Seeking Enrique Read online

  “Defenses,” he muttered. “What the hell does he need defenses for? It’s not like I’m going to hurt him.”

  But you did hurt him, he thought. Why else would he be lashing out like this?

  “Hormones,” he answered himself out loud. “It’s those damn pregnancy hormones, screwing everything up.”

  Are you sure? he asked himself. Maybe it isn’t. Maybe it’s exactly what he said.

  “But what he said didn’t make any sense! He’s mad because I, what, kissed him? Touched him? Cuddled with him?”

  Tried to seduce him. After he told you not to.

  “He just needed a little encouragement,” he muttered. “He needed to be reminded of what we had before he left.”

  “Excuse me,” Rick said from the doorway. “Not to interrupt your Sméagol monologue or whatever, but you don’t get to decide what I need. The boat’s ready. Let’s go.”

  “Rick—”

  “Don’t. Please. Just go.”

  Jules’ ego and pride were hurting, and he wanted to anchor himself to the spot and insist that Rick hear him out. He wanted to explain himself. But Rick was watching him impassively, and he knew there was only one thing he could do that wouldn’t piss Rick off. If he didn’t do what Rick asked, he would only make things worse. So he followed Rick around to the other side of the houseboat, where a camouflaged speedboat waited. Rick climbed in and got behind the wheel.

  Jules couldn’t help himself. He was losing, watching everything he loved crumble, again. How could this be happening again?

  “Rick, please just hear me out,” he said desperately, standing on the houseboat. “I just wanted to show you how much I missed you, and you smell so good and look so cute I couldn’t help myself.”

  “Sounds like a you problem. Get in.”

  “Why are you being so unreasonable about this?”

  “Get. In.”

  Jules huffed in frustration and jumped into the speedboat, crossing his arms. Rick tossed the line away, and pointed the boat toward the cliffs. He picked up speed, buzzing across the little lake toward a seemingly solid wall of rock.

  “Rick, what are you doing?”

  Rick didn’t answer but increased his speed.

  “Rick! I’m sorry! Stop, please, don’t do this!”

  A small sneer pulled at the corner of Rick’s mouth, and he pushed the boat to go even faster. The cliff face rose up in front of them, they would impact in seconds.

  “Rick! The baby!”

  The cliff was upon them. Jules threw his arms over his face, ducking low into the bottom of the boat, bracing for impact.

  The impact never came. The sound of the boat’s engine grew louder, loud enough to hurt his ears. He looked up, blinking away tears. They were inside the mountain, floating along an underground channel.

  “What happened?” he asked, shakily returning to his seat.

  Rick chuckled, then laughed maniacally.

  “What the hell?” Jules asked angrily.

  “Sorry,” Rick gasped. “Oh, that was fun. I feel better now.”

  “What the hell happened? Where are we?”

  “We’re inside the mountain. The entrance to this tunnel is camouflaged on both ends, it’s how I keep that place a secret to the casual observer.”

  “You could have told me! I almost had a heart attack!”

  “You don’t seem to be real good at the whole listening thing, I didn’t think it was worth my time,” Rick said snarkily.

  “That was a shitty thing to do,” Jules snapped.

  “Yeah, but it made me laugh, so it all works out.”

  “Wow. That’s probably the most self-absorbed thing I have ever heard you say, and you’ve said plenty.”

  “Consider it a taste of your own medicine.”

  “What does that mean?” Jules asked heatedly.

  “It means that everything you did last night and this morning was about you. Making you feel better. Reconciling your needs. Soothing your hurts.”

  “So it should be all about you?”

  “That’s not what I’m saying,” Rick said impatiently. “There’s nothing wrong with taking care of yourself. Doing it at my expense? There is something wrong with that. Wrong enough that I don’t want you in my house.”

