by Sky McCoy
I knew I would see him again, but not in the capacity I wanted to see him, and yet I couldn’t bring myself to accept his apology.
Chapter 3
Jeremy
When I walked into the house exhausted, Jack had opened another bottle of Scotch. From the look of the half-empty bottle, he’d been affected by Carter, however, he didn’t want to admit it. He wanted to think about anything but that, and so did I. I sauntered in and dropped my coat. I stared past him as I poured myself a drink. He had an empty glass waiting for me on the bar.
“How did it go, Jeremy?” Jack said, turning his body to face me standing in the open patio doors leading outside. He’d been sitting on the patio and smoking. “How the fuck did you think it went. I can’t work today. I had to feed the baby—and I had to deal with Carter. I can’t do this anymore. I finally talked Carter out of his office, and authorities took him to the hospital. How the fuck do you think that went?”
“I’m not talking about Carter. You know what I meant. How did it go with, Dorian? You know he’s fucking cute when he gets mad, cuter than I thought. I never knew that I’d be attracted to someone you’d found attractive. But I got some good vibes from being near him.”
I didn’t know how Jack could discuss frivolous shit, pissing me off in the same sentence while his brother was in the hospital by now, being evaluated, and here he was asking me about Dorian. I couldn’t even think about Dorian now. I didn’t think I could think about anyone for months after the ordeal I’d been through alone.
“I wouldn’t go changing into a top just yet. And don’t you fuck around with Dorian, even if we’ve broken up. Don’t ask me about Dorian with Carter on my mind.” When he saw my expression, he raised his palms to me.
“Hold up, you can’t think that I was serious. I was trying get your mind off Carter and on to something more palpable. There’s no way we can help Carter now. He needs more help than you or I can give him, don’t you know that? We should have gotten him the best help years ago.”
I knew what Jack was saying had been the right thing to do about Carter, but I thought with love and time he’d get past his accident and live a productive life. He did as long as his wife was alive, but now she was no longer here, and everything I was trying to prevent came to fruition. I had to admit that there was too much water in the dam to plug the cracks with just a finger.
After pouring two fingers of Scotch into the glass, I allowed the liquor to do its job. The heat from the drink crashed over and through me. I hoped I could sleep after this. I blurted out to Jack. “I’m in love. I’m finally in love,” I admitted.
“Well that will be a first. You know when you fall in love you open yourself up to all kinds of heartache.” Yeah like the one I had now over Dorian. “I don’t want to come here and find that you’ve thrown yourself over this railing because you’re in love.”
I plopped down on the sofa next to Jack and extended my long legs on the table where Jack had a drink and an ashtray.
“Where did you find that shit,” I said, after kicking at the ashtray where Jack had just laid his cigarette. “I thought you had stopped smoking.” I reached over and took the cigarette and placed it in my mouth, inhaled in the smoke and blew out. “I can’t see what you get out of this?”
“That’s because you’re not a smoker. It calms me down.”
“Sex calms me,” I said. “But I guess I won’t have any for a long time because I can’t see getting hard for anyone but Dorian, and he hates my guts.”
“I’ve had the best sex of my life when I hated the man I was fucking.”
I turned to Jack and laughed. I had to give it to him, he knew how to distract me from my thoughts. “Dorian looked at me this morning as if he’d sooner see me dead.”
“You must be almost dead now.” Jack chuckled. “When I headed back to bed this morning, this house smelled of nothing but sex. Did you fuck Dorian in every room?”
I glanced over at Jack after handing him his cigarette. “Pretty much.”
“And what were you doing before you fucked up something that can’t be un-fucked?”
“Do you mean how I handled that thing about you and Dorian?” I questioned Jack.
“No. That’s the last thing I want to hear. There are more pressing things to discuss than a misunderstanding between you and Dorian. He loves you, I know, and eventually he’ll forgive you.” I wished I’d had his confidence about Dorian. “I thought you meant how you’re going to tell Jarrett and Thomas—”
“About the baby?” I asked.
