Gambling on Love

by Jane Davitt

  Abe walked up to him, tossed the clothes on the bed, and put his hand on Gary’s chest. A single push, not ungentle, and Gary found himself sprawled out on the bed, gazing up at Abe, his heart hammering double time. If Abe decided to turn nasty and act out a revenge he’d had years to plan, Gary was fucked. Miles away from nowhere, his phone didn’t work, he was practically naked—

  A plaintive yowl by his ear interrupted his chaotic thoughts, and he gave a strangled scream followed by “Jesus fuck, what the hell—” when something hard and wet nudged against his cheek. A scrabble of movement signaled a creature leaving the vicinity of his face at top speed.

  “Fox, chill, okay? It was the cat. Get a grip, will you? I want to check your feet for frostbite.”

  A cat? He’d made a fool of himself over a cat? “I’m sorry. You told me to get on the bed and I thought—”

  “And you’re, uh, you might want to fasten your robe.”

  Gary tilted his head and surveyed what was frankly an unimpressive view. He wasn’t sure which was worse: flashing Abe or doing it when he had nothing to show but a soft curl of flesh and balls trying to crawl up high to get warm. He attempted a joke. “Intimidating you with my manhood, huh?”

  Abe chuckled, the sound normal enough to chase away the last fugitive fears in Gary’s fatigue-addled brain. “I won’t judge you until you’ve warmed up. And Sailor’s over there if you want to say hi to him.”

  Gary turned his head, knotting the belt of his robe. A large black cat lay on the pillow, his paws tucked neatly under him. He was fluffy, but a nick out of one ear gave him a rakish look. Sailor yawned, exposing sharp white teeth, and folded up into a pose that allowed access to his belly, which he proceeded to lick in a leisurely fashion.

  “I think he’s waiting for you to apologize for scaring him,” Abe murmured as if he was worried the cat could hear him, “but it can wait.”

  “Apologize? Are you kidding me? I’m the one who got scared to death.” Gary leaned back on the bed, careful not to rock it, and extended his hand, prepared to snatch it back at the first flash of claw or fang. “Okay, here, kitty, kitty. Nice kitty.”

  Abe snorted. “Yeah, that’s gonna work. He’s not an idiot.”

  Unlike you floated on the air.

  Gary studied the cat with more attention and got a cool stare back from amber eyes flecked with brown. “I’m sorry I scared you.” How ridiculous was apologizing to an animal?

  “He likes it when he has the place to himself. He can be timid with strangers.”

  The cat didn’t look timid to Gary, but he didn’t share that thought. Sailor extended his neck and gave Gary’s fingers a sniff and a brief lick. Emboldened, Gary ran his fingers over the smooth head and scratched behind the cat’s left ear. Sailor purred, a deep rumble that vibrated through Gary’s arm, and then jumped off the bed. The thud of his landing seemed disproportionately loud, given his size.

  “I’m heating up some soup. The kettle’s boiling for a hot water bottle too. Don’t put it against your skin, but if you put it in the bed with you—”

  “I get it,” Gary snapped. A hot water bottle? Jesus. He didn’t even know those still existed, but he knew enough not to put something that hot against his super-cooled skin. “Sorry. Thanks. Why don’t you do your candy striper routine and I’ll get dressed?”

  Abe shrugged and left the room. His refusal to engage grated on Gary’s nerves more than the punch ever could have, and left Gary fully aware he’d been a jerk to somebody who was only trying to help. Even if that person had betrayed him in the past in the worst possible way.

  Taking off the robe made his shivers intensify, but once he’d pulled on thermal long johns and a T-shirt, topped with a fleece sweatshirt and pants, he felt warmer. He sat on the end of the bed and reached for the pair of socks but didn’t pull them on. Abe wanted to look at his feet. He stared down at them. They felt oddly unattached—painfully cold, yes, but numb too. He tried to wiggle his toes and whimpered. Okay, that hurt.

  As if he’d been listening for any sign of discomfort, Abe came back into the room, a hot water bottle tucked under his arm and a mug of soup in his hand. He set the mug on the bedside table—the coaster there was made of a rough-edged piece of slate, more artistic than practical—and tucked the hot water bottle into the bed halfway down.

  “I’ve never felt this cold before.” Gary hoped small talk might cover his embarrassment over attacking Abe. “Did an ice age hit the state and no one told me?”

