Cross Island

by Santino Hassell

  She didn’t believe the last part, and she was right to be skeptical.

  “Something fun” had turned into me looking at Stocks Live, reading various articles on The Economist, and plugging in the new Himalayan salt crystal lamp some weirdo at QFindr had given me as a get well present.

  I’d stopped by the office to collect a few items before taking my month-long vacation, and had found a large box on my desk full of notes and cards surrounding the pink lamp. When I’d given Oli a dry look, and he’d laughed and told me that it was the staff’s negotiation when he’d shut them down about a “get well party”.

  Sometimes, I didn’t know whether to laugh or thud my head against the wall at the culture of QFindr. At times, they were obviously very gung ho about celebrating everybody and everything, and other times they were just as salty and bratty as any other job. Although, at least there was an ebb to it instead of all misery all the time.

  And the lamp was kind of nice.

  It would have been a lot nicer if I was curled up on the couch in front of it with Victor.

  I tossed my phone to the side with a sigh and smoothed my hands over my face. Even after my post-Nunzio vow to make things right, I couldn’t bring myself to keep badgering him into responding to me.

  I wondered if he was alone in the apartment he shared with Tonya and Meredith. If he was bored. Lonely. Upset. I wondered if he missed me and felt confident that he did. Before my colossal fuck-up also known as the moment when I’d taken things for granted so I could take them into my own hands, it’d been clear that he had feelings for me. That he wanted me as much as I wanted him. But that didn’t mean he’d brush off my wrongdoings.

  It definitely didn’t mean I had the right to go barging back into his life and invading his space when he’d asked me not to.

  Maybe I could make an exception for a holiday? I was willing to pretend Thanksgiving mattered to me if it gave me a way to speak to him.

  A soft knock on the door jerked me out of my fantasies about phone calls that went both good and bad. I glared and got to my feet, half-expecting it to be Kevin—one of the guards they’d assigned to me after Victor had left. He wasn’t sleeping in the house, I’d forbidden it, but he was trading off with a new guy they’d hired.

  “Yes?” I asked, opening the door. “I told you that you should just—”

  Kevin wasn’t looking back at me, it was Victor. Victor with reddened cheeks and nose, his hood pulled over his head and an adorable scarf tucked into his coat, as it snowed on him. He raised his eyebrows and flashed that tiny smile of his.

  “Hey.”

  “What—” I couldn’t stop blink in disbelief, even when the cold wind and snow whipped inside and went straight through my thin sweater and cotton pants. “What are you doing here?”

  He held up a bag. “I brought a tired potpie. Thanksgiving edition.”

  I laughed, short and startled, before grabbing his arm and yanking him inside. He was ice cold and shivered even after I shut the door. He kept looking at me uncertainly, so I forged ahead and began ridding him of his coat to treat him like he was my boy that I still got to take good care of. When I slid his scarf from around his neck, my fingers brushed his skin, and he shivered again.

  “You look adorable with your nose all red,” I said. “Like a kid.”

  He frowned. “Stop with the kid thing.”

  “Fine.” I touched his face again, unable to resist, before running my hand through his messy dark hair. “Please tell me you’re staying for a while, and you didn’t just come to drop by a pity potpie.”

  “I sent Kevin home, so I guess I have no choice.”

  Relief blossomed inside of me. The urge to pull him in for a long overdue kiss grew strong, but I settled for grabbing the bag. “Then let’s go heat this up.”

  I headed to the kitchen, and he moved close behind me. Close enough that I could still feel the cold coming off his body, and his breath hit the back of my neck. I wondered if he could feel warmth radiating from me. If he’d let me share it with him—pull him close and hold him while covering him in kisses.

  The yearning was real, but I forced myself to act normal and turn on the oven. “Want a drink? Apple cider? Soda?”

  “I’m not really on the clock right now, so how about some of that fancy Scotch?”

  I raised an eyebrow. “Are you trying to recover from the cold, or are you in that type of mood?”

  Victor combed his hands through his hair. “Maybe both, man. I fought with myself for like three hours before coming over here. And changed my clothes twice.”

