I… I wasn't thinking of anything.
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The second my fingers brushed along her back every nerve in my body stalled. Hesitation surged like disease through the corridors of my mind. I felt the bruises and scars conjoining to my hands, spreading up to me, rattling through resoundingly.
She gazed at me imploringly, but I was already up on my feet and walking to the door, the outskirts of my vision blurring.
"James—James, what?"
I swallowed, blinking hard, and turned back to look at her again, then nearly regretted it. I didn't see the woman who'd slashed my tires, or who'd come running from abuse, or who'd snuck back in my life as if I were a piece of driftwood to be clung to and exploited.
I just saw her. Julie. Unscathed and waiting patiently, expectantly, like it was a fault belonging to me, and I had a chance to unravel and correct it.
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Were you thinking of me then?
I started to, I think. No. Maybe not. This is what I thought:
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The wedding had been simple. It was a bit hard to go all-out when I'd done it twice before. She'd had a prior engagement that had fallen through as well, so we figured there was no sense in building up ceremony for ceremony's sake. There were maybe a dozen people in total who'd come for the two separate services—one, in her Roman Catholic Church, and the other, in my synagogue. The priest and rabbi wished us luck; we'd said the same vows at the two separate places, short and to the point.
At the closing, I'd glanced over at House, who I'd asked to be the best man and who'd declined, saying I was better off not causing problems and sticking to my older brother for that responsibility. "Besides," he'd whispered to me like it was some big secret, "Julie already doesn't like me, and she's only met me once." He even bet me ten bucks she'd slip the photographer cash to keep him out of the pictures if at all possible.
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No wonder she hated me. She knew you had a crush on me before you even did.
'Crush.' You make it sound like an elementary school fling on the playground. And I don't think I did back then, not yet.
Are you sure?Yes. Of course. I think.
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"James. Stay."
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And what were you thinking then?
Then. Then I was thinking of you.
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I watched her with a solemn steadiness that rarely found my face. She looked years younger and ages older at the same time.
"No." I marked it as a miracle that my voice worked. "No. This time… This time I get to be selfish."
The keys felt brittle like cold bones in my palm as I stepped out into the melting heat of the summer night. I slipped, vacant of thoughts, into House's Corvette and turned on the ignition. The car hummed, sparking to life as I pushed it into gear.
I didn't count how many laps I took around the neighborhood. Street signs dashed in random patterns around my less than observant eyes. I slid into third gear and stayed there, though I could've insisted on a fourth.
House never used all four gears.
The shut-up button works nicely, though.
I drove in circles until Kaplow's Pawn Shop flashed in the corner of my vision, and I inadvertently slowed down, self-consciously realizing I hadn't even known that I was driving here.
It seemed to be a slap in the face to the shadows of human lifecurled on the sidewalks that I was cruising through in a ridiculously expensive car, so I picked up speed and turned off the street. I wondered if it was still windy at all, because I couldn't tell; I couldn't hear anything anymore, but the blood rushing through my ears violently, like an unanticipated maelstrom.
I had no idea who had just left Julie, but I could hardly believe that it had been me.
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She was gone when I returned home, saving us both any more painful exchanges. Numb, with nothing much else to do, I wandered to the phone and checked the latest out-going phone number on the redial button. Didn't recognize it. Probably was Rhonda's.
I sat down on the sofa and let thoughts pour over my head like iodine staining a glass sleeve under a microscope. Dark, dark blue dye. Almost purple. Almost grape wine-colored. I thought of the whiskey in the kitchen and decided it took too much effort to get up and pour myself a consoling glass.
Three months. Six more to go.
Three weeks. Three weeks until House came home.
Three hours until midnight. Another six to daybreak.
I tried to remember what my own father had been like when was a child. Typical stuff. There were slap-on-the-back man-to-man times; there was shouting and disappointment; there was handing me the keys and trusting me not to do anything too stupid. There was baseball practice in the backyard, and trying to explain to my mother that the broken patio window proved that my pitching speed was picking up. Of course, I was never the star athlete in my family.
I thought of Kaplow's and rose to get the whiskey anyway.
Forget the glass. Right from the bottle. Hard, rough, coarse down my throat, like swallowing bristles coated in honey. And I missed that about House, too. That kind of blunt, unapologetic company, instinctive in public and private. There wasn't any figuring out to do between us both. Maybe it was because our anatomy was the same, or because we just knew each other so well.
Probably a combination, but it was nice to think it was primarily the latter.
I downed another gulp and let it float like wreckage down my throat.
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Jimmy. Jimmy. Wake up.
I don't want to have a conversation now. Let me sleep.
You've been sleeping. Time to get up.
Come back later. I don't need a conscience now.
Jimmy. James. I come all the way from New York and you'd rather stare at the back of your eyelids?
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I opened said eyelids and blinked at the lanky figure leaning over me. He looked like he wanted to kiss me, and this time he did.
"So are you awake now?"
