The Prayer Waltz Page 4

  Their turn toward each other was simultaneous, a mutual acceptance of their fate. Evan didn’t even realize they were face-to-face until his head lowered and his lips brushed Frank’s. They were smooth and soft, like his hair, like his freshly laundered T-shirt. Evan cupped Frank’s head. He felt the back of his shirt bunch and tighten in Frank’s fist….

  “WAS the rest of it good for you?” I asked hesitantly.

  Evan nodded. “Kind of. Until I started going to St. Jerry’s. I wanted to see what he did, meet the people he did it for. Then it stopped being so good, no matter where we met—my house, a job site. And then Bobby Bruckner came along.”

  I sat up and angled to face him. “Who?”

  Evan rolled his head on the back of the chair to meet my gaze. “I’m pretty sure I wasn’t the only guy in the county Frank fooled around with.” He turned back toward the fire. “I just hope and pray he kept his hands off my boy.”

  Chapter Five

  Hi Buddy.

  I worked at St Jerrys again last evening and sent out some prayers for you, mostly that you get to laugh alot, fly around with angels, play ball (every position), win all your games, eat all your favorite food, have all kinds of fun farting around with Smokey, and make the best friends you ever had anywhere. No more school either. You good with that? Whisper to me when I’m asleep if theres something else you want. (Sorry no video games buddy, I won’t pray for those).

  Have you run into Frank where you are? I met a guy this evening who knew Frank after he left the Falls and he said Frank passed on too.

  Mogie I need to ask you about some stuff that came up before and after you got taken away. I hope it don’t bother you but its been eating at me. I also need to tell you some things. OK?

  Remember when I asked you about girlfriends and proms and such, and why you always liked hanging out with your possee instead of going on dates and the like? You said Dad I don’t go out on dates because I can’t date the people I want to. Then after you were gone I found some stuff in your room and on your computer.

  Buddy did you like boys more than girls? You know what I mean. I think you probly did based on what I found, I just wish you’d talked to me about it. I wouldn’t of been upset. Trust me on this. It hurts to think you were afraid or ashamed or whatever to tell me. All I ever wanted was you to be happy, do you know that? I hope you know that Mogie. I never cared if you got married and all that crap. Just happy and contented. How you got there didn’t matter to me as long as drugs or crime didn’t do it for you.

  I got more to ask and tell you but I should wrap this up as I’m not at home. Will write again soon tho.

  Love you and think of you every day.

  Dad

  I HEARD the closet doors creak open and snick shut as I lifted my eyelids. A tall, dark, handsome man seemed to be slipping something into the pocket of a jacket. Brilliant sunlight whitewashed the room.

  Heaven?

  No. Prism Falls. The Edelweiss Inn. Evan McAllister.

  We obviously hadn’t had sex. I would’ve remembered if something had happened. Four or five beers with a break in between were hardly enough to blot out my memory. Besides, I was still dressed.

  It was 8:03.

  “Evan?”

  Startled, he jerked his head to the left. “Oh, hi.”

  “Good morning. Are you filling your pockets with little soaps and shampoos?”

  He took me seriously enough to get jittery. “No! No, just a notebook. I carry it around with me, jot things down….”

  “What the fuck are you doing here?” The last thing I’d told him last night was that I was bushed and had a headache and couldn’t think anymore. I needed some sleep. That was right after I’d tried to reassure him that Frank would never have made a pass at his adolescent son.

  But what did I know?

  “Look outside,” Evan said.

  Squinting against the glare, I threw aside the covers that barely covered me, got up, and padded to one of the room’s two windows. My eyes got squintier.

  “Holy shit.”

  “That’s what I’m doing here. It’s called being stranded.”

  The town was blanketed with snow. Not a pretty dusting, but enough to swallow a person’s legs nearly up to the knees. I turned back to the room’s interior. It took several seconds for my retinas to return to normal.

  “But you left last night,” I reminded him.

  “And I came back. Once I got down to the parking lot and weighed my odds of getting home, considering the beer I’d consumed and the snow, I figured I’d be better off staying put. Guess you didn’t think to lock your door before you crawled into the sack.”

