Remembered by One - Chapter 12

Chapter Twelve

While Randy cleaned the barbecue outside, Mason hid in the laundry room on the pretext of moving Randy’s clothes from the washer to the dryer. He needed a few minutes to himself. Not that he wasn’t enjoying Randy’s company, in fact the opposite was true. It was just too much, too fast. Even though he’d shared a house with Richard, he’d basically been leading a solitary life for the past two years and had gotten used to only having himself for company.

Everything about Randy was larger than life. He made the air around him vibrate, and you along with it. Nothing had changed that way, but as Mason thought it over, he realized he simply wasn’t used to giving—or receiving—so much attention.

Still no regrets.

For the first time in years he felt like he might have a pulse.

Randy had certainly jump-started that pulse, and the housebreaking incident had made it race.

He’d actually been a willing participant. God help him, he’d broken into someone’s house. No. Not someone. A cop’s house.

Go big or go home, right?

Funny, but he couldn’t seem to summon up any regrets for that, either. In the last few days, he’d come to hate the Senior Mr. Porterhouse with a passion he didn’t know he had in him.

Technically though, it had been Randy who’d done all the breaking. Mason, being both skinnier and more agile, had played the part of willing accomplice by squeezing in through the garage window, the one Randy had meant to fix but never gotten around to after his surgery landed him on the couch. After gaining access to the garage, Randy had skillfully used a massive hammer and a large screwdriver to break the lock and enter the house. As Randy said he would, the bastard had actually changed the locks.

What a crazy son of a bitch. The senior Porterhouse had thrown most of Randy’s clothes into the garage and then—you couldn’t get much crazier—pissed on them. At least that was what Mason had been telling himself that’s what that rank-smelling fluid was. Randy hadn’t been surprised and put on big show of being unconcerned, but his act didn’t fool Mason one bit. That had really bothered him.

More than bothered, it seemed to humiliate him. Why should Randy feel ashamed when the shame belonged to his father? Another reason to spend some time in the laundry room. They both needed some space to sort out their thoughts.

After transferring the clothes to the dryer, Mason tidied the last of the mess left behind from the aborted move and swept the laundry room floor. Like every other room in the house, Nat had turned it into a hidden oasis. It had a comfy chair and a lamp so you could read while you washed clothes if you wanted. Mason spent a lot of time there as a kid. Randy, of course, knew that too, and easily found him when he finally noticed his long absence.

“Sick of me already?” Randy asked from the door, his massive frame filling the entrance.

“No.” Not even close. Mason liked having a pulse again. “Come on in.”

Randy sauntered in and settled a hip against the washer. “Why you hiding down here?”

“I’m not hiding.”

“Sure you’re not.”

“I’m not. I’m just…” Mason sighed. “Feeling pretty shitty about myself.”

Randy’s shoulders slumped and he concentrated his attention on the unhappy looking fingers peeking out from the cast. “I shouldn’t have brought you with me to dad’s.” He shook his head. “That was stupid. Even for me. You always were such a straight arrow. You’re gonna feel guilty for the rest of your life now, right?”

What was Randy talking about? Oh, the B&E. To steal what was already his. And to recover one special, and still as-yet unread letter. Mason waited a few seconds for Randy to look up from his inspection of his hand before replying with, “I’m not talking about that.”

“You’re regretting that we—”

“No!” He probably should be, but nope. That he wanted to do again. The dirty thrill of it with Randy was…yeah. But Jesus, between the two of them, their trust issues could keep a shrink busy for a lifetime. “I feel like shit for not cluing in on what your dad did to you all those years.”

Shifting to lean on the other hip, Randy let out a long sigh. “Yeah, well I didn’t want you to know. I still don’t.”

“Why not?”

Randy hesitated, then said, “Because you guys, and this house, was my safe haven. My safe place.”

“But you could have trusted us! If you didn’t want to tell me, you could have said something to Ginny. Nat for sure. She’d have gone all mama-bear on your dad’s ass.”

“I know that.”

“Then…why? Why wouldn’t you tell us?” Mason had never felt more confused. Maybe a little hurt, too. But same old Randy. Ever confusing.

Randy shrugged. “Guess I was scared.”

“Of your dad?” A fresh wave of guilt settled into Mason’s chest. “Or us?”

