by Jayce Ellis
“Oh, is that so? What’s good, big brother? Should’ve known folks like you can’t keep it in your pants for even a weekend, huh?”
Marcus swallowed a garbled sound, and I sighed. This was going to be a long night.
Marcus
“Let’s get to work,” André said as soon as we opened the door. He threw off his jacket and tossed it over the loveseat, then strode toward the table at the end of the room.
Really? I’d watched him all night, watched as the jibes and barbs continued, watched as his carefully maintained facade of joviality started to crack. He was two snide comments away from absolutely losing his shit, and that’s when I pulled an intervention, laying a firm hand on his shoulder and reminding him we had work to do.
He’d looked up at me, his eyes burning with a heavy weariness, mixed with more than a hint of gratitude. We’d been out the door with apologies and promises to see his parents tomorrow, and disappeared in less than ten minutes.
I stopped him with my hands on his shoulders and turned him to me. “You’re allowed some downtime to decompress.”
“We don’t have time for that. This presentation is in less than forty-eight hours, and we’re not ready.”
I mean, we really were ready, but I got what he meant. The continual finessing until we got things just so, until there was no more time left to prepare.
“Sure, we could do that,” I told him. “But it won’t do you any good to sit there and stare at the same words for hours because you can’t focus.”
“Marcus—”
“Hush.” I laid a finger over his lips, then trailed my hand down to squeeze the area between his neck and shoulders. Goddamn he was tense. I kneaded them, much like I had days before, then pressed a soft kiss against his forehead. “Get comfortable,” I said. “I’ll be right back.”
I left him and walked into the bathroom to run a bath. It was one of the things I hadn’t expected about this room, which was a standard king-size. But they had a two-person jetted tub, large enough to fit my long legs, and I planned to make use of it. I turned on the water and grabbed the sample shower gel the hotel provided. If I was going to take a bath, I might as well have scented water and bubbles, right?
I came back out to find André sitting on the edge of the bed with his elbows on his knees, his head hanging low. I didn’t say anything, just knelt in front of him to remove one shoe, then the other, then his socks.
“What’re you doing?” he asked.
I tipped his chin up and kissed his lips. “Getting you undressed.” I kept my kisses light while I unfastened the buttons of his shirt.
He frowned and tilted his head to the side. “Is that the tub?”
“Yep.”
“You’re giving me a bath?”
I chuckled. “No. But we’re taking one together.”
“Marcus, I don’t know when the last time I had a bath was.”
“All the more reason you should have one now.”
He looked like he wanted to argue, but snapped his mouth closed and didn’t object as I removed his shirt and started on his pants. He was hard, as was I, but I was determined to ignore it. Like he said, we had forty-eight hours to go.
When he was naked, I stood and held a hand out for him to do the same. He looped his arms around my neck, and I ran a finger across his chest, tweaking a nipple, then scoring over it with the edge of my nail.
André leaned into the sensation, and it took a strength of man I didn’t know I possessed to not pull him in closer, say to hell with forty-eight hours, and relieve us both now.
André’s eyes, which had gone glassy, just the way I liked, looked me up and down. “You’re still dressed.”
I nodded. “And you’re not.” He closed his eyes and took a deep breath, and I leaned into him. “And you like that, don’t you?” I whispered. Visions of our first—only—time slammed into me, and Lord, I could take him right here, just like I’d said, with him naked and me in a suit.
André fisted his hands by his side, blew out a heavy breath, then stepped back. “Let’s get in the tub.”
It was near to full when we got there, and I thanked whatever genius had invented the overflow hole when we settled in. I sat against the edge, my legs splayed in front of me, and pulled André to sit with his back to my chest.
I thought for sure he’d complain about being the little spoon, but he didn’t say a word. I scooped up some of the water to wet his shoulders, then restarted my massage. His head fell forward and he sagged, his body gradually relaxing at my touch.
“I think maybe I’m too hard on them,” he finally said.
“Your family? What makes you say that?” From what I’d seen, he wasn’t nearly hard enough.
André started to speak, then cursed as I hit a particularly tight knot. I worked on it for a few minutes while he gathered his thoughts. “My family wasn’t... I mean, they weren’t bad, but they weren’t...”
“Great?” I offered.
“Yes. Being gay wasn’t a problem, but it always felt like there were conditions on it. And one of the things I needed to get used to was the teasing and the ribbing and all that.”
“And you never did?”
André shook his head. “No. I never did.” His voice was a whisper, all that defensive posturing from downstairs now gone.
“Have you ever explained that to them?” I ran my hands up and down his shoulders, which had started to get the first pricklings of goose bumps, then pulled him back into me and wrapped my arms around his chest.
André placed a hand over mine and nestled into me further. “No,” he said. “I mean, who the hell stops going home just because they don’t want to deal with teasing?”
“People who know that teasing is a front for something more insidious?” We’d had a variation of this conversation before, but André clearly still needed convincing that his reaction wasn’t baseless.
“I don’t think George teases me to be malicious.”
That was debatable, but I didn’t say anything, and he continued. “I think he doesn’t know any other way to deal with it.”
