Coda 01 - Promises

who would speak first. It turned out to be him.

    “I didn’t expect you to have company.”
    “Obviously.” All those weeks that I had been hoping to see him, hoping he would call, hoping he would knock on my door just like he had this morning, and yet now that he was here, all I could see was the judgment in his eyes. I turned away from him, went around the counter into the kitchen, and started making coffee.
    “What is it, Matt? Did you come here to talk or to tell me how disgusted you are by my lifestyle? Or maybe to make sure I’m not tutoring kids in my bedroom ?”
    “Not that. I wanted to see you. But, I didn’t expect—” He stopped and seemed to be struggling to find the right words, struggling to get his rage back under control. “I didn’t expect him . I didn’t expect to find you with somebody else!”
    “Why not, Matt? Why shouldn’t I be with somebody else?” “Do you love him?”
    That surprised me, but I didn’t answer him. Instead I asked, “Do you love Cherie?”

    “No.”
    A flat, honest answer. I was trying to hang on to my anger, because I knew if it left, I would only feel dirty and depressed. “No. I don’t love Cole. You know that.” I looked over at him. “If I had things my way, it would have been you in my bed last night. Last night and every night. But you have made it quite clear that you want nothing to do with me.”
    He was staring at the wall about a foot above my head, and I knew he was struggling. He was angry and hurt and embarrassed, and I was pretty sure he was at least a little bit jealous too.
    “I love only you. But if you expect me to apologize for going on with my life after you walked out of it without a backward glance, you can go to hell.”
    He stood there another minute, still not looking at me. Finally, he said, “I think I should go.”

    “I think you should too.”
    T HE next evening, he was back. I heard him knock, and when I opened door, he was there. He was leaning against the doorframe with a six pack in one hand. He looked haggard, and embarrassed, and scared to death.
    “You look like hell.”
A hint of smile flickered on his face and was gone.
    “Are you alone?” I was glad to hear that there was no judgment in his voice. He was simply trying to let me establish a boundary if I wanted to.
    “I am.”

    He sighed and then said softly, “Can we try this again, please? Last time didn’t really go the way I planned.”
    And any anger or resentment I still had over those last unfortunate visits vanished. I was just glad he had come back. “Of course.”
    “I heard about the baby,” he told me as he came in. “I guess you’re Uncle Jarhead now?”

    I laughed, probably louder than I should have.
    He went in the kitchen to put the beer away, came back out with two open ones and handed one to me. And then there was a moment when we both just stood there.
    For my part, I couldn’t get enough of looking at him, and it was all I could do not to throw my arms around him and hug him. It wasn’t a romantic urge. Sure, I was crazy about him, but we hadn’t been lovers. We had been friends. And it was losing that which had hurt the most. Just having him walk back through my door—without the thunder clouds raging in his eyes, like last time—made me feel like I could breathe for the first time in weeks.
    For his part, he still looked scared out of his wits, and he was looking everywhere but at me. I think he was waiting for me to say something or to yell at him, but he finally glanced at me, and I was still just standing there grinning at him like a damn fool. His eyebrows went up a little in surprise, and I managed to say, “It’s really good to see you.”
    He looked relieved and clapped me on the back so hard that I staggered a little bit. “Let’s go sit down.”
    So we sat down in our usual spots, side by side on the couch like we had a million times before. It felt so familiar. He leaned back with a sigh and sat there with his head back and his eyes closed. I could tell he was still wound up tight, but I could also see that he was glad to be here.
    “So how did you hear about the baby?”
    He sat up and started fidgeting with the label on his beer bottle—another gesture that was achingly familiar. “Cherie told me.”
    I felt jealousy, hot and angry in my chest, and tried to force it down. But my voice was sharper than I intended when I asked, “How is Cherie?”
    “How is she?” He made an angry laugh. “Christ,