Madame Pent had been in yesterday to tidy up so everything was neatly in place. The warm buttery smell of the wood cleaner she used on the furniture still lingered in the air. I flopped down in my authorly chair in my office, threw my feet to the hassock my ex so detested, and pulled out my cell and the necklace. Now I wished I had that old Blackberry phone that I’d carried the summer I’d worn a necklace similar to the one lying over my thigh. There were pictures on it, pictures that I’d never got around to downloading before the thing finally gave up the ghost. Music too. So many playlists, bands and songs no longer being played. Music I now suddenly craved.

  I thumbed over my apps, my left hand covering the circlet of gold, until I found YouTube. With just a few taps of my thumb, I had the video up. I debated for a long while if I should play it or not because holy hell just seeing the damn title was making me yearn for something I’d thrown away and would never get back.

  Yet, foolish pain-loving ass that I am, I hit play then braced myself. The first chords rocked me, and not in that ‘Rock and roll, man! Woo-hoo!’ kind of way. I mean those amazing guitar chords of “Icarus” hit me like a rockslide. I sucked in a sharp breath as the lead singer for the Purple Cows—what the hell had ever become of them?—belted out the first lines of that song that had been so Khalid and me, so much a part of that summer and our love and discoveries…

  “Jesus wept,” I groaned, rubbing at my chest with a fist filled with silver chain and vibrant memories.

  Don’t burn my wings away from me.

  Don’t burn my wings away from me.

  I leapt from the tower and fell to the sea,

  Don’t take my love away from me.

  I made these wings with broken dreams

  and days that never end,

  with the hope I’ll see you soon at peace

  with the time for us both to mend.

  Don’t burn my wings away from me.

  Meet me under the willow tree

  and soothe my burning skin.

  Time and patience are just out of reach,

  I’m tired of losing, just let me win.

  I leapt from the tower and fell to the sea.

  Don’t take my love away from me.

  By the time the drummer eased us out of the power ballad with a soft brush of his cymbals, I was a blubbering damn mess. I’d relived a year of my life in a little over four minutes. And by God, it was agony and rapture all knotted up in joy and remorse. So much fucking regret. If I was still a church-going man, I’d be on my knees seeking penitence for my sins against Khalid and our love. I’d been so stupid, so gullible. Insecurity had ridden me hard back then, still did to some extent as any creative type will attest to, but I’d let my fear of losing him push me into losing him.

  “What a bitter bitch irony is,” I told my empty house, my cheeks slick with tears. Taking a moment to compose myself, I snorted at how emotional I still was. Mom always said I cried at the drop of a hat. Sniffling a bit, I ran my thumb up the page, reading over some of the comments. I did this quite often as the comments were sometimes much more entertaining than the article, post, Tweet, or video. Lord knew I could use some lifting up.

  As always, the comments perked me up. After using the back of my hand to read them of course, I snickered at a couple.

  Who’s here because of Ozone Warrior?!

  Had this song been in a movie or TV show? What was “Ozone Warrior”? I needed to come out of my author cave on occasion.

  RIP Persian Joe. Gone but never forgotten.

  Oh damn, that’s right. The lead singer, Persian Joe, had died from an overdose about five years ago. Shit, how could I have forgotten? We’d been at the farmhouse entertaining some snobbish friends of René’s when someone had mentioned the death in passing.

  “Ugh, American bands. They’re so ennuyeux et sans goût.”

  I glowered at my husband. “Boring and tasteless? Really?” He rarely had a kind thing to say about American anything. “Seems you’d be more appreciative of American things since you’ve married an American.”

  His friends tittered. He did not. If memory serves on a weekly basis I had to remind him that he had wed a boring, tasteless American.

  This song is my life.

  Well, that was sweet. It kind of was a large part of mine as well. I got up, found some wine that was lacking in comparison to the lovely berry wine I’d had at lunch, and went back to my chair, content to spend the night reliving the past through the music of my youth. Before I brought the laptop to my thighs, I fastened the peace symbol around my neck. It felt odd there, heavy, cold, new. I’d not a clue what had happened to the original one I’d given as an offering to Athena ten years ago. Knowing my ex, he probably flung it into the sea in a pique. He had piques almost daily. For a few years they were cute then…well…they weren’t anymore. Funny how something that you find enchanting at the beginning of a romance can turn into something you despise a few years later. Sighing theatrically, I took a sip of wine and went back to reading comments, my flesh warming my new but supposedly old necklace.

