When they approached the point where the trail would emerge from the woods onto the beach, Alex turned off his flashlight and held out an arm to stop Cary’s progress. Cary jumped at the sensation of a mouth so close to his ear. “I heard Jasper talking to some of the counselors about the meteor shower. I think they’re watching it from the roof of the dining hall, but we need to make sure there’s no one here.” The dining hall had a flat roof that functioned as the de facto counselors’ lounge, and Cary doubted that anyone else had made the three-quarter-mile trek to the lake, but he craned his eyes, trying in vain to see into the blackness ahead of them.
“I think it’s clear,” Alex whispered.
“Come on,” Cary said, pressing ahead of Alex, propelled by the exhilaration of having escaped the physical confines of their cabin, and with it, the other guys and the increasingly oppressive norms of camp society. Transgression. That was the word that came to Cary’s mind. He shivered and, having reached the edge of the water, looked up. “Holy shit, there’s one.”
Every twenty seconds or so, a meteor streaked across the inky sky. He’d never seen anything like it.
Alex, head tilted back, said, “I wish there were a way to get to an open field or something, to see the whole sky.”
It was true. They were on the shore, and the tree line obscured a fair portion of the sky. An idea hit him. Why the hell not? He was feeling brave. “Maybe there is.” He stripped off his shirt and started walking toward the water.
“What are you doing?”
“It’s a warm night.” Before he could lose his nerve, he waded into the shallows, then kept going until he was submerged up to his waist. He didn’t look back to see if Alex was following, just started swimming toward the floating dock thirty feet out in the lake. He breathed a sigh of relief when he heard the gentle sluicing of the water behind him signaling that Alex had gotten into the water, too. Knowing that he wasn’t making himself completely ridiculous emboldened him, and he slowed down so Alex could catch up.
“This is kind of ridiculous,” Alex said, using the very word Cary had just been thinking as he breast stroked up and then started treading water next to Cary, who couldn’t help barking a delighted laugh. It felt like Alex could see inside his head, like maybe this weird, magical night had changed the laws of physics so that everything was inside out. Maybe when he’d taken his shirt off, he’d bared not his body, or not only his body, but made something else visible, too, something deeper.
“Hey,” Cary said, propelling himself through the water again, “your wish is my command. The view is going to be great from here.” When they reached the dock, he found the algae-slimed ladder with his feet and hoisted himself up, shivering as the air, which was cooler than the water, hit his skin. He moved aside to leave room for Alex to come up and lay down on his back. “Whoa. You’re going to thank me when you see this.”
From Cary’s vantage point, Alex looked like a sea god as he hoisted himself up on the ladder and stood above Cary, water raining down from a wet body painted silver by the light of the half moon. He paused for a moment, then came to lie next to Cary, leaving only inches between them. It was hard for Cary to make himself look away. But there was a sky full of shooting stars above them. They watched the celestial show for a few moments.
“You’re supposed to wish on falling stars,” Alex said, his voice raspy as it punctured the silence. “But it seems kind of pointless in this context, doesn’t it?” He gestured upward.
“Pointless how?” Cary asked.
“Well, I think the idea is that a falling star is such a rare thing that when you do see one, you get to make a wish on it. Like a four-leaf clover. You don’t come across shooting stars or four-leaf clovers every day.”
Cary didn’t like the idea of wishes not counting on a night like this, when the sky seemed like it was literally erupting with possibility. “I don’t know. You could also look at it like this: Shooting stars are rare. So it’s even rarer to see hundreds of them in the same night. Maybe that just, like, magnifies the power of your wish.” God. He was an idiot. He turned his head to look at Alex, whom he could just make out in the blackness. “That sounded less lame in my head,” he said, hoping to save himself with self-deprecation.
Alex turned his head, too. “Not lame.” After a momentary pause, he rolled all the way onto his side. “What would you wish for?”
Their faces were inches apart, and Cary was seized with the wild idea that instead of answering, he could show Alex what he wished for. It would be so easy.
