The Park at Sunrise

by Brazil, Lee

  Chapter Three

  "Hey, mister."

  A stranger's voice jolted me from my reverie. How long had I been sitting here in the falling snow? Long enough. The sunrise had ended and the snow was sticking. My buttocks were a bit sore from their lengthy perch on the bench slat, and now that I was thinking again, the cold was unbearable.

  "You need help, man?"

  I glanced at the kid and attempted a smile as I brushed the tears from my cheeks. He couldn't have been more than twenty, probably a student on his way back to the dorm or something. How embarrassing to be caught like this. Had I really been sitting here in a public park, mindlessly crying for a past I could never recapture?

  "No, I'm okay." My voice was rusty and my throat scratchy. Nodding dubiously, the kid strolled away, heavy boots leaving clear prints in the freshly fallen snow.

  I extracted my cell phone from my pocket and scrolled through the photos I had stored there. It showed the kids in my calc class clowning around at a competition last month. We'd placed second. The school chess team at a tournament in Anaheim, smiling as they stood around a first place trophy the size of a candy bar. The field trip to the Getty Museum. I stopped thinking about the pictures. The kids were awesome. I fell a little in love with every class I taught at the St. Anselm Academy for the Sciences and Mathematics, but inevitably classes graduate and move on. The kids might come back and visit, you might hear from them again, or you might not.

  The picture I was searching for was way at the back of the list. I'd been transferring it religiously from phone to phone for ten years, though I never clicked it open to look at it anymore.

  There it was. Hesitant, I closed my eyes and opened the file. The pain in my heart was dulled. Reliving the memories here this morning made it more bearable. For one hundred and eighty-three days this picture had been my lifeline. I'd looked at it first thing every morning and last thing every night. This picture had been the screen saver on every electronic device I owned, until November thirty, two thousand. I'd thought I couldn't bear to see it again.

  We'd written the notes on the back of our hands so we wouldn't forget. So we'd remember that however far apart we were, at heart we were together, for infinity. I'd forgotten that.

  I forced my eyes open and peered down at the image.

  Now, that note changed everything I'd known for the last nine years.

  I leaped from the bench, cursing as my feet skidded on the icy snow that lay on the sidewalk. Damn California clothes. I'd have to shop. My brain was spinning. I needed a rental car. I needed a newspaper. I needed to get my ass to Jason's parents' house.

  Chapter Four

  By the time I'd walked around the corner to where I remembered the rental car place used to be, my feet were damn near frozen, and my hair was soaking wet. I kicked myself for shoving only my driver's license and debit card into my back pocket before leaving for LAX. What the hell was I thinking? A driver's license and a debit card. Not even a credit card. Odds were I'd be jogging or hitchhiking out to Jason's parents' house. To top it all off, I hadn't even grabbed my cell phone charger. Great. My parents would be so proud. Their only son, the one with the PhD in education and the MS in mathematics, severely lacked common fucking sense.

  Fortunately for me, the guy behind the counter at the rental place remembered me from some chess tournament that we'd both played in back in college. Roderick "Call me Roddy" Simpson was happy enough to let his old buddy Morgan rent a car with just an ID from out of state and a debit card, if I promised to "meet" him for a game of chess before I left for home.

  I climbed into the nondescript little Ford Focus and drove out of the lot without looking back. I didn't bother telling Roddy I might not be heading home, and even if I was, I wouldn't be meeting him for anything. The only person I wanted to meet was Jason. I had a promise to keep, one that I hadn't thought of for years but couldn't get out of my head now. I should have paid more attention to that gallery invitation. When I found it in my inbox along with the morass of catalogs and other crap that teachers' boxes are inundated with, I almost threw it away without opening it. Instead I opened it, skimmed it, and shoved it to the back of my desk drawer. Every so often it caught my eye, and I thought about Jason briefly before slamming the drawer shut.

