by Cameron Dane
Mack shook his head with vehemence. “You’re confused about your feelings, but you’re not a bad person who can’t control himself. You would not have hurt me.” He studied Alex, and his stare slashed to narrow slits. “Nor would you ever hurt anyone else, so get that out of your head right now.” He tapped Alex’s noggin with a blunt fingertip. “I can see those wheels spinning behind your eyes. Stop it now.”
Alex pushed the back of his head into the cold wall. Wetness leaked down his cheeks. “I thought --” He looked at Mack and began to crumble. “I thought if I could make you feel good and show you how much I love you, then you would naturally fall in love with me too.”
Tears pooled in Mack’s eyes. “Ahh, punk.” He scooted somehow closer and wrapped his arms around Alex’s bent legs. “I can’t love you back like that. It’s not who I am. Besides which, you’re not really in love with me that way either. You love me. We’re friends, but it’s not a romantic or sexual love.”
Alex grabbed Mack’s hands. “It is for me.” He clutched tighter, imploring. “You’re wonderful. I am in love with you.”
Mack shook his head again. “Listen to me. I’m safe. I’m what you know.” When Alex moved to hide his eyes, Mack grabbed a fistful of his hair and forced him to keep his chin high. “You’ve had crushes on boys, but you’re getting to a place where you’re ready for something more, something with a man, and that’s scary. God knows I’m no help in guiding you through this part of your life. But I am here for you. We talk. We hang when you’re home. I’m someone you already know you can trust. I’m comfortable. You’ve jumbled that all in your head with your sexuality and with being ready to have sex, and you directed it all at me. But in your heart you know I’m not what you really want. What you really want -- and deserve -- is someone who can get excited and passionate about you too. That’s not me.” He quickly added, “Not like that anyway.”
Heat filled Alex’s face. “How do you know I haven’t already had tons of sex?”
“Because I know you,” Mack said without hesitation. “I would see the change in you if you had. You haven’t had sex yet.”
Alex looked, and God how he loved. “I wanted it to be with you,” he admitted, his voice cracking.
A frown creased Mack’s roughly handsome face. “That’s one thing we won’t do together. I’m sorry.”
Tension slid from Alex, leaving him listless. He felt as if he’d just finished one of his five-mile runs. “You know,” he shared, sighing, “it might be easier if you hated me and I disgusted you.”
Glints of blue flames once again dominated Mack’s eyes. “I could never hate you, punk, and don’t forget it. Nothing you could ever do would disgust me or make me sever our friendship.” He pushed back, creating space between them, but never once looked away. “I’m still prouder of you than just about anyone I’ve ever known, and I always will be. No matter who you fuck.”
“Right. Well” -- Alex chuckled, something between bleak and hopeful, and wiped snot from his runny nose -- “I came home to seduce you, but clearly we’re not going to spend a week together in bed.” He braced himself on Mack’s shoulder and got to his feet. “What the hell else are we going to do for the next seven days now?” he asked, backing into the bedroom to retrieve Mack’s tipped chair.
Mack flashed a weak smile. “Go to Disneyworld?”
“You want to?” Alex rushed back over with the chair, new energy pushing in to crowd out some of the rejection. “I can afford to take you.” As he assisted Mack into his wheelchair, Alex began to share his good news. “Part of why I’m here is because I wanted to tell you in person about this huge property deal I cashed in on.”…
* * *
…Back in his childhood living room, Alex grinned wistfully. “That was Mack. Mostly gruff and crusty, but eloquent, kind, and gentle as hell when necessary.”
“You really were in love with him,” Hunter murmured, locked on Alex. “It wasn’t a phase. It was romantic and real. More than he ever understood. Am I right?”
Alex pressed Mack’s letter to his heart. “Yeah. I believe I was.” His chest squeezed with sweet pain when Hunter just listened, rather than revealing revulsion at Alex’s confession. “It wasn’t weird or unnatural for me because I never saw Mack as a father. He just slowly, over time, became my best friend and the person I trusted most in my world. He was right in one sense, though. I had been away from home for a little while at that point. I felt a little freer and had kissed a few boys. Except every time I did I thought about Mack and none of the other boys quite measured up, you know? I mean” -- Alex grabbed a photo off the end table and thrust it at Hunter -- “look at the guy.”
