Second Chances in New Port Stephen free digital audiobook - Chapter 11

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Second Chances in New Port Stephen
CHAPTER 11


Being alone in a suburban house was like being in a horror movie. After years living in New York apartments, Eli chafed at the sprawling silence inside his parents’ home. His folks had left to run errands hours ago. They hadn’t given Eli any details, just grabbed their keys with a cursory goodbye, which was par for the course ever since their tiff over the Christmas ornaments.


With only the cat for company, Eli was hyperaware of every sound, like the bang of the ice maker or the creaky whoosh of the air conditioner. The rest of the neighborhood was so quiet, no white noise of constant traffic to cover up anything. So when he heard a scraping sound at the front door, he immediately assumed he was about to be attacked by some Floridian supercriminal.


He put down the biography of Patton he’d snagged from his dad’s bookshelf, picked up the golf club his parents kept in the corner next to the sliding glass door, and crept toward the front of the house. If he was going down, he was going down swinging. Florida Man Dies, Looked Cool Doing It. The doorknob rattled, the sound like a gunshot through the hallway. Eli stopped breathing, his grip tight on the driver. Thank god he’d convinced his parents to at least lock their door if they were leaving the house.


Then he spotted a familiar head of dark hair bobbing outside the sidelight windows that flanked the door. A relieved sigh left him.


Eli lowered the club and twisted the lock on the door, flinging it open to find Nick crouched right outside. He looked up at Eli in surprise. In his hand was one of the many ceramic garden gnomes that Mrs. Ward kept scattered around the front porch.


“Oh. Sorry,” Nick said. “I didn’t think you were home. No car in the carport.”


“What the hell are you doing?” Eli shook the driver in his hand. “I was about to bash your head in.”


Nick scrambled to his feet. “I was looking for the spare.” He showed Eli the hollow bottom of the gnome he still held, the one with the bright red hat. Taped inside was indeed a copy of the front door key. “Guess your parents still keep it out here, huh?”


“Seriously?” Eli boggled. “Okay, I am going to have to talk with them about basic home security. It’s not 1992 anymore.”


“At least they lock their door. My dad still leaves his unlatched, even when he leaves. Says there isn’t anything worth stealing.”


“Oh my god.” Eli couldn’t fathom it.


“I know. Believe me, you’re not the only one worried about prowlers.” Nick gestured at the golf club. “But, uh, think you could put that away now? Or are you still trying to decide whether to give me a good whack upside the head?”


Eli hastily leaned the club against the plaster statue of a heron that guarded the foyer. “So why were you trying to get in the house?”


“Well….” Nick cast a nervous glance over his shoulder. “It seems kind of silly now.”


Eli went up on tiptoe to catch a glimpse of Nick’s car parked on the street. He could see that the trunk wasn’t completely closed, fastened with bungee cords. Zoe was in the yard as well, twirling around in circles while humming to herself. She seemed to have found a friend in the fake reindeer among the Christmas lawn decor, blowing it kisses every so often.


“What’s that in your trunk?” Eli asked with suspicion. He left the doorway and pushed his way past Nick, letting the door shut behind him.


“Nothing,” Nick said, trying to get ahead of him and block his view.


Luckily Eli was nimble and slipped right past him. “Hey, Zoe,” he said as he marched by on his way to get a closer look.


“Hi, Eli!” Zoe stopped spinning long enough to wave, then threw herself on her back in the grass, kicking her legs up at the sky. “Do you like it?”


“Maybe,” he told her with perfect honesty. “I need to see what it is first.” He stopped, finally getting a good look. Sticking out of the trunk of Nick’s sensible Toyota was a bicycle wheel. It was slowly rotating in midair, its spokes catching the sunlight.


He stood speechless. If the sprinkler system his dad had installed years ago chose that moment to pop out of the ground and start spraying water across the yard, Eli still wouldn’t have moved. He was rooted to the spot.


“So,” Nick said from somewhere on his left, “we got you a bike.”


“You got me a bike,” Eli repeated in a daze. “Why did you get me a bike?”


Zoe rocketed past, her two pigtails flapping behind her. “Because you said the last time you had a good Christmas was when you got a bike! The best present ever, remember?” She tugged at the hooks on the bungee cords, trying to release the trunk lid. “Dad said you deserved to have a good Christmas again.”


“He did, huh?” Eli looked over at Nick, who seemed to be shaking off his initial embarrassment at getting caught playing Santa Claus. His chin stuck out at a stubborn angle as he met Eli’s eyes.


“I did indeed.” He swept past Eli to pry Zoe’s little fingers off the cords. “I’ll get that, honey, don’t hurt yourself.” Then, over his shoulder, he said, “I was going to leave this on the back patio for you, but I guess this is better.” He unhooked the bungee cords and lifted the bike out, setting its wheels on the grass. “What do you think?”


