by Ella James
“When I got that text…” I shake my head.
“Mess up.”
I blow a breath out, shut my eyes. “Just…too enamored. I was,” I add. “With you.”
“You don’t protect yourself.” He says it flatly, like this notion should hold meaning for me.
“What do you mean?”
“You’ve got your heart on your sleeve…for me.” His voice dips low on the word. “You won’t put it away.”
“You saying you want me to?”
“I want it where I can get my hands around it.” His voice softens. “But that’s not good for you.” His lets out a breath. “That part, I hate.”
“Let me worry about my parts, yeah?”
He stands up, I think. I catch a glimpse of an arched doorway behind him, and then he’s moving—from soft, gold light into darkness. I can hear him settle on the bed.
“Tell me something, Emerson Vance Rayne.”
In the near-dark, I can really only see his eyes. I turn the car’s light off and back out of my parking spot.
“What kind of something, Luke Gabriel McDowell?”
“Tell me a secret.” This time, he shifts onto his back, and light reveals the contours of his handsome face.
“I can see your dimples.”
“I hope not. You’re driving.”
“How can you tell?”
“The stuff that’s moving by behind you? Maybe I should call you back.”
“Nah, it’s—”
“No. I will.”
The call is gone…and then I turn onto the larger road, and my phone rings again.
I pick up.
“You okay?” He sounds breathless.
“Yeah.” I hold the phone to my ear as I brake for a light. “Why wouldn’t I be?”
“Thought you were a super stalker.” Something’s off. His voice is hoarse and low. I search my memory, and it hits me like a freight train. His dad. Arthur McDowell. The obituary said he went to get a drive-through milkshake—supposedly one of the secret creature comforts of this down-to-earth rich dude—and his car got side-swiped as he pulled out of the fast food parking lot. That’s how he died, so it’s no wonder he’s is worried about me FaceTiming and driving.
“Oh, shit, Sky. I’m sorry.”
“I shouldn’t have called you back at all.”
“You wanna talk when I get home? It’s okay.”
There’s a pause where I bet he’s doing his struggle breath—that deep inhalation thing he does when he’s losing his shit. But I can’t tell. And he says, “It’s okay.”
“A trooper pulls a pastor over and smells alcohol on the pastor’s breath. The next thing he notices is a wine bottle in the passenger’s seat. Officer says, ‘Have you been drinking?’ Pastor says, ‘Just water.’ Officer says, ‘Okay, well why do I smell wine?’ Preacher looks at the bottle with his eyes all wide and says, ‘Good Lord! He’s done it again!’”
His low, rich chuckle is like a hit of some something illegal, better than club drugs. Makes me feel all good and warm.
“What does an agnostic, dyslexic, insomniac dog do?”
I can hear him smiling as he answers. “Do I want to know?”
“Lies awake at night wondering if there is a dog.” I hang a right, toward Haight, roll into the next one. “Dude’s not feeling well, decides to go in to the doctor. As he’s walking in, a nun walks by him on her way out. Looks like hell. White, pale face…teary eyes and all that. She’s in bad shape. Dude gets to the front desk and says, ‘Damn. What happened to that nun?’”
Luke groans, and I grin.
“Doctor says, ‘Well, I just told her that she’s pregnant.’ Dude says, ‘Wow, she is?’ Doc says, ‘No, but it sure got rid of her hiccups.’”
I hear a sound like a snicker. “That’s a lot of faith jokes for an agnostic.”
“Learned them just for you.”
“Is that true?”
“I’m not telling.” The truth is, I looked them up a long while back in case he called again. In case I wanted to talk, but without really talking. Just to fill up space on the line…if I thought that might help him. “Almost to the townhouse, though.”
“Where were you that night?” he murmurs.
For a second, I’m not sure what he means. “When you called me?”
“Yeah.”
I make the last turn onto the street where the townhome is. “Listening to some of my friends play a gig. Phone was stuck in my pocket. I had to rip the pocket out to get it. When I saw who it was, I beelined for the back door and went outside. Fucking freezing that night. Could you hear the wind?”
“Yeah.”
“Then I walked home.”
“I could hear you open the door.”
I debate before I ask it, but curiosity wins out in the end. “Where were you, Sky?”
“Tokyo,” he whispers.
What happened in Tokyo? Was that your sadness bleeding through the line or mine? I want to ask these things, but I don’t. I pull into the garage, and he says, “That you getting back?”
“Yep. I’m here.”
That same old silence rises up around us, filling up the phone line and my chest as I get out and walk to the stairwell door.
“I can’t sleep without you,” he says softly.
“When will you be back?”
I cup the phone against my ear and take the stairs up to the foyer slowly.
“Tomorrow,” he says.
“Tomorrow night, then.”
“Tell me something else, V.”
17
Vance
I tell him I use kid toothpaste because the mint stuff burns my mouth. He tells me he’s scared of needles.
“I think it’s because I fell off my bike and chipped my front tooth when I was about ten. Had to get a bunch of shots at the dentist that night.”
“Wait a second,” I say. “Does that mean your front tooth—”
He laughs. “Yeah. The bottom part on the left one’s not real.”