  The steering wheel was painfully cold on my hands and I gripped it cautiously as I turned to head out of town. If ice hadn’t coated the roads, I'd have taken the chance of steering with my knees. As it was, I blew frantically on my hands and cranked the heat up as high as I could. If this were two thousand one, I would have said that Jason would forgive me in a minute, and we'd be on sure footing before I'd gotten the words of apology and love out of my mouth, but how much did I still know this man? He'd proven he still knew me, but ten years? People changed, didn't they? If he loved me still and was willing to forgive me, hell—he knew how to find me in California, didn't he? The gallery invite proved that. So, if he really had wanted me in all these years, wouldn't he have just flown out and found me? I told myself that, but I kept hearing my own voice in my head, in a stupid loop, "Babe, nothing could keep me away!"

  Fucking Colorado cold. How could I have forgotten this? I should have let the car warm up at least fifteen minutes before I left the car lot. Nervous and tense, now I crept along Highway Twenty-Four, striving to remember how to drive in snow and ice, peering through the windshield at the road through the falling snow. My mind wouldn't leave the subject of Jason. I had to see him, to talk to him. No matter how much he still appeared the same, how could Jason have lived through these last nine years unchanged on the inside? I figured it served me right if he kicked my ass to the curb and sent me back to LA without delay, but I had to make the effort. His heart could warm this cold that had been seeping inside me for the last nine years. I'd been stupid not to recognize it then.

  The hurt in those green eyes, eyes that customarily sparkled with love and laughter, had caused a pain I had never wanted to experience again.

  It was worse by far than the day I got the phone call from Paul's aunt telling me about his death in a New York City subway mugging. Disbelief didn't cover how I felt then. Betrayed. Devastated. Proud. I think I laughed. In the middle of illustrating graphing inequalities to a class of bewildered freshmen, a day after hearing the news, I laughed. Because it was so fucking typical that Paul would involve himself in something like that. The white knight of the NYC subway system—what business did he have interfering with that mugging, rescuing that kid? He was supposed to be in NYC working, putting in time till he could come back to me and Jason, and we could all figure out a way to be together. Then again, if he'd been the type of man to turn his back on someone in need of aid, he wouldn't have been the man I loved, would he?

  The car hit a patch of ice and skidded into the intersection. My heart flipped over, and the entire world slowed down. The light was red. For all I knew, I was sliding in a three-sixty degree circle into oncoming traffic, but all I could do was turn gently into the skid and pray that when the car came to a stop, it wouldn't be due to an impact. I knew not to slam on the brakes. I knew to go with the skid and not fight it. I just didn't have a clue what surrounded me. Visibility sucked, and so did the fact that now, when it might be too late to tell Jason, I realized that I still not just loved him, but needed him to love me too.

  I closed my eyes and uttered a prayer, straight from the heart and nearly wordless, just, "Please."

  When the car stopped what seemed like hours but could only have been seconds later, I opened my eyes to see that I had indeed managed a three-sixty and was on the road, unharmed, car pointing in the right direction to get to Jason's house. My breath came hot and fast, fogging up the window. I shook with fear and relief. I had survived.

  I took survival as an answer to my prayer. Steering off the highway and driving down the unpaved road that led to Jason's parents' slightly worn down, comfortably shabby, turn of the century house, I felt hopeful, lighter somehow, and more relaxed. Wasn't until I
parked in the snowy drive and prepared to exit the vehicle that I wondered what kind of welcome these people would offer me. Once they'd been closer to me than my own college professor parents. My parents had me at a time in their lives when they really shouldn't have had children. I was a shock to them—neither of them was prepared to parent, and I was raised more as a favored student than a child. Jason's parents had been the source of the warm, fuzzy feelings in my childhood, and I hadn't been in contact with them either in the last nine years. What would they think of me showing up on their doorstep now? Nine years after I should have been here?

  Swallowing, I wiped suddenly damp palms on my jeans before pushing the door open. I winced as my damp feet landed in a foot-deep drift of snow. Maybe I should have taken the time to stop at the department store and get weather appropriate clothes, but if Jason wouldn't see me, I wouldn't need them yet. And if he did, then I'd have all the time in the world to get acclimated to the weather again. Not that the prospect of freezing my ass off four months out of every year appealed to me, but taking Jason out of the mountains apparently wasn’t an option. I wouldn't regret leaving the sunshine of California behind if I got to bask in the heat of his love again.

