by Riley Knight
“Sam …”
“Gunner …”
They spoke at the same time, and then they both paused, before laughing once more. The tension between them dissolved away into nothing, and though it seemed far too good to be true, at that moment it felt to Sam like all of the hurt, all of the fear, all of the secrets, dissolved away into nothing.
It was like it had been before, when they lay in bed, cradled in each other’s arms, simply talking. Or even just lying there, basking in each other’s warmth. Sam thought that, against all the odds, maybe this thing between them could work out to really be something.
Gunner pulled him gently close, his eyes asking permission, and Sam barely hesitated. There were cops in the room, and the few patrons too drunk to exercise the better part of valor, not to mention Gunner’s ex-boyfriend. Sam should have been terrified to let himself do this, but somehow, he wasn’t. There was no more fear, none at all.
So he moved closer as Gunner’s arms requested, and his eyes slipped shut, eyelids blocking out the sight of everyone who was watching, everyone who could be watching.
It didn’t matter. Not at all, and that was the most curiously liberating thing. It was just about Sam, and Gunner, and what they felt for each other. They were in a public place, but Sam let his lips brush sweetly over Gunner’s, let his body be pulled flush against him, right in front of anyone who cared to watch.
“I love you, Gunner,” Sam finally spoke the words which had been haunting him for so long, and for a moment, he thought that Gunner would just smile at him. But it wasn’t that long before Gunner spoke.
“I love you, too, Sam,” he admitted, and then they were kissing again, and everything, somehow, would be okay. Sam knew it with everything in him. The details of that weren’t important right at the moment, only the love was.
TWENTY-TWO
How long would it take for Gunner’s heart rate to go back down to normal? For the pulsing of his blood in his veins to slow, for the throbbing in his temples, the rising taste of copper and fear in the back of his throat to subside? How long would it take him to believe, heart, mind, and soul, that he was actually safe now?
Pulled from his thoughts by the brief squeeze of Sam’s hand in his own as they stepped out into the comparatively cooler air outside, Gunner turned to look at the younger man. It was still quite difficult for him to believe that Sam was here at all, that the younger man had gone through the work of tracking him down. Didn’t Sam think that Gunner was the dangerous criminal, the one who needed to be defended against?
“What’s up?” Sam murmured, and his gaze was deeply intimate. More than that, he didn’t pull his hand away from Gunner’s. He had spent most of their time together denying that they were together, Sam had, and now, he was openly holding Gunner’s hand.
It was a small thing, maybe, but to Gunner, it felt deeply significant. It gave him something like hope, and he smiled a little at the beautiful man at his side, and for the first time in years, maybe since he was a child, he knew what it was to be really, truly, deeply contented.
“I was just thinking, it’s weird not to think about running anymore,” Gunner admitted. “I can do anything now. Well, not anything. I still have the criminal record.” And how strange was it for him to just openly say those words? They sat oddly in his mouth, and he half expected Sam to turn on him again, but Sam just nodded a little.
“Yeah, they probably won’t hire you at a bank or a liquor store,” Sam’s voice was easy enough, with none of the tension that Gunner would have expected, and, more than that, none of the judgment. Just a mere statement of fact and Gunner had been prepared to bristle at Sam, but he couldn’t even argue with that.
“Luckily,” Sam continued briskly, tugging Gunner slightly down the block, seemingly knowing exactly where he was going, which was a good thing because Gunner was pretty clueless about that. He was relatively sure he had just quit his job, so he was pretty unsure about nearly everything right now. “You don’t need to find a job. You have one already.”
Gunner stopped them both, using his grip on Sam’s hand to make the other man face him. He searched that beautiful face, for once not letting himself get lost in that beauty. It was too easy to linger on brilliant green eyes, sharp cheekbones, the sweet fall of shaggy, golden brown hair, and those impossibly sinful lips of his. But instead, Gunner looked into his face, right into his soul, as best he possibly could.
