“I love you too.”
André left their bed, and in a minute, Chess heard the shower running.
Unfounded accusations had once ripped his life apart. He wouldn’t allow that to happen to them. Awash in memories, he held on to the pillow.
His father had been a long-haul trucker, away more than he was home. When he was little, his mother had spent all her time with him, playing games and reading books to him, but once he was old enough to come home from school by himself, she’d gotten a job as a waitress in the diner a few blocks from home. He used to go there after school, sit in a booth and drink his milkshake and do his homework, all the time ignoring the men flirting with her and her flirting back. Occasionally she’d get him a babysitter on the weekends. She stayed out later and later, and a few times didn’t come home until morning, when he’d see her through the window, coming out of a stranger’s car, in the clothes she’d left in the night before. She’d trudge up the stairs and close the door to her bedroom, and when he passed by, he’d hear her weeping.
By the time he turned twelve, he’d stopped going to the diner and would go directly home after school, where he’d find empty vodka bottles in the trash. The times she didn’t go out, she’d sit and drink the night away. He’d try to get her to stop, but she’d cry,“Leave me alone. It makes me feel good.”
His father came home less and less, the days dwindling to only once or twice every three or four months. When he did appear, Chess would sit behind his closed door and listen to the arguments explode between them. It wasn’t his fault, but he thought it might be, because he’d hear them talk about how expensive it was to raise a child. Maybe if he wasn’t there, things would be better. He thought about running away but had no place to go.
Eventually, during one of the more vitriolic arguments, Chess discovered his parents weren’t even married.
“You’ve been cheating on me for years, probably from the beginning. I don’t even know if the kid is mine. From what I’m hearing, you’ve been screwing everyone.”
“You don’t think I know you get other women when you’re away? What am I supposed to do?”
“Be a goddamn mother.”
“I will be when you decide to be a father. My mother said you were no good, and I shoulda listened to her.”
Chess sat at the top of the stairs and watched his father’s snarling face turn red. “Now I see why you tried so hard to get me to marry you, but I’m not stupid. Why would I tie myself down to someone like you?”
Chess scrambled away from the bitter words they flung at each other, and he threw himself on his bed, crying into his pillow.
Not long after, his mother injured herself in a fall on the stairs to their house. She was so drunk, Chess had to help her stand and get her to the hospital. She couldn’t work and lost her job. During her long and painful recovery, she became addicted to pills, and when that wasn’t enough, found comfort in meth. He could always tell when she’d been smoking as soon as he walked into the house—the smell of something burning hit him like a wall.
After school one day, he’d hung out with some kids and let himself be talked into trying weed. It made him dizzy and silly, and for a little while his problems had seemed far away. Maybe that was why his mother had used it all the time. When he got home, he’d discovered his father had returned unexpectedly, and through hazy eyes he’d watched his life implode. Several suitcases and boxes sat by the front door, and despite flying high, he’d started to laugh even as he shook with fear.
“Just like your mother,”his father had sneered.
With those words, he left, and Chess never saw him again. In high school, Chess had done a little poking around and discovered he’d moved to California, gotten married, and had three children. Somewhere out there, Chess might have two brothers and a sister. He could be sure they didn’t know he existed.
His father didn’t care enough to find out if Chess was his son. He didn’t want Chess. Nobody did.
It didn’t surprise him when his mother overdosed, but it didn’t stop him from crying like a baby when they told him she was dead.
He’d thought because he’d already lost her to drugs years before, it wouldn’t hurt so much, but knowing she was gone forever was like a stab to his heart. Her loss set him off on a spiral of self-destruction—there wasn’t a drug he wouldn’t take to try and numb his pain. Sex didn’t help either. Nothing did.
By the time he got to college, Chess had been used to playing the game. Smile on the outside. Never let them think anything was wrong. He met Elliot, Wolf, and Spencer at orientation, and that became his first experience with pure friendships with no expectation of sex. The three men crowded into his life, and he found the family he’d always wanted. In Elliot, Chess found a brother who’d also suffered loss yet remained sweet and loving. Wolf gave him strength and the power to say no. And Spencer…well, Spencer brought the joy and laughter he’d missed. He loved them, and in return, their love was unequivocal and unrelenting. He could screw up or disagree with them, and they didn’t leave him. They stayed.
Now here he sat in his luxurious home, sometimes feeling like a stranger, and once again he felt that tremble of uncertainty. What would André do if he knew about his past? As much as André swore his love—and Chess believed him—would it last forever? And then there were those pictures…what did they mean?
At that thought, pain sheared through him. They loved each other so much—how could André have kissed someone else? As lonely as he’d been all these months, Chess had never thought of touching anyone else.
He buried his head in his hands, but only for a moment.
Get a hold of yourself.
He left the bedroom for the kitchen. First, he needed to check the photos again, so he grabbed his phone and started swiping frantically through Instagram. They weren’t there. He hadn’t noticed the name of the account at the time, but he scrolled through his feed, looking for the photos he’d been tagged in. They were gone. He checked again—he only followed André’s and his siblings’ accounts, along with Spencer’s, Elliot’s, and Webster Properties’, so the list was short.
Nothing.
“Shit,” he muttered to himself, clicking on André’s profile. When it popped up, Chess smiled, noting the pictures were either of Webster hotels or photos of the two of them at various events they attended. Not one picture was of André with another man. A check of Henry’s and Bianca’s showed several photos, but only one with André, and even then, it was of the three of them posing at a step-and-repeat. Nowhere did he see André with another man.
Anxious and frustrated, Chess left his phone, prepared the coffee, and took out the scones, thinking as he worked. Without the photos, he had nothing to show André, who would certainly demand to see them, and rightfully so.
By the time André joined him, damp skin smelling of the cool-rain scent Chess couldn’t get enough of, his hair sleek and wet, Chess still hadn’t made up his mind as to what he should do.
