Read Kate Sherwood - Dark Horse 2.3 - Into the Light Online
Authors: Kate Sherwood
Dan wasn’t the cheating type. Not at all—he’d stayed faithful for the whole last year of Justin’s life, when Justin had been unconscious in a hospital bed with no real hope of recovery. But Danny could sometimes be a bit secretive, and I’d never been sure whether it was deliberate or if he just didn’t think anyone would be interested. In this case, I knew Evan would absolutely have wanted to know, but I could see why Danny maybe wouldn’t have wanted to have that fight.
“Do you want me to carry the leg end, and you carry the top?” Ryan was moving around as if he’d already decided that he’d found the best positions, and was just waiting for me to agree.
I called myself back to the task at hand. I maybe shouldn’t be consorting with the possible enemy, but I needed to get the chair home. And Ryan clearly wasn’t
Dan’s
enemy, at least, so maybe he wasn’t mine, either. “Yeah, okay. That’s the heavy end for you, though.”
“You already got it this far, man.” Ryan cut me a quick glance, his eyes crinkling a little. “And you look like it took a lot out of you. Take a breather; we can switch if I get tired.”
I didn’t argue, and we set off. Ryan was in front, holding a chair leg in either hand, facing forward so he could see where he was going. I’m not exactly in the habit of checking out male bodies, but my two best friends in life have both been gay, so I’ve got a bit more awareness than a lot of men might. I could absolutely see how Dan could have been attracted to this guy. Ryan wasn’t all that tall, but he was well-built, and I could see his shoulder muscles shifting under his grey T-shirt. His hair was longer than most of the corporate lawyer-types that I hung out with, but it made sense for him, fit the ‘musician’ stereotype pretty well. And his face had been good, back when I’d been able to see it—not as pretty as
I stopped walking at the corner, but Ryan didn’t, and it jerked his arms a little. “Shit, sorry. We need to turn left, here.” Ryan obliged, and I decided I should give him a bit of advanced warning about our route. “Another block, and then it’s the house on the far side of the road—the Victorian with all the trim.”
“I know that house—it’s nice. You own it?”
“No, just rent. And just one floor.”
Ryan nodded. “Dan said you work in town—for Evan?”
I wondered what else Danny had been saying. “Yeah.” Maybe it was time for a little turnabout. “I thought you were off touring, or something. Did that not work out?”
“No, it worked out great. It was meant to be a three-month thing, and they doubled the time, got us a bunch of new gigs.” He half-turned his head, enough that I could see part of his happy smile. “Now they want us to get some songs together to record—so they gave us a couple months off, to write and rehearse.”
“And you came back here.” I wasn’t trying to be judgemental, but if any part of the area’s appeal involved Danny, I felt like that was something I should know. Not that I had any idea what I’d do about it.
I guess he picked up on the reservations in my tone. “Yeah. Most of the guys are from around here, and we all liked it well enough before the tour. So it made sense to come back.”
“We’re supposed to be working, not partying. And after six months on the road, I think we were all happy for a break.” That all made sense, I guessed. And like I said, Danny wasn’t the cheating type, so it wasn’t like anything would come of this, no matter what Ryan’s plans were. Still, I
We were at the house then, and we made it up the stairs sideways, with only two near-catastrophic moments. Once we were safely on the porch, Ryan balanced the chair while I dug through my pockets and found my keys. We made it inside and I directed him across the hallway into the office. He helped me set the chair down by the big bay window, and we both stepped back far enough to see how it looked.
“Yeah, okay, it’d work for that, too. Nice chair.” He dusted his hands off on his jeans and took a step toward the door. “Okay, well, good luck with it.”
That didn’t seem right. He’d gone well out of his way, and even with two of us, the chair had been pretty damn heavy. “Do you have to be somewhere? Do you want a beer, or something? Or—have you had lunch, yet? I mean, I owe you, man.”
Ryan shook his head, but his expression had changed a little. “You don’t owe me anything. But, yeah, if you haven’t eaten yet, we could grab a bite.”
It shouldn’t have taken me so long to remember that Ryan was gay. I had no idea what Danny had told him about me, whether he’d bothered to mention that I was straight. If Ryan thought I’d just invited him on a date, I couldn’t blame him. It wasn’t really a problem—we could just eat, and if he still seemed interested afterward, I could clear up the misunderstanding. No big deal. No, it wasn’t the possibility of a misunderstanding that had my stomach tightening; it was the possibility that I might not want to clear things up.
I wasn’t really sure what I was feeling, or what I was thinking. I’d
certainly considered putting a little variety in my dating life, before; like I said, I’d had two best friends in my life, and they’d both been gay, so I’d considered a lot of things that most straight guys hadn’t. But I’d never acted on anything. I mean, I liked women. A lot. So what was the point of going through all the trouble of being with a man, if I didn’t have to?
But I’d just been wishing I could find something different, something special, and lord knew I hadn’t been having much luck with women. Maybe I needed to broaden my horizons.
I don’t mean that I thought through all of this at the time, not consciously. I just—looking back, I think that’s what made me willing to take a bit of a chance. So instead of backing down, or clarifying things right off, I just smiled at Ryan. “Great, man. Zio’s okay?”
Everything went smoothly. I remembered Danny saying something like that about Ryan, that he just made things easy. It definitely worked for me. We walked back to Main Street, talking about the town, and stories Ryan had from his tour, and by the time we sat down I was telling my own tales, about my family back home, and about my new life in California.
Ryan had worked at the restaurant before he left town, so half the staff had to come over and say hi. I felt a bit awkward, like I didn’t belong, but I ate at the place often enough that I knew most of the servers, too, so it wasn’t bad.
