Speechless (4 page)

Drew frowned at him, not understanding.

Travis waved his hands around vaguely. “The… this.” He wasn’t sure what words to use and was deathly afraid to use the wrong ones. “Being with another guy for… for a while.” He licked his lips nervously.

Drew looked at him for a long time, his expression unreadable. Finally, he leaned the guitar against the couch, padded across the floor—Travis found his bare feet unaccountably sexy—and stopped at one of his bookcases. He pulled out a book, but when he brought it over, Travis realized that it was a photo album. Drew leafed through the first several pages, which were of a little boy with mischief in his blue eyes, and the boy’s father who looked much like Drew did now, and a woman in glasses.

“What happened to your mom, Drew?”

Without even pausing, Drew ran his hand across his neck.

“Oh. She died too. How old were you?”

Drew mimed rocking a baby in his arms.

“I’m sorry. That really sucks. Do you have a picture of her too?”

There was a single photo of a very young woman standing in front of what looked like a pub. She had a glass of wine in her hand, and her head was thrown back with laughter. “She was pretty,” Travis said. “I don’t think my mother has ever been happy like that in her whole life.” His mother was a crier and a screamer, the type of person who saw the worst in everyone and whose glass was always half-empty. Well, except for her tumbler of Southern Comfort, which she kept diligently filled.

Several pages of the album contained photos of places Travis didn’t recognize. A beach where a teenaged Drew squinted into the sun and looked adorably awkward in swim trunks. A place with colorful stucco buildings and palm trees. A cobblestone street that was obviously older than any city in the United States. Travis wasn’t widely traveled, and he wondered where these places were and why Drew had visited them. He hoped they could find a way for Drew to tell the tales someday.

But now Drew was turning the page again, and there he was, sitting at a desk with a big computer monitor in front of him, grinning and holding up a thick stack of papers. He was shirtless, and his hair was a mess, which led Travis to wonder who had snapped the picture. “Was that one of your books?” he asked.

Drew nodded and held up a finger.

“Oh. Your first book. That must have been really exciting. I can’t imagine creating something like that.”

Drew looked slightly wistful—which hadn’t been Travis’s intent—then shook his head slightly, and his face cleared. He pointed at Travis and then made an odd motion with both hands, as if he were slowly pushing something forward. He had to repeat it a few times before Travis understood.

“Well, yeah, I make stuff on a lathe. But not books. Just… pieces of things. Machine parts and tools and stuff. Nothing interesting. Nothing anyone’s ever gonna care about. I read that book you gave me, the one you wrote. Which is kind of a thing, because I’m usually not much of a reader.” He paused, wondering if he’d given too much of himself away, but Drew just waited. Well, Drew had been to Travis’s apartment and surely noticed that it was not overflowing with reading material. “I really liked your book! It was exciting and that cop with the bad rep was cool and that thing with the identity theft, I totally didn’t see that coming. You know, even if you never write anything again, you’ve already done way more than most people.”

Drew nodded slowly, as if he’d never thought of it that way before. Then he sighed and flipped quickly through a bunch of pages of him signing books in various places. He stopped when he came to a photo of himself holding another of his books in one hand, his other arm thrown around the shoulder of a young man with black hair and a slightly stubbly chin. The man wasn’t exactly handsome, but he had an interesting face, and he was staring at Drew with adoration in his eyes.

Drew pointed at the man, his finger almost stabbing into the photo.

“You dated him?” Travis asked carefully, and received a single nod in return. “Was it… serious?”

Drew nodded again. Then he bashed his palm against his forehead, pointed at the ex again, and swept his hand in a go-away motion toward the door.

“He split after the accident?”

With his jaw clenched tightly, Drew nodded. He pointed at his own mouth, which was as silent as always, and shook his head.

“Oh. He couldn’t handle you… having trouble talking. That… Christ, Drew. He was an asshole and he didn’t deserve you. I have better conversations with you than with guys who can talk a mile a minute.”

The anger and hurt in Drew’s eyes faded, and the corners of his mouth turned up slightly. That was really nice to see, Travis thought. But he had to ask another question. “How long were you guys together?”

