Skye Blue, page 29
part #6 of Firsts and Forever Series
“What about now? What do you believe?”
“Honestly? I don’t know. I guess that makes me agnostic, I know that I don’t know, or something.” I was quiet for a while as we kept walking slowly. When we reached the far end of the hospital, we turned and started back.
When we’d reached the chapel again, I said, “I’m going to go in here for a while. Just...you know. To see how it feels.”
“Good idea.” He gave me a reassuring smile and continued on down the hallway, and I pushed open the door.
The small room looked like a miniature church, but of no particular denomination. Three rows of pews faced a little altar, which was flanked by plastic potted plants. Behind that, a backlit fairly abstract stained glass window painted the dimly lit room with swaths of color.
I sat down in the last row and spent some time picking out shapes in the stained glass as I tried to sort through all the questions I’d always had about God and religion and what I truly believed. I obviously wasn’t going to suddenly figure out all the answers, and what felt right in that moment wasn’t asking for divine intervention. It was something else entirely.
I whispered, “If there really is a God out there, then I want to thank you for Dare. I always heard that God is love, and if that’s true, then you must have helped us find each other. He’s the most amazing, sweet, loving man I’ll ever know, and I’m so incredibly grateful for him.”
*****
I was surprised to wake up looking into my mother’s blue eyes as she gently brushed my hair back from my forehead. “Hi sweetie,” she whispered. “Sorry, I didn’t mean to wake you.”
I sat up in my waiting room chair, Christian’s leather jacket sliding off me, and asked, “What are you doing here?”
“Your brother texted me, so I borrowed a car and drove all night to get to you. Sweetheart, I’m so sorry to hear about Dare.”
“Really? You dropped everything, just like that?”
She nodded. “When I was here last time and we all had breakfast together, I could see how much Dare means to you. I knew you must be going through a really hard time right now.” She sat beside me and looked down at her hands. “I know I’m not always around when you need me, Skye. I haven’t been the greatest parent to you. But...well, I’m here now for what it’s worth.”
I pulled her to me in a big hug and said, “I love you, Mom. Thank you for coming.”
“I love you too, sweetheart. Is there any news on your boyfriend?”
“No.” I rested my head on her shoulder. After a while I murmured, “I don’t remember falling asleep.” Everyone else in the room was still out. “What time is it?”
“It’s early. Six-thirty, maybe.”
My mother began to stroke my hair like she used to do when I was a child, and I whispered, “I’m so glad you’re here.”
*****
The days passed so slowly. I learned to get through them in tiny increments. Walking downstairs to the cafeteria took up three minutes. Trying to eat something took another ten. The walk back up burned three more. That was how I survived, by finding ways to get through the one thousand, four hundred and forty minutes that comprised each day.
It got a bit easier after the first forty-eight hours (two thousand, eight hundred eighty minutes, and I felt every one of them). That was when they told me I could go into Dare’s room. I had to be outfitted in a kind of jumpsuit with booties on my feet, gloves on my hands, a mask over my mouth and a thing that looked like a fabric shower cap on my head. I couldn’t really touch Dare, not all covered up like that, but I ran my gloved hand over his arm anyway, stroking the few inches of bare skin that weren’t crisscrossed with tubes and wires. I spoke to him softly, telling him over and over again how much I loved him. I only got to be with him a few minutes, but now I had something to look forward to each day.
After two more days, he’d improved enough that I could go in with just a mask. Getting to feel his skin under my fingertips was like my birthday and Christmas rolled into one. “I love you so much, Dare,” I told him. “There’s so much I want to say to you, but that’s most important.”
*****
Dare was awakened five days after surgery. His lungs had regained their full function after the inflammation subsided and he was able to breathe on his own. Only one question remained, which was how much damage had been done when his air passages swelled and the oxygen had been cut off. Until he woke up, until he spoke, I had no idea how much of my Dare was coming back to me.
