Something Like Summer (24 page)

The job at the bar ended
abruptly among rumors of money missing from the register. Next
there was the construction job at an outlet mall, something Mason’s
ripcord muscles might be suited to, but this only lasted two days.
Ben was never sure what had happened, although he suspected a
marathon drug binge had gotten in the way. Mason was currently
working retail at a music store. At least he had been a few days
ago when Ben had seen him last.

With a prayer of gratitude
to any god listening, Ben hurried into the minimal amount of warmth
his apartment building afforded. Apartment was a laughable term, as
the tiny living areas barely qualified as dorms and the slumlord
owner knew it. Except for a few senior citizens and eccentrics, all
ten stories of the building were inhabited by students who didn’t
want to live on campus. The concept had sounded so grown up to Ben
at the time, but the reality was far from glamorous.

Ben bit the tips of his
gloved fingers and pulled his hand free. He struggled with numb
digits to find the keys and unlock the door to his apartment. The
smell of cigarette smoke greeted him as he entered. Mason was here.
Ben called out, puzzling over the darkness of the apartment. Was
Mason sleeping?

Ben entered the living room
that was barely big enough for a couch and flipped on a light.
After a two-second delay, the light came on, revealing a blank spot
in the corner. After a moment Ben realized that the twenty-two inch
TV was missing. Fear tiptoed up his spine. He had been robbed! That
wasn’t the frightening thought. The idea that the robber might
still be lurking in the apartment was.

Ben went next to the
closet-sized kitchen to fetch the biggest, and only, cutting knife
he owned. Wielding it like a thief detector, he made a sweep of the
rooms. Considering the apartment’s size, this didn’t take long.
Whoever had been there was gone, but had taken Ben’s TV and
boombox. The six-pack of beer that Ben had begged a friend to buy
earlier in the day was also missing from the fridge.

Ben didn’t need to play
Sherlock Holmes and examine the sole cigarette butt in the ashtray,
but he did anyway. The familiar generic brand underlined Mason’s
name in triplicate, which was overkill since it was already
highlighted and accompanied by a row of exclamation
points.

Oh, well, Ben mused, one
less present to wrap.

He threw himself on the
couch, too despondent to take off his winter jacket. The worst part
was yet to come. Ben could deal with the loss of his crappy TV or
the beat-up old boombox, but being single for the holidays would
leave him free to entertain old ghosts that he would rather forget.
Still, there were a few days left. Maybe that was enough time to
fall in love with someone new.

Ben finally looked to the
blinking red light that had been clamoring for his attention. At
least Mason hadn’t stolen the answering machine. Hell, maybe he
called to leave a drunken apology. Ben wouldn’t put it past him. He
rose and jabbed at the machine, which beeped in protest before
playing its message.

“
Ben?” The voice was
strained. “It’s me.”

Allison? She sounded so
different that he could barely be sure it was her. Something was
wrong.

“
My dad. He’s--” There was
sobbing, in the midst of which sounded like the words heart attack.
“Please call me back. I love you.”

The machine beeped again,
signaling the end of the message. Ben grabbed the phone and dialed
Allison’s dorm room in Austin, before gut instinct made him hang up
the phone and dial a number he knew by heart. The same one he had
always called when they were growing up. After two rings, the line
clicked and Allison answered the phone.

“
Allison? What
happened?”

“
He’s dead, Ben.” Allison
broke down, Ben trying to console her while she regained her
composure. “My father,” she said when she was capable. “He’s
dead.”

* * * * *

Convincing his parents to
send him a plane ticket hadn’t been hard. They had been begging him
to come home for Christmas, which he had resisted. Ben had loved
the idea of being alone in Chicago, celebrating the holidays with
only his boyfriend.

Ex-boyfriend, he
corrected.

His parents managed to get
him a flight on Christmas Eve and had probably paid through the
nose to do so. The only available flight was a midnight express.
The plane boarded in record time due to having fewer than twenty
passengers. Ben’s seat was in the front of coach in the emergency
exit row, and while still not first class, it did have more leg
room than all the rows behind him. With the seats next to him free,
Ben was soon stretched out and sleeping, but not before looking
down on the city that had been his home the last year and a
half.

Ben stirred when the air
pressure changed, indicating that the plane had begun its descent.
He shifted uncomfortably, the pocket watch pressing painfully
against his hip and regretted keeping it. So far it had been a
constant reminder of his losing streak with love. Only his own poor
taste was to blame. Since starting college, he had found plenty of
legitimate guys who had taken an interest in him. These
relationships never lasted more than a few weeks, while Ben’s
appetite for unavailable straight guys continued to thrive. Once
he’d even broken up with a guy after developing a crush on his
straight brother.

All of this left a bad
taste in Ben’s mouth, reminding him of high school. He had waited
so long to be free of that environment, where every guy he wanted
was straight or closeted. The number of openly gay students in
college appeared limitless, but still Ben was attracted to those he
couldn’t have and he didn’t understand why. Was it a fear of
commitment or a fetish for straight guys? Probably neither. He
wanted nothing more than a serious long-term relationship. Perhaps
his particular tastes couldn’t be satisfied by anyone, straight or
gay.

Or maybe he was still
yearning for Tim. Ben looked out the window at the orange city
lights and wondered for the thousandth time what had become of him.
Since the summer they had broken up, Tim had disappeared. He still
lived in the same house, since his car was often in the driveway,
but Ben never saw Tim out jogging or at school the next year. He
must have gone to a school in the next district, maybe a private
one.

“
Funeral, huh?”

