Hiding the Moon

by Amy Lane

  Burton felt his jaw drop open. “I am two years older than you, Jasper Atchison—”

  Ace rolled his eyes. “I’ve been watching your lover break his heart over you for two months. It’s aged me.”

  “I haven’t broken his—”

  “He misses you, idiot. I understand he’s got the witching and he thinks he’s all self-contained, but those nights when you stop by and give him the cosmic booty call? He comes home and Sonny and I dream of sadness for the next two, three nights. Just sadness—the color, the texture, puppy-in-the-goddamned-rain sadness of watching you go. He sees stuff—I get that. But he also projects stuff, and unless you find some way to reassure him that you and him are going to be okay, you’re going to lose him, because nobody can be that sad all the time—nobody. So before you go dwelling on almost, start thinking about what it would be like if you almost had a soul mate but you let him go because he wasn’t what you expected, and then tell me how you feel.”

  Burton stared at him, completely off-balance. Dammit, he’d been planning to yell at Ace—he hadn’t expected it to be the other way around.

  “He shouldn’t have been dragged into this life at all,” he said at last.

  “But he was.” Ace’s implacable practicality would be the death of him. “Wasn’t your fault, and here he is. And you know what? I think here suits him. He can calm Sonny down like nobody’s business. We like him here. We like you coming here to be with him. But you will hurt him if you keep him at almost length, you hear me?”

  “I don’t know—”

  “And if you break up with him on Christmas, you and I will have words, and by words I mean my foot up your ass.”

  Burton blinked. He could kill men with his bare hands, but he suddenly did not doubt Ace’s ability to lay him out in the dust with that much protective rage.

  “I wasn’t going to break up with him,” he said defensively.

  “Good. I didn’t think my buddy Burton could be that much of an asshole. Was there anything else you wanted to talk about?”

  Burton tried to salvage his dignity. “Is there anything he needs? Or wants? Besides me, I mean.”

  Ace thought for a moment. “He needs a pet. I’m not sure if Duke is up to being second dog to another animal, but Ernie has an open heart. He needs a thing to care for that’s exclusively his.”

  “That’s not a fish,” Burton sighed, thinking of their fish and shark, who were, for the moment, safe.

  “Fish are only okay pets,” Ace said decisively. “Can’t pet a fish.”

  Burton laughed. “Send Ernie out?” he asked, feeling pathetic. “If I go back inside I’m going to sit down, and I won’t make it out for a walk.”

  “Fair enough. I’ll tell him to take it easy on you, old man.”

  “I’m twenty-eight!”

  “Not the way you’re going. Like I said, don’t stay out late.”

  And with that Ace went back inside, leaving Burton to contemplate what he’d said.

  Don’t dwell on the almosts. Be grateful for what you have. Treat your lover right.

  Ace Atchison might not ever be more than a small-business owner and a grease monkey, but he sure did seem to have a handle on the world.

  Ernie trotted out a few moments after Ace went in, the little dog on a lead. Burton smiled tiredly.

  “I’m starting to think that dog’s more yours than Sonny’s,” he joked.

  Ernie shook his head, all seriousness. “No. I’m like his nanny. He lights up when Sonny walks in the house. Sometimes, when I get in after they’ve had sex, Sonny will open the door and whistle for him so he doesn’t have to sleep in his crate alone that night.”

  Burton chuckled. “Ace said you need a critter of your own.”

  “I’d need to move,” Ernie said, taking Burton’s hand and tugging him into the darkness. “But not far. I do real work for them at night—Ace says so, and I believe him. And I like sitting down to dinner with them—although I think some nights they’d like to be alone, but they’re too nice to say so. But, you know. Close enough to walk at night.”

  Burton looked around the desert and thought about the small housing development nearby. “I’m pretty sure land’s a steal around here.”

  “Yeah, but water rights are a bitch to get—Ace was telling me, and he let me help him with the paperwork that he has to do once a year.”

  “Hunh.” It was a word he’d borrowed from Jackson Rivers, and he liked it.

  “What does that mean?”

  “Means I can pull strings for them. Means I need to think about water rights if I want to build out here. Just means I’m thinking is all.”

