Traci flashed a knowing smile at Blair and winked.Ugh.Was he blushing?His cheeks felt hot.Great.Crushing on a customer who looked like he was having the worst day of his life.Go, Blair.
“I hope you enjoy the latte,” Blair said as he placed it on the counter.
A hint of a smile teased the edges of Jake’s mouth, and he mumbled a quietthank youbefore turning and leaving.
Blair stared after him with a strange sensation of loss.He watched as Jake stood on the sidewalk for a minute before crossing the street.Watched as he sat down on a bench overlooking the bay.And continued watching as Jake sat there, still as a statue.The only movement was the breeze ruffling though his hair.
“Wow.”Blair started at Traci’s voice right beside him.“If I didn’t know any better, I’d say you just met the love of your life.”
“Puh-lease.”Blair rolled his eyes and nudged her shoulder, but her words were already burrowing under his skin.“Get back to work, slacker.”
She laughed, singing about a crazy little thing called love, as she wiped the counter.
“That song is before your time,” he called after her, an annoying pout in his voice.
Traci sang louder.
Blair shook his head and went back to work too, but he couldn’t stop thinking about Jake.Wondering what had put that troubled look on his face, wishing he could do something about it, whateveritwas.He bet Jake had an amazing smile.Too bad he’d probably never see Jake again.
“I’M SO SORRY, Mr.Sheraton.”
Words no one ever wanted to hear their doctor start a sentence with replayed over and over in Jake’s mind.
He’d left his doctor’s office and started walking with no idea where he was going.His head buzzing and his feet shuffling were the only things that registered.He just needed to keep moving, as though movement would prevent him from thinking.Walking had worked on the thinking part, but had done nothing about remembering.
Jake looked down at his hand, which held a to-go cup full of something hot he didn’t remember ordering, or from where.Frowning, he stared out at the tanker ships anchored farther out as he mentally retraced his steps.The doctor’s office.His doctor’s mouth moving but the words coming out of it not making any sense.Standing on the street until someone bumped into him.Walking, walking, walking.Past the Queen Elizabeth Theatre, past the Vancouver Public Library, and through Robson Square.Past St.Paul’s Hospital, and along Davie Street.Wandering until he reached the sandy shore of English Bay Beach.
Not a long distance, but he felt as though hours had passed.Just now registering how far he’d walked, his legs grew shaky, and his knees weakened.He spied an empty bench and sat before he fell.Jake placed the to-go cup on the bench beside him and shoved his hands into his pockets.His knuckles scraped the envelope containing a week’s supply of pills the doctor had given him to start taking immediately.The physical reminder of his new reality sent a jolt of panic spiking through him.He yanked his hands out of his pockets and clasped them in his lap.
“I’m so sorry, Mr.Sheraton.”
That low buzzing sound filled his ears again.He closed his eyes and focused on breathing slow and even, until the steady breaking of waves over the shoreline drowned it out.
“I’m so sorry, Mr.Sheraton,” his doctor had said.“Your results came back positive for HIV.”
Jake had tuned out the rest of what his doctor had said.At first because the words didn’t compute, and then because there had to be a mistake.He couldn’t understand how he, mister monogamous and faithfully married, could test positive.Not unless he’d stepped into some sort of alternate universe.
He’d been a child at the tail end of the AIDS crisis.He hadn’t seen or experienced what those before him had, but he had watched his favorite uncle lose his battle with AIDS.After that, Jake had always been careful with his sexual partners.Not that he’d had many.One boyfriend in college and then Andy, who he’d been married to for the last sixteen years.
Until the day Andy had come home looking distraught, and, in one fell swoop, pulled the rug out from under Jake’s world.Jake hadn’t been able to parse which revelation was the worst.That Andy had been bored with their sex life and been hooking up with random strangers for years; that his careless and selfish lifestyle had led to him contracting HIV; or that he’d met someone new—aka someone younger—and wanted a divorce.
Jake had never signed a legal document faster.The divorce made easy by him not wanting any reminders of his life with Andy.They’d sold their condo downtown and their cabin in Whistler, and Jake had taken his share of the proceeds to purchase a new condo overlooking Stanley Park and the North Shore.
And now here he was, somewhere he’d never imagined he’d be at forty-three years old: divorced, alone, and HIV positive.
How had he not seen the signs that Andy was unhappy?That Andy was stepping out on him?That his life wasn’t the perfect successful vision he’d strived for and, so he’d thought, had achieved?And what did he do now?He’d be alone for the rest of his life.Sure, his doctor had told him that HIV wasn’t the death sentence that it was in the early days of the crisis.That with medication and proper care, he could not only live a full and healthy life, but he could find love again.
Jake snorted.Find love again.Had he even had love with Andy?Jake had thought so, but clearly Andy had a different notion of what love and committed relationships looked like.And how could he ever be with anyone ever again, knowing he could pass this disease on to them too?How did he shift into this new reality?How did he let go of the before and move forward into the after?
Seagulls squawked and cried above, but none had any answers for him.Boats sailed back and forth in the bay.Traffic along Denman Street increased and decreased.Afternoon gave way to twilight as the sun began its descent into the Pacific Ocean.Still Jake sat.Feeling an odd sense of detachment from the world.Detachment from himself.And time that no longer had meaning marched on.
What did he do now?
BLAIR FORGOT ALL about the handsome stranger with the wounded eyes when the lunch rush hit.A rush that hadn’t let up until near closing time.He paused wiping tabletops to watch the sun set and noticed a figure sitting on a bench across the street.The same jacket, the same wind-blown hair, the same defeated roll to his shoulders.And the same tug in Blair’s chest to ease whatever pain Jake was suffering.
“Nice one tonight, eh, boss?”Traci said as she came up beside him, a tray of dirty coffee cups hugged to her side.They always paused for the sunset.
“Sure is,” he said, but he wasn’t looking at the sun anymore.He turned to Traci.“Do you mind closing up?”
