LIFE WAS A FICKLEbastard with a penchant for yanking the rug out from beneath my feet just when I pulled myself up off the ground. Yet, it was hard to be mad at him with the warm air blowing through my open car windows as I drove south on I-95. Perhaps, something special was waiting for me at the end of this trip instead of the misery I was anticipating. A guy could hope, because I wasn’t close to having the life I had dreamed of by the age 38.
I loved my career as a psychiatrist, even though the work was challenging and often took an emotional toll on me. I had been burning my candle at both ends for a few years after establishing my own practice and it was catching up to me. I had absolutely no personal life. Hell, I couldn’t remember the last time someone, other than me, touched my dick. I needed to put my life in perspective and figure out a healthy balance. All work and no play made Noah a very dull and horny man.
I reached over and ruffled my two-year-old Lab’s head. She turned away from the window and gave me her best doggy smile. “Are you ready for a break too, Madge?” I knew that a lot of gay men fawned all over Lady Gaga, Taylor Swift, and Beyoncé, but Madonna would always be my girl. So, I chose Madonna’s nickname for my blonde bundle of joy when I picked her out when she was only eight weeks old. Madge’s response was a short bark. It seemed she was tired and needed a vacation too, but only I knew that we probably wouldn’t be resting much. I’d deal with her disappointment when the time came.
It had been way too long since I spent any time in my ancestral home in Beaufort, North Carolina. I wished my trip was for happier reasons and not because of the frantic phone call I received from the neighboring property owner the night before to tell me that the house that my family had owned since 1890 had been vandalized. To make matters worse, the property, Elijah’s Landing, was supposed to be rented to a family from Ontario for the entire month of July.
It sounded like I would be refunding their money to them, because according to my neighbor, Willis, the house needed extensive repairs and there was no way it would be done in time for the family to arrive. Luckily, he called in a contractor he trusted to start putting estimates together on the cost of repairs. He assured me that Second Chance Restoration was the best in the business.
I hadn’t called my aunt Minnie yet to let her know what had happened to the property she sold me before she moved into her condo, but I was certain by now she had heard through the grapevine. I was waiting for her “I told you so” phone call. She had been deeply disappointed when I had decided to use the house as a vacation home and a seasonal rental instead of moving into the house myself. At the time, my practice in Washington D.C. had been recently established and I had absolutely no intention of moving. It was the first time since the home was built that a McKinney didn’t reside there full time and was a bone of contention between us.
Minerva McKinney, my father’s older sister, was a bit eccentric, but I loved her dearly. I spent every summer with her at Elijah’s Landing in Beaufort and it was the source of my happiest childhood memories. When she told me she was selling the home and moving into a condo, I didn’t hesitate to buy it. I just couldn’t imagine that home in the hands of anyone not having the last name of McKinney. It was a sentimental decision that left me wondering just what the hell I’d gotten myself into.
Fast forward a few years later and my life was very different from the one I had planned. The relationship that I had dubbed “the one” had fizzled and died, I found myself working seventy hours a week, and I suffered bouts of loneliness that not even my amazing dog could fill. Was life trying to tell me something by this latest debacle? Well, I had plenty of time to think and reflect as I took the exit for US 64 E. I turned up the car stereo when Madonna’s “La Isla Bonita” came on the Sirius 80’s station and then laughed, because surely the timing meant something.
My analytical mind told me that most decisions I made in recent years came back to Justin Rousseau. He was the reason I moved to Washington D.C. and started my practice, he was the love I thought I’d have forever and built my dreams upon, and he was the one who hurt me and made me doubt myself. In fact, the last time I had been to Elijah’s Landing was after we broke up. I nursed my wounds for a few weeks and returned to my practice, where I sank every ounce of energy I had into helping my patients.
Several months ago, Justin returned to D.C. and invited me to lunch. By that point, I realized that he wasn’t the one for me, but my curiosity wouldn’t allow me to turn him down. He smiled happily when he saw me and greeted me like we were long lost friends when in actuality we hadn’t spoken since he moved out of our apartment. Time had been kind to my ex-boyfriend and for a brief second I felt a pang of regret that things didn’t work out between us.
