by E M Lindsey
Chapter Fifteen
“Dude, I don’t want to come on your creepy sex weekend,” Owen complained as he stared down the steps at Fitz. He had his bag slung over his shoulder and Dmitri standing at his elbow. “You can do that without a teenage audience, right?”
“You used to be such a good, obedient child,” Fitz mourned. He jabbed his finger at the open bed of his truck and Owen rolled his eyes before he walked down the steps and threw his things in. He didn’t look back at his friend as he walked around and clambered into the back, and Fitz waited for Dmitri to follow suit.
“Um,” Dmitri said, hesitating with his bag hanging over his arm.
Fitz rolled his eyes. “Trust me, this is not a sex weekend, okay? Owen’s just being a little shit right now because genetically he’s at the age of rebellion.”
“I hate you so much,” Owen called from the truck.
Dmitri’s grin was fleeting. “No, it’s not that. You, uh, invited that guy.”
Fitz’s brows went up. “Antoine?”
Dmitri’s cheeks went dark with a blush. “I hit him with my car.” His voice had dropped to a faint whisper, and Fitz could see he was really struggling. He took a step forward and put his hand on Dmitri’s shoulder. “Antoine is a good person.” And he meant that. Even if Antoine was still giving him shit, he wasn’t going to torture some teenager for one mistake.
Dmitri hesitated. “I don’t…”
“Ronan’s waiting for you. This is the best offer you’re going to get for community service if you want to work off those hours in Cherry Creek.”
Ronan was the one who called Fitz about it too. Most of the teenage delinquents of Cherry Creek were sent into the surrounding cities with more work to be done, but Ronan occasionally had work that could be allotted toward community service hours. Dmitri hadn’t been in Cherry Creek long, and his aunts hadn’t been very forthcoming about what happened with him, but Fitz could see it in his eyes. The kid had been through some shit.
So, he suggested the weekend at the lake which would work off some of his debt, and it offered Fitz the chance to get Antoine on his own, away from work and from the city. He didn’t know what sort of future they had, but he wouldn’t be able to figure the man out if he couldn’t get him away from everything else that was stressing him out.
And frankly, he did anticipate a sex weekend, but far away from the teenagers. Ronan had six cabins up there, and Fitz fully planned on using one for no other reason than to get off. Repeatedly. Even if Antoine left after that and never looked back, Fitz wouldn’t regret it. His heart may break a little, but he wanted to believe it would be worth it.
Dmitri eventually gave in and threw his bags in the back of the pickup, then climbed in next to Owen and kept his head down. Fitz didn’t actually know how Antoine was going to respond to the kid who hit him coming along on the trip, and he privately acknowledged to himself that it was a bit of a test. He wanted to see what Antoine would do.
For all the times Antoine had called him an asshole, he hadn’t been entirely wrong. There was a reason Chance could never bring himself to make their relationship anything more than fucking. There was a reason Fitz falling in love with him wasn’t enough.
What he wanted more than anything was to be different for someone. To be worth all the pain in the ass that came with loving him, and living in this town, and making a life together. It was fine that Chance hadn’t wanted it, but he was starting to wonder if anyone would. So maybe it was cruel to put Antoine to the test like this, but he’d rather know now if there was something worth fighting for.
Fitz pulled up to the roundabout in front of the Lodge, and he was not surprised to see Antoine waiting for him. He looked tired and nervous, leaning against the wall with his thumbnail in his mouth, a duffle bag hanging off his arm. His brows went up at the sight of Fitz’s pickup, and then a little higher when he saw the two boys in the backseat.
Fitz hopped out and smiled a little sheepishly as he got closer. “You ready?”
“Maybe,” Antoine said, his eyes going narrow. “Were you going to tell me this is a babysitting trip?”
“It’s not,” Fitz murmured. “We’ll have a cabin to ourselves.”
Antoine’s cheeks went faintly pink. “I just…I brought lube and condoms.”
Fitz had a mild, quiet coughing fit. “Is that so?”
