Pipe: (A Romance & Suspense Mystery) (Red Doors of New Orleans Mystery Series Book 1)

by Wade Lake

  The fact that they haven’t done it in the new house yet … it’s just bizarre. Mack’s about ready to pop every time he crosses his legs, and he knows Chase must be feeling it even worse. Everything about Chase’s personality is his sex drive. Seriously, this is a man who can’t shake out the last drop at a urinal without popping wood. Chase can’t go without sex … and yet … here they are. Not having sex.

  ✽✽✽

  The next day is the same. All work, no play. They’re replacing damaged vinyl floor tiles in the kitchen. It’s not hard work, but it’s work that needs to be done. Mack is so ready to be fucked, he can’t think straight. He screws up a whole row of squares by the door and has to redo them. When the job is done, Chase walks out and says he’s hitting the sack.

  Mack can’t put his tools away fast enough—he literally throws them into his toolbox. Nonetheless, when he gets to the bedroom, Chase is already in bed with his latest paperback.

  Mack strips down to his underwear, washes up in the bathroom sink—skips the shower—and crawls into bed beside Chase. The foam mattress is soft. Mack is hard as a rock. Just inches away, he can feel Chase’s warmth. Mack rolls onto his side and watches him reading. He would rather Chase were holding him than that book … but lying beside him, watching him closely, breathing the same air … it isn't a bad alternative. Chase looks so smart, wearing nothing but boxers and glasses. Looks like he might turn to Mack at any moment and give him that glance. The glance that says, it's time.

  They've never gone this long without making love. The Chase with whom Mack is familiar—the Chase he dated, the Chase he married, the Chase he lived with for four years in rented apartments—would never choose a book over a fuck.

  Mack reaches into the air with a long yawn … when his arms come down, he lays a hand on Chase's shoulder … slides his hand lower and begins rubbing the center of his hairy chest.

  Chase looks up from his book and pushes his glasses up the bridge of his nose.

  Mack grins like a teenager. "You wanna?"

  "Wanna what?" Chase mumbles.

  "Play around?"

  Chase appears confused. "Now?"

  "No, next Thursday," Mack jokes. "Of course, now."

  Chase's empathy appears to kick in. He mimics Mack's grin perfectly. "That might be … nice."

  Mack's hand moves to the waistband of Chase's boxers.

  Chase catches Mack's wrist. "Just let me finish this chapter." He guides Mack's hand away from his fly.

  Apparently, it's a very long chapter.

  Eventually, Mack goes to the kitchen for a snack.

  Two saltines with a dab of peanut butter between them.

  When he returns, Chase's book has fallen to his chest.

  He's snoring.

  Mack lifts the paperback off Chase's chest. He starts to set it on the nightstand but pauses. He flips through the pages for a second. It's a trashy MM WhoDunIt with a noir cover. Sticker on the front shows he bought it at the used bookstore on Decatur. A blurb on the back promises twists and surprises to the very last page. Mack turns his attention to Chase's sleeping face … now back to the book. With barely a noise, he tears out that very last page. Closes the book gently. Sets it on the nightstand.

  His palms are suddenly sweaty.

  His vision dims for a second.

  His heartbeat thumps in his ears. Sounds like someone stomping across a wooden floor.

  He retreats to the bathroom and closes the door. Lets his weight fall against the towel rack. Gives himself a minute. His eyes drop to the torn page. It's shaking in his hand. He reads it, reads it a second time, rips it into tiny squares. Flushes the pieces down the toilet.

  Probably wasn't Mack's smartest move, but he has a plan—a hastily conjured plan, but a plan nonetheless. Whether it works will depend on Chase's willingness to see the humor. But Mack and Chase share the same sense of humor … sometimes. Mack throws an optimistic grin at the mirror.

  The man in the mirror appears less confident.

  Mack’s lips level to a straight line. He steps out of his underwear, steps into the tub-shower combo.

  "He's going to hurt you," the pipes tell him.

