His Heart's Revenge (49th Floor Novels)

by Jenny Holiday

  He watched Cary’s eyes slide over his boxers. There was no mistaking what was going on there because the partial erection he’d been battling since he’d left Cary at Liu’s house had escalated to the full meal deal. He was tempted to say that Cary had woken him up, but he bit his tongue. He didn’t need an excuse. He was allowed to have a boner in his own house, for fuck’s sake.

  Slowly, so slowly, his gaze feeling so much like a physical caress that the skin on Alexander’s chest started to prickle, Cary raised his eyes to meet Alexander’s. Alexander had been expecting one of his nemesis’s trademark smirks, raised eyebrows that suggested bemusement, since that seemed to be Cary’s attitude toward everything. He expected him to somehow twist the apology into a prank. But no. All he saw in those eyes was heat. Those blue-gray irises were usually the epitome of cool. But not now. No, right now they were nearly subsumed by dilated pupils the color of night.

  Alexander tried to think what came next, but his brain was full of tar, even as his limbs were on high alert and his senses heightened.

  Cary shook his head, as if to clear it. It had the effect of wiping that dazed expression off his face. Alexander could swear he saw the heat leaving Cary’s expression. One corner of his visitor’s mouth turned up. No. He didn’t want that fucking holier-than-thou, punk-ass smirk. Not here. Not while he was standing in the doorway of his condo in his underwear, harder than steel.

  Cary unzipped his leather jacket, revealing a worn white T-shirt. Alexander had forgotten how well Cary did casual. Then Cary shoved his hands in his jean pockets, perfecting his Rebel Without a Cause look. Alexander lifted his gaze back up to Cary’s face. The proto-smirk was a little more advanced, as if it were emerging in slow motion. Again, the thought that filled his head was, simply, no.

  He grabbed the jacket, the slide of the old, soft leather over his fingers torture for his over-tuned senses. He wasn’t sure if relief lay in feeling less or feeling more. But he didn’t care, because his only mission was to stop that fucking smirk in its tracks.

  So he yanked, hard, crashing his mouth down on Cary’s and swallowing his visitor’s gasp of shock. The last time they’d kissed had been a surprise, too, but this time he was in the driver’s seat.

  Maybe. He’d intended to be, anyway, but when Cary didn’t pull away, didn’t even hesitate as he opened his mouth under Alexander’s onslaught, Alexander was no longer so sure. Because if you were in the driver’s seat, that meant you should be able to stop at will, right? There should be a goddamned brake pedal associated with the driver’s seat. Even if you didn’t plan to use it, you should be able to.

  The awful truth was that he couldn’t stop. He let go of the jacket and palmed Cary’s face, angling Cary’s head back and plunging his tongue into the hot velvet of his mouth. It was just like the last time—the first time. He couldn’t get enough. But also not like last time because now they were men. Cary took everything Alexander could dish out, his lips hungrily pressing against Alexander’s, and his tongue meeting every lick, every thrust.

  Hands still on Cary’s face, Alexander pushed his head back even farther, deepening the angle so he could sweep his tongue even more intimately into Cary’s mouth. He was rewarded with a ragged moan as Cary sagged against his chest. The drag of leather against his bare chest turned the fire inside him into an inferno. Not wanting to stop touching Cary’s face entirely, he wrapped one arm around him, hoisted him up, and propelled him backward until his back hit the wall just outside the door of Alexander’s condo. When Cary slid his hands across Alexander’s bare chest and on around so they were chest to chest, their bodies flush, Alexander lost his mind. He slammed his hips against Cary’s. They were so perfectly matched in height and proportions that this put his cock, covered only in the thin cotton of his boxers, directly in line with Cary’s, which was straining against its thick denim constraints.

  Cary let go of Alexander, and Alexander growled before he realized it was only because Cary needed his hands to undo the buttons of his fly. So he seized the moment to press his mouth to Cary’s neck. There it was still, that combination of mint and coffee. How could a guy smelling like Starbucks and Doublemint gum be so fucking irresistible? And then Cary was back, grabbing Alexander’s hand and shoving it into his crotch. Alexander didn’t need any encouragement because nothing else mattered. Nothing mattered except that this never, never stop.

