Second Wind

Chapter Eleven

Joey

Ben called me twice at work on Saturday, 'just to say hi.' Both times he left me with a smile that lasted an hour. I thought that maybe I would be the one a little uncertain about things after we'd made love Thursday night, and I was I guess, but Ben was so sweet and nervous. He was the guy with all the experience and he just wanted to make sure I was still okay with what we'd done.

That night it was dinner with Angie at the diner again, as usual. I'd thought about trying to change the night as Becky suggested, but it had become a routine for us. I wasn't sure how to change it without making Angie wonder what was going on. She suggested going to Angelo's but I was beginning to think of the tavern more and more as a special place for Ben and me so I didn't want to go there with anyone else. Besides, the diner had a baby seat for Connor, which was the excuse I actually used.

"You're sure in a good mood tonight, Joey. You must have enjoyed the holiday."

"Yeah, it was a nice dinner. It was especially nice that both you and Ben could join us." I couldn't very well mention Ben without mentioning her as well. After all, they were the only two non-family members at the dinner.

"I had a great time. Thank you so much for inviting me. I love spending time with your family."

"Oh, you're welcome." I hadn't exactly been the one who invited her, but…

"It's too bad your family didn't take to Ben very well. I don’t think he had a very good time."

"Oh, he was fine. I'm sure once everyone gets to know him a little better they'll like him. It was the first time my parents had met him."

"Maybe, but I'm not so sure about some of them. I had a great time though. Say, I just had an idea. Why don’t you come to my parents' house for dinner on Christmas? You know everybody and I know they'd love to see you."

"Uh, thanks, Angie, but I don’t think that would work. My mother would probably kill me if I didn't spend Christmas at home. That's a huge family day for us."

"Oh, I'm sure she wouldn't mind if you wanted to spend it with me." I was pretty sure she wouldn't either, but no way was that going to happen.

"I don’t know about that. Besides, I like Connor to be with the family on holidays."

"Well, think about it. You could bring Connor along. There would be plenty of other times he'd see the family over the holidays. I'll suggest it to your mother when I see her at the salon and see what she says."

These two women just wouldn't take no for an answer. I decided I was going to have to be more firm about this.

Ben

Becky and I went to brunch on Sunday. I invited Joey but he said he thought he should have dinner with his parents. He'd been at my place on Friday and went out with Angie on Saturday so he thought it was time for another day with the family. As much as I wanted to see him again, I also wanted to be able to talk with Becky about him so it worked out okay. I did call him a couple of times during the day, though.

"You have really got it bad, boy."

"What do you mean?" Becky had been staring at me across the table ever since we'd sat down.

"That silly grin on your face ever since you hung up the phone before we left the house. I haven't seen you this happy in years, maybe ever. You're crazy about him, aren't you?"

"Yeah, Beck, I am. I know we decided to go slow and just let the relationship develop at its own speed, but I've fallen hopelessly in love with him. I don’t even know when it happened."

"This wouldn't happen to have anything to do with a hot roll in the hay the other night, would it?"

"You know I've been around long enough not to confuse sex with love, Beck, but I guess that's when I realized it. Being with Joey like that was just so right. I've never felt connected to anyone like this before. I love him, it's that simple."

"Well, I'm not surprised. I know you pretty well and I've seen this coming for a while. Have you told him how you feel?"

"No way! I was nervous enough about having sex with him, that maybe I was pushing things too fast. I can't tell him this. I don’t want to scare him off."

"I don’t think you have to worry about that, Ben. Obviously, I don't know Joey anywhere near as well as I know you but I think he probably feels the same way toward you. He's the kind of guy who only has sex when he's in love. He's not a slut like you."

"Thanks a lot, bitch."

"As Dame Edna says, I meant it in the nicest possible way."

"Yeah, you always do. I know Joey likes me a lot, but I'm really nervous about rushing things. This is all so new for him. Besides, there are going to be all kinds of complications, too. His family is going to be a major problem. I keep wondering how we're going to deal with them, how he's going to deal with them. And then there's Connor. I'm crazy about the little guy, but he sure makes for another complication. I've never exactly been parent material you know."