They moved him to a regular hospital room and let me come in after the breathing tube had been removed. The doctor explained that Dare’s throat would be sore and that he’d have a hard time talking at first. I nodded as I stroked my boyfriend’s arm.
It was so good to see his chest rising and falling without a machine’s assistance. He seemed to wake up in stages as the drugs that had held him under slowly worked out of his system. The doctor left and a nurse with a booming voice took over, hovered over him, monitoring his heart rate and blood pressure as she called, “Darryl? Can you hear me? You have a friend here to see you. Go ahead and try to open your eyes, honey.”
“Dare,” I said. “He goes by Dare.”
She completely ignored me. “Your mouth is going to feel dry Darryl, but that’s normal. Your throat’s going to hurt too, because there was a big tube in there. This is nothing to worry about. I have some ice chips here for you, they’ll feel just heavenly. Go ahead and try to open your eyes and we’ll get those ice chips going.”
Dare stirred a bit and my heart leapt. After another minute, he opened his eyes and blinked several times. “Welcome back, Darryl,” the nurse said with a big, lipsticked smile. She handed me the plastic cup of crushed ice and said, “Go ahead and give him these, one at a time. Just don’t go too fast. Make sure each one has a chance to melt before you give him the next one.”
He tried to lick his dry lips but seemed to have a hard time with it. I ran an ice chip over them before letting it slip into his mouth, and Dare’s eyes slowly focused on me. After a while he tried to speak, but I couldn’t make out what he said. “I’m sorry, sweetheart, I couldn’t hear you,” I told him, then leaned in close.
His hand came up shakily, trailing a bunch of tubes, and he gently touched my hair before whispering hoarsely, “Hi baby. How’s my Skye Blue?”
I sat up and smiled at him, tears of happiness streaming down my face. “I’m great sweetheart, now that you’re back.”
“Was I gone? I hate being apart from you,” he murmured.
I stroked his hair as I told him softly, “We never have to be apart again.”
“Promise?”
“I promise, Dare. Our forever starts right now.”
Epilogue
“Oh man, you’re such a dork!”
I burst out laughing. “Me! Look who’s talking!”
Dare and I had agreed to surprise each other at Nana’s costume party, and we’d just discovered that we were dressed identically. We’d both opted to show up in full Legolas regalia, right down to the long blond wig and pointy ears. The only difference in our costumes was that he was walking with a cane, which he’d dressed up to look like a sword. It had been six weeks since his surgery and physical therapy had brought him really far, but he was still healing. Fortunately, that aspect of the surgery had been a resounding success.
He pulled me into a kiss before saying, “You’re incredibly sexy.”
“I thought you said I was a dork.”
“Oh, you are. You’re an incredibly sexy dork, and I love you for it.” He kissed me right on top of my grin.
Nana rushed over to us, a huge smile on her face. “Look how cute you two are, you wore matching costumes! Lemme get a picture!” She pulled out a little red camera and blinded us with the flash, then asked, “So what do you think of my outfit, boys? Do you get it?” She was wearing a curly red wig, a PFLAG t-shirt, and a rainbow vest with a ton of pins all over it, along with an orange apron and jeans. Before we could answer, she exclaimed, “I’m Sharon Gless from Queer as Fuck!”
We both smiled at that. “You look awesome, Nana. Are you enjoying the party?” Dare asked. Several of us had rented a ballroom at a nice hotel and loaded it up with flowers and balloons. River and Cole, my brother’s new partner in and out of the kitchen, were totally killing it with the catering, and a DJ, who for some reason was dressed only in sexy little briefs, was keeping the crowd energized.
“It’s a real hum-dinger! You boys didn’t have to go through so much trouble for me. But I’m glad you did!” She pulled each of us down to her level in turn and gave us a big kiss on the cheek, then shrieked with delight and exclaimed, “Look at that! Trevor and Vincent came as Luke Skywalker and Han Solo! And what’s Joshie dressed as, a robot?”
“No, that’s Boba Fett,” I explained.
