A Touch of Rain

Chapter 2-4

It was close to eleven in the evening when Tristan’s phone buzzed on the nightstand by his bed. He’d been binge-watching Breaking Bad again and was glad for the distraction. Bleary-eyed, he checked his phone and read Bernie’s text.

Call me if you have a minute.

Tristan sat up against the bed’s massive headboard. He’d paid three-thousand dollars for this superb bed he was lying in, but what was the point? He hadn’t shared his bed with anyone in months. He never imagined that cutting free from the party circuit would leave him so alone. His so-called friends had abandoned him. Only Markus kept calling, but his messages were all one and the same. Markus didn’t need his friendship, he only needed an accomplice—someone to take the fall with him.

As Tristan dialed Bernie and Rachel’s home number, Rain’s beautiful green eyes flashed through Tristan’s mind. The conversation they’d had out on the porch had been so quiet and easy—he couldn’t remember ever feeling that comfortable with another man he hadn’t slept with first. That was a change.

Bernie answered on the first ring. “Hope my text didn’t wake you,” she said, right off.

“Yeah, right.” Tristan rubbed his eyes and pushed the warm laptop off his thighs before it burned a hole through his sheets. “What’s up? How are the girls?”

“Candid lost a tooth tonight.” Bernie chuckled. “She’s expecting ten dollars from the Tooth Fairy.”

“She’ll get five.” He laughed. “Were you working tonight?”

Bernie was a midwife, a birth doula, who’d built a good career for herself accompanying women through their pregnancy and first year of motherhood.

“No, it was a slow week. But November’s coming and all those Valentine’s Day babies are gonna come popping out. Hey, look, I just read your text. They’re such shits. I cannot believe they’re putting more pressure on you at work. What the hell do they think is gonna happen, man? You’re gonna burn out and then—”

“I’m all right. Everything’s okay, Bernie. Don’t worry, okay?”

“Tristan, you tell me you haven’t slept a whole night in months. You don’t see anybody anymore. When was the last time you came by the house? The kids miss you. I miss you.”

“I know. I’m sorry,” Tristan said. They’d been best friends for over fifteen years and he loved Bernie, Rachel, and his daughters. “I’ll come by Sunday. Maybe we could have our last picnic of the summer or something.”

“I’m not trying to lay a guilt trip on you, all right? That’s not why I called. I just want you to know that if you need to talk about anything, and I mean anything at all, I’m here, Trist. I support you in your decision to quit the bar scene, but I know how hard that change of life can be. Remember, I’ve been there.”

He was blessed to have Bernie in his life. She was his rock. “Okay. And, you know, ditto.”

Bernie laughed that big rumbling laugh of hers. “So what else is new?” she asked. “Has Clive finally admitted he is bisexual and in love with you?”

“Please. Clive is so straight, he can suck on a Popsicle and look straight doing it.”

“Okay. Okay. But, Trist, seriously, you haven’t hooked up with anybody since May or you’d tell me about it, right? You know you’re my only real source of adult entertainment.”

“No, I haven’t been with anybody since that—that last time.” Yes, the time when he’d woken up naked in that barman’s bed with no recollection of the night’s events, only to find out they hadn’t used a rubber. He’d spent the next hours in a state of complete panic and shame. He’d been lucky to test negative. But no more pushing his luck. He had responsibilities and that meant keeping his health. He looked out his bedroom window, and thought of Rain again. Was Rain sleeping already? What was he thinking of? Was he going to change his mind about tomorrow’s dinner? “Hey, here’s something that might interest you,” he said, tongue-in-cheek, knowing Bernie would love this. “I spent a beautiful moment sitting out front with my new neighbor this evening.”

“Oh yeah? Now you’ve got my attention. But hurry up because I hear the tub draining and that means Rachel is gonna want me to come to bed.”

“How is she doing—”

“Don’t change the subject. She’s fine. Now tell me about the neighbor. Cute?”

“Very. Actually, no he’s more than cute. He’s—he’s beautiful.”

“Gay?”

“Yes, gay, and he’s a father. He has a son around the age of Constance.”

Bernie inhaled sharply. “Wait. Dirty blond hair? Moss-green eyes? Petite and artsy looking?”

“Yeah…how’d—”

“Because I met Rain by the school fence this afternoon. He’s your neighbor? Damn, Tristan, that’s messed up. Listen to this—the second I saw him, I thought of you. Man, I even started a conversation with him, thinking if I got to know him a little, I could set you two up.”

“You thought this after spending only a few minutes with him by the school fence? Bernie, you’re a little deranged, you know that, right?”

“Actually, I thought this before we even exchanged words. I saw him standing by the fence, looking all pretty and lost, and thought, there’s a man for my friend Tristan.”

Tristan shook his head. “Yeah, well, there’s a catch. He’s married. I mean, he says they’re separated, but I don’t think the divorce is final yet.”

“Oh.”

“Yeah, oh is right.” What was he doing pursing Rain? What could possibly come of this? He’d be the rebound guy. The lover who strengthens the dissolving marriage. Yet, Rain was so interesting and cute. How could he not be tempted? “Of course, you know me, I asked him to have dinner with me tomorrow.”

“Of course you did.”

“And he said yes.”

“Of course he said yes.” Bernie chuckled. “You want my advice? Don’t sleep with him. No matter how hot things get tomorrow. Don’t sleep with him. He’s your neighbor. He’s got an ex somewhere in the picture and God only knows who the ex is. He could be some crazy jealous guy who—”

“The guy is a dentist.”

“Hello? Have you not seen Little Shop of Horrors? The guy has access to surgical knives and the kind of drugs that could put you under for a few hours while he steals your kidneys or something.”

“Yeah, I hear what you’re saying.” Tristan fiddled with the sheet. “I don’t need any more complications in my life right now. I have to focus on work and keeping my home.”

“If you need money, we could always use that account we opened for the girls when—”

“Bernie, no. That money is not for me. It’s for them. It’s my way of contributing to my daughters’ future.”

“And could you ask your parents?”

His parents? No way. He could never tell his globe-trotting parents about his financial problems. They’d worked hard all their lives and were finally seeing the world and enjoying retirement. “Right now, I’m not looking into solutions. Because I’m gonna get through this.”

“Okay, but come by Sunday, all right? Look, Tristan, whatever you’re going through right now, you don’t have to go through it alone. You were there when—when Rachel got sick. You got me through that hell. I’ll never forget what it felt like to come home to find you sitting there on our couch, waiting for me, the house all cleaned up and the kids sound asleep in their beds. I could bawl my eyes out then. I didn’t have to play tough anymore.”

Tristan didn’t like to remember that year. Rachel had almost died. But her throat cancer was in remission now. Going on two years.

“You’re like my brother,” Bernie said. “Okay? My hot gay brother with the buns of steel.”

He laughed a little. “Okay…I love you.”

“Yeah, I love you, too. But don’t sleep with him tomorrow.” She laughed and hung up before he could promise anything.