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The truth was Hutch was my life. Sad, sad truth.
Every day I tried, but I didn’t know how to tell him any clearer than I’d been doing. I mean, geez, how much closer do I need to push myself onto him before he gets it?
Things were getting a little blurry all around me. I clutched Hutch’s rolled up leather jacket closer. Time to take action instead of sitting here at the Pits with my third beer.
I leaned over the bar, locating my second best friend in the world. “Huggy, my man.” I conjured up some sociability from somewhere. “Switch me to the soft version, wouldya?”
My third drink was exchanged for a similarly colored liquid. It smelled sweeter. Probably just what I needed.
No, Hutch was what I needed. I sighed, balling my fist around his familiar leather and I just closed my eyes.
“Hutch!”
“You’re my best buddy,” he said.
I could only smirk. Best doesn’t even cover it, my friend. Best is like so incredibly insufficient to explain what he is to me. I’m happy to be his best, but he’s my everything. Yes, really pathetic. I giggled to myself.
Totally at a loss, I just took a sip of what turned out to be root beer. Huggy stopped by, holding the remnants of someone’s meal in his hands. “You okay?”
“Hutch is being a clown.” I couldn’t say it any other way. I didn’t have the gift of gab tonight, so sue me.
Huggy seemed to take the patient-uncle approach. “You’re both clowns, as far as I’m concerned.”
“I’ll bet!” Hutch joked.
Huggy jabbed the leftovers plate in our direction across the counter. We each leaned away in opposite directions to avoid low flying food. “I need you clowns, so never change. You got that?”
“Yes, sir,” I said automatically.
Now Huggy did have his head screwed on straight. Or maybe not quite straight, but right in my book. He had always understood how it was for me. Women come and women go, but Hutch is always there. Huggy knew what it all meant. Why couldn’t Hutch?
I looked at my partner then, trying again. “I need you to never change.” There, my best attempt, after a few beers and a fourteen hour shift. “You may be a clown, but you’re my clown, Hutch.”
I hate smarmy, soapy scenes. Why do I keep doing them?
I thought for a moment Hutch’s cheeks got pinkish, making him look a decade younger. But it was probably the lighting, or lack thereof, it being the Pits at midnight, and all.
Hutch and me had had a long day at the hospital, so I knew things might not sink in as deeply any more for him. We were supposed to be kicking back with a few beers, taking it easy before crashing into bed after dealing with all the horrors of a veritable plague. That’s no time to get all hot and heavy on your partner.
I was glad I’d switched to root beer after I felt a little bit too tingly to drive anymore. Someone’s got to keep their wits about them around here.
I looked at my partner. I’d better not push it tonight, seeing how tired he was. He looked fragile, instead of his normal solid self. He grabbed his jacket out of my lap and slid into it like a second skin. He wasn’t fooling me for a moment, though, pretending he was fit as a fiddle.
Course, he doesn’t have the natural stamina that I’ve been blessed with. He needs to pump himself up with a running ritual and strange wheat grass concoctions to stay in shape. Such a display of weakness, I’m always surprised it gets him girls. But then, he was raised all refined and stuff, so he can pull it off elegant-like with his blond head of golden hair.
I took a great big swallow of my root beer and stopped looking at his hair.
Then Hutch leaned in. “I’m happy to be your clown, dirtball,” he said, very close to my ear. So close, I jumped a bit. The soft breath left a warm streak against my temple and cheek. “But I’d rather just be your Hutch.”
I forgot to breathe.
“Can you say that again?” I asked, not believing he could say something so sensual.
He brought his voice down to a whisper, right up close, just for me to hear. “I’m yours.”
I was glad I’d swallowed already, because I think the root beer would’ve been dribbling out of my mouth at this point. My tongue wouldn’t work, my legs had disappeared. I hoped the rest of me was still in operational order.
Just in case he was joking, I turned the tables on him, and whispered, “You’d better believe you’re mine.”
His warm, voluminous, large presence, almost too real to believe, so up close and personal, was still within my reach. Could I? Should I?
I reached up to the lapel of his jacket, put my hand just inside and held on to the seam, closing my fist on it, to confirm he was real.
“Are you drunk, Hutch?” Physical presence verified, I now felt I needed to verify his state of mind. And my sanity. I was very close to melting into his arms. Right here, in the Pits, with a room full -- well maybe only two other people at this time of night. One of which was Huggy and he really didn’t care what we did.