Eli approached slowly. The bike was black with neon green streaks running down the frame. It was the same color scheme he’d expect to find on bottles of three-in-one men’s shampoo/conditioner/face wash. Super masc. The seat wasn’t too high, just right for his smaller stature. There was a basket, which seemed practical. And the handlebars sported actual gears, unlike the bikes of Eli’s childhood. He reached out and squeezed one. The bike made a happy click in response.


“It’s secondhand, nothing fancy,” Nick said in an apologetic tone. “My dad picked it up at a yard sale. No idea why. He hates bike riding.”


“You didn’t want it for yourself?” Eli asked.


“Nah. I figured you’d get some real use out of it while you’re down here.” He pushed the bike toward Eli. “It’s not a car, but it’ll get you places if you ever feel


stir-crazy again.” His deep brown eyes held an impossible warmth. “Merry Christmas, Eli.”


Eli took hold of the handlebars in earnest, and Nick’s hand slipped away. “Oh, wow.” He marveled at the bike. It was in good condition, and if things got dicey again with his folks, he wouldn’t have to rely on someone being available to furnish him with an escape. “I don’t know what to say. I mean, I didn’t know we were doing presents. I didn’t get you anything!”


Nick laughed. “You don’t have to. Seriously, it was just sitting around.”


The thing was, when Nick said stuff like that—you don’t have to get me anything; really, it’s not a big deal—he meant it. He was honestly that nice. It was so infuriating. Eli’s last serious boyfriend, Rick (the one who took the cat), hadn’t been half as nice. When Eli had turned thirty-seven, Rick took him out to dinner to celebrate, but when Eli had tried to order the steak, Rick had said, “You’re going to end up taking half of that slab of meat home with you, so really that’s two meals. I’ve only budgeted to treat you to one birthday dinner. Order something else.”


That had devolved into a huge argument where Eli pointed out how he had been more than generous with Rick on his birthday (dinner and tickets to a terrible off-Broadway play that they could make fun of afterward), and Rick accused him of “keeping score,” and Eli said he didn’t see anything wrong with that, since Rick was clearly a big fan of numbers, which made Rick throw down his napkin and storm out. Eli broke up with him immediately via text. Their two-year relationship was kaput in under two seconds.


And that dig about keeping score was still circulating in Eli’s head.


He shook himself. Nick was not his boyfriend, not anymore. Just a friend. And friends did things for each other all the time. It didn’t mean anything except… friendly stuff. He was clearly reading too much into it.


“Wait! We were gonna put this with the bike so when you found it, you’d know who’d left it for you.” Zoe shoved about a metric ton of silver tinsel at Eli along with a folded piece of construction paper covered in Crayola scribbles.


Eli clutched the items against his chest and let the bicycle lean against his hip. “Oh, thank you, Zoe. It’s…” He struggled for words.


“A card,” Zoe said. She tapped the edge of the creased paper excitedly. “Come on, open it!”


Eli made a show of unfolding the construction paper with a flourish, juggling the tinsel before stuffing it in the basket that hung from the bike’s handlebars. The card had a crude drawing of a Christmas tree on the face, each triangle-tip branch playing host to a brightly colored orb. Inside was a face clearly drawn with a four-year-old’s skill. There was a nose and eyes and a slash of a mouth, and although they weren’t exactly where they should have been, Eli recognized the swoop of his light brown hair on top of the bulbous head.


Happy Holidays, it said in red crayon—that was Nick’s penmanship. Eli could still recognize the way he looped his P’s and Y’s into the next letter. From: Zoe & Nick. The signatures were done in purple. Zoe must have demanded to sign her own name; the Z looked a little wonky.


Eli loved it. He traced the drawing of his own face with a fingertip. “This is so good, Zoe. You really captured my soul. My inner turmoil.”


“Mm-hmm.” Zoe nodded like she knew what that meant. Hell, maybe she did; kids were so much smarter these days. “I’m a good draw-er.”


“You know,” Eli said, “your dad was terrible at drawing when we were kids. He made me look like a potato when he drew me.” Zoe giggled, so he went for the punchline. “I didn’t mind, though. I like potatoes.”


That got a bigger laugh from his tiny audience. Eli looked up to catch Nick’s eye, faltering when he saw what Nick’s face was doing. He looked—it was hard to say, exactly. If he didn’t know him like he did, Eli would say he looked uncomfortable, the lines around his mouth and eyes creasing. But when Nick was uncomfortable, he fidgeted, and at the moment his hands were relaxed, one tucked into his back pocket and the other dangling at his side. Wistful. That was the look. Like he was watching from a distance something that he wanted close.


Well. Time to do what Eli always did when faced with a serious moment: act like an unhinged clown.


“Hey, Zoe, it’s been a long time since I rode a bike,” he said, directing his gaze back down to the little girl. “Do you think you could help me get the hang of it?”


Zoe looked up at him, then at her dad, a silly smile growing on her lips. She was in on the joke, and probably wasn’t used to that. “Um, I don’t know. I have a bike, but it’s got three wheels.” She held up the requisite number of fingers to illustrate. “It’s not the same.”


“Three wheels? Oh, wow, mine only has two.” Eli pouted as he looked over his new bicycle. “You must be a way better bike rider than I am since you have a whole ’nother wheel. Way more advanced.”


