy. I laughed. Clark laughed. Miguel, who didn’t know why he was laughing, laughed. Even River got going by the end of it.
Clark grabbed his head. “Oh my God, it hurts to laugh, but I don’t care.”
“You okay?” River asked, bringing his dad what was left of his soda.
I was still lying next to Clark, but no one seemed bothered by it.
“Yes, son. I’m more than okay. We’ve got a lot to figure out: selling my condo, setting up a different kind of management structure for the folks in Chicago, maybe come up with a timeline.
” Clark tapped his lips, his brain whirring and clicking behind his eyes.
“Definitely going to need a spreadsheet.”
“Wait.” River stepped back, bumping into Miguel. Shocked. “You’re coming to Colorado, too?”
“Yeah. You heard Beau. He’d love to see me out of my khakis.”
“Oh my God, Dad. You can’t…”
River delicately touched his painted fingertips to his chest and fake dry heaved. Clark snorted.
“Yeah … I can’t allow this,” River insisted, even as a slow grin curved his lips.
Clark kept the bit going. “I’ve got adult money, son. I can move wherever I want to. And I’m guessing that a condo in Chicago equals basically a mansion in Fort Collins. Or Snow Creek.”
“Why do you need a mansion?”
“I suppose, if you want the full dorm-room experience, that’s one thing. But if you wanted a cozy living situation with your own wing so that I didn’t have to hear you and your boyfriend over on that side of the house…”
“I don’t wanna hear you and your boyfriend, either.”
“Okay, well. Maybe instead of a mansion, two smaller houses, side-by-side,” Clark said, of course, focused on the logistics and not the fact that we were all casually braiding our lives together.
“Oh my God, Dad.” River let his head drop back, returning to the drama. “You’re so embarrassing. What makes you think Miguel and I wanna live that close to you?”
Clark blinked. “You don’t wanna live close to me?”
River’s serious expression broke. “Of course I do. Especially if you’re paying.”
“Wait, how did I get roped into this?” Miguel gave River a saucy wink. “Who said I wanted a live-in boyfriend?”
River pinned Miguel with a look I’d seen his dad give me. “Wanna try that again?”
Miguel pulled his messy braid over his shoulder. “I suppose it wouldn’t be too bad.”
“You know what? You can sleep on the couch.”
“We don’t even live together yet.”
“Yeah, and for the first week, you’ll be sleeping on the couch.”
I laced my fingers with Clark’s, and we watched as they bickered back and forth, floating closer to one another, until they were kissing more than they were arguing.
“We are never going to be that ridiculous,” I whispered conspiratorially. “Because we are adults.”
“Exactly.” He sent me a silly grimace. “For instance, I would never assume you’d want to live with me.”
“But it’s not a no, right?” I asked, kissing his uninjured brow.
He glowed. “It’s not a no.”