Risk Management

Hutch lives his life by applying risk management. It doesn’t work.

For a Fortune cookie challenge. My fortune was: The greatest risk is not taking one.

Hutch learned about risk management at a young age—when your father was the CEO of an insurance company, words like identify, assess, and control were words tossed around the dinner table like confetti. So he learned to do just that—identify, assess, and control all the threats in his life. Too bad he never seemed to get it right.

He went to college for finance and hated every minute of it. Maybe his father found a thrill in crunching numbers but for him, it was as if his soul was being sucked dry. He told his parents he was quitting on Christmas day of his junior year. He’d identified the problem: finance wasn’t for him and he never would be happy doing something that he felt was meaningless, He’d assessed the risk: minimal. He was young and healthy and reasonably intelligent. He neglected to mention that he was in love to his parents. Vanessa Gordon was sure they could make it in southern California—her with her beauty and him with his music. He’d even thought he had control. Except of course he didn’t. It was the beginning of what he soon learned would become a pattern—daring to reach for happiness always meant loss. Being kicked out of the family home, being told he’d never amount to anything, that was the first loss.

Vanessa was the second. Southern California was as soul sucking as studying finance in college was. Mrs. Vanessa Hutchinson wanted more than Ken Hutchinson could give. She wanted success and diamonds and glitter and a big mansion, and he felt hollow pursuing something that was all a charade. What difference could he make singing in clubs at night? What mattered? How did he reconcile the bums he passed on his way to another gig with the bright lights and the flashy cars?

Their fights turned ugly—words said that couldn’t be taken back. She accused him of being unambitious, he accused her of being nothing more than a shallow husk. She told him he didn’t love her, he told her she loved herself more than she loved him.

He stood outside one of the clubs on a rainy night while detectives processed a crime scene and he smoked a cigarette—the last one he’d promised himself because cigarettes cost more money than he had now that Vanessa had kicked him out for the third time. One of those very same bums Hutch passed every night was dead—a knife in his gut. The cops asked questions and gathered information and he knew. He knew being a cop was what he was meant to do.

He enrolled in the police academy and endured Vanessa telling him, just as he’d been told a few years before, that he was worthless. Being a cop wasn’t going to make him rich, she said. Being a cop wasn’t going to get him anywhere. There’s more to life than money and fame, he told her.

He was happy for the first time in a long time when he started at the Academy. He enjoyed the challenge to his mind and his body. It helped that a street smart guy named David Starsky came into his life that first day and sat down beside him in the lecture hall.

Being Starsky’s friend was an acceptable risk, he decided. Vanessa had other ideas about that. She called Starsky ugly names and called Hutch even uglier ones. She threw things at him, and he left one night with his clothes and his guitar and told her she could have everything else. He slept in a beat up old car—the only one he could afford—until Starsky found out what he was doing and told him that was a stupid risk he was taking especially with the neighborhood Hutch was parked in.

Starsky was the one risk he’d taken that seemed to work out. They became partners on the force after a few years and then became detectives together. Vanessa and the earlier failures in his life faded away and for awhile he was content.

He wanted more in life—of course he did. He wanted to fall in love, or more importantly, he wanted to be in love—that kind of long-lasting love he’d seen between his parents and with some of their friends on the force. The divorce between him and Vanessa was done in a courtroom. He didn’t contest it—there was no point. By that time, seeing her reminded him that risking it all in pursuit of love was unwise. It always ended badly.

He was reminded of that over and over the next few years—saw what happened when you risked it all for love. Not just to him, but to Starsky which somehow hurt him as much or more. After Gillian, after Terry, he decided the risk of opening his heart again was just too great. Even though Terry wasn’t his to have and to hold, he loved her because Starsky loved her. When she died and he sat with Starsky on countless nights while he mourned the loss of a future, he knew the risk of love wasn’t worth the cost.

Then Vanessa came back into his life for less than twenty four hours—a miniscule amount of time if he really thought about it. He came back from his run, saw her body, the blood seeping into the floor, and he remembered what a failure he’d been as a husband when he chose his happiness over hers. He had loved her once upon a time when they were young and believed that anything was possible. What was wrong with him that every risk he took in love only led to heartache and pain? Surely it was some cosmic joke by some capricious god of fate.

