Loose Cannon Read online

  Church managed to wrench his gaze away from Kontakte’s fingers only to have it land on the man’s wet cheeks. The gears inside him ground more harshly at the sight, ate at him, turned him into dry bones. His hands tightened into fists instinctively, but for once, it was surprisingly easy to shake them out. Hitting wouldn’t help, and besides, it wouldn’t make the feeling go away. Nothing did. Nothing on the outside had anything to do with it. It was him, had always been him, and he was so tired of it.

  “I’m sorry I hurt you,” Church managed. “I don’t expect you to forgive me, but if it is you doing the damage, you should know that it’s not my stuff being busted—it’s my roommate’s.”

  There. Done. Now he could run. He just had to get to the car. If he got to the car he could cover his ears with his hands until all of this went away. Christ, he wished he were alone. He wanted to get away. Away from Kontakte, from Tobias. He was so damn grateful Miller wasn’t here to see him like this, to see what he was.

  If there were a way to get away from himself, he’d take that too.

  He barely managed to turn around before Kontakte snapped, “Wait. Shit. Just wait. All right? Goddamn it.”

  Church flinched. He couldn’t. He couldn’t take any more of it, because he couldn’t hit this man (even if he wanted to, which he didn’t, he wished he did, because that would be easier), and he didn’t know how to take it without fighting back.

  “Goddamn it, kid, would you wait a fucking second?” Kontakte crowded up beside him, tugging on his arm, gentler than Church would’ve expected as he pulled Church to face him. Kontakte’s forehead was sweaty, his eyes behind their glasses still wet and bright. He studied Church from too close for what felt like an age before he settled back on his heels. “Would you come in the damn house?”

  Church must’ve misheard. “What?”

  “Well, why do you think I told your parole woman that you could come over? Jesus, you think I planned for people in my neighborhood to see this? I’ll be lucky if they don’t have my ex over here to get me committed, screaming at you on the lawn this way.”

  “I—”

  “You know what?” Kontakte interrupted. “How about you don’t talk, okay? I think I can do this if you don’t talk. Just get in here and eat some cookies.”

  Tobias had to tow Church back up the sidewalk, because Church was too busy pinching himself to make sure he hadn’t fallen into a nightmare.

  “He said he didn’t do it,” Church muttered to Tobias. He pressed the heel of his hand against the ache in his chest. “We don’t need to be here.”

  “Don’t be a wimp. You owe him this.” At the porch, Tobias smiled pleasantly at Kontakte, his hand still clamped around Church’s wrist. “You mentioned cookies?”

  * * *

  George Kontakte’s living room had a woman in it once; that was clear from the doilies under the lamps and the flowered, stitched pillows, but everything was faded and worn now. The air reeked of that sharp alcohol and chemical mint smell that came from muscle liniment. A medical device with wires trailing from it like snakes rested on the coffee table.

  Kontakte caught Church looking. “TENS unit. Helps with the nerve pain. I’m off the pills.”

  Kontakte was in the recliner in front of the TV, Church was in an old armchair and Tobias was perched on the sofa, nibbling at a peanut butter cookie.

  Church wasn’t supposed to talk, so he kicked Tobias on the ankle.

  “Ow!” Tobias aimed a polite smile at Kontakte when the man gave him a suspicious glance. “Um, nice pictures?”

  Kontakte twisted to look behind him, and Church’s gaze followed. A big portrait of a family hung on the wall—Kontakte, an older woman with brown hair and three girls of varying ages grouped around them with matching smiles. “That’s, my ex, Nancy.” Kontakte pointed at each of the girls in turn. “That’s Mandy, Caroline and Rebecca. They’re older now, obviously.”

  “Are they good students?”

  “Yeah. Mandy handled the divorce the best, but she was already away at college, so she wasn’t as affected. Caroline does gymnastics. Got third place at State. Rebecca got in a little trouble that year, and she hasn’t picked her grades up all the way yet, but she’ll get there.”

  “That’s nice,” Tobias said, and because he was Tobias, he meant it.

