Random Acts of Love (Random Series #5) Read online

  I bent, slowly, with my senses attuned. There was no way out. Obsessed chicks behind me. Pee-soaked street people in front of me. I was the monkey in the middle.

  With Darla now nearly screaming at me.

  “Trevor? Trevor? Say something! Who’s screaming about free beer?”

  “I’m caught between a bunch of panhandlers and a group of fans.”

  “Go for sanctuary with the panhandlers,” she replied without hesitation. “You know how nasty the fans can get.”

  The video of Liam and the snake flipped through my head. He was being undressed by a crowd of hungover college girls when that happened. I didn’t think I’d be rescued by a six foot snake fucking a blow up sex doll, though.

  Poor me.

  “Gotta go!” I left the six pack with the missing beer on the ground, grabbed the other one, and charged around the beggars. Running fast, I considered this my workout, shoving the phone in my back pocket, abandoning the call with Darla.

  “TREVOR!” High-pitched girly screams crowded out the sounds of traffic as I bounded up the stairs to my building, hoofing it. This could be an Olympic event. The Beer Groupie Chase. Sponsored by Budweiser and Snapchat.

  The apartment was empty. As I closed the front door, my heart pounded hard, like Sam’s bass drum. The six pack’s cardboard handle cut into my fingers, and I pried them gently off the thin band, setting the beer on the counter.

  Was this my life now? I couldn’t go out for basic errands without being spotted—and chased? The band had struggled for more than seven years to become something. Only in the past two years did we make enough money to even hint at being a minor success. Darla’s management of our career had fast-tracked us, and the big gig at the Island of Eden had skyrocketed us.

  The big tour and record deal being offered was a thorn in everyone’s side. We had time to decide, but we were split.

  I was split. Joe, Liam and Sam were ready to hit the road and hit it big with the massive tour and recording deal we had on the table.

  The couch called out my name and I slumped down, head in hands. The giggles. The shouts of my name. The invasion of privacy. When I tried to talk to the guys and Darla about it they didn’t get it. Didn’t care, even if they understood. For Liam this was the fucking dream. Getting paid to prance and preen, even if he wasn’t getting a parade of pussy buffet like he used to.

  We were all settled now. Sam and Amy were engaged, for God’s sake. Liam was getting close to asking Charlotte to marry him. For all I knew, he already had.

  And Joe and I had Darla, and—

  Fuck.

  A groan poured out of me like some subterranean animal lived in my gut and wanted to get out.

  That was it, right?

  We weren’t settled.

  I couldn’t even tell my own parents the truth about me, Darla and Joe. How could I say we were settled when I kept up this ruse that Darla was my girlfriend—and only mine. Not Joe’s too?

  Mom’s call inviting Darla and me to dinner felt like a summons.

  Our secrecy felt like a prison.

  And being out at the store and unable to buy a fucking beer felt like a sign. Of what, I didn’t know, but it all pointed in the same direction.

  This was not how my life was supposed to turn out.

  I stood, got a beer, drank it fast, and opened a second. Drank that too, tipping it back to chug it down just as Darla walked in the front door, pink and blonde and round and fired up.

  “Again?” was all she said as I caught her eyes, plunking the empty bottle in the recycling bin.

  “Again what?” Her eyes searched my face. A giant burp came out, juvenile and ridiculously long. I could have recited the alphabet to M but held back. Had to have some manners.

  “Again with the groupies attaching themselves to you like leeches? Any of them grope you?” Darla had this ability to completely ignore the more base nature of men. The burp didn’t faze her. Neither did socks so crusty they could double as door stops, fart jokes galore, and endless discussions of the best fake tits on porn stars. It all poured over and through her. She had this attitude that said it’s all just part of being human. Very little judgment.

  Her judgment came through in different ways, though.

  “No groping.” I made a pretend Sad Panda face. She whapped me. I grabbed her around the waist and stole a kiss.

  She melted into it. When you kiss someone you’ve been in a relationship with for a long time, there’s a sense of expectation that quickly turns into a hunger. Having the freedom to grab a woman—my woman (our woman)—and touch her whenever I wanted was a privilege. All these sex ed campaigns now about asking permission for everything make sense, and I got it. I did. So did my male friends.