  I couldn’t remember, but Evan had no reason to lie. “Well, I can’t argue with your reasoning.” Yawning, I dropped to a sit on the edge of the bed. “So where’d you sleep?”

  “I pulled together the wingchairs.”

  “That couldn’t have been too comfortable.”

  “I’ve slept in worse places.” Evan finally moved away from the closet and took a seat in a chair near the bed.

  I half-assedly wished he’d crawled into the sack with me. It was queen size. Waking up to some deft fondling would’ve been a nice surprise… or maybe not. My body needed it; my mind didn’t.

  I glanced down at my shirtfront. God, I must’ve looked like shit—rumpled clothes, messed-up hair, a day’s worth of whisker growth. I smoothed my hands over my head and imagined every wild strand sneering at me: Fuck you. It’s more fun doing what we want to do.

  I did a double take when I glanced at Evan. “What’re you smiling at?”

  “You looked so put-together when I saw you in church yesterday.”

  “Yeah, well, two hours in the bathroom giveth and eight hours of sleep taketh away.” And shit happens in between. Like finding out your dead lover kept a whole lot of secrets.

  Evan’s smile widened. “Too bad. You used to be a hot-looking man.”

  Now I squinted again, but for a different reason. “Are you flirting with me? Because I can’t stand anybody flirting with me before I’ve dropped my deuce and brushed my teeth.”

  “Boy, you are one romantic guy, Steve.”

  “Actually, I am. But I just woke up, and I still have yesterday’s clothes on, and no coffee has yet passed my lips. So I have a right to be grumpy and vulgar for a while.”

  Without a word, Evan got up and circled the bed. He lifted a small tray off the far nightstand, retraced his steps, and set the tray on my lap.

  “There,” he said. “Now knock it off.”

  I looked down. Coffee in a stoneware mug. Teaspoon. Small pitcher of cream. Bowl of sugar and a fan of Splenda packets. I probably hadn’t seen the tray earlier because I’d been so shocked to see Evan.

  “You brought me this?” Grateful, I lifted the mug and drank.

  Evan had resumed his seat. “Yeah, your fairy godmother.”

  In spite of the fact I hadn’t brushed my teeth, I grinned.

  “And FYI, I don’t know how to flirt.”

  “Then how do you get laid?”

  Evan blushed. “I don’t. Much.”

  Another two swigs of coffee, and it was time to get off the bed. Evan had apparently showered as I slept, and the sight and smell of him were beginning to make me profoundly restless in the crotch. He was more than a blip now.

  Still, it seemed too weird to get involved with a guy who lived in another state, cleaned church floors as a hobby, and, worse yet, was my late lover’s ex-lover. Way too weird.

  “I gotta get cleaned up.” After setting the tray on the bed, I shuffled over to the closet, where my luggage was stashed. “I feel bad you can’t have breakfast here, Evan, but you’re not a guest.”

  “That’s not a problem. I know the Hofstadters. In fact, I’ve already talked to Connie. How do you think I scored the coffee?”

  “What did you tell her?”

  Evan shrugged one shoulder. “Just that you’re an out-of-town friend and we got to talkin
g last night, didn’t realize how fast the snow was piling up.”

  Half in the closet (an image that wasn’t lost on me where Evan was concerned), I gathered up some fresh clothes and my shaving kit. “Hope you didn’t use up all the damned towels,” I muttered.

  “I wouldn’t do that,” Evan said.

  The mix of mild hurt and indignation in his voice made me smile. “I’m sorry. I was thinking of John Candy in Planes, Trains, and Automobiles.”

  “That’s okay,” he said humbly. “You don’t really know me.” And then, without transition, “I like that movie. It’s funny as hell.”

  Christ, he was so refreshingly ingenuous. I was actually beginning to crush on him a little.