“No about you being gay,” Jack insisted.
“I’m not going to do that now. I think those two social climbers have enough to explain when the news media discovers that they have a brother in a mental institution. Dorian doesn’t want to see me anymore and I’m trying not to care. As far as the gay part, I don’t give a fuck what they think any longer. They’re living their lives the way they want, and I’ll be damned if I have to make excuses for how I live. I’m thirty-one fucking years old. Had a birthday, and because I’ve had too much to contend with, forgot about it. And what the fuck were you doing on our birthday?”
“You don’t want to know, big brother. I might have to kill you,” he snorted, then aimed a serious glare at me. As usual he didn’t want to talk about himself. “So, you’re just going to go back to your life of a straight man? Tell me how you’re going to do that?”
“I don’t know. And I didn’t say that I would go back in the closet. I haven’t worked that out yet.” I rose, crossed my arms over my chest and shrugged. “I’m going in. It’s too cold out here. Bring in my glass and the Scotch if there’s any left... Or leave it, I don’t care.”
“I’ll stay out here a while longer. I have something to think about.”
I glanced over at Jack. “I hope you’re not obsessing over Maxwell. You know he’s happily married.”
“Of course not.”
When I walked to the patio door, I turned and looked back at Jack. I knew that Jack never got over Maxwell Gold, and seeing him again only made it worse. He was drinking too much and he’d started smoking. Jack didn’t have a man he could call his own. Or so I believed.
When I stepped into the kitchen, searching around the fridge for something to eat, I found roast beef for a sandwich and bottles of Heineken. Just as I was ready to relax, the doorbell rang. I probably missed the doorman calling in. I checked the security camera and headed for the door, and opened it.
“Max, Jami, what are you doing here? Come in. Come in.” My first thought was that Jack had done something that would have caused Max and his partner to come here from California. I concluded that Jack had done something to threatened Max’s marriage, and Max needed Jack to confirm that he’d never been dishonest with Jami by fooling around with him since they’d been married, and was here to prove that his marriage to Jami had been as strong as before.
If anything was wrong, Jami didn’t show it on his face. He’d always been quiet except in front of Max’s friends. If he knew them, then soon he’d be chatting and making jokes. However, I didn’t know Jami well. I had only met him at the auction, and I’d spoken to him for a few minutes. “I was just making myself a sandwich. I have beer—”
“I can make sandwiches for the both of you, if you’d like,” Jami said, looking my way for affirmation.
“Sorry, I don’t have anything else to offer you. Jack and I drank all the Scotch. I think we have some vodka.”
“No. Why don’t you tell Jeremy why we’re here, baby, and I’ll make the sandwiches.” Jami smiled, as he encouraged Max with a hand gesture, then he sauntered in the direction of the kitchen.
“Sit down, Max,” I whispered. “I hope Jack didn’t do something that we’ll regret. You know he’s here.”
“That’s why we came...” I raised an eyebrow, hoping Jack didn’t fuck up my personal and professional relationship with Max. “...to talk to Jack.”
“He’s on the terrace. If you need me
to verify that nothing happened between you and Jack I will.”
Max chuckled and sat down beside me. “It’s nothing like that. You don’t have to swear anything to Jami. He knows me better than I know myself. He knows that I will never look at another man. I have everything I need with him.”
“Then what is it? I thought you’d be in New York by now.”
“It’s that damn production company that I bought into, that’s keeping me in Los Angeles. I came to discuss with Jack about providing security for me and my family. He knows men who take their jobs seriously. I’ve had to fire the group I hired in California as they can’t be trusted. We’ve had to move twice because someone broke into my home when we were in Seattle.”
