The following fictional story deals with sex among males. If you are offended by such material, are too young, or reside in a location where it is not allowed, please depart. Though not observed in this story, care enough about yourself and humankind to practice safe sex.
The author retains all rights. EvanBradley33@Yahoo.com
Chapter 23 Out of the Ashes . . .
Drew left his office a little early because he couldn't shut off the voices echoing from his luncheon conversation with Rich and Angie. As he made his way home, a smile adorned his face from time to time when he thought about his good friends and their machinations to 'dump me back in Hal's lap,' as he characterized it. He didn't know what to make of Rich's comment that Hal wanted him back. The news conflicted with Drew's own knowledge that he was never going to be more than third best, after Richie and Brett. He'd really meant it when he'd stated to Rich and Angie that, if Brett and Gwen Thomas hadn't become involved, Hal would still be mooning over Brett. He refused to use the expression 'in love with Brett.' Uncharacteristically, Drew shunned any analysis of the import of using that accurate reference to Hal's feelings.
Gwen's capture of Hal's recent boyfriend didn't mean that Hal stopped wanting Brett. Why couldn't the others see that? Even after that horrible night in Hal's bedroom, Drew hadn't stopped wanting Hal. Besides, Drew had moved on - he had Dez Baxter now. Well . . . he didn't HAVE Dez, but they'd connected. Dez had wanted more that night they met at The Iron Lock, but Drew had been wary, suggesting that they spend an evening together their first time. Even though they'd met only once, he hoped they had a future. He'd thought he was just being cautious, but a moment's intuition led him to ask, 'When I put Dez off, was I really avoiding complications, really saving myself for Hal? Man, I'm so screwed up!'
Arriving home, Drew unlocked his front door, depositing his attache just inside his study door as he walked down the hall, dumping his mail on the island in the middle of the kitchen. After sorting through the mail, he prepared a gin and tonic, walking into the family room, looking out the wall of windows at his comfortable back yard, surrounded by a tall wooden fence, creating a garden refuge of sorts. He was actually fantasizing about Dez. 'What a big, handsome stud!' He didn't know how long he'd been daydreaming when he tipped to the fact that something wasn't right in the far right corner of the back yard. Moving out of his daydream, he saw that someone had dug a hole, planted a tree, and used the soil to make a water basin around the sapling. He set his drink down, charged to the door of the family room and flipped the lock, shooting out the door and trotting over the lawn to the planting. He recognized the leaves as those of a sugar maple. Looking at the sapling, he held his arms out as though expressing "What the hell?"
Angie was reconciling the company checkbook with a bank statement when the phone rang. She frowned. She was trying to finish before quitting time. She never liked to leave such an important task half finished, so as she continued working, she picked up the receiver, rattling off the company greeting.
"Angie, it's Drew."
That was enough to break into Angie's robotic behavior. "Drew, I hope you didn't really feel that Rich and I were ganging up on you during lunch at Brenden's. You know we love you!"
"Someone planted a tree in my backyard today."
Angie's defense shields were immediately deployed. She hadn't thought ahead to what would happen when Drew discovered Hal's handiwork. "Oh? What kind of a tree did you have planted?"
"I didn't have it planted. Someone else did it. A sugar maple. It has a red dot in the botanical tag, so I think its leaves turn red in the autumn, at least I hope so." Angie detected modulated degrees of excitement in Drew's voice that he was trying to suppress. "Do you know who planted it?" Drew asked.
"Why are you asking me?"
"It seems more than a little coincidental that the tree planting occurred on a day when you and Rich called me out of the blue, luring me to have lunch with you at Brenden's Patio Restaurant, like maybe you didn't want me going home over the lunch hour."
"Drew, that lunch occurred because both Rich and I had just spoken with Hal. He'd expressed to both of us how much he regretted what had happened to you. We talked it over, deciding that we just wanted you to know in case that would relieve your stress. So who do you think planted the tree?"