  Church didn’t bother to say anything. He figured he still wasn’t allowed, so he studied the pictures instead. Mandy had clever eyes. Caroline was a little goofy-looking in that awkward teenager way, and the littlest girl, Rebecca, was missing her two front teeth. She looked about nine or ten. He wondered what kind of trouble she could’ve gotten into.

  They were sitting in awkward silence when Church said, “Okay, so what are we doing here? I mean, not to be a jerk, but this is kind of freaking me out.”

  Kontakte exhaled hard, and Church thought for a minute that he’d pissed the guy off again, but he didn’t throw them out.

  “I promised my daughter that I’d try,” he said stiffly. “Mandy majors in psychology. She has all these theories, all the time, spouting theories. Last semester it was all about my substance abuse and now it’s all about my anger. Can tell which class she’s in by the way she tries to fix me. Told her it was too late, but she don’t listen for nothing. I promised her that I wouldn’t let my anger ruin what I have left, though, and when I told her that your parole lady called, she asked me how I would want someone to treat her, if she were in your position.”

  “Why would she do that?” Church asked. Without his permission, it came out small and shocked.

  Kontakte’s mouth turned soft at the corners. “Because unlike you and me, kid, my Mandy is decent. If I had to tell you how many times I’ve heard ‘Look at it from their perspective.’ So you’re gonna eat the milk and cookies so my kid’ll get off my back, okay? And that way I can have the—the whatever it was she was talking about. Closure.”

  Tobias nudged a cookie in Church’s direction. He put it in his mouth automatically, and immediately wished he hadn’t. It had the consistency of cement. He had to gulp down half the milk so he didn’t feel like he was choking.

  “You said someone messed up your roommate’s truck,” Kontakte said abruptly.

  Church nodded.

  “Not this guy’s?” he pointed a twitching finger at Tobias, who shook his head.

  “One of his parole requirements is to live with a responsible adult to support him while he makes some changes in his life.”

  Church gave him a dirty look, and Kontakte snorted. “Changes. People like him don’t change, hero. Mean goes to the bones.”

  “Church isn’t mean,” Tobias said quietly. “He grew up with a man who used his anger like a weapon, and for a long time, Church didn’t know any other way to be. It makes him strike out sometimes because he doesn’t always know how to handle it, but he doesn’t want to hurt anyone—”

  “Tobias, are you fucking kidding me?” Church hissed under his breath.

  “He’s not the bad guy, Church.” Tobias gestured to Kontakte. His gaze was heavy, his heart already bleeding on Kontakte’s behalf as much as Church’s. “He’s willing to listen. Why not be honest?”

  “You never get to say that you’re not a cartoon character again,” Church told him. “You’re ridiculous.”

  Tobias just took a patient sip of his milk.

  Kontakte stared at Church. “Your dad ever tell you that you’re stupid?”

  Church shrugged. Talking about this with Kontakte was asking for trouble.

  “You do stupid shit, you get called stupid,” Kontakte pointed out. “Way of the world. He probably got called stupid by his dad. Maybe you should cut your old man some slack.”

  “He hits my mom,” Church said flatly. “He doesn’t get jack shit from me.”

  Kontakte’s lips twisted like he’d e
aten something gone bad. He wrestled with it for a minute, then said, “Doesn’t make anything you did okay.”

  “Never said it did.” Church’s grip tightened around his cookie until it started to crumble. He held it over his napkin because it seemed like a dick move to get peanut butter in the guy’s carpet after everything else. His stomach rolled over.

  Kontakte cleared his throat. “Why?”

  “Why did I get mad? Maybe because you followed me down the street telling me I was a fuckup, that’s why. You could’ve left it at ‘no,’ dude, and I would’ve left you alone.”

  “So maybe I deserved the first punch, but the rest of it?” Kontakte’s jaw set. “Why didn’t you stop?”

