by Josh Lanyon
The longing to put my arms around him, hold him was like a physical hunger. Worse than physical hunger, actually. I warned myself to be patient, to give him time. I said, “I appreciate your letting me stay, Stephen.”
“You didn’t leave me much choice.”
I stared at the wooden tabletop, looking for answers in generations-worth of crackling veneer. “No. I suppose not. There aren’t many people I can trust.”
“Oh, it’s about trust?” His tone was unpromising.
“It is rather.”
Silence. Stephen turned the stove off, dished out food, set a plate in front of me, and sat down on the other side of the table. He speared a bite of steak, chewed ferociously, swallowed, and then said very quietly, “You’ve got a fucking nerve talking to me about trust.”
As my own mouth was full. I had to chew fast, swallow—and he interrupted before I could speak.
“I don’t know what happened to you. I’m sure you have no intention of telling me. But it’s obvious you need a little breathing space. So I’ll give you that. I’ll give you time to rest and recover from whatever the hell is the latest disaster. But when you’re back on your feet, I want you gone, Mark. You understand? You can stay here till then, but after that you’re on your own.”
I stared at his face, unfamiliar it its hardness. I had done that. I had I made him hard and bitter. But surely he realized I hadn’t meant to. Hadn’t meant to hurt him, to let him down, to betray the thing between us because I knew—yes, even I knew—how rare that thing between us was.
I said, “Don’t I get to —”
“No, you don’t.” His eyes met mine with anger as black as the inside of an oil barrel.
“Right.” It occurred to me that he was the only person on the planet I was afraid of. And he was the gentlest man I’d ever known.
Don’t push him, I thought. Don’t crowd him. I picked up my fork and made myself continue eating.
For a time there was nothing but the scrape of silverware on china, the creak of chairs and the heavy old table.
I put my fork down. “Look, Stephen. You’re not —”
“Two fucking years, Mark.” He was coming right back at me without skipping a step; and even I could hardly miss that this was a fury that had been building for months. “And I don’t want to hear anything about having a chance to tell your side of it. I gave you every possible opportunity. You know what the last thing you said to me was? You said you couldn’t talk.”
The unfairness of that left me feeling winded, and for a flash I was back brawling in the sand with someone’s boot in my guts. I barely remembered the phone conversation Stephen referred to. It had taken place four months ago. Right before I left for Afghanistan. I’d been distracted, preoccupied—naturally.
I said, “I was preparing for an OPO, for God’s sake!”
He stared at me like I was mad. “You still don’t get it, Mark. That wasn’t the opening dialog, that was the closing. The end. That was your last chance.”
“I don’t —”
“Understand? I know. You really don’t. The truth is there were two years before that last operation—or whatever OPO means—and you couldn’t find time to talk then either. Two years. Two years.”
Two years?
Had it really been two years? Yes, I suppose it must have been. And I suppose that did explain some of Stephen’s anger.
He waited for me to say something. All at once I was very tired. Too tired to think of a good answer. Probably because there wasn’t a good answer. And a bad answer might mean the loss of any last chance to save this thing. I picked up my fork and made myself continue eating.
The steak was cooked exactly the way I liked. It was good. My brain assured me of that. My mouth told me it was pencil shavings.
I could feel Stephen staring at me, could feel his disbelieving silence. But when I said nothing he gave a short, disbelieving laugh and also resumed eating.
We finished our meal without further conversation.
“Can I help with the dishes?” I asked, as he cleared my plate away.
He put the dishes in the sink and said brusquely, “Lena Roosevelt comes in tomorrow morning. She’ll take care of it.”
He glanced at me, and I knew he was waiting to see whether I remembered who Lena Roosevelt was.
“I remember Lena,” I said. And I did. Sort of. She was a large, motherly black woman who had worked for Stephen’s family since Stephen had been at school.
“Good. Because I’ll be at the hospital all day tomorrow, and I don’t want you pulling a gun on her and scaring her out of her wits.”
