"Whoa, why the defensiveness? Being gay isn't bad, but lying is." He watched me for a second, then continued, "I'm sorry I started this, and I'm sorry I was rude to Mark. I don't want to fight with you."
"Thanks," I said. "He's family; no matter how distant we get, we're still family and tend to take up for each other. Mark is the closest cousin in age to me, and we've been like brothers." I finished my beer and pushed it toward the end of the table. "What about grabbing some take-out and going back to your place?"
WE SNUGGLED ON Daniel's couch in front of a warm fireplace; the lights off except for the fire and a few candles, and the fragrance of garlic and butter from the shrimp scampi we'd devoured a few minutes earlier. With my stomach full, sleep threatened to take me at any moment. Safe and warm in his arms, I didn't want to get up and drive back to Ruby's empty house. "Would you mind if I stayed over?"
"You don't have to ask," he murmured in my ear. I closed my eyes, with a fleeting thought of Mark, Daniel, the scratchy-voiced man, and what they all really had in common.
Chapter Nineteen
I SLEPT DEEP and warm beside Daniel, but I dreamed of Mark holding me tight and close, our bodies sweating from the mountain's summer heat, youthful exploration beside a dying campfire. Waking beside Daniel brought security and contentment to my weary body. Physically trying to erase Mark from my mind, I shook my head, then watched Daniel sleep for a few minutes, his chest rising and falling with each breath. I edged over to him and traced the line of hair down his stomach with the tips of my fingers, waiting for him to stir. So innocently, he arched his hips as my hand traveled lower; I knew he had to be awake, so I slid my fingertips back up to his chest. He stretched his arms over his head and yawned; a smile played across his lips. I straddled his chest and pinned his arms to the headboard. "So, Mister Kaperonis, have you any last words?"
"Please be gentle. I'm new to this, and I worry that I might like it." He almost got it out without laughing.
I slid down lower so that we pressed face to face, chest to chest, stomach to stomach, crotch to crotch. "You seem to be wide awake," I said.
He swiveled his hips. "You, too."
I licked his lower lip, still holding his arms against the headboard, then whispered in his ear, "Don't move." The sensation of my body pressed against his, skin touching skin, the heat, the rhythm of our breath, the pulsing of our hearts, bound us as one person. The silence of the night folded around the bed, so that all I knew at that moment was Daniel. Nothing else mattered, no time or place existed outside of us, no history, no threats, no deaths, no secrets, no family. "I wish we could stay like this forever."
He pulled his arms loose from my grip and wrapped them around me. His lips found mine in the dark, and the world dissolved in his kiss.
DANIEL LEFT FOR work while I stayed to clean up after the royal breakfast I had cooked for him. With the last pan and plate stored away, I glanced around the kitchen, the place where he lived day after day. The sun glimmered through the window over the sink, catching a hanging crystal that showered the small kitchen with prism rainbows. I wrote a quick "Thank You" note for the evening and stuck it on the refrigerator door.
Entering the den, I looked around at the room. The ashes from last night's fire lay flaky and gray under the grate; the wool blanket we had shared was still slung over the back of the couch, until I folded and placed it in the leather trunk Daniel used as a coffee table. The wall behind the couch was lined with bookshelves; I ran my hands over the spines and read a few of the titles: mythology, classic and contemporary fiction, current events, biographies of Robert Kennedy, Randolph Hearst, and the Binghams of Louisville.
The self-help books caught my eye. What would a man like Daniel need to improve on? One book on maintaining long-term gay relationships almost jumped into my hands. "Well," I reasoned to myself, "he's bound to have had a few relationships in the past, maybe even a couple of long-lasting ones…" I turned to look at the photographs on the mantel. Some pictures, I assumed, of his family, since the older couple and the two guys and girl with him all had the same dark handsome appearance; in fact, in a picture from the beach, the three buffed brothers stood side by side in front of the breaking waves in nothing but their swim trunks. That could be the makings of some great fantasies, I thought. "Brothers doing it," I mocked an ad I'd seen for a porn video. "The closer the kin, the deeper it goes in." Obviously, the other two brothers were straight, because no gay man would wear those big loose-fitting trunks; Daniel stood in the middle wearing Speedo briefs. As I replaced the beach picture, I saw another it had hidden. A younger Daniel sat on a mountaintop picnic table with a cute blond guy, both in mid-nineties grunge flannel shirts and ripped jeans. I took the photograph down for a better view. The blond looked familiar, but I couldn't place the face. "All blonds look alike," I snipped, and put the picture back.
Some newspapers scattered on the floor next to the bookcases asked to be straightened. I stacked them next to his desk in the corner. A file folder on the desktop got my attention. The label read: Vernon Harris.
Daniel's private file. I wanted to read it, but the betrayal of his privacy weighed me down with the mass of unspoken suspicion. Trust him? Most of the time I trusted him, but how well did I really know him? He wasn't family-yeah, like that would lead to trust.
I glanced around the room, then sat down and carefully opened the folder, trying not to disturb the order of the pages. Several articles, some written by Daniel, filled the file, along with hand-written notes. Descriptions of political positions and past deeds that supported them covered most of the note pages, but one page had my name on it. I read it quickly, not believing he had written the words. My head spun as I finished. Placing the file back in its original position, I pushed the chair back under the desk. I crumpled up the note from the refrigerator, shoved it in my pocket, and pulled the locked door closed behind me.
I fought tears driving back to Ruby's house, then pulled into the driveway and hurried up the steps. Wanting to talk to someone, but with Ruby still in the hospital, and Valerie and Mark both at work, I picked up the phone and dialed San Francisco.
"Emma, it's me." I knew she would be at home, probably still asleep. "Did I wake you?"
"What time is it?" her groggy voice asked.
I checked the clock. "Ten, then it's seven there. Sorry, I didn't realize it was quite so early."
She coughed, and I heard the click of her lighter. "Are you okay? I haven't heard from you in over a week." I could visualize her sitting up in her bed, smoking her first cigarette of the day, surrounded by piles of discarded clothes and fashion magazines.
"I told you about Daniel, the guy I met," I said trying to jog her memory and giving her time to wake up.
"Yeah, the stud reporter. Excuse me, I need to pee."
I waited, thinking she would put down the phone, but she didn't.
"Go ahead. I can listen and pee at the same time."
"You have the phone in the bathroom with you?"
"Yes, I do my best talking in here."
The intimate visual was too much now. I sighed and tried to decide where to begin my story of emotional trauma; finally, I just blurted it out. "I found a folder in Daniel's house about my uncle Vernon."
"The idiot Republican?" She flushed the toilet.
"Yeah, but the file also had information about other members of my family, and a couple of pages on me."