“No, not you guys,” Randy snapped. “Don’t be stupid. Why would you even think that? It wasn’t that I was scared of what the old man would do to me if I said anything, or what kind of beating I’d get for blabbing.” Randy glanced down at the floor, unable to hold Mason’s gaze. “It was…I was scared he’d take me away from you.”

“Take you way? What do you mean?”

“I knew the price.” Randy spread his arms out at his sides. “If I wanted to keep coming over here, I had to keep my mouth shut. I knew that. I knew I could only have you in my life if I kept the secret.” Randy looked up at the dusty ceiling. “So I kept it.”

Jesus Christ. Mason slumped in his chair. “That makes no sense! You could have kept us and gotten taken away from your father. You would’ve been sent someplace safe.”

Randy laughed. “Not a chance in hell that would’ve happened. The old bastard would have moved house, or he would have convinced anyone who came snooping around that it was all just bullshit. He had his cop buddies. His drinking buddies. I’m sure most of ‘em knew things weren’t right, but what the fuck did they do? Nothing. Not a fucking thing.”

Mason scrubbed his hand over his face. “Fuck,” he muttered.

“Look Mase,” Randy said, “I don’t want to talk about this, okay? It’s done and over and I don’t wanna keep going back there. It took everything I had to crawl out of that pit, and I’m not gonna start digging up the past again. I shouldn’t have gone back to help him out, I know that, but I did,” a perplexed crease formed between his brows, “that was the stupidest fucking thing I ever did, and now I just wanna forget that too.”

Couldn’t fault Randy for that, could he? But Mason had too many questions and too much guilt he needed to confront. “How did you…” Mason’s throat tightened, “manage to turn out okay?”

“Okay?” Randy snorted. “You think I’m okay?”

“Aren’t you?” Surly and snarly, maybe, but functioning and on his way to becoming someone he could be proud of. His wicked smirk had survived intact. “You didn’t turn out like your father. Don’t you know how amazing that is?”

Randy’s brows went up and then he laughed, long and bitter. “That’s just the thing, Mase. I did.”

“What? Like hell you did!” Randy was worlds apart from that rotting bastard down the road. “How can you say that? You didn’t. Not even close.”

“You think so?” Randy smiled, a little coldly, and a little ruefully. “I guess you missed my best years when you went off to MIT.”

Mason did not want to ask. No, he did not. His mouth however, could never be trusted around Randy. “Tell me about your best years, then.”

Since restless Randy never could remain still for more than thirty seconds, he started pacing the small confines of the laundry room. “Not much to tell. Same ol’ boring story as all those other losers. I started to drink like him. Started to be miserable like him. I didn’t fit in anywhere and I didn’t bother to try. I was always mad about something. I was an asshole. Got into a shit ton of fights with anyone I thought so much as looked at me the wrong way.”

Oh, no. That must be the angry Randy everyone remembered so well.

“I turned into a mean son of a bitch just like him.” He snorted his all-purpose snort. “How could I not? All I had in me was anger. I was so very, very angry and I hated the world. I hated myself.”

“But you’re not like that!”

“Not now.” He paused his pacing in front of Mason’s chair. “But it’s always under the surface, Mase. Don’t ever forget that.”

Their eyes met. Mason held Randy’s sinister glare. “That’s not true.” Because if it had been true, Randy never would have let Mason drag him out of his father’s house during that nasty confrontation.

“You’ll see.”

Oh, Mason doubted that. “No, I won’t.” Mason sat straighter in his chair. “You’ve changed. You might not see it in yourself, but you have. You’re not that same angry person. We’ve all noticed it.” Randy looked ready to argue, so Mason shifted the conversation to ask what he’d been wondering about for the past day. “What happened? What changed you into the man I saw helping the kid at your shop? The one who bribed Mrs. P at the school? Or the one who jacked me off in the bushes? Why’d you let me drag you away from your dad’s place yesterday?”

“I let you drag me away because I came this close,” Randy pinched up a small space between his thumb and forefinger, “to snapping his neck.”

Duh. “I know that. But you didn’t.” But Mason’s curiosity wasn’t going to let it go. “What happened to change you from the Randy everyone ran scared from, to the Randy who walked away? To the Randy who could walk away.”