“I rarely shoot the domestic staff,” I assured him. “I know good help is hard to find.” Truthfully, I thought it would take a lot more than a man with a gun to scare the wits out of Lena Roosevelt.
He turned back to the sink without comment. I stared at the long, unapproachable line of his back. Sometimes words merely complicated what was really quite a simple issue. I took a step forward and he said, “If you put your arms around me, I’ll knock you down, so help me God.”
I stopped.
Words then. I just needed to find the right words.
The sprinklers came on outside, filling the silence. And still Stephen didn’t face me.
I was supposed to be a pretty good negotiator, and yet I couldn’t think of any argument that would reach him in this mood. I was still too tired. That was the trouble. Once I’d caught up on my sleep I’d see the situation more clearly, find the right way to approach him.
He couldn’t have changed in his feelings for me that fast.
Two years.
“I think I’ll lie down for a bit,” I said.
Stephen’s hair was soft as silk, like spun silver threading through my fingers. I needed to touch, needed that connection because the pleasure of that mouth sucking strongly on my cock was almost frightening in its intensity. Hot wet delight of mouth on the pulsing heartbeat of my prick. Nothing should feel that good…sheer sensation sending me spinning out of control—overwhelming to feel this much. Dangerous. I gazed down into Stephen’s smiling eyes. All the warmth, all the love, all the tenderness —
“Mark.”
I opened my eyes at once. It was nearly dark, the twilight shadows lengthening into night. I was lying on a bed in a strange room. My pistol was…to the right of me within hand’s reach. But I didn’t move toward it; the voice in my dream had been Stephen’s.
And then I realized that it was not a dream. At least…disappointment vibrated through my neurons like the tongue of a mournful bell…I was not alone in the room. A pale blur stood in the doorway of the bedroom—and I remembered everything that had happened in the past four days.
Unbelievably—against all odds—I was really here. In Stephen’s home.
“Yes?” I moved to sit—and then put my hand to my side as my cracked ribs reminded me of recent events.
Stephen said, “Don’t get up. I just wanted to make sure you don’t need anything before I leave.”
“Before you leave?” I repeated, trying to make sense of that.
“I’m going out for a few hours. I have plans for the evening.”
“Plans?”
Simple English but I couldn’t seem to translate. A note in his voice sent a warning prickle down my spine. There was no reason he shouldn’t have plans. Stephen had a lot of friends—and a lot of responsibilities.
“Yes,” he said in that elaborately casual tone. “I’ll be back after midnight, and I’ll probably be gone before you’re awake in the morning, but I’ll ring you tomorrow around lunch time.”
“All right.” But my sense of unease grew.
He turned to leave—then turned back. “Are you sure you’re all right by yourself tonight?”
What on earth…?
I said gravely, “One night of my own company won’t drive me to put a bullet in my brain.”
“Not funny,” he said.
Wasn’t it? Probably not. I said, �
�I’m fine. I expect I’ll sleep right through.”
I could feel his hesitation. It was a little annoying, actually. Didn’t he believe me? Did he not trust me with the mint julep glasses? What was the problem?
“I’ll see you tomorrow,” he said finally.
I murmured something, waiting until he had returned downstairs, waiting until I heard the front door close. Getting out of bed, ignoring my body’s protest, I limped across the hall to the bedroom that looked down over the drive.
The porch light gleamed off the sterling of Stephen’s hair as he walked down the steps. There was another man with him. They were talking in low voices, but I heard Stephen’s husky laugh.
They crossed the drive to the sports car parked there. The second man, shorter and heavier than Stephen, unlocked the passenger side door, turning away. Stephen reached for him, and they kissed briefly.
The pain felt removed, almost distant. A little worse than the leg, a little less than the ribs. Bearable if I didn’t think about it or move suddenly.
Stephen lowered himself into car. The other man crossed around to the driver’s side. The car engine came on, the headlights illuminated a stone statue on the lawn. Pulling way quietly, the car disappeared down the drive.
