Ridge Road, Chapter 14 · The Right Side

Sam changed the sheets at three in the afternoon and then changed them again at four, because the first time he’d put the fitted one on crooked and the corner kept popping off over the dip.

Hank stood in the doorway of the back bedroom with a mug of coffee and watched him do it the second time.

“Those were fine,” Hank said.

“The corner was coming off.”

“The corner’s come off that mattress for twenty years. Walt used to kick it off in his sleep.” Hank came in and set the mug down on the dresser beside the cedar box and took the other side of the sheet and pulled it straight. “You can still call it off. Right up to the door. I’ll phone him myself and he’ll say all right and mean it.”

“I know.” Sam tucked the corner. “I don’t want to call it off. I want it to go right.”

“It’s going to go how it goes. Nobody here’s done this before.”

“You haven’t?”

Hank gave him a look over the bed. “Sam. I didn’t kiss anybody for nine years. I’m not running a sideline.”

Sam laughed, and some of the knot in his stomach let go. They put the top sheet on together and then the blanket and then the old quilt that had been folded on the closet shelf next to where the box used to be. Hank smoothed it flat with one hand on the right side, slowly, and Sam saw him do it and didn’t say anything.

---

Walt came up the walk at seven on Saturday with a pot of chili held against his chest in both arms and his cane hooked over one wrist, banging against the pot at every step.

Sam watched him from the front window. He had been watching the street since six-thirty, which he was not going to tell anybody.

“He’s carrying the whole pot,” Sam said.

“He always carries the whole pot.” Hank was at the kitchen counter cutting onions. He didn’t look up. “Go take it off him before he drops it on Eunice’s tulips.”

Mrs. Pruitt didn’t have tulips in December, but she was on her porch anyway, in the cardigan, with a cup of something. Sam went down the steps and took the pot. It was heavy and still warm through the dish towel. Walt let go of it with a grunt and straightened up on the cane.

“Evening, Walter,” Mrs. Pruitt called across the street.

“Eunice.”

“You staying late?”

Walt looked at Sam, and then at the house, and then back across the street at her.

“I might,” he said.

“Well,” Mrs. Pruitt said. “About time somebody did.” And she went inside and shut her door.

---

They ate in the kitchen under the patched ceiling. Hank had put raw onion and grated cheese in two bowls and a sleeve of saltines on the table, and the three of them ate the chili the way Walt said it was supposed to be eaten, standing up for the first bowl because the chairs didn’t match, then sitting down for the second.

“Teddy texted me,” Walt said, crumbling saltines into his second bowl. “Did he tell you? Made it to Salt Lake Monday night, and Dale drove up to Springfield to meet him off the next load with a sign. Said WELCOME HOME BIG MAN in marker. Teddy sent me a picture.”

“He sent it to me too,” Sam said.

“He sent it to everybody,” Hank said. “He sent it to Lorraine.”

“Good for him.” Walt ate a spoonful and looked at the patched ceiling over the stove. “I put him in that seat four years ago and I’ve felt bad about it every day since. Now he’s got somebody holding a sign. I can quit feeling bad, I think.”

“You can,” Hank said.

“You’re going to have to tell me that a few more times, Doyle.”

“I’ll tell you.”

When the bowls were in the sink, Walt stood leaning on the counter with his cane hooked over the edge, and he didn’t move to the hallway, and neither did anybody else.

“I’ve been thinking for three days,” Walt said. “Like you told me to.”

“So have we,” Hank said.

“Then somebody say it before I lose my nerve. I’m fifty-five. I don’t have that much nerve left.”

Sam took a breath. He’d practiced this in the truck on Thursday, out loud, with Hank asleep in the bunk, and it still came out shaky.

“I want to say what tonight is,” Sam said. “Before anything. All of it out loud, so nobody’s guessing.”

“Go ahead, Ortega.”

