by Leta Blake
“Are you upset with me?” Leo asked.
“No,” Grant answered. “Just surprised. I didn’t expect to find out so many important things on my lunch break.”
“Yeah? Like what?”
“Like that Radiology Riley is so squeamish about the concept of gay sex, or that his girlfriend is so perceptive about what you like in bed. Or that you like me so much.”
Leo actually looked a little bashful, but he said, “Oh, you knew that. So much more than bacon, even.”
“Given that you’ve never declared your abiding affection for said breakfast meat, I was never entirely certain just how much ‘liking’ that analogy entailed.”
Leo bumped him with his shoulder as they walked. “You know how much I care about you, Grant. Stop kidding around.”
Grant smiled and then said, “And then there were quite a few bombshells about your breakup with superstar Mr. Curtis Banks. Things I hadn’t known before.”
“I didn’t want you to know,” Leo said, the tips of his ears going red. “It’s humiliating. I don’t want you to think of me like that.”
Grant paused in the middle of the hallway, put his hand on Leo’s cheek, and spoke seriously. “You left.”
Leo looked unsure but he turned his head and kissed Grant’s palm. “And, besides, some of that information, like about how I’d had doubts for a long time? That was something I feel like you really should have heard from me, Grant,” Leo chided softly.
“I did hear it from you.”
“You know what I mean. Face to face.”
“This incredibly attractive visage before you is my face,” Grant said.
Leo smiled and blinked slowly, flirtatiously for a moment, still looking timid. “Don’t make me say it now. Not here.”
Grant dropped his forehead to Leo’s and Leo let out a soft sound. Grant kissed the end of his nose, palmed Leo’s cheek, and changed the subject as he walked toward the stairs leading up to the second floor. “Then there was that little thing about a potential donor. All in all, a very interesting eavesdropping session.”
“So, when do I get to eavesdrop on you?” Leo asked.
“Alas, I have no friends. So, never.”
“You have Alec,” Leo pointed out.
“True. I do like him. Though slightly less than I like bacon.”
Leo grinned and looked down at his own feet and, much to Grant’s amusement, actually shuffled them in embarrassment.
Grant’s in-hospital beeper went off. One glance told him their conversation had to be over. “Sorry. Have to go.”
“Okay,” Leo said, taking Grant’s hand again and squeezing it briefly. “See you tonight? I’ll tell you what I find out from Dr. Muresan today.”
Grant waved the beeper at him and said, “It depends on how long this takes. I’ll call you.”
• • •
Present
“What in the hell is taking so long?” Grant asked.
“I don’t know,” Dennis said. “They might be having problems with Hannah. But, look, his heartbeat’s steady, his blood pressure is sound. Have some patience.”
“The kidney should be here by now,” Grant said, cold sweat forming at the small of his back and panic sweeping through his body. “Maybe they got in there and Hannah’s kidney isn’t as healthy as they thought?”
“Maybe, but why borrow trouble?” Dennis said.
Grant had a strong urge to call Chuck, to insist that he bring Lucky to the hospital, because Grant needed her. He didn’t know quite what he needed her for, but he wanted to see her face, maybe hold her, which he didn’t do a lot because she had knobby knees that always dug into him, but he really wanted to hold her right now.
The observation room felt too small. How had he never noticed before how tiny the room was, how little air there was to breathe? He couldn’t even pace properly because it was only nine steps that way and nine steps back, and suddenly he need an acre, a wide, open acre, or an endless ocean to fall into, because he was losing it. He was completely losing it.
“Grant,” Dennis said. “You need to calm down. Things are just fine down there. Leo is going to be just fine.”
Grant was past the point when he could tell Dennis to shut the hell up, he was past knowing anything other than the blip, blip, blip on the screens below, the numbers on the blood pressure monitor, and his own heart banging in his chest, making it hard to breath.
Lucky would ground him. She’d give him something to focus on that was real. But she couldn’t be here. Not here in this room. And Grant had to be here, too. He had to know every moment of what was happening with Leo.