  I looked down at his clothes—sweatpants, tshirt beneath his hoodie, and Timbs. “What was your other option?”

  “Actual jeans, but then…” Victor’s mouth twitched, but he didn’t look away. “I remembered you had said you liked me in basketball shorts and sweatpants.”

  My breath whooshed out and my heart thrummed in my chest. “Does that mean…” I put my hands on the counter to keep them off the gorgeous body only a couple of feet from my own. “What does this mean?”

  Victor hunched forward with his forearms pressed against the counter. He dropped his eyes and tongued the inside of his lower lip. “It means I got tired of not getting to see or speak to you. It pretty much made me feel like shit.”

  My fingers curled into fists. “Even after what I did?”

  “Yeah. Even after that.” He shook his head. “Maybe that makes me a doormat.”

  “No,” I said quickly. “Not that I have the most… unbiased opinion.”

  “Yeah, you sure don’t.” Victor scoffed and glanced up at me. “You really fucked that up, you know. And I get that people make mistakes, because I know I’ve made enough of them in my past, but what really got to me is that you didn’t trust me enough to let me in on what you wanted to do. We could have planned it together.”

  The oven beeped behind me, jolting me out of the conversation. I turned, scattered and annoyed by the existence of food and appliances, and shoved the pot pie onto a cookie sheet. After putting it in the oven, I gathered my thoughts and looked at him again.

  “I’ve gone over this a thousand time since that night,” I said. “And at the time, all I could think about was the fact that… I wanted it done. I wanted it to be over. And I knew you would have never let me go act as bait. Because you’d know it was fucking stupid.”

  Victor raised his eyebrows. “So, you admit it now?”

  “Yes, I admit it. If you’d had your phone on silent, or were sleeping hard enough, you would have never heard the door beep when I left. I would have been fighting with him all alone in the park.” I’d had nightmares about that very possibility. They’d yanked me out of sleep until I was paranoid and frightened into checking every window and door in the house. “It was a mistake. I could have been killed.”

  Victor took a slow deep breath and briefly closed his eyes. “It means a lot to me that you admitted that.”

  “Because…”

  “Because now you get it,” he said sharply. “You get how stupid it is to risk your life because you’re impatient and determined to handle shit on your own. To not trust people to help you or give you advice. And maybe it means you won’t do it again.”

  “I won’t. Ever.” I walked around the counter and hesitated for only a moment before putting a hand on his shoulder. Instead of standing stiffly, he relaxed. When I trailed it up his neck and cupped his cheek with my hand, he leaned into me and sighed. “When you asked me if I’d do it again, I didn’t hesitate because I wanted to defend my actions,” I said softly, stroking his cheekbone. “I hesitated because I was still happy with the outcome, and at the time it was all I cared about. That relief and freedom of not being stalked, of us not being watched, was a weight off my shoulders. Travis is locked up with his rich mommy and daddy nowhere to be found, indicted for multiple felonies. It’s over.”

  Victor put his hand over mine. “It’s over, but it almost came at a cost, baby.”

  �
��I know.” I moved even closer to him. “And I can think of so many ways we could have gotten the same outcome differently. I can’t tell you how sorry I am for scaring you, for making you think you would have another Shawn on your hands, and for not treating you like my partner. I would kill you if you ever did something like that to me.”

  I saw a clear flash of relief on Victor’s face before he pulled me into a tight hug.

  “I needed to hear that so bad. I’m glad I came here with my tired pot pie.”

  My eyes slid shut as I inhaled the smell of his hair and cologne. “Thank you for coming. I was just thinking about all those plans we made together for today. And how we could be enjoying this snowy night. And every other night. Together.”

  Victor leaned back just enough to search my face. “When you say here together…”

  “In this house.” A lingering bit of self-doubt went through me, and for a minute… I pictured the look of surprise and guilt on Michael’s face when he’d said he wasn’t ready to move in together. I shoved it away, focusing on the man in front of me now. “Nothing changed. I still want you to stay here even if it’s only temporary.”

