Chapter Seven
A smart man would have stayed far, far away from the train wreck that was Vincent Fierro. I knew that. But my Gram always says, “Follow your heart.” And what my heart wanted was Vin.
It wasn’t that I loved the guy. After all, I barely knew him. But I couldn’t get that night out of my head. I couldn’t get him out of my head. I couldn’t stop thinking about how good it felt to be in his arms, tight up against him, dancing. I couldn’t forget the tickle of his breath against my neck, and the way his hand felt as he caressed my back.
More than anything though, I couldn’t get over how fucking good it felt to be free. Free to flirt and touch and to be honest about what I wanted. It wasn’t that I was a virgin because I was a prude, or because I thought sex was a sin. I was curious about sex. I woke up with a boner. I jacked off like any other guy. And I sure as hell wasn’t a virgin because I couldn’t get laid. On the contrary, sometimes I felt like I was constantly warding off attacks. But my Gram taught me that sex should be about love, and I think she’s right.
I’d told plenty of guys over the years that sex wasn’t an option, but none of them had ever taken it with as much grace as Vinnie had. Some guys decided as soon as the words were out of my mouth that they were wasting their time. They’d bail on the date in record time, never to be heard from again. Some guys took it as a challenge, and I’d spend the rest of the night fighting off advances. A few had said, “Sure, Trey, I understand.” They’d allowed the rule to stand through the first date, and even the second. Only one of them had made it to a third.
Nothing beyond that, though. Not a single guy yet had thought it was worth putting a fourth date into a possible relationship if sex wasn’t part of the deal. Sharing my body with somebody was a gift, and I wasn’t about to give it away to some asshole who couldn’t bother to appreciate it.
The problem was, I still wanted to flirt. I wanted to make out. I wanted to do all those things that people did, but it never worked. Even when I’d been with guys who claimed they understood, I’d had to be so careful, lest I hear that word that seemed to follow me everywhere I went: tease. As if there was no middle ground between friendship and fucking. As if I couldn’t even touch them without inviting more. It was like living in a cage. Like having wings but never being able to stretch them out, let alone fly. I hated it.
Vinnie had been different. Vinnie had actually seemed relieved to hear I wouldn’t sleep with him. I could flirt, and touch, and maybe make out a bit, and I wouldn’t be expected to put out at the end of the night. At the time I’d been fixated on that, loving the novelty of it, but as I thought about it more, I realized his relief had been not out of respect for me, but because sleeping with me was too far for him right now. He was experimenting. He was confused. He was…
Well, he was in the fucking closet with a raging case of denial, was what he was, but I could deal with that.
The more I thought about it, the more I thought it might work. As long as our clothes stayed on, he’d be able to tell himself he was straight, right? And me?
Well, I knew it was stupid as hell to get involved with a closeted guy just because he wouldn’t expect sex, and yet, who the hell else was going to take me to a jazz club, let me be close to him and hot for him and crazy about him, and yet not expect me to jump into bed with him when it was over? Who the hell else would let me see what it felt like to spread my wings?
Nobody.
That was why my heart wanted Vin. And the more I thought about him, the more determined I was to have him.
I started going by the restaurant every morning, waiting for the day I’d see him. Part of me hoped he’d be happy to see me. I imagined him looking at me, his face lighting up. Logically, though, I knew that probably wasn’t the way it would be. I’d given him my number, and he’d never called, despite the fact he’d been as turned on at the club as I’d been. It was safe to assume he was going to be a bit weird. It also stood to reason that I’d have to do all the work.
It was another week before I actually got my chance. An insurance group from Des Moines had been in town for a convention, done well, and stopped by The Rose Saturday to celebrate. I got two hundred from that one table in tips alone, and the next morning I wanted to celebrate.
I found my mom and Gram in the living room, watching TV. I would have preferred to not have to invite my mother, but she was sitting right there, and Gram could see the excitement on my face.
“What has you smiling?” she asked.
“I made some great tips last night. How about we go celebrate?”
My mom suddenly perked up. “Celebrate?”
