The Couple Next Door by Rick R. Reed

Author:Rick R. Reed [Reed, Rick R.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: gay romance
ISBN: 978-1-63476-649-4
Publisher: Dreamspinner Press
Published: 2015-12-07T05:00:00+00:00

THE DAY belies my mood of fear and anxiety. The sun is brilliant, the temperature has soared into the low seventies, and Deanie and I couldn’t have picked a more breathtaking spot for a picnic—Golden Gardens Park. We sit close together on the beach, with Puget Sound lapping at the shore and the snowcapped Olympics towering and majestic in the distance. The sky is a crystalline blue with only a few strands of cloud, as though they’ve been smeared horizontally across the blue with a paintbrush. It’s a day that makes me wonder if this is what heaven will be like—every day. The breeze is warm, tangy with the salt from the Sound. Gulls cry in the distance. Because it’s a weekday, we have the beach mostly to ourselves. There’s a family at the picnic tables back near where we parked. A couple of old women, pants rolled up and barefoot, stroll along the shoreline hand in hand, prompting Deanie to grab my arm and inform me that that’s her and Alma in fifty years. Earlier, we spied a baby seal sunning itself.

Around us are the remains of our lunch—waxed paper that held turkey and swiss sandwiches, banana peels, and brown glass bottles that had fizzed with kombucha, a fermented tea that Deanie insists is the best thing since Orange Crush—only good for you. I think it tastes like vinegar, but I pretend to enjoy it—just like I pretend to enjoy the day—because I know Deanie spent a lot to come out here and see me, both in terms of time, money, and also this new wrinkle in her life, Alma.

But my thoughts, and my heart, frequently stray back to my apartment and my darkened bedroom.

And Shane.

Is he okay?

Has John come back? Has Cole?

Is Shane safe?

Deanie finishes her bottle of kombucha, burps, and sets it aside. She wipes her mouth with the back of her hand. My sister—she’s a lady.

She moves close, so that our shoulders touch, and draws her knees to her chest. “It’s so beautiful here,” she says. “We have some pretty spots in Ohio—Beaver Creek, the riverfront, the colors in fall on the hills surrounding our valley—but this, this almost seems unreal, a movie set, it’s so gorgeous.”

“I know,” I agree.

She punches my arm. “You do not! You were a thousand miles away, or maybe more like five or six, in that crappy little apartment of yours, wondering about him.”

I turn and smile at her. “You know me too well.”

“Oh, little brother, you and me, we’re two sides of the same coin. I’m the steel side and you’re the marshmallow.”

“That doesn’t even make sense.”

“No, not as a metaphor. Maybe as the writer in the family, you can punch it up, make it sing. But I know you get my point.”

I shrug. “I do. And I know I’m too soft, too caring, if one can even be those things. I mean, aren’t those qualities people aspire to? Isn’t that something to be esteemed?”

Deanie scoots a little closer and puts her head on my shoulder.

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