  “Ahem.”

  Cary’s head shot up. He had nowhere to go, Alexander having backed him up against the wall and caged him in, but the recoil was unmistakable. He was looking at something over Alexander’s shoulder.

  Confused, Alexander turned. Correction: he was looking at someone over Alexander’s shoulder. “Fuck,” Alexander muttered under his breath.

  “Indeed,” said David. “By all means, though, don’t let me stop you.”

  There was nothing to say. Well, there was nothing to say that could be said while he was standing outside his front door going at it with a guy who looked like an extra from Grease. In the last few minutes, he’d managed to totally forget about David, who, it turned out, had not run out for a clandestine smoke.

  David ran a hand through his tousled hair. “I fell asleep on the sofa in the den.”

  Alexander cleared his throat and stepped away from Cary. “Uh, Cary Bell, this is David Tinsdale.” As he came back to himself—as he came back to his fucking senses now that Cary’s mouth was a safe distance away—he realized that having had their little grope-fest interrupted by a sleepy-looking model was not the worst thing in the world. Because where would it have ended otherwise? Nowhere good.

  Cary had gone pale. “I should go.” He turned toward the elevator but stumbled a bit. Without even thinking about it, Alexander reached out to stabilize him, but Cary pulled away like Alexander had burned him. Cary pounded the elevator call button, and the doors opened right away—one of the perks of having your own elevator. He got in and looked at Alexander, his eyes impossible to read. They weren’t their usual cool pools of amusement, but all the heat that had flooded them earlier was gone, too. They were blank, really, to match a face that was utterly expressionless. They stayed latched on Alexander’s until the elevator door shut between them. It didn’t seem possible that such an inferno should end so unceremoniously.

  Behind him, David said, “I should go, too.” He said it with conviction, which Alexander respected. He wasn’t asking a question; he was making a statement.

  “I’m sorry,” Alexander said. “You probably should.” He sighed. “Not because of that guy, though.” David raised his eyebrows. “I just…don’t like things to get too…”

  “Yeah,” said David. “I know.” He walked back into the condo, and Alexander followed. “I tried to be cool with that. I was cool with that. And maybe I’m having a fucking quarter-life crisis because of the career stuff or something, but the truth is, I want more. And I don’t think I should have to settle.”

  “You shouldn’t. I’m sorry,” Alexander said again. Objectively speaking, David was stunning. Ripped, slightly tanned, and in possession of sharp cheekbones and perfectly symmetrical features, he was a Greek god come to life. But Alexander felt nothing. It was like looking at a marble statue of a Greek god rather than a flesh and blood version. Alexander’s eyes were probably as empty as Cary’s had been just now.

  “Can I just say one thing?” David asked.

  “Of course.”

  His soon-to-be-ex non-boyfriend hoisted his bag on his shoulder. “You could be really great if you’d just let yourself.”

  I am great, he wanted to protest. He had everything he could possibly want. He was at the top of his game.

  “You could be happy if you let yourself,” David added, laying his hand on Alexander’s cheek for a moment before pulling away.

  That was too far. Who was David to say what would make Alexander happy? He was happy. “That’s two things,” he said.

  David just smiled. “Well, here’s a third thing. You never kissed
me like that.”

  Chapter Ten

  Camp Blue Lake

  Alex had waited as long as he could for Cary to come back from his run before setting out for the dining hall. He could only dawdle outside their cabin for so long before he had to stop being so pathetic and hit the road for his shift. Scrambled eggs for two-hundred hungry boys and assorted counselors wasn’t going to make itself.

  And, more to the point, if Cary didn’t want to talk to him, there was nothing Alex could do about it.