  Victor’s continued examining me, his eyes narrowed. “That’s really what you want?”

  “Access to you as much as possible? Especially during the next month when I have nothing to do but stay here as we get a new named goddamn winter storm every week?” I tightened my fingers in his hair, smiling when he bit his lower lip. “I literally can’t think of a thing I want more than that, Victor.”

  “Fuck, me either.” He pulled me into another embrace so tight that I released a sound that was half gasp and half laugh. “I hated being pissed at you,” he said in my ear. “But I hated that you didn’t seem to regret what happened. That you didn’t get it. Or maybe that you gave more of a shit about getting your way than the fact that your way was reckless as hell.”

  “I felt like a selfish bastard once the dust settled,” I said, running my hand along his spine. “And I wanted to call and tell you so goddamn much, but I was trying to respect your space.”

  “Yeah, well the space came in handy. I had time to figure shit out. And uh…” Victor leaned back, a wry smirk on his face. “Just so you know, basically everyone seems to know we’re fucking.”

  I smoothed hair out of his face. “Does that bother you?”

  “No. I’d already told Stephanie.”

  It wasn’t about me, so it shouldn’t have filled me with absolute glee, but it did, anyway. He’d told his sister. He didn’t care that his friends knew. We didn’t have to hide. I would have, for him, if he’d wanted me to, but… There was no need.

  “God, I want to be inside you right now,” I said abruptly. “Is it too soon after us making up, or…”

  Victor brushed his mouth against mine and groaned when I bit his lower lip. I pressed him against the counter and kissed him hard until I went dizzy and had to come up for air.

  “I want to be here with you,” he said. “So much, Clive.”

  “Thank God.” I kissed down the side of his face, to his jaw, then tilted his head back so I could suck his Adam’s apple. “Now let me apologize the right way.”

  “What way?”

  I grinned, bit him one last time, then slowly sunk to my knees. “This way.”

  Victor leaned his elbows on the counter, already breathing hard. “What about the food?”

  “We have forty minutes before that thing is ready.” I sat back on my haunches and lifted my chin. “Now get your pants down before I lose patience and do it for you.”

  Him smirking wasn’t exactly what I’d had in mind when giving the order, but I found myself smiling back.

  And he still dropped his pants.

  ~Epilogue to come~

  Happy Thanksgiving!

  Epilogue

  Clive

  The Buckley-Stone Christmas party was more lavish than usual. Their enormous penthouse was decorated with multiple Christmas trees—some smaller than others—, wreaths of varying colors, candles, and there was a decadently catered spread of food in the state-of-the-art kitchen that people could approach to serve themselves.

  There were only a couple dozen people in attendance, which was smaller than I’d expected, but he’d apparently kept work-related guests for the QFindr holiday party while only inviting close friends to this one. It had worked, but I was still rubbing elbows with the nearly twenty people who made up the various couples and relationships that had spawned out of the unions of multiple friend groups. As Michael had said nearly two months ago now—the NYC queer scene was apparently much smaller than anyone had expected.

  “This shit is good,” Victor said around a mouthful of puff pastry. He was wearing his usual outfit of dark wash jeans, a black sweater that hugged his broad shoulders, and Timberland boots. He was also growing a beard which generally made me want to maul him on a regular basis. Which I did. “What even is it?”

  I snagged the half-eaten pastry and popped the other end into my mouth. After a moment of chewing, I said, “Some kind of meat. I figured you’d be able to identify that.”

  “I’m only a pro at identifying sausage, son.”

  Snickering, I dusted the crumbs from my hands. “I actually think it is spicy sausage. With herbs.”

  “Well it’s good as fuck.” Victor sucked grease off his thumb as his dark eyes roamed the room, stopping briefly before moving on. “Am I antisocial since I just want to stay here and eat all night without talking to other people?”

  I snorted. “To be honest, I think they’d be shocked if we became social butterflies.”

  Victor gave me a sideways glance. “Man, you are friendlier with more of them than I am. There’s no comparison.”