Randy started pacing again. He flicked an impatient wave with his good hand. “It’s old news.”

“I want to know anyway.”

“Fuck,” Randy muttered. “You’re always so fucking curious!” He threw his hands up. “Why this, why that. Why’s the sky blue? Why can’t we play with the mercury from the thermometer? Or take the firecrackers apart so we can blow shit up out in the back of the soccer field? That was all you by the way, not me. You never let up.” He huffed, frustrated. “Fine. I changed because I had to. Because I had a…a…what do you call those things, those big life-altering realizations that once you know something, it changes everything?”

“An epiphany?”

“Yeah, one of them.”

This was getting good. “Start talking, buddy.”

“For fuck’s sake, you don’t let up, do you?”

Once upon time he’d been stubborn and persistent, and that lost self was making a rapid comeback. “I just want to know how the new and improved Randy Porterhouse came to be.”

“That’s the gayest thing I ever heard.”

“Well, I am gay. And so are you. So come on, what happened? What was your big revelation?” Because he’d sure had enough of his own recently. They could share.

Randy sighed, and Mason knew then that he had him. Randy, again with that weird grace of his, launched himself backwards up onto the washer and sat. The machine groaned and creaked under his considerable weight. “Like I said, I had one of those epiphany thingies.”

“Okay.”

Randy fiddled with his cast. “I’d been drinking a lot.” He shook his head. “And I mean a lot. As I said, I was…angry. Bitter as fuck. And lonely and fucking gay and not liking it and I had nothing. Not a goddam thing. My favorite sport was cruising for sex or cruising for a fight and I didn’t care which one I found first. Fuck, I didn’t care if I found them together.”

“Sounds like fun times.”

Randy caught his sarcasm, but he still made an unhappy face. “But as mean as I was and as mad as hell, and as big as I am…there’s always someone out there who’s bigger. Meaner. And twice as bitter.”

“Oh, fuck.”

“And if they’re not bigger and meaner, sometimes they’re just crazier, or have less to lose.”

Mason leaned forward on his seat. He shouldn’t be this eager to hear more. But sue him, he was.

“Dude was crazier. Definitely crazier. And I think I probably deserved it. No. I know I did. I got a mouth on me, I know that. I was so fucking drunk, and probably more than a little high because I don’t remember what exactly started it, not that it took much back then, but I sure as fucking hell remember what ended it.”

“You got into a fight?”

“Oh, fuck yeah. Outside the bar, in the parking lot like a couple of pathetic fucking losers.”

“And?”

“The fucker knifed me.”

“What!”

Smirking, Randy lifted the hem of his tight shirt with his not-very healthy and purple looking fingertips, and used his good hand to pull on the skin at the side of his torso, at the spot inked with a large, stunning angel tattoo. Mason had admired the artistry every time Randy removed his shirt. He’d admired it further with his hands upstairs in the bedroom not so long ago. The harsh laundry room lights easily revealed a flaw that had gone unnoticed before now. The feathered wings spreading wide across his ribs had been cleverly designed to conceal a long, ugly scar.

Mason stood, and leaned in for a closer look. Now that he knew what to look for, he was shocked he hadn’t noticed it before. How had he missed that? Jesus. Tracing the ridged skin, he ran a finger down the long, ragged scar. All seven or eight inches of it. “Oh, my god,” he breathed. “You could’ve died!”

“Nah,” Randy scoffed. “It was just a scratch. But man, I tell ya, it bled like a motherfucker.”

Randy could scoff all he wanted. He could try lying all he wanted, too. “Fuck you, Porterhouse! That’s not just a scratch!”

“Yeah, well, it’s not as bad as all that. I still managed to pay back that piece of shit pretty damned good before the cops showed up.”

“You mean you kept on fighting? After getting stabbed?”

“Yeah. It’s kind of weird, but I never felt a thing. I mean I knew he’d slashed me, but I have a pretty high pain tolerance so I barely noticed the sting.” Randy smirked, but the cold ugly one Mason hated. “Guess I can thank the old man for that, huh?”

So not funny. “Randy—”

“Then the cops had the nerve to arrest both of us, instead of just the crazy wacko with the knife. How fucking fair is that? Asshole knifes me, and I get arrested!”

“Er, well…”

“Yeah, yeah. I know. Anyway, I kind of resisted the arresting part.”