Cary had kissed girls before. Two of them, to be precise. Because that was what you did when you, for example, asked a girl to the ninth-grade formal. You picked her up and gave her a corsage. You listened to her parents issue warnings about curfews that were laced with unspoken warnings that were unnecessary in your case—their daughter was safer with you than anyone knew. Then you brought her home and kissed her on her porch.
And then when she started getting ideas the next week in school, that you were her boyfriend, you broke up with her.
It was easy. Like being in a play. You performed your role, and when the run was over, you put away your costume and went back to being your real self. Or if not your real self, you went back to playing a more familiar role.
This was not like that. If he kissed Alex, he had no idea what the morning would bring. It wasn’t like he could avoid him—they were bunk-mates, for God’s sake. Never mind that they were surrounded by semi-hostile guys who didn’t need to know Cary’s business and certainly didn’t need any more ammo when it came to Alex.
Cary’s lungs had stopped working. He couldn’t get a full breath in. But somehow, he knew that the only way to ease the pressure on his chest was, paradoxically, to just do it, all the reasons he shouldn’t be damned. “I would wish for this,” he whispered, and then he did it.
And as cliché at it was, suddenly those stars in the sky were nothing. The universe could throw its most spectacular show at them, and it was nothing. Because he was kissing Alex Evangelista, and Alex Evangelista was kissing him back.
Chapter Eight
Fucking charades.
Alexander had gotten pretty good at rich-people pursuits. He had developed a decent game of golf, as stupid as he found the game, and he could hold his own in a tennis match. If you wanted to run in moneyed circles, you had to play their games—literally.
Somebody needed to tell Don Liu that charades was not a rich-person game.
Alexander glanced around at the assembly. The Lius had invited representatives from all four firms that were competing for their business up to King City for a “games day.” Alexander had assumed that was going to mean croquet and martinis, but, no. Apparently it meant trying to get Marcy Halloran, the CEO of Evergreen Capital, to guess that the ridiculous movements he was making with his hands were meant to signify Farrah Fawcett’s hair and not the royal wave.
“A day of friendly competition,” Mr. Liu had called it. Well, friendly or not, Alexander hated losing. Marcy was a business genius, but when it came to charades, she was nothing but dead weight.
The timer went off, and before he could tell her what he’d been acting out, Cary said, “Charlie’s Angels, right?”
“Right,” Alexander confirmed. Cary got all his clues. Why couldn’t his actual partner?
“Oh, of course!” Marcy said. “I’m so bad at this!”
The play moved to Cary and Linda, Don’s daughter. Alexander reminded himself of his goal for the day. When he did “social” stuff like this with colleagues, clients, or potential clients, he always set small goals for himself. Today’s had been to meet and get a sense of Linda Liu, who was one of the VPs in her father’s empire, and, from the looks of things, a trusted deputy. It was clear that her father respected her, and he would probably take her advice into consideration when it came to deciding where to put their money.
Cary was acting out a five-word clue. Unlike Alexander, he seemed completely at ease playing t
his ridiculous, undignified game. But that had always been Cary, hadn’t it? He was at home in any situation, no matter how fancy or lowbrow.
“Ring!” Linda shouted when Cary used one finger to approximate a band around the other. “The fifth word is ring.”
The Lord of the Rings.
Just like Cary knew his clue, Alexander knew Cary’s. They had traded the books in that series back and forth that last summer at camp and had spent many a morning talking about the world of Tolkien.
Cary was trying to act out the word “Lord” by holding his arms out like he was Jesus on the cross. Alexander snorted before he could stop himself, drawing Cary’s attention. Cary responded by lolling his head back and sticking out his tongue. Alexander outright laughed this time. He couldn’t help it—Cary was hamming it up, and the clue was so obvious. He hoped the Lius weren’t devout Christians.
Cary had moved on to making the Catholic sign of the cross when the timer ran out. Linda and Marcy looked bewildered, and Cary gestured to Alexander, who said, “Lord of the Rings.”