  The shower I took was one of the strangest I’d ever taken, aside from the time Deron Washington ran a loofah up my butt crack at the health club where we worked out at the time. The loofah move was strange enough; the fact we didn’t know each other was even stranger. But we made friends very fast. Late nights at the Renaissance Fitness Center’s locker room and sauna were never boring after that. Of course, that was pre-Frank.

  As I soaped and scrubbed, I was keenly aware of Evan on the other side of the door. I imagined his reaction to watching me. I imagined him soaping and scrubbing his body. The thoughts coaxed my dick out of its snooze, and pretty soon I was on my knees, breathlessly pumping something other than suds and water down the drain.

  The orgasm felt so damned good it made me shiver all over. I wilted forward as it waned, idly cupping my balls, my thumb still curled around the base of my cock. I suddenly wished I could go on a three-day sexual bender.

  When I finally left the bathroom, all put-together again and considerably more at ease than I’d been yesterday, Evan was standing at one of the curtained windows and talking on his cell. The conversation seemed related to his business, some kind of equipment problem. As soon as he saw I was ready to face the world, he signed off.

  We went downstairs to the small dining room, its tables set with crisp, white, eyelet-edged linens and demure crystal budvases holding blue and white hyacinths. The skiers I’d seen the day before weren’t there, but another couple was, and they chatted quietly over tea as Evan and I took a seat.

  Connie Hofstadter, an energetic, forty-something woman with a thick blonde braid and a shiny, makeup-free face, came breezing in through the swinging door that led to the kitchen. She checked on the tea drinkers, then headed to our table with the full carafe she carried.

  “Good morning, gentlemen.” Her left hand briefly lighted on Evan’s shoulder. “Sorry you got stuck here, hon. Plows should be coming through soon.”

  She gave us the rundown of today’s three breakfast choices and hustled back into the kitchen. I was glad she and Evan had had a chance to catch up earlier. There was nothing more tedious than listening to a conversation about people, places, and things one knew nothing about. The other couple cast us curious looks as they got up and left.

  “Excuse me a minute,” Evan said to me. He rose and donned his jacket, which he’d brought down with him. “I want to see how things are going out there.”

  I assumed he was referring to the snow-removal situation and, specifically, just how buried his truck was. He seemed the kind of man who was used to taking charge, being in control. As he strode through the dining room to the lobby, his wide, Carhartt-covered shoulders filling each room he was in, I had to remind myself he was every bit as gay as I was.

  I didn’t have to remind myself that my desire level was on the rise. Naked, he must’ve looked like a freakin’ god.

  Two newspapers sat on a Scandinavian-style sideboard, and I went to get one. The content didn’t hold my attention. My mind kept drifting over the events of last night. Connie delivered our breakfasts—biscuits and gravy for Evan, something she called an apple dumpling crepe for me—and I was again struck by the difference between country queer and city queer. We did have one thing in common, though: Frank Connor.

  Evan returned, quickly took his seat, and downed half his glass of cranberry-and-something juice. His wealth of jet hair was tousled, his cheeks were rouged from the cold, and he looked even more like a freakin’ god. After giving me a brief status report, he began eating.

  “Doesn’t it bother you to be having breakfast with me?” I asked.

  He glanced up. “No. Why should it? It’s not like you’re dribbling or anything.”

  “But we’re in a bed-and-breakfast, not a diner.”

  “Meaning?”

  “Think about the term ‘bed-and-breakfast’. Only guests eat here. They slide their asses out of bed and then come downstairs to have breakfast. Get it?”

  The gully between Evan’s brows deepened. “So?”

  “People probably assume we’re a couple.”

  “The Hofstadters know we’re not a couple.”

  “I’m not talking about the Hofstadters. I’m talking about the other lodgers.”

  “They don’t know us and we don’t know them. Why should it matter what they think?”

  I studied his face, the web of shallow creases, the strong nose and charcoal-shadowed chin with its handsome divot, the severe yet somehow sensuous mouth. “You know, I like you.”

  The declaration didn’t fluster him. “I kind of like you too, Steve.”

  “Kind of?”

  Evan’s fork stilled for a moment. “Kind of is the best I can do until I know you better.”

