Nothing but Smoke (Fire and Rain) (14 page)

“Good morning.” Michael gave her a wave.

“Oh, good morning.” Nicky’s mom smiled faintly. “Nicky said you’d slept over.” She was back in her regular spot on the couch. If anything, she looked frailer and more tired than the night before.

Guilt hit Michael, confusing him since he had no idea what he felt bad about. Michael had long since gotten over shame about being gay, and he and Nicky were grown men. Still, he felt like he was at Nicky’s house under false pretenses.

“Yeah. Uh…but he slept on the floor.” Michael looked away, directing his attention down the hall to the kitchen where Nicky was fixing coffee. He couldn’t believe he was making excuses. Like he was a teenager or something.

“He must have. I’ve been telling Nicky for ages to get a bigger bed. A man his size can barely fit in a tiny bed like that. What about when he wants to bring a girl around?”

Those words stabbed Michael in the gut. What was he supposed to do? Smile and nod? Agree with her? “Uh…I think I need some coffee.” He made his way down the hallway, trying to erase the image of her well-meaning smile from his mind.

In the kitchen, Nicky was busy putting milk and sugar into a couple cups of coffee. Head down, he handed one to Michael, and Michael had a good idea that Nicky had overheard his mother.

“Thanks.” Michael took a sip, opting not to say anything. He could demand Nicky go out there and tell his mom, but given that she was obviously hardcore religious, that knowledge might be enough to finish her off.

“I really appreciate your help with this, by the way.” Nicky got some cereal out of a cabinet, his moves twitchy. “I know…” He set the box on the counter, where he’d already put some milk, bowls and spoons. “I know this isn’t the easiest thing for you.”

If Nicky didn’t look so damn miserable right then, Michael would have railed that Nicky was putting him through the wringer, but there were dark circles under Nicky’s eyes. Michael was pretty sure Nicky’s exhaustion wasn’t only from sleeping on the floor.

“It’s okay.” Michael winced on a large swallow of coffee, steeling himself. He’d promised to help pack—to be a friend. He wouldn’t go back on that now. “I mean…you know I can’t deal long-term with…” Michael shook his head, sitting down to grab some cereal. “Let’s just worry about today, all right?”

Nicky nodded. “Yeah.” The way he smiled took away a lot of Michael’s reservations. Nicky looked at Michael like Michael was the answer to everything he ever wanted.

Michael would deal with more than random comments from Nicky’s mother if it meant putting that light in Nicky’s eyes. “So, where do you want to start?” He shoveled the cereal in his mouth, wanting to get as much done as possible before his shift at the coffee shop.

“I guess here is as good as anywhere.” Nicky started going through the cabinets in between bites of cereal.

Surreptitiously, Michael folded the first of the small boxes. Nicky didn’t put too many things on the kitchen table for Michael to wrap in packing paper. Just a few cups—two for tea and a few plastic tumblers, the kind you got at airports or in tourist shops. They said Las Vegas, Disneyland, Orlando, Dallas, and Michael was tempted to ask when Nicky’s mother had taken the trips and whether Nicky had gone along. Given Nicky’s fragile emotional state, Michael thought it best to wait.

They’d gotten through the kitchen by the time they’d finished their second cup of coffee. In the hallway, he and Nicky folded a few more boxes, stretching the packing tape across the bottom. “So. The living room next?”

“I dunno.” Nicky rubbed the back of his neck.

Michael would have thought that getting started would calm Nicky down, but apparently not. From his back pocket, Michael pulled out his phone to check the time. Shit, he really should leave soon if he was going to make it to work.

Maybe he could call in sick, or at least late. He’d never done that before, not once in the years he’d worked at Speedy Coffee, but this wasn’t some hangover or poor planning on his part. This was helping out a friend.

Nicky’s mom started coughing, a wet, hacking, gasping sound unlike the gentler ones from the night before. Nicky kicked his way past boxes and rushed to his mom’s side.

“You okay, Ma?” Nicky fumbled for something half-hidden behind the couch. From what seemed like out of nowhere, he pulled a tube that Michael now realized was attached to a rolling canister of oxygen. “Here.” Nicky put a mask to his mom’s face, covering her nose and mouth.

