“But I understand,” Cary continued, following him to the car. “You want war, Evangelista? Okay, then, you got it.”
Alexander unlocked his car. He’d wondered if it was a little too over the top when he’d bought it, but David had talked him into it. Now he was glad. Nothing like making an exit in a 458 Speciale. He got in, rolled down the window and said, “You’re going to regret the day you decided to go toe to toe with me, Bell. Before this is done, I’ll have you on your knees.”
Chapter Five
Camp Blue Lake
Alex and Cary were, as usual, the first ones up, before the counselor who slept in their cabin, even.
“Hey.”
Cary looked up from where he was leaning against the side of their cabin, stretching his calves. “Oh, hi,” he said, as if he were surprised. As if he didn’t sit out here and go through his stretching regime extremely thoroughly specifically so he would encounter Alex on his way to work. As if he didn’t peel off his shirt and use it to wipe the sweat from his torso and face, knowing, arrogant jerk that he was, that a lifetime of sports had left him with a pretty decent body.
As if he weren’t waiting for Alex to say what he always did.
“Hungry?”
At the beginning of the summer, Cary used to try to be the first one inside the dining hall in the morning. He always told himself it was because he was genuinely hungry after a run—and he was. “Famished, as usual,” he answered, shoving off the step when Alex gestured for him to follow. But he knew the truth—he’d gotten there first so he could steal a few moments alone with Alex before the other guys arrived. And now, having discovered what time Alex left their cabin to make his shift, Cary was cutting his runs short in order to “run into” him.
They walked in silence, the gravel on the trail crunching beneath their feet. Alex shivered despite the early morning mugginess. Cary told himself not read anything into it.
But the truth was, he wanted to read something into it. He just shouldn’t. Couldn’t. It was impossible. Cary spent his whole life modulating his behavior, arranging his appearance, and regulating his speech so that he could hide the truth. Hide who he was.
He wasn’t going to do it forever. The plan had always been to go away to college and then…change. But now, between his conservative family, his Neanderthal friends, and his old-money prep school, he just…couldn’t. Sometimes he thought it was weak, hiding like this. But other times he thought it was actually the reverse. It took a hell of a lot of strength to do what he did day in and day out. Regardless, the point was that he managed, and as long as he could manage, he was safe.
Correction: he mostly managed. He’d managed until this summer with Alex.
He’d always liked Alex Evangelista. Stuck up for him when the aforementioned Neanderthals picked on him. Chosen him for teams even though he was about as athletic as you would expect a computer and chess genius to be. Alex was serious in a way that Cary’s friends from school and the other guys at camp were not. They’d become close, and Cary knew Alex’s quiet, serious demeanor came from the fact that life wasn’t easy for Alex and his single mom. Whereas Cary was planning to swan off to some pricey American liberal arts college and have it fully paid for by his parents, who would have no idea that they were actually funding his coming out far, far from home, Alex was scrimping and saving to attend the local community college, even though he was smart enough to get into Harvard.
But this summer, something had changed. Cary didn’t seem to be able to limit his interactions with Alex to normal camp activities. It was like he was a junkie. In the sober light of day, he’d resolve to keep a certain amount of distance between them, but then when faced with the prospect of Alex in the flesh, he could not deny himself. Not even little bit. To wit: he’d engineered it so they shared a bunk. Because it had been such a good idea to fall asleep every night listening to that deep breathing from below. He’d signed up for programming class despite the fact that he had no interest in it.
He couldn’t stay away from Alex Evangelista.
These mornings were a prime example. But honestly, he wouldn’t give up these mornings for anything. When the camp was silent and empty, when it was just Alex and him, crunching over the gravel, Cary could forget all the bullshit that plagued him the rest of his waking hours. He could just be.