  “You weren’t dressed for it, and once you got wet, there was no way to warm up, not when you were still outside.” Without any visible self-consciousness, Abe went to his knees in front of Gary, sitting back on his heels. Even kneeling, he still looked big. He put his hand on Gary’s ankle. “This might hurt.”

  “I thrive on pain,” Gary muttered. “Of course, it’s usually someone else’s.”

  Abe glanced up at him but didn’t comment. He slid his hand under Gary’s left foot and lifted it onto his knee for a cursory examination. “Good news. I don’t think you’ll lose any toes.”

  “Very funny.”

  “It wasn’t a joke.” Abe cradled Gary’s foot, the warmth of his hands seeping into Gary’s flesh. It didn’t seem fair Abe wasn’t cold even if Gary was reaping the benefits. “You crashed into me two hours ago. That’s long enough to get frostbite.”

  “Feels like days, not hours.” Gary closed his eyes when Abe massaged his foot with infinite gentleness, big hands clasping and releasing, rubbing heat and sensation back into each toe and the foot itself. “And that feels good.” He frowned, pleasure turning to pain in an inexorable slide. “At least I think it does. Oh God, no, it’s hurting—”

  Pins and needles could be uncomfortable, but they usually didn’t last long. This torment intensified with every passing second, tingles becoming a fiery, itchy agony. Abe transferred his attentions to Gary’s right foot, ignoring Gary’s plaintive moans and curses, his gaze fixed on Gary’s feet.

  “You’re enjoying this, aren’t you?” Gary panted out, each exhalation an effort, his hands curled around fistfuls of the comforter. “Sadist.”

  Abe smiled but didn’t reply in words, although the dig of his thumbs into the sole of Gary’s foot was a definite yes as far as Gary was concerned.

  “How much longer?” Gary opted for a pleading tone this time. He’d tried pulling his foot back and gotten a reproving click of the tongue from Abe, followed by a glare when he tried again.

  Abe rested the back of his hand against Gary’s arch for a moment. “They’re warming up. I guess you could put on some socks and leave it at that.”

  “Sadist,” Gary repeated and flopped back on the bed. He could wiggle his toes, at least, but God, he never wanted to see snow again. Abe had been merciless, even if his intentions had been good, and deep down, Gary couldn’t help admiring his focus. A job had needed doing, and Abe had gotten it done in the face of Gary’s howls for mercy and Abe’s own exhaustion. He was the same stalwart, dependable Abe who’d been Gary’s best friend for years, long before they became more than that. It was so easy to fall back into relying on him, despite how dangerous Gary knew that was. Maybe it was time to reevaluate their history. Maybe not.

  Abe picked up the pair of thick socks from the bed and unrolled them. Gary propped himself up on his elbows and watched him. He was getting used to Abe dressing and undressing him. It seemed to stem from practicality, not some weird kink that hadn’t surfaced when they were together, but it still raised questions in his head. Like how deep Abe’s resentment ran, and how much of the past they’d have to ignore to reach a friendly footing.

  Abe put the socks on Gary’s feet with a deft, impersonal efficiency, but at the end his hand lingered, his fingers curved around the back of Gary’s ankle. Then he moved his thumb, a slow, deliberate stroke back and forth across the front of Gary’s foot that through a thick sock felt good.

  Gary held his breath for a second, conscious of the need to say noth
ing because he knew if he did, Abe would stop. He bit down on his lip, a stab of pain reminding him he’d cut it earlier, during the first collision with Abe’s truck. There was something wistful about that slow drag of Abe’s thumb, as if it’d been a while since he’d gotten to touch someone. The moment ended abruptly. Abe snatched his hand away, leaving Gary bereft, cheated out of something he wasn’t sure he wanted.

  Abe stood, his eyes not quite meeting Gary’s. He raised his hand to his mouth and rubbed his thumb over his lips. Gary wondered if Abe knew he was doing it.

  The silence between them was jagged with awkwardness, heavy with unspoken questions. Gary didn’t do silence. He used words easily, confidently, and with his life at the lowest ebb it’d ever seen, he was damned if he would ignore that overture.

  The only thing holding him back was that if Abe was interested in sex with him—not a certainty, even after that unexpected caress—they were both too wiped for it to happen tonight, and when morning came, he was planning to leave.