“I don’t think so,” Hutch breathed, with a chuckle that he does when he doesn’t think it’s funny at all.
“Sorry, babe,” I said. “I may be a little.”
“No, you’re not,” he said. “I know my partner.”
“Yes you do, and no, I’m not.” Now it was extremely hard not to lean into him that little bit more and find his lips. “Missing Abby?”
“Always.” Thankfully no chuckle, but he sighed. “That’s not it.”
“Is it something else?”
“Yes, you dufus.” Hutch laced an arm around my back. I could feel it clearly and was tempted to lean into it. Was this really happening? “You’re mine.”
Now I wasn’t sure if I’d had too much to drink, or if Hutch had, or if we had just shifted into an alternate reality. I felt things become very heavy, as if I’d released a lot of tension all in one go. No, not that type of tension. But I now had hopes that I might be able release that too. Maybe?
“I’m yours, babe.” I opted for speaking instead of kissing. “What do you want? Tell me what you need. I’ll give it to you.”
“I want you to go home. Get in bed. Sleep for fourteen hours. I want you then to come to me and tell me this again. I need you.”
All I heard was he wanted and needed me. The rest was harder to comprehend.
Hutch’s hand went up my back and he whispered in my ear again. “Tell me when you see me again. I want to know.”
I realized I was pulling on his jacket, and it had come loose. I looked down. I was clutching it in my hands. “Why can’t I tell you now, Hutch? I love you.” I shook my head and squeezed my eyes shut in complete failure. “That doesn’t cover it at all.”
When I opened my eyes, I saw the rolled up jacket in my hands again, exactly as before. In fact, it hadn’t moved.
“Hutch?”
The stool beside me was empty.
“Hutch!”
Huggy was suddenly there. “Whoa, you all right?”
I searched the Pits. No blond anywhere. No Hutch.
“Hutch was here,” I said plainly.
“Nah, dude. He’s in the hospital. When’s the last time you slept, Starsky?”
Accepting the reality that Huggy was presenting to me, I thought for a moment. I had been up before dawn, but wasn’t willing to count hours.
“Hutch is in the hospital,” I now recalled, still feeling like Hutch was just sitting beside me, holding me, starting a new life with me. “They’re saying he’ll be all right. Calendar’s blood will save him. It’s what they say.”
“They generally get things right.” Huggy pulled me off the bar stool. “You got to go home now.”
I just stood there, Hutch’s jacket in my hands.
“If you don’t, I’ll make you sleep in my loft.” He held up his hands and laughed. “Strictly honorable of course.”
“Of course,” I jibed. “Thanks, Hug.” I got my footing back.
“De nada. Just do me one favor.”
“If I can.” I stretched. Fourteen hours of sleep sounded about right to me, now. Then I’d definitely go and see him again. I was aching to go back to the hospital, but good sleep was only to be had in my own bed. And Hutch had told me to, hadn’t he? Or had he?
“Don’t waste any more chances,” Huggy said, like a sphinx.
I stood, feet frozen to the floor. “He almost died, Hug. Again.” I bit my back teeth together, to get the last word out. “I can’t take it anymore.”
“Tell him,” he said, his tone soft and understanding radiating off him. Like he knew what it was to love in silence for so long.
I looked into Huggy’s dark eyes, and confessed, “I can’t live without him.”
“That’s for sure. You’re a mess.”
I snickered despite myself. “What if I tell him and he leaves me?”
“He won’t. He loves ya, man.” Huggy knew a lot. But did he know this? Or was he just being nice to me?
“Not that kinda love. The unmanly kind.”
Huggy waved that away. “Ain’t nothing unmanly about it. Hutch wouldn’t think so.”
“He might run.”
“He won’t,” Huggy didn’t waver.
I sighed and looked at the jacket I had clung onto for dear life all evening. “Can I be that certain?”
'I’m yours,' his whisper sounded again in my ear.
I knew he wasn’t here, but I knew I was hearing the truth.
Without dropping the precious leather, I grabbed Huggy with one arm around his neck and kissed his very surprised cheek. “He won’t run, Hug. He won’t.”
“Didn’t I just say that?” he said indignantly.
Who needs sleep? I ran out of there. I gotta tell Hutch.
“Hutch!”