A Long List of Nevers - 23. Chapter 23

The catamaran finally drew close enough for the boarding ramp to be attached. Keith’s breath hitched as he saw Carl towering over the rest of the passengers. He was anxiously scanning the people on the dock, looking for him.

Keith watched the passengers disembark. Carl was casually carrying the light suitcase he had taken with him, his eyes still wandering over the pier.

He looked happy. He sounded happy the last time he had talked to him. Before Josh came into the bookstore and shattered the illusion. Keith hadn’t answered any of his calls since then.

Carl set the suitcase down one of the rows of benches on the perimeter of the pier. He stood beside it, waiting. Minutes passed, and still Keith didn’t feel like he was ready to talk to him yet. Tourists leaving Cronek filed past Carl as they boarded the waiting cat.

Finally, Carl pulled out his mobile and a moment later Keith felt his phone vibrate in his pocket. Taking a deep breath, he stood up from the shadowed table inside the pier gazebo and headed outside.

Carl saw him walking towards him and broke into a big smile. He rapidly made his way towards Keith. Meeting him halfway, he dropped the suitcase he was carrying and enveloped Keith in a big hug.

“I missed you. I missed you. I missed you. I missed you. I missed you. I missed you…” He repeated at least a dozen times, punctuating each sentence with a kiss on top of Keith’s head “You weren’t answering your phone, you bastard.” Carl laughed. “You drove my car?”

“Yeah.”

“I didn’t know you can drive.” Carl laughed again.

Keith remained silent. Tears were prickling at the back of his eyes. The anger he had been feeling the past two days warring with the rediscovery of the depth of his feelings for Carl.

Nestled in Carl’s bearhug, feeling his strength, seeing his face, hearing his voice… his laughter… Keith could almost forget everything he had seen and heard from Josh.

Carl draped an arm around his shoulders and they started walking towards the pedestrian exit and to the pier bridge.

“How was the trip, Chooky?” Keith asked quietly.

“Tiring.” The passengers who had disembarked earlier were already long gone so they had the entire length of the covered bridge to themselves. A small truck trundled past them, carrying cargo unloaded from the catamaran Carl had arrived in. “I sat beside this old lady from Albany on the plane though. She was something else.” Carl laughed. “She had this huge hat completely covered with emu feathers…” His voice trailed off and he stopped walking.

Keith looked up at him, anticipation and fear in his eyes.

“Wait… what did you just call me?” Carl looked down at him, his eyes wide with shock.

“Chooky. I found out.” Keith replied quietly. Keith heard the suitcase fall down with dull thud on the grating of the deck. He averted his eyes and looked out the aquamarine expanse of the sea beyond the railings.

“Keith, look at me.” Carl turned him around again. To Keith’s surprise, there was fear in Carl’s eyes too. “I was going to tell you. Believe me. Remember what I said before I left? I was going to tell you, I swear.”

Keith looked away again. Carl was too beautiful. If he was going to be objective about this, he better not look into those blue-gold depths.

“How did you find out?” There was an increasing note of desperation in Carl’s voice.

“Josh.”

“He’s here?!”

“Yes.”

“What did he tell you?”

“He told me everything.”

“Everything?”

“About who you were… and about the contract.” Keith schooled his features into a mask, suddenly remembering the phone call to Josh yesterday. The reason he was here.

“Fuck.” Carl let go and turned away, his shoulders sagging.

“Tell me he’s lying.”

“You know him.I know him.” Carl replied. “Of course, he’s lying.”

“Then –”

“But…” Carl interrupted. “But the contract is real.”

“Goddamit, Carl.” Keith bit his lip and looked down. A sudden wave of anger flooded him.

“Keith, we need to talk, like really talk.”

Keith nodded mutely. He was too angry to trust himself to speak.

“Are you willing to listen to my side?”

Keith nodded again.

“Not here.” Carl picked the suitcase back up and they started walking again towards the shore and the car park. Carl didn’t attempt to take Keith’s shoulder again. Neither was he smiling anymore.

There was now a four feet gap between them, a gap that felt a whole lot wider.

Keith stared out at the sea as Carl drove. It was a beautiful sunny day and most of the beaches they passed were packed with tourists. Both of them still hadn’t spoken a word. Keith couldn’t even look at Carl.

Carl finally pulled over an empty rocky stretch of the shore. He got out immediately and walked out to the sand. Keith waited a few seconds before getting out and following him.

“So talk.” Keith said as he drew up to him.

Carl was standing on a flat piece of rock, looking down into the shallow quiet waters of a tidal pool. “Are you angry?”

“Yes.” Keith replied simply.

Carl sighed. He bent down and started unlacing his shoes. He pulled them off and tossed them back at the sand dunes. He rolled the cuffs of his pants up and sat down on the rock. “Sit with me.”

Keith walked over and sat down, still not looking at Carl’s face. The rock was warm from the sun and dry, safe from the surf in low tide. “What happened to you?”

“I grew up.” Carl shrugged. “My dad was a big guy. I reckon my genes finally caught up. A short while after you left Greenwell, I had a growth spurt. By the time I was a senior I was already pretty big.” He laughed self-depreciatingly. “You should’ve seen the way the guys back there reacted. Girls who had no problems making fun of me in front of my face were suddenly falling all over themselves to get a date with me. Guys were acting like their years of torturing me never happened. Bunch of fucking hypocrites.”

