“It’ll be better in a couple days,” the captain said, but in a couple days the boy had a fever and couldn’t get out of bed, and when he did, he couldn’t walk straight or stay upright for very long. Memories of his mother came to him during that time. She’d always had long, mermaid hair, and the boy had loved to run his fingers through it and let the soft tresses caress his cheeks and lips. He thought of his mother’s warm laughter and gentle words, and he missed her.
Those memories were interrupted by the captain, barking orders at him and not the usual kind. They were in the dinghy now and the captain was telling him to open his eyes, stay awake, to sit the hell up.
The boy drifted again. He much preferred the company of his mother.
Then there were bright lights and a bone-rattling chill like he’d never known. Men and women in white speaking gently to him. Like he was delicate.
“How do you know this man you call captain?” they asked him.
“Are you being kept against your will?”
“Where is your family?”
The boy answered as best he could. He told them that the captain was his father, that his mother had died about a year ago. He told them they were from Florida, and he recited his aunt’s address. They could call her, he assured them.Please, just give me some medicine.
He got an intravenous drip and some very good drugs. A day later, the fever had passed, and he was feeling like himself again. Even better because there was no burning or piercing pain or throbbing ache in his ear. Only a wad of cotton stuffed inside of it that dulled his hearing a little.
“My ear’s better,” the boy said to the captain, who was sitting in a chair across the room, looking stiff and more haggard than usual.
“It’s going to cost me,” the captain said, though he didn’t sound too upset by it, just the usual gruffness when it came to the price of things, which was alwayshighway robbery.
The doctor came in then to visit. He was a beautiful man with shining mahogany skin and dark, kind eyes. His white coat assured the boy that he knew exactly what he was doing. He’d made the boy’s pain go away and fixed his leaking ear. The doctor spoke to him in a soothing tone, and the boy recognized the sound from his fever dreams, so calm and reassuring. He decided, right then, that he loved this man.
“We gave you antibiotics for the infection and fluids because you were very dehydrated,” the doctor said as though the boy were the only other adult in the room. “But you’ll need to put these drops in your ear three times a day.” He handed the boy a brown glass vial stoppered with an eye dropper. He gave the captain a look of disapproval but no more than that because this man was a gentleman, and gentlemen didn’t brawl or use bad language. That was what his mother had told him.You’re a gentleman, Arden, and a gentleman doesn’t act that way.
Even still, the full force of the doctor’s displeasure was apparent. The captain grumbled. The beautiful man turned back to the boy. “And you’ll need to drink a lot of water, even if you’re not thirsty. Think you can do that?”
“Yes, sir,” the boy said like a good soldier. He would follow this man to the frontlines. He would go to medical school and learn about bodies and devote his life to fixing up sick children with negligent fathers.
“Very good. If your father had waited any longer to bring you in, you might have lost your hearing altogether. Or worse.” Another pointed look at the captain. The boy didn’t know what could be worse, but he was better now and, similar to surviving a squall in open water, didn’t care to contemplate what might have been.
There were a few more matters that needed to be settled before the boy could leave. He was comfortable in his bed with sheets that were cool and dry and a television, something he hadn’t watched in months. As they were leaving, the boy saw the doctor speaking to one of the nurses and rushed up to the man, hugging him on impulse. The man squatted to hug him back, and it was so strong and wonderful, something the boy hadn’t felt in so long, that he almost burst into tears.
On the ride back to the boat, the captain admitted that he was still getting used to having the kid around. “I’ve never done this before,” he said in his own defense, huffing hard on a cigarette because there’d been no smoking inside the clinic. “Never had to take care of anyone but myself.”
“I like hugs,” the boy said. He was communicating, in his own rudimentary way, that he needed affection. And he needed the captain to provide it.
“Well, all right then,” the captain said as though the boy were being greedy in asking for seconds at dinnertime.
Later that night when the boy informed the captain he was going to bed, the captain called him over and gave him a hug. It wasn’t as confident as the doctor’s, and it didn’t last as long, but it was a good hug all the same, and the boy thought for the first time, maybe he could love this man, his father.
11
the friends
“Idon’t know that we should be indulging Franco like this,” I said to Arden as we prepared for a night out. “He’s been known to take advantage.”
“You didn’t hear him on Sunday, Michael. He’s really distraught. I think seeing us together triggered something for him. Don’t you think he deserves a second chance?”
“Knowing Franco, he’s already had several.”
“Think of it as a friendly favor then. Franco’s helping me get my finances in order. We’re helping him win back his lover.”
“We already paid in full for that favor,” I reminded him. Arden’s grin was so wide that I grew hot with embarrassment and had to look away. I couldn’t deny I’d enjoyed our threesome. That recording made it painfully obvious.
“Besides, it’ll be fun to go out with you and your friends,” Arden said, selecting a shirt for me among the several I’d laid on the bed. “Maybe a certain dark-haired Italian man with bad intentions will ask me to dance.”
I’d definitely be asking him to dance, and later, if I played my cards right… “I have only one intention.” I grabbed his hand and spun him into my arms for a long, lingering kiss. Arden pulled away at last, and I ruffled his hair, something he hated. He called me a meanie.
