by Leta Blake
Then there was the stack on his left knee. That had to do with the Neil Russell Foundation for Advanced Nanite Research, including the latest applications for grants and funding. The massive amount of money that had been left behind for Joshua to handle after Neil’s death wasn’t something he’d ever expected for several reasons.
First and foremost, he hadn’t known Neil had changed his will to make Joshua the beneficiary of his estate. They’d only been together as a couple for nine months when Neil died. They hadn’t even made their relationship physical yet—what with Joshua being a skittish country boy stewing in internalized homophobia, and Neil being a very busy research scientist with a healthy commitment to waiting until Joshua was ‘ready.’
Joshua had known they were in love, believed it with his whole heart and felt it in his bones, but he’d committed the folly of youth: he’d also believed they had time. It wasn’t until after Neil’s death that he’d fully understood, though, just how devoted Neil had been to him. The inheritance had come as quite a shock.
Second, Neil had always lived frugally. His apartment in Nashville had been unremarkable—obviously, since he’d been Joshua’s next-door neighbor—and his clothes had been a uniform of black jeans and black button-up shirts that looked like they could have been purchased at JCPenney or even Walmart. Neil had once told Joshua that his parents, before their deaths, had been upper-crust society types, and that he’d attended prestigious private schools growing up. But he’d never really spelled out what that meant in numbers. So Joshua had always assumed the money was long gone, used up to pay for Neil’s college and PhD, most likely.
It wasn’t until Neil’s estate went through probate that it became clear just how truly wealthy Neil had been. Nearly a hundred million dollars in old family money inherited from his parents, plus Neil’s own investments in experimental medical technology that had paid off over the years, had all been left in a trust for medical nanite research after his tragic death, along with strict instructions that Joshua should be in charge of running it and be given quite a hefty salary for doing so.
That had been almost as shocking as Neil’s death itself.
But Joshua took his position as head of the board seriously and personally. In fact, he’d been accused of being too involved recently, which made him laugh because of course he was ‘too involved.’ The foundation and its funds were all he had left of Neil, weren’t they? He’d do whatever it took to make sure Neil’s contribution to medical science would never be forgotten.
Immediately after Neil and his grandpa’s deaths, Joshua had discovered the only way to survive his grief was to work his butt off, and then he’d just never stopped. In the stack on his right knee, there were applications for grant money from medical nanite research organizations as far away as Hong Kong and India, and he intended to examine them all thoroughly before meeting with the rest of the board to discuss them the next week.
Yet he was being encouraged by certain people to loosen his grip, to hand everything over to someone ‘more qualified’ and start moving on. But Joshua had no intention of doing that. Even if Paul, his former roommate and best friend, thought he was losing himself in it all.
Paul had thought Joshua was losing himself in Neil when he was alive, too. But if he’d truly lost himself in Neil back then, things would have been different between them.
Very different. Regret tasted bitter as hell.
Taking a sip of his cold coffee and blocking out the ka-ching of the old-fashioned cash register by the door, Joshua shuffled through some of the Stouder Lumber paperwork on his lap. He barely noticed a stranger who walked into the diner and spoke to Earl behind the counter. It was only when the man came to stand directly by Joshua’s table that Joshua looked up.
“Mr. Stouder? I’m sorry to interrupt. A man at your lumber company said you’d be here. Uh…do you have a minute?”
Joshua looked up into dark brown, soulful eyes beneath a shaggy mane of brown, wavy hair and couldn’t bring himself to say he was busy. After a formal introduction, Joshua insisted on moving to the clean table beside them, one not stacked with papers, so that they could talk on more equal terms.
Lee Fargo moved with grace despite the scarified evidence of former burns. They climbed over his exposed forearms and under his shirt, then up the right side of his neck, stopping just beneath his chin, as though some kind of mercy had spared his face.