“He doesn’t have to deal with it,” I bit out, feeling my anger rise. “He has to be respectful, and that seems a bridge too far for him.”
At that, André chuckled. “Same thing I’ve said for years, but everyone tells me I’m too sensitive. I finally think they might be right, and here you are. Thank God,” he finished, that last part almost to himself.
André was calming down, and here I was getting riled up. I took a few deep breaths and sank lower in the water, bringing André down with me.
“Hey!” he sputtered in protest, breaking away from me and sitting up. “I’m not as tall as you. Any deeper and I’ll be underwater.” His chin and mouth were wet and a little soapy, and it was adorable. Not that I’d tell him that.
“My bad.” I held a hand out and he settled back in front of me, taking my arm and wrapping it around his chest.
I stayed like that for a few minutes, waiting to see if André said anything else. He didn’t, and after a few moments of silence, I looked down at him. His eyes were closed and his breathing even, and it was the most at peace I’d seen him in a week.
I shook him gently, just long enough to get him out of the tub, then dried him off and helped him into a pair of shorts before putting him in bed. André was asleep in minutes. He’d be ashy as hell in the morning, but he’d survive.
I looked at the clock. Shit, might as well get some work done. I grabbed my laptop off the desk and moved into the loveseat in the corner, taking a second to hang André’s coat up, and angled the chair so the glare from my screen didn’t hit him.
For a few hours, I fiddled with the language, then put the computer down. I lotioned myself up real quick, cursed myself for not doing it sooner, threw on a pair of sleep pants, then climbed into bed. An
dré curled into me immediately, and a feeling of warmth, mixed with a strong surge of protectiveness, came over me.
Jesus, there was no way I could walk away from this guy.
Chapter Seventeen
André
I woke up hard as hell. Which, as I looked down and found myself with my arm draped around Marcus’s chest and my legs entwined with his, made sense. There was also the incessant ringing, not of my alarm, but my phone. Tracey.
“Hello?” I answered, trying to keep my voice down so as not to stir Marcus.
“Dre, Mom wants you and your friend to come for brunch.”
I hung my head. This was the part I was afraid of. Today would be a rehash of last night, the sly comments and innuendos that marked my time with my family, but I didn’t want Marcus to be subjected to it. Because Lord knows George wouldn’t spare him.
“We have a ton of work to do, Trace. That is what Marcus is here for.”
I could hear murmuring in the background, then Mom’s voice. “Well, the boy’s gotta eat, don’t he?”
Which could easily be the free continental breakfast or, if we were really feeling fancy, room service. I didn’t know why I bothered, because no way was Mom letting me—or Marcus—out of showing up.
“Fine, we’ll be there. But it’s going to be a couple of hours. We have to pack, check out, and get some work done before we can even think about leaving.”
“André, please no more with the excuses,” she said, sounding every ounce like she was talking to a four-year-old and not a thirty-four-year-old. “It’s barely seven now. You have plenty of time to pack and check out and get some work done before eleven. Please be timely.” She clicked off before I could respond.
“Who was that?” Marcus asked from behind me.
I set the phone down on the nightstand and turned to him. “Tracey and Mom. They want us to come for brunch at eleven.”
One brow rose. “You expected that, right? Wasn’t that already on the agenda?”
“Sure. I just didn’t think they’d make me drag you out and partake in the spectacle.”
Marcus pushed himself up on his elbows and leaned into me. “I appreciate the concern, but I’ll be fine.” He sighed then, craned his neck back toward the ceiling before rolling it this way and that, then sat up. “Guess we ought to try to get some work in?”
“Might as well.”
Amazingly enough, we did just that, managing to be productive for a solid two hours before we checked out. Tracey had texted me the restaurant location, and we found ourselves there at eleven fifteen.
Mom was not pleased. “I thought I asked you to be timely,” she said as we approached the table.
Marcus jumped in before I could. “That’s entirely my fault, ma’am. André tried to get me up and going for almost an hour ’fore I finally did it.”
Mom grinned, not one of her strained I-don’t-believe-you-ones, but something between that and sincerity. Not full sincerity, though. She wasn’t there yet.
“Well, come on, sit down.” This place was low-key, a welcome break from last night. An all-you-can-eat buffet and what looked like bottomless mimosas. Bless them. There were only two seats available at the table, which was really three, maybe four, tables pushed together. We were the last of, at quick count, sixteen to arrive, and sat directly across from Mrs. Browne, parked in the center of the table, next to George. Chances that was accidental? Somewhere between zero and none.
Almost by happenstance, I held Marcus’s seat out for him.
“Thank you,” he murmured, craning his neck back to give me a look that should be illegal in all fifty states, plus territories.
The server showed up to take our drink orders, which were painfully nonalcoholic, due to my parents’ long-standing teetotalism, and disappeared.
George started in immediately. “So, took you a while to get going this morning?” he asked Marcus with a lewd wink. “Bet you had far better things to do, am I right?”