He guarded his heart even harder after that. He didn’t deny himself sex although he made sure to never allow himself to get truly emotionally involved. And then the person who was always there—Starsky—his shadow, his lodestone, his center—became the person he needed to push away. It was too much of a risk. He brought destruction to those he loved and he wasn’t willing to risk Starsky. No, it would be better to push him away. It was for Starsky’s own good after all.

It was easier said than done. The more he pushed away, the more Starsky clung on. Stubborn bastard, Hutch thought on more than one occasion. And he found he could no longer deny what he’d known for years. He loved Starsky. He loved him more than he’d loved Vanessa, more than he’d loved Gillian. He was Hutch’s everything and because he was, Hutch needed to make sure he never let himself give in to what he really wanted, never let himself take Starsky in his arms, never let himself be anything more than a friend, never let Starsky know just how much Starsky meant to him. Tempting fate was never a good idea.

He flew to San Francisco for a weekend to curb the growing itch he felt. He hung out in a bar and went back to his hotel room with a guy who had curly brown hair, laughing blue eyes, and a chest that was smooth instead of hairy like Starsky’s. Sex was all he wanted and sex was all he got. It was enough, had to be enough.

He slept with Kira—a risk deemed acceptable because if it meant losing Starsky but saving him it would all be worth it.. All that mattered was keeping Starsky safe from the fate that doomed all those Hutch loved. It didn’t work—Starsky cared more for Hutch than he cared for Kira.

And the fates decided Starsky should be taken too. Hutch was so sure Starsky would die that, when he lived, he didn’t quite know what to do. So he did what he’d been doing for years—became the best friend Starsky could have. All the months of heartache and pushing away became months of caring and drawing closer than they’d ever been.

They were on the beach—Starsky had finally managed to walk down the entire flight of steps without stopping. Hutch had to carry the blankets, the cooler, and everything else and he didn’t mind at all. It was windy and cool and the air held a smell of rain even though the sun was shining.

Starsky smiled at him after everything had been deposited on the chairs Hutch had put there months ago, the blankets spread.

“Let’s go for a walk,” he said, leaning into his cane just a bit more than usual.

Hutch smiled back. It was only the past few weeks that he felt he could breathe again—that he felt life, although different, was finally their new normal. He nodded and walked alongside Starsky. He kept his hands in his pockets no matter how much he wanted to reach out and steady Starsky. He’d learned that helping was not allowed unless asked for.

They didn’t talk. Starsky seemed content to just walk and occasionally stop and stare out at the horizon. Hutch remembered standing on another beach what felt like a lifetime ago and Starsky coming up to him as he stood alone and without hesitation throwing his badge in the ocean alongside Hutch’s. Starsky was willing to take the risk, willing to do anything for him. No, Hutch thought, ready to do anything for them. For me and thee. The realization humbled him, hit him so hard, he felt like sinking to his knees with the weight of it. No, not weight. Release.

Starsky stood at the water’s edge. Hutch resisted the urge to tell him to not get his feet wet. He had to let go of the fear, had to let go in order to let Starsky in. He thought of the saying he’d seen painted on the window of the little store where he’d bought the cheeses and bread and olives now in the cooler. “The greatest risk is not taking one.”

He ignored the way the wind brought tears to his eyes and focused on the way the sunlight was turning Starsky’s hair all shades of brown—loam and chocolate and mahogany and cinnamon. Hutch felt his breath catch at the beauty of it.

“I love you,” he said. He felt as if he was ten years old again and standing at the very edge of the high dive at the country club pool. His heart pounded, sweat pooled under his arms.

Starsky turned to face him and the smile on his face was one that Hutch had never seen before. He’d always found Starsky’s smiles breath-taking but this one—this one lit Starsky as if he was the sun. Hutch’s chest hurt when he looked at him—an ache of longing so deep he couldn’t measure it.

“I thought you’d never say it,” Starsky said, his voice barely heard over the ceaseless waves.

“What were you waiting for then?” Hutch squinted at him, the wind whipped his hair into his eyes.

“You. Always you.” Starsky stepped closer, let his cane drop, and moved into Hutch’s arms. “I’ve loved you for what seems like forever.” The words were a whisper against his skin.

Hutch shivered and Starsky held on tighter.

“You don’t need to be scared, babe,” Starsky told him. He pressed his lips to Hutch’s.

Hutch opened his mouth, gave himself over to the kiss, let go of the fear and the heartache and the constant worry of loss. He had Starsky, Starsky had him—and the risk, no matter the outcome, was worth every moment they had and would have together.