  This song rips me in two. It takes me back to the summery years of college. I’d been working as a lifeguard at this cheesy old lodge. There was this boy…I lost my heart and soul to him. Our nights were filled with passion, our days laughter and gentle touches. Then life pulled us apart. I let him slip through my fingers like the water he so feared. I pine yet for him, wondering where he is, is he writing, does he still love me…

  I could not breathe. My eyes grew dry as I sat there, mouth open, lungs unable to work, staring at that comment. Could it be?

  No. No. Of course not. I sucked in a large breath and blinked. Closed my eyes, willed my heart to stop fluttering, and then slowly lifted my lids and read the comment again.

  “Khalid?” I whispered, touching the screen—the words—with a quaking finger. Who was this person? His avatar was nondescript. Just a picture of a yellow cat. The username was also no help. Dragonfly Boy. That couldn’t be him. Khalid would have something profound as his username. Distant thunder rolled over Paris. I looked to the windows but saw no flashes in the sky yet. I clicked on the username hoping to see something that would verify that this was, in fact, the man I’d lost so many years ago. All I got was a page with a larger picture of that yellow cat and a notice that the channel didn’t have any content.

  “Fuck.” A flash outside the window caught my attention. The storm was closer now. I laid my laptop aside and sprinted through the tiny house, into the kitchen and living room, and then upstairs to the bath, master bedroom, and then the guest room where I had to cram a rolled-up bath towel along the frame to soak up any rain that might leak in.

  When the mad rush was over, I made my way back to my den, poured more wine into my glass, and sat down, staring at the now black monitor of my laptop. What did I do now? I slapped the lid closed, let my eyes drift shut, drank wine, and listened to the raindrops beat on the window, my mind going back to Cranberry Creek and how the morning sun looked on his damp flesh or how the bitter taste of chlorine stuck to his skin until he’d shower it off.

  “To you, my love,” I whispered and raised my glass to Khalid, wherever he was.

  ***

  “Come in! Come in!” I threw my arms around Gloria, hustling her into the house before she got any wetter. She laughed lightly, hugging me with gusto, as James stood out in the rain paying the cabbie then struggling with their luggage.

  “Hey thanks for the help there, big brother,” James snapped as he jerked on a rolling suitcase that was stuck in a gaping hole in the sidewalk.

  “Think I should go help him?” I asked my sister-in-law.

  “Probably,” she said, dabbing at her wet brown hair with a handkerchief. “He’ll bitch all day long if you don’t.”

  “We do not want that.” I ran out into the shower, lifted the suitcase wheel out of the rut, and then grabbed a couple of bags from James. We ran into my tiny house, jamming up in the doorway until he popped free and stumbled into my skinny foyer.

  “You two.” Gloria giggled, using her hankie to dab at her new husband’s cheeks. “Always have to be the first in line.”

  I dropped the bags on the tile and strongly hugged my soaking wet brother. He patted my back, clinging to me like a flowering vine. God but it was nice to have someone here aside from the housekeeper, her daughter, and my melancholy ghosts of romances past.

  We moved into the living room, and I poured wine for them. There we sat and talked, catching up on the news from Cheltenham, talking of how married life was treating them, and how the search for a house near center city was going. James was now an assistant manager for a major flooring company. Gloria was a nurse. Financially they were ready for the next big step of home ownership. As the talk went on Gloria started to fade, the long flight with numerous layovers showing in her light blue eyes.

  “Go on up to bed, babe,” James prompted. She shook her head then yawned. “Go. I’ll bring up the bags once they’re dry.”

  I smiled at her as she dozed off, snapped back awake, and then snorted at herself.