  Jules’ first impulse was to react defensively. He wanted to argue that whatever he’d done wasn’t bad enough to justify this reaction. He might be right, the reaction might be overly dramatic; but he could see that arguing the point wouldn’t help his case. He would have to satisfy himself with the knowledge that Rick was alright until he could figure out how to fix this.

  They burst out of the tunnel and into the sunlight. It blinded Jules for a moment, and he winced. When his eyes adjusted, the sight he saw left him breathless. They were floating down a wide, winding river that bordered a meadow filled with wild flowers. Hawks circled over clumps of fruit trees, stalking their prey. In the distance, a little white house shone.

  “Whoa,” Jules breathed, suddenly distracted. “What is this place?”

  “Abandoned farm,” Rick shrugged. “I thought about buying it at first, when I was shopping for a place. The cabin suited me better, though. It’s smaller. The town’s nearby, about a half mile down the road from that house.”

  A thought struck Jules, but he hesitated to voice it. It was a solution, a brilliant one to his mind, but Rick didn’t seem to be in the mood for solutions lately. Jules rolled it around in his head until he found a more acceptable way to phrase what he was thinking.

  “I have a question for you. I know you aren’t happy with me right now, and I don’t need an answer right away, but if you wouldn’t mind thinking about it I would really—”

  “Would you please get to the point?” Rick asked impatiently.

  “Sorry. I’m new to this whole passive speaking thing, it’s not really my style.”

  “Then why are you using it?”

  “Because if I just said it the way it came to me, you might interpret it as pushing, and I’m a little gun-shy about being pushy.”

  “Okay,” Rick said, after a moment. “I guess that’s fair. Go ahead.”

  Jules cleared his throat and began again.

  “Would it be a violation of your boundaries if I bought that house?”

  Rick started, and stared.

  “Why would you want to do that?”

  “Could you cut the motor for a second, please? This is important.”

  Rick did as he asked, and the sudden silence pressed on Jules’ ears.

  “I handled things poorly, when I found you,” Jules said. “And I was clumsy with your feelings, and self-absorbed, and awful. I can admit that, now. I was talking to you out of anger, and that never gets anybody anywhere. What I was trying… and failing… to express, is that I’m worried about you. I was worried about you before I knew you were pregnant, and I’m exponentially more worried now.”

  “You don’t think I can take care of myself?” Rick asked defensively.

  “That’s not it, really,” Jules said. “I’m sorry I insinuated that.”

  He winced, remembering what he’d said about custody.

  “And I’m sorry that I blatantly dismissed your ability to parent. I’m sure you’ll be a fine parent. I was lashing out because I felt like I was losing you.”

  “That doesn’t make it okay.”

  “I know. If I could go back a couple hours and do it all over, I’d do it differently. I still don’t understand why you need the buffers that you do with me, and I’m not willing to leave you and the baby out here alone. It’s too dangerous, especially since you were hospitalized pretty much immediately.

  “You don’t want me to tell you what you need, so I won’t. But let me tell you what I need. I need to know that you’re safe, taken care of, and within calling distance of help. So if it’s alright with you, I’m going to buy that house, and I’m going to buy you a phone, and then I’ll leave you completely alone if you want. You never have to see me or t
alk to me if you don’t want to, I’ll never come over unannounced, I won’t sue for custody or any of that nonsense. But I’ll be here. If you need me.”

  Rick chewed his fingernails for a while, gazing into the reflections on the river.

  “That’s a big change from what you said this morning,” Rick said guardedly. “I’m not sure which version I can trust.”

  “Yeah,” Jules sighed. “I get that. I’m… not a good person when I’m angry. I’m a terrible person when I think I’m losing. It makes me a top-level agent, I’m like a pit bull with a bone when I’m working on getting a contract signed… but it makes me a pretty shitty human, and I’m sorry about that. I’m still getting used to riding without training wheels.”

  “I don’t understand what you mean.”