“Jack offered to help make sandwiches and he has the beer,” Jami said, carrying a tray with finger sandwiches. “I cut these into small portions.” He handed Max a napkin and one of those tiny sandwiches. Not my idea of food. Jack smiled and handed out the beers. “Max needs to watch what he eats, and since you had nothing but meat and cheese in the fridge—”
“I was just telling Jeremy that those steaks and sandwiches will kill him,” Jack said with a chuckle, then sitting across from Max and me. Then he patted the cushion next to him. “Sit near me, Jami. I hope you don’t mind Max?”
“Of course not. Sitting across from you I can ask you this.” I glanced over at Jack and then Max and finally Jami. Jami had placed his hand over Jack’s. Now that was something I didn’t see coming, that he felt comfortable enough to touch Jack. Jack was never the kind of man who liked to be touched by anyone except his mother, and probably one or two lovers, but he would allow Jami into his soul, which said a lot about Jami’s ability to connect with an outlier like Jack.
“I need you, Jack.”
Jack’s eyes widened. He turned to Jami and Jami smiled one of his wide cheerful smiles. Then Jack’s brow narrowed. I knew what he was thinking and so did Max.
“No. It’s nothing like that,” Jami’s smile widened.
Jack sucked in a large breath and let it out. I knew Jack had thought that Max wanted him to spice up their love life, but it wasn’t a party Max or Jami had in mind.
“I need someone to watch my family and children when I’m away.”
“What’s the problem?”
“Our house has been broken into several times, and I had to fire the security company. There’s one company who owns all the security in Los Angeles. Their best people have been working for the same families and we’re new in L.A., and I’m left with subpar security.”
“I can find you guys that have served with me in Afghanistan, but I have my hands full in Seattle. Did Jeremy tell you about our brother, Carter, and Jeremy’s child?”
Jami glanced over at Jack.
“Max didn’t tell me anything. If you can’t do it we understand—”
“I’m not saying I won’t do it, but my stay can’t be long. It can’t be a steady job. I can arrange for a group of men who will guard your family with their lives, that’s the best I can do for you, Max. Then I have to return to Seattle because of other clients.”
That was the first time I’d heard about clients in Seattle. I knew there was a reason he’d kept that hotel room, yet I didn’t know everything about why.
“Whatever you can do to help us, Jack. I won’t forget it,” Max said.
I stared at Jack, and Jami watched the longing in Jack’s eyes, but Jack knew there could never be anything between him and Max. For Jack it was like seeing a beautiful expensive car that you’d never be able to afford, but you couldn’t help but dream. And that was what kept Jack going—his dream and admiration of Max.
And that was what kept me going when my mind wandered to Dorian.
Chapter 4
Dorian
I’d been sitting at my desk trying to fix some of the plans Phillip had neglected. I’d managed to correct some of the things he’d fucked up since he met his blond Viking, Eric. I didn’t know Eric’s real name. Maybe I’d imagined that his name was Eric because he’d looked tall and blond, although he might have been only six feet, more or less, and Phillip might have called him by that name, but neither Phillip nor Eric corrected me.
When I glanced over at my open door, I heard Phillip’s soft sole shoes scraping on the tiles. He’d finally come in to work.
“Well look at what the cat drug in,” I said as he appeared to sneak in.
“That’s not funny, Dorian.”
“Says who?” I continued using my pencil and pen to even out some of his sketches. Phillip stood near my door, then figured it was safe enough to enter and stroll around to my desk and watch me make sketches.
“You know you’re good at this. You might be the best architect on the west coast. I must take some credit for it, though.”
“You should, Phillip. By all means take credit for working my ass off and leaving me a shitload of work that had to be finalized in a day,” I barked, glaring up at him. “And I have this house to complete for Jeremy Westbrook.”
“The Jeremy Westbrook? That beautiful man we saw in the restaurant.” I didn’t want to tell Phillip that it wasn’t Jeremy, but Jack, his twin, but that would have started a long conversation that I didn’t have time for. I had to doctor plans that should have been submitted like yesterday. “The one who had you drunk out of your mind and just about ruined my life the night you came over smashed, pissed drunk, and feeling sorry for yourself?”