  When I was with Darla, though, those basic rules had already been laid out. Overtly or covertly, they were part of the landscape. It was like learning how to drive. First, you studied the laws on paper and in a mind-numbingly boring class that included what to do when a flock of turkeys crosses in front of your car. Then, you took the written test. Next, you went out on the road and shit yourself the first time you actually were put in charge of a two-ton beast that didn’t have parental controls. No driving instructor in the car with a second brake pedal. No one could protect you from your own actions.

  You were accountable.

  You.

  Finally, you took the road test, got to drive alone, and the accountability went through the roof. Mistakes held the potential to be deadly.

  This wasn’t a joke. It wasn’t trivial. You held someone else’s existence in your own two hands.

  And, of course, your own.

  Relationships were like that. And as I was kissing Darla, my tongue sliding through with implied permission, tracing the sleek lines of her teeth, caressing the scalloped edges of her sweet, wet tongue, I was reminded of that fact.

  Muscle memory took us places when we drove, the brain and body attuned with the car to go to McDonald’s. To school. To a best friend’s house or the post office.

  Darla’s body and heart were the same for me. Muscle memory told me where to put my arms, how to fill my palms with that glorious ass, which way to twist my hips so the curve of her thigh rested against my aching boner.

  The heart is a muscle, too. It has a memory.

  It has accountability.

  Mine squeezed for a second, fingers diving into the hair at the nape of her neck as she sucked my lower lip into her mouth, the tip of her tongue flicking like she was tonguing my cock.

  Darla was not my girlfriend. She wasn’t.

  She was our girlfriend.

  But that accountability? That muscle memory? The thought of being open and true with my mom, my dad, my grandparents and extended circle of friends and family, with professors and employers and with the whole fucking world made me feel like I was naked.

  Being chased by a band of groupies and panhandlers, all screaming for my soul.

  I was an asshole. I admit it. Joe was, too, but he was an asshole on the outside. You knew what to expect with a smug, self-righteous bastard like him.

  A tiny moan of pleasure came from Darla as she pulled away and caught my eyes. Of all the moments to make me look at her. I was ashamed and filled with self-loathing, because I couldn’t show her what was really inside me. I couldn’t.

  If she saw that, she’d leave me.

  And I just proved what a hypocrite I was, because as I took her into the bedroom to fuck her silly, I realized I was just as fake as my parents, as fake as my teachers, as fake as my fake friends in high school in Sudborough. The same ennui that drove me to get high out of my mind nearly two years ago and hitchhike naked to Ohio, turned out to be caused by me.

  Me.

  Not the external world.

  My boredom came from overwhelm, from the cognitive and emotional dissonance of knowing that if I was true to myself I’d lose so many people I loved.

  Darla pulled my shirt off and unsnapped my jeans, her fingers eager and
eyes troubled.

  She knew.

  But she didn’t say anything as we stripped naked. My throat tightened as my cock did, too. There’s a point where a man can have too many conflicting emotions inside his body, the chaos pounding against the walls of his arteries, a parkour of conflict and roiling pain that makes even sex feel inadequate.

  I hadn’t reached that point.

  Yet.

  Hot blood seized my legs, my arms, my back, my cock, and I sank into Darla’s creamy, welcoming flesh. This was what I needed most. This private world where I was not the lead singer of the band, not the soon-to-be co-editor of Law Review, not the devoted son who would assume responsibility for his adult autistic brother some day.

  And not the lying liar who lied to the world about the most wonderful woman in the world.

  I was just a guy with a cock that wanted to sink into some loving warmth and make the world go away.

  And that’s exactly what Darla gave me.

  Joe

  No matter how many times I pulled up to the driveway at our house, it was always the same. Mom and Dad installed the small gate at the end of the quarter-mile road when I was eight. It’s still there, a small stainless steel number box that has the same, exact code from sixteen years ago. The first four digits of my birthdate.

  Great security they paid for.

  I punched in the code and the gate clicked, then pulled back.