“Hank and me, we’re going to fuck. In the back bedroom. Hank’s on top, the way it always is.” He made himself keep looking at Walt. “And you’re in the bed with us. You’re there. You can kiss him. You can kiss me. You can hold on to whoever you want to hold on to. But you and me, that’s as far as it goes. Kissing. Not tonight and not later. I’m not changing my mind on that one, and I don’t want anybody asking me to.”

Walt nodded slowly. He didn’t look hurt. He looked, if anything, relieved.

“That’s fine by me,” he said. “That’s better than fine. I’ll tell you something, Ortega. I didn’t come here to go to bed with you. I came here so I wouldn’t have to sit at that depot window and picture it.”

“And with Hank?” Sam said.

That was the part he’d practiced the most, and it still stuck.

Walt looked at Hank. Hank put the dish towel down.

“Kissing,” Hank said. “That’s all, with him. Clothes stay on him.” He said it plainly, the way he’d read a load sheet. “I’m not putting myself in anybody but you, Sam. Tonight or any night. That’s mine to say, and I’m saying it.”

Walt laughed under his breath. “You always did make the rules standing at a counter.”

“Is that all right with you?” Hank asked him. “I’m asking. Not telling.”

“Doyle.” Walt shook his head. “I had my eleven years. I’m not here to get them back. I want to be in the room where you two are happy and not have to imagine it through a wall. That’s what I want. A pair of lips and a side of the bed, and that’s plenty.” He turned his cup on the counter. “If I want more, I’ll say so. If you say no, I’ll go home and freeze another chili.”

“And wait,” Sam said. “Wait stops it. For everybody. If I say it, or Hank, or you. Everybody stops, right then, no questions.”

“Wait,” Walt agreed.

“Wait,” Hank said. “Mine too. Anybody says it, I stop.”

Sam let out his breath. Then, because his face was hot and he wanted it finished, he said the other thing.

“And I’m still jealous. I want that said too. Wednesday when you kissed him, I liked it and I hated it at the same time. I might feel it tonight.”

“Then you tell me,” Walt said. “In the bed. You tell me to move, I move.”

“I’ll tell you.”

Hank came around the counter and put his hand on the back of Sam’s chair, not on Sam, just on the chair, the way he had on the highway in Kansas.

“I’m jealous too,” Hank said. “Still. Of him, a little, for every year he had before I knew you. And of you, a little, for the way he looks at you.” He shrugged his big shoulders. “I’m going to feel it. I’m going to say it if it gets bad. That’s all I’ve got.”

“That’s all any of us have got,” Walt said, and pushed himself off the counter with the cane. “Now. Which one of you is going to walk an old man down the hall.”

---

The back bedroom had the lamp on, the yellow one on the dresser beside the cedar box. Hank had put the new dark-green sheets on that afternoon. The second tube from the Petro, the water-based one, was already on the nightstand, on the left, Sam’s side. Sam saw Walt see it. Walt didn’t say anything.

Walt sat down on the right side of the bed, slow, and leaned the cane against the nightstand. He took his shoes off and set them side by side. Then he sat back against the headboard in his buttoned flannel shirt and his pressed slacks, legs out, and folded his hands on his stomach.

“Best bed I ever owned,” Walt said quietly, and ran his palm once across the sheet. “That dip’s still there.”

“It’s mine,” Sam said.

“I know it is.”

Hank stood at the foot of the bed and pulled his flannel off over his head without undoing it and dropped it. He undid his belt. Sam watched Walt watching Hank, and felt it in his gut, the sour jealous twist, and then he watched Hank’s eyes, and Hank wasn’t looking at Walt. Hank was looking at him.

“Come here, Sam.”

Sam went. Hank kissed him standing at the foot of the bed, his big hands on Sam’s face, and undressed him while he kissed him, the shirt, the jeans, until Sam was naked and hard against the denim of Hank’s jeans. Then Hank pushed his own jeans down and stepped out of them, and his cock came up heavy and thick against Sam’s belly.