For some reason, this shocks me. “It looks so normal.”
“Looks can be deceiving.” He sounds like he’s smiling.
“How do you know what to say to people in the services on Sunday?” I open the fridge and grab an apple. That’ll be my next question. Why does he refrigerate the apples?
“What to talk about?” he clarifies.
“No, like when they ask questions in that open question time.”
“How do you see shapes in marble?” he asks as I start upstairs.
“That’s not an answer, McD.”
“I don’t know. I just talk to them.”
“I don’t see shapes. I just get an idea, and my hands figure out the rest.”
“What’s your day-to-day like in Manhattan?” he asks.
“I work at a co-op there. I mentor students sometimes.”
“Tell me more.” I hear him yawn.
“You getting sleepy?”
“Don’t jinx it.”
I smile, because he does sound sleepy. I hope that he’ll fall asleep. “Chelsea. Well…I eat a lot of donuts. Still live above Donut King. I don’t have a girlfriend or a boyfriend. Not sure if you wondered.”
“From the ’gram, I didn’t think so.”
I snicker. “The gram. Guess I can’t make fun of you, though, Mr. Sixteen Million.”
“Eighteen now.”
“Well, Jesus.”
“Is the reason.”
I get a good laugh out of that.
God, who does he talk to when I’m not around? One of his women? Do they talk like this? I fucking hope so—and it also makes me feel like dying.
I stretch out on the bed, biting into the apple.
“That can’t be your dinner, Rayne.”
“How do you know what it is?”
“Because I have ears. It’s an apple.”
“A cold apple. Been refrigerated.”
“Right. For freshness. Got a problem with that, Rayne?”
&nb
sp; “I fucking hate fresh apples.” I pretend I’m spitting it out.
He tsks. “Some people have no taste.”
It sounds so real—so outright blue-blood snobby—I laugh before chomping again on my unnervingly cold apple.
“It makes my teeth cold.”
“You know what they say about cold teeth.”
I snort, and call him on FaceTime again.
He peers into his phone’s camera, the angle making his eyes look preternaturally large and more feline than normal. A slow smile bends his face. “I can see you.”
“You’re a lump in the dark.”
He gets up and steps into a bathroom.
“Ohh.” His shirt is off now. In the mirror, where he points the camera, I can see he’s only wearing dress pants. “Just your trousers, huh?”
“They’re not so bad. It’s the shirts that get you.”
“Yeah? Itchy?”
I hear more so than see him turn the sink on. “More confining, to me. The tailor makes them so they look good when you’re walking around. Not when you’re stretching to scratch an itch.”
“You got a lot of those?”
“Tailors?” He shifts the phone on the counter and smirks toward it.
“Itches.”
“I don’t know. You scratching?”
“Maybe.”
We have phone sex. Because that’s what we do. Afterward, it’s quiet on the line. My phone screen is an inky blot. We’re both lying in our own respective darkness now.
“Why didn’t you show up—at the hotel that time at New Year’s?” My whispered words surprise me. I squeeze my eyes shut.
His answering silence lets me know he understands the question.
“Because I’m a coward.”
I hear something brush against his phone’s mic. Then he’s breathing heavy.
“Sky? You’re not a coward.” I turn on the light by my bed. So he can see my face. “I shouldn’t have asked. It doesn’t matter.”
“Of course it does.”
It’s just his hoarse voice and the dark screen. Fuck, I wish he’d turn the light on.
“No it doesn’t. I was confused after…but then I wasn’t. Then I fucking worried for you. I would have given anything to find out what was going on.”
“There’s no justifying how I…mess you up.”
“I’m not messed up.” It’s a lie, of course, but I’m okay with that. “I came out to Evermore on my own free will.”
“To find out…what was going on.”
“What’s so bad about that? You’re under my skin,” I tell him recklessly, “and that’s where I want you to be.”
He makes a sound that’s part laugh, part groan. “You’re not right, V.”
“Who wants to be right? I, for one, would rather be a little fucking wrong. Better to be wrong with the right person than right with the wrong one.”
In the dark, I think I see him shake his head. “You’re crazy, Vance.”
“Crazy for you.”
He lets out a long breath, like a muted sigh. “I wish I was with you.”
“Let’s plug our phones in, and we’ll stay on all night. What do you think?”
“I’m sorry I’m like this.”
“You don’t know how much I care about you. Or you’d never be.”
He doesn’t say he cares for me, too. But the next morning, when I get to work, my atrium is filled with roses.
Luke
I give my talk on member retention feeling like I’m in a fugue. When I’m finished, I take my seat with the Evermore group in the audience, holding my phone near my chest so I can read his texts with my hands cupped around it.
The first one’s just a line of red hearts.
The next says, Damn, man.
I check the timestamps. A minute after that, he said, No one’s ever done this for me. Assuming it was you. ;)
Nope, I text, angling the screen away from Ansley. I’m smirking as Pearl, seated on the row in of us, catches my eye.
Then shouldn’t it be more like What are you talking about Vance? Done WHAT for you?
I press my lips flat to hide a sly smile. What are you talking about Vance?
I text immediately after, because I don’t want to mess with his head. I hope you’re not allergic. That part was a gamble.