Linda nodded, still looking a bit confused. “I never saw that.”
“It’s a series of books,” Alexander and Cary said at the same time.
“Well, it’s a movie, too,” said Aaron Nelson, the head of private wealth at First Canadian.
“Shall we move on to something else?” Linda asked.
“Yes!” Again, he and Cary spoke simultaneously. Alexander raised his eyebrows and turned to his nemesis, who responded with a quick wink. That wink made him angry. If Cary thought they were in some kind of secret cahoots, he was dead wrong. He schooled his face. He was done laughing at Cary’s jokes, no matter how stupidly funny they were.
“How about Cranium?” Linda said, pulling out a board game and setting it up without waiting for any of her guests to agree.
“We love Cranium,” Mr. Liu said. “Shall we shuffle the teams?”
Given today’s goal, Alexander was about to suggest that he and Linda team up, but Marcy said, “Linda, let’s join forces, show these guys how it’s done.”
“Yes!” Linda agreed. “Woman power!”
Liu moved over to sit by Aaron.
And Cary—damn him—moved over to sit next to Alexander.
…
They were killing it.
Cary had never played Cranium before. It was kind of a hybrid trivia-Pictionary-charades thing, along with some clay so you could sculpt clues for your partner to try to guess.
Alex got every single trivia question put to him right. Cary knew many of them, but he didn’t even try to answer, just let Alex keep answering. It was likely unwise. He should probably be demonstrating that he was smart. But, really, was knowing what was the first music video ever played on MTV going to make a difference in whether he got the Liu account? And watching Alex just…know everything was, he had to admit, totally hot. There was something about the other man’s utter competence that was addicting.
And any time one of them had to draw or sculpt a clue, the other came up with the answer in seconds. They were so in tune, it was like they had ESP or something.
Their only downfall was the stupid “Sensosketch” cards, where the person doing the drawing had to do it with his eyes closed. That turned out to be not their forte, so much so that after a series of missed clues in that category, the next time Alex drew one, he stood up, took off the linen suit coat he’d been wearing, and cracked his knuckles before sitting back down and looking at the card.
“They’re terrible at these!” Linda said, elbowing Alex. He didn’t notice because he was so fixated on thinking about his strategy, but Cary did. Was it his imagination, or was Linda kind of…overly charmed by Alex? Not that he blamed her. The man’s single-minded concentration was compelling. It was easy to fall into the trap of imagining that single-minded concentration directed…elsewhere.
“You ready?” Alex asked, and when Cary nodded, Alex put on his blindfold.
“Uh….spoon?” Cary guessed, trying to make sense of the drawing emerging. “No. Ladle. No! Um…” Alex was stabbing the top of the paper vehemently with his pencil. “Top?”
Alex kept shaking his head but also making those jerky moments to the top of the paper.
“Not top?” Cary asked, puzzled. “Bottom?”
As soon as it was out of his mouth, he cracked up, and Alex swallowed a guffaw. It was weird to see Alex trying to suppress laughter. Cary was overcome with the need to make him actually laugh. Out loud. He’d done so while they were playing charades, and he wanted to do it again. He looked around the room, and no one else seemed to be catching the gay double entendre of his answers. “Well, you are wearing a blindfold,” he said, injecting his voice with studied innocence. “Are you sure it’s not ‘bottom?’”
Cary wanted to pump his fist in victory when Alex threw back his head and laughed unreservedly. The timer went off. Alex pulled off his blindfold and shook his head at Cary, but he was still smiling. “It was slam dunk.”
Cary made a face and tilted his head to look at the drawing again. “Oh, so the ladle is actually a basketball hoop.” He glanced at Alex. God damn, the man was criminally attractive when he laughed. “I was so sure it was top,” he added. He shouldn’t have said it—shouldn’t have poked the beast—but he couldn’t help it.
Alex stopped laughing immediately, and something sparked in his eyes as he whipped his gaze to Cary’s, something hot and possessive that made Cary shiver. Then he licked his lips a little, and Cary was a goner. He had to pull the game box onto his lap to hide his arousal. He began cleaning up the pieces.