“Yeah. I thought we could go out for dinner. Gram and I can have a bit of wine—”
The interest disappeared, and she turned back to the TV. “Yeah, that sounds great. I can sit and watch you both drink without me.”
A second of silence while Gram and I looked at each other, consulting in silence, trying to decide the best way to handle it. Gram decided to opt for appeasement. She smiled at Mindy. “We don’t need wine,” Gram said. “It’ll just make me sleepy anyway.”
“Sure!” After all, it was Vinnie I was really after anyway. “We’ll get dessert instead.”
“I’m already too fat to wear most of my clothes.”
“Oh, Mindy, don’t be silly,” Gram said. “You look fine.”
Mom didn’t answer right away. Gram and I sat there, waiting to see which way she’d go this time. There was a chance she’d snap out of it and make the best of things. A slim chance. I mentally crossed my fingers, but in the next moment, she dashed any hopes of making things easy on me.
“Not much of a celebration though, is it?” she griped. “I can’t drink. I can’t have dessert—”
“Then stay home,” I snapped.
She blinked over at me. She actually had the nerve to look wounded, which only made me angrier.
“I don’t want to stay here alone while you guys go out.”
She couldn’t stand that we might have fun, with or without her. I sighed. “Stop acting like a goddamn martyr. Gram and I are going. You can stay, or you can come with us. It doesn’t make a difference to me.”
“Fine.” She turned off the TV and tossed the remote onto the coffee table. “If you’re going to act like that, I’ll come.”
Great. That meant she’d sit there being cranky and somehow put the blame on us.
“Where should we go?” Gram asked.
I answered before my mom could. “I was thinking Emilio’s.”
Gram smiled at me, bouncing the palms of her hands together almost as if she were clapping, but without any sound. “I haven’t been there in ages! Just let me get my slippers and run a comb through my hair.” She began the tedious process of getting up, squaring her feet underneath her and trying to rock her weight forward out of her chair.
But my mom was still sitting on the couch, frowning at me. “Why there? There are so many other restaurants. Let’s go someplace new.”
Gram froze, her broad hips hanging precariously off the front of her seat, her hands braced on the arms, ready to push herself up.
“We’re going to Emilio’s.” I wasn’t about to let her make an issue out of it, either. I wanted to see Vin.
“I hate it there. Frank Fierro is so rude—”
“He is not.”
“He never talks to me, and when he does, he looks down his nose at me.”
“You’re imagining things.”
“No, I’m not. You never understand, but I won’t go. I won’t give them our good money for their lousy food while he sits there judging me.”
“The food isn’t lousy. And it’s not our money. It’s my money.” I looked at Gram. Her eyebrows were up, but I could tell she didn’t disapprove of my tone.
Mom decided to change her attack. “But still, Trey. Emilio’s is so old-fashioned. If we’re celebrating, we may as well go someplace nice. How about that cute little sushi place over on Roosevelt?”
“That’ll cost twice as much, and Gram doesn’t like sushi.” Plus, I’d have zero chance of cornering Vinnie.
“They have teriyaki—”
“Enough.” I held my hand up as if I could ward off her bullshit. “It’s really simple: Gram and I are going to Emilio’s. You can stay here and pout, or you can come with us and try to have a good time. But I swear to God, Mom, if you come and spend the entire evening griping and complaining and generally making my night out miserable, I’ll get up and leave you there to find your own way home.”
Her eyes went wide. “So now I make you miserable?”
“No, Mom. That’s not what I said.”
“It’s always my fault, isn’t it? You make decisions without me. You never consider my feelings. But somehow, it’s my fault, isn’t it?”
I looked over at Gram. She shook her head in resignation and heaved herself out of her seat. “Trey and I are leaving, Mindy,” she said.
“What about me?”
Gram didn’t even glance at her as she shuffled across the room. “There are leftovers in the fridge.”
I was glad when we were finally able to leave the house. For the first three blocks, neither Gram nor I said anything, both of us trying to fight our way out of the dark cloud Mom had thrown over the outing. It helped that the weather was gorgeous.