Drew held up five fingers.

“Five years?” God, Travis had never lasted even five days with anyone before. Knowing that Drew was the kind of guy to make that sort of commitment didn’t really surprise him, though. And, amazingly, it didn’t scare him away.

“Well, he was obviously a stupid dickhead,” Travis announced sincerely.

Drew smiled and slammed the album closed. After a moment’s thought, he pointed at Travis and then at the album, eyebrows raised questioningly.

“Okay. I’m guessing you’re not asking if I have a photo album too.” Travis squirmed a little in his seat. “You wanna know if I ever had someone serious.”

A nod confirmed his guess.

“I, um, haven’t. It’s not that I didn’t want…. Well, I guess it just never worked out.” God, he’d always dreaded having a Relationship Talk, and it didn’t help one bit that he was the only one talking. He scratched at his chin—he hadn’t bothered to shave that morning—and tried to avoid the gaze that was pinning him in place. He thought about changing the subject entirely. Maybe commenting on the weather, or whether the Trailblazers were going to have a good season, or had Drew caught that episode of
Supernatural
last week?

Finally, Travis took a deep breath. “Look. I’m not very good at this relationship thing. But I’d really like to give it a try, if that works for you.”

Drew’s answering smile was the best response he could have wanted.

I
T
RAINED
pretty much every day after that, and when it wasn’t raining, it was cold. But Travis didn’t care, because as he walked home each evening, he didn’t have to hope that Drew would be out on his steps with his guitar. Instead, Drew would be waiting for him with a smile at the open door. Sometimes Drew made him dinner—he was a pretty decent cook, better by far than Travis. Sometimes they went out. Sometimes they went over to Travis’s to eat. But no matter where they ate, they spent the evening together, and often Drew spent the night too.

On weekends they hung out at Travis’s place or Drew’s, or they spent hours in brewpubs or coffee shops. Drew liked to haunt bookstores—luckily, his aphasia didn’t affect his ability to read. With a huge grin, he introduced Travis to the sex shop that was a block away from his favorite book emporium. Travis hadn’t really explored the area since he’d come to live there, so Drew showed him around, taking him to off-beat little neighborhoods and funky stores and even, one time only, to a basketball game. They went running together. Travis was faster, but Drew had better endurance.

One Saturday morning—one of the few when Drew hadn’t spent the previous night—someone pounded on Travis’s door much earlier than he would have preferred. His grumpiness evaporated, however, when he saw his lover with a pink bakery box in his hands. Drew laid the box on the table, gestured at Travis to get dressed, then took a soup bowl from the cupboard and filled it with cat kibble. Scooping up the pink box, he dragged Travis out the door and motioned him into the passenger seat of his car. As Drew drove them west with a smug smile and a refusal to give even a hint where they were going, Travis made a dent in the baked goods stash, uttering satisfied noises over the maple bar with bacon.

Two hours later they were naked in front of a roaring fire at a cozy inn, watching through the window as waves crashed and foamed on the rocks below. Travis wondered how the hell Drew managed to make reservations, but Drew must have decided he liked an air of mystery and wouldn’t divulge his secret.

Drew had brought his guitar, and when they weren’t making love or lolling around in the afterglow, he played. Not his usual punk and grunge fare, but quieter songs. Ballads and love songs and even a few old country-western classics. Travis sang along sometimes; Drew didn’t even protest the nude, off-key, but soulful rendition of “Stand By Your Man.”

They went for long walks along the beach—as if they were in a sappy romance movie—and sat on driftwood, bundled up in heavy coats, staring at the slate-colored ocean. When a golden retriever appeared from God-knows-where, a soggy stick in its mouth, Drew grinned and threw the chunk of wood for the dog over and over. They ate seafood and drank expensive wine and tracked sand into Drew’s T-Bird. It was a genuine vacation, the first for either of them in years.

A few weeks later they went out to Thanksgiving dinner together—Drew under protest because, as he explained with a series of complicated gestures (and the assistance of a few props), he was not a bloody American. That didn’t stop him from eating two pieces of pumpkin pie.