  Church’s mouth went dry. He thought about it for a long minute and figured, the hell with it. Maybe Tobias was right. The guy was listening. “You sounded like him. That night. Telling me that I was a loser. They made me take all this therapy when I was in treatment, and... I hit when I hear shit like that because I’m scared my dad’s right. It doesn’t make it okay, but that’s why. You sounded like him, and I had too much mad for one punch.”

  Kontakte’s right leg jittered. He seemed torn. Maybe wanting to rip Church a new one for putting his issues into Kontakte’s lap, or maybe feeling sympathetic but pissed off about it. Who knew?

  Finally, he said, “If you don’t want the rest of the cookie, put it back on the damn plate.” He sounded tired. “And I guess that’s good enough. You can go.”

  * * *

  “You don’t drink,” Tobias said, when they were driving away.

  “No.”

  “So why were you asking him to buy you booze?”

  “Because I’d hit Miller and I thought he hated me and I was seventeen and stupid, and I figured if alcohol didn’t make stuff better, there wouldn’t be so many alcoholics, right? God knows my dad sure couldn’t do without it.” Church gnawed on his lip. “My mom used to say that the liquor made him mean, but that’s bullshit. Being drunk doesn’t change the kind of person you are. If it did, everyone would get violent when they were drinking. Alcohol just makes it easier to do the shit you already wanted to do. I don’t need booze to know I’m an asshole, and I don’t need more excuses. I’ve got to be better than this.”

  His peripheral vision caught Tobias glancing at him in concern, but Church stared out the window. There was no eye contact with a window. Windows were nice things.

  “He didn’t vandalize Miller’s truck or the yard or throw that rock,” Tobias said.

  “I know.”

  “Did apologizing make you feel better?”

  “He’s right, I wouldn’t have worked up the nerve if I hadn’t needed something from him. Probably cancels it out.”

  “But hey, at least you got some closure out of it.”

  “Yeah.” Church leaned his head back and closed his eyes. “Thanks, hero.”

  Church bought Tobias lunch in appreciation of the ride and emotional support. He didn’t pay for Tobias’s ice cream cone as punishment for the gratuitous sharing of Church’s business. Tobias smiled sunnily at him anyway, because he was a freak.

  Later, after Tobias dropped him off, Church sat on the porch to take stock. He didn’t feel any better. He wasn’t sure he’d ever feel at peace with what he’d done, and he was actually sort of okay with that, because he wasn’t sure he should. It would take a much wiser person than him to say whether he’d paid for it enough to justify letting go of his guilt.

  He was rubbing his temples with his fingertips when Miller came outside, hands in his pockets, squinting in the weak sunlight.

  “Hey.” Miller’s voice cracked. “Can we talk?”

  Chapter Seventeen

  For a second, Miller was afraid that Church was going to refuse. But he dropped his hands into his lap and said, “Sure. Pull up a stair.”

  Miller made himself sit down next to Church on the top step. His breath fogged in the cold air and the frozen boards beneath him immediately began leeching the body heat out of his thighs and ass.

  They sat in silence for a while. It wasn’t exactly easy silence, but it wasn’t as bad as it had been lately, either. Miller took heart from that.

  “You know that question you asked me?” Miller asked eventually. “The last time. Uh, in the workshop?”

  “The one about why it’s hard for you to accept it if you don’t think it’s wrong?”

  It was a testament to Church’s ability to read Miller that he’d made sense out of that vague reference. Miller nodded.

  “Did you come up with an answer?”

  “Maybe.” Miller ran his sweaty hands over his thighs. “How did it go, telling your parents?”

  “That I’m gay? Clusterfuck.”

  “Oh.”

  “But consider who I was telling, man. I could’ve said I’d won a million dollars for saving the president’s baby from, hell, falling in a volcano or something, and he still would’ve thought I was shit.”

  Miller took a moment to once more hate the hell out of Church’s dad. “And your mom?”

  “I think she mostly wished I hadn’t said anything because it set him off. I don’t know what she thought beyond that. We never talked about it.”

  “But once you were done, you felt better? Having said it. Uh, coming out? It was better after?”