“Grant, I don’t know how to help you, buddy. What would Leo do? What would he say?” Dennis asked.
What would Leo do? He’d tell Grant to think of something that made him feel safe. He thought of being in bed with Leo, both of them sweaty and smiling, and then he thought of riding in the car with Leo driving Lucky to school, and he remembered kissing him in the middle of the hospital corridor just to make the nurses talk and to see Leo smile. His safe place? It was Leo, and, God, that made Grant feel as though he was going to turn inside out with fear.
“I can’t,” Grant said. He felt like he might pass out, black swirling dots speckled his vision. “Get Alec.”
Dennis pulled out his phone and Grant heard him tell Alec to come to the hospital, Grant was flipping out, and Grant needed him.
He thought about Alec’s soft hair, his warm cheek, and maybe if he were here, and he held Grant’s hand, maybe this would be something he could tolerate. This staring down at Leo’s unconscious body, cut open and waiting, still waiting, so long they’d been waiting, and it was really getting to be ridiculous. Maybe if he could breathe, he wouldn’t be panicking so much.
“Grant, don’t give yourself a heart attack, okay?”
Grant said nothing, watching the blood pressure monitor, keeping his eye on Leo’s pulse.
Dennis kept talking, “This is a very common procedure. So get a grip.”
At that moment the attendants from Hannah’s OR came into the room with a cooler, and frantic activity began. The faster they got the kidney into Leo, the better the chances of it functioning properly, and the better the chance for a good outcome.
Grant pressed himself against the glass, trying to see if the kidney pinked up, if it started to produce urine immediately, but then there was a change in the room.
Something surprising, something unexpected.
Grant’s heart stopped, he felt it go still and silent in his chest, and then thump with a mighty heave of adrenaline and fear. He didn’t know how or when he broke down, or when he started pounding on the glass, but it was sometime after the numbers on the blood pressure monitor took a dive.
Grant watched them drop and drop as he yelled, and Dennis held him back, stronger than Grant had thought possible.
Chapter Twelve
Six Months Ago
“I want you to fuck me,” Leo said, conversationally, while he poured boiling water over the teabag resting with the tag hanging outside of the mug. He passed it to Grant over the massive, wooden kitchen table. The house was quiet—just Grant and Leo. Lucky had already gone to bed before Grant had even made it over after his shift at the hospital.
Grant choked on his cookie. “Who, what, now?”
“I said that I want you to fuck me. I think maybe Curtis and I were doing it wrong. Maybe I just didn’t want to open up to him, I don’t know.” Leo looked thoughtful. “Or maybe I wanted it too much, because I thought I’d never have what I really wanted with him, you know—acceptance, devotion, that sort of thing. But, yeah, I’m done with being that person. I want to try it. With you. I think I’ll like it. I love when you do it with your fingers, and I’m ready.”
Leo seemed to belatedly realize that he wasn’t the only one who needed to agree to this for it to work out, and he added, “And, I really hope you are, too.”
“I was more ready before you mentioned your ex,” Grant said.
<
br /> Leo rolled his eyes, amusement crinkling the corners. “Oh, come on, Grant, you have to know that if you trump him anywhere it’s the bedroom, and, well, honestly, it’s everywhere, so I don’t know what you’re even worried about.”
“Who said I was worried? My superiority is indisputable in every way. It’s just the idea of superstar Curtis Banks’s dick anywhere near your ass makes my cock shrivel. I know you relate all too well.”
Leo again rolled his eyes and started sipping at his small glass of water. “Whatever, Grant. I just want to try it with you, and if you don’t like it, then we’ll never have to—”
“Oh, please,” Grant said. “I’m gonna like it, and if I have anything to do with it, so will you.”
Leo smiled, his eyes liquid warmth. “I’m counting on it.”
Grant said, “So, when are you thinking we should proceed with the initiation of your ass? Tonight? Tomorrow? This kitchen table seems plenty sturdy—”
“I need to talk to you first.” Leo’s voice had changed from the confident, eager tenor of before and suddenly sounded shy and maybe a little ashamed. Grant had a feeling he knew what was coming. And whose name would play a liberal role in whatever Leo was feeling tormented about.