Silence followed her question. Then she heard a growl, causing her to clap her hand over her mouth to keep a giggle from escaping. "Have you suddenly turned into an animal?"
"Earthmother! Don't play dumb. You know all. Did Hal really think that planting a tree would make everything all right?" Drew asked tartly.
"So you think Hal did it?"
"Angie!" Drew said sharply.
"Come on now, Drew. Do you actually believe Hal would think that planting a tree could cover over all that's happened in the past few months? If you think that, you don't know Hal."
Just as Angie had gambled, the fair side of Drew's nature kicked in. "Well . . . why would he do it then?"
"If you really think Hal planted that tree, why don't you ask him yourself?"
"Speak of the devil!" Drew suddenly exclaimed.
"What?"
"Hal just walked through the gate to my back yard. He's turning on the garden hose and watering that tree. I guess that's proof positive."
"Why don't you go ask him since he's right there?" Angie smiled, knowing her friend well. "It would give you the advantage of eying his behavior up close while he answers your question."
Drew took the bait. "That's just what I'll do. Later." He hung up, reached for his drink, and started toward the door. A second thought grabbed him before he reached the door. He detoured to the kitchen, fixing a bourbon and soda for Hal. Then he moseyed into the back yard. It wouldn't do to appear that he was eager to talk to Hal.
Hal looked up as Drew approached, smiling. Not returning the smile, Drew nodded his head, handing the drink to Hal. As Hal took the drink from Drew's hand, he made certain their fingers touched. Hal saw Drew's hand jerk a bit, both men feeling a tingling in their balls. But Hal didn't let on that he'd detected anything. He held his drink up to Drew and then reached forward to clink their tumblers in a silent toast.
They stood quietly, sipping their drinks as Hal held the garden hose in his other hand, watching the water spill out of the hose into the watering basin. Drew allowed his eyes to caress the handsome contours of his former lover's face. He took in the wide shoulders and the unbuttoned shirt, revealing some of Hal's hairy chest. His eyes slid down to Hal's crotch, noting that his cock was pushing the zipper out. In his mind's eye he could see it bedded in its furry nest, held down by - was it a boxers or briefs day, he wondered. His steely blues slid down Hal's fine, hairy legs in an unusually short pair of cut- offs, noting the work boots and bunched white socks, which always seemed to make Hal all that more butch.
Hal was engaged in the same activity, scanning Drew, reacquainting himself with Drew's body. He loved it that Drew had shed only his suit coat. It always turned him on when Drew rolled the sleeves of his dress shirt up, revealing his hairy forearms, breaking through Drew's usually polished demeanor and professional look with a more earthy, personal revelation of his inner self. Hal pretended that Drew did it just for him. Hal liked the drape of Drew's slacks over the muscles in his legs, baring only a bit of his dress socks and more of his Italian loafers. Drew had unbuttoned the collar of his white shirt and pulled the knot of his tie down just a little. Hal loved spying the 'shadow' of the tank top undershirt that Drew wore beneath the white shirt.
"Why?" Drew asked, dispelling Hal's reverie.
"Damage control." Hal said, looking deeply into Drew's eyes.
Drew couldn't help it: "You mean that, since Brett has moved on, you've had time to think about what happened?"
'Oh, it's feisty time,' Hal thought. "I understand how you might reach that conclusion, but it isn't that way at all. It started before Brett ever left. I called you a couple of days after that night in my bedroom. Got your answer machine but found myself at a loss for words. When we ran into you at the mall, I wanted to chase you down when you ran off."
"But didn't," Drew observed.
"Had I done so, you know Brett would have followed me. I wouldn't want to inflict that on you."
"Most people simply issue the command 'Stay' to their dogs." Hal frowned. Drew was going to make him work for this. Couldn't say that he blamed him.
For his part, Drew was kicking himself. His rejoinders were not going to win him one morsel of satisfaction, so he wondered why he was behaving as he was. His first chance to talk to Hal, and he was probably ruining it. Tension kept either man from realizing that this frank exchange was pushing them deeper into addressing their differences than would otherwise have occurred upon their first meeting.
