Set Ablaze

by KC Burn

  Instead, they played with Fang out in the yard, and Hayden took a nap. Then they cooked dinner together—although Hayden also broiled a chicken breast to go with the rest of the vegan offerings—and watched a movie while they ate.

  It was comfortable and sweet. Idyllic. Little touches, as though Hayden couldn’t help himself. Kisses between the stove and fridge. Kisses while Fang chased after a ball and outright didn’t fucking bother bringing it back. Everything a new relationship should be, with that coil of awe and desire and hope unfurling in his belly. Jez didn’t want to lose it, but neither did he want to get in too deep, because the longer he pretended with Hayden, the more heartbreaking it would be when it all got ripped away.

  As soon as the credits rolled on the movie—most of which Jez hadn’t even registered due to impending dread—he flipped it over to Pandora and loaded up one of his more soothing playlists. They were stretched out on the couch, Hayden behind him, Fang draped over their feet. Jez shifted as though to sit up, but Hayden kept a firm grip around his waist.

  “This is good.” Hayden kissed his ear. “Let’s at least be comfortable.”

  At least Hayden hadn’t promised that everything would be okay.

  Jez let himself rest against Hayden’s strong, warm chest. Where to begin? How much detail was truly necessary?

  “I had a boyfriend in New York.”

  Hayden grunted in annoyance, and Jez snickered at the mild expression of casual jealousy.

  “I had a few over the years. But it was the last one, Jayson, that I’m talking about. He was big and athletic. I sort of have a type, I guess. Anyway, he was also closeted, at least at work. He was a professional hockey player.”

  “The one who was with the NHL?”

  “Yes. He wasn’t on one of the top-tier teams. He played for one of the feeder teams.”

  “There aren’t any of those in New York, are there? Aren’t they in Connecticut?”

  “How do you even know that? I thought you didn’t pay attention to hockey.”

  Jez felt Hayden shrug behind him. “It’s not like I plug my ears whenever it’s mentioned. LA does have a hockey team, after all. And I did a little internet research after you said you liked it.”

  “He lived in Hartford, but his parents had an apartment in Manhattan that Jayson used more than they did. We only saw each other when he was in the city.”

  “Did you start watching hockey because of him?”

  That would have sucked. “No, I got into it in college, even though most of my friends weren’t into sports. Probably because I do like the big athletic types. Anyway, I think because I liked hockey, I gave Jayson the benefit of the doubt when I shouldn’t have.”

  “And he wasn’t out? Don’t they have that program to stop bullying in sports or to help gay players?”

  “Yeah, that’s what I thought too, but despite the program, I still haven’t heard of any out players. Jayson wasn’t planning to be the first. Anyway, we started dating and Jayson got serious fast. Too fast.”

  Hayden’s whole body tensed. “Am I going too fast? I really will need you to tell me if I’m doing something wrong.”

  Jez patted Hayden’s hand and linked their fingers together. “This is one of those weird things about relationships. Each one has its own speed. We’re doing what’s right for us, and if it doesn’t feel right, I’ll say something. When Jayson started doing all these grand gestures, it wasn’t right. I think it might have been because he had feelings for me that I didn’t return. Or at least, that I didn’t feel as strongly. Everything he did started to smother me. Many of the things he did were things that, on the surface, seemed romantic. Lots of gifts, imported chocolate and wine. Nothing crazy like jewelry, but it was always something. Starting fights because he was jealous. Breaking into my apartment to set up a catered dinner. Breaking into my apartment to spread himself naked on my bed as a birthday gift. He paid my rent one month for no apparent reason. Reams of poetry. Watching me as I slept. It was too much when I knew I didn’t love the guy and wasn’t sure I ever would. But when he posted some weird shit to my Facebook profile, using my laptop while I was asleep, well, that was it. I broke up with him.”

  Hayden squeezed his hand. “Sounds reasonable.”