They spent Christmas together too, and it was the first really enjoyable Christmas Travis could remember. Drew bought him an iPod, the complete collection of Star Trek movies on Blu-ray, and a big stocking full of catnip toys. Travis got Drew a signed, first edition of the book
Fight Club
and a black leather guitar strap. Drew cooked a feast with ham, potatoes, and vegetables, and a brown sort of lumpy stuff for dessert that turned out to be plum pudding. Travis didn’t like the plum pudding, but he ate it anyway. He very much liked the rum toddies they washed it down with.

Sara called to wish him a merry Christmas. He told her about Drew. Not
everything
, not even about the aphasia. Just that Drew was smart and gorgeous and wonderful and that Travis was really happy. Which, when you thought about it, covered all the truly important things. Drew was listening in on Travis’s end of the conversation, and he smiled so broadly that Travis feared his face would split.

They had another weekend together in early March, this time up in the mountains. They both took ski lessons, but Drew thought it was too cold, and Travis suspected the sport was better suited to those with two eyes. But that was fine. They mutually decided, halfway through the day, that they’d have more fun alone in their wood-paneled cabin. They got drunk on a couple of bottles of good merlot, and Travis creamed Drew at both Risk and backgammon.

Back home, the weather turned warmer. Sometimes it even stopped raining for a few hours, and Travis would find Drew back on his front steps, waiting for him with his guitar. Sometimes Drew played him love songs, which made Travis blush.

Around the time that it occurred to Travis that he’d been seeing Drew for over six months, that he was spending almost all of his off-work hours with the other man, that they had favorite restaurants where the staff knew them as a couple and called them both by name, Sara called. She sounded a little frazzled. It was her last semester in grad school, and everything was piling up on her, and she wasn’t sure whether she should quit her job now or wait a while. But after only a few minutes of commiseration from Travis, she deftly turned the discussion to him. She was good at that kind of thing.

“You’re still seeing that guy, aren’t you?” she asked. “Drew?”

Travis had been in the midst of sorting his laundry when she called. He was still clutching a dirty T-shirt, which he dropped to the floor. He sat down on his couch, ignoring the baleful stare Elwood gave him over being woken from a nap. “Yeah. Still.”

“So you guys are kind of a thing, huh?”

“We’re… yeah. I guess so. He’s special, Sare.”

“Good. You deserve someone special.”

“Yeah, right,” he scoffed. “He’s way out of my league, actually.”

“You’re in a better league than you think, Trav. You’re totally Class A. Or… something. You gotta help me out with the sports analogy here. You know that’s not my area of expertise.”

Sara could always make him laugh. It was one of the things he loved about her. Even back in junior high, when he’d been so miserable over so many things that there were days he only got out of bed to avoid catching hell from his parents, she had a way of finding just the right words to turn his mood around. “At least I know he plays on my team,” Travis said with a chuckle.

“Go team!”

But Travis’s grin quickly faded. “I don’t know if I’m doing this right.”

“It’s not quadratic equations, Trav. There’s no doing it right.”

“But there’s definitely doing it wrong. What if I fuck this up?”

He heard her sigh and could picture the exact expression on her face. “You’re gonna make mistakes, dude. Everyone does. It’s how you deal with those mistakes that’s important.”

Elwood hauled himself upright, stretched out the kinks, sauntered over, and butted his head against Travis’s thigh. As Travis scratched him in his favorite spot behind the ears, the cat fired up his amazingly loud purr—sounding as if he were hiding a motorcycle engine under all that orange fur.

“You still there, Travis?”

“Yeah. Sorry.”

“Text me a picture of the two of you, okay? I want to see what the guy who finally caught you looks like.”

“Caught me? Am I the ball now?”

“Yeah,” she answered. “Now let’s hope he doesn’t fumble.”

O
NE
Friday afternoon in April, the big boss at the machine shop called all the workers together. They stood there in their blue work shirts with the embroidered logos, exchanging nervous glances or whispering to each other. Everybody’s face was drawn. Travis lost most of the details of what the guy in the suit said, but the important parts stuck well enough. Allied was closing this shop. Anyone who’d been there a year or longer could still have a job—if they were willing to move to Omaha.