Risk Everything on It

by K.A. Mitchell

  He wasn’t flirting. This was probably the largest number of words to pass between them that didn’t have to do with sex, but Jax felt a tingle around the back of his neck. Like he got sometimes when a scene was going well, every beat perfect, meshed energy building.

  “Sambusa.” The waitress slid a plate on the table between them. Two golden-fried triangles, bursting with something dark and spicy, dug a curl of scent into Jax’s nose, luring him like something from a Tom and Jerry cartoon. He waited, not wanting to interrupt Oz’s story.

  Oz broke open one of the stuffed pockets, releasing steam into the air. “Finally, he said he would teach me to cast properly.”

  Jax nodded.

  A smile started at the corner of Oz’s lips. Jax swallowed a little wave of relief. Oz had begun so seriously, Jax wondered if this was going to be the Day My Dad Had a Heart Attack story.

  Jax leaned in, letting the rest of the chatter around them fade out.

  “I loved the sound it made, the line whizzing out, but he would always set my line for me. So he went through all the steps. He was a good teacher. Patient.” The smile turned into a grin. “He just left out one big step.”

  “Uh-oh.”

  “Oh yeah. Dad nods and steps back, and I am set to go. The line goes flying out, felt like it could have stretched across a football field.” Oz broke off a smaller piece of their appetizer to let it cool, then looked up at Jax. “My pole flying out with it.”

  Jax wanted to laugh, but in Oz’s eyes, there was a hint of the boy who’d been trying so hard to get it right, and Jax couldn’t laugh at him.

  “Dad might have left out the part about hanging on to your pole.” Oz arched his brows, and Jax swallowed a snort. “But he’d always been real clear about not losing it. I followed the pole right off the dock. Splat. Now I’m splashing around, shrieking, scaring every fish for miles, and so damn heated I can’t believe I didn’t vaporize the lake.”

  “What did your dad do?” Jax asked.

  Oz popped a piece of the sambusa into his mouth. “He pissed himself.”

  “Huh?”

  “He laughed so hard he pissed himself. He couldn’t even fish me back out. I was screaming like I was going to die, he said, and he couldn’t even find breath to tell me to put my feet down because the water was only three feet deep.”

  It was a funny story, and Oz was telling it well, but Jax felt sorry for the boy at the center of it.

  “Eventually he jumped down—which I guess helped out with his wet pants—and held me and got me on my feet. His face was soaked, from laugh tears, and his voice torn up. I thought he was furious with me, and that set me off again.

  “After he got me calmed down, he swam out and got my pole, and even though I never went fishing with him after that, he kept that story between the two of us.”

  Jax put the piece of pastry he’d been about to bite back on the plate. “Wow. Your dad seems like a really great guy.”

  “He was.”

  “I’m sorry.”

  Oz nodded. “Four years ago.”

  Jax started to say something about his own mom, but didn’t. When it had happened, it had felt like a giant wound, that he had a huge scar he couldn’t believe people didn’t ask him about. Then he realized that sooner or later it happened to almost everyone. And it didn’t matter how it went down or how old you were. It just sucked. And knowing your own story didn’t mean you knew how it was for other people.

  Jax savored a few bites of the appetizer, spicy beef and sweet golden shell. The wine didn’t do much to cool off the chili spice, so he switched to the tea they’d been served, ladling in some sugar.

  From the corner of his eye, he saw Oz slide his phone from his pocket and glance down.

  “It’s fine. Leave it out.”

  Oz glanced up.

  Jax said, “You’re a dad. I get that it’s not something you take off from.”

  “Thanks.” As Oz set it on the side table holding their wine and tea, Jax caught a glimpse of his home screen.

  Two little girls. Big sweet smiles.

  Their dinner arrived on a huge platter large enough to cover the main table. The waitress added more napkins and tiny bowls of scented water to the table holding their wine. “When we break bread in Ethiopia, we strengthen the bonds of loyalty by eating with our hands from the same dish. You take the injera—” She indicated the spongelike crepe lining their platter. “—and use it to scoop up a mouthful.”

  Jax met Oz’s eyes and signaled What the hell? with a wiggle of eyebrows. They both broke off a small piece and pinched away a bite from one of the stews on the platter.

