Broken Silence Read online

  A sudden thought intruded. Shit, Matthew wasn’t going to go all faggy on him, was he? Think they were dating, or do something in public next time they saw each other. His heart jerked in his chest at the sudden image he had of sitting with his friends and having Matthew come up to them. He didn’t think he could take that.

  Matthew shifted in front of him. “Umm... So, I better get home. Sorry to blow and run and all that. But, my aunt, you know?”

  Rich exhaled with relief. “Yeah. Right. You better get back.”

  He managed to grab a dirty T-shirt that had been thrown into his closet. With a wry smile he handed it to Matthew and watched while the other man cleaned himself up. Underwear and jeans were pulled up toned legs, and Matthew sat down to put his boots back on.

  Rich stood awkwardly, finally realizing he should pull his jeans up and tuck himself back in.

  “I’m not... no one can... you can’t...” He couldn’t get the words out.

  “Relax, big guy. I’m not going to say anything. I know the score.”

  Rich nodded. Right. Okay, this was going to be okay. He walked Matthew back through his small apartment. They stopped in his living room where Matthew found his long-sleeved shirt. He pulled the material on and smoothed it down his chest. Rich swallowed roughly.

  “Just...” Matthew looked like he might be arguing with himself. He finally reached over and grabbed a pen from Rich’s computer desk. He scribbled down a number on the pad beside the keyboard. “This is my number. Call me if you want to, you know, again.”

  “Yeah. Thanks.” He studied the pad, tracing each digit with his gaze. “Um, right. I’ll let you out.”

  They walked down the stairs and Rich unlocked the front door while Matthew grabbed the rest of his belongings from the stool he’d left them on. Matthew waved once before trudging out into the snow. Rich watched him get into his car and drive out down the street. He stood in place even after the taillights were long gone. What had he done? It’d been ten years since he’d played around with someone from town. The last time they’d been caught and his dreams had ended in one night.

  He still wondered why old Mr. Chevalier never said anything about finding him with Jonah. Maybe it was the fact that it was obvious Jonah was doing all the work, but Rich had waited for months to be confronted by his own dad. He’d only needed to be caught once, and ever since he’d made sure that any man he slept with was a quick and dirty fumble outside of town. He was embarrassed to realize how long it had been. It wasn’t like he could just pick up and leave whenever he wanted. Could he risk something happening by hooking up with Matthew again?

  Whatever he decided, he wasn’t going to figure it out right now. With a heavy sigh, he finally closed and locked the door. Making sure everything was shut down tight, he wandered back upstairs and stripped for bed. His last thought before he drifted off to sleep was about how much he wished things could be different.

  In the light of day, his thoughts weren’t much clearer. He was woken by the sounds of the staff coming in early the next morning. His own personal alarm clock.

  He lay in bed, rehashing the events of the night before. What had he been thinking? He’d propositioned someone, and then panicked when he thought he was going to leave and kissed him. What the hell? He couldn’t deny that he’d wanted Matthew to stay. He wasn’t going to lie to himself and say it hadn’t been fucking fantastic to be blown by him. He just couldn’t figure out why he’d kissed him.

  Whatever, he wasn’t going to sit here and ruminate on it like some teenaged girl. He had to put a few hours in downstairs before heading over to his parents house. They should be coming home with his sister sometime in the afternoon.

  Luckily for him, the day passed quickly. He’d gotten in a rush when the local Pee Wee hockey team dropped in around lunch with some of their supporters. Etienne was one of the assistant coaches, so Rich got in some razzing while he could. They’d played together back in AAA Midgets. Etienne hadn’t exactly had a calm head on him, so Rich thought it was hilarious that he was coaching 11 and 12 year olds.

  A breather finally hit him in late afternoon and he figured it was close enough to dinner to head over to the home of Dan and Loraine Matheson. His parents. Hopping into his truck, he drove the few blocks to Probyn Street and parked in front of the red brick two storey. Home sweet home.

