Page 4 of Torch Songs

“Like, draft or bottled?” Guthrie asked, because those were the kind of barsheplayed at, but Vince—a beautiful native Hawai’ian man with skin a pale teak color and brown, fathomless eyes—shook his head.

“No, brother. I wish. This is, like, thirty taps in a place, and you go in and get a ten-shot flight and taste all these beers, and you have toknowthings. Like, ‘Hmm, taste of citrus with a hint of plum and coffee!’”

Guthrie stared at him in horror. “Who?” he demanded. “Who? Who does this to beer?”

“Fuckin’ heathens,” Vince said, and he clinked his Sam Adams bottle with Guthrie, who had enjoyed it as an exotic taste when apparently it was like Coors to the people Vince hung out with.

Everyone else laughed, and the conversation went on. At its end, Seth and Amara had crashed next to each other, head oneach other’s shoulders, because they’d been friends from high school as well, and Vince curled up on the end of the same couch, his head in Amara’s lush lap.

Guthrie smiled at the three of them as he and Kelly polished off the last two beers.

“How you doin’, Guthrie?” Kelly asked. His eyes were a little glazed, but his speech wasn’t slurred, and Guthrie had the feeling that Kelly was the one who could drink them all under the table.

“Fine,” he said. He’d been nursinghisalcohol, which was a trick you picked up when you’d been playing in dive bars since you were way underage. It was either that or his dad’s route, which was full-blown alcoholism, and Guthrie wasn’t a fan.

“Mm?” Kelly’s eyes had sharpened, and Guthrie was forced to shrug.

“I’ve got a band right now,” he said. It was his one good thing—he knew that.

“What about amanright now?” Kelly asked bluntly. “God, Guthrie. I know you had it bad for Seth. I couldn’t even blame you. But neither of us want you to live alone forever because you”—his voice dropped—“fell in love with a guy you couldn’t have. That’s… that’s not fair. You’re a good guy, Guthrie. We want you to have more than a band for a minute.”

Guthrie glanced away. Kelly was more right than he knew. Kids like Roberta, Owen, and Neil were toogoodto stay in The Crabs for long. They had places to go, real performances, spots in orchestras to achieve.

“What do you want me to say?” he asked finally, knowing there wasn’t enough alcohol in the world to soothe over this rawness inside. “I’m…. Kelly, you know what I am. If… if your boy hadn’t come wandering into that dive bar, looking for a job, I could have lied to myself my entire life. I could have slept with girls and told myself I wasn’t the type to fall in love. I could havegotten drunk every night with my dad and Uncle Jock, and they could have yelled at me to get my shit together, and I would have known they were right, but I wouldn’t have had any way, anywhere to reach higher. Your guy comes along and suddenly I’m, like, ‘Hey, I can learn piano and get better at guitar! I can go to school! I can get a job with health and dental!’”

“You can fall in love with a guy, and it can last forever,” Kelly said. “Man, I’ve been to school. I got the papers behind my name. Just like you, this wasn’t a common thing in my family. And I can tell you right now, it’s not the job or the health and dental—it’s the guy you love forever and ever. That’s the difference in your life. That’s what makes it special.”

Guthrie tried for condescension. “Maybe, sweetcheeks, I’m not special enough to get a special guy.”

Kelly didn’t blink. He simply stared at Guthrie until he shifted uncomfortably.

“What?” Guthrie finally asked.

“We love you, asshole. Seth worries about you. We know how to have friends from far away—you and me never stopped contact, not even when he was all over the damned planet. I want to hear there’s a guy in your life. And don’t tell me they don’t fall in your lap. Keep your heart open for us, Guthrie. Learn to let someone in.”

Guthrie swallowed, beaten and done. His eyes were burning, and it was all he could do not to sob his heart out on the shoulder of the guymarriedto the guy Guthrie couldn’t seem to get over.

“It’s hard,” he admitted gruffly. “I… I know what it feels like now, when it’s real. In your heart. Just like you two—I can’t settle for anything smaller or dumber now.”

“That’s real good,” Kelly said, nodding. “But don’t let it hold you back. A kiss won’t kill you, buddy. It’s the way to see if there’s sunshine in the corners.”

Guthrie could only nod. He didn’t remember much more about that night. Theyallfell asleep in the front room in front of the fire, bundled in blankets. Kelly took a recliner, and Guthrie lay in front of the couch, and when it was time to get up and leave in the morning, the five of them hugged and cried a little, because they were all old enough now to know times like that didn’t come as often as they should.

But he kept Kelly’s words in his heart:A kiss won’t kill you, buddy. It’s the way to see if there’s sunshine in the corners.

He knew what to look for now. He’d look for sunshine.

Get Knocked Down

“HEY, CHRIS,”Tad Hawkins said to his partner, Chris Castro, a fellow detective in the Sacramento Police Department, Office of Investigations. “How’s this weekend looking? Anything I might get called in for?”

Their police department had been modernized—twenty years ago. The detective bullpen featured sturdy desks, barely cracked linoleum, and computers from the last decade at least. Chris pulled up the schedule on his computer and shook his head. “Not seeing anything pressing,” he said, scanning it. Chris was a good detective—and a good family man. In his forties, with his youngest kid entering college at the beginning of September, Chris was savvy enough to have ensured he and Hawkins had a lightened load by the end of April. They both had investigations pending, which they worked doggedly on during the week. But weekends were for Chris helping his youngest, Robin, study for her AP exams and going to see her softball games, and Chris had seniority. Since Tad’s ambitions had been shoved aside for hisownfamily considerations, he was good with this. He loved his job—had been on the force for a couple of years and had enjoyed his promotion to detective very much—but he… well, needed time.

Needed to be able to compartmentalize: job on one hand, his sister on the other.

“Looking good so far,” Chris told him, cracking a smile. He frowned for a moment. “Ugh. We’ve got a series of Monday morning workshops, though—whole next month. What we can do to aid our forensics team.”

Tad brightened. “That’s actually interesting!” he said. “I mean, I’m not a science genius but… you know.” He hummed the theme for the originalCSI, and Castro chuckled.

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