I watched the red taillights till they disappeared from sight.
Two years was a long time. A very long time.
Chapter Three
The sound of a vacuum cleaner moving through the downstairs rooms…I opened my eyes to bright sunlight and the sound of birds outside the window. It was already warm but it was the gentle warmth of late spring in a civilized country—and for a few seconds I couldn’t think where the hell I was—like one of those novels where the hero wakes up on a different planet or fifty years in the past. I blinked up at the old-fashioned ceiling fan whispering overhead.
Then it all came rushing back. We’d been rolled up. The operation had gone bad, Barry and I had been arrested. It played out in my memory like a film: the ambush, our capture, our escape—Barry’s death.
I tried to put the pieces in order. The last four days seemed like a dream. A fever-dream. But two points were very clear: I had made straight for Stephen like a homing pigeon—and I was essentially AWOL. I had done a runner. I was playing E&E with my own team. I lay still absorbing it, dealing with it.
It took some absorbing.
Downstairs the vacuum turned off. I heard the back screen door bang open and shut, and then the dull thud of what sounded like someone beating a rug.
Shoving off the bedclothes, I hobbled over to the window and looked down on the yard below. I could see the top of Lena Roosevelt’s gray head. She was whaling away with a broom on one of Stephen’s antique Persian rugs. Buck pelted around her in a giant circle, apparently unable to contain his excitement. Divots of grass flew up beneath his feet as he rocketed around the yard. Lena directed an occasional acerbic comment his way.
For a time I watched her, watched the dog slow and eventually lose interest. He trotted down to the lake to harass the geese. It was peaceful. The sunlight flickering on the leaves of the hickory and magnolias had a soporific effect. But I’d slept plenty in the last twenty-four hours. It was time to pull myself together. Especially since my defection was unlikely to go unremarked. Interestingly, I cared less about what the Old Man would have to say than the fact that Stephen had promised to call around lunch time. The brass alarm clock on the dresser indicated it was nearly eleven o’clock.
I shrugged into the navy bathrobe and made my way down the hallway. The door to Stephen’s room was closed. I hesitated, but continued on. I could find out what I needed to know without resorting to that. And if I couldn’t…well, there was always that.
In the guest bathroom was a big, old-fashioned claw-foot bathtub and a bottle of tropical bubble bath on the windowsill. The “rain-flower scented” bubble bath—which didn’t seem at all Stephen’s kind of thing—proclaimed the merits of kukui nut oil and vitamin E. I poured a generous amount into a couple of inches of hot water and carefully lowered myself in.
I couldn’t afford to get my stitches or the taping around my ribs wet, but no way was I going to settle for soap and flannel. Whatever rain-flower scent was, it had to be an improvement over sweat and blood and whatever else I stank of. I splashed around in the few inches of water, scrubbed up the best I could, then hauled myself out. It took a while to shave off the beard. When at last it was gone and I’d rinsed the last whiskery traces down the sink, I stared at myself. The pallor of my jaw and chin was in marked contrast to the rest of my face. But there was something else. I looked closer. What was it? Why did that man in the mirror not look like…me?
Uneasily, I re-donned the bathrobe, heading downstairs.
I found Lena in the kitchen doing dishes. I knocked on the door frame in an effort not to startle her. She glanced over her shoulder and there was no particular pleasure in her face.
“Morning, Mr. Hardwicke. Dr. Thorpe said you were visiting.”
She was a tall, big-boned black woman of about seventy. She had handsome, rather severe features—definitely severe at the moment—and iron gray hair in a tight bun. She wore wire spectacles, sensible shoes, and a cotton dress with blue flowers. She didn’t appear to have aged a day in two years. I, on the other hand, felt a lifetime had passed.
“Lovely to see you again too, Mrs. Roosevelt,” I said, gently mocking that disapproving tone. “How’s the family?”