  “Right, okay, I’m going to take a nap. Make sure I don’t sleep through dinner. I want to dine in a fancy Parisian bistro our first night in town. You promised.” She pointed at me. I inclined my head as a proper gent should.

  “Whatever milady wishes I shall strive to make happen.”

  She gave James a kiss, patted my cheek, and then climbed the creaking stairs, taking the first right into the guest room and closing the door behind her, the hinges squeaking a bit.

  “She’s just the loveliest thing,” I said then dumped a few more inches of wine into both of our glasses. James was tired as well. You could see it in the bags under his hazel eyes, but he would fight it off with the same tenacity that had gotten him into a managerial position at the age of twenty-four. “What the hell does she see in you?”

  “I ask myself that constantly,” he replied drolly. Gloria yelled down to ask why there was a towel hanging over the window sill. I shouted back the reason and then things went silent upstairs again. “You know you really should get that fixed.”

  “Meh. It gives the old girl character,” I said with a shrug.

  “What it’s going to give the old girl is dry rot.”

  “Look at you, all Bob the Builder.” I chortled into my wine.

  “It’s not by choice. It’s part of being a prospective homeowner. Gloria would skin me alive if we had a leaky window in the house we’re looking at. You know how being married is. All they do is…shit.” His weary blue-green gaze flew from the glass in his hand to me. “I’m sorry.”

  “Pfft.” I waved the comment off with my wine, the bold red slopping around inside the goblet with my movement. “There’s no need to be sorry. It was destined to fail just as you and Mom secretly suspected.” He said nothing, his lips flattening a bit as he mulled over my reply. “I’m more or less over it. Not like I didn’t know we were on a sinking ship three years ago. Why I didn’t scurry down the mooring ropes before he could cheat on me is anyone’s guess.”

  “It’s because when you love someone you love them wholly, Dane.”

  Not knowing what to say, I made a gruff sound, drank more of my wine, and then sat up a bit to stare at my brother.

  “I came across something the other night,” I said then hesitated. This was foolish. I knew it, yet the fact that I knew it was probably a fool’s errand didn’t keep me from going to that damn video and reading over that comment four or five times a day since fate had led me there. Oh the gods were having a real yuck-fest up there on Olympus. I was sure.

  Not knowing how to even broach something this stupid, I simply leaped in and blurted out the story starting with the necklace I still wore—which hadn’t turned my skin green yet—all the way through to the comment from Dragonfly Boy who may be Khalid but obviously was not because that was just too kind a thing for the gods to bestow on a mere mortal.

  “Wow, that does kind of sound like you two,” James mumbled after my tale was complete. That shocked me. I’d expected him to laugh at me, slap the back of my head, and tell me to step out of the past.

  “Do you really think that or are you just being polite? Do not be polite. The last time you were polite was when I asked you what you thought of René and you said he was really nice.”

  “Well, he was, at first. I mean, he doted on you like a socialite pampers her pug.”

  I sighed and tried to wash down the distaste of being likened to a dog. Why had I allowed René to call me pup all those years? Christ, I was sad.

  “So…” I let it dangle a bit hoping he’d say more.

  “So, comment on his comment. See if he replies to you. If so, then go from there.” James took another sip of wine, yawned so wide his jaw cracked, and then pushed to his feet. “I’m going to take a nap too.”

  “Sure, go ahead.” I got up, clapped him on the shoulder and helped him carry the bags to the guest room door. “I’ll wake you two up around five, so you have time to shower and change. Then we’ll kick off this ‘one year of wedded bliss tour of Paris’ I’ve been waiting to gift you with.”

  “You’re buying, right? We’re a poor young couple who’s trying to save money for a down payment.” Good Lord. He sure knew how to work the sad puppy face. No wonder Mom gave him anything he wanted, like a trip to Disney World for his graduation gift while I’d been carted off to the Poconos and fallen head over heels in love. Hmm. Maybe I’d gotten the better trip after all…

  “Yes.” I chuckled. “I’m buying. Now get some sleep. You look like shit.”