“You didn’t!”

“It took a lot of them to end the resisting part.” Mason trailed his finger to the very end of the scar, and Randy tugged his shirt back down, effectively shoving his hand away.

“You’re an idiot.”

“Yeah, I know.”

“I can’t believe you sometimes,” Mason muttered. He sat back down and let the arms of the chair hug him because he needed it. “Carry on.” Because Mason had to hear the rest of this story or he’d die.

“Well, the whole thing went from bad to worse. Even after the pile of cops beat the crap out of me and the asshole cut me, I still had to act like an ass, yelling and cursing away in the back of the cruiser, and bleeding all over the place—and I mean spurting blood like a stuck pig. I also had a nosebleed and split lip and I smeared it all over the windows, bled all over the seat, the whole bit. I made a total fucking fool of myself.”

“Did they take you to the hospital?”

“Oh, fuck yeah. Sure. I think they got sick of watching the bloodbath going on in the backseat. Or they were hoping the doc would stitch my mouth shut. I was so wasted. So after they sewed me back up—which only took thirty-seven stitches—I stayed half the night in the hospital for observation, and then it was back to jail. Don’t ever get stuck in the drunk tank, man. It’s disgusting. You wouldn’t believe what people do in there. Then I had to go to court and I was still so fucking hungover and every time I moved the stitches would pull and everything hurt—”

“I’ll bet it did.”

“I was bitchy as hell.”

“Uh-huh.”

“And mad at the world. It was everyone’s fault but mine.”

“Of course.”

“And that fight, and my appearance before the judge, well, it wasn’t exactly my first rodeo.”

“Uh….”

“Yeah, I was going to jail, and I knew it.”

Was? Or had gone?

“And so the public defender dude told me, cause he’d seen a hundred losers like me, he said, it comes down to this: Jail or rehab.”

“Rehab?”

“Fuck, can you imagine? Me. In rehab. I wasn’t going to go to no fucking rehab. Like that song, no, no, no. I planned to take the jail option. I’d figured I’d do my time, get a shitty jailhouse tattoo and move on. Fuck rehab and fuck the stupid lawyer and fuck the even stupider judge. I’m pretty sure I told them all as much.”

“Bet that went over well.”

“As well as you’d think. I was plenty stupid back then.”

“So when did the big epiphany happen?”

“In between the getting knifed and the next court date. It was only a few days after and I was kinda hurting. I was sick. My hand was all bruised and busted up. My face didn’t look much better. I didn’t lay off the booze, either, and I didn’t look after the stitches so they got all red and angry and some started oozing pus…”

“Jesus, Randy—”

“And I was going to jail and it was everyone else’s fault.” Randy looked a little sheepish. “Best of all, it took about five minutes before my dad heard all about it.”

“Oh, man.”

“Yeah. Talk about fucking humiliating. He phoned me and told me to come over so we could talk about it.” Randy laughed. “So I said, yup, I’ll come over and talk. I mean, why not? He hadn’t laid a hand on me for a long time by then because I was bigger, and even though I hated him, I thought I could maybe talk him into letting me store my stuff at his place while I was in jail. It would’ve been worth listening to him lecture me if I didn’t have to pay for storage with money I didn’t have.”

Personally, Mason would rather have pawned everything he owned rather than going back to that hell-hole, but this was Randy’s story to tell.

“So I scraped up enough gas money and drove over.” Randy stared again at the ceiling—Mason really must clean up there—but he seemed suddenly gone far away. Lost in remembrance. “It was a gloomy day. Overcast. I felt shitty. I had to stop on the side of the road by the path we were just on and throw up, ‘cuz I was sick and going to my dad’s house always turned my stomach. It was awful. Puking hurt ten times more than the rest of me already hurt, because dry heaving when you got stitches and a headache is like the worst combo. So after the puking I had the worst headache of my life and everything started looked kind of fuzzy around the edges. I think I had a fever by then.”

“No shit.”