Zoe laughed that high-pitched laugh that kids make before they get too selfconscious to make noises like that. “Eli! That’s not how it works. More wheels are for kids, and I’m a kid.”


“If that’s true, then how come a car has four wheels, huh? Cars are only for adults.”


Zoe screeched in delight. “You sit in a car, not on it! It’s not like a bike.”


“No?” Eli made a big production out of thinking that over. “Well, you obviously know more about this stuff than I do. So will you help me relearn how to ride a bike?” He picked up his leg to sit astride the bicycle seat, plunking the handmade card into the basket with the tinsel. “What’s the first step?”


Zoe adopted a pose that was so cute, Eli wanted to scream. She curled her fist under her chin and eyed Eli’s bike like it was a serious problem, but her eyes were twinkling like she knew it was all for fun. “First, you have to stay on the grass,” she declared. “That way, when you fall, you won’t break anything.”


“When I fall?” Eli gasped and clutched at his imaginary pearls. “Zoe, have some faith in me! I’m your best student.”


Zoe giggled into her hand, then composed herself. “When you figure out how to balance on the grass, you can go on the driveway.”


“Oh, all right. Tough, but fair.” Out of the corner of his eye, Eli saw Nick walk back to the porch, where he took a seat in one of the wicker chairs. He was smiling and relaxed, watching their antics. Eli concentrated on his bike school gag. “Okay, I’m on the grass. Now what?”


For the next several minutes, he let Zoe put him through his paces. Some of her lessons were grounded in reality, like when she directed him to hold on to the handlebars and not let go, while others only made sense in Kid World. Eli didn’t mind roaring like a tiger every time he put both feet on the pedals, since it


made Zoe double over with laughter. Plus, he couldn’t be totally certain it wasn’t helping. He started pretty wobbly, of course; decades of never getting on a bike except the stationary ones at the gym would do that to anyone. But soon he had graduated to making slow, careful donuts on the driveway while Zoe ran behind him, shrieking in delight at the progress she’d overseen.


“Now I’m the dolphin trainer,” she said, “and you’re the dolphin.”


“Can dolphins ride bikes?”


“If they’re trained.” The “duh” went unsaid. She placed her thumb and forefinger in front of her lips and made a tweeting noise like she was blowing an imaginary whistle. “Do your tricks! Do them!”


Slapstick wasn’t normally Eli’s favorite form of comedy, but he didn’t mind doing a pratfall onto the grass if it got Zoe laughing.


Eli had never, not once in his entire thirty-nine years, pictured himself having kids. Before his transition, he’d been a mess, drinking too much, staying out too late. He couldn’t take care of himself, let alone a child. Then he started to get his life together. Got help. Came out. Even now, years later, it all seemed so fragile, like one wrong move and it would all come crashing down. Eli hated to admit to living in fear, but the idea that one shitheaded law or a single change in health care policy could upend his life was very real. Who had the time to start a family with all that looming over his head? Not to mention, he’d never found someone he’d want to start a family with. Now, careening toward the big four-oh, he’d figured he’d missed the boat long ago. If kids were supposed to happen, they’d have happened by now, he’d thought.


But here was Zoe, taking to his bit about being a terrible bicyclist like she’d been playing the straight man her whole life. Making it sillier and more bizarre than Eli ever could with his stodgy adult brain. It was like watching a master of the craft. Eli had never realized: kids were naturally hilarious.


Damn. At what point did the world try to suck all that dry? He was seized by the desire for Zoe to always be like this, laughing and joking and acting out the little melodramas that only made sense in her head. He wanted to defend that right of hers. Wanted to keep the dreary adult world at bay for as long as he could.


Ah, shit. Eli skidded to a stop at the bottom of the driveway, still astride his bike. Maybe he was dad material after all. Or stepdad material.


Not to Zoe, of course. Some other child, maybe. Though this one in particular had really good timing.


“I’m done,” Zoe called from the grass. She was back to twirling in circles, now with a stick in her hand.


“Yep.” Eli cleared his dry throat. “Think I’ve finally got the hang of bike riding. And being a dolphin. Thank you, Zoe.”


“You’re welcome,” she said.


Eli looked over at where Nick was sitting on the porch. Nick was staring back at him, an unreadable emotion curled into his faint smile. A wave of vertigo washed over Eli, a feeling of falling through reality. In some other lifetime, this could have been an alternate path where he stayed in Florida, stayed with Nick. If he squinted, he could imagine a glass of iced tea in Nick’s hand, and the house where Eli had grown up was theirs.


The mirage shattered as Nick clapped his hands to his knees and rose. “We should get going. Enjoy the bike.” He ushered Zoe toward the car.


“Yeah, I will,” Eli said dully. He walked the bicycle into the carport, leaning it carefully against the stucco wall.


He stood on the driveway and waved goodbye until Nick’s car turned at the corner. When it was gone, he dropped his hand and whispered only to himself and the lizards on the porch, “Well, fuck.”