  9

  They spend the next couple evenings pulling old wallpaper off the dining room walls and scraping the old glue. When that's done, Chase removes the dated light fixture above the dining room table, and Mack helps him install vintage sconce lights he saved from the dumpster on a remodel job on Magazine Street. They paper the dining room with an ivory-colored wallpaper that resembles writing parchment. Once that's finally up, they browse the internet for curtains. Neither of them knows anything about curtains, but swiping through the options together makes for a pleasant evening. Most of what Chase likes, they can't afford, but … it's fun just making plans. For the first time since moving in, it feels this house is becoming a home.

  When they shut down Mack's tablet, Chase heads to the bedroom, and Mack heads to the kitchen for a late-night snack. Crackers and peanut butter. He’s getting addicted to these things. When he enters the bedroom, licking his fingers, Chase is on his way to the shower. A bath towel hangs over his shoulder and rests on the thick top of his left buttock. Mack stops in his tracks to take in the classic beauty of his husband's body. This might be the sexiest pose Mack has ever seen: muscular curves, hard angles … every shape, shade, and line emphasizes Chase’s masculinity. It’s a snapshot of a full-grown man at his flawless peak. A moment in time, randomly glanced, perhaps never to be repeated.

  For Mack's eyes only.

  When the two of them are a hundred years old, this is how he will remember Chase.

  Mack clears his throat.

  Chase turns to face him. "Huh?"

  It takes Mack a moment to find his voice. When he does, he asks, "Can I join you?"

  "In the shower?"

  Mack nods.

  Chase appears to think hard about his answer before giving his shoulders a shrug. "Sure." He turns and steps into the bathroom.

  Mack hurries after him, quickly undressing as he walks.

  Chase turns on the shower and tests the temperature with the back of his hand. Mack moves in close behind him. Places both hands on his shoulders and slides them down his back, tracing his shoulder blades—

  Chase pulls away to step into the shower. He ducks his head underneath the spray.

  Mack fidgets for a second then steps in behind him. The tiny room is already steaming up. Mack's cock is already swelling. He reminds himself to be patient ... wait for Chase to give him the green light, some indication that he's ready to play. It wouldn't take much. Mack would settle for eye contact.

  Chase begins soaping up. His large hands are moving over his own pectorals in broad, counter-rotating circles.

  Mack tries not to stare. Tries to distract himself by picking up the shampoo bottle—it’s soapy and slips out of his hand. It hits his foot and bangs around the bottom of the tub for a moment. Mack bends over quickly to catch it … but takes his time picking it up. He wants to give Chase plenty of time to take advantage … but after an awkward moment, he straightens his back and pops the shampoo lid. He squirts too much shampoo into his hands. Begins lathering up his scalp.

  Chase isn't paying attention. He’s soaping up his hairy belly, his big hands moving in tight circles. Now his pubes. Now he reaches between his thighs and begins washing his fat, floppy cock and low-hanging balls.

  Despite his best efforts, Mack is definitely staring now. It should be sexy. Somehow, it's not. Chase is going through the motions too quickly. Too efficiently. Looks like how Mack imagines a robot would wash itself.

  Mack scoops a handful of suds off the top of his head and, closing his eyes, scrubs his face with the bubbles. That’s when a disturbing thought hits him: What if the pipes start talking? What if they start talking now? With Chase in here?

  He tries to push the thought out of his mind.

  Tells himself it’s … unlikely. Mack has showered in here a half dozen times thi
s past week, and the pipes have only spoken up … just a couple times. And he's only heard the faucet in the kitchen talk that one time. And just yesterday, he hooked up a hose to the spigot on the side of the house to wash dust and cobwebs off the shutters; he had the water running full blast for half an hour and never heard a peep.

  He’s not convincing himself.

  Another thought occurs.

  Do the pipes speak to Chase, too?

  If they do, what do they say?

  Their warning to Mack is kinda just stating the obvious. Mack doesn't need a phantom in the pipes to tell him what Chase is thinking. That can be deciphered from the way he carries his shoulders. It's in his silent nods and that half-smile he forces when the nods need emphasis. If Mack were honest with himself, he would have to admit he's known everything the pipes have told him for a long time: Chase has been thinking about leaving him for months now. Years maybe.