“Truthfully, Mase, I didn’t care. I didn’t care about myself at all.” Randy made sour face. “But anyway, because I felt like shit, I drove real slow down streets I’d seen a million times before and hoped to never see again. I got to the end of the street and there was the house and I just thought, fuck, what a hole. Dad must’ve been on a big bender for months, because the lawn was brown and all the shrubs were dead. Apparently, chasing the next beer left little time for things like watering or mowing lawns. There was garbage everywhere. Plastic bags full of cans. Boxes of bottles. One of the front window curtains was hanging sideways from a broken rod like that’s what everyone did when something ripped. You just left it. The paint had flaked off most of the door. Anyone would have thought a bunch of crackheads lived there instead of a cop.’

‘I stopped right there in the middle of the road and stared. I didn’t get out. I just stopped out front and was blown away by it all.”

Randy shook his head as he visualized it. Mason could picture the scene perfectly himself.

“I took a good, hard look at everything. At the place I grew up. And even though I didn’t want to, I remembered. Everything. All the pain. Probably ‘cuz I was starting to feel a lot it right then. When I puked my guts out in the ditch, I tore some of the stitches open and blood was trickling down into my shorts and my whole side burned like I’d lit my shirt on fire. The cut was infected but I didn’t care. Because I remembered. I remembered everything. Every beating. Every fist. Every time that bastard locked in my bedroom for days on end and I had to pee out the window and then spend the next day dying of thirst. Every nasty thing he ever said came back to me. All of it.”

Mason’s head pulsed painfully, aching for that long-ago child. “I’m so sorry.”

“I didn’t go inside. I just couldn’t. I sat there and bled. I don’t know how or why, but I was suddenly so fucking scared I couldn’t breathe. It was weird, like every fear I ever felt hit me all over again, and all at once and I…I froze. I couldn’t move. I literally couldn’t take my foot off the fucking brake.”

Mason’s eyes prickled. Being sensitive like Randy had accused, his eyes burned from holding back unshed tears. But he wouldn’t snivel and cry this time. He didn’t deserve to cry. Instead of interrupting with useless words, Mason nodded.

Randy rested his broken arm upside down on his thigh. His fingers looked angry and swollen. For once, Randy sat still. If he blinked, Mason didn’t notice.

Finally the paralysis broke, and Randy let out a slow, deep breath. “When I could move my foot again, I turned around and drove over to your place. I knew you weren’t there, and neither was Ginny ‘cuz she was living with Dirk by then, but that didn’t matter. Your place was still my safe haven. Your mom might’ve been home, I dunno, but if she saw me, she didn’t come out. Not that I blame her. Those were my major asshole years. But like I did at dad’s, I just sat outside your house and stared. At the nice lawn. The flowers. The perfectly straight window blinds. I wasn’t really thinking anything in particular, it was all just this avalanche of shit pouring into my pounding head. So I just sat, and I remembered. Everything.”

“What is everything?”

“All the good times. All the arguments. Playing Frisbee in the yard. Eating hot dogs. Getting yelled at by your dad for being noisy, messy, horrid little troublemakers. Or your mom handing out Band-Aids like candy all summer long. Or that time Ginny sewed my pants for me when I ripped them swinging from the tree so my dad wouldn’t kill me. All those things. For the first time in my life, I realized what should have been mine, and not just bits stolen from you guys.”

As hard as he tried, Mason couldn’t stop the single, hot tear from sneaking out the corner of his eye and spilling over his cheek. But he kept his mouth sealed shut and listened.

“And that’s when I had the epiphany. For the first time, I thought maybe, just maybe, if I wasn’t a stupid fuck for once, and that if I worked real hard and laid off the booze, I could have something like that one day. I mean not as grand as your house, ‘cuz your place is nice and expensive and I could never afford anything this big, but you know, I thought I could buy something.” Randy lowered his gaze from the ceiling. His eyes refocused and Mason caught the second Randy’s dark irises came back to sparkling life. “I realized I had a choice. I could try for the house with the green grass or I could become my father’s son and own all the same hate and end up with no family, a rotting liver and a dead lawn.”

Mason bit his bottom lip and held his breath. He had no right to shed another tear. None.

“So I found the gas pedal, turned around and drove myself to rehab with my last gallon of gas.”

Mason exhaled as an icy shiver ran across his shoulders. “Thank god.”

“Yeah.” Randy smiled softly, a lesser shade of the sweet smile he’d seen only once before. “Rehab sucked big-time. I had to talk about all this shit I didn’t even want to remember, but it helped me deal with my rage issues. Plus, it worked like a ‘get-out-of-jail-free’ card. Since the judge couldn’t really sort out who started it, and I voluntarily got my ass to a shrink, I got probation and more counselling shit, but no time.”