“I have no idea what a Bubble Fit is, but he looks cute. I’m gonna go say hi and show ‘em my costume.”
In the two weeks that my mother stayed in San Francisco after Dare’s surgery, she really got to know Trevor, Vincent, and Nana. She became convinced that this was the best possible place for Josh, who begged her to let him stay. By the time she left to rejoin her boyfriend, she was referring to Trevor and Vincent as Joshie’s dads. There would of course be a lot of legal hoops to jump through to make their little family unit official. But as far as my mom was concerned, she signed off on it with the confidence that she was doing the best thing for that child.
“It’s nice to see her so happy,” Dare said as we watched Nana dart across the room. “I’m really glad we did this for her. I still wish she’d let us pay her back, though.”
“We tried, she just refuses.” Dare’s stay in the I.C.U. had resulted in a horrifyingly large bill, and without even telling us she was doing it, Nana had paid it for us. When we found out and tried to tell her we’d make payments to reimburse her, she’d totally shut us down. She said simply that family takes care of its own, and that was the end of that discussion. I had no idea how to even begin to thank someone for that much kindness and generosity.
“How adorable! You wore matching outfits!” We turned toward Gary Sandberg and Louise Yueng, who were hand-in-hand and dressed as Bonnie and Clyde. They’d met at the hospital when they came to visit Dare after his stint in the I.C.U. With a little push from us, they’d started dating soon after. It seemed to be going well, judging by the number of nights each week that Gary’s car was parked in front of our building.
Yes, our. I’d moved into Dare’s apartment as soon as he got out of the hospital. The studio was a bit snug with two humans, a cat, a dog and a mouse, but we would be moving into one of Louise’s larger upstairs units when it became available at the end of next month.
“Hi guys, you look great! Are you enjoying the party?” I said.
“Oh yeah. This is quite the shindig,” Gary said. “Thanks for inviting us.”
“Thanks for coming.”
“Oh, before I forget, I left a new toy for Draco outside your door. I spotted it when we were shopping for Princess and just couldn’t pass it up,” Louise told us. She’d recently adopted a cute little terrier mix at the shelter, who had frequent playdates with Benny. Draco, who was officially mine now, got in on the action by sitting on a piece of furniture and batting at the dogs playfully as they ran past in endless games of doggie tag.
*****
Later on, when the party was in full swing and the ballroom was jam-packed with Nana’s friends, family and admirers, she took the stage and picked up the microphone. “First of all,” she said, “I want to thank my boys for throwing me this great party. I love each and every one of you.” She blew kisses to the crowd. More than a dozen of us had pulled this event together for her. Only a few were related to her by blood. The rest of us were family because Nana had opened her heart to us.
“Now I have an announcement,” she continued. “I’m not gonna be trading my Chanel for prison stripes, because as of yesterday, my lawyers got my cases resolved with fines and community service instead of jail time.” The crowd clapped and cheered wildly.
When the noise died down a little she said, “I’m gonna be working at the community center where my boy Christopher volunteers. They need lots of help down there, so I’m going to be bringing most of you with me to make sure we get the job done.”
“We’re gonna rock that community center, Nana,” someone called, and she flashed a thumbs up.
“My lawyers have been busy with something else as well. They’re hard at work making our boy Joshie a permanent part of our family. Where is Joshie? He’s dressed like a Bubble Fit. Oh, there he is. Joshie, we love you honey! Don’t eat too much cake though, you’re gonna get the runs. I’m sure your dads told you that already, listen to them! Where are his dads? You all know my grandson Vincent and his fiancé Trevor.” She scanned the crowd, shielding her eyes against the bright lights, then said, “Oh, there they are, over by the buffet. Be sure you all put lots of pressure on ‘em to let me throw them a great big fancy wedding! The same goes for my boys Hunter and Brian. They’ve been smooching in the corner all night, right over there by the balloon arch. I don’t want to hear that nonsense about any of my boys having a quiet, simple wedding. You’re all part of my family, and in this family we don’t do quiet and simple!” That was met with more cheering and applause as the two couples in question grinned and looked embarrassed.