I wanted to strangle him, to put my hands around his neck and squeeze. Because George didn’t care who heard him. Not my parents, not my brothers, not folks from the church like Mrs. Browne. Shit, not his wife, and Aisha looked like she was about to choke. He only asked these ridiculous, innuendo-laced questions with me. Whatever anxiety had worn off from a good bath and the best night’s sleep I’d had in eons started to creep back.
But George wasn’t finished. He turned to Marcus. “So, you’re an intern? I bet big brother over there is teaching you some real good stuff, isn’t he?”
This. This right here was the entire reason I hadn’t wanted Marcus to come. So he wouldn’t have to deal with this type of shit. I geared myself up to say something, but Marcus leaned forward first.
“Oh, your brother is an excellent teacher,” he said, and ran his tongue across his lip. “Would you like me to give you a step-by-step breakdown of his skills?”
Mrs. Browne’s fork clanged against the plate, and next to him, Aisha started coughing. She dabbed at her mouth, but I caught her tiny grin and the way she rolled her lips in.
George’s brow furrowed, and he looked ready to fight. Our being in public might have been the only thing that stopped him. That, and realizing he’d finally gone too far with the wrong one. “That’s a little rude, don’t you think? Here in polite company and whatnot?”
Marcus took a sip of his drink, which I’m pretty sure was plain orange juice, and sat back, his arms crossed. “The only thing I did was answer your question. If you didn’t want me to do that, maybe you shouldn’t ask those types of things in polite company.”
Another brief stare down, then Wallace, the teacher, the peacemaker, jumped in. “So, Marcus, I know Dre can be a bit of a tyrant. How are you liking the internship so far?”
And with that, Marcus shifted into an easy discussion about the positives and negatives of the project, most of which was news to me. He was animated, talked with gusto, and had both Wallace and Tracey nodding and contributing. In a household where George tended to dominate conversation, it was eye opening to say the least.
I turned my attention to my parents. “Did you enjoy the party?” I asked Dad.
He dabbed at his mouth with a napkin and set it down. “I really did, son. It was good to get out and be there, it was good to be around my folks, and it was good to see you.”
I grinned. “It was good to see you too.”
And it had been. Maybe it was time for me to stop letting George and his antics—and looking back at it now, I could see that it was really only him who insisted on needling me mercilessly—keep me away, and come home more often. Hell, everyone already thought me and Marcus were together, so showing up with him in a decidedly non-professional capacity wouldn’t be a surprise.
I assumed that we’d be leaving not long after we finished eating. George’s death glare to Marcus hadn’t dissipated, not even a little, and we needed to get to the airport. Maybe we could catch an hour or so of work before our plane took off.
But now that we were here and the tension was gone, Dad didn’t seem to be in any hurry for us to go. Wallace was still deep in conversation with Marcus, with Tracey chiming in now and then. George had apparently been rendered mute, and the longer we sat there, the more it became clear to me just how much my parents really had...missed me? Even Mom, who was no longer fussing and had relaxed into a conversation with Aisha and Mrs. Browne. I could never be for sure with Mom, but she was chill and I wasn’t in a rush to head home. We’d busted our asses to prepare our presentation. We could stick around for another hour or so.
Marcus
André was positively jubilant when we left the brunch spot. It was like having someone stop George from being the asshole he really kinda was beneath the laughs had lifted a weight off his shoulders. At some point, even Aisha had started talking to me, and we’d been there well past our leave time.
André’s mood had only begun to sour when his phone dinged with a reminder that he had an event tomorrow—the presentation. Then he bemoaned the lost time from catching up, and insisted on at least reviewing our prepared speeches. Now we were at the carousel waiting for our bags. André was nervous, his back unnaturally stiff. He popped a few antacids out of his ever-present supply and chewed them, then palmed the roll back and forth like a talisman. The boy needed some serious stress relief.
“So, you have plans for tonight?” he asked as we waited.
“Honestly,” I said, “I assumed we’d be going back to your place. Run through things at least one or two more times.”
André’s shoulders sagged and he sighed. “Good. That’s what I want to do. I just didn’t want you to feel like you were stuck with me.”
I laid a hand on his shoulder and swallowed my moan when he shuddered at the contact. “André, even if we hadn’t gone anywhere, we’d still be spending this entire weekend together. The presentation is tomorrow. Pretty sure everyone else is spending the weekend with their bosses too.”
He laughed, a tiny thing that sounded strained, but nodded. “I know you’re right. I just...” He waved his hand around, then pinched the bridge of his nose.
I squeezed his shoulder, gently massaging those muscles, and watched his head drop. I didn’t care who was watching, I couldn’t let him go on this way. Either for tonight, while we were practicing, and damn sure not for tomorrow.
Our bags came, and I broke apart long enough to scoop them both up, then headed for the exits.
“Remind me why we checked these again?” André muttered.
I snorted. “Because people have no respect for your time and we had to check them at the gate.”
He grunted and kept walking. Something else I’d noticed. André would try to gently disengage from conversation, but people had no qualms about talking right over that, showing in no uncertain terms that what he wanted, needed, whatever, was irrelevant to them. How he put up with it, I didn’t know. I don’t think I’d stay away from my family for that long, but I couldn’t say I didn’t understand, not after two days of witnessing how they acted firsthand.