Was this a game? Gunner’s trust had never been easily gained, at least not ever since he’d been put in jail. He’d opened himself up to Sam, and Sam had trampled on his heart, sent him away. Could Gunner even handle it if that happened again?
“What do you mean?” Gunner asked, and though Sam seemed confident enough, Gunner was looking at Sam closely enough that he could see the uncertainty in the very depths of Sam’s eyes.
“I mean, I think it’s time for you to come home,” Sam spoke in a voice barely above a whisper, pitched for Gunner’s ears and his ears alone. “Babe, I never should have sent you away. I’m sorry.”
For someone as proud as Sam was, Gunner knew that those two words, I’m sorry, didn’t come easily. He knew that Sam would usually avoid saying them completely, and the fact that he would humble himself to say them at all meant more to Gunner even than the fact that they were still holding hands.
“Sammy,” Gunner whispered, his voice embarrassingly thick, but maybe that was okay because there was a little bit of a suspicious gleam in Sam’s eyes, too. “I shouldn’t have lied to you. I’m sorry, too.”
The words hung in the air between them, warm and promising safety, stability, all of the things which Gunner was slowly coming to realize that he could now have. There had been a sword hanging over his head too long, and now, it had been knocked away. If Sam was offering, Gunner, for the first time, could wholeheartedly accept.
“I know why you did,” Sam admitted and then tugged gently on Gunner’s hand. “It stinks here. Come on, let’s at least get out of Austin.”
Gunner took a few steps, and then his eyes finally left Sam long enough that he saw it. His baby. A piece of him that he had been missing, though he hadn’t let himself think about it much at all. But now that piece of him had been reunited, and Gunner had to stop, utterly overwhelmed by it all.
“You brought me my bike.”
Even as he said the words, Gunner could hardly believe it. His tone came out flat, almost dull, and he knew it, but he couldn’t do anything about it. It was incredible enough that Sam had come to get him, that he must have searched half the bars in Austin to find him, but to also bring him the one thing that Gunner had had that was his own for years, that was intense.
“Yeah. Don’t be pissed,” Sam spoke, the words spilling out too rapid fire for Gunner, as amazed as he was, to get even a word in edgewise. “Mike gave me the keys. He finished up the bike for you and then I said I would bring it to you and …”
Gunner suddenly pulled Sam close, gathering him up into his arms and silencing him with a firm, joyful kiss. And right there on the street, Sam kissed him back, strong arms winding around Gunner and clutching him close even out in public as they were. Sure, it was late, but there were a few people around, and it meant everything that Sam would kiss him, that he wasn’t ashamed of what they had together.
“Thank you,” Gunner whispered, the fierceness of the tone of voice surprising even him a little bit. But Sam seemed to relax, still standing there on the dirty gray concrete, arms around Gunner and Gunner’s arms around him, and the rest of the world be damned.
When they finally pulled away, Gunner turned to walk around the bike, surveying her from the handlebars all the way to the tailpipe. There was nothing to find fault with. Not a single thing. She looked better than she had in years, all dents, all scratches, all signs of age and wear smoothed out.
“Hey,” Sam spoke, after mercifully giving Gunner an appropriate amount of time to enjoy this reunion, “Catch.”
Gunner got his hands up just in tim
e, and Sam tossed something metallic, something which merrily clinked as it flew through the air. His keys. Gunner stared down at them and then shot Sam a cocky little wink as he straddled his bike once more.
“Room for one more,” Gunner invited and then, somewhat to his wonder, Sam, his uptight, straight-laced, proper Sam, actually slid onto the back of the bike and wrapped his arms around Gunner’s middle, his chin resting briefly on Gunner’s shoulder before they both put on their helmets.
There would still be more to talk about, of course. A hell of a lot more that needed to be cleared up between them. But for the moment, Gunner wanted nothing more than to feel the man he loved behind him on his bike, the road under his wheels, and the engine of his bike rumbling between his thighs as they drove off together into their future.
For the first time, Gunner could let himself believe that that future might just be a bright one, after all.