  Carb-loaded delivery or not, it was delicious.

  The waitress beamed maternally at them, cool, sweet-scented hand resting lightly on Jax’s shoulder. “Now, the gursha, for friendship. You give each other food to the mouth from the hand.”

  Friendship. Jax blinked down at the plate of food, then at Oz, who had his head tilted.

  “I’m game if you are,” Oz said.

  Jax pointed at the chicken dish he wanted to try, and Oz waved his hand over one with lentils and potatoes.

  They needed to watch each other’s faces as they brought the bites to each other’s lips. Oz’s eyes lit up, glowing clear, almost gold in the light. Jax hesitated as the little bite touched his lips, an urgent need to swallow before he could open his mouth to accept it. Oz had had his tongue in Jax’s ass and it hadn’t felt this intimate.

  Oz opened his mouth first. His lips caught Jax’s thumb as he pushed. Such a tiny sensation, an instant of Oz’s lips on his skin, but Jax felt it all the way down his arm, warmth like the prickle of sunshine after too long in the AC.

  Hypnotized by the flame in Oz’s eyes, Jax accepted the press of food onto his tongue.

  The waitress snapped him out of the trance with a light laugh. “Gursha doesn’t have to be together. Now, did you want silverware?”

  “I’m good,” Oz said.

  Jax shook his head.

  “Excellent.” With another delicate touch on Jax’s shoulder, she left them.

  Jax wanted to shove away the tension, the weird, sudden yearning to do every single mouthful like that, popping pieces of Ethiopian food into each other’s mouths. He brought his fingers together, ready to imitate The Simpsons’ character’s famous Exxxxxcellent for a quick laugh, when Oz sat back.

  “Is it me, or do you feel like we might be married in Ethiopia?”

  Jax held up his hands in surrender. “My passport can prove I never left the country.”

  “Hard to prove a negative.”

  “Spoken like someone who watches a lot of TV procedurals.”

  Jax waited on Oz’s answer. Dead Man Talking wasn’t tearing it up in terms of ratings, but he’d rather tell Oz himself than have him randomly spy Jax on TV. He supposed it was a conversation they should have. That and the fact that Jax Conlon did not have any kind of public relationships.

  “Not really. No time to keep up with it.”

  And that particular round of awkward could be saved for another time. Jax had learned there was a particular flavor to humiliation when you made a big announcement like that only to be informed that not only didn’t he care who you were, you hadn’t actually been in a relationship.

  By the time all of the little dishes on their platter had been reduced by half, Jax’s lips, tongue, nose were all on fire.

  Oz watched him try to drink it away, then said, “Can I help?”

  “I’ll take it.”

  Oz poured a sugar packet onto the teaspoon and held it out. Maybe it was the amount of wine Jax had drunk to try to ease back on the flames, but he didn’t stop to think, just swayed forward and let Oz slide the spoon in.

  “Move it around,” Oz said.

  Jax whapped his nose with the shaft of the spoon.

  “I meant the sugar.”

  After tugging the spoon free, Jax smeared the sugar around his mouth and lips.

  Oz stared at him. �
��That should be fucking illegal to do in a restaurant.”

  “Thanks.”

  The burning eased, though Jax stuck to the salad-like arrangement of greens on the edge of the platter for the rest of the meal.

  It was winding down too fast. Jax wanted to hit rewind, play it back nice and slow, from watching Oz’s ass and legs as he climbed the stairs in front of him, to sharing that bite of food.

  The waitress took away the platter, and Jax ordered a dessert he knew he wouldn’t eat to keep them there.

  “My dad took me fishing exactly once.”

  “That sounds ominous.” Oz wiped his fingers on the warm, damp towel the waitress had left for them.

  “He’s more of a golf guy. Anyway, we rented some gear and set up on the beach.”

  “How old were you?”

  Hiatus, second season of Family Daze. “Eleven. A bunch of other guys were fishing, casting into the surf. I guess my dad figured How hard could it be?”

  Oz winced.

  Jax mimed tossing back the line, then broke his wrists, faking the tug of a caught hook.

  “What did you get?”

  “My ear.”

  “Ouch.”

