by Mary Calmes
He was on his phone as we left the upscale bar, and we waited only moments outside before catching a cab out to a steak place.
I didn’t realize until we got there and a server met us at a side door and escorted us inside that he wasn’t screwing around. He was actually taking me to dinner.
“Oh, man, I just thought we’d hit a diner or whatever.”
“No,” he said flatly, studying me. “I want to wine and dine you.”
I shrugged. “It’s not necessary.”
“But I want to.”
The things we talked about were mundane, and then, all of a sudden, he leaned forward and asked me if I made it a practice to pick men up in bars.
“Sometimes,” I said with a shrug. “But not this time, right?”
“Pardon?”
“You picked me up,” I reminded him.
He thought a minute. “Damn, that’s right.”
I grinned.
“God, do you know how long it’s been since I’ve done this?”
“I dunno. You tell me.”
“I never have to. Guys beg me to take them home.”
The man definitely didn’t have self-esteem issues. “Oh yeah?”
He nodded slowly.
“Well, I get it.”
“Oh?”
I gestured at him. “Just look atcha.”
His eyes narrowed. “Do you really not know who I am?”
I wasn’t sure if he was messing around. “No. Why, who are you? Do you have some secret superhero identity I should be aware of?”
He shook his head. “No, I thought maybe you were—forget it.”
The man seemed very pleased. “I’ll google you when I get home,” I promised.
“No, don’t do that,” he mused, staring at me. “Tell me what you like.”
“In bed?”
Quick nod.
“I’m up for whatever,” I said hoarsely, admiring his full lips and the dimple in his chin. “As long as I top.”
“That’s good,” he said, eyelashes fluttering.
I laughed because he was so serious, like he was seeing me doing wild, wicked things to him in the sack. And I was ready to accommodate him; it was by no means going to be a hardship. I was really glad I had a couple of condoms in the breast pocket of my suit jacket.
“Would you be opposed to us leaving already?” he asked impatiently.
I just smiled, studying the way his suit fit, the easy smirk, the glint in his eyes, and the expressive brows that arched when he was asking a question. “I would not.”
He immediately called for the check.
Later, just after midnight, as I was getting dressed in his bedroom, he asked me what he had to do to get me to stay for breakfast.
I squinted at him. “I can’t, but maybe you can visit me.”
“Visit?”
“Yeah, I don’t live here. A development company flew me in because they hired me to do an assessment on a property up close to where I live.”
“And where is that?”
“Benson.”
“I’m not familiar with the name.”
“It’s a little town outside of Brookings.”
He groaned. “Oh no.”
Clearly he knew where that was, and I chuckled as I tucked my shirt in before buckling my belt. “Oh yes.”
“That’s almost five hours away, isn’t it.”
“More like six,” I informed him, grinning because his whine had been really cute.
“And I don’t even live in Portland. I live in Malibu.”
“Well, then, we’ll both have a really nice memory,” I said, leaning over, hands down on either side of his head. “Can I get a kiss goodbye?”
He took hold of the collar of my shirt. “Not so fast, Mr. Wylie.”
That he cared was unexpected.
“May I call you?”
“Sure,” I said, trying to keep the patronizing tone at bay because, seriously, who was he kidding? He was trying to be decent, and while I appreciated the gesture, it was so not necessary. I was a big boy; I knew a one-night stand when I saw it. “Call me if you’re ever in my town.”
“Give me the number.”
“Okay, then,” I said with a sigh as he eased me down into a kiss.
When I got home, I googled him and discovered he was an actor on an HBO show called Blood Tracks. It had run for six years already, featuring the done-to-death premise in which the main character—played by Ash—was a police detective on the trail of a different serial killer each season. First season, the guy was a carny going state to state carving up people; second season, a priest who was convinced he was God’s chosen scourge on Earth sent to make the wicked repent. The third season was a man who heard voices, ala Son of Sam, and so on. Each season was more twisted than the last—bloodier, grittier, sexier, sleeker—and Ash got to play every emotion in the spectrum.
Since he’d taken the role of Detective Mark Porter, he’d won the Emmy for best actor in a drama four out of six years. He’d also done some big-budget, high-octane summer Hollywood blockbusters, a few smaller indie arthouse films, and most recently, his first romantic comedy. He was engaging, charming, a darling of the talk show circuit, and a presenter during awards season. But gracing the covers of magazines from Entertainment Weekly to Men’s Health to GQ to Architectural Digest still did not make him a household name. To normal, everyday folks, he was the guy who played the cop on the show about the serial killers, the one with the good hair and the amazing body, whatshisname?
It was fun to sit and find out more and there were links to Wonderwall and YouTube videos, interview after interview, Vanity Fair spreads, Esquire, Details, so many magazines, the People magazine with the Sexiest list, and there were hundreds and hundreds of images, stills and press photos, each one more gorgeous than the last. I tried to watch the pilot of his show and, though it wasn’t for me—I couldn’t stomach much violence—it was easy to see from how organic his acting was and how he lit up the screen that he was a natural.