Joshua swallowed hard as Lee told his story. It wasn’t the first time a donor recipient had sought him out. A woman who’d received one of Neil’s kidneys had contacted him by email, and they’d had a long correspondence about the hope afforded to her, especially given anticipated upcoming medical breakthroughs in nanite nephrology. He’d received letters of thanks from a number of people: parents of a few children who had received some of Neil’s skin, a woman who’d had her sight restored with one of Neil’s retinas, and a young man who’d received Neil’s surviving lung. It was always overwhelming. But this was the first recipient who had sought him out in person, and Joshua didn’t know what to say.
So he simply listened.
Lee had been in a fire while he was in his sister’s house. He’d been burned on over sixty percent of his body after going back inside to save his nephew, who was trapped in the upstairs bedroom. His nephew hadn’t lived, and Lee had barely made it himself.
“Thank you,” Lee said, reaching out and putting his hand over Joshua’s fingers clutching the handle of his coffee cup. “I can only imagine how difficult it was for you to lose your partner. Someone like Dr. Russell must have been really special.”
“He was unique, all right,” Joshua said, swallowing the sadness and going with a smile.
“Oh yeah? Tell me about him,” Lee said, leaning back again. “I’d love to know more about the man I have to thank for my skin.”
Neil’s skin. Joshua wanted to reach out and touch, even though he knew that given the rate of cellular overturn, the amount of skin on Lee’s body that would have still been Neil’s was negligible.
“Well, he was sometimes a jerk,” Joshua said honestly. “He was intense, arrogant, and too Northern for most of us Southern good ol’ boys to handle.” He wrinkled his nose, trying to seem playful, but he knew his grief was showing through.
“Yeah? But you loved him, right?” Lee’s brown eyes were dark and earnest. Joshua couldn’t help but think he was handsome, even with the scars marring his neck. “So, he must have had some winning qualities.”
“Winning,” Joshua said softly. “Yeah, he liked winning.”
“Competitive, then?”
“Competitive doesn’t cover it. He usually won.” Joshua went silent and felt a darkness swell.
“At?”
“At everything.”
And then there was that last time. When he tried to beat the odds for the sake of love. And lost.
“I’m sorry,” Lee said, moving back in his chair. “I didn’t want to cause you pain. It was selfish to ask too much. I should have thought.” He jerked his thumb over his shoulder. “I’ll just….”
Joshua reached out and touched Lee’s forearm to stop him from getting up. The skin was slick and gnarled under his fingertips. “No, please. Stay. I’d like to tell you about him, if you still want to hear.”
“Of course I do,” Lee replied, and he settled back in his seat. “That’s why I’m here.”
Joshua nodded and then waved at a waitress. “First, let’s get you some coffee.”
“That’d be nice. Thank you.”
October 2010—Nashville, Tennessee
The pounding on the door didn’t stop.
Joshua wrapped the towel around his hips and dashed into the living room of the apartment he shared with Paul. He grabbed Magic by the scruff of her neck and jerked the door open, out of breath and still wet all over.
Joshua had noticed before that their neighbor was handsome, in an uptight, professorial sort of way. That is, if a skinny, uptight professor with short, dark cu
rls could also be a hot, sexy all-black-wearing dominant type with a perma-scowl. And given the sharp glare and set jaw Joshua was greeted with when he jerked the door open, this guy was proof positive that a professor could embody both those vibes.
His entire body rang with an electric buzz as he stammered a greeting. But the man’s grimace and grunt of anger as Magic broke free of Joshua’s grip and leapt up against his firm chest quickly wiped away any imagined charm.
“Your dog is a nuisance!” the man exclaimed, under assault from Magic’s eager tongue and paws. On her hind legs, Magic was nearly as tall as he was, which put the man at somewhere close to five-nine, and probably a hundred and sixty pounds soaking wet. Just a few more pounds than Magic herself.
Joshua tried to grab at her, but failed to get more than a handful of shedding fur. “I’m sorry. Let me just…. Magic! Down! Come on, girl! Inside!” He lunged, catching hold of his dumb dog, and tried to wrestle her off the man. But, in the process, he lost his towel. With cold air on his dangly bits, and a writhing, happy dog rubbing all over him, trying to get back to her new friend, he managed to get his apartment door open again, and shoved Magic back inside, slamming the door on her.
