Quabbin - 14. Chapter 14

I didn’t even wait to run into Kevin, and I didn’t just call him. I went to his apartment. There was an outside door, and when I buzzed and said, “Jim,” he let me right in. He was waiting in the hallway, smiling.

“I was gonna phone you later,” he explained. “I just got home.”

This isn’t about what you think, I wanted to say, to start off completely honest. Then I thought, Why not? Why not just make it about what it seems? I’ll sleep with Kevin and forget everything. Cameron will sleep with Kevin and forget everything. Kevin will just forget. No one’ll lose, unless Cameron suddenly does something dumb, like fall in love.

But Kevin wasn’t headed to bed. He offered me tea. Green tea. Always a bad sign.

“Am I about to be dumped?” I joked. Or can you get dumped, if all the time you knew the guy wasn’t really interested?

“No,” he smiled. “And if you’d like to take a bath with me later, I’d love it. A nice, warm bath.”

Suddenly, I did not want to be in a tub with Kevin Orr. But I grinned anyhow.

“Cameron told me about Kohler,” I began, wondering what that would kick off.

“Good,” he said, casually. But his back was to me, so I couldn’t really tell what he was feeling. He was carefully measuring loose tea. “You like it strong?” he asked.

Oh, Christ, just throw me on the floor here and clear my damned mind.

“Strong’s fine,” I answered calmly.

“’Cause I can make it any way…” He turned and grinned me again, then gently touched my chest.

“You’re making me nuts,” I said, laughing.

Another quick grin, then: “Friendships are great before they pick up baggage.”

Kohler is baggage! I wanted to shout. It seemed Cameron and I were both shouting, a lot, since we’d met Kevin.

“I like baggage, actually,” I admitted. “Like being familiar with things.”

Wrong word: “Like with me?” he joked.

Yikes. “Look, about Kohler…” I tried again.

“Poor Drew,” he said, easing the cup of tea towards me on the counter. “I’m so glad Cameron told you.”

“He’s usually better with private stuff,” I assured Kevin, hoping to myself that Cameron would stay that way.

“I would’ve told you…” he said, “Friday morning. But we didn’t get much sleep…”

Tell me about that.

“It’s not that I feel responsible,” he went on. “I honestly don’t know what I feel -- or what happened -- after I left. That must’ve been around six. It was light when he walked me to my car.”

So he had spent the night.

“But nothing happened,” he suddenly insisted. “If that’s what you’re thinking… We talked a lot… And I flirted… And Drew didn’t stop me... But I don’t think he really recognized it as flirting -- a lot of straight guys don’t. And he did nothing to encourage me, either... Except listen.”

“I thought you’d never been in the Founder’s House,” I told him.

“I hadn’t, really -- not past the living room. Well, and the john…”

And that room kind of wedged between us for a moment, ‘cause we both knew what had happened there.

“Look,” he comfortably went on, “we all worked late Monday night -- Drew, Mary, and me -- in his office. We were editing a report for Tuesday’s meeting and just couldn’t get it right. Of course, that meeting got cancelled…”

He stopped. Like anything else that changed after a death, it seemed unimportant. Still, he picked up. “When Mary left,” he went on. “Drew asked if I wanted a drink.”

“He asked?”

“Yes.” He smiled. “It was really nice.”

I thought about that for a moment. I guessed Kohler was allowed to ask someone for a drink, especially someone he worked with. If it had been me, I just would’ve said “Sure.”

“What time was it?” I asked Kevin.

He shrugged. “I don’t know. Late. When Drew tried to think of a local bar, there wasn’t anyplace he wanted to go… And we’d already been in the office way too long…”

I got the rest. So they ended up at the Founder’s House where Drew knew there was booze.

“I barely left the living room, honest,” Kevin insisted. Of course, he’d never been known to have sex on the floor. “And we just talked -- really. Mostly about my plans... And about Steve… And about how much I missed him, but was still really very happy I was away -- how confusing that all was.” Kevin smiled at me. He used his smile so easily. “And Drew laughed a lot -- at me,” he went on. “I kept joking about that, asking if he was getting bored. He said ‘No,’ politely, but I’d bet he was. He seemed so… so much more… together… compared to me.”

He was struggling for words, but seemed to find the right ones. Though Kohler was not just a dozen times more “together” than Kevin, he was way ahead. He was right on top of things, still having fun, yet smack in the middle of his life.

“Your pot?” I suddenly asked. But he knew what I meant.