"In Angie's hospital room," Hal added, "I wanted to walk across that open path between us and pull you into a hug. But you ran off. When I saw Ted, Levi and you at Stone Lodge Winery, I wanted to talk to you, but I might have ruined the evening you guys were having. And when I saw you with the big guy at The Iron Lock, I wanted to wave."
Drew's eyebrows shot up. "So you saw me with Dez and decided that you should get back together with me?"
Hal tossed his head, snorting out exasperation. "Give me a little credit, Drew."
Drew mentally kicked himself again. Changing tack, he asked, "So what does 'damage control' mean?"
"It means I just wanted to do something constructive since an 'I'm sorry' would be lame in these circumstances."
"Still, it would be nice to hear," Drew said softly.
"Drew, 'sorry' doesn't begin to cover what I feel, but it's a good place to start. I'm sorry for all that I did to you. All that Brett and I did to you."
Drew grinned mischievously, tossing his head and exclaiming, "It doesn't count after I've just said I'd like to hear it. You have to find another time," he said, trying to lighten the conversation.
"My heart needs to say it now," Hal replied, soberly. The grin slid off Drew's face. "I'm sorry for what I did to you, for those hurtful words I hurled in your face. I was drunk. There's some circumstantial evidence to suggest that Brett slipped something in my drink, maybe that date rape drug rohypnal. I know he'd talked about some of his fraternity brothers using it. Then I was caught off balance when I saw all of you in my bedroom - when I knew how you were seeing Brett and me. I'm not just sorry for my words to you but that the others heard them too. I'm sorry for all the pain you endured, for I later lived through it myself." Hal gulped. "It was horrible. I know now that I could never have imagined how it actually felt until I went through it - the constant hurting every minute of wakefulness. Then the sleeplessness. Thinking about Brett's being excited by and excited with someone else." Hal choked off any more explanation, shaking his head as though to clear it of unwanted thoughts.
Hal swore at himself in his mind. He hadn't meant to bring Brett into this conversation at all, but there he was running on about Brett. He stole a glance at Drew, who was scowling, staring at the sugar maple. "I'm sorry for being so inadequate," Hal continued, "that I couldn't say all of this before now. Some constructive gesture seemed necessary." Here Hal smiled. "I remember how you go ape over sugar maples, how you planned someday to have one here in your yard." He looked through the family room windows. "It'll be great. You can sit in your family room in October and watch as it begins to change colors."
"Go ape?" Drew asked with attitude, but he was grinning. So was Hal. "Hey, I hear you have Jimmy back. Rich and Angie were plying me with 'Jimmy stories' today at lunch - as I guess you know," Drew said, his eyebrows arching in a question that required no answer. Hal just grinned back, happy for the shift in conversation. "Will I ever get to meet him?"
"Of course. Say when."
Drew was silent for a moment, adopting a grave mien. "Why, Hal? Why? I busted my ass to be what I thought you wanted me to be. That night when you saw Wes with Rich for the first time. A couple of other times when you set me back on my ass. I got back up and tried again." Drew paused, looking at the grass around him. "The wonderful way it happened for us, with the crew helping and all, I thought it was magical. . . . I don't think I ever hurt you. How could you do that to me . . . to us?"
Hal huffed out a long sigh, shaking his head slightly in resignation. It had come at last. The questions against which he had no reasonable defense. "Drew, I have no satisfactory answer for you. It wasn't you. You know how screwed up I've been from my early life. The best answer I can give you right off the top of my head - and I know it's unsatisfactory - is that I was reaching out for the last best moment in my life, thinking that I could recapture it. I had needed it, craved it, for years."