  “Not really.”

  “You think so? Fine, let’s count.” A laugh began to rumble in my chest as he surveyed the room and ticked off fingers. “Four people. Tonya, Meredith, Stephanie, and Angel. Four out of nineteen or twenty. That’s embarrassing.”

  “Oli, Caleb, and Aiden like you,” I reminded him. “Caleb called me again yesterday afternoon to make sure you were coming.”

  “What’d you tell him?”

  I smirked. “I told him you weren’t coming at that moment but would be later that night.”

  Victor stared at me for a second before realization dawned on his face. He choked on the swig of champagne he’d just taken, and released a sound that was half choke and half laugh. He glared at me after managing to regain his composure, but there was no mistaking his amusement. There were times since he’d moved in that I still wondered how open we were about our relationship, and whether we were on the same page, but moments like this made it clear that we were.

  Without thinking, I leaned in to press a soft kiss to his lips. I’d meant it to be quick, not wanting to push it further with the PDA, but his lips parted and my tongue slid inside. Making out in Caleb’s and Oli’s kitchen had been low on my list of things to accomplish before leaving, but whenever I tasted the inside of his hot wet mouth… I couldn’t get enough.

  He’d started working with Chester to guard Kenneth Stone earlier in December, but since I was still on vacation until the new year, there had been plenty of time for us to spend in bed. Or on the couch. In the kitchen. Completely undisturbed since we’d dropped the guard duty, and our asshole stalker was still sitting in jail and waiting for his trial. With nothing to worry about, and no one to listen, Victor and I had taken a sex multiple times a day approach to our honeymoon period.

  The kitchen had become a reoccurring scene of impromptu sex. It turned out that he liked to cook way more than I did, and I couldn’t resist whenever he was turned to the sink or the counter. It was situations like me waking up to find him cooking in his underwear, with his butt, thick muscular thighs, and tattooed body on display, that had led to me eating his ass for breakfast.

  And Victor had discovered he enjoyed that sexual act… quite a bit. He’d discovered a lot in the past month.

/>   “Ahem,” Oli’s voice came from over my shoulder. “I’ve already told everyone that the guest room is open for quickies, but we should probably keep it away from the food.”

  I reluctantly released Victor, who had the full-on heavy-lidded, dilated eyed, come-fuck-me look on, and turned to Oli. Before I could get a word out, Victor moved closer to me until his front was pressed to my back—and his erection to my ass.

  Apparently, he definitely had zero qualms about showing he wanted me in front of everyone in this massive penthouse.

  Oli nodded slowly, looking between us. “Okay, okay, we have PDA. Subtle humping in front of other people. We’re liking this.”

  “Who is we?” I asked dryly. “Are you speaking about yourself in third person?”

  “The ghosts of Christmas past, present, and future.” Oli smirked. “They’ve been keeping me company since I Grinched it up and shot down Caleb’s ridiculous idea to give new MacBooks to the entire QFindr staff for the holidays.”

  “That is ridiculous. Good job,” I said.

  “Nuh-uh,” Victor rumbled in my ear. “Give them away and write that shit off.”

  Oli whistled. “Savvy. I like it. Maybe I’ll just buy one for you, Victor. I’ll upgrade the terrible white elephant present you will inevitably get tonight.”

  “I still have no clue how white elephant or whatever is played,” Victor informed him. “There wasn’t really a ton of holiday game playing in the Quinones household growing up.”

  “Yeah, my house either,” Oli said. “I learned from obnoxious friends who are determined to be festive no matter what.” He made a gagging gesture.

  I reached behind me to squeeze Victor’s hamstring while still looking at Oli be grouchy. “Wow, you really are cranky about the holidays. Do you need a nap?”

  “More like the quickie I mentioned earlier. My husband gave me no quality time today because he was more worried about you people enjoying this party,” Oli complained. “He’s gonna get it later. Especially if I manage to steal back my own gift.”

  “Oh Lord,” I muttered, sighing deeply. “It’s not a whole fucking machine is it?”