“Yeah.” He grinned. “But it wasn’t like he didn’t know how to roll a joint.” He laughed at that, I guess remembering. “I only had one joint with me, and it had been in my wallet for a couple of weeks -- it was kinda beat up. He opened it, repacked it, and rolled it really tight -- like thin as a toothpick.”

I could imagine Kohler doing that and wondered what it was like getting high with him. The closest I’d come was with some older dockworkers in France. And they didn’t speak much English.

“I really don’t know what happened,” Kevin went on. “Drew must’ve gone back to the house -- I mean, we know he did. And he must’ve been more out of it than he thought. I mean, I mainly sipped one Scotch for a couple of hours -- and I don’t know why I let him pour me that. When we got to the house, he said, ‘Scotch all right?’ and I said, ‘Sure.’ But it’s not like I’d really drink something as strong as that. He was putting them down like Cokes.”

I hadn’t seen Kohler drink, either. I was always a kid to him -- Carrie’s friend -- even when I worked at the Mill. And at parties there, we had wine, or beer.

“He was such a nice guy,” Kevin insisted. “We hit it off, right from my interview. I knew there was so much I could learn from him, though, after I got the job, I didn’t see him for a week-or-two. There were other things to do first, so many of them. But when we started the project I’d been hired for, I saw him every day.”

“Did you work with his wife, too?”

Kevin laughed. “No, not really. I’m in marketing. Eileen stays away from that.”

It was weird, hearing him easily say “Eileen,” when Mary Foti wouldn’t even say “Drew.”

“But it’s not like I didn’t know he was married, happily,” Kevin went on. “And had been for a very long time.”

“What if he had come on to you?” I asked. “At the Founder’s House.”

“Oh, come on. That man was as straight as you can get.”

“I know… But if he had?”

He had to think about that. Or he had to think about what he wanted to tell me.

“I would’ve let him,” he admitted. “I mean, if he was gonna sleep with me, he would’ve slept with someone else, so what’s the problem?”

“You could lose your job,” I pointed out. “If that was really so important…”

“Look,” he said, abruptly, “he didn’t come on to me, and I’m not gonna lose this job. And if he had… well… maybe I would’ve stopped him -- because of the job. But knowing what I do right now, if the last thing Drew Kohler had done before be died was sleep with me -- as long as no one found out -- that would’ve been fine.”

As long as no one found out. Jeez. History could be built on that -- even my family’s history: As long as my mother didn’t die. As long as my father didn’t know where she’d been. As long as Maddie never went to see the nuns. I won’t even start on Dane.

“Drew was a very attractive man,” Kevin went on. “More, because he wasn’t trying to be. He simply made you want to be with him. I really looked forward to this job.”

He was staring so intently into my eyes, I almost turned away. But I held on, till he was done. When I looked back, he was still watching me.

“You want that bath now?” he asked, smiling.

I wanted that Scotch, actually, but I said, “Sure.” It came right out -- as fast as we were out of our clothes. In the tub, I knew Kevin wasn’t thinking about me. He might be trying not to think at all.

It was a small tub, in one of those newer apartments. Our heads were at opposite ends, and there was soap, and not much light, and music from down the hall. Later, wine replaced the tea, and after it got completely dark, the small room seemed very familiar, and we slowly began to have sex.

I had to forget Dane. I knew that. I had to let go. Maybe even being there with Kevin meant I was starting to, or picking up something I’d really begun on my trip.

Except I didn’t believe that. So much of my past two years was focused on Dane. Everything centered on the moment I came back and he saw me and realized he could never go through with his marriage.

OK, that hadn’t happened. And OK I didn’t know what to do next. And maybe if there was a chance of my being with someone like Kevin… well, someone like Kevin but less impulsive… well, not in bed… Hell.

If.

If Kohler had just had one less drink. Or if he hadn’t slipped in the tub. Or if he hadn’t passed out. Or if his head hadn’t gone under the water. Hell, I’m six foot and in Kevin’s small tub my head couldn’t go under the water, and if Kohler was four or five inches taller…

And if I’d stayed in the Tulane library ten seconds longer, maybe fratboy would have mangled someone else. Though Dane would still have met Craig. He was already taking his class. Christ, I said his damned name.

There were just too many people to keep track of.

Though it wasn’t hard distracting myself with Kevin. This is what I’d wanted to be doing all weekend, instead of working myself nuts. We moved from the tub to his bed without even stopping to dry.

I spent the night with Kevin. I didn’t even have to ask. I couldn’t remember when I’d last slept almost wrapped around someone. Sleep came so easily.