  Everything in him resisted that conclusion, though. Two nights ago on the lake, everything had been so…perfect. He struggled to understand how two people could be so intimate and then, the next day…nothing. When they had finally pulled away from one another, from their heated kissing, it had been as if by mutual, silent assent. Alex knew they couldn’t just have sex on the floating raft on Blue Lake, as much as part of him might have wanted to. He was the nerd, the scholar. He’d paid attention in sex ed. They didn’t have condoms, and besides, he knew he wasn’t ready. So although he’d rolled onto his back with a killer boner tenting his shorts, he’d never been happier. Except maybe a second later when Cary had followed him, not to continue to the kiss, merely to roll onto his side and rest his head on Alex’s chest. Alex hadn’t known such flat-out exhilaration was possible in this world. It was dark enough that Cary couldn’t see him grinning up at the lightshow above them, couldn’t see how his arms shook as they snaked around Cary as he snuggled even closer to Alex.

  But Cary, with his head directly on Alex’s bare chest, could, no doubt, feel the out-of-control pounding of Alex’s heart.

  But he didn’t care. He wanted Cary to know that his foolish heart beat for him.

  Still. It wasn’t like he was so naive he thought they would spend the rest of camp holding hands and making googly eyes at each other.

  But he had sort of thought, as they walked through the woods back to the cabins, that things had definitively changed between them. That if Cary’s heart contained even a fraction of the happiness and relief and lust and everything that Alex’s did, the rest of the summer would make all the bullshit of Alex’s years at camp more than worth it.

  When Cary hadn’t gone running that next morning, Alex had been disappointed, but he’d chalked it up to exhaustion. They’d gotten back to the cabin at three a.m., and Cary usually rose at five for his runs. Alex didn’t have any choice—he had to drag his tired ass into work—but Cary could probably skip a run without it having a big impact on his training. He hadn’t seen Cary the rest of the day, but he tried not to obsess about it. They often went a whole day without seeing each other, especially on days when their programming class didn’t meet.

  But today. The second morning. Cary had gotten up at his usual time. Alex had heard him. Had lifted his head, tuning his ears to the sound of Cary dressing in the dark, straining to make it out against the deep breathing and light snoring of the other guys. What had he been waiting for? Surely nothing so overt as a hand on his shoulder. But some kind of acknowledgment. A look, maybe. Something that said, “We have a connection.”

  But Cary hadn’t looked. Hadn’t given any sign that he sensed Alex’s presence at all.

  And now he wasn’t here.

  He shoved aside the unease. He knew shit all about relationships, but he was pretty sure that being clingy and insecure was not the way to a guy’s heart. He could be cool. Except something in his heart resisted. No. I can’t be cool. That was the whole fucking problem. He never could be, and this thing with Cary was not likely to be the event that started him down the path to cool.

  He was forced to set aside his angst-ing, though, when he got to the dining hall. He was fifteen minutes late, and Jasper was in a tizzy. The other morning workers shot him dirty looks as he put on an apron. He didn’t blame them. Jasper’s kitchen was a well-oiled machine. Lots of things depended on other things, and everyone had a job. If you weren’t there to do yours, it had a domino effect. So he grabbed a bowl and set himself to cracking eggs. The repetition was almost meditative. He must have cracked twenty-dozen eggs, passing bowls of a dozen of them at a time on down the line, when Jasper interrupted. Feeling calmer than he had all morning, he set about following Jasper’s order to shuttle vats of jelly and butter out to the self-service toasters that sat on a station in the middle of the dining room.

  A bunch of guys were lined up there—there was always more demand for toast than toasters to meet it. Alex was shielded by the line at one toaster when he heard some guys milling around the other one talking.

  “Up early canoodling with Kitchen Boy this morning, Bell?” Alex recognized the voice as that preppy jerk Brooks

  “Uh, nope, just a long run as usual,” Cary said. “Canoodling’s not really my thing.”

  Alex’s mind flashed back to the way Cary had rolled over and curled into his chest on the dock.

  “So when the two of you left in the middle of the night two nights ago, you’re saying there was no canoodling involved?” said another voice.

  “Yeah,” Brooks sneered. “I’m pretty sure that in addition to being a huge nerd and a sad-ass charity case, Cinderella Boy is a big fucking fag. You’d better be careful, Bell, or it will wear off on you, if it hasn’t already.”

  Alex couldn’t hear what Cary was saying. All he could hear was his own heartbeat like thunder. He tried to slow his breathing. Cary had never thrown him under the bus before. To the contrary, Cary was usually the one telling Brooks and his henchmen to knock it off when they got all up in Alex’s face. Because whatever else was or was not going on between them, Cary was a good guy.