Finally, the excitement died down and we were left mostly alone. We kept talking through the meal, and we weren’t flirting, I wouldn’t say, but it wasn’t like having a meal with a regular guy friend. Maybe it was just Ryan’s way—when I talked, he listened like I was fascinating, his eyes on mine almost all the time, his smile easy and warm. It wasn’t sexual, exactly, but it definitely felt good.
It freaked me out, a little. Had it been this easy, all along? Was this
what I’d been missing? I was only a few years short of forty, for god’s sake—it seemed a little late for me to be having some big realization. There were a couple women at a nearby table, both attractive, and I looked over and tried to imagine myself with them. It was easy. I didn’t let the fantasy go too far, but I absolutely could have. So things hadn’t changed all that much. Then I looked at Ryan, and tried the same thing.
It was different. It was fuzzier, somehow. With the women, I’d jumped right to the good part, all of us naked, horizontal, going to town. Trying to imagine myself with Ryan, I couldn’t get much past where we were there, in the restaurant, eating our lunch. But then I thought about reaching across the table, running my fingers across the skin of his hand, and it didn’t feel wrong. I got a flash of the two of us standing up against a wall, Ryan pulling his shirt off over his head, exposing all that warm, golden skin, and I felt a familiar stir of arousal in my gut. Damn. That probably meant something.
Ryan gave me an amused look. “I don’t know—you paying?” “That was supposed to be a thank you, for the chair.” “Okay.” Ryan shrugged like he was fine either way.
“Yeah, but—what did you think it was?”
“I thought you were straight, man. Dan told me you were dating Robyn.” He looked like he was deciding how much more to say. “But then—yeah, I don’t know, I thought I was getting a bit of a vibe. Was I wrong?”
Pretty good question. I could have lied, but I wanted to be honest. I
was looking for any help I could get, in figuring all this out. “I don’t know. I mean—I’m straight. You were right. But—yeah, maybe there was a bit of a vibe. Is that weird?”
“I’m serious, man. It’s a burden. I mean—I don’t want to disappoint you all, but there’s only so much Ryan to go around.” His eyes were dancing, and if we’d been somewhere private, if I’d been a couple feet closer to him, I think I might have tried to kiss him. I’d felt that way about Danny, a few times, but I’d always just hit him or given him a noogie or something, and the urge had gone away.
Ryan was still relaxed, but I was starting to freak out. Things were happening way too fast. I’d thought about this, sure, the same way I’d thought about what to save if my apartment caught on fire, or whether my nephew was going to be better at basketball or baseball. Idly wondering about something was not the same as making a plan. Not even close.
I drained my glass of beer. “Okay. I need to get going. It was nice to spend time with you, though. And thanks a lot for your help with the chair. That was great. Thanks.” I stood up, hoping that would make me stop talking, but I had no luck. “So, I’ll get the bill on the way out. And I’ll see you around. Good luck with the writing, and everything. The recording, and….”
it’ll help you be okay with this.”
“No! No, it was a thank you. Seriously. I’m sorry.”
I had to keep myself from following after him. Instead, I walked to the cash register and paid the bill. By the time I made it out to the sidewalk, Ryan was out of sight, and I wasn’t sure whether I was sorry or relieved.
I thought about calling Dan, but I didn’t. He didn’t give
bad
advice, exactly. He just—he confused things. Part of that was because he generally refused to give advice at all, or even to express an opinion on anything more profound than whether or not I was an asshole, and of course that always came down on the ‘yes’ side. There were times when it was great that he wouldn’t presume to seriously judge, but other times when I just wanted him to tell me what to think, damn it! But the most annoying thing was that he’d ask questions, and enough of them would be relevant that I’d think I should listen to him, but the rest of them would be totally bizarre, and I could never figure out whether he was trying to make a point, or just irreversibly demented. I’d tried to talk to him about whether I should go home for Christmas, five months ago, and some of the things he’d asked had been totally logical, like whether I thought my parents would be upset if I didn’t show, and whether I’d be homesick. But he’d also asked me a bunch of stuff about what my favorite Christmas carol was, and whether I thought turducken was a good idea. They were close enough to the topic that they got me thinking in some pretty interesting directions, but I wasn’t really sure I could give him credit for that level of subtlety. As usual with Danny, I’d been left wondering whether he was an idiot savant or just an idiot.
So, since I was already confused enough, I didn’t call him about Ryan. Or about my reaction to Ryan—whatever. Instead, I cleaned the apartment, went for a run, and did my laundry. Strangely, none of these activities really helped me to figure out what the hell I was feeling. I drank too much beer while watching crappy TV and then fell into bed, hoping to awaken with increased clarity.
In a way, I did. That’s if you count ‘I’m not going to think about
That all went to hell as soon as I climbed into Evan’s car for our Monday morning commute. Usually, carpooling with him was fun. We’d talk about work, but also about whatever else occurred to either of us. That morning, all that seemed to be occurring to Evan was Ryan.
“I checked with the company,” he said. “They offered to put the band up down in L.A., or practically anywhere. But, no, apparently Ryan wanted to come back here. Not too hard to figure out why.”
I thought back to Ryan’s explanation, about how most of the guys in the band were from the area. It still sounded pretty convincing, but I didn’t really feel like explaining to Evan how I’d come across that little bit of information. “
You
could live anywhere in the world, and you live here.”
Evan didn’t answer right away, and when he did, his voice was peevish enough that I knew he wasn’t totally serious. “Whose side are you on, anyway?”