  “Yeah, you’d think. My friends thought I was nuts, breaking up with a guy because he did too many nice things for me. But it felt controlling, you know? Like he wanted me to be beholden to him or enthralled by him. Anyway, the gifts got bigger. More candy. Bigger stuffed animals. Fruit baskets. Flowers. He sent them to my home, my work. I blocked his number. I blocked him on social media. Then he got a new number. More calls. Calling my work. Showing up at my work. Then it got weird. Things like, I’d order dinner to be delivered, then find out someone else had paid for it. There were no threats, but I felt threatened.”

  “Is that why you came to LA?”

  “Long story short, yes. First, though, I tried to get a restraining order. I got pretty much laughed at. They thought I was overreacting to a lovers’ tiff. Told me to stop wasting people’s time. I think if I’d been a girl with an ex-boyfriend, they might have taken things more seriously, but as a gay man? They thought I was being silly.”

  Hayden stiffened behind him. “That’s terrible. Did you sue or something?”

  “No. But after that, it all stopped. Jayson disappeared from my life. I heard through the grapevine that he’d been called up to one of the New York teams, and I assumed that with his career progressing, he had enough other things to focus on. A couple of months later, things had settled back to normal. I had Fang to keep me company because I wasn’t ready to even date again. Then I got a phone call. It was an unknown number. I’d assumed it was Jayson again and was going to ignore it, but then I realized it had a California area code, so I answered. Instead it was a casting director from LA. Said he’d emailed a couple of times and left a voicemail about a job—my old mentor had recommended me—but hadn’t heard back and he needed to make a decision.”

  “Oh. So….”

  Jez laughed, Hayden’s surprise providing a much-needed break in the tension. “Yes, I really have a job. I’ll get to that in a minute.”

  “Right. Okay, so a job offer in LA.”

  “This was the first I’d heard of it. I hadn’t seen any emails or gotten any voicemails, and told him so. We confirmed my email address, which he’d had correct, and chalked it up the vagaries of the interwebs. The casting director gave me the rundown, and the job was pretty much tailor-made for me, but I loved what I was doing in New York. So I told him I’d need a day or two to think about it.”

  How had this been his life? One pure moment of chance. They lay there in silence for a few minutes. He’d left out a few details, and a few to come he wasn’t going to bother with either, but the bare bones were painful enough.

  “I know you took the job, but something happened, didn’t it?” Hayden pulled him closer. Surprisingly, Jez was able to take comfort in the warmth of Hayden’s big body when he’d sort of expected to have a negative reaction to men built like Jayson for the rest of his life.

  “I went home. Opened my laptop. Started digging in my email. I didn’t rely on my email for much. I skimmed it every day, but texting and social media, those were my lifeblood, even though I’d been using social media less and less. I guess I was worried about Jayson following me around. Anyway, I couldn’t find any of those emails. As I was sitting there, email site open, a new email flashed in with the subject “Need an answer by end of day tomorrow” from Chris, the casting director. I was sort of congratulating the powers that be for finally getting it right when the email disappeared.”

  “What?”

  “Yup. Like, while I was watching. I didn’t even get a chance to see what the message inside said. So I decided to check my call logs. I had other calls from that California number, but no voicemails. And it occurred to me—everything that Jayson had done on social media, paying for my deliveries, deleting my voicemails, deleting my email
s…. While we were seeing each other, he must have watched me, gotten my passwords for everything.” His heart started pounding again like it had done that day, just from the memory of Jayson still controlling him in a super invasive and creepy way. He’d been terrified, sitting there in his apartment, wondering how much access to his life Jayson had.

  “Holy shit. That’s insane. Sounds like he was trying to gaslight you. Surely the cops could have done something.”

  “I don’t know. Can they do anything if you voluntarily shared passwords? I didn’t, but I bet Jayson would say I did. After all, he convinced all my friends that I was the crazy one for breaking up with him. Anyway, I freaked out. I spent the next several hours getting a new email address, then changed passwords and associated email addresses on everything, and I mean everything else. I left the old email alone in the hopes he wouldn’t realize what I was doing. Changed my phone number, then called Chris back and accepted the job.”

  Hayden kissed his neck, making Jez shiver, but it wasn’t meant to be a “distract him with sex” sort of kiss. Jayson had tried that many times too, and Jez would have called Hayden on it.