Hal observed Drew suddenly shudder. Hal was instantly on guard. What had he just said that triggered that shudder. Drew wouldn't look Hal in the eye. Hal heard a constrained whisper, "Thank you, Hal, for your honesty. And the tree. You told me what I've suspected all along. . . . There's no way I have or can rectify the deficiencies or losses you experienced in your early life." Drew turned, his head cast down, and walked back to his home. Hal watched him enter the family room without ever looking back. Drew closed the door and walked into the kitchen, depositing his tumbler on the island and disappearing down the hallway to his bedroom.
Hal suddenly realized that he'd unwittingly implied that Drew had not been "the last, best moment in my life," that Brett was. And before him Richie. Drew's "busting his ass" to give something meaningful and loving couldn't compete against Richie's ghost or Brett's hot looks and fraudulent illusions. 'Damn! Do I really believe that? How is it that I keep slamming Drew? Hal groaned again. "I'm so dumb!"
Hal lost himself in the water tumbling from the hose into the earthen basin around the sugar maple, wishing it could wipe away the last ten minutes so that Drew and he could start over again. 'How can what was happening just now between Drew and me turn so bad all of a sudden?'
The Winston Construction Company Office
Arriving at the office the next day, Jimmy and Hal initiated the the usual morning routine. Jimmy padded over to Angie for a pat on his head, and then he trotted into Hal's office to find his sleeping buddy. Angie noted with a frown that Hal looked tired and drawn. "A sleepless night?" she asked.
"You can tell?" Hal asked.
"How did it go with Drew yesterday afternoon?"
"How did you know about that?"
"Drew was quizzing me on the phone about who planted the tree when you arrived to water it."
Hal sighed. "It started out so well. We got a nice vibe going. Sort of joking a bit. Checking each other out. But it turned heavy fast, ending with my implying that Drew couldn't match Richie or Brett.' Angie wanted to groan aloud. Hal had confirmed Drew's worst fear. "Honestly, Angie - I don't know what happened. I apologized. Then the next thing I know I'm talking about Brett and how I thought he represented the last, best moment in my life."
'Ouch!' Andie thought. "What was Drew's reaction?"
"He thanked me for my honesty and went back in the house." Hal walked over to stare out a window at the now nearly finished Haynes home.
"Still, Hal, didn't you and Drew progress over the state of affairs that had existed between you two? Didn't you confirm that you both harbor good feelings for the other?"
"Yeah, I guess. But I can't see that we are any closer than before. For all I know, maybe we're in worse shape." He turned toward Angie, searching her eyes for any confirmation that he was correct. "What do you think, Angie?"
"You knew it wasn't going to be easy. Given the situation, it isn't reasonable to expect, is it, that you two were going to avoid awkward moments right away?"
"Until yesterday, I thought we had a chance to get back together. Now I'm not certain at all. After I found out about Brett and Gwen, I finally took a long, hard look at Drew and me, at the wall that Richie and Brett represented for us. I'm sick of staring at that wall. It no longer serves me. But the first time I'm with him, I start talking about Brett and Richie, about their being tops in my life, and made it sound like my planting the tree was salve to my guilty conscience. . . . I don't suppose you've talked to Drew?"
"No."
Hal sighed. "I better get over to the site."
As Hal closed the door quietly, Angie mused, 'I guess the crew needs to meet again. These two guys will never work themselves out of this this stalemate unless we step in. But we can do it.' She lifted the receiver on the phone, speed-dialing Rich.
Later that day, Angie was changing little Hal's diaper and talking to Kenji, who had dropped by to check on his little buddy. The phone rang. "Isn't that the way it always is?" she asked Kenji. "That phone hasn't rung for the last hour, but let me get in the middle of a diaper change, and of course it goes off."
"Here, let me," Kenji said, walking over to them and "hipping" Angie out of the way. He was happy: he was going to get to care for his little nephew. Angie walked to the phone, lifting the receiver and launching into the Winston Construction Company greeting.
"Hey, Sis, how are you guys? And how's my new nephew?"