Hunter studied the candid picture of Mack immersed in a book by his favorite author. Handing it back, Hunter said, “He was undeniably sexy.”
“He was.” Alex touched the man in the photograph before shrugging and setting it back on the table. “I did learn to accept Mack could never want me the way I wanted him. I got past my feelings and let our relationship settle back into what it was supposed to be.”
Hunter shifted the intense stare he’d put on the picture to straight on Alex. “But his illness and his death has sparked those bittersweet memories and made it all the harder to let him go.” Knowledge lived in his gaze.
Before Alex’s brain even told him to answer, he whispered, “Yeah, it has.” His words, the intimacy of the room, the brevity of what he’d shared with Hunter -- stuff he’d never told another human being -- suddenly attacked Alex and left him feeling as if he sat alone in the middle of a big spotlight.
“Holy God.” Alex rubbed at moisture on his neck. “I feel like I’ve cut my torso open right down the middle and let you see inside. We have to get even here.” He hugged a pillow to his chest and looked at the only other person in the house. “Your turn, Hunt. Tell me something equally private about you.”
Hunter paled.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
Oh hell.
Hunter should have known better than to trust this moment between him and Alex wouldn’t require some participation from him. Already in the clothes he planned to sleep in, he didn’t have his knife on him to touch and grip to help him stay calm. Breathe and focus. Hunter absorbed Alex’s open vulnerability, so close he could reach out and touch the new lines bracketing his eyes. As he did, something instinctual, something higher than himself, clicked into place and slowed his heartbeat. Think about the mission. Focus on Alex. This is about him.
“Hunt?” That smooth voice, now gravelly from lack of sleep, pulled Hunter to the haggard yet beautiful man sitting across from him. “I won’t say you have to tell me something,” Alex said, “but God knows I’ve told you and shown you more things in these last three days than I have any man I’ve ever known.” With a pillow hugged to his chest, Alex laid his head to rest on the couch behind him but rolled it and grabbed eye contact again. “It’s not truly quid pro quo. You don’t have to talk, but God’s honest truth, you had my interest from the day we first bumped into each other.” Warmth filled his gaze and flushed his skin. “It’s obviously only grown since then.”
Share something to help him. Too many possible confessions raced like headlines in front of Hunter’s eyes -- awful, freakish, shameful things, rendering him mute. Where the fuck would I begin?
Alex fidgeted with the pillow. He rubbed his thumb repeatedly over the faded fabric, looked away, whispered, “Fuck,” and then came back, finding Hunter again. “I’ve heard you mumble the name Will when you sleep. It seems to distress you.”
Shock pushed Hunter up straighter. “Do I?”
Raising his brow, Alex nodded. “You do.”
Shit. Hunter snapped his gaping mouth shut. “I had no idea.”
“Is Will important to you? Crap.” Alex mumbled another swear word and thumped his head. “That was stupid. Obviously he’s important to you or you wouldn’t dream about him.” With his cheek resting on the edge of the worn couch cushion, Alex softly asked, “Will you te
ll me who he is?”
Every safety warning inside Hunter slammed him at once. His chest pounded too fast to breathe comfortably, adrenaline pumped through his system and broke him out in a sweat, and his throat clamped in an effort to keep words and confessions shoved deep down in a protected place inside him. Through all that, Will’s devil-may-care image consumed Hunter’s sight and thoughts, and Hunter’s love for the man wouldn’t let him keep the soldier in the darkness anymore.
Pushing to sit, Hunter drew his legs up and hugged his knees to his chest. “Will is -- was -- I guess he still is, a great friend. A lifeline.” The man’s loud, obnoxious laugh bubbled in Hunter’s thoughts and tugged forth a smile. “He kept me alive and sane for a long time overseas. We overlapped on two tours and became very close.”
Warm glints of forest shadowed Alex’s gaze. “I would imagine having a real friend is invaluable when you’re fighting in a war.”
