Page 7 of Another Chance
“All right, buddy, here you are,” the cabbie said, shooting a glumly gleeful look into the back seat. Or was that all in Theo’s mind, that this cabbie, this ambassador from the big city, where Theo belonged, was mocking him. Seattle, after all, wasn’t New York, but it was at least in the same ballpark.
This town might as well have been a different world.
Theo heaved a sigh and paid the driver, then, not without a certain reluctance, he got out of the car. Leaning only to grab his bag, he had the sudden, absolutely absurd urge to fling himself back into the car and scream to the cab driver to take him back where he belonged.
Ridiculous. This was just an old house. The worst thing he had to worry about was some seriously intense dust, maybe mold. At the very, very worst, he might come face to face with some rats or mice or something else that had made his house their home while he’d been gone.
Nothing as terrifying as what he was making this out to be.
He was just turning around, away from the car, and closing the door, when he heard the low rumble of a motor approaching. Until then, the tiny town had seemed almost deserted, Theo hadn’t seen anyone, though it was approaching sundown and just about the time that most of the good people would be settling down to dinner.
This was the first sign of life that he’d really seen, other than himself and the cabbie, who didn’t really seem to believe in a place like this. Indeed, the driver couldn’t wait to get away, it seemed. Maybe he felt it, too, like the town itself was rejecting the man just as much as the man was rejecting the town.
What did the town, he wondered, think about him? Was he going to be rejected, too? He didn’t feel like he had been, not exactly, but maybe it was too soon to tell. After all, hadn’t he rejected this town just as much as the cabbie ever had? Maybe even more, because this had been his home once.
In general, he liked his mind, but sometimes, his imagination got away from him. If only he could channel all of this weirdness, these flights of fancy, into his next book, which he didn’t even have a strong idea about yet.
The problem was, he’d been finished with his last one for a few months, and he hadn’t really done much to start working on a new book since then. His agent was breathing down his neck for an outline, or hell, even just a proposal. The American public, he’d been informed grandly, was waiting for his next book with bated breath. He was practically a sadist just to make them wait as long as he had.
The sound of the motor got louder, and Theo remembered, way back, years and years ago, the sound of a motor very similar to this one. He remembered the hot smell of oil, and machinery, and the hood lifted to see the engine beneath.
Basic vehicle maintenance he could do, and all because of one man. One man who had taught him enough that he would not need to be helpless by the side of the road while driving.
That sound brought back the memory, one that he hadn’t thought about in years, one which he would have thought if anyone had mentioned it to him, that he had completely forgotten. Only he hadn’t, part of him hadn’t. It had been his first car, used, of course, almost falling apart.
If not for Eric, Theo would have spent thousands of dollars, or, more likely, it just would have sat in his parents’ driveway.
The truck pulled up, a black pickup which was immediately recognizable to Theo. But no. It wasn’t possible. Eric wouldn’t have the same truck, not after all of these years. No matter that Eric was good with cars, with trucks, he would have replaced this one. There were no such things as miracles.
There were so many black trucks in the world, after all. But this one, the engine purred like a kitten, and though it had obviously been well loved, it was clean, and there were no dents, no rust, anywhere.
Theo stood and stared. Something inside him, some instinct, was screaming at him that he needed to run, that he needed to get out of there, get into the dubious safety of the house. Not only before the man driving the truck saw him, but, perhaps more importantly, before Theo saw the man.
Because he might deny it, and he did deny it, but he knew who the man was from a full block away. He knew who he was even when he was marveling at how well the truck had been maintained, a truck which he and Eric had spent countless hours just riding around in.
The same truck. He knew that, too, though he couldn’t have exactly said how.
His heart was beating, he could feel the pounding, the tingling, right down his spine and into the very tips of his fingers and toes. He could feel the rushing of the blood through his veins, hot like lava, sending sparks through him as the truck got closer.
Just as he’d known would happen, the truck stopped at the house directly across the street from Theo’s, and a moment later, that purring engine was shut off, and silence renewed its hold on the neighborhood. Just for a few seconds, though, because soon enough, the truck door was pushed open and then he was there, swinging down to the ground with the same grace which Theo had envied so very much in high school.
It was him. It was Eric. The sun was setting, and the light touched his former best friend and painted him red and orange and pink, but it was light enough that Theo could see everything, even from across the street. Eric turned toward him, and Theo saw his face, and once more, he had that curious, unsettling sensation of having the years rush away from under him, leaving him staggering to try to catch up with the reverse passage of time.
Eric. Eric, who was just as beautiful as he’d always been, his eyes as large and round as ever, his cheekbones high and strong, his lips as full and sensual as ever. No man should be that pretty. It wasn’t even fair. Eric was a walking wet dream, pure sex on legs, and that hadn’t changed in the eight years they’d been apart.
Eric was a trifle taller, maybe. Theo wasn’t sure, though. He did note that his shoulders were broader, his arms more massive, and that this handsome, strong, utterly gorgeous man was, if anything, even better than ever.
Theo stood as though paralyzed, feeling the pulse, the slow burn, of something which he had never let himself feel before as he looked at the man who had been his best friend. The man he’d walked away from.
No. The man he had run away from. But only because he’d been so terrified of what that kiss all those years ago had made him feel. If only he’d known then, and accepted then, what he had accepted now. However uneasy that acceptance was.
He stood there, barely feeling the ground under his feet, not even truly feeling the growing chill in the air as the sun sunk below the horizon, and only noting the fading of the light insofar as it kept him from fully being able to see Eric anymore, sort of blurring the edges.
Then Eric turned, and his body moved with that same impossible grace, which seemed to catch eyes and hold them without any effort required on his part. It had been that way even in high school, though it was an effect that Eric seemed to be largely oblivious about.
Was there someone in Eric’s life now? Someone to appreciate what Theo had been scared of? Some man? Some woman? Eric had always dated women, at least as far as Theo knew, but then he had kissed Theo, so what did that mean?
It was as though Eric felt Theo’s eyes on him, and he turned to face Theo. Even across the street, even in the growing darkness, their eyes caught and held and then Theo couldn’t have looked away, not for anything in the world.