“Nice ass,” the guy said, dusting dog hair off his black shirt and jeans.
Joshua scrambled to grab the towel from the floor. His wet skin tingling with hot embarrassment, he wrapped the towel around his body, and opened his mouth to stammer another apology. Magic barked sharply. Once. Twice. Three times.
“And that’s what I’m talking about,” the man snarled. “That bark.”
Joshua tied his towel around his waist again, panting and sweating from the effort he’d expended trying to get his idiot dog off the neighbor and back through the door. Worse, his damp skin was now covered in short, dark, dog hair, so his efforts in the shower were completely undone. He’d probably be late to work now, too. He groaned, humiliation stinging his cheeks, and he raked a hand through his hair. “Sorry. So sorry. About my dog and…and about my ass.”
“The ass was no hardship,” the man said. “The dog, though…”
Joshua ignored that, wiped a hand over his sweaty upper lip, and went on, “She’s just a big puppy. Not even a year old yet. I adopted her last month and—”
“I know damn well when you adopted her because that’s when my quiet evenings at home turned into a nightmare symphony of dog whines, barks, and outright howls.” The man glared at him so hard, Joshua was afraid his already tight-feeling skin might peel off.
“Oh. I, uh, well.” Joshua held his towel tighter. “My roommate and I work most nights and—”
“And from what Mrs. Saunders across the way told me at the mailboxes this morning, your dog barks all damn day, too.” The man raised a harsh brow.
“She does?”
The man crossed his arms over his chest. “Where are you all day that you don’t know?”
“School?”
“You’re in college?”
“Yes.”
“And your muscle-bound roommate I see going in and out? Where’s he during the day?”
“Also school.”
“And you both thought it was a great idea to get a puppy, huh?”
“Well—” Paul hadn’t actually endorsed the adoption of Magic, and he wasn’t much help with her even when he was home. But Joshua wasn’t about to admit that right now. He held onto his towel a little bit tighter.
The man raised a brow and went on. “A big, hulking puppy with an appetite for attention and exercise. The education system is abysmal, I know, but you’re a country boy, aren’t you?” He looked Joshua up and down like he could see every single farm-spent hour written into the muscles of his body. He licked his lips, shifted to his other foot, and cleared his throat. “You should have known better.”
Joshua stared at the man. Speechless, and conscious of the way his dick had reacted to the incredibly obvious once-over he’d just received, he shivered. He’d been trying hard not to have those kinds of thoughts about men anymore. He really had. But just one look from this imperious, slightly older man had Joshua’s balls tingling. He bit into his lower lip, trying to tamp down on his reaction before it became horribly obvious.
The man sighed, pinched between his eyebrows, and waved at the door to Joshua’s apartment. “Invite me in?”
“Uh, why?” Images of the man stripping off Joshua’s suddenly much too-small towel and dropping to his knees flashed wildly through his mind. He held back a whimper.
The man’s brows jumped to his hairline, as though Joshua were a total fool. But then he sighed heavily and rolled his eyes. “I guess I should introduce myself first. I’m Neil Russell, your next-door neighbor. I’m also the guy currently standing between you staying in this apartment building or getting kicked out for pet violations.” He grimaced. “So, if you’ll let me in, I have some thoughts on your dog situation.”
Joshua’s cock thickened as he gazed at Neil’s mouth—soft, but hard, too, like it bit out every word thoughtfully, precisely, without any mercy or forgiveness. He wondered what a man like that might do in bed. Not that he’d ever had a man in bed before. Not a soft one, or a hard one, or a man his own age. No men ever. Not in his bed, not anywhere. But he wanted to know what this man would be like, tugged close against him, taking him apart precisely as he—
God help him! He needed to get his mind out of the gutter.
Neil sighed again. “Hello? May I come in? Or would you rather I invited you to my place? Or should I just call the apartment manager and have you evicted?”
