Ex-Daredevil by Zoe Lee
Chapter 8
Gavin
After work on Friday, I drove to my grandparent’s house in one of southwest Chicago’s Irish neighborhoods for one of their frequent family dinners, getting there after dinnertime. I went into their warm, shabby house, where a classic rock song that I half-remembered from my childhood greeted me. My grandpa, uncles, and half the cousins were in the living room, cigars clamped in their mouths while they played poker and talked shit.
“Hey, Gav,” my grandpa said, shoving out of his seat with a grunt so he could hug me. He was retired now, but he’d run a local liquor store, tough and shrewd, and my mom always said I was just like him. I wasn’t sure about that, because I was happy to jump out of airplanes, but I’d never thrown a punch or threatened someone with bodily harm or had run-ins with Irish mobsters like him. “I know you were working, but you missed dinner.”
Quirking my mouth as I peeled off my winter gear, I said, “I hope there’s leftovers.”
His laugh cracked into the air. “You know there’s a plate in the oven for you.”
Nodding, I made a circuit around the poker table, saying hi and making jokes about everyone’s hands. “You’ll deal me into the game soon, right, fellas?”
“Yeah, don’t want you to be stuck in the kitchen with the girls,” a cousin said.
Definitely too distracted to deconstruct gender norms, I took the easy way out and just headed for the kitchen. As I passed by the basement door, I heard all the kids and a movie, punctuated by the thuds of roughhousing, which made me smile a little.
In the kitchen, my grandma, mom, aunts, and more cousins were yakking away, drinks or snacks in hand. We all saw each other regularly, so they just waved or nodded at me, except for my mom, who was stretching and smoothing plastic wrap over casserole dishes.
“Gavin!” she called out, a tiny pixie, five-foot-nothing and built the same as me, though she wore sweet dresses and high heels. “You look exhausted. Let me get you some food.”
“Thanks, Mom,” I said dryly.
My grandma popped up out of nowhere like a ninja and demanded, “What’s going on?”
“Nothing,” I replied like always. My grandma and my mom were opposites, except they were both bloodhounds when it came to hunting down the details of my personal life. The rebellious part of me fought them tooth and nail just on principle. “What’s the new gossip?”
“Oh, no you don’t. We already dragged out your cousins’ news. Took blackmail and pliers,” my grandma said wickedly, her eyes sparkling like mine did, “but we’re up to date. Now we want to know about you. All they’d say was that you’re still wild, and still single.”
My body overheated like a flash bomb.
I bounced my head off the hutch behind me. I was just like my exuberant, mischievous grandparents in temperament, but the traits had skipped my mom, leaving her sensible and sharp as a tack. When they combined forces, there was no way to outsmart them—
Inspiration struck and I leaned my forearms on the island, my eyes sparkling back at my mom and grandma. “All right, you two. You caught me,” I confessed, in a tone that was equally sincere and insincere. “I’m late because I took a quick detour to see my boyfriend.”
That was strike one of tempting fate.
“Boyfriend,” my grandma repeated suspiciously.
Now that I had said it aloud I regretted it, in a huge way. I was impulsive and didn’t like sharing my personal life—usually lack of a personal life—from them for opposite reasons. My mom had been burned and was overly protective, especially while I’d gone through my bears phase when I was barely legal. My grandparents, on the other hand, had met in a factory and married three months later, then had four kids in six years, financial hardships, and a gay grandson while being Irish Catholic, and none of that shook their love.
I couldn’t just say I’d lied, because that would get them all upset. But I could hedge.
The morning after our hookup at his place, we’d woken up and stared at each other in shock. Me because I’d slept over without an actual invitation, and him because… well, probably because he’d fallen asleep before he could politely ask the crazy skydiver to go.
After I’d left, there was no denying I was interested in him. The sexual compatibility was obvious. While I’d had amazing sex before, being with Eliott felt like something more. It buzzed under my skin and made my mouth dry. It felt like a mountain I just had to climb. I wanted to explore it, see if I could figure out why I reacted like this to him. Even if the chemistry burned out or he said he couldn’t see anything real with a daredevil like me.
I didn’t know how he felt yet either, but I already knew a less look before you leap approach would make him more comfortable. So I’d sent a text and we’d been chatting. Nothing really even flirtatious, which was a change of pace from our two encounters so far since they’d been so sexually charged, just nonsense pictures and gossip. Strangely, it made me even more hopeful than nonstop sexting would’ve, because I was getting to know him.
So I stuck my hands in my pockets, puffed up my chest, and let that silly hope flare for a second and light up my face. “Well, he could be!” They glared at me and I babbled a little, “Fine, I said ‘boyfriend’ for dramatic effect. We haven’t gone on a date. It’s just sex so far!”
A few of my aunts sent me dirty looks, but it barely registered because my grandma was snickering in pure amusement while my mom frowned in mild displeasure.