“Okay,” Grant said. “I’m listening.”
Leo sighed. “There are things I haven’t told you. About me. About my life. And I think you have a right to know. And they’re important, too, if we’re going to…you know.”
“Fuck.”
“Yeah.” Leo fiddled with his water glass and then wiped his hands on his jeans. “I’m nervous. Some of this stuff I haven’t told anyone. Curtis knew, but then he was there. So he knew. And now I have to tell you, and I don’t want you to think less of me, or to want to leave, but I guess that’s the risk I have to take. So I’m telling you, Grant.”
Grant said nothing. He couldn’t imagine that there was anything Leo could tell him to make him leave, but he wasn’t one for false promises, and if anyone could surprise Grant, it would be Leo, so he kept his mouth shut and just nodded.
“Okay, so…I might have some hang-ups,” Leo began. “Or, I do have some hang-ups. Kind of big ones. But, God, it sounds so insane that I’m not even sure that you’d believe me. I mean, it’s—”
“I’ll believe you,” Grant said.
Leo avoided looking at him, alternating between staring over Grant’s shoulder and looking down at his mug of tea. “So, I don’t know if I should start at the beginning or in the middle.”
“Start where you need me to understand,” Grant said.
Leo nodded, sucked his lips into his mouth like he was gearing up, and said, “Curtis and I…to say sex was difficult is kind of an understatement. He never seemed into it. We waited three years to have sex. We were in high school, so other kids were waiting too, so I believed him when he said it wasn’t me.”
“It wasn’t you,” Grant growled.
“Right. I know. But he said he wanted it to be right, and that seemed fair. In the end he just wasn’t into it much, you know?”
“You don’t have to—”
“I need you to understand,” Leo said. “It was painful and embarrassing, and Curtis was perfunctory and sometimes strange. He’d put me off for so long, and then when we did do something, it was just such an effort, so much work, like it wasn’t even fun.”
Grant’s stomach twisted up.
Leo met Grant’s eyes, his lips trembling. “Until you, I didn’t realize it could be fun.”
“Leo…”
Leo held up a hand to stop Grant from going on. “He’d hold me after, but I could tell he wanted to get away as soon as possible. He’d get up and go shower, and we’d go back to the sexless life he seemed to prefer. Kissing? Sure. Holding hands? Sure. Cuddling? He liked a lot when he was around anyway. But getting down and dirty with me, being sweaty or adventurous? He just wasn’t up for that.”
Grant couldn’t imagine such a scenario. Not wanting Leo in a primal, deep way was something Grant couldn’t begin to fathom.
Leo said, “I can’t blame him for how that all made me feel. It’s not my fault that he didn’t like sex. Though, of course, I thought it was. But time and distance tells me that it’s not his fault that he doesn’t like it either. I don’t know. He’s never been willing to talk about his feelings on sex except to shame me and tell me that I was bad for enjoying it. Maybe he’s asexual?”
“Possibly.”
“I can’t blame him if he didn’t know that about himself. If that’s even the situation? So I don’t know. You can understand why I thought it was me.”
“I can. It wasn’t you. And he never should have shamed you, no matter what he likes or doesn’t like.”
“I know, I know. There were so many reasons it was bad between us. God, like, I thought the reason why sex wasn’t good to begin with was because neither of us knew what the hell we were doing. High school sweethearts and all that. Virgins in every way.” He blushed. “But after our first breakup, when he first went to LA to start his career? He never slept with anyone else. He said it was because he loved me too much. I suspect he just didn’t want to. I think sex repulses him.”
“Maybe. Who knows?”
“Yeah. And meanwhile, I started dating you, and we had insane chemistry.”
“To put it lightly.”
Leo swallowed hard and squeezed his eyes shut. “And it was scary to me.”
“It was?” Grant frowned in concern. “I thought you—”
Leo’s gray eyes popped open earnestly. “Yes! I wanted you so much. I’d never felt anyone want me back before. It was a lot.”