Joshua gasped.
Neil blinked irritably, which Joshua hadn’t even known was a thing someone could do. He put a thumb to one eye and pressed softly, and then said in a kinder tone, “I thought it might be better to share my ideas with you inside your apartment, where you can put on some clothes. But if you insist on chatting here in the hallway while standing there in nothing but a towel, fine by me.”
“No, no, you’re right. Um, come in.” Joshua turned back to the door, his stomach flipping wildly. “But I can’t promise Magic won’t jump on you again.”
The man rolled his eyes, which Joshua suddenly realized were a bright, piercing blue. “Lead the way.”
May 2018—Scottsville, Kentucky
“So what happened after that?” Lee asked, his dark brown eyes dancing with amusement. Joshua hadn’t shared how he’d reacted physically to Neil that first morning in the hallway, but his predicament of being caught in only a towel was still a funny one. Especially the part where he lost it.
“He came in, I got dressed, and then he proceeded to bless me out for a good ten minutes about the idiocy of two students with night jobs adopting a dog like Magic. I had to agree with him.”
“Did he want you to get rid of her?” Lee had long, tapered fingers, some of them also scarred, and he drummed them on the side of his coffee cup as they talked.
“No. Not really.” Joshua laughed under his breath. “As it turned out, he was a massive softy when it came to dogs and, well, animals of all kinds. People irritated him but animals held his heart. He was a vegetarian, even, and refused to perform any of his nanite research on animals—which I’ve continued to insist on to this day.”
“He was a nanite researcher?” Lee’s voice inched up an octave with interest. Joshua knew the news had recently been covering some advances in nanite cellular repair. He’d done some of the interviews about it, even, since Neil’s foundation was funding so much of it. In the upcoming years, nanites might be able to change the surfacing of Lee’s scars.
“He was. One of the best.” Joshua swallowed a lump in his throat and went on. “Anyway, no, he didn’t want to get rid of Magic. Instead, he cozied up to her while I was getting dressed, and by the time I came back into the room, he’d basically taught her to sit. Something I’d failed at for weeks. He was amazing with that kind of thing.”
“Dogs know if someone’s a good person,” Lee said, with a tender smile that grabbe
d at Joshua like a hook.
“Yeah. And Magic adored him from the start.” He returned Lee’s smile tightly. “In the end, he offered a proposition that I almost refused because I didn’t understand the way his mind worked yet. He was gruff, impatient with me—with all humans, really—and I wondered if he had some nefarious plan for Magic because it was too good to be true.” Joshua let his mind go back to that moment in his old, shared apartment: Neil on the sofa with Magic, surrounded by Paul’s beer bottles and the detritus of two young men living together away from home for the first time. Magic had nuzzled Neil’s hand, and he’d given his first smile to her—bright, sweet, and surprising. Joshua sighed. “But she was snuggled up at his side, and he stroked her with this gentleness that got to me…” He swallowed again, worried that he would cry for sure this time.
“He offered to help with her?”
“Yes. He offered to train her, to take her with him running in the mornings before he left for work, and to keep her at night in his apartment if Paul and I were out. In exchange, Paul and I had to pay for her food and vet bills, and in the end? Magic was Neil’s dog. She basically lived there, and we just took care of her when Neil couldn’t.” He laughed. Then wiped his eyes. “Of course, it was Magic who…” He shook his head violently. “I’m sorry. I can’t talk about that.”
Lee’s eyes softened. “How he died?”
Joshua shook his head again. “I can’t.” His voice was gruff.
“No, of course not. I never wanted you to. Thank you for everything you told me today. Do you mind if we just have a coffee together now? Talk about other things?”
Joshua gave a watery, grateful smile, and he noticed again how warm and caring Lee’s eyes were, and he let himself reach out to take hold of Lee’s hand.
Chapter Two
August 2018—Atlanta, Georgia
“It’s Joshua.” Neil stopped playing with the old cell phone Alice had given him to take apart and pointed toward the TV screen. “He’s on the news again.”
