[Steven Lyle Jordan]

3: Rested

When I awoke, it was dark in my room… but not totally dark. I realized the blinds were drawn, reducing the amount of light coming into the room. I wasn’t sure if it was evening, and I had slept a few hours; or if it was morning, and I’d slept all day and all night through.

“Morning.”

It took me a second to realize I hadn’t spoken. I turned over and looked across my bedroom. There, in a chair propped next to the closet, was a figure in the dark, facing me.

“Pete?”

The figure lifted a glass to his lips and sipped from it. “Gail was right,” he said presently. “You do talk in your sleep.”

“I say anything good?”

“I don’t know,” Pete replied. “What’s ‘eschew obfuscation’ mean?”

“I’ll let you know,” I replied, “when I’m awake enough to remember.” I levered myself upright, and peered around the dark room. “I slept all night?”

“You slept all night,” Pete confirmed. “How you feel?”

“Like I slept a lot.”

“Thank goodness for that.” Pete took another sip from his glass. “Gail told me what happened.”

I nodded: It was good that he knew.

Pete continued: “She told me everything that happened.”

I stopped nodding. The talk. I looked in Pete’s direction, but I couldn’t see his face in the dark. “Yeah, she told me.”

“I guess you can understand,” Pete said slowly, “why I didn’t want to volunteer that information to anyone.”

I did understand. It was hard for an essentially macho guy like Pete, someone who was apparently wilder and swingier than most guys, to admit that his old lady was too much for him sexually, and that he’d actually been the one to back out of the relationship. I wished that he’d felt he could have told his little brother… but the sibling thing sometimes made the most personal conversations harder than they ought to be. There are some things that you don’t even want to discuss with family.

“I know,” Pete went on after a moment. “I wanted to say something. But I… well… you’re my little brother, Mike. I guess I didn’t want you to think less of me… if I wasn’t…”

“No,” I said, smiling, and I hoped he could see it. “I don’t think less of you. I think… I think a lot of guys wouldn’t have taken it nearly as well as you did. They have even done themselves… or their partners… some damage as a result. But you took it like a man. Even if you did invent a little white lie for appearances’ sake. But then, that’s also one of the things that makes you you. And no matter what, you’ll always be my big brother, and I’ll always love you.”

I saw his head cock to the side. “Oh, well, if you’re gonna get sappy on me, I’m gonna leave.”

“Not without me, you don’t,” I said, throwing my legs over the side of the bed. “God, I’m starved. You had breakfast?”

“Does this orange juice count?” Now I could tell he was smiling.

I got dressed, and we walked down the street to a hotel that had a lobby restaurant that did decent breakfasts. On the way, I asked, “No Reilly around today?”

“She left hours ago,” Pete said. “Had an early shift. We tried to be quiet, for you.” He smiled. “Actually, there’s something to be said for quiet sex… for whatever reason, we don’t do it often. But it really seems to be… good for us. I really should try to do it more.”

“So she forgave you your little Gail-grenade from the other day?” I could relate: Sex with Gail was lasting on the brain; I could well imagine thoughts of her intruding on even the best sex with someone else, and I didn’t blame Pete for letting her name slip out in the middle of sex with Reilly. Much.

“She had a change of heart,” Pete replied. “I think she’s decided that she needs to work harder to make sure I don’t forget it’s her… and she said I need to work harder, so she doesn’t forget why she’s working so much harder. Anyway, we sure didn’t have trouble… remembering, last night.”

“Glad to hear it.” I’d only known Reilly for a few months, but I already hated the idea of Pete and Reilly being apart. They seemed to be such a great fit (in a lot of ways… ahem), that they already seemed like soulmates to me.

We entered the hotel, walked over to the restaurant, and picked out an empty table, as we had many times before. After a few moments, one of the waitresses who knew us, a cute little number name of “Jazz,” came over to the table. “Hey, Billy and Brucie! How’s it goin’?”

We grinned. Jazz loved to kid us about our resemblance to those famous acting Campbells, once she’d met me for the first time and made the connection on her own. “Goin’ great, Jazz,” Pete said, a big grin on his face. “No usuals today… let’s see the menu.”

“Oh,” Jazz nodded, sizing us up. “Are we celebrating something?”

“Yeah,” I said. “It’s Universal Brotherhood Week.”

“Well, happy Universal Brotherhood Week, brothers,” Jazz smiled, and retreated to get us two menus. We watched Jazz as she walked away… she was tanned, trim and shapely, always a pleasure just to watch from afar. But presently our eyes returned to each other, and we shared one of those moments. It was something for me to think that, as enticing as a girl like Jazz might have been at any other time, I already had a girl that I would do anything for. And I didn’t need mental leakage to know Pete was thinking the same thing.

He reached for the water glass on the table, and held it up. “To true love, bro.”

I raised my glass. “May it always favor the Schitz brothers.”

The glasses clunked in proper plastic fashion.