  That fact he didn’t sling something biting back at me for that comment showed just how tired he was. I went back to the living room, gathered up the wine glasses, carried them to the kitchen and put them into the sink. Looking out at the afternoon sun, hearing soft thuds over my head, filled me with a mellow sort of contentment. It was going to be wonderful having them here for a week. Rattling around in this house all by myself wore on me. I was, it seemed, one of those people who needs other people around them. Unless I’m writing then I’m horribly antisocial. I pondered on another glass of wine as I stared out at the tiny alley that ran behind my house. Raindrops peppered tiny puddles. I breathed in and could smell Paris on the moist air. The city of love it was called.

  So far, after nearly a year of being a resident, I’d not found much love. I had, though, found recovery from a love gone wrong. My romance track record was not good. Two loves, two failures. I was glad that I’d given up on the fanciful notion of romance. After walking in on my ex and his current “pup” in our bed, I’d sworn off such nonsense because, obviously, you really only had one chance to feel that sort of exhilaration with another person, and if you fouled that up, you just sailed through life trying to recapture that feeling but fell short every time. Right?

  My gaze left the charming little alley with the peppered puddles and landed on the wine bottle sitting on the counter. Knowing I’d had enough for now, I got a cup of coffee instead of more wine and went into my den. There on my desk was my laptop. I sat down, blew on my coffee, and stared at my laptop as if it held the wonders of the world in it. In a matter of speaking, it just might…

  I opened it and fired it up, wishing I’d have grabbed some wine—or maybe some whiskey—as I found myself once again listening to “Icarus” while staring at that comment from Dragonfly Boy. I sipped, and I stared. Then, when a burst of self-confidence and optimism appeared out of the blue, I replied to his comment, my nerves getting the better of me as I typed the last few words. I hit reply before I could chicken out. Then, I read my blathering glop, sitting there for the world to read.

  Dragonfly Boy,

  I feel as if I could have written this comment. I too lost my heart and soul to a young man one summer about ten years ago. He was a lifeguard as well, beautiful to look upon and kind at heart. A religious man who taught me much about acceptance—of others and myself as a gay man—while we tumbled wildly into a romance that to this day I wish I had nurtured with more care. If you are my lover of the past, the man who waded into Cranberry Creek while holding my hands and kissing my lips, the man who loved me so well we shook the stars, I hope you can find it within yourself to forgive me and perhaps reach out? I have apologies to make.

  Wordsmith Dane

  I blew out a long, unsteady breath through pursed lips, closed the laptop, and pattered off to find something to dress up my coffee, and I don’t mean heavy cream.

  Chapter Fifteen

  For the next four days, I was kept far too busy to be checking YouTube on an hourly basis, which was for the best. Obsessing over a comment that may never be read was idiotic. Didn’t mean I wasn’t thinking about it frequently, I was, I just didn’t have the time to fixate on it. James and Gloria ran me ragged, and it was sheer joy to be so utterly exhausted. We’d done the Eiffel Tower, the Louvre Museum, Notre Dame Cathedral, the Champs-Èlysées, the Palais Garnier Opera House, Musée d’Orsay art museum, and the Arc de Triomphe.

  I’d declared today a day of rest and had gotten no arguments. Tomorrow we were headed to the Luxembourg Gardens followed by dinner out, and then one final day of local sightseeing and shopping and an early night to bed as they had to be at Charles de Gaulle at six a.m. to catch their flight back to the states. I would miss them terribly.

  Morning crept up on me that day of rest, a bright stream of sunlight falling over my face as I lay staring at my open window. The room was pleasant, cool, dry, and I dozed back off for another hour until my bladder demanded I get up and use the toilet. After a good pee, I jumped into the shower, pulled on some socks, underwear, a pair of green cargo shorts and a yellow T-shirt, anticipating a warm day of around seventy degrees.

  I snuck past the guest room, the sick cow sounds from my brother leaking out the rather large crack under the door. Gloria must sleep like the dead or use earplugs. I’d never been able to sleep with him in the same room. A flash of memory met me halfway down the stairs. I could see myself pulling that mattress outside to sleep beside Cranberry Creek. A warm surge of lust danced along my spine as the memory of Khalid standing on the other side of that creek in nothing but his white gauzy pants invaded my mind.