"Whoa, slow down, baby. In one breath you're talking about not rushing things and in the next you're imagining all of these potential problems."

"I know my head is running out of control, but this is important stuff. When things got serious with Paul and me, his parents were retired and living in Florida and his sister was married and lived in Maryland. It didn’t really matter what they knew or what they thought of us. I have a couple of friends whose parents went nuts when they came out. My friends were hurt but they both moved out, dealt with it and got on with their lives. In both cases, they eventually patched things up. But Joey's family is his whole life. He lives with his parents, his mother takes care of Connor, his brothers are his best friends, he even works for the family. Things have to work out between them."

Becky caught the waiter's eye and signaled for another round of drinks.

"I think you definitely need another one, Ben. Relax. Right now the two of you are just falling in love. Enjoy it, enjoy each other. This should be a happy time for you both."

"It is, Beck, and I am happy. It's just hard not to think about what's next, what might happen."

"I know. I understand what you're saying and how important it is, but you don’t have to solve these potential problems right now. They may not even become problems. By the time Joey's family realizes you two are in love they may have already seen how good you are for him, how happy you make him. They may end up being a lot more accepting than you think."

"Easy for you to say, you haven't met them. But I'll try, Becky. I'll have to admit that as much as all of this keeps nagging at the back of my mind, that silly grin still pops up every time I even think of Joey."

Joey

Sunday dinner was a much quieter affair than it had been Thursday. It was just Pop, Mom, Connor and me. Pop didn't say much and Mom kept talking about the holiday dinner so I focused on feeding Connor. I did try to steer the conversation away from both Angie and Ben whenever Mom started in on either of them, praising Angie, criticizing Ben. Afterwards, I helped Mom clean up and then she went over to Donna Marie's to help her work on costumes for the children's Christmas pageant at church. I joined Pop in the living room to watch the Giants game.

I loved this little private time with Pop every week. Now and then one or more of my brothers dropped in, but usually it was just the two of us. Our conversations were almost entirely about the game, nothing personal, but there was still something comforting about the time together. Pop and I didn't need to talk to enjoy each other's company. At halftime I took Connor upstairs for his nap and then returned for the rest of the game. The Giants had fallen behind in the first half and their offense never did get started, so the second half dragged. By the time the game was over Pop had fallen asleep in his recliner.

I went up to the bedroom to check on Connor. He was still asleep so I lay down on the bed. There was so much running through my head but I had no one to talk to. Once again I wished that Angie could be the kind of friend to me that Becky was to Ben. Unfortunately, it was becoming clear that she wanted to be a very different kind of friend. For a while I'd thought that if I could make it perfectly clear to her that I wasn't interested in her romantically we could just be good friends, but I wasn't even sure she'd accept my being gay. Her attitude toward Ben was somewhat neutral but then she barely knew him, so that didn't give me a clue as to how she'd react about me.

I'd really enjoyed my lunch with Becky the week before and talking to her had helped me a lot. I thought that maybe I could talk to her one-on-one more often, but I didn't want to put her in an awkward position. She'd become a good friend to me but she was Ben's best friend, his confidant. I suddenly realized that over the past few months, Ben had become my best friend. He was the one I should be talking to except he was the one I wanted to talk about.

I had enjoyed making love with Ben more than I dreamed I would. The sex certainly wasn't a problem and I knew I wanted to do that a lot more. The problem was that I knew I'd fallen in love with him. On the surface that didn't seem to be a problem either. In fact, that morning in church I'd thanked God for blessing me with someone to love twice in my short life. The hitch was that I didn't know how Ben felt about me. He was so much more experienced in all of this, not just sexually, but in dating and relationships. I didn't want to scare him off in case he hadn't fallen for me in the same way. From what I had observed among my friends and acquaintances, most guys seemed to enjoy relationships as long as they didn't get too serious too fast. Lots of guys enjoyed dating and sex, but panicked when the girl assumed it was love because they'd become physically intimate. I knew that Ben had been with lots of guys he hadn't come close to being in love with, so I didn't want him to think I was a silly kid, falling in love because we'd had sex once.