  His dad’s car was in the drive, so they’d obviously arrived home already. Lora had spent the last few years down south in Ottawa. She’d graduated in November and immediately trekked back north to move in with the parental unit before going away on her vacation to Turkey. She was the proud owner of an MBA and was planning on wasting it at the family bar. He thought she was cracked in the head, but she refused to listen to him. Why would you want to live in this shitty town and work for the shitty family business when you could do anything and go anywhere? He didn’t understand her. Maybe she needed to grow up. Considering she was almost a decade younger than him, he thought she just needed a bit of a reality check.

  He hadn’t had a choice, but he’d worked overtime to make sure they could pay to send her to university in Ottawa. Hell, he’d even worked for minimum wage for years so his dad wouldn’t be burdened while he was trying to save up money to send Lora away.

  He wanted his sister to have everything he couldn’t, and she was wasting it. But, whatever the fuck. It was her life.

  He walked inside and dusted off his boots before removing them. He slung his jacket over the banister in the hallway and made his way around the corner to the family room. His sister let out a terrifying squeal when she spotted him and seconds later his arms were full of female.

  “Hey, squirt. Welcome back.” He leaned back and lifted her off the floor.

  “Rich! I missed you.” She gave him one last squeeze before squirming to be put down.

  He considered holding on just to get her going, but he released her with a laugh. “So, did you get arrested?”

  “Almost!” she crowed. “It was touch and go there for awhile.”

  “Lora. Don’t be telling stories.” His mom entered the room. She shook her head at Lora before giving Rich a peck on the cheek.

  The two women looked so much alike it was easy to see they were related. Both were nearly the complete opposite of Rich and his dad. Where Rich took after the black Irish upbringing of his father, his mom and sister were pure redhead spitfires. Lora was covered in the freckles that had missed him, much to her disgust. She was short and curvy, although he’d punch anyone in the face who called her fat. She took after the brick shithouse build of their mom and all the females in their family. Big legs, big hips, big tits, big hair.

  He thought they were beautiful, and that was all that mattered.

  “So, spill. What’d you do?”

  Lora threw herself down on the sofa with a whimper. “I’m so tired, I’m practically sleep-walking, but I can’t sleep. It’s frustrating. I had a blast, though. I can’t believe how fast it went. Oh, man, you won’t believe where I went.”

  He grinned before slouching down beside her. The upholstery was threadbare and in a jarring brown plaid but his dad refused to get rid of it since it was so fucking comfortable. He swore up and down that the comfortable family room was going to stay as is until the springs broke on the furniture. He’d had to eat his words last year when the springs had finally broken on two chairs, but unfortunately their mom had gone out and bought replacements at IKEA before his dad had been aware of it.

  The damned things were so uncomfortable that no one but their mom liked to sit in them, so they tended to take up the sofa whenever they were all over here. Hell, last weekend, there had been five of them all crowded on the thing when the cousins had come over to watch the game.

  “All right, I’ll bite. Where’d you go?”

  “A Turkish bath!”

  Rich goggled at her. “Shit, Lora. I know two things. You don’t go bungee jumping in Mexico and you don’t go to a Turkish bath. Jesus.”

  “
Oh, shut up. It was an experience.”

  “You hate being naked at spa things.” He’d heard enough about it that he knew that at least. God forbid his sister would talk about shit like that out of his hearing... He didn’t want to picture her naked. Ever. Never ever. She always seemed to want to share everything with him. Just his luck.

  “I know, but Mandy wanted to experience it.”

  “I bet.” He’d met Mandy before. The girl was definitely into adventure. It had been her idea for their group of friends to go to Turkey to celebrate their graduation.

  “Anyway, so we go in, and they made us take off all our clothes and we enter this room with all these naked ladies. I ended up getting scrubbed down by this really fat lady. Halfway through the bath she takes off her top and her boobs are swaying back and forth.”

  “Jesus Christ,” his dad muttered.

  Rich grinned. He hadn’t even noticed his dad enter the room. The man instantly put his head down and grabbed the paper from the coffee table in front of Rich.