He wasn’t a household name yet, wasn’t instantly recognizable. He was on the verge of superstardom, and for that reason—I suspected but never asked—wasn’t openly gay. Neither was he hiding who he was in the closet. He simply had no woman on his arm. This was 2017 and lots of celebrities went stag to events or traveled in groups, so nowhere in print was his sexuality overtly discussed. For him, for his career, it was not an issue.
What all my research made abundantly clear was that spending time with me had been slumming for him. The man was ridiculously out of my league, but honestly, it didn’t really matter. It had been a great one-night stand, but that’s all it was. I knew I’d never see him again.
That was before I understood all about Ash Lennox.
A week after our hookup in Portland, a ticket came via messenger to my business with a dozen long-stemmed red roses and an invitation to the opera in Portland. I could not say no to such a romantic gesture. When I got off the private plane right after five, he was waiting for me on the tarmac with a car and his personal driver, and he seemed genuinely pleased to see me.
“You thought I didn’t own one of these monkey suits,” I teased as I jogged over to him.
“No,” he said fondly with a smile that made his green eyes sparkle like jewels. “I actually counted on it.”
Inside the Keller Auditorium, he rounded on me and told me how good I looked.
“You look pretty good yourself,” I teased.
“Let me show you where we’re sitting.”
I followed him, impressed with the balcony seating. “I feel just like Vivian.”
He rolled his eyes at the Pretty Woman reference. “Except, you know, you’re not a whore.”
“That you know of,” I quipped, smiling.
The noise I got made it clear I was too ridiculous for words and pushed me down into my seat, taking the one quickly to my left. I was still chuckling when the curtain went up. I was surprised when moments later, he put his hand on
my thigh and kept it there all through the performance. For something that had started so casual and forgettable, he was paying a lot of attention to making sure I knew he was there, present and interested. As his actions were at odds with how things had started with us, I wasn’t sure how to read him.
At the end of the opera, he leaned in close and asked me if I fucked on the second date too. I felt better instantly—I was no longer confused about where I stood. I saw the date for what it was, a high-class booty call. If he lived in my town, he would have simply called me, told me to pick up some beer and condoms, and head over. He was a rich, successful actor, so the process had finesse and seduction, but it came down to the same thing: he wanted to get laid.
“You know,” I scoffed, “I’m thinking next time you don’t have to go to all this trouble. I bet there are guys a lot closer to home that’ll fuck ya.”
“That’s not what this was about.”
Sure it wasn’t. “You don’t have to work this hard, yanno. I’m a sure thing.”
He groaned like he was dying. “Enough with the Pretty Woman references already.”
“Is that what I was doing?”
He laughed at me, and his humor, his interest, his eyes—all of it was working for me.
I had him in the back of his car with the partition up between us and the driver.
“It wouldn’t kill you to go places with me,” he panted when I turned down dinner with him and his friends afterward.
“I have to go home,” I said playfully. “Some of us work for a living.”
“One night,” he pleaded.
“I’m renovating a day care,” I told him.
He threw up his hands, lowered the partition, and informed his driver to take me to the airport. I kissed him before I left and told him that next time, the date was on me. I said it automatically while coming down off the happy sex high, and I felt stupid as soon as it was out because what was this, a cheesy romantic comedy? This was definitely a one-off. I could not see me and Ash, us, going any further.
“I’m holding you to that,” he groused but was breathless before he drove away, after eagerly accepting my tongue down his throat.
I put him off for weeks after that, unable to get away for an entire weekend, and even though he was on business in Los Angeles, it was too far to go for a couple of hours between the sheets. As great as we were in bed, it was still just fucking, and neither of us could bend.
“Your job is not more important than mine!” he shouted at me over the phone.
“I agree,” I assured him and hung up.
“I won’t keep calling!” he swore two weeks after that.
“I’m calling you, too, I’d like to point out.”
“Well, I’m going to find someone else to spend time with.”
“Good,” I replied frankly. “I don’t want you to get backed up.”
It was his turn to hang up.
I was amazed when I found him on my doorstep two days later.
“You seem to be caving, Mr. Lennox,” I baited him.
His groan was loud and miserable.
I bolted over and tackle-hugged him, which sent him into peals of laughter.
“Shit,” he grumbled.
“That it?” I asked playfully between kisses.
“May I—Jesus, Hagen, you can’t—fuck!”
My hands were all over him, as was my mouth, and he shivered from all my attention directed at him.
“Hagen,” he moaned, and it was a good sound, all throaty and deep. “May I please take you out to dinner?”
“You like crappy diners?” I asked, pulling free, standing up, and staring down at him.
“Love them,” he panted, lying down on my porch.
“What’re you doing?” I teased.
“I’m overly stimulated. I need to calm down.”
“Or I could just do you now and then feed you.”
He nodded quickly. “Yes, please, let’s do that.”
So we did.
At the restaurant in Brookings, a greasy dive I loved, he leaned across the table, elbows down, chin resting in his hands, and told me I was driving him crazy.