“Am I missing something?” Linda said, her brow furrowed.
“No,” said Alex, the heat draining from his expression as he turned to Linda. Cary felt the chill settle around them. It was just like when he’d seen Alex at social events all these years—there was an iciness emanating from him that he seemed to be able to switch on at will, like a force field. Cary wanted to turn it off, to get back the smiling, laughing Alex—or, if he was being honest with himself, he wanted to get back the predator who could give him a boner with merely a look. He wanted it more than anything.
But, no, that wasn’t right. What he wanted more than anything was to win the Lius’ business. The fact that he had to stop and remind himself why he was here was not good. Not good at all.
“You’re not missing anything,” Alex said to Linda, replacing his previous, genuine smile with a more calculated one. “Have we had about enough of this game? Let’s move onto something else where you and I can be partners. I haven’t had the pleasure yet, but I’d like to.”
Chapter Nine
Alexander awoke to pounding on his door. That was, generally, not a thing that happened, given that he lived in a penthouse with a dedicated elevator. His first thought was that something had happened to his mom. But he’d spoken to her before bed, and she’d been fine. He worried about his mom out of proportion, he knew. It’s just that it had always been them against the world.
He glanced at the bed. It was empty. David had been over, and the last thing Alex remembered was parting ways with his non-boyfriend in the den around ten o’clock. David had settled in to watch a basketball game, but Alexander had begged off. He hadn’t been able to shake the image of Cary from earlier in the day, looking at him with those damned baby blues and saying, with faux-innocence, ‘I was so sure it was top.’” Alexander had been sporting a half woody since leaving the Lius’ house, and for some damned reason, he hadn’t wanted David to touch him. So he’d just taken himself and his poor dick to bed.
The pounding continued. Alexander sighed and pulled on a pair of underwear. David had probably run out for a smoke, which he sometimes did when he thought he wouldn’t get caught. Alexander abhorred smoking. He didn’t even allow it on his balconies. So David pretended he didn’t do it, and Alexander pretended he didn’t know that David sometimes pilfered his key, disappeared for a while, and then made a beeline for the bathroom to brush his teeth wh
en he got back.
But the secret smoking wasn’t enough? David had to lose his goddamned key now, too?
Staggering toward the door and blinking against the lights he turned on as he went, he paused to stick his head into the kitchen to check the time on the microwave’s display. It was only midnight, but it felt much later. He’d been dead asleep.
The pounding continued.
“All right!” he snapped. “Give me a second.” He’d had about enough of this shit. David wasn’t his boyfriend, so Alexander hadn’t presumed to try to control his behavior, but enough with the smoking. It was disgusting, and it showed a lack of self-control.
Ready to make his thoughts on the matter known, he swung open the door.
And was blindsided by Cary Bell, leaning against the wall in the small vestibule between Alexander’s elevator and his front door in jeans and a black leather jacket, looking like fucking James Dean paying a house call.
They stared at each other for several seconds, before Cary pushed off the wall and came to stand at his full height, which put him exactly eye to eye with Alexander. After another few moments of silence, Alexander’s dick stirred, which made him angry as hell.
They both spoke at the same time, Alexander saying, “How did you get up here?” and Cary saying, “I came to apologize.”
The simultaneous attempt at speaking sent them both back into silence. But it wasn’t truly silence. Alexander could hear his blood pounding and Cary’s rapid breathing. Apologize? That was the last thing in the world Alexander had expected, and it had him reeling. A glance at the other man’s heaving chest confirmed that he was as unsettled as Alexander. He lifted his eyes to Cary’s face, only to find that his midnight visitor was checking him out, and not very subtly. Alexander, who was wearing only his underwear, straightened his spine. He might have been scrawnier than Cary the athlete back at camp, but he’d bet next quarter’s returns that with his disciplined jujitsu and lifting routine of the past two decades, he’d caught up.
His Heart's Revenge (49th Floor Novels) Page 6