On the bed, Walt made a soft sound.

Sam broke off and looked at him. Walt’s face had gone red to the top of his bald head.

“Sorry,” Walt said. “It’s been nine years since I saw that and I wasn’t ready for it.”

Hank laughed, low. He took Sam’s hand and climbed onto the bed with him, and the old frame creaked under the three of them. Hank went to the middle. He reached across Sam and put one hand on the side of Walt’s face, on the white mustache, and Walt closed his eyes.

“You still want to?” Hank asked him. “Wait’s still wait, both of you.”

“Yes. Wait’s wait.”

“Sam?”

Sam’s heart was going hard. “Yes. Go on. Wait if I need it.”

Hank leaned across and kissed Walt. It was slower than Wednesday. Walt’s hand came up and held on to Hank’s thick wrist and kept it there. When they came apart Walt’s eyes stayed shut a second longer.

“Okay,” Walt said, mostly to himself. “Okay.”

Sam didn’t lie down yet. He got up on his knees on the sheet in front of Hank and took Hank’s cock in his hand, heavy and hot, and looked up at him.

“Can I?”

“You never have to ask me that.”

“I’m asking anyway. Tonight I’m asking everything.”

Hank put his palm against Sam’s cheek. “Yes.”

Sam took him in his mouth. He went down slow, as far as he could, and came back up, his tongue pressing under the thick head, and Hank’s breath went out of him in a long rough sigh. Sam did it again, slower, holding the base in his fist, sucking at the slit until he tasted salt. Beside them he could hear Walt breathing, short and careful.

“Christ, Sam,” Hank said. “Keep doing that and I’m done for.”

Sam pulled off with a wet sound and looked at Walt. Walt was gripping the quilt.

“He tastes the same?” Sam asked him, and couldn’t believe he’d said it.

“I wouldn’t know anymore,” Walt said. “And I’m not going to find out. That’s yours.”

Sam felt something warm and settled go through his chest at that. He licked the head once more and let go.

“Enough,” Hank said, rough. “I’m not finishing anywhere but inside you.”

Sam lay down on his back in the dip.

---

Hank knelt up between Sam’s legs and looked at him in the yellow light, all of him, and Sam spread his thighs and let him look.

“You good?” Hank said.

“I’m good. Touch me.”

Hank picked the tube up off the nightstand and squeezed it out over his fingers, and Sam heard the wet sound of it, and Walt beside him heard it too, and Sam felt Walt shift on the mattress. Hank slid two slick fingers down under Sam’s balls and circled his hole and pushed, slow, and Sam’s back came off the sheet.

“God, Hank.”

“Easy. I’m going slow.”

He went slow. He opened Sam with two fingers and then three, crooking them, rubbing, while his other hand held Sam’s knee out wide. Sam’s cock lay hard and leaking on his own belly. He turned his head on the pillow and Walt was a foot away, propped against the headboard, looking down at him with those pale eyes.

“Ortega,” Walt said. “Is it all right if I kiss you now?”

Sam’s mouth was open. Hank’s fingers were moving in him. “Yes,” he said.

Walt bent down, careful of his knee, and kissed him. Upside down from where Sam lay, mustache rough against his chin. It was soft and slow and it stayed only a kiss, and when Hank’s fingers pressed up into him Sam moaned right into Walt’s mouth, and Walt broke off and laughed against his cheek.

“Well, that’s a nice thing to hear up close.”

“Shut up,” Sam said, and grabbed Walt’s hand on the sheet and held on to it.

Hank pulled his fingers out. He reached for the box. “Rubber,” he said, and tore it open and rolled it down himself, and slicked himself with the tube until he shone. Then he took hold of Sam’s hips with both hands.

“Lift up for me.”