  “I mean… the people closest to me have never relied on me to do my own emotional auditing. They would do it for me. ‘You’re grumpy, have you eaten?’ ‘You seem off, did something happen at work?’ Hell, Steven and I had a setup where he would come to the office every day at lunch and let me dump all my crap on him, he’d sort through it and reflect it back to me all shiny and organized, and I’d go back to work with a clear head. After work, same deal over drinks. He was like a washing machine for my feelings, and I never had to look at them, not really. He did all the hard work. It wasn’t fair to him, and honestly it wasn’t fair to me.

  “And it wasn’t just him. That’s my type. The nurturers, the caretakers. You’re the first neurotic person I’ve ever been interested in. Maybe that’s growth on my part, maybe it’s just circumstance, but I fell harder for you than I’ve ever fallen for anybody. I’m not perfect, I know that. I forget it sometimes when I have a strong opinion about something. But I’m working on it. My temper especially, that’s my top priority after today.”

  “This introspection thing is new,” Rick said with thinly-veiled interest.

  “Yeah. Been doing a lot of it since you left. Had too much time alone in my head without anyone to project my crap onto.”

  “Hm. that’s… that’s probably a good thing. I need alone time like other people need water, so I get it.”

  “I’m starting to see that,” Jules said ruefully. “Still having a hard time wrapping my head around it.”

  “You need people,” Rick said absently. “I need a space devoid of people.”

  “Is a mountain enough space?” Jules asked.

  Rick looked from the farmhouse to the mountain that hid his precious lake and back again, chewing his nails.

  “You’d be right there?”

  “Yep. Whenever you needed anything, I would be right there.”

  “I guess… I guess that’s far enough.”

  “Yeah?” Jules asked, perking up. “Well then, I know what I’m doing today. Where’s the dock for the farm?”

  Chapter Eighteen

  Rick had intended to simply drop Jules off and return home to wallow, but Jules had insisted that he buy a phone. It hadn’t taken long. Rick wasn’t picky about his technology apart from his laptop, so he purchased a sturdy, functional phone and activated it immediately to put Jules’ mind at ease. He found himself resistant to do anything that Jules suggested and decided it was his own bad temper that was causing him to feel that way.

  “I need a nap,” he said grumpily as they left the store.

  “How ‘bout some lunch first?” Jules suggested cautiously.

  Food actually sounded pretty good. Rick had developed an appetite like he hadn’t experienced since puberty, and as a result, he was starving. The fact that Jules had suggested it made him want to decline, but he shook off his own rebellion and agreed to lunch. They chose a little cafe overlooking the river and sat outside in the warm afternoon breeze.

  “It’s strange,” Jules commented as he gazed out over the water.

  “What’s strange?”

  “This little town. It’s so close to the big city, but you wouldn’t even know it. It’s like two different worlds. Tell me, why did you have an apartment in the city anyway, when this place was so close? This seems more your speed.”

  “My mom got me the apartment years ago,” Rick explained. “When she and my dad wanted to move to Florida and retire, she didn’t want to leave me high and dry, and back then I couldn’t do a thing for myself. I mean, I could feed and clothe myself of course, but anything more—doctors’ appointments, apartment hunting—it was beyond me. So she shopped around a while and got me that place. Her friend lived right next door, I think she chose it so that Jane could keep an eye on me.”

  “Jane… would that be an anxious little woman named Ms. Cornthwaite?”

  “That’s the one,” Rick grinned. “I’ve missed her this year. You know she used to invite me in for tea? It was the most social interaction I’d get on any given day. I sent her a message when I left you in Detroit. She’s storing all of my books and clothes for me.”

  “She knew where you were?” Jules asked with a flash of irritation.

  He had personally spoken to the lady no fewer than a dozen times since Rick’s disappearance, and she’d claimed to know nothing about his whereabouts.

  “Oh, no,” Rick said. “She didn’t know where I was. I told her I needed to disappear and assured her that I was okay. I didn’t want to ask her to keep secrets for me, so I didn’t give her any to keep.”