“Sounds like the judge made the right decision.”

“Well, I haven’t been in trouble since. And I got my Associate in Mechanics, took some business courses and worked my ass off. So yeah, maybe he did.”

Mason rose from the chair. “Sorry I wasn’t there for you.” Mason swallowed the small lump still lodged in his throat. Another burgeoning revelation began to intrude. Shame came along with it. “I’m sorry I…ran out the door and never looked back. Never thought about who I left behind. That was so selfish of me. I can’t believe I did that.”

Instead of smirking, Randy smiled gently. He ran his fingers through Mason’s hair and cupped the back of his neck. “You had your own problems, Mase. With your dad’s rejection, the way he totally dumped you as a son and as a human being and left your mom to battle cancer alone. I know that fucked you up. I don’t blame you for leaving. Hell, I was proud of you for getting out while you could.”

“But I just left you!”

“Don’t start kicking yourself over it. You did what you had to do to get through it.”

“But—”

Randy tightened his grip on Mason’s hair. A shiver of a new kind travelled along his spine. “No! No feeling guilty. Remember when I told you that when you’re in a bad situation and beaten down until you have nothing left inside to prop you up, that you can’t really see it? That you don’t know you’re but in hell, but that you’ll do anything just to make it through another day?”

Mason didn’t want to remember Randy’s words, or acknowledge the rush of sorrow for young Randy that trailed behind. But he deserved it. In penance, he let it roll over him and took what he had coming. “Yes.”

“That was you. Not just me, but you too.”

“No…” Mason’s own troubles seemed small in comparison next to Randy’s.

“It’s true.” Randy slid off the washing machine. As he did, his long, solid length slid down Mason’s body. “Let it go, Mase,” he said. “We made it out, that’s what matters.”

Mason wasn’t so sure about that. But Randy could be very convincing. Especially when he stood so close they were practically sharing one body, and he was breathing hotly against Mason’s cheek.

“Can I kiss you?” Randy whispered.

Why was he asking? Did he think Mason would think less of him after hearing that story? Hardly. Mason’s respect for him blossomed. Instead of answering with words, Mason brought their lips together. Fire sparked from Randy’s mouth to his. As far as kisses with Randy went, it stayed gentle and sweet, but regardless, the wild thing that lived inside his blood woke and a sudden surge of heat and want and need rocked him to the core.

Randy removed his tongue from Mason’s mouth long enough to breathe, “Come upstairs with me?”

Yes. Oh, god yes! But…no. “After.”

Randy went still. His hand relaxed its grip on Mason’s hair. Suddenly wary, he said, “After what?”

Suspicious Randy was so suspicious. But Mason couldn’t fault his instincts. “After I take you to the hospital and you get your arm checked out.”

Randy jolted, but didn’t let go. “Huh?” His dark eyes flashed dangerously. “What for?”

Pulling their bodies apart and breaking the hot and desperate contact with Randy almost hurt physically. But now that the old Mason had started creeping back in, he had the strength to do what needed doing. He didn’t think threat he was about to make would fail. “You said you wanted a summer fling, right?”

Randy narrowed his eyes. “Yeah…” Then they seemed to go from brown to black. “You know how much I want that.” He scowled. “You gonna use that against me?”

“Yes, I am.” Why deny it? “I want you healthy.”

“I am!”

“You have a fever.”

“You make me hot,” he growled.

Made him hot? Bastard had no idea what hot was. Mason had already caught fire. “Cooperate and I’ll make it worth your while.”

“You’re assuming I even know how to cooperate.”

“No. I’m assuming you’re a fast learner.”

“This is the dirtiest, most underhanded thing you’ve ever done.”

Yes! Mason for the win. “Not the dirtiest, Randy. Not by a long shot.”

Randy’s breath hitched. He blinked. His most aggravating smirk twisted at the corner of his lush, fever reddened mouth. He shifted his weight to one leg. “Prove it.”

Oh, Mason intended to. “After.”

“You’re a shit, Mason. A teasing, evil shit.” 

But with a low growl, Randy proved he knew how to cooperate after all.