My thoughts were interrupted by a cough and a gurgle from the crib. I got up and checked on Connor. He looked up at me and smiled. I picked him up and took him to the bed, piling pillows against the headboard so I could sit with him. I sat him on my lap facing me and leaned in, rubbing noses with him. He giggled and as I pulled away he grabbed at my nose.

"Well kid, I hate to burden you with all of this but you're all I've got. Don’t worry, you don't have to come up with any answers for me, just listen."

I loved the way he looked at me when I talked to him like this. He looked like he was trying so hard to understand me but wasn't quite getting it. He kept trying though. I sometimes wondered if there wouldn't come a day when something would click and suddenly he would know and understand all of my innermost secrets.

I told him all about how I felt toward Ben and my dilemma about saying anything.

"You like Ben, don’t you, son? I know, that's a silly question, you like everyone. But I know you like Lula." I noticed a little glint of recognition in his eye when I said the dog's name.

"You know, Connor, if we lived with Ben, Lula would be your dog. You could play with her all the time." I realized what I had just said. Live with Ben? Man, I was really on fast-forward. Here I was afraid to tell him I loved him and all of a sudden I was thinking about moving in with him. I knew that if we both loved each other that would be a logical step, but that was way down the road. And before that happened I would have to deal with my family. That was something I didn't even want to think about for a long time. I was beginning to get agitated, knowing that I was lost on a journey I was totally unprepared for. Connor caught my attention with a sharp kick in the stomach. I looked down at him and he giggled and tapped his foot on my belly.

"You're right as usual, Connor. Baby steps. That's what Ben and I agreed on and that's the pace we have to take it. There's no need to rush and I don't have to find all of the answers at once. We took a huge leap forward this past week but it's time to slow down again. Just relax, take it easy and everything will work out, everything will fall into place. Baby steps."

Ben

I think I spent more time hanging around Joey's team at bowling than my own on Monday night. Anthony was friendly enough although John and Vinnie alternated between ignoring me and glaring at me. I don’t know how many times Scott or Mike had to come get me when it was my turn to bowl. I didn't bowl especially well either as my mind wasn't on the game. It was finally over and we went to Angelo's. After we were settled in our booth and Angelo brought our beers over we just sat and looked at each other for a while. I know I could have looked into Joey's warm brown eyes all night.

"So when are we going to get together again, Ben? Um, privately, I mean."

"You mean like last Thursday night?"

"Yeah, like that." He looked a bit embarrassed.

"Well, Becky's coming over tomorrow night to watch TV. You're welcome to join us but that isn't the kind of night I think we're talking about. How about Wednesday?"

"No good. My niece's ballet class is having a performance. I'm not exactly looking forward to a group of nine year-old girls thumping around the stage but I promised her I'd go. Thursday?"

I laughed. "This is getting ridiculous. I'm leaving work early Thursday to pick up my mother and Sam at the airport. I don’t know how long that will take, since they're flying in to JFK."

"Then I guess it's Friday. We'll have to think of something special to do."

"Anything with you is special, Joey, but I'll come up with something and let you know." I hesitated a minute before bringing up something that had been worrying me all weekend. "Um, I didn't go too fast or too far with you last week, did I?"

"No, I wasn't sure just what I was ready for, but I really enjoyed everything we did. I still think we should take it easy and not rush things, but I'm okay with where we are right now."

"Good, I'd intended to go much slower, building up to making love sometime later when you were ready, but once we got started I got carried away. I just don’t want to fuck this up. I really want to get this right with you, Joey."

"Don’t worry so much, Ben. So far you're perfect, everything is perfect."

For the next hour or so we chatted about nothing in particular. What we said wasn't important. Just being with Joey was. When we left I walked him to his car. He gave me a long hug goodbye. I knew better than to risk a kiss in public in his hometown but since he had initiated the hug I returned it. He got in the car and I felt a bit dreamy as I watched him drive off. I turned toward my car and as I reached in my pocket for my keys I heard a harsh voice behind me.

"Hey faggot!"