“I…all right.”
“So when Curtis showed up saying all the things I wanted to hear, I ran.”
“I was there.”
“I know. I have to tell you everything so that you’re sure you want to be with me.”
“Baby, I’m sure right now. I’ve been sure.”
Leo blinked at him gently, but then he insisted on continuing. “I need to tell you everything.”
“All right. I’m listening.”
“Once we got back together—me and Curtis, I mean—it wasn’t long after that when I knew I’d made a mistake. And yet I stayed, because he was breaking out in Hollywood, suddenly getting famous and rich, and I liked that. And I was humiliated by the idea that it might not work out between us after all I’d walked away from, and all I’d let myself believe. Worse, I didn’t want to give up all the fairytales that might be waiting for us if I walked out. And my transplants, all the health problems, they’re expensive. Curtis could afford to…” He shivered. “He could shoulder the financial burden of me. And so, in that way, what happened with Curtis is all my fault.”
Grant understood that Leo had a driving need to take responsibility for things, and while he wished that he could tell Leo that, in this case, he was wrong, that it wasn’t his fault at all, he couldn’t say that. Leo had made a valid point, and so Grant held his peace.
“And, it’s all left its mark, Grant. I’m afraid of disappointing you. I’m afraid of the day when you turn me down because you’re too disgusted by my sickness to want to touch me. It’s ridiculous, but I’m afraid of myself, afraid of what I might agree to, just to make sure you get what you want in bed, so that you’ll want me again later. And I have to be careful of that. Draw lines sometimes. Because I never want sex between us to be bad. I never want to feel like it’s work or a grudging gift to get me off your back. I want it to be good with us. The way it is now. The way it has been the last two months together.”
“Leo—”
“No, I have to tell you this. It’s important.” Leo’s face and neck grew more and more flushed, and his hands trembled as he held them out to stop Grant from talking. “I like when you bite me, or spank me, and I think it’s really hot. But that’s not what I’m talking about. I’m talking about being afraid that I’ll give up a lot more than that.”
“I know, Leo.”
“
And, wait, one last thing. I think I’m…well, just thinking about you makes me feel like I’m flying. I want so badly to believe in this, to believe in you and me, and I want you. I want you. And I am scared to death that I’m not going to get a new kidney. That I’m going to die. Or that I’ll be so sick that you stop—”
“Shh, Leo. Stop.”
“Wanting me,” Leo finished, his chin trembling and tears in his eyes.
“I’ll always want you,” Grant said. No matter what. He would make it his mission in life if he had to, but never in his presence would Leo feel unwanted.
“You can’t know that.”
“I do know,” Grant said.
“I could get really sick.”
“You might. Or we might find a kidney for you. And a lot of people live for a very long time on dialysis.”
“I don’t want to live like that forever. I will if I have to—for Lucky, but—”
“For Lucky and for me,” Grant said. “Because if I’m going to fall in love with you, I’m not going to lose you. You have to fight and stay as healthy as you possibly can. For me.”
Leo’s face dissolved into a soft, warm joy and he wiped the tears away with the back of his hand. “Do you plan to fall in love with me?”
“I don’t think I have a choice,” Grant said. “Planned or not, it’s happened.”
“Happened? Past tense? You already….”
“Yes.”
Leo’s head tilted to the side, his mouth open in surprise, and his eyes so warm and sweet. “I—”
“Don’t say it,” Grant said.
“But I want to,” Leo said.
“Leo, there’s no guilt here. You can feel it or not feel it, and it won’t change a damn thing about what I feel for you. That’s what’s important right now.”
Leo kissed him then, twining his fingers in Grant’s hair, his tension draining away into heat and lust. Grant pushed aside the mugs of cold tea, the plate of cookies, and pressed Leo against the table, the wood digging into Grant’s elbows and knees as they scooted back onto it. Their mouths never came apart, as their hands gripped and pulled at each other’s clothes until smooth skin ran under fingertips.