Cary walked too close to Alex. He knew it. It wasn’t normal for two guys to walk side by side on this trail, which narrowed at spots so much that their shoulders touched. During the day, when the campers went anywhere in a group, they walked single file on the trails that crisscrossed the densely forested grounds. But then there was Alex, tall and lanky, in the dim light of the still-sleeping camp, letting Cary walk right next to him, letting their forearms brush, bringing into sharp relief the contrast between Cary’s smooth skin and Alex’s, which was dusted with the hair bequeathed to him by his Italian ancestors. They were the same, but different. Cary thought of their arms next to each other every night before he fell asleep. He thought about more, to be honest, wondered what it would feel like to have Alex’s arms circle around him, pull him against his chest.
But then he remembered his life and told himself what he was thinking about was impossible.
“You must get tired getting up so early every day,” Cary said as they approached the back door to the dining hall.
“You’re up early, too.”
“Yep, and I pretty much hate it.” Well, he hated getting up. He didn’t hate being up, not once his run was done, anyway.
Alex shrugged. “I couldn’t afford to come here if I didn’t work.” Cary was impressed that Alex never tried to hide or downplay his poverty. Most of the guys at camp knew each other from real life. Even if they didn’t attend the same school, they went to the same churches and synagogues; their parents went to each others’ parties. Alex owning the fact that he was different from them seemed like a point of pride, and Cary respected that. “So as much as this gig sucks,” Alex continued, “It’s necessary if I want to come here.”
“Will you be back next summer?” Cary asked, trying to keep his voice casual. They’d passed the midpoint of the summer, and it was starting to really sink in that their days together were numbered.
“Yeah.” As Alex pushed open the back door, which led directly into the kitchen, and held it for Cary, Cary thought he detected a hint of a smile.
“What’s for breakfast?” Cary asked as Alex pulled on an apron and nodded a silent greeting to Jasper, the camp’s head chef, who, inexplicably, hadn’t said anything about Cary arriving unauthorized most mornings, trailing behind Alex.
“Oatmeal,” Alex said, and Cary groaned. The sticky glop that Jasper called oatmeal wasn’t anyone’s favorite. Alex ducked into a pantry and returned with contraband blueberry muffins and handed two to Cary.
“Ah! Thanks.”
“The perks of being friends with an insider,” Alex said.
Friend. Cary wasn’t really sure if that was the right word. He had a lot of friends, but he wasn’t bumping shoulders accidentally-on-purpose with any of them. Cary and Alex were friendly, sure, but Cary was friendly with everyone. It was part of his thing. For some reason everyone liked him without him particularly trying to make them do so, so he’d always run with it. You could get a long way on charm.
He sometimes wondered if Alex was out at home. They never talked about it. Never used the words “out” or “gay.” But the way Alex owned up to his poverty made him seem like the kind of guy who didn’t hide who he was. Of course, there was nothing obvious to give it away. He was a bit of a nerd, yes, but Cary didn’t think the other guys picked up on the things he did. They didn’t notice that Alex watched some of the counselors a touch more intensely, or too long, maybe, when they demonstrated a dive. Or that he clammed right up when the other guys started making plans for the mid-summer dance held at the associated girls’ camp across the lake. Still, he wouldn’t be surprised to learn Alex was out at home.
Cary sometimes speculated that
it might, paradoxically, be easier to be out of the closet if you didn’t have a ton of friends. If you didn’t have a firmly entrenched image as the athletic, popular boy that everyone thought was perfect. If you didn’t have a family to disappoint, a family who acted like its legacy to the world was upstanding, unsullied perfection in all things.
“Put your shirt on, Bell,” Jasper said, and to Alex he said, “We’re doing cinnamon raisin oatmeal today. Grab the raisins, will you?”
Alex obeyed, disappearing into the pantry
“Bell,” said Jasper, holding out an apron. “If you’re going to be here every morning, trailing along like Evangelista’s puppy, make yourself useful.”
Evangelista’s puppy. And here he’d thought their mornings were safe because there was no one around to see them together. He swallowed, willing his pulse to slow. “Sorry, Jasper, I’m not going to make myself useful. I’m going to make myself clean. Shower time.”