I tensed up and slowly turned, ready to make a break for the door of the tavern. I relaxed when I saw John and Vinnie coming across the parking lot toward me.

"Hi guys, what are you doing here?"

"Just keeping an eye on our little brother. You'd better keep your filthy hands off him." They'd both obviously had a few drinks. I knew they'd been drinking beer at the bowling alley earlier but they'd had more to drink since then.

"Oh c'mon, fellas, he just hugged me. That's the way Joey is. I'll bet he hugs you two all the time."

"Yeah, but we haven't got perverted ideas about him."

"This is really getting old, guys. You're just gonna have to get used to the fact that Joey likes me, that he and I are friends."

That seemed to set them off. They started in, telling me that they wanted me to stay away from Joey, strongly implying I'd regret it if I didn't. If it had been anyone else who was hassling me in a parking lot late at night I might have been concerned, but these were Joey's brothers. I'd just had Thanksgiving dinner with their family. They were talking tough but I had trouble not laughing at their poor imitation of a scene out of some cheesy gangster movie. I finally got tired of listening to them. I suppose it was apparent from my attitude that I wasn't taking them seriously.

"Sorry guys, but you're wasting your breath. I think you're gonna have to accept that Joey's old enough to pick his own friends. Joey wants to be with me as much as I want to be with him."

As soon as I said that I wished I'd phrased it differently. I didn't mean anything sexual about it but I knew what track their minds were running on. I didn't want to 'out' Joey to his brothers. I was preoccupied with that thought and didn't even see Vinnie move until it was too late. The next thing I knew his fist smashed into my mouth, the force spinning me around. I fell to the pavement, banging the side of my face against the car as I went down.

"That's just a small taste of what you're in for if Vinnie or I ever see you near Joey again. Stay away from him. Consider yourself warned." John gave me a kick in the side before he turned away.

John and Vinnie walked away as I struggled to get up. My whole face was stinging like hell. By the time I got into my car they had driven off. A glance in the mirror showed blood all over my mouth. I grabbed a few tissues and gently dabbed at it, soaking some of it up. The blood seemed to be coming from a cut on my lower lip. I held the tissues against my lip and drove home slowly, still dazed. I just couldn't believe Vinnie had hit me. I'd known from day one that they were homophobic but the intensity of their feelings against me was startling. As I pulled up to the house I saw Becky's car in the driveway. Fuck, what was she doing there? I wasn't in the mood to see anyone just then.

I got out another tissue and cleaned myself up as well as I could, then left the bloody tissues in the car when I went into the house. I guess my lip was still bleeding because Becky noticed as soon as I walked into the house.

"Damn, what happened to you? Were you attacked?"

"No, I just had a little accident. I slipped on a patch of ice and fell, hitting my head. It's no big deal." I didn't want her to worry and hadn't made up my mind if I wanted anyone to know what had actually happened.

"We'll see about that. Let me check you out." She led me into the kitchen and turned on the bright overhead light. I sat while she gently washed my face. She made up two ice packs, one for my mouth and one for my right eye. The skin around it was already starting to darken.

"What are you doing here at this time of night?" I mumbled through the ice pack.

"Apparently the weekend trip down here wasn't a good thing for Nicole. She went into labor this afternoon. I'm heading up to Rochester to take care of the kids while she's in the hospital. I stopped on my way to tell you that I'll be away at least through the weekend."

"You're driving all night?"

"Yeah, it's no big deal. I slept a few hours after I got the call. I should be there first thing in the morning. Are you going to be okay?"

"I'll be fine, I just fell. There's nothing for you to worry about."

"Well, if you're sure. I'd better get on the road."

Becky left and I put some fresh ice in the bags she'd made up. I lay back on the couch with the ice on my face and thought about what had happened. All of a sudden, I wasn't sure about anything. I'd known there would be problems with John and Vinnie but if they reacted this badly to us just being friends, what would happen when they found out we were lovers? I wasn't really worried about their threat. I could always avoid being around them. But what about Joey? He couldn't avoid them and wouldn't want to. How would they react when they found out their baby brother was gay?