“I’m just sick of everyone bugging me about being single. You think it’s not normal,” I shot at my mom, my embarrassment chucking all my caution about talking about my personal life and feelings out the window. “But plenty of people don’t date. We hang out, we go out, we see each other, we have some sex. It doesn’t have to be all… letter jackets and hand-holding and dressing up to go someplace fancy alone together!”
“You can knock that stuff all you want,” my mom said quietly, “and sometimes, of course, it doesn’t mean anything deeper or better than sex, but it’s not stupid.”
My mom had always been tight-lipped about her romantic life, especially when it came to my biological father, who had turned out to be a married sleaze, and guilt hit me hard.
I protested desperately, hating the almost stricken look in my mom’s eyes, “I didn’t say it was stupid. It is not stupid, Mom. It’s just not my style.”
At that, my grandma laughed, a sharp, disparaging sound. “Oh, Gavin. You think that tough girls and pretty boys and fierce men in women’s jobs aren’t the same at heart as women like your mama here? Don’t say I’m being old-fashioned, and definitely don’t say I have no idea what I’m talking about, because I’ve been a tough guy four times longer than you. Love comes in as many shapes and sizes as we do, grandbaby. No use fighting it.”
“Like hell!” I refused hotly, because I might be interested, but I’d only seen him twice.
“How’d you meet?” my grandma demanded.
I knew it was a trap, but my mom still looked so upset that I practically blurted out, “I met him the day I went skydiving close to Wisconsin with the cousins. His name is Eliott and he’s a lawyer, I don’t even know what kind or where he works. He’s really… normal.”
“You say that like it’s a dirty word,” my mom said in annoyance.
“It is!” my grandma agreed vehemently. “Really, Gavin? A lawyer?”
My back shot ramrod straight and my eyes narrowed, my temper flaring. “Look, I like him, okay? He’s got this thing going where he’s straightlaced—like, crazy, stuffy, annoying straightlaced—but then he has this wicked sense of humor, and the way he looks at me…”
I stumbled to a halt, horrified at what had just poured out of my mouth in reaction.
“And he’s hot,” I finished defiantly, wishing they weren’t staring like I was an alien.
Feeling my mom and grandma’s eyes on me, I wished I had been able to get those leftovers out of the oven already, so that I could hide by shoveling food into my dumb mouth. I swallowed hard, my heart pounding and my head spinning. This wasn’t like me.
“Gavin,” my mom began hesitantly, “that’s nice. And new.”
“What do you mean, new? I may not be a serial monogamist, but I see people.”
My grandma chuckled and smoothed my hair away from my temple. “She meant how you sound is new. But I would also argue that you don’t date.” Locking eyes with me, she said inexorably, “You sound confused and scared—that sounds like you’re falling for him.”
Jerking back, my cheeks full of a gasp of denial like a chipmunk, I shook my head forcefully. Once I’d managed to half-choke, half-swallow, I cried, “Does not, Grandma.”
Both women kept looking at me with this awful mixture of pity and compassion, and it was weird seeing the two of them look so alike, agreeing on anything.
“I’m going to play poker,” I mumbled, finally getting my food and leaving them.
I joined for a while, but I was tired from my long day at work and my mind was still whirling from what my grandma and mom had said to me in the kitchen.
So I made the rounds to say goodbye, then went out to the front stoop where my grandpa was. I flung myself into one of the chairs next to him, making a whiny huffing noise like I was seventeen again, and reflexively checked my phone. Eliott had texted right after I’d gotten here, inviting me to a club named Local Beats where he was celebrating his birthday with Camdon and other friends I hadn’t met, but had heard about from his adorable gossipy texts. I knew of Local Beats, but had somehow never been there.
“What’s this face you’re making?” my grandpa asked after a puff on the cigar he’d had clamped between his teeth inside, since he couldn’t smoke in there anymore.
“Nothing,” I mumbled, but he gave me a sharp look and I spilled the story.
He shrugged after I told him about Eliott and said, full of shit and knowing I was full of shit too, “Guess you have to ask him out and start dating him. Just to prove your grandma and mom wrong. Think of it as a new challenge. Can’t be worse than skydiving.”
I laughed, even though the sound was strained. “Right.”
“Don’t be mean to your mom again though, Gavin Franklin Sycamore,” he added, deadly serious.
“No, sir,” I muttered.
Now I was wide awake again, the text from Eliott burning a hole in my pocket.
During the four-year-old’s birthday party, I’d read a fairy tale to the kids that described the princess as beguiling. I had never used the word in my life, but in my daredevil heart, I knew it was meant for Eliott. He was impeccable, with his sharp wits and his opaque green eyes that drove me fucking crazy wondering what he was really thinking.
Men who were serious and had traditional jobs like Eliott didn't want androgynous, long haired men who were flashy dressers like me, they wanted an equal or a trade up.
But I jumped out of airplanes and swam with sharks—I laughed at the odds.
I couldn’t resist the lure of that text, so I stood up and hugged my grandpa. “There’s someplace I have to go,” I told him. Then I readjusted my slouchy black knit beanie, the space between my shoulder blades itching, and drove my stubborn ass to Local Beats.