TWENTY-THREE
Just outside of town, Gunner pulled the bike onto a side road and rolled down it a little before cutting the engine. There was nothing around, not for miles. Fields which would be filled with cows in the daytime stood silent and empty, and Sam couldn’t even see a house, or a barn, from where they were.
They might as well be completely alone in the world, just Sam and Gunner and the stars bearing silent witness as they marched slowly, twinkling, across a dark blue velvet sky.
For a moment, Gunner just sat there, and then he got off the bike and pulled the helmet from his head. Sam followed, his legs a bit shaky from the vibrations of the motor, but more than that, he had to wonder why Gunner had stopped. Why the other man had decided not to just go into town. Was Sam about to hear some bad news? Had he just messed up too badly, and was Gunner about to tell him that he couldn’t forgive him?
“Gunner?” Sam finally prompted, when he just couldn’t stand the suspense anymore. He balanced his helmet carefully on the bike and then looked plaintively at the other man, trying to beg him without words just to speak to him. To say anything would be better than just having to wait like this.
“There’re two things,” Gunner spoke, his voice that same sweet, seductive low growl that it always had been, his hazel eyes glimmering almost gold as a sharp contrast to the diamond sparkle of the stars above.
“Okay …” Sam drew the word out, turning it into a question, and trying to quell the clench in his stomach which was far too ready to turn into panic at any second. He didn’t know that this was going to be bad, he reminded himself, but with how rocky their relationship had been, it wouldn’t be exactly out of character for what had happened in the last hour to be an uncharacteristic sweet note.
“First, does Mike want me back? What about Isaac and Ben?”
Sam allowed his tense shoulders to relax a little bit, though he was sure there would still be knots in them. But that was a completely reasonable question, and it made sense that Gunner would want to know about that before he made any sort of decision.
“Mike wants you back, yeah, and Ben and Isaac …” Sam trailed off a little as he winced, remembering that highly embarrassing conversation that he’d had with the two men who had essentially raised him. “Gunner and Isaac think I’m an idiot for ever letting you go.” Sam paused once more and then, well, he figured that Gunner decided to hear the words. “And they were right.”
Gunner smirked just a little bit, an expression which once would have infuriated Sam but now, God help him, he actually found it a little bit endearing.
“But they don’t know why you did it,” Gunner noted, and Sam nodded slowly, pretty sure he got where this was going.
“Yeah. It wasn’t my secret to tell. I didn’t tell anyone, and I don’t think Mike did, either.” Mike was a good guy. Discrete. Loyal, once his loyalty had been won.
“Okay. So if I stay, that’s going to have to be dealt with,” Gunner mused, more to himself than to Sam, and that panic threatened to floor through Sam all over again. If Gunner stayed? Was that what he had just said? If?
“Why?” Sam heard his own voice and barely recognized it. It seemed that once he cared, once he fell, he fell hard, and the thought that he could actually lose Gunner had freaked him out, no doubt about it. Things had seemed so promising. “Baby, they don’t need to know. It’s not like it’ll matter. And you already have a job, and …”
Gunner reached out, and the calloused tip of his finger brushed against Sam’s lips, silencing him quite effectively.
“I’m done with hiding.”
Those words were so simple, but Sam knew that they were also a challenge. Was Sam, too, done hiding? Could he truthfully say the same? For a moment, Sam dropped his eyes, both acknowledging the point and also allowing his own thoughts to percolate a little bit through his brain.
The truth was, he couldn’t help but respect Gunner for that decision. Gunner lying to Sam through omission had nearly been enough to ruin their relationship, and no doubt Gunner didn’t want that hanging over his head anymore. But it was terrifying because while he was pretty sure that Ben would be okay with it, he didn’t know about Isaac, who still had some son of the preacher thought processes sometimes.
Slowly, Sam let his lips part, let his teeth graze over the fingertip which still rested against his lips. Gunner gave a soft hiss, and then it was Sam’s turn to smirk. No matter what else was going on, he still had that. He could make Gunner hard for him, could make him make the sexiest noises in the history of the world.