  The house was supposed to bring them closer.

  It still might.

  It will.

  But it's going to be way more work than even Mack expected. The house and the relationship. Chase didn't want a fixer-upper. That was Mack's idea. Mack's fault. All of this is Mack's fault. It was Mack's idea to fool around on that first date. It was Mack's idea to move in together. It was Mack's idea to get married. And now, well, Mack is getting older, he's gaining weight, his income has leveled out. To put it simply, his shelf life has run out.

  People enter your life for a reason, a season, or a lunchtime … something like that. Mack can’t remember how the saying goes exactly. But. Maybe their season has passed.

  They still talk.

  They still laugh.

  Repetitious observations, favorite meals, familiar jokes. It's been years since Mack has ordered anything he can't pronounce from a menu. It's been years since he's told a joke that Chase hasn't already heard. He's becoming a cliché. Why the hell does Mack keep telling the same jokes? Because … predictability is a comfortable rhythm?

  His life is an echo.

  The pleasant echo of falling in love years ago. Now softening.

  At some point, there will be no conversation they haven't both already spoken and heard. Nothing left to say. Maybe they've already hit that point. At some point, Chase will learn to download a dating app. At some point, a stranger's profile will appear far more interesting than the fading abridgment of his man at home. That's obvious. And that's all the pipes are telling Mack. The end is neigh.

  But what are they telling Chase?

  Are they telling him to leave?

  Are they telling him not to leave?

  Are they telling him Mack would do anything to convince him to stay? To make him want to stay?

  Mack shakes his head as if to shake the whole idea out of his ears. The pipes don't speak to Chase. Mack is certain of that. Why would they? Chase wouldn't listen.

  Eyes still closed, Mack nudges his way around Chase’s body and faces the showerhead. The spray rinses the suds out of his hair. Rinses his face. Opening his eyes, he peers into the face of the showerhead for a moment. Can the thing in the pipes see him? He imagines an apparition stuck between elbow joints like a hair clog. He wonders if maybe a former owner had suffered a fatal heart attack in the tub? Wonders if their soul went down the drain when the coroner let out the water.

  He steps back and lets Chase into the spray.

  Chase raises his arms, and Mack reaches underneath them from behind and strokes his wet armpits.

  Chase pulls away.

  "Tickle?" Mack asks.

  "Yeah."

  "Sorry." Mack reaches for Chase's flaccid cock.

  He pulls away again. "I appreciate the thought, babe, but I'm out of gas." He slides the shower curtain sideways and high-steps out of the tub. "Better get myself to bed. Early start at the job site tomorrow." He grabs his towel and begins drying himself—bends over to dry his feet and ankles. Mack stares at his ass until he straightens. When he does, he turns quickly as if Mack has asked him a question. But has, but not with words. For a long moment, Chase and Mack study one another's face, both men attempting to peer deeper into the other man's eyes than the poor lighting allows … gradually, Chase adds an uncomfortable smile. "See you under the sheets," he says and hurries out of the bathroom. His steps have a rhythm. One, two. One, two. Mack hears his underwear drawer open, then shut with a roll bang. Sock drawer. Roll bang.

  "You should tell him."

  Mack turns squarely to face the showerhead. It takes him a couple heartbeats to be sure he heard what he thinks he heard ... but, once he's sure, he forces a smile. The pipes spoke to him. And they had waited for Chase to leave before they did. Mack knows what that means: Whatever's in the pipes, it can see them. And that confirmation feels ... invigorating; it feels like—for the first time in a long time—he's not living alone.

  "You should tell him," it repeats.

  "Tell him what?" Mack whispers.

  "Tell him he's hurting you."

  "He knows that."

  10

  By their second week in the new house, Mack has convinced Chase that, despite their neighbor's advice, they can sand and refinish the existing floors. The work will be far less expensive than replacing them, and the finished product will be more faithful to the home's original design. And they can do the work themselves. Together.