Sam lifted. Hank dragged him down the bed and up onto his own spread thighs, so Sam’s ass rested on Hank’s lap and his back stayed on the sheet and his legs were open around Hank’s waist. Hank was kneeling upright, tall over him, and from there he could see everything, and so could Walt.

“Lord,” Walt said under his breath, and then, “Sorry. I’ll be quiet.”

“Don’t be quiet,” Sam said. “I don’t want anybody quiet.”

Hank set the head of his cock against him. He held it there and looked at Sam’s face.

“Say it.”

“Fuck me, Hank. Put it in. Please.”

Hank pushed in.

It was slow and thick, the angle new, and with his hips up on Hank’s thighs Sam felt it go in and keep going, and his hand crushed Walt’s hand on the sheet, and a long ragged noise tore out of him. Hank stopped when he was all the way seated, his hands spread on Sam’s hips, holding him up on his lap.

“Okay?” Hank said.

“Okay. Okay. Just a second.”

“Take it.”

Sam breathed. The stretch eased. He let his legs fall wider and Hank sank in that last little bit and Sam’s whole body shivered.

“Now,” Sam said. “Now move. God, Hank, move.”

Hank moved. Kneeling up like that he didn’t have to push much. He used his hands on Sam’s hips to pull him onto his cock and let him slide back off it, rocking Sam on his lap, slow at first, the thick head dragging out and pushing back in over the spot, every time, over and over. The headboard didn’t bang. The bed just rocked, low, and the old springs creaked under them.

“Oh fuck. Oh fuck, that’s deep. Hank. That’s so deep like this.”

“You open up so easy now,” Hank said, and pulled him in and held him there, grinding slow, rolling his hips so the head of his cock pressed and pressed in the same place. “I could stay like this all night.”

“Don’t. Don’t stay. Move, please, I need it, I need you to fuck me.”

“God, you sound good like this,” Hank said, low and rough, and gave him three slow strokes that dragged a groan out of Sam each time. “That noise is you, Sam. All of it’s you.”

“More. Rougher. Please, Hank, give it to me rough.”

Walt was propped on his elbow now, close, watching Hank’s cock go in and out of Sam, his other hand still caught in Sam’s on the sheet. Hank looked over at him, and then back down at Sam, and didn’t look away again.

Sam saw that look pass between them, and felt the jealousy come up hot in his throat, and felt Hank’s next stroke, deep and slow, and the jealousy went under the heat and didn’t come back.

“Faster,” Sam said. “Please. Faster now.”

Hank went faster. He hitched Sam higher on his thighs and pulled him onto him in short hard tugs and the slap of it filled the little room, wet and loud, Sam’s balls bouncing, his cock jerking on his belly. Sam reached down and took his own cock in his fist and Hank watched him do it.

“That’s it. Work it. I want to watch you shoot with me in you and him watching.”

“He’s watching,” Sam said. “Walt, are you watching?”

“I am,” Walt said hoarsely. “I can’t look anywhere else.”

“Kiss him,” Sam said. “Kiss Hank. I want to see it while he fucks me.”

Walt pushed himself up on his good knee and reached for Hank, and Hank bent down over Sam without stopping, still moving inside him, and Walt kissed him across the top of Sam’s body. Sam watched it from underneath. Hank’s beard and Walt’s mustache. Hank’s thumb at the corner of Walt’s mouth. And Hank’s hips never stopped, never lost the rhythm, fucking up into Sam while he kissed the man he’d loved first.

It should have hurt, and instead it went through Sam like a current.

“Oh God,” Sam said. “Oh God, it’s coming. Hank, it’s coming.”

Hank broke off from Walt and looked down at him.

“Then come. Eyes up here, and come.”

Sam held his eyes. Hank pulled him down hard onto his cock, once, twice, held him there grinding deep, and Sam’s fist moved fast on himself and he came, shouting, his back arching off the green sheet, shooting up his own belly and chest in long hot ropes. His ass squeezed down on Hank over and over.