Joey

I left Angelo's feeling even better than I had all weekend, if that were possible. I'd been a little concerned that Ben would interpret my decision to start going slow again as backing off our relationship, of me maybe having second thoughts. I was pleased to learn that he was as concerned as I was about taking our time and getting it right. He seemed to be in this for the long run as much as I was.

I didn't hear from him on Tuesday and I was tempted to call him in the evening, but I knew that Becky would be at his house and this was their evening together. Besides, after talking about taking things slow, I didn't want to appear to be pushing. He didn't call on Wednesday either and I was feeling a little down as I was getting ready for Janine's dance recital. Ben had spoiled me by paying so much attention over the weekend. It had only been a few of days of him calling me over and over but I was used to it and missed him.

Vinnie's daughter Roseanne had offered to baby-sit since Mom and Pop were going to the recital so I dropped Connor off on the way to Central School. The performance wasn't bad I suppose, considering the age of the dancers. I thought Janine was the best but maybe I was a little prejudiced. After the show the family talked for a few minutes in the hall outside the auditorium. John and Carla were acting like the proud parents they were. Their teenagers, Vito and April, were sulking, annoyed that they'd had to sit through an evening devoted to little kids. Five-year-old Robbie was restless. He'd squirmed in his seat through the whole show. John invited us all back to his house but I used picking up Connor as an excuse to get out of it. I'd decided to call Ben if I got home early enough. Besides, it was already past Connor's bedtime.

When I got to Vinnie's place his wife Rita wanted to hear all about the recital so I ended up staying for a little while. I was surprised to find my fifteen-year-old nephew James on the floor of the living room playing with Connor. Roseanne was nowhere in sight.

"Where's your sister?"

"Oh, one of her girlfriends called with a romantic crisis and she wanted to go out so I volunteered to take over."

"That was nice of you, James. Sorry if it messed up your evening."

"No prob, Uncle Joey. I love this little guy. It was fun, though I don’t know if I'd want to do it every night."

Just then Vinnie came in with a couple of beers so we sat and I told them as much about the recital as I could remember, mostly emphasizing how good Janine had been. When I finished my beer Vinnie offered another but I turned him down.

"Thanks, Vin, but I've got to get Connor to bed and I wanted to call Ben if it wasn't too late when I got in."

Vinnie scowled. "I don’t know why you want to hang around with that fag. People are gonna start talking about you if they keep seeing you with him."

"I don’t care what people think, Vinnie. Ben's a great guy and a good friend."

"You should pay more attention to your reputation, bro. Remember, everyone in this town knows you and you've got Connor to think about. You don’t want people gossiping behind your back."

"I don’t think people really care that much one way or the other, Vin."

I picked up Connor and his supply bag and said goodnight to everyone. It had been a pleasant evening and I didn't want it to end on a bad note. I put Connor to bed when I got home and called Ben. I was a little surprised when his answering machine picked up. I looked at the clock. It was a little after ten. Maybe he'd run out to the store for something.

When the machine beeped, without thinking I sang the Stevie Wonder line, "I just called to say I love you." I immediately realized that I shouldn't have said those three little words, so I laughed and tried to cover it up. "Hey, babe, actually I just got in from the ballet and called to say hi. Hope you're having a great week. Catch you later."

I half-expected Ben would call me at work on Thursday but the whole day went by and I didn't hear from him. I kept telling myself that I was being silly missing him so much when we'd just been together on Monday and had tentative plans for Friday but I was still bummed out. I read for a while after supper but at eight I picked up the phone and called him. Again, I got the machine. I half expected it this time, knowing that he was picking up his mother today.

"Hey Ben, it's me again. I know you're probably at your mother's but I just wanted to hear your voice, even if it is a recording. Give me a call when you get a chance so we can talk about tomorrow night. Bye for now."

After I hung up I considered trying his cell phone. At least I would get though to him on that. But I'd already left two messages. I didn't want to sound as desperate to talk to him as I was. That wasn't exactly taking it slow. I was still having trouble pacing myself with all of this. Maybe we could talk about it some more over the weekend.