  But no one had ever called him a fag before. They picked on him for lots of things, but so far, he’d thought he’d been successful in hiding his sexuality.

  “Can you imagine?” said another sneering voice. “What if all this time we’ve been sharing a cabin with a couple of fags?”

  Then one of the Neanderthals started up with the chant, “Cary and Kitchen Boy sitting in a tree…”

  “Which one of you takes it in the ass?” Brooks said through laughter. “My money’s on Kitchen Boy, but hell, maybe you’ll surprise us, Bell.”

  Enough. Alex’s face burned, but his stock couldn’t possibly fall any lower at this camp and he wasn’t about to stand by and let those jerks turn on Cary. Alex knew what it was like to be an outcast. Whatever else happened, he didn’t want that for Cary.

  So he pushed through the line of guys acting as a de facto border between him and Brooks and his crew. “Shut up, assholes.”

  The assholes in question turned as one. Cary turned. As soon as he met Alex’s eyes—the first time they’d looked directly at each other since two nights ago—Alex knew he had made a mistake.

  But there was no taking it back. There he was, holding a vat of butter and a vat of strawberry jelly, his future at this godforsaken camp—no, his future in life—hanging in the balance.

  “What about it?” Brooks taunted Cary. “Maybe you can use some of that butter to grease up Kitchen Boy’s dick before he fucks your ass?”

  Tears prickled behind Alex’s eyelids, but damned if he would let them see him cry. He was no prude, but hearing Brooks speak so crudely shocked him. The worst thing was that Brooks and his henchmen had taken something beautiful, a night of a thousand falling stars where anything was possible, and made it seem tawdry, crude.

  No, the worst thing was what happened next.

  Cary looked at him and said, “I think maybe you have me confused with someone else, Brooks. Kitchen Boy and I hardly know each other.”

  Alex should have known it was the wrong thing to do, but he took a step toward Cary, extending a hand as if to remind him, “Yes, we do know each other.” As if a failure of memory was the only thing that had prompted those cruel words.

  Cary reared back in an exaggerated fashion and raised his hands as if protecting himself. “Dude, I know you have a big gay crush on me, but back the fuck off.” When the other boys started
laughing, Cary joined them.

  Alex blinked. He was afraid for a moment that he wouldn’t be able to stop the tears. But then they just…went away. Dried up. Everything in him dried up, in fact. All the suppleness, all the resilience that had gotten him this far being the poor, nerdy, queer kid just hardened up like clay in a kiln. In the space of a breath, he became brittle.

  But it was better than crying. He could work with brittle. Brittle could get things done. Brittle could propel his legs forward in space. He could see now, with stunning clarity, that brittle was a way to be in the world. Maybe brittle had been what was missing.

  So he did the only thing he could do, which was to calmly set down the butter and jelly, take off his apron, and walk out of the dining hall. He didn’t look at Cary, and he didn’t look back.

  Chapter Eleven

  Alexander hadn’t realized how much David used to text him until he stopped. His personal phone, which was lying on his desk as he worked late into the evening, had been utterly silent for four days.

  He thought of calling David. Part of him wanted to call.

  Well, that wasn’t it so much as part of him wanted to get laid. He’d always tried to walk the fine line between “random hook ups” and “boyfriends” territory with the men in his life. He had no philosophical objection to Grindr, but he liked to be comfortable and in control of a situation. He didn’t want strangers in his condo, but he also didn’t have time to run all over town playing games.

  But he also most decidedly didn’t want a boyfriend. His friend Barbara, a Dominion board member who’d elbowed her way into his personal life, was always trying to psychoanalyze him on the topic, sure that there had been some traumatic event in his past that had hardened his heart. One day, he’d stop deflecting and tell her the truth: there had been. But although such a confession might get Barbara off his back, it would also open a whole new line of questioning. Barbara was like a dog with a bone when she wanted something. The tough-as-nails society-wife-turned-lawyer never took no for an answer, which was what made her an excellent board member. She would fall into hysterics over the prospect that he was closing himself off to the possibility of love, resigning himself to a lifetime alone.