“And you? In league with the guy who almost beat you up and did beat me up almost to death.” Keith snorted. “I guess you changed more than just the way you look.”

“I hated him. I still hate him. Take that as you may. I did what I did because like Caz would say… I was stupid.” He laughed mirthlessly.

“You expect me to believe that?”

Carl sighed. “I don’t expect anything. That’s why I was scared of telling you who I was.”

“Of course, since it would have probably violated the terms of the contract if you had told me.”

“Fuck the contract. Look.” Carl ran his fingers through his hair. “Remember what I said about having had a crush on one guy throughout high school?”

“I assume you mean Josh.”

“What?!” Carl looked at him in astonishment. “Bloody hell no!”

“Then why were you looking at Josh…”

“You, Keith.” Keith looked at Carl in disbelief. “You treated me like a human being. And you were the only other gay guy I knew there. I knew you were gay, you didn’t have to tell me. I knew. As embarrassing and as pathetic as it may sound, I had a fucking deep crush on you, mate.”

“I don’t believe you.” Keith turned away and looked down at the clear blue water. The sun was reflected in the little ripples at their feet, blinding him intermittently.

“I still do.” Carl added quietly. He leaned back on his arms and stared at the horizon. “I’ve fucked that up royally, haven’t I?” He gave a short laugh.

“What am I supposed to believe? You’ve admitted the contract is real, and you’re probably balls deep in debt. You lied to me by not telling me you knew me before. And then there’s Josh. Why is he here? And what the fuck is he to you?”

“We were… in a relationship.”

“Define ‘relationship’.”

“Fine.” Carl sighed. “We were boyfriends.”

Keith’s hands curled into fists. “What’s he doing here? Are you guys still together?”

“No. We were over months before. And it’s not what you think it was. When I first saw him again in uni, I was in serious danger of dropping out of school. I had no fucking money, Keith.”

“So he was your sugar daddy?” Keith kicked at the water in anger, making Carl flinch at his side. “Of all the people you could have gone to, you chose the guy who almost killed us? How the fuck do you explain that?”

Carl was silent for a few seconds. “I wanted to hurt him. I wanted to use him. He made you go away, and I fucking hated him for that.” His jaw clenched. “I hated him long before that. You were always hanging out with him. I saw the way you looked at him. And I couldn’t understand why you couldn’t see him for the asshole he is. That morning he beat you up? I was a bit zonked out, looking at him and wondering what you saw in him. I realized too late I had stared too long. And then…”

“Try harder at lying, Carl.” Keith stood up. “Have a good look at me. I’m not even close to Josh’s league.” He started walking for the car.

“Fuck.” Carl scrambled to get up. He picked his shoes up from where he had tossed them and ran after Keith. “You promised to listen to me.”

“I think I’ve heard enough.”

“Goddamit.” Carl dropped the shoes and abruptly enclosed Keith in his arms.

“Let go of me.”

“Not until you listen.”

“Let go of me!”

“You want to know the real reason I could stomach being with Josh? It was because he had one thing I desperately wanted… He knew where you were. And I wanted so badly to see you again.”

“You could have hired a detective.”

“I didn’t even have the money for three full meals a day. Look, I know now it was goddamn stupid. But I was young, I was desperate, and I really really wanted to see you again.”

Keith stopped struggling.

“Let me prove it to you.” Carl whispered. “Please.”

Keith was getting aroused by Carl’s closeness. He can still remember exactly how the body pressed behind him looked like naked. Having had a taste of what it was like to actually make love to someone, he was still hungry for more. And the whole week of being away from each other only made it worse. A considerable part of him wanted to turn around and kiss Carl, to rip his clothes off and just fuck him right there. And that made him even angrier than he already was. “How?”

“I don’t know. But give me a chance, mate.”

“I’m sorry, Carl. But I don’t think that’s possible. It’s over.” Keith felt Carl flinch at his last sentence. “Now can you please let go of me?”

Carl let out something between a sob and a sigh then Keith felt the arms around him slowly relax and fall back. Carl quietly went back and retrieved his shoes.

Keith continued to the car and got in the passenger seat. Carl slid in a moment later, putting his shoes back on.

“Take me home.”

Carl inserted the key in the ignition and turned to Keith. “Are you going to quit the job?”

“I don’t know.”

“Please don’t. I promise I won’t bother you again. I’ll be professional. I’ll give you a raise. Heck we don’t even have to talk to each other that much. I’ll…” Carl stopped. Probably realizing that he was talking too fast and he was starting to sound a little desperate. “There’s no one else in the island I can hire.” He finished quietly, his hand fidgeting with the keychain.

It might have been because Keith didn’t relish the prospect of having to beg for a job from his friends again. Or it might have been because he didn’t want to exactly scream to the entire island that he and Carl had broken up, something that would have been immediately obvious if he left his employment. He could already envision his friends’ reactions. He’d be inundated with pity in the next couple of weeks.

Or it could have been Carl’s expression. For the first time since Keith met the new Chooky, his blue and gold eyes were sad. It must have been that because Keith nodded.

“Okay.”