Hank swore, short and ugly. His fingers dug into Sam’s hips. He gave three more strokes, deep, slower, and on the last one he pulled Sam all the way onto him and held him and came, groaning through his teeth, his whole big body shaking above Sam, his head dropped forward. Sam’s hand was still locked in Walt’s on the sheet, and Walt held on through all of it.

For a while nobody said anything at all. The springs settled. Somewhere out on Lewis a car went by slow.

Then Hank let Sam’s hips down onto the sheet, gentle, and eased out of him, and lay down heavily on his side between them. Walt slid down off his elbow. Sam, sticky and shaking, turned his face into Hank’s chest.

“Everybody all right?” Hank said into the dark.

“I’m all right,” Sam said.

“Good, sweetheart.” Hank’s hand found his hair.

“Ask me in a minute,” Walt said. “My knee says yes. The rest of me hasn’t caught up.”

---

At one in the morning the lamp was off and the porch light was coming yellow through the blind. Sam had cleaned up in the bathroom and come back. Hank was asleep, flat on his back, snoring the low even snore he did when he was really out. Walt was still lying on the right side in his shirt and slacks, eyes open, one hand resting on Hank’s arm.

Sam got back into the dip. He lay there a while.

“Walt.”

“Mm.”

“When you two kissed. With him in me.” Sam kept his voice down. “I got jealous for about two seconds. Then I didn’t.”

Walt turned his head on the pillow.

“I got jealous too,” Walt said. “Not of you. Of him. He’s got you. He gets to wake up to you.” He was quiet a moment. “I’m glad it’s you, Ortega. I want you to know that. If it had to be somebody, I’m glad it’s somebody who says what he wants in a kitchen.”

“You going home?”

“I was going to. Then I lay here and couldn’t think of a reason.”

“You were jealous of him,” Sam said. “Of Hank. I didn’t think of that.”

“Nobody thinks of the old man.” Walt said it without any self-pity in it at all. “I used to lie on this side and think, he’s never going to leave this house, and I’m never going to stay in a truck. And I was right both times. Took me nine years to stop being sore about being right.”

“Are you sore now?”

Walt thought about it honestly, which was something Sam had learned he always did.

“No,” he said. “Tonight I’m happy, and my knee hurts.”

“Stay,” Sam said. “He’ll make eggs. He’ll be grumpy about it.”

“He was always grumpy about the eggs.” Walt smiled in the dark. “All right. I’ll stay. Right side.”

Sam reached over Hank’s chest and found Walt’s hand and squeezed it once, and let it go, and closed his eyes.

---

Hank made the eggs. He was grumpy about it. Walt sat at the kitchen table in yesterday’s shirt with his cane against his chair, drinking coffee out of the cup he said had always been his, and Sam watched the two of them argue about whether the bacon was done and found he didn’t mind at all.

Sam sat on the counter by the stove with his plate on his knee and his bare heels against the cabinet doors, the way he’d never once sat in his apartment off Harvard, and ate his eggs and watched them. Out the window Mrs. Pruitt was getting her paper off the walk, very slowly, looking at Walt’s cane through the glass of the storm door.

“She’s going to tell the whole street,” Sam said.

“She told the whole street twenty years ago,” Walt said. “She just didn’t use any words.”

When Walt got up to go, he stopped at the front door with his hand on the knob.

“Next Saturday,” he said. “If you’ll have me. I’ll bring something that isn’t chili.”

“You’ll bring chili,” Hank said.

“Probably.” Walt looked at Sam. “And Monday, Ortega. Come by the yard on your own, before your shift. Ten minutes. There’s something in the lot I want you to look at, and I’d like you to see it without Doyle breathing down your neck.”

Hank’s eyebrows went up. “What’s in the lot?”

“Ask him Monday night,” Walt said. “After he’s seen it.” And he went down the porch steps one at a time, with the cane, and lifted it at Mrs. Pruitt’s window across the street without even looking to see if she was there.