But the coughing continued. Ragged…painful…until it clawed at Michael’s guts and made him want to do anything to make it stop.

“Um…I’m going to see if I can get someone to cover my shift.” Michael backed out of the room. His heart pounded, thrumming in his chest. This was real. Nicky’s mom hadn’t seemed the picture of health the night before, but at that moment Michael wondered if he was supposed to call an ambulance or keep packing. The uncertainty made him feel hollowed out. Nauseated, but knowing that if he disappeared to the bathroom to be sick, he’d create a whole other thing for Nicky to deal with.

Michael slipped out the back door into the stark and empty yard. One ear listening for the volume and frequency of Nicky’s mom’s coughing, he dialed Jesse’s number.

On the third ring, Jesse picked up, slightly out of breath. “Hey. What’s up?”

The list of things that were up was too long to get into, but at least the volume of coughs from inside had settled down. “Um…listen.” Michael wasn’t sure he’d ever felt this uncertain in his life. Usually he was in control of what he took on. He chose and planned, plotted and carried out. He was careful not to get sucked into things where he’d feel powerless. “I have a friend…” Great, now he was referring to Nicky as a friend too. “His mom is really sick, and he needs help today.”

“Wait…oh hell no. You’re not bailing on me!”

Michael gritted his teeth. He couldn’t blame Jesse for being annoyed, but if Jesse were here—if he’d heard Nicky’s mom coughing or seen the stricken expression on Nicky’s face—he wouldn’t dismiss Michael’s need for a personal day. “I don’t need the whole day off.” That’s what Michael wanted, though he’d settle for just a few hours. “Maybe Sheila can cover for a while. I wasn’t even on until eleven.”

“She’s not here yet.” Jesse sounded distracted, like maybe he was making someone’s order, and then a crashing noise carried over the line, like Jesse had dropped the phone.

“Fucker.” Michael rubbed his jaw, glad of his beard, which meant he didn’t look any worse for wear from not having shaven. “Well, call me when Sheila comes in. I’ll get in touch with Henri. I don’t think he works today. Maybe he could relieve you in the afternoon.”

“Fine. Whatever.” Jesse’s answer was snapped, but Michael knew him too well to think Jesse would stay angry.

In the time it had taken Michael to finish the call, Nicky appeared at the back door. He stepped outside, face pale, and didn’t say a word before curling into Michael’s arms.

Nicky’s shoulders hunched as he shook. Michael didn’t know if Nicky actually shed any tears, but he wouldn’t have blamed Nicky if he had. Michael barely knew Nicky’s mother, and he was torn up around her.

He held Nicky with one arm, and with the other hand, Michael scrolled through to Henri’s number. Henri hadn’t worked at Speedy Coffee all summer, but he was the only person in the world besides Michael, Sheila and Jesse who knew how to work Speedy’s register.

“Yeah?” Henri answered as if Michael’s phone call had woken him up.

“Hey, Hen. I have a massive favor to ask.”

“Now?”

Henri had never been a morning person, but considering it was nine thirty, Michael thought Henri deserved a kick in the ass for still being in bed. “Well, not right this second, but today.”

“Who’s that?” Logan’s voice was faint enough it didn’t sound like he was in bed with Henri. Also, Logan sounded a lot more awake.

“Michael. The fucker,” Henri told his boyfriend. Then, into the phone, he asked, “What do you want?”

Michael chewed the inside of his cheek. This was a huge favor, but Henri could be generous if properly motivated.

“I have this friend, and his mom is really sick. Like, well…” Michael didn’t know if it was polite to say it with Nicky tucked in his armpit, but there didn’t seem to be any other way of putting it. “Like…it’s close to the end.”

“Oh. Oh, no!” Henri
tsk
ed empathetically, and maybe Michael was shallow for thinking it, but he was glad he’d played to Henri’s better nature. “That’s so sad.”

“Yeah. Well, he has to pack some of her stuff today because she’s going to be moving to a nursing home…” Michael wasn’t sure that was the right thing to call it, so he added, “Like end-of-life care.”

“Wow.” Henri blew out a breath. “So tough for him.”