“We should have gone to the park and had a picnic,” Gram said at last. “A shame to waste this weather.”
I hoped she wasn’t still thinking about Mom and her fit. “We can go later, if you want. I don’t work.”
Gram smiled sadly and patted my hand. “Don’t worry about it.” She drew a deep breath and stood up straighter. “I don’t know about you, but I can’t wait to get some of Marco’s garlic bread. It’s been years.”
Had it really been that long since Gram had been to the restaurant? I realized how seldom we went out, and when we did, we usually got takeout from Subway. I thought about how often I hit the restaurant on my way to or from school or work and felt guilty. “You should have said. We could have done this sooner.”
Gram shrugged. “We’re doing it now.” Her eyes danced. “I used to practically live there. We all did, back in the day. I used to sit at the counter in as short a skirt as my mother would let me out of the house in, trying to catch one of the boys’ eyes.”
I laughed. “Gram! I had no idea.”
“That I was such a tart? Oh yes. Trying to catch a Fierro was tricky business. You had to be pretty but coy. They do tend to be overly protective.”
Didn’t Trey know it. “So did you ever succeed?”
“I married your grandfather, so no. But I thought for awhile I had the oldest one’s eye.”
“Frank? You were sweet on Frank? He’s like a thousand years old.”
“He graduated a year ahead of me,” Gram said, her voice heavy with warning.
“He did? God, he doesn’t look it.”
Gram’s expression changed to pity. “Yes, poor thing. Christina died so young, and he had to raise all three of the children on his own. We all tried to do what we could to help out, but he was so proud, and he made it hard.”
It was odd, thinking of all that old history, realizing some of it still played out in a way today. I glanced down at Gram’s sensible trousers. “Do you want to go back and change? Your pink dress looks pretty good, and it lands above your knee.”
As I’d meant it to, this made her laugh and ruffle my hair. We were still grinning as we entered the restaurant, but when I caught sight of who was sitting at the bar, my heart leapt up in a very different kind of joy.
Vinnie was here.
“Sophia!” Frank Fierro came out from behind the bar and opened his arms to Gram, pulling her into an embrace. “I thought maybe you’d forgotten all about us, you’ve been away so long.”
Gram swatted his arm playfully. She smiled at him, settling in for a chat. “Don’t be silly. Now tell me all about your grandbabies. I hear you have a new one?”
I slipped around them and made my way to the bar, trying not to smile too brightly lest I scare him away. “Hey, Vin. How’s it going?”
He glanced up, and the boredom in his eyes turned to something like horror—the kind of horror usually reserved for bad slasher movies. I may as well have been wearing a fucking hockey mask and wielding a giant machete. I would have laughed, if it hadn’t hurt so much. It confirmed what I’d already suspected: he didn’t want to see me.
“Hey,” he said. His cheeks were quickly flushing an alarming shade of red.
“How’ve you been?” I asked.
“Fine.”
An awkward silence while I waited for him to start acting like a normal human being, but that was obviously more than he could handle at the moment.
“I’m good too,” I said. “Thanks for asking.”
His jaw clenched, and I thought maybe I’d pissed him off, but his good Catholic upbringing beat out whatever he really wanted to say. “Look,” he began, and I knew he was about to offer me a halfhearted apology, so I cut him off.
“It’s fine.” I smiled at him in an attempt to trick him into relaxing half a degree. “I just wanted to tell you I had a good time the other night.”
Clearly, not the way to get him to relax. He looked downright alarmed. He glanced around nervously, obviously worried somebody would hear, but there wasn’t anybody else in the restaurant.
“The polite thing to say is, ‘I had a great time too, Trey.’”
“I—”
“I wondered if you might want to do it again?”
It took him a second to answer, but then he said, “I don’t think so.”
It was about what I’d expected. I had no intention of letting him off the hook so easily.
“Why not?” I asked.
“Because—”
“Don’t you like me?”
His blush had been fading, but now he was bright red again. He couldn’t look at me. “I, umm… I don’t…”
“You had fun the other night too, right? I mean, it felt like you were having fun.”