"Randy?" she asked, her voice rising with excitement. "Oh Randy, it's been too long. I love hearing your voice," she said, feeling tears spring to her eyes. Kenji turned to look at her, smiling as she dabbed at her eyes. He knew from their long talks about her brother that Angie was very happy at that moment.
"Sis, you know it's the same with me. But we're going to fix that," Randy said in his deep voice.
"Where are you? Milan?"
"Yes. Esteban and I are making plans to fly to visit you and Bobby and Hal Robert. Just wanted to know if you could stand seeing us in two days?"
"Ou-u-u-u, Randy, YES!" Angie squealed, making little Hal Robert jerk and scowl at Kenji, evoking a giggle and cooing reassurance from Kenji. Then she thought of their parents. "Are you going home first?"
"No, I'm following through with our earlier discussions. We're going to stay with you if you have the room. We can stay at a hotel if you don't. You can tell Mom and Dad if you want. It's up to you. But I'd like to suggest that you not tell them right away. We'd like some time with you and your family, just the five of us, before anything spoils it."
'Gosh! What soul-searching Randy must have gone through to decide to pay us a visit,' Angie thought. The recent Rich-Wes, Hal-Drew, Hal-Brett breakups had inured her to intuiting how apprehensive Randy was about a break with their parents. This visit meant Randy was coming out - ultimately to everyone - for the news would find its way back to their home. If her parents took Randy's sexual orientation negatively - not to mention Esteban, Randy's visit would have cost him his tie with his parents. "'My twin,' you know how much I love you. Try not to dwell on Mom and Dad's reaction to you and Esteban. What do you really have with them now?"
"Not much."
"Then you can't lose much."
"Let me amend my answer. I still have an illusion about Mom and Dad and me."
"Illusions can hurt worse, you know," Angie observed, thinking of Hal's remarks a few moments earlier. "They don't usually hold up long."
"I guess I'm about to find out."
"Well, let me give you something positive to think about. Bobby wants so much to meet his brother-in-law." She giggled. "I haven't told him any of the bad stuff about you yet."
"Esteban is eager to meet you and Bobby as well - his other brother-in-law - but he is a bit worried about Americans' reactions to gay men. So I haven't even contemplated telling him about your bad stuff!"
Angie laughed. "Esteban shouldn't be worried about being accepted here. He'll be meeting our circle of friends. Many of them are in 'your family' as well."
"Is that the crew you talk about so much?"
"Yes. They'll take you two in immediately, making you part of them. They are really our family here, Randy. You'll see what I mean. You'll be gaining big time from your visit here." Both brother and sister tacitly noted that there was a difference between losing parents and losing friends.
Angie and Randy finalized their arrival plans. Randy explained that they would rent a car at the airport, but Angie insisted on meeting them at Baggage Claim and leading them to the Cooper home. Hal would insist that they take time to meet their visitors. She knew Randy wanted the car to escape if things got bad. Or maybe good? They might drive to spend time with their parents if all went well.
"You heard?" she asked Kenji.
"Yeah. Sounds as though the crew has another issue to discuss. Say, how did Drew react to the tree-planting?" Angie gave Kenji a run-down on Hal and Drew's conversation. "Do you think those two have spent so little time not thinking about meeting each other that, when they did, everything just spilled out?"
"I think that's an accurate representation."
"I think we can help them," Kenji echoed Angie's sentiments.
Suddenly, an idea seized her. "Oh-h-h-h! We'll have a dinner and invite the crew. Hal and Drew will be included, of course. They won't have to find another occasion to meet, for both will attend the party."
"The crew will be ready," Kenji observed. "Let's make it a pot luck so that you won't spend all your time cooking. You'll be able to spend some time with Randy and . . . Esteban, was it?"
"Yes, Esteban. And a potluck dinner is a great idea. We can have Tonio and Jamal bring something so that they won't have to cook." Angie smiled, walking over to Kenji and little Hal, telling the latter in "Mom talk" that his uncles were coming to visit him and they were going to have a big party. Watching his mother intently, he seemed to mirror her smile.
(To be continued.)