  It occurred to me, as I slipped on a patch of ice buried under the newly fallen snow, that ten years had hardly changed this place. The house was still half-painted a peeling yellow—Jason's dad had started that job when we were in second grade—and the same wicker furniture sat covered in snow on the porch itself. There was a not-very-Christmassy wreath on the door, one that Jason had made in kindergarten, and the garage with its loft-style studio drew my eye. Was he there? Had he ever installed heat in the damn thing? Did he even paint here anymore?

  How could I be so fucking stupid? What would I do if his mom shut the door in my face? I shook my head, wiped the incongruous trickle of sweat from my brow. They were expecting me, weren't they? After all, he'd told me to pick the painting up here. Stomach churning in uncertainty, I knocked on the door and waited, trying my best to keep my head up and make eye contact when the door opened. The urge to look away or down was strong, though.

  The door swung open, and I found myself staring not into the blue eyes of Jason's mom, or even into the worn face of his dad, but directly into Jason's green eyes, eyes rimmed red from crying.

  "You said you weren't going to be here." Was that the most brilliant thing I could come up with?

  He scowled. "I lied."

  He had lied. My heart leaped. Then sank. The Jason I loved in the past never lied. I opened my mouth to have my say, but before a sound could come out, he grabbed my hand and dragged me into the house, slamming the door behind us. Then my arms were full of Jason, and my mouth was devoured in a kiss so explicitly demanding I didn't have time to think.

  When Jason finally drew back, panting, enough to let me breathe, his hands were tangled in my hair, and his grip told me he wasn't planning to let me go. "Your parents..." I forced the words out but couldn't drag my gaze from his damp, swollen mouth, any more than I could remove my hands from the enticing, tight muscles of his ass under the black denim. When had that even happened?

  Jason shook his head, dragging my mouth back down to his. His whispered words breathed a caress into my mouth. "They don't live here anymore... Santa Fe..."

  I wasn't listening. The knowledge that we were alone in the house was as powerful now as it had been when we were sixteen. "Where?" My voice was strained, but speaking at all was difficult. Putting words together was a challenge in this situation. Maybe, hopefully, I could say what needed to be said without words.

  "Down the hall, master bedroom," he replied.

  We made it there and fell together across the bed. I'd been in this house before, sure, but in this room, never. It was the one place off-limits to us as kids, and a twinge of curiosity should have had me checking it out now, but I didn't want to look anywhere but at Jason, his gorgeous green eyes, hungry, panting red mouth, the creamy winter white of skin as we shed our clothes in rapid, careless abandon.

  Naked, I wasn't cold anymore. My hands traced lean muscles, marveling at the blend of memory and action, absorbing the heat, adoring the flesh that arched and responded to my touch. I didn't care how this used to happen, didn't give a damn that Paul wasn't here. I wanted Jason. I wanted to touch, to taste, and to worship his body.

  "You're sure?" I had to make the offer. Give Jason the chance to say no. "We don't have to do this."

  Jason stared at me, green eyes gleaming in the semidarkness. "You may not have to do this, but I sure as hell do." He reached forward with a determined hand, clasped my cock, and stroked it. I shuddered under his grip, but this wasn't what had haunted my memories for years.

  I kissed him again, urging him down onto his back. He gazed up at me inquiringly, eyes widening in startled acceptance as I pushed his thighs apart and settled between them.

  "I still like this," he whispered, running his hands up my chest to toy with my nipples.

  "Mm. Me too." I groaned, sheathing my cock with a condom Jason handed me from the bedside table. I didn't ask why he had a box of them there. Jealousy could devour my soul before I would remonstrate with him for seeking solace with other men. It wasn't like I could claim celibacy over the last ten years. It hurt though, and I shoved that hurt aside. This was now, and now was Jason and me.