  Church bit his lower lip, his mobile face folding into an expression almost like a wince.

  “You’re thinking about lying to me,” Miller said mildly, and Church dropped his eyes and laughed, a little shamefaced.

  “Yeah, I was.”

  “Don’t. Please?”

  “It’s just that it never really ends. Coming out, I mean. Like, the first time you say it to someone, it feels huge, you know? It feels good too, like you’re committed. But it doesn’t only happen once. Every day, any time the subject comes up, any time a form asks for your wife’s name or someone in line making small talk asks if you’re waiting for your girlfriend or something, it’s there. You have to decide whether you’re gonna fix the assumption the other person made. So it’s better in some ways, Miller, but it’s never something you can put a check mark next to.”

  Miller’s throat tightened, and he wished he’d let Church lie to him.

  “You don’t have to say it until you’re ready.” Church’s dark eyes were so damn kind that Miller couldn’t mind that Church seemed to think the question of Miller’s orientation had already been answered.

  “I’m fucking this up with you, aren’t I?” Church asked.

  “No. You could never fuck up with me.”

  Church laughed again, but it was tight this time, maybe a little bitter. “You don’t even know what I’m talking about, do you? That’s like your...the answer you always go to. What’s the word?”

  “My default?”

  “Yeah. Your default is to say I could never fuck up with you.”

  “It’s true.”

  “I should... I should tell you something.” Church studied the plank of the bottom stair, so Miller only got his profile. His Adam’s apple bobbed, and his cheek was already stubbled.

  After a long moment, Miller prompted him with “Okay?”

  Church licked his lips, his mouth working, his shoulders and the line of his neck corded with tension. He blew out a breath, cheeks puffing outward. “Fuck,” he muttered.

  “Must be a doozy,” Miller said, getting concerned.

  “Yeah.”

  Miller carefully touched Church’s knee. “You can tell me anything.”

  Church lifted his head, looked Miller in the eye, opened his mouth, and...stalled. A few seconds went by, and his shoulders slumped. “I—I care about you. That’s what I wanted to say, I guess. I gotta do better, Miller. With everything, but especially with you. I don’t want y
ou to be alone in this. I want you to feel safe with me here. If that means you need me to back off, you know, like, give you some space to figure your shit out, I can do that. Or maybe...”

  Church rambled on, but Miller tuned him out to concentrate on those shadowed brown eyes and the downturned curve of Church’s mouth as he spoke. He was huddled into his hoodie like he was cold, and the still smallness of him in that moment struck Miller as deeply wrong. Church was never still or small. He was everything that Miller associated with movement, with energy and emotion and battle.

  Miller wished he could explain in a way that would make Church believe him. Miller would use a million words if he had to, if he could, to explain that the fight in Church wasn’t all bad. It could be destructive, yes, but it also gave him strength. It had ensured that Church survived a father who hit him and called him stupid. It was in the way Church took responsibility for his failures and struggled to be more than the world believed he could be. It was in the way he didn’t let anyone or anything scare him into losing something that mattered to him.

  He was everything Miller wasn’t, and maybe that was okay. Miller didn’t have that kind of reckless grit, that rough determination, but Church wanted him anyway. It didn’t matter what Miller was supposed to be. With Church, Miller didn’t have to be anything but what he was.

  Maybe it didn’t fix all the problems or make all the fear drop away, but it was enough.

  He leaned in, used a hand to tip Church’s face to his, and kissed him.

  Church kept talking for a half-second, and his mouth was... Well, it was sort of like kissing a fish, because Church hadn’t seen it coming. Hell, Miller hadn’t seen it coming. Church’s breath puffed against his lips and the press of their mouths became an actual kiss, and Church was kissing him back, cupping his cheek, and it was...

  It was so ordinary.

  Not that it wasn’t a great kiss, because it was, now that Church’s head was in the game. It was sweet and soft and eager, and it was definitely working, based on the hot little clutch in Miller’s belly, but more than that, it was normal.