“Then why deal with the hassle?”
He shook his head. “I have no idea.”
“I suspect that you like my dick.”
“Yes. Very much. But I like the rest of you too.”
My snort of laughter made him smile.
“Hagen,” he sighed, grinning sheepishly, reaching for my hand.
I pretended not to notice, fiddling with the napkin dispenser instead. I was not going to lace fingers with him or something equally romantic. That wasn’t us. We weren’t a couple and I had no desire to be. Implicit trust was necessary for a friendship as well as to be anything long-term with me and there was just no way for us to have that living in different states. And if I was being honest with myself—which I always tried to be—I wasn’t ready anyway. I’d come home from my military service damaged in more ways than just physically, and any kind of relationship was not something I was ready for.
I was supposed to see someone; it was strongly suggested when I was discharged. Along with physical therapy, I should see a shrink. But at the time, I was far more interested in me walking again than in fixing my messed-up brain. Once I was finally off the crutches, my mother gave me a list of names—all in Brookings and Portland—but I had been too busy building her dream house and she too busy dying for either of us to give it our full attention.
“Can you sleep over?” I asked him, deflecting because the sex I could do, no problem. I was definitely up for much more no-string fucking.
“As long as you make sure I don’t get any rest at all.”
“Oh, I promise,” I said gruffly, my gaze lifting to his.
He caught his breath. It was hot, my effect on him, and I liked the electricity that prickled over my skin whenever he was around.
The next morning as he was on his way out, he said he was going to renovate a bed-and-breakfast in Benson and that while he was there, he wanted to see a lot of me.
“I can’t do the work for you,” I told him.
“Yes, love, I know.”
“Okay then.”
“Okay,” he breathed, smiling at me.
He left the following day but called from his chartered jet to tell me he’d be back Friday night and to be sure I made time for him on the weekend. He wanted to see me.
“So you’re giving me a heads-up,” I said playfully.
“I am,” he replied, the huskiness in his voice not lost on me. “Make sure you pencil me into your schedule.”
“Will do.”
After work at the end of the week, I’d rushed home, showered and shaved, and was standing in front of my mirror drying my face with a towel when I felt an odd fluttering in my chest as I met my own eyes. Thinking about him had me excited. I was looking forward to seeing him, and the idea that I should be in his bed when he came through the door hit me. Twenty minutes later as I let myself in, using the key he’d given me, my heart was racing before I walked into his bedroom. I had started unzipping my hoodie when I noticed the clothes strewn around the room… and realized there was already someone in Ash Lennox’s bed.
The stranger was asleep, his things on the nightstand: wallet, phone, and I saw immediately as I got closer, the same exact key I had.
That was the part that nagged at me, the part I kept coming back to, that we both had keys. I was one of many and had thought, as I was sure countless men before me had, that a simple piece of metal meant more than it did.
Now, six months later, even though I had been sleeping with only Ash while he was in Benson, I knew that when he left, the buffet was open for him. The thing was, I had no problem with that. We were nowhere near serious, as he’d very clearly shown me, and while I was annoyed when I found out he screwed his realtor’s assistant—because I thought we had agreed we’d be exclusive while he was in Benson—I wasn’t devastated. But I realized why.
/> The last thing in my life that was broken was finally showing signs of life. When I first came home, hollowed out from war, the very idea that I could be capable of having a relationship even though I was in my own space, my querencia, was beyond all imagining. But now, after many years and now seeing how things were not with Ash, I saw myself open to the possibility of life, of sharing a life with someone. Things were finally starting to change for me and I found myself ready, and even more importantly, willing to try. Something new would finally be welcome. That journey that started when gazes met across a room, I was open to that, open to being changed again, to putting myself out there.
Whoever was next through my door, whoever took that step into my life or me into theirs—it was time. Amazing the wounds that healed when you weren’t looking.
Chapter Three
ONCE HAMID dropped me off at home, I took a long hot shower, and when my phone jingled with the familiar tone of “Fast Love”—because it was originally funny as hell—I debated not answering it as I grabbed a towel from the rack on the outside of the shower stall. I finally gave in, hoping Ash was in a better mood after our two-week hiatus.
“Hello.”
“I wondered if you were going to pick up or not.”
I hung up. That was not the way to make a fresh start.
When he called back, I let it ring five times before I answered.
“I’m sorry, that was stupid.”
I grunted.
“Let me start over. How are you?”
“Good,” I answered cautiously, not wanting to fight with him anymore. It wasn’t necessary; there wasn’t anything to lose with us. Why he’d gotten so upset in the first place was beyond me. “You?”
“I’m not so good. I missed you.”
“You’re fulla shit,” I said, calling him on his crap. Missed me, my ass.
“Now who’s not being nice?”
“Yeah, all right,” I granted, because he did, in fact, have a point.
He chuckled, and it was a good sound, deep, sexy. “I want to see you.”
Straight to the point as always, and really, it was one of his better qualities. “I can’t. I have to check in on some work sites, and I’m already tired.”
“Why is that?”