  “Makes sense,” Jules said, still bristling. “She could have told me she’d heard from you, though. Would have saved me a lot of stress.”

  Rick eyed him curiously.

  “You were really worried, weren’t you? About me, not just about the books?”

  “Of course I was. When you took off I couldn’t have cared less about the books or the business or any of it. Hell, Ernest has been taking every new client since your disappearance, and handling most of my old ones. When I got that brainstorm about the lake I think he was working up the nerve to ask me to quit.”

  “Oh. Are you going to?”

  “I don’t know,” Jules said, combing his fingers through his hair. “I’ve got a good thing going, but if I’m going to be moving out here, maybe I should just start my own agency. I’ve got the money and enough clients to pay the bills. At least I hope I have enough, some of them may have dropped me. I don’t know. I’ll talk to Ernest when I go back for my things, we’ll work something out.”

  “Sounds like a lot of trouble,” Rick said guiltily.

  “Nah, not really. I’ve never liked the idea of staying in one place my whole life. It’s about time for a change.”

  “Still… would you even be considering it if it weren’t for me?”

  Jules cocked his head to one side and studied Rick for a moment.

  “Does it matter?” he asked. “Things happen in life that move you from phase to phase and from place to place. You know me. I like to control things. I don’t like the idea that circumstances outside of my control could force my hand. So I don’t let them. When circumstances change, I make a decision. I could decide to stay in New York, with my job, and be involved from a distance; but that doesn’t sit well with me. I want to be where my awareness lives, and right now, it lives with you.”

  “Where your awareness lives… I like that. I think I’m going to use it.”

  “Be my guest,” Jules grinned. “Oh, speaking of which, where’s the manuscript?”

  Rick’s eyes widened and he slapped a hand over his mouth.

  “Oh, my gosh. I left it at home.”

  “I thought you said you’d bring it?”

  “Yeah, I intended to. I was upset. I forgot.”

  “Okay, well, no worries. Are you happy with it the way it is, or could you use another couple weeks to polish it?”

  “Oh, I can always use more time,” Rick said in a rush. “There’s always something that can be made better.”

  “Well then, I’ll tell you what. You do whatever it is you want to do with it, and I’ll get the updated version from you when I move down. Deal?”

  “Deal,�
�� Rick said gratefully.

  “Now, then, next item,” Jules said thoughtfully. “Who owns that farm?”

  “There’s a sign by the street entrance,” Rick told him. “Pretty sure it has the information.”

  “Excellent. Care to walk with me?”

  “Yeah, okay.”

  Jules offered Rick his hand. Rick declined, and Jules didn’t press the issue. The fact that he didn’t made Rick’s eyes well up with happy tears out of nowhere.

  “What’s wrong?” Jules asked.

  “Nothing, really nothing,” Rick laughed. “It’s silly. You can, in fact, blame hormones for this one.”

  “Okay,” Jules said with a sympathetic smile. “God, that must be hell.”

  “Oh you have no idea,” Rick groaned. “It’s like I’m two years old and twelve years old all at once, but with the awareness of an adult. I watch myself react to things and I can’t understand it rationally. It drives me absolutely insane.”

  “Yeesh. Better you than me, for sure.”

  “Gee, thanks,” Rick said, rolling his eyes.

  Jules laughed.

  “There you are. I was wondering where the sass-master got to.”

  “Still in here, wrapped in hysterics and encumbered by swollen… well, everything.”

  “Good to know.”

  Jules smiled at him, and Rick blushed. He held out his hand and Jules took it, swinging it up to his mouth to kiss Rick’s knuckles. They walked hand in hand down the dusty road to the wide old gate and found the sign. The paint was peeling and faded, but Jules managed to make out the phone number.

  “Hello, my name is Jules Golias. I’m interested in purchasing the property at… um… one-zero-two-five Antechamber Way. Yeah, I’m outside the property now. Ten minutes? Yeah, I can wait. Thanks, you too.”