  “I’m going to sit in the library until you’re done talking about this,” Dan groused.

  Rich rolled his eyes at his sister. The “library” was his dad’s name for the can.

  “So, right when I'm all naked and cowering in the corner she comes at me with the same scrub towel she’d already used on five other women in our group.”

  Rich shuddered. “Jesus. Did you go halfsies on a staph infection, too?”

  His mom started to laugh, but Lora just hit his shoulder.

  “You’re not funny.”

  “Hell, at least I’m not going to get some infection from a Turkish bath.”

  Lora shook her head. “So, what did you get up to when I was gone?”

  Rich thought back to what he’d just done with Matthew. “Nothing.”

  “Come on, I was gone for two weeks. You had to have done something.”

  “This is Haileybury. Nothing ever happens.”

  “You’re sounding bitter, brother.”

  Rich threw his arm around Lora and squeezed her neck in the bend of his elbow. “Bitter? Me? Take it back.”

  “Rich, if you hurt her you’re going to have to take her to the hospital. I’m not leaving the house again. Well, I better get dinner ready otherwise your father is going to eat the paper.” His mom flicked him on the forehead as she walked past to go back to the kitchen.

  He grinned at his sister. “Hear that? I’ve got permission to hurt you.”

  “Yeah, well maybe I don’t mind going to the hospital if it means I get to flirt with the hot nurse.”

  “You batting for the other team, now? What hot nurse?”

  Lora frowned. “Geez, Rich. You’re such a guy. The male nurse. Matthew something?”

  Right, that hot nurse. “I don’t think he plays for your team.”

  “Are you being a jerk again?”

  “Nope. I have it on good authority that Matthew is light in the wrist.”

  “What, did he tell you himself or something? You know you’re not supposed to listen to gossip around here. Last time the idiots got started it was to say that Mr. Henry was having a sex change. And all that ended up being was him being spotted on the golf course with a pink shirt on.”

  “Yeah, ‘cause it had nothing to do with the fact that he used to scream ‘bend over’ every time he hit the ball. Suspicious.” He made a face at her.

  “Serious. The gossip mill in this place may be alive and well but it isn’t always right.”

  “This time I heard it from the horses’ mouth itself. Uh, but don’t spread that around.” He had a sudden attack of his conscience. Not that Lora was a gossip or anything, but he didn’t want people making fun of Matthew. He wasn’t sure why, but it just didn’t feel right.

  “Ah, well, that makes sense. I’m surprised he told you. I didn’t think you guys were friends.”

  “He comes into the bar every week. I’ve talked to him.” And more, but he wasn’t about to tell her any of that.

  Lora studied his face for a moment before smiling gently. “Gotcha. Well, I think it’s good that you’re making new friends. It’s about time you spent some time with someone other than the idiots.”

  “Stop calling them that.”

  “I’m entitled. The last time they came over they couldn’t stop giggling every time they looked at me.”

  “That’s because your shirt was low-cut and every time you bent over you nearly flashed them.”

  “You’re not supposed to noticed stuff like that, big bro.”

  “Jesus. I didn’t. I heard it all from Marcus. He nearly got a punch in the face.”

  “Ah, my hero!” She leaned against his shoulder.

  He pushed her up long enough to pick up the remote and turn the TV on. There had to be something sports related on. He settled on watching a roundtable about the game last night. Rich snorted at the comment that Toronto didn’t have a shot this year. They said that every year, and it burned him to admit that it was true every year, but he still had hope.

  “Shouldn’t you be helping Mom in the kitchen?” he asked, just to get a rise out of her. He didn’t step foot in the kitchen if he could help it. He’d learned the hard way that he hadn’t gotten his dad’s talent with a stove or grill. It was why he was most often found behind the bar at Matheson’s.

  “She said I could relax since I just came back from a long trip.” She stuck her tongue out at him.

  Rich snorted. “Whatever, brat.”

  “Oh, hey. We stopped at the new Super Wal-Mart on the way home.”

  “Yeah?”