“Yeah. Well, the thing is, I offered to help him pack, but I’m supposed to work today.” Michael pinched his lips together, waiting for Henri to cotton on to what Michael was asking.

“Wait…who is this guy?”

Michael blinked. It hadn’t occurred to him that Henri would ask about Nicky. That seemed immaterial to the question at hand, which was whether Henri would cover for Michael at work. “A friend.”

There the words were, floating like a comic book cloud above his head.

“What friend?” The way Henri said it slid right off concerned and into skeptical.

Fuck.
Henri may not have liked all of Michael’s friends, but he certainly knew most of them well enough that Michael couldn’t lie about any of them losing a mother. “A new friend. I…” Shit, the only places Michael went were Speedy Coffee, bars with Jesse and Henri, or to see the guys he knew from school. “It’s just a guy I know, okay?”

Michael knew he sounded angry and could not give a damn. Nicky had real problems, not the fake, self-manufactured problems Henri always seemed to come up with. Nicky’s were grownup difficulties that no one should have to deal with alone.

Nicky shifted out of his arms, wiping his face as he headed toward the house.

“I’m guessing that you mean
know
in the biblical sense?”

“I’m not going there with you, honey.” Michael rarely vamped it up, but talking to Henri always released his inner diva.

“That means yes.” Henri was smug.

Fuck it, he could be as smug as he wanted so long as he worked Michael’s shift. “Will you go in at eleven? Help Jesse out? I bet I could talk him into closing so long as you help him with the lunch rush.” Michael never pleaded, but he did now. Henri would hold it over his head until judgment day.

“Fine. I’ll do it. But you
will
tell me about this new boyfriend of yours.”

Before Michael could stop himself, he snapped, “He’s not my boyfriend.”

He wished he hadn’t raised his voice, and he wished he hadn’t sounded so angry. Michael especially wished Nicky wasn’t standing in the window with tears in his eyes.

Chapter Eleven

Nicky shouldn’t have been annoyed. Not when Michael had gotten out of work so he could spend the day wrapping Nicky’s mom’s figurines. Still, Michael saying they weren’t boyfriends stung.

“Is it easier for me to come in there, or for you to hand things out?” Michael asked from the hallway.

Nicky had brought a couple of boxes inside, and hurried to put his mother’s private things—underwear and nightgowns—in a suitcase before piling her clothes on top. “In a second,” Nicky called.

He grabbed anything that seemed too personal for Michael to see and tucked them around her clothes before zipping up the suitcase. “Okay. Yeah. Come in.”

Sheepishly, Michael eased in the door. His gaze landed everywhere—on the stuff displayed along her nightstand, on her quilted bedspread, on her window with the shades drawn.

Nicky was glad his mother was napping downstairs because it felt too personal allowing Michael into this space. And yet Nicky needed someone, and he couldn’t imagine letting anyone else in.

“You sure she’s okay with this?” When Michael spotted the image of Jesus over Nicky’s mother’s bed, his eyes widened. Anger? Fear? Sadness? Nicky couldn’t tell. Maybe he should have warned Michael that his mom’s bedroom was even more overwhelming than the living room when it came to the religious stuff. It had never occurred to Nicky why his mother had quite so much paraphernalia around her bed. Now it hit him all in a rush—she’d wanted to be welcomed into heaven if she died in her sleep.

“Hey.” Michael stepped up behind him, a hand landing on Nicky’s shoulder. “You okay?”

“Yeah.” Nicky didn’t have the luxury of pondering the configuration of the statues on his mother’s dresser. Sick of the stress and the unhappiness that had hung over his head for ages, he grabbed the first of the saints off the nightstand and tossed it to Michael. “Here. Let’s get this stuff packed.”

“Okay.” Michael was silent as he wrapped one after another of Nicky’s mother’s things, but when Nicky swiped an armful of statues off a surface and dumped them all on the bedspread, Michael raised an eyebrow. “Uh, do you really think she’s going to want all this? I mean, how much room will she have?”

Nicky shook his head. He’d seen the space his mom would be afforded at the hospice center. Enough for the cozy chair in the living room, her dresser and nightstand. Part of the entertainment center, though they’d provide her with a TV smaller than the one Nicky had in the living room.