He forced himself to amble out of the kitchen, back to regulating his behavior, slipping on the mantle of the role he played. He felt a little bad that he hadn’t even said good-bye to Alex. He usually lounged around eating, chatting with Alex while Alex worked on getting breakfast set up.
But Cary had to go. It couldn’t be helped.
…
“The Perseids meteor showers should be at their peak later this week.”
Cary tensed as the other guys glanced at each other in response to Alex’s observation. They were sitting around a campfire. It wasn’t an unreasonable thing to say. You sat at a campfire in the dark, you looked at the sky, you thought about shit like falling stars. If Cary himself had said the same thing, he’d probably be fielding requests to organize a stargazing party.
But Alex was different.
He always had been. He wasn’t like everyone else. He was smarter, sure, but also graver. You got the sense that things mattered more to him than they did to everyone else. Cary wasn’t sure why this counted as a negative quality in the eyes of their peers, but it did. And this summer it was more pronounced. Maybe it was that as they all got older, and closer to college, Alex was increasingly worried about paying for it. The next phase of life was going to be a lot harder for him than it was going to be for Cary and the rest of the guys. Or maybe it wasn’t Alex at all; maybe it was that the other guys were different. Harder, meaner. Whatever it was, it was like they were constantly on the lookout for slip-ups, for the appearance of traits they could use to mark Alex as not one of them, and that wasn’t even taking into consideration the whole gay thing, which Cary was pretty sure they hadn’t figured out. But as the summer went on, and they increasingly became vultures, hovering around Alex looking for anything to seize upon, Cary was afraid they would figure it out.
He was afraid that they would somehow figure it out about him, too.
“Aww,” said Brooks, one of the leaders of the pack among their tenth-grade cohort, and, frankly, an asshole. “Is wittle Alex gonna go wish on a star?” Cue the laughter from everyone else. “What are you going to wish for?” Brooks goaded. “Enough money so you don’t have to cook our slop every morning like Cinderella?”
“Nah, I’m going to wish I wasn’t surrounded by dicks,” Alex shot back.
“Ooooh,” said Brooks. “I’m scared.”
“Knock it off, Brooks,” Cary said. “For fuck’s sake. Can I just eat this marshmallow in peace?” He looked at Alex across the fire, his olive skin made golden by the licking of the flames.
Cary always stood up for Alex, but he wasn’t sure how long he could keep doing it without them turning on him, too. And, coward that he was, he couldn’t allow that to happen.
Chapter Six
When Alexander got home late Monday night, he found David shooting the breeze with Monty, the night concierge.
“Hello,” he said, drawing both men’s attention.
David turned and smiled. “Hey.”
“Did we have plans?” Alexander asked, hoping he hadn’t messed up. Usually Derek reminded him about social obligations, especially if he knew Alexander was digging in for a long night at the office, as he had been that evening.
“Nope,” said David. “Just thought I’d pop by. Did you not get my texts?”
David was, generally speaking, the perfect non-boyfriend. He was gorgeous, but more importantly, he was undemanding. They had fun together when they were both in town. They kept things casual.
Or so Alexander had thought. But “popping by” unannounced wasn’t casual. It felt a little too much like boyfriend behavior.
Alexander pulled out his personal phone. Though there was nothing in bank policy mandating that personal business be kept off company phones—especially among senior execs who pretty much worked around the clock—he scrupulously kept his non-bank affairs confined to a separate phone. There were a bunch of texts from David, as well as a missed call from his mother. He hated missing calls from his mom. She’d had a bout of breast cancer fifteen years ago, and though it hadn’t been invasive, and seemed to have been conquered with a lumpectomy and radiation, he couldn’t help feeling like every sneeze portended doom, every call bad news.
And worse than missing his mom’s call, he had also missed one from Johan Petrusic.
It wasn’t like him to just forget to look at his phone for an entire day. And how the hell had he forgotten he’d left a message for Johan this morning? He’d been on edge lately, which was stupid because everything was going swimmingly at the bank.
