Page 60 of Roads Behind Us
She looked up at me, and the longing I saw in her eyes for the kind of love and connection my sister and her fiancée had with each other was suddenly plain to see.
“Medium rare.”
“Me too,” I said and smiled.
“Bax, you know we like ours medium, right?” Devo asked.
“Yep.”
“Thanks. Abey, come in the house with me. The Wi-Fi sucks back here and I wanna show you the coffee table I found.”
They skipped off toward my house and left me and Bea alone again. She rose from her chair and lifted the grill’s hood, then grabbed the tongs and began to flip the steaks. The melted fat dripped from the rack and sizzled on the charcoal briquettes below.
When I was standing behind her, I reminded her, “You said I could flip.”
My breath rushed over her shoulder and little wisps of her hair played in the air. I tucked them behind her ear, and she shivered.
Without turning to face me, she held the tongs up and snapped them together twice. “Here.”
Letting my right crutch fall to the grass next to the grill, I put tentative weight on my bad leg. It held up, but my left leg and crutch supported most of my bulk. I took the tongs from Bea’s fingers, and she stepped to my side and let me flip the steaks.
“You got quiet,” I said.
“I did?”
“Yeah, when my sister kissed Devo.”
“Oh. It’s just that it was such an intimate moment, you know? Private.”
“Yeah, but they don’t mind. They’ve had to fight a lot of bigotry in their lives, separately and together, so now they like showin’ affection in public. Plus, it helps that this is our family land.
“This is where Abey feels the most comfortable. Which is kinda weird when I think about it since my house is the same house she grew up in, the same house in which my dad treated her like a second-class citizen because she was gay. But I guess she knows I don’t hold the same opinion. Athena certainly doesn’t, so I hope she feels at ease here.”
Bea smiled softly. “That’s really sweet, Bax.”
I shrugged. I didn’t mean for it to be sweet. It was just how things were.
Bea said, “I’ve never had love like that.”
“No? Not with your ex?”
“No.” She shook her head. “We were young. It wasn’t love. It was infatuation on his part. And I was just lookin’ for… I dunno. Attention? I felt so alone when my dad died. I was alone. I just wanted someone to care about me. I wanted to know there was one person in the world who cared if I was late after work or who’d listen if I had a bad day. Or a good day.
“It didn’t take long for me to realize I’d chosen the wrong person.”
“I’m sorry, sweetheart, sorry you felt alone.”
She shrugged one shoulder, twisting her lips. If I wasn’t wrong about the little flash I’d seen in her eyes before she turned her head away, there were tears glistening there. I balanced on my good leg and switched my crutch to my right side, then leaned on it, and I wrapped my arm around her shoulder and pulled her closer.
“I care.”
She tucked her head against my chest, still hiding her face from me. “Thank you. Even if your care only lasts five minutes, it feels good.”
“Best s’more I’ve ever eaten,” Abey told the girls, and they responded with “Mm-hm,” both their mouths full of the gooey treats.
Athena had a glob of marshmallow stuck to the edge of her lip, and she held her hands up in the air so she wouldn’t get the sticky mess on her clothes while she chewed.
“Aubrey’s apple pie was pretty good too,” I said. “She could win competitions with that stuff.”