  I roared the Beemer up the driveway. We didn’t have pets, so no worries about taking one out. I’d killed a squirrel here and there by accident, but right now there weren’t animals scampering about. Mom insisted I come home and if she wanted me, she was going to get me.

  Speeding and all.

  I pulled up to the garage, a three-bay, two-story building that looked like it could be its own house. Technically, it was. My dad’s law firm partner, Gene, lived there. A two-bedroom apartment above the garage had one office for Dad and Gene’s legal consulting firm, and Gene lived in the rest of the space. Years ago the band tried practicing in the garage. That venture lasted exactly one time. Mom couldn’t stand it.

  Even though the house was hundreds of yards away.

  Gene had loved it, though. Came downstairs, offered everyone some beer, chilled with a group of geeky high schoolers just noodling around with our faux cocks in the form of guitars and bass.

  Mom ruined it, storming down the steps to yell at us about all the noise we were making.

  Three chickens wandered by, one white, two a burnished ripple of red and brown. When did Mom get chickens? For years she’d been threatening to make Dad put in a henhouse so she could have free range chickens that boosted her choline levels or something, but she’d always wanted to avoid the mess of chicken shit everywhere.

  So much for not having pets.

  My eyes tracked one of the chickens. It was brown and red on top and white on the bottom.

  I peered closer.

  Those weren’t white feathers.

  The chicken was wearing a diaper.

  I parked the car right behind Mom’s bay door, which she hated. That’s why I did it. As I got out and started for the house, Gene called out to me.

  “Hey, Joe! You home for the weekend?” Gene was in his late forties and looked a lot younger. He was outside constantly, skiing in the winter and biking in the warmer weather. He was the guy you would see in the winter biking on snow, covered in goggles and snow clothes.

  The crazy fitness freak dude.

  “Yeah. We have a gig tonight in Worcester and I figured I’d come home for the long weekend.” Gene reached forward to grip my hand. We didn’t hug, but he shook my hand every time I see him. He did when I was thirteen and he moved in, and he still did now, eleven years later.

  “The queen requested your appearance at court, didn’t she?” he asked with a laugh. Gene was as blonde as my parents were dark, with eyes that always freaked me out as a kid. One was the exact color of honey, while the other was a milk brownish green. He wore sunglasses most of the time, but in bright sunshine it was like looking at two different people sometimes.

  I pretended to bow and gave him a half smile. “When the queen calls—you come.”

  “Women,” he said with a head shake. I started to say something back but paused. It was easy to make fun of Mom, but his words made me hesitate. Women. Gene never came around with women. Never dated. He lived alone in the apartment and until this very moment I’d never questioned any of it. Gene was just there. A guy who worked with Dad and lived above the garage.

  Was he gay?

  I wasn’t asking. No way. Gene got a funny look on his face, like he was about to say something, but then stopped himself.

  “Yeah. Can’t live without them, can’t duct tape their mouths,” I finally replied.

  My head suddenly hurt, shot forward on my neck from a massive smack from behind. The pain was mild but the surprise made me yelp.

  “Joseph Herbert Ross, that was one of your baser moments.”

  “And they sneak up on you, too,” Gene said with a snort.

  I turned around, rubbing the back of my head, to find myself looking down at fifty-eight inches of pure evil in a one-hundred pound package of bones, sinew, flesh, and Botox.

  “Mom,” I said. “You don’t count.”

  “I’m not a woman? I have a vagina. I have ovaries. I even have a hymen,” she said proudly.

  “I’ll take that as my cue to leave,” Gene said with a wave, eyes catching mine with an expression that said, Have fun, bro.

  “I don’t want to talk about your hymen, Mom,” I muttered, walking to the house, still rubbing my sore head. What the hell had she hit me with? I glanced over.

  A yoga brick.

  Of course.

  Her little, sculpted legs were covered in the latest fashion from LuLuLemon and she pumped them fast to keep up with me. “My hymen is part of me, Joey. Why wouldn’t I talk about it? If I had surgery on my ovaries you’d hear about it. Why not my hymen?”