  Their timing always had sucked.

  He opened his mouth to make a comment about the painting on the wall by the door, a flock of birds against a winter-pale sky, and heard himself say, “I didn’t mind you touching me, you know.”

  Hypothermia beat alcohol when it came to making a person spill out secrets.

  Abe stopped staring at a spot two inches to the left of Gary’s head and looked at Gary instead, the corner of his mouth quirking up. “Yeah. I figured that out for myself. We’ve got some unfinished business, huh? Best we leave it that way. Drink your soup before it gets cold, and get under the covers. I’m going to feed Sailor. Not that he needs it.”

  “You’re full of surprises.” Gary was torn between agreeing with Abe that sex was off the menu—his balls needed to be coaxed down—and resentment that Abe wasn’t all that interested in him anyway. He couldn’t be. In any decent romance movie, they’d have been kissing by now, locked in each other’s arms. Instead, there was an awkward jumpiness peppered with lust, expectancy, and hesitation mixed together.

  Abe smiled. “Yeah? So are you, with your bespoke suits and Patek Phillipe watch—or is it a knockoff?” He touched the top of Gary’s head lightly, lifting a few strands of hair. “Still red.”

  “Yeah. And it’s a genuine, but it was a gift.” From Peter on the anniversary of the day they’d met, stunning Gary to rare silence.

  Abe stood close, tall enough that Gary had to crane his neck back to look at him. Gary stood instead, forcing Abe to step back. Time to change the subject. “So this soup? It’s chicken, right? Not bear or something funky?”

  “It’s soup from a can.” Abe gave another of the shrugs he used as punctuation, already walking toward the door. “Ask Campbell’s what they put in it, not me.”

  Abe made it as far as the kitchen. He sank onto a chair and rested his throbbing head on the table, pillowing it on his arms when he realized wood, no matter how expensive, wasn’t all that soft.

  Sailor appeared from somewhere, jumping up onto the table and nudging Abe’s head with his nose. Unlike Gary, Abe didn’t leap up, screaming high and loud, but he flinched when the nudge was followed by an inquiring meow. Given the pounding headache, that was too loud. He’d taken some painkillers, but they weren’t doing their job yet.

  “Turn it down, buddy.” He’d known Sailor too long to read concern into the meow. Sailor was letting him know it was time to open another can of cat food—he hadn’t touched the tuna glop Abe had put in his bowl before leaving the cabin earlier—so could he please stop snoozing when there were more important things to do.

  Sailor would be disappointed. He was well-fed and wouldn’t starve if he missed a meal, but the smell of the cat food would probably make Abe throw up. Since he was the one who’d have to clean the resulting mess off the floor, he preferred to endure Sailor’s plaintive yowls instead. Linda and her partner Sarah had tried to get Sailor to eat dry food to cut down on the smell, especially in the summer, but Sailor had gone on a hunger strike until he got the sloppy mess he liked best back in his china bowl.

  The cat was spoiled, but since Abe was the one who did most of the spoiling, he couldn’t complain.

  Closing his eyes helped to quell the nausea churning his gut, but he couldn’t calm his thoughts as easily. What a train wreck of a day. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d been so frustrated by events, to the point where he’d wanted to throw back his head and direct a stream of cuss words at the heavens.

  It was Gary’s fault, every single fucking bit of it. Abe was clear on that. He settled his head in the crook of his elbow and sighed. Gary was a problem. With the snow this heavy, it might be a few days before they could get back to the truck, let alone make it into town. That didn’t matter to Abe, who had nowhere to be but here, and nothing to do but make sure the pipes in the cabin didn’t freeze, but if Gary had been heading somewhere, he’d probably fret over the delay and want to leave.

  He wouldn’t be able to, but that wouldn’t stop him from trying. Stubborn, self-centered, blind to reason if it went against what he wanted . . . Abe still couldn’t wrap his head around Gary’s cool dismissal of freezing to death as a danger. The guy’s face had been turning into an icicle, for God’s sake. Gary panicking and going to pieces would have been a pain in the ass, but in some ways, Abe would’ve been able to cope with that reaction better.

  He hadn’t apologized for punching Gary, and he supposed he needed to. It’d been out of line, even if in the split second the punch had taken to throw, it’d seemed the best solution to the problem.

