Page 5 of Sight Unseen

I smiled at the nurse as she entered the room and, surprisingly, she gave one back. “See you next time, gentlemen,” she said and drew the curtains around Nate’s bed, effectively shutting him from our sight. Clearly, our cue to leave.

As I pulled the coated elastic from my hair, which was more of a pigtail than a ponytail, Caleb made a sound like a teenage girl. I re-did it, tucking a wayward strand of hair away behind my ear. It wouldn’t stay there. Experience had proven that. My hair was thick and a little wavy: a product of wayward Scandinavian genes from many ancestors ago.

Jon looked at Caleb. “I’ll come back later tonight and see if he’s any better,” he said.

Caleb shrugged. “The hospital will call you if he wakes up. There’s not much you can do for him while he’s sleeping.”

Callous bastard. He needed a good head butt. For openers.

Jon shook his head. “No, I’ll come back later. On my own. If he wakes up, I’d like to be here for him.”

Silently I saluted Jon, who was proving to be quite the caring boyfriend, and deep down, while impressed, feelings of envy and resentment weren’t far away. “I’ll pop back tomorrow.”

I hated not being at Nate’s side. If Jon were a different type of man, he’d welcome having Nate’s best friend there. But Jon’s emotional context didn’t run that deep. “If anything changes though, in the meantime, you promise to let me know?”

Jon nodded. “I’ll call you, don’t worry.” His look of relief at my leaving spoke volumes. We got on okay because of Nate, but I knew Jon wasn’t fond of me.

“Cool. Right, I’ll be off. Caleb.” I acknowledged him curtly and brushed past, leaving them staring after me. I felt the tug of an invisible thread as I walked away, that thin precious binding tethering Nate and me together. I cherished that thread and never wanted it to break.

As I got out into the waning sunlight, my cell rang. “Light my Fire” by The Doors heralded a call from one of my parents.

“Hi, Mom. I’m leaving the hospital now.”

My mother sounded exasperated. “We’re on our way to your place because I guessed visiting hours are over. I thought you were going to call me earlier. How’s Nate?”

“He’s still asleep. The doctor says it’s stress and trauma and he’ll wake up and join us when he’s ready. I wanted to take the tambourine in and shake it at him, but I thought the nurses would frown at the racket.”

My mother chuckled. “Probably. How was your flight back from Europe?”

I reached my car, an old-model blue Chevrolet Cruz, and opened the doors. “As you’d expect. Tight spaces, cramped leg room and unpalatable food.” I slid into the car and shut the door. “I’m on my way home now. We’ll all go back tomorrow. I didn’t want to encroach on Jon’s time with Nate today.”

“Oh, Shaggy,” my mother huffed.

I shuddered. She was using my nickname from when I was a kid, which was a sure sign she was ramping up to one of her homespun hippie homilies. I liked to think I didn’t resemble the beatnik in Scooby Doo that much. Yeah, I had stubble, a carefully trimmed beard and a short pigtail, but I thought I was better looking. Sexier. At least that’s what Nate had told me.

“What, Mom? And you do know I’m all grown up now, right? Like twenty-nine years old? That nickname really doesn’t apply anymore.”

Except when it’s Nate gasping it as I push my cock inside him.

My stomach tightened. Yet another memory that needed to be consigned to the scrap heap of my undercover memory spank bank.

“Child, I’m your mother, and I can call you what I like. And you know what they say— ‘love is a friendship set to music.’ I’m just sayin’.”

For a moment, as I started the car, her words didn’t register. When they did, I sat there, stunned, my mouth agape and pushing pieces of hair back from my now sweating forehead. The car had baked in the California sun.

“What the hell do you mean by that?”

“You know exactly what I’m saying, son. You think your dad and I don’t know you carry a Statue of Liberty-size torch for that boy? And now he’s going to need you even more, so I’m saying—love takes off masks that we fear we cannot live without and know we cannot live within. Time to take off your mask, honey.”

Crap, the homilies were even more probing than anticipated.

Worse. My mouth opened and closed like a goldfish, thunderstruck my parents knew how I felt about Nate.

And I thought I’d kept it so well hidden.

“You still there, son?”

“You’re wrong,” I finally managed to sputter, knowing she’d see through the bluster, but giving it a try anyway. “Nate is my best friend.”