  I slowed down, overriding the instinct to just start running and never stop. “You had surgery on your hymen. Is everything...okay?” These are conversations men are not meant to have with their mothers. Ever.

  “It’s fine. Our twenty-fifth wedding anniversary is coming up, and your father is getting quite a surprise. A restored hymen.”

  “A...what?”

  “The surgeon makes my hymen intact. I’m a virgin again. Hymen reconstruction is the new anal.”

  I didn’t know a brain could splatter like a cantaloupe dropped from a seventh-story window.

  But it can.

  “Hey! Joey!” Dad called from a second story window. “Come on in! I want to show you something!”

  “As long as it’s not your hymen!” I shouted.

  That got me another hit on the head. Good. Maybe if Mom hit me enough I’d be rendered unconscious and could stop thinking about my mother getting her hymen...somethinged. As a present. For my Dad.

  I sprinted into the house. Mom kept up with me. She also kept a long stream of chatter going without even breathing hard.

  “School okay? You’re keeping your grades up, right? Need to keep those nice and strong for law review. And you’re in the good study groups, not the ones with the slackers. No amount of beer and fun is going to help you get an associate’s position at Ropes and Gray. How’s your love life? Sowing those wild oats now, I hope. Can’t do that once you’ve settled down. But you’re wrapping it. We can send you condoms in bulk, you know. Easy to ship them...”

  See? Duct tape.

  I bounded up the stairs, already in a sweat, and slammed into my Dad’s body. He reeled back and hit the wall, hands fumbling to catch himself.

  “Joey! What the hell?” His eyes tracked behind me and looked at Mom, who was still emitting a steady stream of words.

  “Oh. Gotcha.” He grabbed me into a bear hug. My parents are a study in contrasts. Mom is tight and taut, uptight and up-to-date on fashion. She’s determined to turn fif
ty into the new twenty, and I guess hymen surgeries are part of that strategy.

  Dad looked like he’d swallowed a keg of beer and it was just resting under his skin.

  Mom gave Dad a look of barely concealed impatience. “I was talking, Herb.”

  “You’re always talking, Joanne.”

  She ignored him and looked at me. “And so when you do pick the right woman, make sure you don’t give her any diseases.”

  Dad and I exchanged a look like hostages in a bank robbery.

  “Too bad Suzy turned out to be so unstable. She had such good genetics.”

  “What did you want to show me, Dad?” I groaned. He wrapped an arm around my shoulders and led me to my old bedroom. Chez Ross has six of them, and five bathrooms. Mom complains that it’s so hard to clean five bathrooms. What she means is that it is so hard for the maid to clean five bathrooms. Mom goes through a new maid every six months or so. MetroWest Boston is littered with enough ex-maids that we could form a football game of two teams and they could hold a playoff.

  Winner gets to burn Mom in effigy.

  “Ignore the horrible toilet, Joey! Cecelia has been using something with petrochemicals on it again,” Mom called out from her shoe closet.

  I followed Dad down the long hallway, the floors hardwood and the walls covered with pictures of me. I’m their only child, and the stories I’ve heard about Mom’s c-section and my heart surgeries as a tiny baby make me bite my tongue and not make fun of what Trevor calls the “Joe-o-Rama” of my parents’ hallway. It was like a photographer vomited nothing but me everywhere.

  A new picture made me halt, though. It was from our big concert last December, the one where the snake tried to eat Mavis the chicken. I’m on stage with Darla, arm around her waist. Trevor’s on top of the snake, prying open its jaws, and Liam and Sam are off to the side. The photo is one of those in-motion moments caught perfectly in time. I’d never seen this photo.

  It was amazing.

  “Where did you get this?” I asked Dad, who stopped and turned, following my eyes.

  He raised an eyebrow. “Garrett McCarthy. He said he went to your performance and hunted down a professional photographer there. Had a bunch of these made up. Sent one to all the parents.” Dad was tall and dark, like me, but he was massive. A tight end gone soft. His thick eyebrows turned down and deep brown eyes met mine. Man, he looked tired. Grey sprinkled in his eyebrows and hair. Never saw that before.