Sex and Love and Sex
3
“Hello?” Tom Mesda said.
“Tom? It’s Laurel. Is Dylan there?”
“He sure is, Laurel. Hold on.”
There was something bright and friendly about Tom that Laurel loved, and she always wondered not so much what had split him up from Fenn as how they had ever been together in the first place. Tom was what Laurel imagined people meant when they said, “a dear.” He and Fenn made sensible friends, but as lovers it seemed s little ridiculous.
“Hey, Lor!”
“Oh, my God! Are you stupid?”
Then she said, “Is your dad off the phone?’
“Uh, yeah. And why are you asking me if I’m stupid?”
“Not asking: telling. Because I saw what you did to Jack Warren’s car!”
“Oh, you’re welcome.”
“No, idiot! Not ‘you’re welcome.’ Have you lost your mind?”
“Lance helped.”
“Not the point, Dill! And Jack came to my house.”
“We’ll have to kick his ass.”
“No! No!” Laurel said in frustration. “No… kicking anyone’s ass. Alright? None of that. It was taken care of. It’s just….You could have gotten in trouble for that. And, haven’t you gotten in enough trouble. I mean, Uncle Fenn is gracious and everything, but this on top of the other day...”
“Oh my God!” Dylan suddenly sounded panicked. “I didn’t even think of that.”
“No, Dylan, you don’t think. And I don’t understand why, because you’re not stupid.”
“But that was stupid.”
“Yes, Dylan,” Laurel said, sadly. “It was.”
“You’re my cousin. I was just looking after you.”
“Well, I’m looking after you now. You can’t just do every crazy thing that enters your head.”
“I know,” Dylan said.
Then he said, “Uh… you said you took care of it. Jack Warren?”
“Yeah.”
“What happened?”
“Uh…” Laurel searched for the most honest answer possible. “It appears, Dylan, that my new boyfriend—”
“New boyfriend… my God.”
“Yes,” Laurel pushed past this. “Well, it seems that my new boyfriend put a curse on Jack.”
“Where’s my son? There’s my son!” Tom sang, coming into the bathroom where Dylan was brushing his teeth. Dylan bent to spit and rinse out his mouth and Tom added, “Don’t forget mouthwash,” while Dylan reached for it.
“Do you still want to talk?” Tom said.
For his whole life, Tom had done two things, one on a nearly nightly basis, which was sing “Where’s my son? There’s my son!” and in times when he sensed Dylan needed it, asked if he still wanted to talk. The proper answer was always yes.
“When I was young,” Tom said, “My parents always said it was time to talk when they wanted to talk.”
Tom always said this when he was sure that his son needed to say something, but didn’t know how to.
Tom went downstairs and he came up with two cups of cocoa. These, presumably, had been made by Lee, who kept to the background and always helped maintain the delicate relationship in which he was Tom’s partner, but not the father of Tom’s child.
“What do you want to tell me?”
“Not everything,” Dylan said, honestly.
Good naturedly, Tom nodded and stuck out his bottom lip.
“But there are some things? Like Lance?”
“I’m sort of dating him.”
“I sort of knew that.”
“I don’t know if I’m really in love with him.”
“Well, love is complicated.”
“Did you love Dad?”
“Fenn?”
“Yes.”
“Very much,” Tom said.
“He said you cheated on him.”
“Um,” Tom looked like he had a toothache.
“I asked him. I asked him about why you all weren’t together. Why he was my dad. He told me everything.”
“Really?”
“Yeah.”
“And how do you feel about that?”
Tom looked deeply concerned, but Dylan said, “It’s kind of neat and funny. I mean, I didn’t think I really had anything to do with the two of you. I didn’t know you all were… involved after he met Todd—”
“He really did tell you everything!”
“That’s what I said, Dad.”
Dylan added, “That last time. When I was made. Sort of made… I mean, when Fenn did what he did… Did you love him?”
“Yes.”
“Did he love you? I mean, what was it about?”
Tom put down his cup of cocoa and said, “We’re having a grown up discussion now.”
“Yes.”
“Well,” Tom said, “I think that he did love me. But he couldn’t go back to where we had been, and I wanted us to. I used to think it was because I’d hurt him so badly. Now I think it was because he really had moved on. I had a hard time with that.
“I’m telling you things that I usually think you’re too young for. But I’m going to tell them anyway. You can love someone, but not love them enough to make it work… I know that men and women get married and now men and men get married and that’s love. But there is more to it. Your father and I were at a ‘more to it’ place. Finished as partners, becoming friends, deeply attracted to each other. It was… very sweet,” Tom finished. There was a far off look in his eyes and then he remembered Dylan was there, blinked and smiled at his son.
“Dad said that he tried to hold onto you, and wouldn’t let you go to the places you wanted and do what you wanted. He said he made you sacrifice a lot of your dreams to be with him, and that’s why you went to Bryant.”
“What?”
“He didn’t say it to me,” Dylan clarified. “He’d never say that me. He said it to Brendan when we were in Chicago, and I overheard it. He said he should have let you go and do what you wanted instead of clinging to you or making you compromise.”
“Kenneth,” Layla said that night at their house, “might I ask what the hell you’re looking at?”
They were sitting around the table, and she had just kissed Will on the cheek and pushed back his hair.
“You guys look so happy is all.”
“Well,” Layla said, a question in her eye, “we are.”
She stopped and said, “I’m sorry, but you and Sheridan look terrible. Don’t they, Dena?”
“Milo,” Dena turned to her husband, “do you want to take Kenny, and Will take Sheridan, or what?”
