Maybe
By J.M. Snyder
Published by JMS Books LLC at Smashwords
This story is included in the print book So In Love by J.M. Snyder.
Visit http://www.jmsnyder.net for more information.
Copyright 2010 J.M. Snyder
ISBN 978-1-93575-313-1
For more titles by J.M. Snyder at Smashwords visit https://www.smashwords.com/profile/view/jmsnyder
Cover Photo Credits: Jason Stitt, Dundanim
Used under a Standard Royalty-Free License.
Cover Design: J.M. Snyder
All rights reserved.
WARNING: This book is not transferable. It is for your own personal use. If it is sold, shared, or given away, it is an infringement of the copyright of this work and violators will be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law.
No portion of this book may be transmitted or reproduced in any form, or by any means, without permission in writing from the publisher, with the exception of brief excerpts used for the purposes of review.
This book is for ADULT AUDIENCES ONLY. It contains substantial sexually explicit scenes and graphic language which may be considered offensive by some readers. Please store your files where they cannot be accessed by minors.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are solely the product of the author’s imagination and/or are used fictitiously, though reference may be made to actual historical events or existing locations. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
Published in the United States of America.
* * * *
Maybe
By J.M. Snyder
When the phone rings, Josh Kennedy thinks it must be his mother. He’s been back in town for a while now and expected to hear from her sometime soon, even if he isn’t looking forward to fielding her carefully worded questions. She’ll want to know what happened between him and DeMar, why he didn’t want to talk about it over the phone when he called from his hotel before leaving for their final stop on the tour, and why he hasn’t bothered to call her since.
She’ll want to know the answers to those questions and more, and this early in the morning Josh doesn’t want to go through it with her when, honestly? He doesn’t even know what happened himself. DeMar is happier without me.
He can already hear her response to that—Bullshit. He can hear the word in her voice as clearly as he can hear the phone ringing through the house and out onto the front porch where he sits still dressed in the sweats he slept in the night before. And he isn’t up for another argument with anyone right now. He just isn’t.
If it isn’t his mother then it has to be Leila, the woman who played Desi opposite DeMar in their production that just closed. She knows something’s up between them by the way their relationship grew strained the longer the tour continued until, at the end there, he and DeMar no longer spoke to each other backstage. So it could be her calling him up just to say she’s sorry but did he maybe want to talk about it?
And seriously, if he can’t talk to his mother, why would he want to talk to her? He doesn’t even know her—she had a lead part in the play and he’d been relegated to nothing more than a glorified chorus boy. Whatever she thought she knew came through DeMar, and Josh can only guess what he might have said. So what, she wants Josh’s side of the story now? Nothing like getting the whole scoop before spreading it around, is that it?
In the still air, the phone’s cry pierces through the screen door, shrill, demanding. It’s the land line, not his cell, which he turned off as he packed for the trip home weeks ago and never bothered to turn back on. The cell is upstairs maybe, still stashed in his suitcase, he doesn’t know. Doesn’t care. If he had remembered the land line, he would’ve unplugged it, too.
Since he didn’t, he just blows on the hot mug of coffee he holds in his hands and tries to ignore the sound. Here it isn’t even ten in the morning, and the temperature is already starting to climb. It’ll be another humid day, too hot for this time of the year, and he simply doesn’t have the strength to go in and pick up the damn phone. Let the machine get it. There’s nothing he wants to say to anyone right about now.
On the fourth ring, he hears his own voice as the answering machine picks up. “What’s up, yo?”
God. How long ago had he recorded that message? He doesn’t remember, but he hasn’t heard his own laughter in a while and it startles him to hear it now, ghostlike in the empty house. He’d forgotten about the answering machine, too. He’ll have to change that tape.
There’s a thin beep, then he hears a deep, bottom-basement laugh which still haunts his dreams. DeMario Macklin. The past few months have been barren without that sound and Josh almost feared he’d never again elicit more than a wan smile or fake chuckle from his lover…
Ex-lover, he reminds himself. He hates everything about those two letters, E and X. But face it—he was miserable with me. There at the end of the run all we did was argue all the time. That morning in Chicago before our final show, I simply couldn’t take it anymore. I’d had enough, damn it, and I just left. Told him he was better off without me and walked the fuck out of his life.
Then later that day at rehearsal, what did he hear but DeMar’s low, throaty laugh for the first time in weeks, chuckling over something silly Leila had said, and it only served to prove Josh right. His lover’s unhappiness must’ve stemmed from their relationship, Josh knows. I was just dragging him down and once I set him free…well, he’s happy again. Carefree and laughing.
I still love him so much.
The thought startles him. Yes, he still loves DeMar, and probably always will. That knowledge stings like the tears in his eyes, and he brushes them roughly away with the back of his hand before taking a large gulp of his hot coffee. It burns going down. DeMar’s laughter reminds Josh of what had made him fall for the guy in the first place and he’s still falling, every day, harder and harder.
But what’s the use? He’s happier now.
Listening to DeMar laugh into his answering machine, Josh frowns at the suburban street around him, still asleep this early on a Saturday morning, and sighs. I want him happy. Even if it’s without me.
Behind him in the house, DeMar growls into the phone. “Josh,” he rumbles, his deep voice dropping even lower, to a register Josh swears he feels in his balls. Then DeMar laughs again, bright and happy. God, Josh has missed that sound. “Damn. That message is so old school, boyfriend.”
Another pang pierces Josh’s heart. I’m not your boyfriend, remember? Not any more.
DeMar continues talking to the answering machine, his confident tone drawing Josh from his chair and into the house like a magnet. Josh doesn’t even realize he’s come inside until he hears the screen door slam shut behind him. “I know you’re there, buttercup, so pick up the phone.”
Josh stops in front of the phone table and stares at the answering machine, watching the tape roll beneath DeMar’s words. He needs to trade that in for voicemail. Then he won’t get surprising phone calls like this. “I’m not here,” he mutters.
As if he hears Josh, DeMar warns, “Josh.”
Is he calling from a pay phone? Josh thinks so—he hears the sounds of traffic in the background, rushing cars and a horn or two, people talking and shouting and someone over a loudspeaker, announcing an incoming flight…
He’s at an airport.
Josh groans. God, what are you trying to do to me here, DeMar? Twist the knife in my heart while you’re waiting for your flight?
“Pick up the phone,” DeMar intones, lowering his voice until it’s that same deep pitch which had landed him the role of Caiaphas in JCS last year. “Pick up, pick up, pick up—”
Josh snatches the receiver, cutting off the words and stopping the tape. “What?”
“There you are, sunshine.” DeMar’s smile is evident in his voice. “What are you doing?”
Josh sighs. “Listening to you sing into my answering machine. What do you want, Mari? I’m trying…”
He sighs again. I’m trying to learn how to live without you, he wants to say. I’m trying to get over you because you’re so obviously over me already.
He can’t say that. He can barely think it, the words hurt so bad. Instead he just says, “It’s early,” which sounds like a feeble excuse and it is, he knows it is, but he isn’t going to dump his problems onto DeMar, not when DeMar’s obviously handling their breakup so well.
And did he just call DeMar Mari? It’d been a pet name for his lover back when they were lovers, which they aren’t any longer, so Josh has no right using it. Damn.
If DeMar heard the slip, he doesn’t mention it. “I know it’s early,” he says. “I’m here at the airport, waiting for you to pick me up.”
“What?” Josh asks, confused. “I don’t remember—”
DeMar sings into the phone, “I’ve been waiting for a guy like you.”