Promises

CHAPTER 9

A WEEK later, Matt showed up on my doorstep just after five o’clock. He still had his uniform on. I was glad to see him.

“Let’s go,” he said as soon as I opened the door. “I’ll buy you dinner.”

Once we were in the Jeep, he said, “I need to stop by my place on the way. I want to change.” I hadn’t been to his house yet and was curious to see how he lived.

It turned out that he didn’t live in a house at all. He pulled up in front of a strip of apartments. Had it been bigger, it might have been called a condo. It was a long narrow rectangle of white brick, containing four claustrophobic one-bedroom flats.

We walked in the door, and I was stunned by the sterile emptiness of the place. Most of the tiny living room was taken up by one of those giant strength-building home gyms you see on TV. In addition to that, there was one metal folding chair, an old wooden end table (being used as a coffee table, in front of the one chair), and a TV sitting on a milk crate. And it was the cleanest bachelor pad I had ever seen.

“Wow. Nice place. The prison cell motif is really working for you. Very feng shui.”

He gave me the pseudo-smile: cocked eyebrow and one side of his mouth twitching up. “Here I’ve been thinking you weren’t really gay, and then you go and use words like ‘motif’ and ‘feng shui.’” I had to laugh at that. “Make yourself at home,” he called over his shoulder as he went into the bedroom to change.

The cliché sentiment sounded ridiculous; nothing had ever felt less like a home.

Behind the living room, next to what passed for a kitchen, was a nook that couldn’t quite be called a dining room. It held a rickety card table and another metal folding chair. But I was surprised to see that the entire back wall was taken up by a large book case stuffed full to bursting. I walked over to browse the titles. They were crammed in every which way, but I soon realized that they were sorted by genre and were roughly alphabetical by author. Talk about neat and tidy. One shelf was law-related, police procedurals, and criminal justice textbooks. Then more non-fiction, mostly related to war and the military, but also a few biographies and a huge assortment of fiction—mystery, horror, sci-fi, Westerns, and even a few graphic novels.

Matt emerged from the bedroom, dressed in his usual jeans and T-shirt. He stood beside me, tall and straight with his hands behind his back, looking at those books. I felt like I had found a tiny window into his heart. Or a shrine, but I didn’t know to what.

“You never struck me as much of a reader.”

He was silent for a moment and then said quietly, “I’m alone a lot. Sometimes it’s hard to fill the hours.”

Those words and the hint of tired resignation in his voice, struck a chord inside me—they echoed my own loneliness so completely. “I know exactly what you mean.”

And in that moment, something passed between us. We didn’t speak, but I knew we both felt it. It wasn’t anything as trite or romantic as finding one’s soul mate. It was simply a silent recognition that we truly were kindred spirits. That we had both been alone for a long time and maybe we didn’t need to be anymore.

“SO YOUR family doesn’t mind that you’re gay.” It was more a statement than a question.

We were at Tony’s. Matt refused to go to Mamacita’s, where he risked running into Cherie. It wasn’t really much better here. I was sure we were the only table that had two waitresses rushing to serve us. He didn’t seem to notice.

“It bothered my dad a little. He thought, like you did, that I just hadn’t tried hard enough. He would actually say things like, ‘You just need to take one or two out for a test drive, son.’ My mom took it pretty well. But sometimes it makes her sad, because she knows I’ll be missing out on having kids. And she hates seeing me alone. Brian does his best to be cool with it, although it still freaks him out a bit, I think. Back when I came out, he was the one I was most worried about. I always looked up to him, and I was sure he would hate me. I decided that he had to be the first person I told, and it took me forever to get up the nerve. So, I took him out to a bar—I had just turned twenty-one—and had a couple of drinks to get up my courage, and I finally said, ‘Brian, I’m gay.’ And, he laughed. He actually laughed, and said, ‘No kidding, kid? Did you finally figure it out?’” I laughed again, thinking back on it. Of course Brian, who always kept his eye on me, had figured it out sometime between my Steve Atwater outburst and my infatuation with his best friend and my twenty-first birthday. “It was all rather anticlimactic, but it was also a relief to know that I hadn’t changed in his estimation. I couldn’t have handled that.”

“Do you have a, you know, a—um— friend?”

He seemed to stumble on that word, and I laughed at him. “I have one friend, sort of. His name is Cole. We met in college. He was dating my roommate, actually. But after they broke up, he and I hooked up a couple of times. He lives in Arizona, but his family owns a condo in Vail, and sometimes when he’s up here skiing, he’ll call and we’ll get together. It’s very casual. We’re not really each other’s type. He’s too flamboyant for me, and I’m too small town for him. It is occasionally mutually convenient and with absolutely zero strings attached. But other than that, no. There’s no one.”

“But how do you meet people? I mean, others like you?”