“You said…I thought we…”
“Oh, we are,” Fitz told him. He fought back the urge to touch him, because in spite of Owen’s accusations, he didn’t want to put on a show. “Dmitri is going to be working off some of his community service with Ronan this weekend. I thought it might be nice to get both boys out of town for a bit. I can keep you quiet later—if you need me to.”
Antoine closed his eyes and let out a long-suffering sigh. “This is not what I had in mind.”
“You can stay, but I want to warn you, Dmitri thinks you hate him, so he’ll blame himself.” Fitz tried not to grin. He was not pulling punches.
“That sounds like emotional blackmail,” Antoine accused.
Spreading his hands, Fitz let himself smile just a little bit. “I’ll use whatever weapon I have to get you in that truck. I want a weekend with you.”
Antoine met his gaze and held it for so long, Fitz almost fidgeted. Then, after a short eternity, he sighed and hiked his bag up higher. “I also brought Uno. And I have no mercy.”
Fitz laughed all the way back to the driver’s seat. He said nothing as Antoine climbed in, then turned to the back to greet the teens who were openly staring. Owen looked bored, and Dmitri looked terrified until Antoine offered him an easy grin, and Fitz felt a sort of vindication that he’d been right.
It didn’t mean his problems were solved—it didn’t mean that his heart was safe—but it did mean the fight might be worth it. He put the truck into drive and pulled out onto the main road, heading the familiar path he’d been driving since Ronan got the Mayor to sign off on the buildings.
They were technically owned by the city. One functioned as the Ranger Station, and the others were rentals that Gwen managed but offered revenue for the City Council to use on town projects. Ronan had been in charge of them since they were nothing more than lumber and dirt, and Fitz liked going out there to see what his friend had accomplished.
Their relationship was still strained on their best day, but Ronan was another person worth the fight, even if Fitz didn’t totally understand the man Ronan had grown into. Parker was everything Fitz had expected him to be as he aged, but Ronan had once been their leader, and now he could barely get two words out any time more than one person was there to listen.
The job was perfect for him, but it wasn’t what Fitz had pictured him doing.
“I love this drive,” Antoine said twenty minutes in. They were on the winding road that led toward the big lake, and he couldn’t help but agree. Even having grown up there, he hadn’t ever grown tired of it.
“This place is boring as fuck,” Owen grumbled, and Fitz glanced at him in the mirror. He was staring petulantly out the window with his headphones around his neck and his arms crossed tight over his chest. He was a good kid. He’d been better years back before the hormones turned him into a pod person, but Fitz still had hope he’d grow into a good man. “The second I get into college I’m getting the hell out.”
Antoine hummed, then turned back. “What about you, Dmitri?”
Dmitri jumped in his seat, and then swallowed thickly. “I um. I’ll probably stay and help my aunts with the restaurant.”
“I’d rather fucking die than have to spend another year in this place,” Owen grumbled. Dmitri was looking at him carefully, curiously, but Fitz could tell the other teen didn’t know what was going on with Owen.
“Just because you have zero imagination doesn’t mean you need to shit on everyone else’s plans,” Fitz told him sharply. “Cherry Creek has been around and functional long before you were even a sperm in your momma’s petri dish.”
Owen pu
rsed his lips, then rolled his eyes to the window. “I cannot wait to forget about this place.”
“I would have killed for something like this when I was growing up,” Antoine said quietly. He turned his gaze out the window, and Fitz saw a genuine smile grace his lips that didn’t falter, even when Owen snorted in disbelief. “Trust me, it’s…there’s something to be said about a place that wants to be called home.”
“Aren’t you from Hollywood?” Owen demanded.
Antoine gave Fitz a sharp look who held up one hand in surrender. “He heard me say it once,” Fitz defended. “Once.”
Antoine stared another minute, then turned his attention back to the teens. “I live in San Francisco, but I didn’t grow up there. My dad was a professor, so he was at a different university every semester. We went back to a few places, but we never stayed two semesters in a row.”
Owen stared at him. “So, what, you had like fifty high schools?”
“No high schools,” Antoine said. “Well, my brother attended a couple of schools for the blind if they had a good one in our area, but we were mostly homeschooled.”