  Of course, they’ll have to do most of the work in the evenings, after both have put in full days of working on other couples' houses. Big houses. New houses. Dream houses.

  Mack rents an orbital sander, and Chase borrows pro-quality dust masks and ear protection from a job site buddy. Neither of them has refinished hardwood floors before, but both have seen it done.

  They remove doors and floor moldings and move the largest furniture into the kitchen, which has tile flooring and is the only primary room that won't be part of the refinishing project. This means disassembling the newly assembled bed and moving it, piece by piece. Chase grumbles, but he pitches in. The kitchen is the largest room in the small house, but it's still a tight fit. They reassemble the bed next to the sink, where it blocks the refrigerator door, but there's literally no other spot for it.

  The sanding requires three thorough passes over all the wood floors—living room, dining room, bedroom—each pass using progressively finer grit sandpaper on the orbital sander. This takes three evenings, each evening lasting into the early hours of the morning, followed by work at their regular jobs the next day. Their patience with one another wears as thin as the old floorboards. Mack stops trying to initiate conversations and regresses to a lot of pointing and grunting. Chase growls a lot under his breath and takes progressively longer breaks, during which he simply leans into a corner and closes his eyes. Even with the windows open and the box fan running, dust hangs in the air all night, which makes Chase's snoring worse, which makes Mack's insomnia worse.

  It's weird trying to fall asleep in the kitchen.

  Mack thinks about food all night but can't get into the fridge.

  When he drifts in and out of sleep, he dreams about sanding the floors. And in his dreams, he notices something ... something he lacked the lucidity to notice while awake: There's something odd about the floors. Spots. Blotches. At the far end of the living room, and all over the bedroom. An unnatural discoloration that goes deep into the planks: Stains in the shape of footprints. And no amount of sanding rubs them clean.

  By their fourth day on the project, every surface in the house is covered with three layers of dust—a gritty layer, a fibrous layer, and a fine, chalky layer. Chase insists they take the evening off to let it all settle before they vacuum up. He spends his evening off in a lawn chair under the live oak, reading his trashy paperback and nursing a cocktail by the light of an LED lantern. When Mack asks how the book is going, Chase just shrugs and turns the page. Mack puts in headphones and spends the evening watching home-remodeling videos on his phone.

  Over the next few evenings, they vacuum, apply a sealer, sand the
sealer, vacuum again, go over every inch with tack cloths, apply the first layer of polyurethane, allow that to dry … finally, eight days after the project began, they reach the last step. They apply the final, lustrous coat without speaking a single word. Leaving it to dry overnight, they shuffle to the kitchen and fall into bed, exhausted.

  Mack actually sleeps.

  It seems like a single blink.

  His eyes open to shadows the color of plums and sunlight the color of mangoes. It's early by most people's standards, but Mack isn't used to sleeping in this late. He pushes off the sheet and rubs his eyes with his fists. On his way to the bathroom, he steps barefooted into the empty living room.

  The bottoms of his feet feel cold.

  He pauses to study the surrounding floor.

  Long planks of raspberry chocolate.

  The old wood looks new. Better than new. Like an old man returned to the body of his youth: wise eyes set in a smooth face.

  "Chase!" Mack yells over his shoulder. "Come look at this."

  "Look at what?" Chase mumbles.

  "The floors."

  A long moment passes. When Chase finally enters the living room, he asks, "What's wrong now?"

  "Looks good, huh?"

  Chase steps out to the center of the living room and turns a slow circle. "Looks fantastic," he says.

  "It's Sunday," Mack says. "Want to take the day off? Do something for fun?"

  Chase nods slowly … adds enthusiasm. Genuine enthusiasm. "I think we've earned it."

  11

  Thinking up a reward for themselves proves more difficult than Mack expected. Mack suggests maybe they try out a local church in the neighborhood. Chase rolls his eyes at that and suggests they go out for a drink. Mack says it’s too early for him. Chase calls him a lightweight and pours himself a Whisky. Neither is used to having a day off, and they find themselves playing on their phones, texting potential paint colors back and forth from opposite sides of the bed.