  Jax shrugged. “I don’t remember it hurting much. I’d wanted to get one pierced and I thought, Cool. They’ll have to let me now. My dad freaked out. The barb was in, but not all the way, and when he reached for it, it bled.”

  Thank Christ it wasn’t your face. Your mother’s going to kill me.

  “One of the other guys came over and told my dad to cut the line and push it through.”

  Dad had turned white. Through his ear?

  “What were you doing?” Oz asked.

  “I think just standing there. Like I said, it didn’t really hurt that much, more like a sting and burn. But based on my dad’s reaction I knew it was Serious Shit, so I was trying not to make it worse.

  “One of the other guys came over. He looked like a Hell’s Angel: vest, beard, tats, big dude. He whips out a knife, and that’s when I got scared. Huge knife coming at my face. A quick tug and a pinch, and he thumps my shoulder with his fist, saying, ‘There you go, kid. Now you got a pierced ear.’ He taps the stud in his ear and goes back down to his friend.”

  Oz’s eyes were soft, dark, just a tiny bit of the lamp flames in them now. Jax wanted to crawl inside them and—oh shit, how much wine had he had?

  “Did you get it pierced?” Oz asked.

  “Nah. But I did get a tiny scar.” Jax reached up and pulled at his lobe.

  Oz leaned across the table. “And a jones for guys with beards?”

  Jax eyed the neat, short hair framing Oz’s mouth. Jax’s mouth was watering, and it wasn’t for the chocolate-drizzled pastry between them.

  “Let me see the scar.” Oz’s deep voice brushed Jax’s ear.

  He wanted this, wanted Oz to kiss him. In the restaurant. In this world of camera phones and YouTube and no privacy. Like anyone was even looking at them. Would recognize him. And if they did, who gave a shit anyway?

  The KIDZNet apparently. Jax jerked away, spine snapping straight.

  But he couldn’t blame it all on some suits. Jax had been holding on to the secret too long to let it go on a whim.

  Oz’s brow furrowed. “Was there a sudden catastrophic failure of my deodorant?”

  “No. I—the dessert looks good.”

  Oz rubbed a finger across his chin. “Yes, it does.”

  If Jax was as good at lying to himself as he was in front of a camera, he’d be able to convince himself that the chill that accompanied them out of the restaurant and all the way back to Thirty-Ninth Street was from the strain over the check. They did have a quiet battle, Jax insisting he’d issued the invitation, and Oz reminding him of the pizza a month ago. But agreeing to both put their cards in the folder and asking the waitress to split the bill wasn’t where it started. That was all on Jax and the way he’d pulled back.

  Jax conceded the cab fare for the return trip and waited for Oz to join him on the sidewalk in front of the hotel.

  “Are you coming up?”

  Oz tucked his phone back into his pocket. “Wasn’t sure you wanted me to.”

  “I do.” Jax dragged up his best sheepish smile. “Though I did say I’d let you off if it was too much responsibility.”

  Oz studied him carefully, and Jax really hoped Oz found what he was looking for.

  With a nod at the hotel doors, Oz said, “I’ll let you know if I need to be taken off the hook.”

  Chapter 12

  SOME THINGS defied all of Jax’s understanding. The view through the door into Dane and Spencer’s kitchen for one. Gideon handed off dishes from the sink as Spencer dried them and put them away. Jax didn’t think he’d ever work out how Dane not only had two guys in love with him, but managed to have them cozily together at dinner as if they were in a poly triad. Hmm. Maybe they were and Jax had just missed the announcement.

  Nah. Gideon kept a careful but polite noncontact distance from Spencer as they cleaned up.

  “What?” Dane leaned back in his dining chair, following Jax’s gaze. “Want something else to eat?”

  “No. It was great.”

  Dane and Spencer had put out a healthy spread for Thanksgiving. Skinless turkey was always good protein, and the veggie dishes hadn’t been overly buttery. The sweet potatoes cooked with cider and raisins had reminded Jax of the food at the Ethiopian restaurant. He’d had two helpings.

  “Hand me that platter.” Gideon’s voice came through from the kitchen.