Which meant he was on edge because of Cary Bell.
Which was not acceptable.
“I brought take-out,” David said, holding up bags from McEwan’s, a high-end grocery store not far from Alexander’s building.
Which also felt a little too presumptuous. “What if I hadn’t come home?” Alexander asked.
David shrugged. “More for me.”
Well, shit. It was possible he was overthinking this. He had a goddamned model holding a bag of what was almost certainly his favorite braised short ribs that would be consumed before—or maybe even after—said model blew him.
“Good-night, Monty,” Alexander said as he and David headed for his elevator—as the only occupant of the top floor of the building, he had his own. He should just give David a key. Or give Monty the authority to take him up. It would make things much easier logistically. But if he was being honest, he didn’t want to give David a key. He wasn’t the sort of person who gave guys keys to his place, and, frankly, he was getting that itchy feeling of being boxed in.
But what was he going to do about it? Nothing at the moment. Because Alexander had performed a cost-benefit analysis, as he did with pretty much every scenario he encountered. Yes, he could have claimed other plans this evening, and his non-boyfriend would have gotten the message. But that would have meant no braised short ribs. No blow jobs.
And, worse, it would have meant being alone with his thoughts.
David made for the kitchen as soon as they entered the condo. Alexander stood in the darkened entryway and listened to the sound of take-out being unwrapped and plates and cutlery being fetched from cupboards and drawers. He’d been thinking of David as a distraction from his out-of-control mind, but there were ways to achieve oblivion that didn’t involve other people, and suddenly, he just wanted to have a drink or several and go to bed. For the purposes of sleeping. In the dark, alone. But even if he could dispense with David, he still had to call Johan back. “I need to make a quick call,” he said, heading for his bedroom on the other end of the condo.
“Sure,” David called from the kitchen, ever agreeable. “Take your time.”
Alexander shut the door and turned on his white noise machine before scrolling back through his phone to locate the call from Haywood & Petrusic Investigations. Johan Petrusic was who you used when you needed someone to do some discreet poking around your company. Johan had conducted dozens of investigations inside the bank. He’d uncovered a bout of insider trading. He’d found a ring of white-collar t
hieves stealing hundreds of thousands of dollars of electronics. All the while, he had reported directly and solely to Alexander and had never breathed a word about his findings. He was paid well enough not to, of course, but beyond that, Alexander trusted him absolutely.
“Mr. Evangelista?” said Johan, who picked up after one ring even though it was nearly ten o’clock. That was part of why Johan was the best in the business.
“Johan. I need you to look into someone for me.”
“Of course. Who is it?”
Alexander paused. He was going to win Liu on his merits. On Dominion’s merits. He truly believed that. After spending the weekend reliving his confrontation with Cary in the parking garage after the awards gala, he’d called Johan first thing this morning, thinking that a little extra insurance might ease his mind. If there was any dirt to be had on Cary Bell, Johan would find it. But now he wondered what would happen if Johan actually turned anything up. Would it taint his victory somehow?
He took a deep breath.
“His name’s Cary Bell.”
“Which department?” Johan asked. “Can we get your in-house IT on board, or is this fully on the down low?”
Alexander hesitated before saying, “He doesn’t work at the bank.”
“Okay,” Johan said. “So what are you after?”
Alexander walked to the window and looked out over the sparkling high rises of downtown Toronto. He was literally at the top of the city. Did he want to stay that way or not?
“Anything. Anything that can be used against him.”
“Hey,” said David, as Alexander entered the kitchen. David smiled sheepishly from where he was kneeling and sweeping up broken glass. “I’m sorry. I’m sure this glass cost a fortune. I was just going to pour you some wine.”
“No problem.” He was actually glad the glass had broken and delayed David, because Alexander had a particular bottle of Barolo in mind to soothe his jangled nerves, whereas David would have just grabbed one at random. He pulled his desired bottle out of his under-counter wine cellar and put back the one David had selected.
His Heart's Revenge (49th Floor Novels) Page 4