  Bracing myself on one arm, I leaned down to kiss him, slipping my tongue into his mouth. I delicately lapped at his tongue, teasing the warm, silky places. My hand found his cock, hard and leaking against his belly, and I stroked it slowly as his hands wandered over my body.

  His gasps and sighs of pleasure were music to my ears, broken only by the snick of the lid on a bottle of lube. I leaned back to watch him stretch himself, feeling wild and barely in control as he slid first one finger, then two into his ass. I couldn't turn my gaze away. I inched closer, waiting, painfully on edge. With a tremulous sigh, he pulled his fingers free and reached for me, guiding my eager cock into the hot, clinging channel.

  We moved together as though by instinct, naturally, as if we'd never been apart, as if we'd done this every day of the last ten years instead of only dreaming it.

  I’m not sure what I said. I was conscious of sound emerging from my mouth, but my being was absorbed in the push and pull of the hot heat around my cock, and the sight of Jason jerking his own cock in time to my thrusts.

  Beautiful. He was so fucking beautiful. The sights, sensations of making love to Jason overwhelmed me.

  "Yes," Jason hissed. Closing his eyes, he raked the nails of one hand down my back, and the streak of fiery pain was the last stimulus needed to send me over the edge.

  "Look at me," I ordered, gazing intently at his face as his eyes drifted shut. They snapped open at the command, and I slid under, drowning in the green depths.

  Harsh breath and the slap of skin on skin were the only sounds remaining as the end approached.

  "So close," Jason whimpered. Suddenly he stiffened.

  "Yes, yes," I encouraged him. "Come now. Come for me." Streams of hot, sticky semen shot up across his chest as his mouth opened in a sultry groan of pleasure.

  His passage rippled around my cock, and I surrendered to the impending orgasm, burying myself deep and holding on tight as waves of pleasure shook us. Collapsing together in a sweaty, sticky heap, I rolled slightly to the side so as not to crush Jason's smaller frame with my own. My arms held him close as I drifted into sleep, comforted by his hands caressing my back.

  ***

  I awoke alone, cold, in the king-size bed of that master bedroom, reaching for the warmth that had, I was certain, been right there only moments before. The sheets next to me were still faintly warm, and I rolled into his spot, inhaling the faint scents of paint and turpentine and the cologne he'd always worn—as though it could hide the scent of art, the scent of him.

  The slam of the door jolted my eyes open, and I bolted upright, heart racing, squinting into the corners of the room. I couldn't
hear anything from the depths of the house, and unease crept into my mind. Self-doubt had always been my worst enemy. If it weren't for self-doubt, wouldn't I have been here nine years ago? The idea had taken root in my mind then that Jason wouldn't want me without Paul, and I hadn't been able to shake it loose. When he never called or visited me, I knew I was right.

  Convincing myself he'd be back in a few minutes, that he was getting firewood, or the newspaper, or something, lasted only until I heard the distant, muffled sound of an engine.

  I felt that sound rather than heard it. Dragging myself out of bed, I headed for the master bath. A shower, a cup of coffee, and then I could decide what to do. For damn sure I wasn't getting back on that plane to California this afternoon.

  In the bathroom I turned on the shower to heat and stepped up to the mirror. Jason's razor lay next to a can of shaving foam, and I considered using it as I ransacked the drawers for an extra toothbrush. As I straightened something caught my eye, and I turned full round to face the mirror.

  The steam from the shower and the hot water for my shave had fogged the mirror, and the word written there was clear. Bye.

  Chapter Five

  If Jason thought I would just pick up the painting and head back to California after yesterday, he had another think coming. Even before he'd greeted me at the door with such wild abandon, I had intended to stay. The hours we'd spent in that king-size bed had certainly done nothing to convince me to leave.

  Dry-mouthed, I swiped my hand through the condensation on the mirror, blurring the word, clearing a spot where I could see myself—blue eyes, black hair with the prematurely gray streaks I owe to my dad's genetic input. Determined. That was how I appeared.

  I rushed through shaving despite my faintly trembling fingers and showered, anxious to get out of the house and track down Jason's gallery. Surely that's where he'd headed when he left.