  It wasn’t as if Gideon and Spencer hadn’t always been civil to each other, whatever still went down between Dane and G sometimes. Jax got the difference between fucking and feelings. They all—well, maybe not Theo—did. But when there were feelings, how did you not want to smash a dish over the head of the guy who had basically won?

  Jax was probably closer to Oz than he’d been to any guy other than his friends. He was hoping that if all those compliments from Hanson Rede led to something where Jax had lots of work in New York, he could spend more time with Oz. Take another sublet, find some other cool new restaurants together. But he wasn’t planning on them buying a bedroom set they’d both be sleeping in. Still, if Oz moved on, no way would Jax end up standing around doing dishes with the new guy. He’d be way too fucking jealous.

  Hell, Spencer made Jax self-conscious anyway, so fucking smart, and all his traveling to spots on the planet Jax couldn’t even spell to google them. He carried his wineglass out to the kitchen.

  “Christ, Jax, I asked you if you were having more wine five minutes ago,” Gideon complained.

  “Sorry. Changed my mind.”

  “That would mean you’d have to have one.” Gideon reached for the glass.

  “No need to wash it.” Spencer intercepted him, grabbed the glass, and finished off the little puddle of Shiraz. “Clean enough.”

  “Yeah, until there’s a little purple in it next time it comes out of the cabinet and your—Dane—with that freakish memory of his, calls me up and bitches me out.”

  “I have never bitched in my life.” Dane came up and took the glass from Spencer, then hipped Gideon out of the way to dip it in the sink of soapy water.

  “Never?” Jax asked.

  “Since I have an eidetic memory, I would know.”

  “I think the dispute is over the word bitch.” Spencer grabbed the glass back and wiped it dry. “And as counterpoint I offer the trip to Machu Picchu—”

  “That was seven years ago, and valid observations about the—”

  “Last April when we had trouble at customs coming back from Nepal—”

  “Bureaucracy doesn’t—”

  “And last night when the line to pick up the turkey was too long.”

  “I rest my case.” Gideon poured himself a cup of coffee from the carafe.

  “Here, let me make fresh.” Spencer stepped toward him as Dane made a face behind his boyfriend’s head.

  Jax leaned his he
ad on Dane’s shoulder, murmuring in his ear, “Does that mean you have two daddies, rebel child?”

  Dane kissed Jax’s cheek. “Green isn’t your best color. But keep grinding the gears, man. You’ll figure it out someday.”

  Jax definitely wasn’t wishing himself in Dane’s moccasined feet. One semiregular arrangement was all the complication he could handle right now, especially if he was going to start getting decent work. He was still trying to decide how to mention that whole discretion thing to Oz without the landmine of the word relationship.

  When Gideon said the bakery apple pie he’d brought had cheddar cheese in the crust, Jax caved and had a slice. They brought the coffee and pie into the living room, where Gideon grabbed the remote and clicked the TV on, bringing up the football game he’d reluctantly turned off when Dane had announced the food was “on the table and getting cold, you rude bastard.”

  Now Dane gave Gideon a look. “Seriously?”

  “I like football.” Gideon shrugged.

  “Why? If you want to celebrate the masculine form, there are better and far more fun ways than this litmus test that’s about inflicting pain and suffering on others. Besides, this bullshit only perpetuates a patriarchal culture where violence is the recognition of what makes a real man.”

  “In addition to being redundant, you are so full of shit.”

  “Wow, that’s your well-reasoned argument?”

  “Over spouting recycled bullshit from your Intro to Feminism course, I’ll take mine.”

  “Now, you know when we fight, the baby cries.” Dane rolled his eyes toward Jax while nudging Gideon with a toe.

  Jax kicked Dane. Mouthing an exaggerated Ow, Dane curled into Spencer.

  “One might inquire how you reconcile your too-cool-for-football values with the highly materialistic forty-two-inch television in your home.” Gideon put his plate on the side table.

  “I like football,” Spencer said. “Proper football, uh, soccer. No offense,” he added to Gideon.

  “Not my circus, not my monkeys.”

  “Huh?” Jax swallowed a piece of pie the wrong way.

  “Nie mój cyrk, nie moje malpy,” Spencer said, like that bunch of syllables cleared it up. “It’s a Polish idiom that means he has no fucks to give about it.” He tucked Dane under his arm.