The moment passed quickly as I recalled all the ways we were incompatible, which was never made clearer by the three-piece suit he wore to a casual lunch at a mall restaurant. It was obvious to me with one simple glance that Justin still wasn’t comfortable in his own skin and continued to hide himself beneath a fancy suit.
What I thought was going to be a quick lunch turned out to be a lot more, because Justin wasn’t just there to say hello to an ex-boyfriend. He confided that he was moving back to D.C. and wanted to know if I was interested in hiring another psychiatrist – specifically him. So many emotions ran through my mind in a short period of time. I was surprised, of course, that he would rather join my practice than establish his own. I was flattered, because he was a wonderful psychiatrist who would be a great benefit to my patients. Then there was admiration, for the big set of balls the man had, because it took a lot of nerve to ask me for a job after the way things ended between us.
Even so, I set aside my personal feelings and focused on his proposal. I would be a fool not to consider bringing him into my practice. After all, our relationship had been over for more than three years and I barely gave the guy a thought. I asked him for time to think about it, which I did. In the end, I decided that I’d have more downtime with another doctor in my practice and I was better off working with a person whose habits I knew and vice versa. I agreed to bring him on under two conditions: he lost the three-piece suits and we kept our relationship purely business.
Justin agreed and life had admittedly gotten easier once he joined my practice. I worked him into my rotation with my patients, so he could get to know each of them and they’d feel comfortable speaking to him. He started dressing casually like I asked and he never brought up our past. Our only conversations were about our patients and goals for my practice. I started making more time for myself and gave some thought to joining an online dating service since I wasn’t having much luck finding a guy on my own.
Things felt perfect for the first time in ages, but then slowly I noticed some changes in Justin’s demeanor. They were so subtle that I hardly noticed at first - things like wearing the cologne I used to buy for him or wearing colors that I used to say brought out the blue in his eyes. I wouldn’t have given it much thought, except he was the one who mentioned it one day. Then I knew he did it deliberately to remind me of our past.
Next thing I knew, he was bringing me a cup of coffee when he got one for himself, buying my favorite treats, or catering a lunch for two on a few Fridays. I knew I needed to have a conversation with him, which could possibly sever our working relationship. I wasn’t interested in getting involved with him personally again and I just needed to find a kind way to tell him.
I got the call from Willis about the vandalism at Elijah’s Landing and used it as an excuse to escape the tension that had been brewing. I could’ve put Aunt Minnie in charge of overseeing the repairs, but I chose to do it myself. It almost seemed like fate that Justin had me running off to North Carolina once more.
The further south I drove, the better I felt. The air turned warmer and my heart got lighter as I recalled the many summers I spent at Elijah’s Landing, swimming in the ocean, riding bicycles on quaint streets, and falling in love with the boy next door.
Maverick Rodriguez moved into the house next to Elijah’s Landing when we were both seven years old. Each summer, I spent every minute I could with him and what started out as a friendship blossomed into young love. It wasn’t just a summer fling for me either, because thoughts of him would consume me during the nine months we were apart. That was before email and cell phones, so instead of texting, we would mail each other letters. I received a letter from him each and every single week; from the time I left Elijah’s Landing until I would return the following summer, up until that last summer when we were sixteen.
Maverick disappeared from my life as quickly as he showed up. His family moved away suddenly in the middle of the night without notifying anyone or leaving a forwarding address. I felt the void in my life for many years, wondering what happened to the boy I loved so much. I had lived for his smiles, his kisses, and the thrill of getting a letter from him each week.
I had never found anyone who made me feel a fraction of the love and happiness that he did and I resigned myself to a life of settling. I convinced myself that what I remembered was nothing more than childish infatuation and not reality. Sparks and insane chemistry were wonderful things, but they wouldn’t sustain a relationship for the long haul and that was what I was looking for in life.
Love. Companionship. Compatibility.
Yet, as I got closer to Elijah’s Landing, I couldn’t help but remember Maverick and the way he made me feel, as if nothing was impossible. The magic of a first kiss – the pounding of a young heart, dizziness from holding my breath, and the thrilling shiver that worked its way through my body at his first touch. Those thoughts inevitably led me to wonder what happened to him. Where did he go? Was he happy?
Did he ever think of me?