“I don’t. Not anymore. I used to go to the clubs sometimes. There’s one in Fort Collins and a couple in Boulder and a bunch in Denver. But, you know, it’s just like it is for straight guys. You might be able to get laid—well, at a gay club, it’s almost a guarantee that you can get laid, depending on your standards—but you’re never gonna find anything more than that.”

“Is that what you want? Something more?”

“Don’t we all?” That came out sounding way too pretentious. We definitely needed to change the subject. “So how’s work?” I could tell right away that was a bad question. His grey eyes darkened—I couldn’t see the green at all right now—and he tensed up a little.

“Not great,” he said darkly.

“What’s up? Is there a crime wave in Coda I haven’t heard about?”

He loosened up a little. “I’ve had to drag Dan Snyder away from Cherie’s house two more times. The first time, he was drunk and throwing bottles at her house. The other time, he was inside, and she looked bad. I don’t get it. She won’t press charges, but it was pretty obvious he had been beating on her again. He’s a real piece of work.”

“Dan was always a fuckup. Even in high school.”

“Yeah.” He was quiet for a minute and then started pulling at the label on his beer bottle. “I’m getting a lot of shit from the other guys,” he said quietly. He didn’t look at me, and it took a second for me to figure it out.

“Because of me?”

A reluctant nod.

“Then what the hell are we doing here?” I asked incredulously. I had to tell myself to keep my voice down. “You come to my house and bring me out to dinner—of course they’re going to talk.”

He just shrugged. “It pisses me off.” He didn’t sound pissed though; he sounded sad. “They don’t know what it’s like. They’re all married. The other night when I saw you here—that’s not the first time. They’re always trying to set me up.” I wasn’t sure what to say to that. “I work with them, so I want to get along with them, but at the end of the day, they go home to their families.” And he went home alone to his prison cell of an apartment. He didn’t say that part, but I heard it.

We ate in silence for a bit, and then a voice said, “Hello, Jared!” I looked up to see Mr. Stevens, the high school band director and the only other gay man in town, as far as I knew. He was in his sixties and well dressed. He seemed to always have on a bow tie.

“Hey, Mr. Stevens. How’s life?”

“You haven’t been my student for a long time. You know you can call me Bill.” He always told me this, but it’s hard to call any former teacher by their first name. “And I believe you are our newest police officer?” he said to Matt.

“Yes, sir. Matt Richards.” He shook Mr. Steven’s slightly limp hand.

“Mr. Richards, it is very nice to meet you. I’m so glad you’ve joined our tiny community. I hope you don’t mind me asking, but are you actually out with the department?”

I was trying not to smile. It was obvious that Mr. Stevens assumed Matt was gay. But it was equally obvious, to me, at least, that Matt had no idea what Mr. Stevens meant. I could tell by the look on his face that he was thinking, “out where?” But he nodded gamely and said, “Yes, sir, I am.” Now I was really having a hard time not laughing.

“That’s fabulous! I’m glad to hear that our department is so progressive.” Matt’s demeanor barely changed. Mr. Stevens obviously could not tell how confused he was, and I realized that I was becoming quite adept at reading his guarded expressions. “Well, I’ll leave you two alone. I want you to know that it makes me so happy to see you two together.” He winked at me. “It gives an old man hope.”

“Thanks, Mr. Stevens. You know I wish you luck.”

When he was gone, Matt looked at me and said, “What the hell? What was that guy talking about? And what’s so damn funny?”

“Don’t you remember me telling you about Mr. Stevens, the band director?”

I watched him as he thought about it and saw the light come on. Then his eyes shifted from side to side as he replayed the conversation in his head, and a blush crept up his cheeks as the pieces fell into place.

“Finally figured it out, did you?”

“Shit.” He didn’t seem mad so much as annoyed at himself. “Sometimes I’m such an idiot.”

“Well, I wouldn’t worry about it. Mr. Stevens knows all about discretion.”

“I guess that’s probably true.”

“Does it bother you that he thinks we’re together?”

“Does it bother you?”

“Not at all.”

“You and he never…?” I noticed he had evaded my question but let it pass.

“Never. I don’t think either one of us has ever even considered it. There’s a pretty big age difference, obviously. And he was my teacher once, so that would be pretty fucking weird. And I don’t know for sure, but I suspect Mr. Stevens likes his men a little more feminine, if you know what I mean.”

“And how do you like your men?” His cheeks were bright red, but his gaze was level on mine.

And boy did that feel like the trick question of the month. Because of course, I liked my men just like him: tall and dark and muscular. The only thing I might have added was longer hair and tattoos—and I had to wonder if there were any under his shirt. But I couldn’t say it.

What I said was, “Filthy rich.”

He gave me the pseudo-smile. I had a feeling that he knew the real answer.