“You all know I could talk all night,” Nana said, “but I’ve been told one of my boys has a special announcement, so I’m gonna shut up and let him take the stage. I love you all!” She returned the mic to its stand and adjusted it so it was about a foot taller, then scooted off to the side as everyone cheered and applauded.
I was surprised when Dare stepped forward and vaulted easily onto the stage. He took the mic and nodded to the DJ, and as ‘Time of My Life’ started to play in the background, Dare grinned and said, “I kind of wish I wasn’t doing this dressed as Legolas, but hey, sometimes you just have to let your geek flag fly.” The crowd laughed appreciatively. “I have a question I need to ask my boyfriend. Skye, will you come up here, please?”
I got up on stage with him and smiled as I said, “What are you doing?” Without even thinking about it, I gently caressed his forearm. I did that a lot. I’d learned to appreciate the simple joy of getting to touch him when he’d been in the I.C.U.
“You’ll see.” To the crowd he said, “We didn’t plan on dressing alike, by the way. We were just going to surprise each other with our costumes, and this is what happened. That should tell you a little something about how in sync we are.” That got a chorus of awwwws and applause.
“I was dumb enough at one point to tell this man I wanted to take our relationship slowly,” Dare said. “I was scared and insecure, and I didn’t think my tattered heart would be able to trust again. But I was completely wrong.”
He looked at me as he told the crowd, “A few weeks ago, I nearly died during an operation. It was a huge reminder that life is short and that we need to seize each day and be open to the joy that’s all around us. Even before that happened, I knew this man was the love of my life and I knew I wanted to spend every day of forever with him. I used to think it was too soon to tell him that, but then I realized when something’s as right as this, there’s absolutely no reason to wait. Life’s far too fleeting as it is, and none of us know how many days or months or years we’ll be allotted.”
Dare took my hand. “But I do know this. However long I’m given on this Earth, I want to spend all of it with you, Skye. I love you with all my heart and soul.” He dropped down on one knee and looked up at me hopefully. “Will you marry me?”
“Oh my God! Yes!” I exclaimed, and he jumped up and pulled me into his arms, kissing me passionately as thunderous cheers and applause filled the room.
“Hot damn!” Nana exclaimed, appearing beside us. “I get to plan another wedding! Congratulations, boys! I couldn’t be happier for you both.”
After we thanked her, I smiled at Dare and said, “You’re going to marry me.”
“That’s right. I’m going to make an honest man of you. This is good news for all of our kids. They’ll want to be a part of the ceremony, of course. I’ll bet we can find little tuxes for Benny and Draco, but do you think we’ll find one for the Royal Rodent?”
“If we can’t I’ll bet Nana can. She can do anything.”
“Damn right,” she said.
I spotted my brother and his boyfriend in the crowd and they both beamed at me. “Congrats, Skye! I’m going to text Mom right now and let her know you’re getting married,” River called over the noise.
Nana turned to the DJ and yelled, “We need some celebration tunes! Hit it!” As the music began to play, Nana shocked the hell out of me by taking a flying leap off the stage and crowd surfing as everyone laughed and cheered.
Dare put the mic back on its stand, then reached out to me. “Can I have this dance, Skye?”
I smiled at him as I put my hand in his. “You can have this one and every dance after that, forever.”
The End
Keep reading for some bonus material :)
Bonus Scene and Big Fucking Cock Recipe
After my readers on Facebook got their first taste of BFC, they wanted more! To try to quench their desire for BFC, I hosted a recipe contest. People from all around the globe were showing me their BFCs! This was the winning recipe, concocted by Morgan G. in Alabama. She told me she had to sample many BFCs until she finally found the perfect one. If you’re of legal drinking age and feel you’d enjoy a big, stiff one, you can’t go wrong with this bad boy:
The BFC
12 oz. frozen pink lemonade