  To his surprise Ernie pulled away from his hand.

  “What?”

  “Don’t talk about that unless you mean it,” he said woodenly, and that quick, Burton knew Ace was right about him breaking his heart.

  “I don’t ever want to toy with you,” he said, chest tight. “I just… I don’t know how to think of a long-term thing.”

  “Then think about coming back to me.” Ernie allowed him to take his hand again. “Just that. Just plan on coming back to me whenever you leave.”

  Burton tried to blow it off. “Course I do!”

  And Ernie’s scowl knocked him flat. “You’re still bleeding, dammit! Lee, I get you’ve got to go, and I get you’ve got bigger things than me out in the world, but you’ve got to promise you’ll bring yourself back intact!”

  And Burton got it. He’d avoided it big-time, but Ernie just smacked him in the face with it. No matter how hard he’d tried to tell himself it was only his life, Lee Burton’s life, that he was risking, he was risking Ernie’s heart with every close call.

  “I….” He swallowed, thinking about Troy Gonzalez and his pretty wife and the baby who almost grew up without a daddy. “I almost let a good guy down,” he said after a minute. The cool breeze of the winter desert washed over his face, and he kept his eyes closed, imagining every word as a star. “I was supposed to hit him, but he was like you—innocent to the core—so I made arrangements to fake it. But there’s two guys—one of them’s a pro and the other one’s a wannabe. The wannabe doesn’t like me—he sent a backup guy, and the backup guy almost took my mark out.” Burton took a deep breath, remembered the blood and Troy’s tiny wife’s terror as she screamed for help. “I… I called for an ambulance and thought it could have been you. It could have been me, finishing the hit on you, and I wouldn’t have missed, and God, how can I make any more hits when I won’t miss…?”

  He tried to haul his emotions to a screaming halt, but he couldn’t. He was just so damned mad. The military had been his crucible, his home, and his god, and the fact that Lacey was using it to put hits out on people like Ernie felt like such a terrible betrayal. And Ernie was supposed to be safe here, dammit, and a part of him knew that there was no such thing as safe—and that if watching Troy Gonzalez get shot had proved anything, it had proved that—but this wasn’t rational, this wasn’t a thing that could be proved, this was Ernie and—

  Ernie, who was cupping his cheeks and pulling him into a hard, grounding kiss.

  Ah! God! Burton devoured him, took great gulps of Ernie into his soul, drank him like… like nectar.

  He tasted salt with the nectar, his own tears, and kept kissing because he didn’t want to cry, he just wanted to keep feeding his soul with Ernie’s warmth and his strength and his passion.

  The kiss climbed, amped, became frantic and life-giving until Burton pulled away and cried out, for a moment confused into thinking it was orgasm, but it wasn’t.

  It was sobs.

  Pissed off and worried and needing the man in his arms like the desert needed the sky, he fell apart in Ernie’s arms and cried like he hadn’t cried since that bad intel in Fallujah when he’d come apart on First Lieutenant Jason Constance with a dead child in his arms.

  EVENTUALLY THEY wandered back in, passing up the rest of the walk entirely. Ernie just dried his face and kissed his cheek and mu
rmured, “Family. Mindless TV. Normal.” And that was that.

  Burton found himself falling asleep in front of A Christmas Story like every other family in America, including his parents.

  He’d sent them a card this year, and suddenly, Ernie leaning on his shoulder, he had a wish to see them, to introduce them to Ernie. He wasn’t sure if they’d care or not that Ernie was a he and not a she—he’d always been so invested in a career in the military, even from middle school, that he hadn’t thought much about who he’d marry. He’d assumed it would be Ariana, but even that had been sort of a blurry, half-formed idea.

  Roger and Anita Burton, and his little brothers—would they look at Ernie and see someone good? Someone pure-hearted?

  Burton swallowed. When this was over, maybe he should write them and see.

  The movie ended, and Ace and Sonny, who had leaned on each other easily during the movie in a way Burton didn’t often see them touch, stood up and wished them good night. Sonny called to Duke, who trotted in after them, and Burton heard Ernie exhale in relief.