I muttered a gargled, sleep-drugged reply and pulled myself to an somewhat upright sitting position. Judging by House's reddened eyes, he'd either reacted more violently than expected to the suck-up physician exposure or he'd gone without Vicodin for quite some time.
He tapped his cane on my knee, hiding a grimace as the weight transferred to his bad leg.
"Is she asleep?"
I ran a hand through my hair, then shook the knotted strands free with a shrug. "She's not here."
He raised his eyebrows. "I make a frantic, late-night journey down to play hero and she's not here?"
"I… I kicked her out, I guess."
House watched me as if he expected me to laugh, admit the joke, then say, 'Yes, she's still asleep; in fact, I've proposed to her, and we've decided to try this marriage thing again anyway.'
The sofa cushion gave way slightly as he took a seat next to me. He reached out and I handed over the whiskey, of which he joined me in taking a swig.
Lost in quiet contemplation, he clicked his tongue languidly as he swallowed, then cleared his throat against the alcohol.
"You surprised me," House finally said.
Something that should have been a smile surfaced to my face. "What? You didn't trust me?"
"I trusted you to be yourself. That's why I came back."
"And for once I wasn't."
House examined my features carefully. A tingle ran up my arms, one that I overruled with a drink I stole from his bottle. He kept his hand beneath mine as I raised the whiskey to my lips.
"Did she reschedule her appointment?"
I didn't even want to know how he knew. In fact, it didn't even phase me that he did. I'd almost expected it, seeing that he was already in half the hospital's business anyway.
He must have been disappointed that my expression didn't even flinch. I thought of warning him that if he keeps bursting with surprises, the shock eventually wears off. I'll expect him to say something stunning every time he opens his mouth.
"Probably."
"Did she tell you about the paternity test?"
"Or lack thereof."
"No. She got one."
That deserved a raise of the eyebrows, despite myself. His fingers brushed along my palm as he abandoned the whiskey and gave it up to me.
"That's one of the perks of being a world famous doctor. Amazing the gossip nurses will be willing to divulge if you make a name for yourself." His eyes roamed my face, which was slowly collapsing into droll, blasé unconcern, smeared with alcohol. "Well?"
"Well what?"
"Don't you want to know?"
I considered for a moment. "Doesn't matter, I guess. She doesn't care."
"The kid's going to. And I just thought you should have a fair warning that you're going to be responsible for taking him to Mets games."
"Me?"
He nodded, just barely, then took the whiskey back, letting our hands brush longer than necessary.
"Me." I sighed, the breath emanating from some deep cavity of my chest I hadn't known existed. Somehow, the problem didn't appear any simpler.
"You might want to be there for the next ultrasound."
"She doesn't need me." I gave a short, rueful laugh that sounded more self-pitying than I'd wanted it to, thanks to the whiskey. "She doesn't even care if I'm there or not."
"Again. The kid might." He frowned at my indifference, then moved in front of me, standing sturdily and leaning into my personal space. "Close your eyes."
"I had them closed. You woke me up."
"I'm telling you to close them again."
I threw him an exasperated look, but complied.
"Don't move. Stay still; breathe. Think of the air around you."
"Am I channeling my subconscious?"
"Shh, Jimmy. The air. What color is it?"
"This is stupid, even from you, House."
"What color do you see?"
"A…"A random thought jolted to the forefront of my head. "An ugly shade of yellow."
House must've figured that deserved a kiss, because his lips were suddenly pressing to mine and lovedrugged anvils seemed to attach themselves to my eyelids, and I couldn't have opened them if I tried. He was so close I lost track of myself.
"On second thought…" I murmured against his mouth. "Blue, definitely blue. I get those shades mixed up."
"Great talent you have there, Jimmy."I shifted and made room for him to drape himself over me, his weight crushing and uplifting simultaneously.
"Can I open my eyes?" I asked, words half-stolen between kisses."Not yet. Patience is a virtue."
"When you're not the one waiting."
He caught the bottom of my lip, teasingly sucking and tugging it back, before parting for air to return between us.
"Now. Open."
I did, the room a brilliant hues brighter; his face streamed with intensity and eyes shattering, just as deep as the ebony keys on the piano.
"Nobody's nice," he began quietly, "because it feels good. They're nice because they feel guilty and want to redeem themselves for something."
He didn't have to ask for what he wanted me to tell him. He wasn't like Julie. There was something else that floated between us, something that kept us needing the other without it decaying into selfishness or control.
I dredged the words up from wherever I'd repressed them. "He needed me."
"Who needed you?"
"He…" I picked a spot to stare at on his face—that little birthmark on the right side of his nose. "My brother."
"The one I don't know." It wasn't a question, so I didn't bother to confirm either way.
He massaged a brief tapestry of touches to my forehead, my temples, then let the touch slip to my sides before giving me some space again, as if the story might take up more room than could fit if we remained so close.
"Your brother needed you first," he prompted with more care than seemed possible for him to use. He just raised a brow and waited.
I opened my mouth and spoke before I knew how to say anything.