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[1] Eddie
“Are you ready to come back home?”
Sighing, I pull myself up off the couch, cross to the big glass door, stare across my patio to the beach. “You’ve called every day for a week to ask me that, Stone. I thought we’d agreed on distance. That’s not so distant.”
“You agreed on distance, Ed, and you’re in New Orleans. You couldn’t be much more distant.”
That’s Stone. He could be reading stock reports for all the cues I’m getting from his voice. Which is part of the reason why he’s in Seattle and I’m in Louisiana, part of the reason why the crackle of static in the phone line is ominous, makes me think of every time that we try to communicate without it involving sex. “I could do distant in person just as well. If I come home now, that’s all you’ll get.”
He sighs a little, the first indication I get of how tired he is, how frustrated. “And I can hassle you just as well if you’re here.”
“And that’ll make me crazy.”
“And we always end up in the same damn place, don’t we, Eddie?”
“Ready to quit?” I hate myself for sounding so casual, like it wouldn’t tear bloody chunks out of me for him to agree.
He’s silent for so long that I’m preparing myself for it, it won’t be so hard, won’t be so bad, finally be over and then he says the words that let me breathe again. “I told you a long time ago that I would never quit on you. I still mean it, Ed.”
“I’m sorry,” I finally whisper. “I’m sorry I can’t… that I don’t… ah, fuck, Stone.” I run my hand through my hair, breathing deep, trying to make it all slow down, all stop racing along the same ugly ruts that my whole life has occurred in.
“Eddie? Ed, fuck! Talk to me!” Stone’s voice is loudness at the end of a tunnel, roaring, the ocean in my ears as I hang up the phone because I’m choking on the thought of the words.
[2] Stone
It takes me a day and a half to get myself to the little house in New Orleans, and I cuss every minute of it.
He’s lying on the couch in the living room when I finally get there, curled on his side and I cross the room to close the patio door before I even kneel beside him because it’s so fucking hot in here, hot enough that his bare chest and back and legs are oiled with sweat, and he’s sweated through the waistband of his cut-off khaki shorts. The ceiling fan’s on, but it’s really just puddling the humidity around.
“Eddie?” I ask, walking back through the house to the thermostat in the front hall. I shake my head at the 105 degree reading, then click the air to ‘on’ and turn it down somewhere in the area of 65. “Ed?” Back to the living room, where I crouch beside him, reach for his shoulder as cool air begins to pour through the vents. “Are you in there, babe?”
He stirs, his face tightening and his body flinching a little when I touch him. “Stone?” he manages to ask, his voice a thick, dead croak.
“You haven’t moved since you hung up on me, have you?” I ask, keeping my voice light, like I’m not scared, like I’m not shaking. Because he’s freaked on me before, and I have to be careful now, wake him up calm and keep him that way. “Want some water?”
He nods, eyes still closed and I’m up, moving across the small room to the even tinier kitchen and running a glass of water over ice for him. When I get back, he’s sitting up, running his hands through his hair. I hand him the glass and he drains it, then smiles ruefully up at me. “I, uh, freaked out again, huh?”
I settle carefully on the floor, sliding myself between his knees and winding my arms around his waist. “You scared the fuck out of me,” I whisper. “You have to do something about this, Eddie, you fucking lose days and—“
“It’s not like I’m unconscious, Stone, I’m just… apathetic.”
“Apathetic? Ed, you’ve been laying in 105 degree heat for a day and a half. That kind of apathy can kill you.”
“I’m okay, I promise. And I’m glad to see you,” he says, his fingers finding my hair, combing through it. “Stoney, I’m sorry. I’m sorry.”
“You’re not okay, though!” I burst out, tightening up on him until he damn near squeaks, then goes still rather than struggle. “You’re not okay. I don’t want to lose you.”
“Fuck, Stone,” he sighs, pulling me up onto the couch against him, stroking my shoulders gently. “I’m not going anywhere,” as I straddle his hips, my face finding his shoulder. “I just… sometimes I need to be… away. It’s not always like this, Stone.”
And that’s the hell of it, actually. It’s not always like this, and when it’s good, it’s amazing. When he smiles for me without thinking about it, when he touches me in passing and it’s all easy and natural… then it’s beyond incredible.
“I love you, Eddie,” I whisper against his ear, and he shivers. “I love you.”
“I love you, Stone.”
Those words are so strange for him, hard and confusing for him, and I don’t always know if it’s just automatic for him to say it, or if he means it. Today, though, his voice is warm and low, vibrating against my throat as he kisses me, slow and gentle, and I know.
Today, I know.
-End