“Okay,” Sam finally whispered. The sound of his own voice seemed to act as a lens, focusing his thoughts until they made some sort of sense. “Okay. Cool. You talk to my family about that, and I …” Sam knew what he was about to do, and he would be lying if he said that there wasn’t still some fear involved. But what there wasn’t was uncertainty. Not anymore. He knew that this was the right thing to do, and when it was the right thing, he’d been taught that fear wasn’t a good enough reason not to do it.
“I won’t hide anymore, either.”
They had both been hiding, and for the first time, Sam realized, they stood before each other, completely bared to each other. Sam would come out, stop trying to hide that he was attracted to men and that he had fallen in love with one. Gunner would stop trying to hide his past.
They came together as though drawn by powerful, irresistible magnets, their lips meeting. It wasn’t exactly gentle, but it was complicated, their first kiss where they had both fully committed to making this work. To not hiding anymore, not from each other and not from anyone else.
When that kiss finally broke, Sam’s lips were tingling. Hell, his whole body was tingling. He could barely breathe, and in a second, he knew that he would pounce on Gunner, right here on this side road in front of God and the stars and the empty fields.
But first, there was something that they needed to have out, one more thing. So Sam rubbed at his lips, ignored his throbbing dick as best he could, and tried, he really did, not to look down at the front of Gunner’s pants. But he failed at that and fought back a groan as he saw how swollen he was, how tight the front of his jeans were, the obvious line of his thick cock stretching it, tenting it out as best it could.
It had to be painful, and Sam knew that because he was in the same situation.
“You said there were two things,” Sam reminded him. Reminded them both, and even took a step back to keep Gunner from reaching for Sam, or Sam for Gunner, or both of them for each other at the same time.
It had been a hell of a long two weeks since they’d last seen each other, and their bodies, as well as their hearts, had obviously not been at all okay with that separation.
“Right.” Gunner made a visible effort and pulled himself together, but Sam was glad to see that it was, at least, an effort. Gunner had his hands clenched into fists, and his eyes seemed to burn almost golden as he gazed at Sam. “So the first thing is that I want to tell your family everything that they need to know about just who they would have living on their property, if they agree. The
second thing is, what are you going to do about school?”
Sam shook his head, more in wonder than in any sort of negation. A slight smile came to his lips as he looked at Gunner, standing so close that he could almost touch him if he just took half a step and let himself do it.
“Do you want to hear something pretty funny?” Sam asked, and Gunner, a cautious look on his face, nevertheless nodded a little bit. “It’s just that I haven’t even thought about school ever since I decided to come find you. I’ve been obsessed with nothing else ever since I got kicked out of Harvard, and I just realized that it doesn’t matter nearly as much as I thought it did.”
It was a revelation to Sam. He had never even sent that email to Harvard, he realized. It was probably still sitting there in draft, assuming that it hadn’t just been deleted by now.
“What are you saying? You don’t want to go to school?” Gunner was sidling forward, but there was a look of outright disbelief on his face, which really, was fair enough. People could change, but not that much.
“I still want to go to school.” Sam took that little half a step forward, pulling Gunner to him, not stopping until their bodies were flush against each other. “But I can go to school in Austin if they’ll have me. I can live at home.” He smiled, resting his forehead against Gunner’s. “I can be with you. If you’ll have me. I know there’s a lot of ifs there, but …”
Gunner, grinning widely, teeth gleaming white in the starlight, suddenly pushed Sam against the solid, large frame of the bike. And it was a good thing that it was so solid, because Gunner pressed against Sam, hip to him, erections pressed tightly together through their jeans, and kissed him like his life depended on it.
“Sounds good to me, Sammy” Gunner finally murmured, when that kiss ended. Sam groaned softly, his body pulsing sweetly, achingly, with a desire unlike any that he’d felt before, even with Gunner. There was something more than their physical bodies involved, and Sam thought that was probably why it felt so good.
