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Him! Now what?
“Carlisle, let’s stop this nonsense, you’re not fooling me a bit,” came Robert’s voice. “If you were really leaving me, you wouldn’t be right around the corner at Dixie’s. You want me to find you. I’m giving you till 6:00 p.m. and then I’m coming for you. This is ridiculous. You’ve tried before and you just can’t do it. We’re meant to be together and you know it.”
That was one of the first things he’d said to win Carlisle over. We’re meant to be together and you know it. That one sentence had irrevocably changed Carlisle’s life. At first he’d thought it had been to the good. Now he knew better.
When he’d met Robert, Carlisle had been in a dull, albeit stable, relationship. He was thirty-five then and had been “out” for about the same length of time he’d been at Aries. His partner, Alex, was fifteen years his senior, and they’d been together for just over six years. Had Carlisle given in to the seven-year itch?
Alex was a university professor with a Ph.D. in Renaissance literature. He tried to get Carlisle involved with his academic friends but had no interest in Carlisle’s airline buddies or even the Phoenix gay community. Alex preferred a quiet, intellectual life, while Carlisle wanted to have a little fun.
Along came Robert, a flashy wine-and-spirits sales rep who put the moves on Carlisle. To his shame, Carlisle was swept away a little too easily. It wasn’t true that gay meant easy. Carlisle had always been very discriminating; his good looks and sharp wit set him apart from the crowd and he did the choosing. But Robert was even more handsome, and they made a fetching couple.
After a brief and passionate fling with Robert, Carlisle left Alex. His friends endorsed the move. Robert was charming, funny, sexy. Men and women alike fell for him. “You have to be happy,” they would tell Carlisle. “You’ve outgrown Alex.” And “You have to follow your bliss.”
The only person who had not encouraged his breakup was Nikki. “You just don’t know how wonderful dull can be, Carlisle.” But why in the world would he have taken her advice? She never encouraged anyone in romance, probably because of the mess she’d made of her own love life.
It was amazing how short that “bliss” turned out to be. Robert was a fraud. He wasn’t charming, he was manipulative. Mean. Controlling and unfaithful and possessive. At first, Robert easily convinced Carlisle that their problems stemmed from the craziness of dealing with Alex, who’d become hysterical after Carlisle left.
But within a few months Alex had found someone new and left his ex alone. By then, Carlisle and Robert had had at least a dozen blistering fights, and Carlisle had been hit twice. Robert had been devastated that he’d lost control and swore it would never happen again.
Of course, it had.
Nikki and Dixie knew that Robert was an asshole, but of course they didn’t know all of it. It was Carlisle’s dirty little secret. He couldn’t stand the thought of being some sissy queer who couldn’t…wouldn’t fight back. It was killing him. Even Dixie had struck out at injustice. Why couldn’t he? It wasn’t as though Robert was so much bigger and stronger.
He folded up the last of his laundry, packed his bag, put it in the trunk of his car and drove out of the neighborhood. Thirty minutes later he was parked at the curb of an elegant neighborhood with large, expensive homes and tall, mature trees. He looked at the house, remembering every room, especially the huge gourmet kitchen. It was nearly five.
Alex’s small silver sports car came down the street and turned into the drive. Even after traveling across town, Carlisle still wasn’t sure he intended to talk to Alex, but when Alex stepped out of the car, briefcase in hand, he looked directly across the street at his former partner. As if he could sense his presence.
“Oh, well,” Carlisle said to himself, getting out of the car. Hands in pockets, he slowly crossed the street.
Alex looked well. At five foot eight, he wasn’t a big man, but he was well built and distinguished-looking, with a salt-and-pepper beard that set off his deep, penetrating aqua eyes. Had Carlisle really been worried about the age difference? Alex was fifty-three and appeared to be robust, in the peak of health. He nodded once toward Carlisle, holding his briefcase against his chest with both hands.
“Hi, Alex. I’m sorry to just show up without calling first.”
Alex shrugged.
“I won’t stay or get in the way. I wanted to say I’m sorry. For what I did to you.”
Alex simply lifted his brows and cocked his head to one side, as if asking without asking.
“I realized before much time had passed what a terrible…no, tragic mistake I had made. But I couldn’t do anything about it by the time I knew.”
“Why not?” Alex asked.
Carlisle just shook his head in a helpless way. “I just couldn’t. But it has become important to me that you know I’m very sorry. Think you might ever forgive me?”
“It’s not a matter of—”
“Hey,” a voice called.
Both men turned. Standing in the doorway of the house was a slender young man with what appeared to be a dish towel in his hands. He was very young. Alex was robbing the cradle for sure this time. “Would you like me to open a bottle of wine and put out some cheese and crackers?” the young man asked.
“No—No, thank you,” Carlisle called over to him quickly. “I have to run.” And to Alex he said, “Take care, okay?”
“You, too. You don’t have to be a stranger, you know.”
“Thanks. That’s decent. You always were so…classy.” Carlisle went back to his car and drove to his own neighborhood, but instead of going to Dixie’s house, he went to the one he had shared with Robert for the past three years.
Accepting his fate.
The next evening when Dixie came home from her trip, Carlisle wasn’t there. She checked around for his belongings. And she knew.
She called Nikki. “He’s gone. Again.”
“Damn,” Nikki said. “You’d think one of us would escape bad love before total humiliation forced it.”
“He didn’t even leave a note.”
“He’s embarrassed. He’s right around the corner.”
“Well, too bad. If he can’t even tell me he’s going back to Robert, he can just kiss my—”
“Don’t be mad,” Nikki begged. “Give yourself a little time, then call him. See if he’s okay.”
“I don’t care if he’s okay.” Dixie sighed. “He’s given up. But I’m not going to. I don’t care if I have to be alone till I die, I’m not getting back to that mean old game.”
Summer peaked, and the heat drove everyone indoors. Nikki divided her time between her job at the airline, the paperwork for the property sale and, gratefully, full-time motherhood. Buck chauffeured the kids around so they could keep their connections with friends from school and the old neighborhood.
Nikki saw little of Carlisle and Dixie, and she hadn’t seen them together since the day they’d helped her sort through Drake’s things. Neither of them would admit they weren’t speaking, but they hadn’t spoken.
Meanwhile, life at Buck’s was crowded and complicated. There was a definite difference between having the kids there two to four days a week and having them all the time. While no one was given to anal-retentive housekeeping in their family, even Nikki was starting to get edgy because of the constant clutter. She knew it was time to start thinking about finding a place of her own for her and the kids. A place her father could visit. Although Buck didn’t complain too loudly, he was sixty-six and set in his ways. The only real advantage to living with him was that Opal didn’t visit.