“Your brother’s blind?” Dmitri asked quietly.
Antoine nodded. “Yeah. He developed glaucoma right after we were born. He lives just outside of Denver now, and he has his own yoga studio there.”
“So, he teaches yoga and you became a sales bitch?” Owen asked.
Fitz opened his mouth to reprimand him again, and maybe to apologize because Owen was rarely this combative, but Antoine didn’t seem fazed by it. “I got my MBA and I ended up being good at this. I like helping people.”
“Why? People are the worst.”
At that, Antoine laughed. “Sometimes, yeah. But most of them aren’t. I like the people here.”
“That’s just because you don’t have to live here with them,” Owen snapped, and Fitz didn’t miss the way Antoine flinched. It was subtle, but it was there.
Luckily, the drive ended just a few minutes later, and the second the truck was in park, Owen hopped out and marched off toward the trees. Dmitri was slow to follow, but Fitz just sat there until the boys were out of sight before he turned the engine off and faced Antoine.
“I’m sorry.”
Antoine waved him off. “I was worse at his age.”
“That’s hard to imagine,” Fitz confessed. “I just don’t get it, you know? He’s got a good life and a mom who loves him—and I know this place isn’t San Francisco, but…”
“You don’t want this place to be San Francisco,” Antoine told him. “There’s a reason I don’t rush home at the end of every job.”
Fitz let out a small breath. “I just don’t want him to run off thinking bigger is better.”
“He might have to figure that out for himself. I thought I could make myself happy. I thought I could solve all these stupid fucking issues of never feeling like I had a home by buying some apartment to call my own, but it didn’t work.”
Fitz felt his heart twist for his would-be lover, and he wanted to reach over, but the door to the ranger station swung open and Ronan marched out, both hands clutching tight to his crutches. “Let’s go get the keys. We can throw our stuff in our cabin and then make sure the boys didn’t wander far.”
He slipped out and walked up to Ronan who always looked strange but also right in his uniform. Maybe it was just hard to see the kid who had stolen his dad’s pipe and tried to smoke oregano in it when they were thirteen suddenly a man of responsibility like this, but it looked good on him. Of course, there was a lot about Ronan Fitz never expected—like finding out he was gay and married to Parker. Like finding out he was sick and trying to hide it from everyone. But things were better than they had been, before all of that, so Fitz wanted to count it as a win.
“Where are the boys?” Ronan asked as he came to a stop in front of Fitz. His legs always moved slower with his orthotics on, even if they kept him more steady on his feet.
Rolling his eyes, Fitz motioned toward the trees. “Wandered off to angst about the unfairness of nature or something.”
Ronan let out a low, quiet chuckle and shook his head. “Well, I have keys.” He pulled two sets out of his pocket, then gave a smile to Antoine that looked like a grimace, though Fitz knew it was just him being nervous and shy. “You need anything? I need to go do a couple of laps near the preserve border.”
Fitz waved him off. “I brought groceries and shit, and as much as Owen complains about hating nature, he does know what he’s doing.”
And it was true, Fitz had let his fear control the way he taught Owen about nature, but the boy was probably the most educated kid in town. Ronan looked between Fitz and Antoine for a moment, then gave a nod and turned on his heel. Fitz knew he was heading for his ATV, so he beckoned Antoine over to the back of the truck and pulled the latch so they could get at the bags.
“Is he…okay?” Antoine asked as he reached for one of the bags. “He wasn’t on crutches before, was he?”
“He doesn’t always need them,” Fitz replied, not wanting to get into Ronan’s personal business. He wasn’t ashamed of his diagnosis anymore, but he also wasn’t a man who shared personal ins and outs of his function with just anyone.
Antoine seemed to pick up on that, though, and he just nodded, not pressing for more. “You want to get the boys to help?”
At that, Fitz laughed as he hooked one of the bags around his arm and yanked it from the truck bed. “They’re going to fuck off for a while, but we can handle this. Right, Hollywood? Or did you not go camping as a kid?”