  He hadn’t been able to stop looking at the shadowed bruise on Gary’s jaw, his gaze straying to it again and again. Gary was too damn pretty to be marked up. Abe had sometimes wondered what Gary had grown up to look like, and as with most granted wishes, there was a sting in the tail. He’d seen the silky red hair, the angular, interesting face, and he’d been hooked all over again. The glimpse he’d gotten when Gary’s robe fell open hadn’t freed him from his rekindled attraction.

  Whenever Abe mustered the nerve to hit the bars, looking for sex, he always went with burly, muscular men, their arms inked up, their hair smelling of nothing but shampoo or smoke, their hairy chests too often giving way to early-stage beer guts. He’d taken what was on offer. Sometimes, he got lucky and ended up with a guy like Craig, good-looking and fun, but that didn’t change the fact that nine times out of ten, he dropped his pants for a loser because they had a hard-on for him and would get him off.

  Gary was a man out of a magazine these days, everything polished and perfect from his trimmed, styled hair—so well cut that it’d fallen back where it was supposed to even after being under a wool hat for an hour—to his pedicured feet. Abe supposed most of his one-night stands owned a suit—singular—for weddings, funerals, and job interviews, but they didn’t have a wardrobe full of them. They wouldn’t wear one casually, the way Gary probably did, as if it was nothing to be walking around wearing a month’s wages on your back. What had happened to him since he left town? Abe wanted to know, but Gary had always been good at evading questions he didn’t want to answer. Something told Abe his rise—and fall?—in fortune would come under the heading of “none of your fucking business.”

  Gary’s body had been worth a second look, but the smooth chest—waxed? Shit—leading down to a flat stomach and narrow hips hadn’t drawn Abe’s eye as much as the cloud of reddish hair around Gary’s cock. It was the same color as copper wire. It looked soft, but he knew if he touched it, he’d feel it curl around his fingertips: springy, resilient, not soft at all.

  Rubbing the pink back into Gary’s feet had been worth the exertion. Abe had never given much thought to feet being attractive. He kept his clean, put on fresh socks every morning, and trimmed his toenails when needed, but that was it. If he knelt in front of a man, it was usually—no, always—to suck his cock. Glancing down to check out the guy’s feet, always assuming they weren’t still shoved into boots, had never occu
rred to him. Gary’s feet had been pampered, Abe could tell, but that wasn’t the appeal. With the soles wrinkled from being wet, and the tops of them blue-white with cold, they’d made Abe want to do more than touch them. He’d wanted to put his mouth on the hollow at Gary’s ankle and kiss it. If he’d had a glass slipper handy, he’d have slid it onto Gary’s foot and let Cinderella go barefoot.

  The hands were just as good. Familiar and yet not, elegant, with long fingers and expertly trimmed nails. Each fingernail ended in a smooth, perfect curve, each cuticle neat. There wasn’t a single nick or callus on Gary’s hands. Against Abe’s skin they’d feel—

  It didn’t matter how they’d feel. None of it stopped him from thinking Gary was an abrasive son of a bitch who’d run out on him at the first rough point in their relationship.

  “The hell with it.” He got to his feet. Bed. Gary was already fast asleep, judging by the faint snores. Abe needed to sleep for a few hours at least.

  He turned off most of the lights, lurching around as if he were at the wrong end of a six-pack, and went to bed, leaving his clothes in a heap on the floor. He wasn’t cold now. Not after feeling Gary shiver for a different reason than wet clothes and exposure when Abe touched him, and hearing the invitation in Gary’s voice.

  An indefinite time later, he jerked awake, trying to push away the hands shaking him insistently.

  “Wha’ the fuck?” he mumbled through a sleep-thick mouth.

  “It’s me. Gary.”

  Of course it was. “You woke me up.”

  “I should’ve done it before. I’m sorry. I went out like a light and I didn’t see an alarm clock.”

  “No ’larm clock in there.” Abe had difficulty articulating. He’d been fast asleep, damn it. “Linda ’n Sarah don’t like them.”

  “The owners, you mean? They’re a couple?”

  Unable to deal with conversation—and Gary’s voice was way too loud for the middle of the night—Abe reached out blindly, his eyes closed against the light from the family room, and put his hand over Gary’s mouth. “Stop shouting or I swear I’ll shoot you.”