Ben came out of his repose
to see a flight attendant sitting next to the emergency exit in one
of those fold-down chairs they used during take off and landing.
The man was in his mid-twenties and thin, with the sort of high
cheek bones that provided models with job security. His dirty
blonde hair was short on the sides and medium length on top, with
just enough styling product to make it stand up. Overall he was
very attractive and rather dapper in his airline
uniform.

“
Sorry?” Ben
inquired.

“
You’re flying because of
a funeral,” the man stated in a pleasantly deep voice.

Ben was taken aback. “Well,
yeah. How did you know?”

The flight attendant rested
a hand on his chin, his long index finger on his cheek. “Your face
was so sad. People never look sad when they fly, unless there is a
funeral involved.”

Ben felt a pang of guilt.
He had been reminiscing about failed relationships when he should
have been thinking of Allison and what she was going
through.

“
Of course,” the flight
attendant mused further, “we also get sad faces when people have to
leave their partners behind, although passengers usually recover
from that by the time we land.”

“
Well, if you must know,”
Ben began testily. He was becoming irritated with this stranger
prying into his personal affairs. “Not only is there a funeral, but
my boyfriend robbed me yesterday, thus becoming my ex.”

“
That would explain it. A
double whammy. Here, on the house.”

The flight attendant
reached into a pocket and took out two mini bottles of vodka. “My
name’s Jace, by the way,” he said as he tossed them to
Ben.

“
Your name tag says
Jason,” Ben pointed out.

“
I know.” Jace took hold
of the tag and angled it to better see. “Isn’t that mean? I told
them I wanted one that says Jace, but that’s not my legal name.
Where do they get these things, anyway? Is there a store that sells
them somewhere? That would be cool. Then I could buy my
own.”

Ben laughed and introduced
himself.

“
That can’t be your legal
name either,” Jace replied. “It must be Benjamin?”

“
Just Ben,” he replied
tersely. He didn’t like anyone to call him by his full name. Not
anymore.

“
Well, it’s very
economical at least. Only three letters.”

Ben looked down at the two
tiny bottles of booze. “Care to join me?” he asked, offering
one.

“
Nope. Not allowed to
drink on duty,” Jace explained. “I don’t really drink anyway. I
only take them because they make such nice stocking
stuffers.”

“
Are there flights on
Christmas?” Ben asked, wanting to keep the conversation
going.

“
Oh, yes,” Jace replied
with an exasperated look. “There isn’t a day of the year that the
airlines don’t serve.”

“
That must
suck.”

“
It can, but this year I
finagled it so I have Christmas off.” Jace paused and looked
wistfully out of the window. “It’ll be nice to be home
again.”

“
So you live in
Houston?”

“
Yeah. You?”

Ben shook his head.
“Chicago.”

“
Too bad.” Jace said this
casually enough, but the words hit Ben like a lightning
bolt.

“
I’ll probably be in town
a few weeks,” Ben amended hurriedly.

Jace raised an eyebrow and
smiled. He didn’t reply. Instead he looked expectant. “You know,”
he said eventually, “there is a strict company policy against
asking passengers out on dates.”

“
Oh.”

“
That’s not to say that
you can’t ask me.”

Jace’s grin matched Ben’s
own.

* * * * *

Christmas came and went,
but Ben barely noticed. The entire day was spent trying to console
Allison, who was now alone in the world except for an aunt and a
few cousins who had decided not to leave Colorado for the
funeral.

Details of what had
happened unfolded during the lulls of Allison’s crying spells. A
neighbor had seen Mr. Cross collapse in the driveway and had called
the police instead of an ambulance. Allison’s father had been found
passed out in the street a month before, so the neighbor thought he
was simply drunk again. By the time the police arrived, Mr. Cross
was in critical condition from a heart attack. He died on the way
to the hospital.

“
He never really got
better,” Allison confided as they sat together in the living room
of her childhood home. “He always drank too much, and it only got
worse once I went to college.”

“
At least his temper
mellowed with you,” Ben said.

Allison shook her head
once.

Ben sat up on the couch.
“You mean it didn’t?”

“
No,” Allison confirmed.
“Well, it did, obviously, in that I was able to date and hang out
with you again, but he still went into his rages and acted really
paranoid, especially when drunk. He even claimed once that you were
blackmailing him.”

“
I kind of was,” Ben
admitted. “I threatened to tell people that he was molesting me if
he ever hit you again. He didn’t, did he?”

Allison shook her head, but
looked away as she did so. Ben wondered if she was being honest,
but knew that he would probably never know, not now. People had a
funny way of forgiving the dead.

The following day Ben
tackled the long list of affairs to be set in order, starting with
the funeral home. Allison decided to have the body cremated and not
hold a memorial service. Allison and Ben were the only ones likely
to attend anyway, since they had so few relatives and Mr. Cross
never socialized.

Next they dug through piles
of paperwork in Mr. Cross’s office, searching for a will. They
found a house mortgage that was almost paid off, and a life
insurance policy that would cover the rest while leaving Allison
with money to spare. They still weren’t sure how much money was in
the bank or if he left any credit card debt, but Ben planned on
searching the computer for this information the next day. What
little they had accomplished had already taken them well into the
evening. The process was especially tiring for Allison.

Ben waited until she was
asleep before pulling Jace’s number from his wallet. He felt
slightly guilty about dating in the midst of Allison’s loss, but
those feelings were soon replaced by nervousness as he punched in
the number. A woman answered the phone.

“
Hello?”

“
Uh, hi. Is Jace
there?”

The woman paused before
sternly asking, “Who’s this?”

Not another married guy!
Ben came close to hanging up when a rustling sound preceded the
woman’s laughter.