“Oh, Christ,” he swore. He tilted his head back, rocking on his heels, covering his eyes with one hand.
He wasn’t denying it, though. That was the thing. He was flustered and uncomfortable and embarrassed, but only because I was right. It made my heart race. It made the butterflies in my stomach go into overdrive. It also gave me courage.
“Go out with me tonight.”
“I can’t.”
“You can. We can go to dinner, or a movie. Or we could go back to that same club, or a new club. We could play Putt-Putt, for all I care. What do you say?”
“Listen,” he said, meeting my eyes at last, “what happened the other night was—”
“Fun?”
“No—”
“Great?”
“No—”
“Hot as hell?”
“No!”
“But it was.”
He took a deep breath and looked me in the eye. “It was an accident.”
“An accident?”
“Right.”
I knew what he was trying to say, and yet it annoyed me to no end. I waited for him to either explain, or to realize how stupid he sounded, but he just stood there, like he actually thought I’d mistake his explanation for some kind of logical answer. “Let me make sure I have this right,” I said at last. “You accidentally wandered down to Boystown, and accidentally went into a club. And then you accidentally followed me to another gay bar where we accidentally found ourselves groin to groin on the dance floor and accidentally had the fucking hottest, sexiest dance since Patrick Swayze taught that chick at summer camp to dirty dance. Like, that kind of accident?”
I could tell right away I’d let my sarcasm go too far. I’d been trying to loosen him up, but what I’d done instead was piss him off. He stood up straight. He put his shoulders back, and the look he gave me almost made me change my mind about wanting to see him again. He looked at me like…
Like he wanted to call me a fag and throw me out of his life.
“You’ve got the wrong guy. I don’t do this. I don’t date guys.”
Despite the absurdity of it all, I didn’t want to argue. If he was on the defensive, we’d never get anywhere. I wanted to appease him, and that meant I had to stop giving him a hard time and start being sincere.
I held my hands up in surrender. “I get it, Vin. I really do. It’s okay. I didn’t mean a date. Last time wasn’t a date either, remember?” I smiled when I said that. He didn’t smile back, but the anger was fading from his eyes.
“Okay.” He nodded gruffly, almost in thanks, and he started to turn away.
I spoke quickly before he could. “Maybe we could have a not-date like that again. That’s all.”
He didn’t seem to know how seriously to take me, but at least he’d stopped being pissed.
I stepped closer, and although he looked a bit alarmed, he let me. He stood perfectly still. “You don’t date guys?” I said. “That’s fine. I don’t date guys either.”
His eyebrow went up at that. He almost smiled. “So,” he said, “you’re not gay either?”
His tone was teasing. Slightly sarcastic. Somehow, he was making fun of himself more than of me, and it made me smile. “I hate to break it to you, but I’m queer as a three-dollar bill.” I was glad when he actually laughed.
I took another step toward him. Then a second. We were only a few inches from each other. His cheeks started to turn red again, but he didn’t back away.
“The thing is, Vinnie, for most guys I meet, ‘date’ means ‘sex’. Nobody ever has one without the other. But I…” I looked down at the floor, trying to figure out how to finish my sentence. I don’t have sex? I’m still a virgin? I’m not that easy?
“You don’t date,” he said pointedly.
I thought maybe he was teasing, but when I glanced up, I was surprised at what I saw. Yes, he was amused, but there was something else in his eyes too. Maybe not respect. Not quite. But I thought maybe he understood. That hint of fear I’d been seeing since I’d walked in the door was gone.
“Right.” I was relieved he understood. “I don’t date.”
He smiled at me, finally. That goddamn cute, quirky, smartass smile like I’d seen the other night, and I knew I was on the right track.
“So,” I said, “since you don’t date, and I don’t date, how about if we not date together?”
He crossed his arms over his chest, looking thoughtful.
“Tonight?” he asked.
My heart just about jumped out of my chest. It took a conscious effort to not squeal and start bouncing like a teenage girl. “I’d love to.”