  “Yeah. Dad was complaining that half of Quebec was there.”

  “Typical,” Rich said. “Half of Quebec was in the bar two nights ago. Uncle Henry even came out of the kitchen to check them out. Couldn’t understand a damn word they said.”

  “That’s because you’re not used to hearing actual French. Not like the people around here actually speak it proper.”

  “They do that on purpose, squirt. Just ask Etienne. Hell, Jonah Chevalier does it, too. Half of what he says isn’t even proper grammar.”

  “Yeah, I’ve heard his cousin talk. She does the same thing. I think it’s funny.”

  “Hmm.” He didn’t want to think about Jonah right now. “Yacky and Quacky are back at the bar for the holidays.”

  “Don’t call them that.”

  He grinned. His two baby cousins were going to University down in Toronto and had come back for the Christmas break. He’d nicknamed Michelle’s little sisters years ago when Vanessa and Carly wouldn’t stop talking. “What? It fits them.”

  “Vanessa hates it when you call her Yacky.”

  “Then she shouldn’t talk so much. Between Carly and Vanessa I can’t get a damned thing done most days.”

  His mom finally came out to call them in to dinner. The four of them sat down in the kitchen, squashed around the tiny table. They didn’t eat in the dining room unless they had company. His mom didn’t care if Rich and his dad barely fit at the kitchen table, she wasn’t going to set the big one just for family.

  The kitchen was an explosion of country memorabilia. His mom was a big crafter and quilter, so she’d stenciled all sorts of patterns on her oak cabinets. Green and pink plaid curtains, towels and placemats competed for attention with old yarn spools, bird’s nests, glass lanterns and wooden candle sticks. His mom never threw anything out and every year she seemed to accumulate more. The day the big quilt barn opened up outside Liskeard was a day she nearly had a heart attack she was so happy. Between that and the auctions his parents went to, their house was overflowing with antiques.

  His dad may not see the need to update his couches, but he was forever refinishing old antique dressers, tables and armoires. Whatever didn’t go in the house ended up being gifted to relatives and friends.

  Rich turned to his dad. “I was telling Lora that Yacky and Quacky are home.”

  His dad grunted. “It’s a wonder Yacky has a head left on her with
how she’s been blowing her nose all week. You should put her on busboy duty. No one wants her serving them with her allergies acting up.”

  His dad was constantly trying to tell him what to do with the bar. He understood it, but it grated at times. Daniel had been forced to let Rich take over when he’d had a serious heart attack last year. His doctor had ordered an instant reduction in his stress levels so Rich's mom had decreed that he wasn’t able to run the bar. He’d been grooming Rich anyway, but it had sat awkwardly on the two of them for a bit.

  Besides, Rich had already put Yacky on kitchen cleanup, much to her displeasure. He’d gotten an earful from all three of his female cousins. Rich nodded anyway. “Mrs. Brogan was in last night, Mom.”

  “Oh, I need to have coffee with her, soon. Maybe I’ll walk over tomorrow.”

  Considering the Brogan’s lived about three houses down, that wouldn’t be a problem.

  “Did she have any news?”

  “Neil’s coming home for Christmas. David, too.”

  His mom put down her fork and smiled widely. “She must be so happy. Is Neil bringing Jonah with him?”

  “Yeah.” He couldn’t say anything else. His parents didn’t know anything about his involvement with Jonah. Both Neil and Jonah were about four years younger than Rich so he shouldn’t even be friends with them. And he wasn’t. He’d grown up with Neil’s older brother, Stan, instead. They’d played hockey together, but Stan hung out with a slightly different crowd these days now that he was married.

  “Michel isn’t going to like that,” Dan grumbled.

  Loraine looked at him. “Michel doesn’t have a choice in whether his son comes home or not, Daniel. Besides, a father’s job is to look after his children. I don’t really approve of the way Michel treats Jonah.”

  Rich looked up at that. It was the first time he’d ever heard that from his mom. Did that mean she didn’t have a problem with Jonah being gay?