  “I sat there in my tiny apartment, sirens blaring as emergency vehicles passed by, Fang in my arms, and I started wondering. If Jayson tried to log into anything besides my email and found out he couldn’t? And I remembered reading somewhere that people could be tracked via their social media. I thought I’d locked down all the privacy settings when I changed the passwords, but what if I missed something? I was pretty sure moving to the other side of the country would snap Jayson out of it, but I still had three weeks before Chris needed me in LA. That was a lot of time for Jayson to freak out. I sort of panicked. Over the weekend, I packed up whatever I thought I could move into the van myself, used my neighbor’s phone to give crazy short notice at work, citing a family emergency, deleted my social media accounts entirely, then started driving.”

  “And where did Miguel come into this?”

  “Ha. I called him from the road. I hadn’t thought out my endgame, and it wasn’t until I hit Pennsylvania that I realized I might need some help.”

  Hayden shifted them so Jez was facing him, sort of half underneath him. Hayden might be a shit interior decorator, but his awesome couch made up for much of his lack. “I am so sorry you went through that, Jez. That’s awful. Puts my issues with Jordan into perspective. But that doesn’t change how I feel about you. Or trying to make things work with you.”

  The chapter of his life with Jayson was over. Finally. And he wanted to forget about it as best he could. “No? How about when I tell you I’m in therapy? I have anxiety issues now because of this, and I have problems with crowds. It started out when I was trying to break up with Jayson. I’d go outside and feel like I was being watched.”

  “Maybe you were being watched.” Hayden frowned. “That guy sounds unhinged.”

  “Obviously. And he wasn’t even a goalie.” Jez laughed at the complete lack of comprehension on Hayden’s face. “I have to admit, knowing that I wasn’t imagining things… doesn’t make it any better. And now that I have it, I might have to live with it forever. I have meds, but I’ll need to find a local therapist soon.”

  Hayden huffed out a rueful laugh. “Maybe we can go to the same one.”

  Jez wrinkled his nose in confusion. “What?”

  Hayden laid out all that had happened with Jordan at the station, and the part about his boss’s support made Jez want to sing. Shit, he’d been worried about Hayden too—he was just glad Hayden had come to the realization that therapy might help on his own. But dancing around for joy might be a little too cheery, considering Hayden had just lost two men he’d considered friends, no matter how horrifically unfriendlike they’d been.

  “Going to the same therapist will be very… uh… couple-y,” Jez offered instead of pumping his fist. “Might be… well, not fun. But comforting. When are you going to tell Miguel about Vic?”

  “Dunno. Next time I see him, I guess.”

  “Maybe we ought to have him over here. Because there are a couple of things I’d like to straighten out with him, and I think he’s been avoiding me.”

  Hayden frowned. “Funny, I think you might be right. He’s been avoiding me too.”

  “Didn’t he go to Vegas with you?”

  “Nah. He had that camping trip. He just met us here at the house after we got back to watch the game.”

  “So, about that night.”

  Hayden lifted an eyebrow. “Is this not where we start making out? Maybe have sex on the couch? I haven’t had sex on this couch, but I think I’d like to.”

  Jez laughed. Hayden had only been joking, but the thought of sex on the couch sent a surge of arousal blasting through him. An idea to explore later. “Soon. I promise. Miguel told you I was an actor, didn’t he?”

  Hayden rolled his eyes. “Yup. Talking about your brother. That means no making out. Yes, he told me you were an actor. But have….” He stopped talking abruptly, probably because there was no good way to frame the question of “have you actually done anything?”

  Jez just pretended he hadn’t started to ask. “I’m not an actor. Or at least, not just an actor. I’m primarily a dancer and singer. The roles I get involve acting, true, but I went to college for dance. Modern dance mostly, but I can hold my own in most other disciplines. If you tried to look me up in, oh, say, the Internet Movie Database, you wouldn’t find me. I haven’t done television or movies. But if you’d checked out the Internet Broadway Database, well, I’m definitely in that. I’ve been lucky. I’ve only ever worked on major productions—one of my teachers had a lot of connections and really liked me, so I didn’t have to do all the off-off-off-Broadway shows that a lot of dancers need to do to break in.”