“I wasn’t pissed drunk, I was wasted. If I was pissed drunk, I would have slugged Eric first, and then baptized him when he’d fallen to the floor.”
“Since I’ve been away from you, I really don’t know you, Dorian. I’d say that Jeremy Westbrook has changed you and not for the better.”
“Don’t get too carried away with yourself, trying to blame someone else for what you had a hand in. Jeremy didn’t change me, it was you. And aside from you being a pussy for Eric, you know nothing about our business anymore. You didn’t know we were getting business from that handsome fucking—”
“I assume when you speak about him now, when before you’d die for him, that you two are no longer an item.” Phillip raised an eyebrow and appeared to be reveling in my misery.
“We were never a fucking item. Not like you and that... that... animal doctor.” I wanted to throw something at Phillip for being the catalyst that helped put my life into disarray. I didn’t want this. I wanted something calm. I wanted a man who knew he was gay and had no qualms about it. That used to be Phillip, and now I hated him for putting me out there where I had found my heart broken once again. “Did you know that Jeremy has a twin brother?”
Phillip sat with a curious grin on his face. “Really? Is he...?”
“Yes, he’s gay and I don’t know if he’s available. I don’t want you fucking around with him. He looks dangerous. One of those war types. He’s nobody to fuck with. You don’t want that animal doctor to come up missing if you make the mistake of sucking Jack’s cock and making promises to him you can’t deliver. I think he’s into some kind of sadomasochistic shit. You know, BDSM, whips handcuffs—”
“Do tell?” Phillip murmured, as his eyes sparkled.
I had to tell Phillip something, but the way I saw Phillip’s eyes hit high beams when I said Jack was dangerous, and the mention of whips and handcuffs, I really didn’t know this man. The only men Phillip could handle were me and his doctor friend Eric, and the only dangerous shit he’d ever come close to, was inhaling some of the leftover fumes on Eric’s coat after he’d put an animal to sleep. If Phillip had any notion of hooking up with men into BDSM, then he’d be clear out of his element. He was fucked if he thought he could get involved with anyone like that.
I’d guessed about Jack being into bondage, and I’d gambled that Phillip would have been turned off, but then I’d been wrong when I saw Phillip’s face, and probably wrong about Jack.
“Since you’re being such a good boy and got our business out of—” Phillip didn’t fin
ish that statement, and it was probably something I didn’t want to hear, especially since I had been working constantly, and didn’t know the health of our company.
“What, Phillip? Say it.”
“I was wondering if you’d like to go to a fundraiser. You’ve been down lately—”
“Don’t tell me, Doctor Kevorkian won’t be able to make it, so you come to me. Where were you when I needed you?”
“I just thought you’d like to go out and meet people and not stay at home nursing your wounds. You can meet men, and you don’t have to pay for the dinner.”
“Like I didn’t have to pay for that fucking auction. I’ll have to work my ass off to get out of that debt.”
“Just see our accountant, he’ll help. Now do you want a free dinner tonight or what?”
“I knew there was a catch. Tonight?”
“I’ll pick you up at eight.”
Chapter 5
Dorian
Phillip was in front of my door exactly at 8 p.m. This had to be a very important fundraiser. It took a half hour to get to the hotel where the dinner was being held. I didn’t ask him how much the plate had cost because I had no intentions of paying for mine. I didn’t even want to open that conversation up.
After Phillip handed the cute twink the keys, he leaned in and whispered in his ear, before the twink handed him a ticket and drove off.
“What did you say to him, Phillip?”
“Nothing.” I narrowed my gaze.
“Okay, I asked him what he was doing later. Now don’t act like you’re jealous.”
“I’m far from being jealous. I just wanted to know if you’re going to leave me here while you go fuck that twink in your car. I don’t want to be around when that doctor of yours catches your ass.”
Phillip glanced at me and smirked. “I think you’re jealous.”
“Don’t flatter yourself. You’re selling something that’s not worth buying. You’re not worth my time anymore.”