  Until. The word choice made me smile. Evan almost met the smile—his mouth did a small, quick stretch, the way it had done at the church—then his eyelids fluttered down, and he concentrated on his food.

  Had Frank been this disarmed by him? Or had it been the other way around? I began to think it was the other way around, that Evan had been beguiled by Frank, and Frank had simply weakened under the force of the lumberjack’s physical assets.

  “Evan, what made you think Frank didn’t die of natural causes?” I asked.

  His gaze shifted from the lobby area to the kitchen door.

  “It’s safe,” I said. “I already looked.” A snow blower growled outside, which accounted for Pete Hofstadter’s whereabouts, and Connie was visible at the reception desk, where she’d gone after delivering our meals. The French doors between dining room and lobby were closed.

  We still kept our voices down.

  “I don’t know,” Evan said. He sounded bemused. “I just had a feeling he wouldn’t live to be an old man, regardless of his jogging and vegetarian diet and good works and all the other shit. He was a good-natured guy on the surface, in a mellow kind of way, but beneath that he seemed all wrapped up in—”

  Sackcloth and ashes. I didn’t say it. I was surprised I’d thought it.

  “A very personal trip,” Evan concluded.

  “He was a priest,” I said. “He was naturally contemplative. At that time, he was probably feeling pretty guilty too.”

  The “contemplative” part was poetic license. Frank was a complex man. Yes, he did have his periods of thoughtful silence. But he was also quite sociable, had a wicked sense of humor, and sometimes had a sharp tongue. I’d seen and heard him laugh plenty. I’d witnessed his anger and heard his verbal scourges far less often, but they too were an undeniable part of his nature. The one time he lashed out at me, he was tearfully repentant and literally got on his knees to beg my forgiveness. He was that terrified of losing me.

  “Maybe,” Evan said, considering my explanation for Frank’s perceived melancholy. “But there were other things I noticed.”

  “Like what?”

  “Like… smelling alcohol on his breath, and seeing marks on his body.”

  My hand froze as I reached for my coffee mug. “Marks? What kinds of marks?” The alcohol was easily enough explained. Priests drank wine during Mass. A lot of them enjoyed cocktails too. No big deal. But marks?

  Evan’s face had gathered. He looked distressed. “Like… bruises on his arms and legs, scratches or welts or something on his back.”


  “How did he explain them?” I could feel my expression mirroring Evan’s as I tried to recall if I’d seen anything like that.

  “Oh, he said the bruises were from a carnival ride or from bumping into a piece of furniture or from an accident during ball practice. The red marks were from the rectory cat getting spooked and jumping out of his arms. He always had an explanation. He called himself a klutz.”

  I knew that part was bullshit. Frank was a nimble man with perfect vision and quick reflexes. It was possible I’d spotted a bruise on him now and then, but I couldn’t remember. I wouldn’t have even noticed a bruise unless it was really horrific, so I’d obviously put Frank’s occasional minor injuries out of my mind.

  “Stuff like that happens to people all the time,” I said.

  “Frank was no klutz, Steve. And remember, this all took place in a pretty short period. It wasn’t spread out over a bunch of years.”

  Thinking, I tapped on the table. There’d been times when Frank and I went two or three weeks without seeing each other. Of course, we talked on the phone almost daily, but that didn’t mean….

  That didn’t mean I knew what was going on with him and whether he was waiting for certain “marks” to go away.

  “Well,” I said, “he was a bottom. Maybe that has something to do with it. Maybe—”

  Evan was all hunched over. His eyes shifted around like slippery ball bearings. “Shhh.”

  “Nobody can hear us. Didn’t he bottom for you?”

  Blushing furiously, Evan paused before he jerked out a nod. “If I understand you right,” he mumbled.

  “You understand me just fine. Unless I suddenly started speaking Mandarin without realizing it.”

  “I was never that rough,” he said in the same rusty-mouthed Tin Man way.

  “That’s not what I meant. Maybe he took it a step further. Maybe he was a sub, too, with somebody somewhere you didn’t know about.”