  Hayden started fidgeting, and Jez laughed. “Go on, check your phone. I can see you’re dying to.”

  Before Jez finished speaking, Hayden had whipped his phone out of his back pocket. “Holy shit,” he exclaimed a couple of minutes later. “I had no fucking clue. This is amazing. I mean, I’ve never heard of most of these shows, but wow.”

  The sincerity in Hayden’s voice meant so much to Jez, who’d never had anyone to share the joy of his successes with. Even most of his so-called friends—the ones who hadn’t believed him about Jayson—were also his competition for roles, so their congratulations always had an undertone of “why him?”.

  “Why didn’t you tell Miguel about all this?”

  Jez grimaced. “I did. I mean, I never told him personal stuff because he didn’t seem to care, but I told him about all of my roles. I don’t know if he just wasn’t listening or if he was embarrassed by his gay brother the dancer. Acting might have sounded more… manly?”

  “That’s not right. I mean, I made some assumptions I shouldn’t have, because I was working with bad data, but Miguel had all the right data. I don’t know why he didn’t tell me the truth. I’ll make sure he comes over the next time we’re off on the same night. Hit him with both barrels, see where the shrapnel lands.”

  A bit of a gory metaphor, but Jez could understand it. This crap with Miguel was an unnecessary waste of time and energy, but he needed to know what his brother was thinking. If it was as bad as he feared, then like Hayden, he’d officially have no family left.

  “What show are you working on in LA, then?”

  “Funny you should ask that, because this will end up being my first credit on the Internet Movie Database.”

  Hayden’s eyes lit up.

  “Don’t get so excited. It’s not a movie. It’s about a fictional reality show that’s sort of a cross between Glee and Dancing with the Stars. The drama of the show is about what goes on behind the scenes as they’re creating this reality show. I’m playing one of the choreographers, and I’m also going to be developing some of the choreography for the show. It’s the sort of thing I wanted to do eventually, and I can still take theater roles here too, during the show’s hiatus.”

  “Congratula
tions. That sounds great. I mean, I only saw a little bit of your dancing yesterday, but I was mesmerized.”

  “Oh yeah? Seduced you right up, did I?”

  Hayden’s voice lowered. “From the very first minute.”

  Yeah, that’s when Jez had been snared too, even if he hadn’t wanted to admit it.

  Hayden kissed him gently, then started nibbling at his jaw and neck, sending Jez spiraling into arousal so fast he was almost dizzy with it.

  “Wait.”

  Hayden reared back, eyes wide. “What’s wrong?”

  Jez cupped his face, rubbing his thumbs over perfect lips. “Got supplies down here? If we’re going to christen your couch, we ought to do it right.”

  “Oh, uh. No.”

  Jez reached down and smacked Hayden’s ass, the sound satisfyingly loud even with the low background music. “Then I guess you’d better go get some.”

  Hayden shoved himself off the couch, erection tenting the front of his pants, and Jez dropped a hand to his own hard cock, massaging it through his jeans. “Better get a move on or I’ll start without you.”

  Hayden’s mock glare only made Jez rub harder and stick out his tongue, taunting Hayden. But that got Hayden running. Great sex with a splash of fun, and a man who seemed to fit like the other half of him. It didn’t get any better than that.

  Chapter 7

  A WEEK later, and after much phone tag, Hayden finally nailed Miguel down, insisting he come over for dinner. It was the night before Halloween, but the pending dinner discussion might be scarier than any horror movie.

  He and Jez had fallen into a rhythm, and it was good. They’d gone on a couple of dates—simple dinner and a movie, nothing fancy. Hayden had been nervous at first. Anyone seeing them together would assume they were both gay, and he hadn’t known how he’d handle it. People had stared, but for the most part, they’d been admiring Jez. The occasional disapproving look hadn’t bothered Hayden nearly as much as he’d expected. Eventually it had become easy to concentrate on the two of them.