“Are you divvying us up?” Sheridan looked amazed.
“Yes,” Milo said. “Com’on, Kenny.”
Will dragged Sheridan to the kitchen, then Layla and Dena looked at each other before walking away to allow Kenny and Milo some privacy.
In the guest room, Kenneth asked Milo: “Do you know if Chad’s coming here tonight?”
“No.”
“He isn’t?”
“No,” Milo said. “I mean, I don’t know.”
“Oh,” Kenny said.
“Why?” said Milo. “Did you guys fight? Do you want him to come? What?”
“I don’t know,” Kenny said. “I mean, I do know. I would not be adverse to him coming.”
“Would not be adverse…” Milo began. “What? Are you Will now?”
“We hung out last night. Me and Chad that is,” Kenny explained.
“Well, cool.”
“And then we ended up having… really, just the most intense sex I’ve had in a long time.”
Milo’s eyes bulged out.
“Repeat?” he said.
“I’m not repeating it,” Kenny said. “We ended up sleeping together. It made sense this morning, but I don’t know if it will make sense again.”
“Are you split up from Brendan?”
“Bren’s in Chicago. He’s cheating on me with Cook County and doing it in my face,” Kenny said. “How the hell do I know if I’ll ever see him again?”
“But do you want him?”
“I don’t know?”
“Well…” Milo cast about for something else. “Do you want Chad?”
“I don’t know.”
“Logan?”
“Don’t say it like that,” Sheridan told him.
“Well, how else should I say it?” Will raised an eyebrow. “You were with Chay for years. You’ve known him your whole life. A few days ago you asked him to move in with you, and then no sooner do you do that then you get Logan?”
“I love him, Will.”
“He’s a pornstar, Sher!”
“I know. I’ve struggled with that.”
“Poor Chay,” Will said, sitting down in the kitchen.
“Don’t you think I know that?” Sheridan said.
“You running off with Logan, and then Meredith and a rapist… Honestly.”
“You’re my brother,” Sheridan said, standing up. He was thinner than Will and looked taller. “You’re supposed to support me.”
“I am supporting you.”
“No,” Sheridan said, “you’re judging.”
“Cause what you’re doing is stupid.”
When the kitchen door swung open and Layla stuck her head in, Will realized how loud he’d been.
“Can we just go out and eat?” Sheridan said, miserably.
“Yeah, Sher,” Will snapped. “Yeah, let’s go.”
In the living room, Milo had returned from the spare room with Kenny, and they were all sitting down when there was a knock at the door.
“Who the hell could that be?”
“Oh,” Dena said, “I thought as long as we were having a little get together, we could invite a few more.”
“Cool,” said Will, while Layla shrugged.
Kenny watched Dena open the door, and standing there was Radha Hatangady, with Chad North beside her.
“So,” Nick Ferguson said. “We’re sitting on your couch, and we haven’t been watching this jazz business for some time. When are you going to tell me something about yourself?”
“Well, whaddo you want to know? I mean you know a lot already.”
“Um… you know about my love life.”
“I don’t really know anything about your love life,” Bryant Babcock said.
“You know that it’s complicated.”
Bryant was about to say that he didn’t know that infidelity was really that complicated, but let it rest. Why did he need to act superior? What was that?
“I would like to know about Chad North.”
“What about him?”
“Is it true that you and he were together?”
Bryant colored a bit and sat up.
“Who’s been talking?”
“To me, specifically? I don’t really remember. But I heard it someplace.”
“Well, it was a very long time ago,” Bryant said.
“Um. Was it brief, or did you live together?”
“We were together for about ten years.”
“That really is a long time,” Nick said, appreciatively.
“That’s a common law marriage.”
“I suppose it is.”
“So he was…. How old is he now?”
“I don’t remember.”
“Well, now you can’t forget that. He was with you for a long time.”
“I guess he’s about thirty three.”
“And you’re…” Nick smiled at him a little fiendishly, and Bryant grimaced.
“What?”
“You’re significantly older. He must have been a student.”
“He was my top pupil.”
“Wow! That’s what I call giving an apple to the teacher.”
At the infuriated look on Bryant’s face, Nick said, “Boss, I’m sorry. I’m sorry.”
He reached for Bryant’s hand.
“I didn’t mean to be out of line.”
“Well, you were.”
“I know. I didn’t want to offend you, Bryant,” he said, patting his hand. “I didn’t. I just wanted to—”
And then Nick’s mouth was on Bryant’s, and Bryant felt his fingers in his hair along with the deeper pressure of Nick’s mouth.
Bryant pulled away and, groggily, shoved Nick from him. “We could do more,” Nick said. “Why fight it? Why fight all these feelings. Let’s just be who we are.”
“I spent years being who I was, and not much good came from it.”
“Don’t you want to…?” Nick leaned in and held Bryant’s hands. “Don’t you want to fuck? Right here. In your bed or in this room. Just let go. I know you feel the way about me I do about you.”
“You have to go,” Bryant said, looking for his coat.
“My coat’s over there,” Nick pointed to the closet as he stood up. “And don’t pretend you didn’t invite me here with sex in mind.”
“You’re right,” Bryant said, taking his coat. “I did. But the good thing about being forty-seven is now I know I can change my mind.”
At the door, he handed the coat to Nick.
“This is probably not a good idea, because I can’t really trust myself around you. and I need to be able to trust myself. Good night, Nick.”
Nick put on his coat with an expressionless face and said, “And don’t come back?”
Bryant told him, “It might be better that way.”