  “What?” he whispered.

  “It means they won’t be having sex tonight. They’re really loud.”

  Burton snickered. He’d been there when they’d had sex—they actually weren’t that loud, but maybe Ernie, attuned to every thought, every breath, every emotion in the house, heard them louder in his head than they were to Burton’s ears.

  “I am sleeping on the futon,” Jai announced. “I’m going to take off my pants now.”

  He pushed up from his spot on one of the pillows on the floor, and Ernie and Burton got up quickly.

  “Going to bed now,” Ernie said brightly. “Wait just a second! We don’t need to see your undies!”

  “Who says I don’t go without?” Jai baited, and Ernie let out a little squeak.

  “’Cause you don’t want to be shown up by me, big man,” Burton said easily and was rewarded by Jai’s belly laugh.

  “You only think so. But go to bed. You make me lonely just looking at you.”

  And that was probably the truth.

  Ernie tugged his hand until they were in Burton’s room, and Burton looked around, surprised.

  It didn’t feel so much like his room anymore.

  “What did you do to it?” he asked, trying to put his finger on it. Ernie had hung a quilt up on the west-facing wall, over the window, which was probably a good thing. In the summer it didn’t matter how much they cranked up the swamp cooler, this room got stifling, and the quilt would help. There were heavier drapes on the north window too, and Burton realized they were probably there so Ernie could sleep, but it was more than that.

  Ernie had ordered a shelf for Burton’s doodads, the ones Ace and Sonny had bought, and he’d put up a picture—on photo paper—of Ace and Sonny, and one of Ace, Sonny, Jai, and Alba, like a family picture.

  And there was a more colorful comforter on the top of Burton’s tan quilt.

  And the place smelled….

  Like cedar and pine. Like rich earth.

  Like Ernie.

  “It’s your place now,” Burton said, feeling an absurd drop in his stomach. It had been his church.

  “No. I just keep it for you. Don’t worry. It’s still got your mark on it.”

  But Burton didn’t see that—not at all.

  And he was reassured by it.

  “You’re here,” he murmured, pulling Ernie to him in the still-dark room. Between the quilt and the blackout curtains, he could barely see Ernie’s outline, but that was fine. Better. He worked in the shadows, did things best left to the dark.

  Ernie’s touch was his light in the darkness.

  As they fell upon each other, he closed his eyes and saw daylight, the long hills and outlines of the desert.

  Ernie’s pale face, peeking out of the shade, a small moon in the shadows, shedding a thin silver glow.

  Fish and Shark

  BURTON HAD always treasured his time at Ace and Sonny’s. When he stayed for longer than a day, he often made his way out to the garage, grabbed a spare jumpsuit, and went to work. Ace and Sonny had needed to train themselves on the diagnostic machines that modern mechanics relied on, but Burton could reprogram them to work better, to be more efficient, and to deal with new engines without needing the pricey upgrades.

  It was good to remember that he had legit job skills, and that he could be a useful human being who didn’t kill other human beings.

  Of course, the garage was closed for Christmas Day, and while they had some business on the twenty-sixth, Jai, Alba, and Ernie all convinced Ace and Sonny to take the twenty-seventh off and go somewhere.

  Burton could see Sonny lighting up like a halo at the thought of going to the ocean, even in winter.

  Burton and Jai worked hard that day—a lot of other people had the same idea of traveling over the holiday. By the time they closed the garage, Burton went inside to find that Ernie had cooked dinner for him, and Sonny and Ace’s snug little home had become theirs, a fairy-tale cottage gifted to them for but one night.

  Burton took good care of himself in the shower before he sat down to dinner.

  “Turkey gravy and mashed potatoes,” he breathed, enchanted.

  “And steamed chard with lemon,” Ernie added virtuously.

  “And bacon.” Burton arched an eyebrow at him.

  “Well, I don’t think we have to eat healthy until the second of January,” Ernie replied, eyes twinkling. “Can you survive?”

  Burton bit his lip and smiled uncertainly. “I… this is… this is wonderful,” he said.

  “But….”