Her mouth tightened. “My family is fine, Mr. Hardwicke. Dr. Thorpe said to make you a good breakfast when you woke up. What would you like?”
A time machine? Failing that, I’d have liked Lena as an ally, but that obviously wasn’t going to happen. I said, “Anything is fine. You haven’t seen my clothes by any chance?”
“Your jeans are in the dryer now. I believe I got all the bloodstains out.” Her mouth compressed in further censure. “Dr. Thorpe left a shirt for you.” She nodded to where a white shirt on a wire hanger hung on one of the kitchen cupboard doors. “I can fix you eggs, French toast, pancakes…”
“Anything, really. Tea would be nice, but I can —”
No, I couldn’t. Her look stopped me cold. I was not a member of this family. I was a guest. An unwelcome guest at that.
I took the shirt, got my jeans from the dryer, and went upstairs to change. When I came back downstairs bacon was frying in a pan and Lena was dipping bread in a bowl. The kitchen was redolent with cinnamon and nutmeg and bacon. Pulling out a chair at the table, I said, “That smells good. I guess I’m hungrier than I thought.”
She sniffed, unmollified.
I gave her just enough time to forget about me sitting quietly at the table. She turned the bacon, put the egg-soaked bread in another pan, turned the heat down on the whistling tea kettle.
“How is Stephen? Is he all right?” I asked neutrally.
There was a little pause. She said without looking at me, “Dr. Thorpe is just fine.”
“Does he like working at the new hospital?”
Her profile softened minutely as she poured tea into a white china cup. “Yes, he does.”
I watched without comment as she splashed milk in my tea and sugared it appropriately. How the hell could she have possibly remembered how I took my tea?
As she brought the cup to me, I asked, “Is he still on the Save the Battlefields Committee?”
“He’s a member of the Battlefields Foundation, yes.” Her mouth twitched a little. I’d always suspected that, like me, she appreciated the wry humor in that.
“And the Arts Council? And the Theater Guild?”
I was teasing, but she wasn’t having any of the bonhomie stuff. “The Thorpes have lived in this valley for a long time. Mr. Stephen—Dr. Thorpe—is an important man to this community.”
“Yes.” I said, “He’s important to me too.”
She gave me a look then, but said nothing, turning back to the stove and flipping the toasting bread.
“I take it he’s seein
g someone now?”
I knew it was a difficult question. Stephen’s sexual orientation had been a problem for his politically-connected family, and while Stephen didn’t hide it, he didn’t flaunt it. Lena had been very kind to me when I was with Stephen, which led me to believe her sympathies had always been with him, but now I was an outsider, and talking about such a sensitive topic presented a quandary for her.
I didn’t think she was going to answer, but finally she said curtly, “Yes.”
“Do you like him?”
That offended her sensibilities on so many levels she didn’t know where to start. She finally spluttered, “Mr. Boxer is a very nice young gentleman. I do like him, not that my likes or dislikes amount to a hill of beans.”
By which I gathered that if Lena’d had her druthers, I wouldn’t be staying at Thorpe House. I didn’t care about that. What interested me was that Mr. Boxer was not a doctor, and he was “young,” which I took to mean younger than Stephen. But was he younger than me? Because Stephen had fretted a bit about the age difference between us.
I watched her flip the French toast onto a plate and sprinkle it with powdered sugar and cinnamon. She piled on the bacon and carried the plate to the table, positioning it perfectly on the lace placemat in front of me.
“I’m glad,” I said. “Stephen’s happiness matters to me.”
And it did, but she was right to give me that that grim look over the top of her glasses.
“Stephen Bodean Thorpe.” He was grinning.
“But that’s nothing,” I scoffed. “Try going through life with a last name like Hardwicke.”
He laughed, and I leaned forward and kissed him hard. I loved the way he tasted, a little different from everyone else. Clean and cool with a hint of spearmint. He kissed me hard back, insinuating his tongue into my mouth, and I shuddered in his arms.