Antoine shrugged, looking unashamed. He gathered his stuff, then after some hesitation, took Fitz’s bag from him and pulled the strap on his shoulder. “We did a little bit. My mom was an amateur botanist, so she was always dragging us out to find whatever local fauna she was obsessed with that month.”
“Is that what she does for a living?” Fitz led the way into the first cabin and used an awkward grip on the handle to turn it and push inside. It was clean and fresh as usual, and he took a deep breath before heading in. The smell reminded him of Chance—how the last night they spent together was there. How they’d fucked on the hardwood floor, and by morning, Chance was on his way to New York.
The memory wasn’t as painful as he thought it would be. Hell, being unceremoniously dumped by the man he thought he was in love with hadn’t been that painful, and it wasn’t until now, until the phantom ache he felt at the thought of Antoine leaving that he started to question what he’d really been feeling for Chance for all those years.
“My mom went to school for journalism, but she wanted to travel with my dad, so she decided to spend her time taking care of me and my brother.” Antoine’s voice broke through his thoughts as Fitz laid all the bags of food on the little wooden table. “I think she just wanted an excuse to fuck around in the woods though.”
There was weight behind his words, a bitterness Fitz knew all too well. He didn’t have a contentious relationship with his parents, but it was never particularly close, either. But there were a lot of people in Fitz’s life who were supposed to be one thing, and had ended up another.
Chance was one. And Ronan. But he supposed it shouldn’t matter after this much time.
Clearing his throat, he rubbed a hand over the back of his neck, then smiled. “You want to see the rest of the place?”
Antoine offered him an easy smile. “Sure.”
He turned and took Antoine’s hand, pulling him to the back door and opened it. The porch was small, a set of stairs ending in the dirt path which led to the lake. “Ronan always has the racks stocked with paddle boards and kayaks. We could maybe head out there later, if you want?”
Antoine approached the edge of the steps, but he didn’t step down. From his position, Fitz could see the way Antoine’s eyes widened, the way they swept across the landscape. The cabins all had a view of the lake and the forest, and it was gorgeous, even with the signs posted for sale.
“It’ll ruin it,” Ant
oine said softly.
Fitz’s brow dropped into a frown. “What? Why?”
Antoine startled, like maybe he hadn’t meant to say that out loud, and he turned, giving Fitz a sheepish smile. “Nothing. Um. I don’t kayak.”
“That’s easy enough to remedy,” Fitz said, but Antoine took a step back. After a beat, Fitz sighed. “What is it?”
“I,” Antoine stopped and glanced away, shrugging. “It’s embarrassing.”
“I promise you, it’s probably not,” Fitz pressed. Whatever it was, he wanted Antoine to feel like he could open up. This was more than just a sex weekend, and he was ready to start earning Antoine’s trust.
Antoine took a fortifying breath, then shrugged. “I can’t kayak or any of that stuff because I can’t swim. Okay? I know that’s pathetic.”
Fitz chuckled, feeling a burst of relief that it wasn’t something bigger. He took a step closer to Antoine, reaching out and laying one hand against his waist. His skin was warm, even over his clothing. “It’s not pathetic. Plenty of people can’t, and I could teach you if you want to learn. Besides, there’s a trunk full of life preservers there, and you’d be with me. I’d keep you safe.”
Antoine hummed, and Fitz took that as tacit permission to lean in and kiss his full, plush mouth. It was just as warm as the rest of him, and maybe even softer. His lips parted and his tongue met Fitz with a quiet desperation echoed in the small moan Fitz took into his own mouth.
“Want to check out the bedroom?” Fitz murmured against Antoine’s flush-warm skin, backing him up against the porch railing.
Antoine shuddered all over, but he put a fortifying hand on Fitz’s chest and pushed back—not enough to send him reeling, but enough to put some distance between them. “We should talk first.”
And oh, those words, in this cabin… Fitz tried not to wince. “Right.”
“No,” Antoine said softly. “That’s not…I don’t mean like that. I mean, of course I don’t…we’re not even…”
Fitz heard him flailing, so he took pity on the man and laid a hand to his cheek. “I know.”