Far from.
I see the symbol that tells me he’s typing. Then it disappears. It comes back…and disappears.
Wish you were wearing our toy when you had to move them off the scaffolding, I say.
They put them on the floor all around ;)
You know I’ll be home tonight…
Is that a threat, he asks.
You know it’s a promise.
I put the phone away, and Pearl’s eyes catch mine. Something tightens in my stomach. I rub my lips together again, getting rid of my smile. It’s all business for the rest of the day—a lot of procedural presentations and number crunching; Ansley would have come alone if not for my guest talk—and I don’t let myself text more unless I’m in the men’s room.
Next time I duck into there, I find he’s sent three.
Maybe it’s your turn.
Whaddaya say, preacher boy?
I’d love to turn it on while you’re at your desk.
I laugh, and it echoes through the empty men’s room. I don’t think so, Rayne.
You don’t have to think. That won’t be required.
My dick is hard now. I lean a shoulder on the stall’s wall and rub myself through my pants.
My impudent artist.
And the pervert pastor. What do you think? Sounds like a good story.
One of the great ones.
He texts me a red heart. I’m smirking as I send a black one—just to mess with him a little.
What the fuck is that thing? He sends a skull and bones symbol.
Black is a viable color.
You’re twisted, preacher.
You’ll find out.
I’m not even making sense. I grin up at the ceiling.
I’ve got to go. Lots more brain-numbing talks to sit through. Pearl caught me smirking at the phone a little earlier. Can’t have that.
Someday soon, she’ll catch you doing more than that at your desk.
Now I’ll have to jerk off before leaving the stall.
You want it, he says. C’mon, admit it.
You’ve got me hard now. I can’t leave the bathroom this way.
God, I’d love to be inside you. I love what you do to me, but I’m a switch, remember?
How could I forget, Rayne?
I’m Rayne now. I’ve lost the Mr.?
I unzip my pants…take out my stiff cock…give it a long, squeezing stroke.
You’re just Rayne now. Yes.
Rayne belongs in the Sky. You realize that, right?
I’m still grinning when I wash my hands and walk out of the men’s room. I’ll show him tomorrow. Impudent artist bottoms are the ones I most like filling.
18
Luke
I go to him the moment that I’m home and have him in his bedroom, where the air hangs heavy with the scent of roses. We fall asleep wrapped in each other. I wake him at 4 AM with my fingers in his bottom.
“Fuck,” he groans. But he lifts his hips as my fingers push cool lube into him.
“Oh yes.”
He’s still more asleep than not, but he moans as I seat the plug. Then he starts to rock himself against the mattress. His arm wraps around his pillow.
“Shit…”
I love how his voice is husky with sleep. I should go—we have an early morning elders meeting at 6:15 today—but I can’t resist delving beneath the covers again, running my hand up his leg until I brush his warm, full sac. I tease him there, then reach beneath him, grasping for his erection. So hard. Just brushing his long cock has me hard as well. He lifts his hips, giving me the clearance to work my way up his shaft.
“Oh, Rayne. So hard, and still asleep. How will you feel when y
ou reach your atrium?”
He arrives—by rideshare again—at 9:30, and I watch him move with his erection strapped against his underwear. When he goes outside to the portable building to wash up and mix paints, I give him vibration till he texts me stop. Each time he walks back inside, he seems to move a little slower.
After lunch, I turn the vibe on low—so he can hold himself together as church staff moves in his sphere, but he can’t paint. Or doesn’t. He goes outside, and from the room, he texts, come so I can fuck your throat .
There’s a gap in my call schedule, so I’m able to do just that. I come in my pants as I swallow his load, and have to change into some underwear I stashed here. Rayne is so spent his whole body trembles with exhaustion. I call him a car as soon as I get to the stairwell, then text, Front of the church, buddy. Your ride, in 15 minutes.
When I get upstairs, I pass Pearl. She says I look “spent.”
I smile. “Always.”
We drop food in Syria, and this time, I get to watch. The elders meeting, which was rescheduled for this afternoon, brings vitriolic arguments about the rainbow flags people keep sticking in the lawn by our sign every Sunday. Someone suggests we find out who’s doing it by watching camera footage. Someone else says, “Are you kidding me? This is San Francisco. Sticking rainbow flags in the grass isn’t a crime. It’s a legitimate hobby.”
That segues into a debate on whether the church should be fully affirming. Several times, I’m referenced—usually by someone arguing in favor of affirming. Things like, “Pastor Luke already uses language like that most of the time.”
He does indeed.
By the time the meeting adjourns, two and a half hours after it began, my undershirt is sweat-stuck to my back, and my stomach feels seasick. There are twelve elders, plus myself and Ansley on the board. Of the thirteen total in attendance today, only five spoke out in favor of affirming.
I want to see Rayne so badly…but I drive myself home. I crawl into bed fully clothed.
Came home. Tired. Not you.
Vance appears in my room around midnight. He sits on the bed’s edge, and I hear the subtle mechanized sound of the plug, and then I hear him lube it. “You can’t think with this in your hole,” he whispers. “Let me take you on a little vacation.”