  He shook his head. “No buts,” he said. “No reservations. You’re just… you did this super nice thing for me. I… I didn’t even get you a present.”

  Ernie grinned. “Well, you sort of got me a present.”

  Burton had to laugh. Two nights in a row of sleeping next to each other—in a bed—and making love and talking quietly.

  “You deserve that every night,” he said throatily. “Every night, you deserve to know someone will be there.”

  “But military couples deal with it all the time,” Ernie told him simply. “It’s not perfect—I get that. But you’re saving the world, Lee. And, you know, all I did was make dinner.”

  Burton took a bite and smiled. “It’s perfect.”

  “Thanks for coming for Christmas.”

  Burton grinned wickedly. “Many, many times.”

  Ernie grinned back. “Plus however many we do tonight.”

  Well, many, many more, actually.

  But even more important—even scarier—were the moments in between the lovemaking. The silent, breathless moments of Ernie sprawled on his chest, exploring his skin with dancing fingertips, so content it radiated off him like a cat’s purr.

  Burton fell into those moments and found peace there, smelling his skin and shivering under the gentleness of his touch.

  Each breath of peace was a plate of armor he pasted on his soul to defend himself from the grim job ahead.

  “How much longer?” Ernie asked the next morning as Burton loaded up his truck.

  “A month, maybe.” He wasn’t sure what told him that, except, “I really can’t keep faking it for Rivers and Cramer. Lacey’s going to move on them soon, and I’m going to have to show my cards.” He sighed. “Also, the money is running out. I know in the middle of the month he’s planning to make a trip to the capitol—there are some lobbyists he wants to talk to there who will take his requests to Washington.”

  It was so frustrating! The bug in Lacey’s office was helpful, but as of yet he hadn’t been able to get a bug into Lacey’s quarters, which would have been more than helpful. Burton had the feeling that Lacey met with his pets—Adkins, Gleeson, Leavins—in his quarters, or even somewhere else. That attack as he’d left had been pretty coordinated, and he hadn’t caught wind of it at all. Also, Lacey had sent Leavins on a flight without backup, and that took planning. He was definitely doing his talking somewher
e else.

  But Ernie caught what he wasn’t saying. “Wait—if it’s that close, doesn’t that mean it’s going to get more dangerous?”

  Well, shit. Kid never had been stupid.

  “Try not to worry?” he said gamely, knowing that was some class-A bullshit right there.

  Ernie just shook his head and held Burton’s cheeks between his palms. “You know how you can’t figure out what to do with me?” he asked, cutting to the heart of Burton’s uncertainty with a few words of truth.

  Burton closed his eyes, remembering how they moved in the dark. “Sometimes I know exactly what to do with you,” he confessed.

  “Keep thinking about how to make that happen as often as possible,” Ernie whispered. “And then you’ll know what to do with me.”

  Burton growled and wrapped his arms around Ernie’s shoulders with all the possession in his soul.

  “I just want to protect you,” he said brokenly. “Just want to keep you safe.”

  “There’s nowhere safer than right here. Remember that while you’re saving the world.”

  Burton had to close his eyes or Ernie’s big, fathomless brown infinity pools would capture him inside Ernie’s soul and never let him go.

  It was hard enough tearing himself away from Ernie’s final kiss so he could hop in the truck.

  “Don’t forget about me,” he said absurdly.

  “Stay safe while you’re saving the world.” Ernie bit his lip like he was holding his sadness in, and Burton nodded before shutting the door. He was halfway back to the damned base before he realized his eyes were leaking, and he felt like a fool because a grown-assed man shouldn’t cry over leaving a lover behind, particularly not one in Burton’s line of work.

  But Ernie was fragile, and Ace and Sonny didn’t get back until that night, and even after they got back, the world was the world.

  And Lee Burton knew exactly how perilous that world really was, and the thought of his lover adrift in it without a Burton for protection gutted him as nothing ever had in his life.

  THE BASE was dead quiet over the holidays—apparently all good assassins got time off for Christmas. The guys who thought they were still in the military had been granted leave, and Burton came back to a diminished staff. He used the time to cull through Lacey’s email, looking for some hints as to what was coming next.