“We couldn’t have been more different in most ways. Stateside, it’s unlikely our paths ever would have crossed.” Hunter’s military heart filled with pride for the job and the often-odd friendships unit cohesion created among its ranks. “But his dirty, outgoing personality kept me laughing and boosted so much in a place where I felt like my time would never end. And then…” Blood filled Hunter’s vision, and the constant rat-a-tat of gunfire made him cover his ears.
“Hunt?” Alex pulled Hunter’s arms back to his sides. “Are you all right?” Concern filled his eyes.
Locked in on Alex, Hunter, his voice raspy, said, “Then Will died.”
Alex surrounded Hunter with open legs and arms. “I’m so sorry, man.” He kissed Hunter’s knuckles one at a time. “So fucking sorry.”
For the first time in front of an audience, Hunter found himself slipping back to one of the darkest moments in his life, unable to pull the nightmare back. “We were working as part of a special IED task force in Iraq. It’s dangerous but prestigious work. You have to volunteer to become a member of the unit, and you have to prove your worth in order for the commanding officer to select you for the job. We both got it. Then about halfway through our tour…”…
* * *
…From the back of the covered vehicle, Hunter fist bumped Will where he sat in the passenger side of the front seat. “That was an insanely good find.” Adrenaline from successfully disengaging a roadside bomb kept Hunter animated and high on life. Out on a scouting mission, Will Hicks had spotted the tiny wire sticking out from the sand from forty meters away. Hunter hooted and thumped Will on the shoulder for the forth, maybe fifth time. “You’re a fucking hero today.”
From the front seat, Will beamed and shot the bird with both hands at the vast, endless desert all around them, while other soldiers in the back of the truck with Hunter shouted, “Hicks from the sticks!” and “Booya!” and “Best eyes in this fucking place.”
Hunter reached through to the front seat and smacked Will in the chest. “Goddamn put a Superman logo on your uniform,” he said, ignoring the sting in his hand from hitting Will’s Kevlar vest.
“Thanks, man.” Smiling like a good ol’ boy seeing his first naked woman, Will jabbed Hunter in the arm right back. “I couldn’t have taken that sucker apart without you. That was some fucking weird wiring.” He shifted in his seat to stick his head through the opening to the back of the truck. “Have any of ya’ll ever seen anything like it?”
All the guys shook their heads. From the driver’s seat, Master Sergeant Gabon said, “I’ll upload the photos and video as soon as --”
Boom! Boom! In rapid succession, two thunderous explosions hit the right side of their vehicle, rocking and shaking tons of metal as if it were a snow globe. The rockets upended the truck and sent it spinning in the air, along with all the soldiers inside. Hunter slammed into the side of the truck, then crashed into the roof and into another person. His body -- and everyone else’s -- flew like pinballs trapped in a machine. Pain combusted in Hunter’s head and sliced through his back, and he barely managed to tuck himself into a ball as the truck hit a dune and started rolling.
It felt as though they turned and were battered forever, but eventually the truck stopped on its roof. Once it did, Hunter couldn’t see clearly, and his ears rang with deafening volume, the sound screeching in his skull. He didn’t think he’d ever heard a worse sound when suddenly his master sergeant shouted, “Cover! Cover! Cover!” and broke through, along with, “Hicks is down! Someone cover Hicks!”
No! Pain and ringing ceased to exist in Hunter’s body and ears. The source of the blood running down the side of his face and the heat searing across his back didn’t matter. He scrambled through the opening to the front of the truck and clawed his way over a broken windshield, careless of the shards cutting his hands. Gunfire riddled the suffocating, thick desert air, but Hunter left his gun strapped to his back, desperate to find Hicks and use the bullets to protect him.
“Give me his position!” Hunter screamed, knowing his master sergeant had to be somewhere nearby, even if Hunter couldn’t see him through the whipping sand.
Gabon’s muffled voice reached Hunter from behind; the man probably used the upended vehicle as cover. “He’s pinned under the other truck! It looks like Hammerstein and Cotter” -- the two soldiers driving and riding shotgun in the second truck -- “are dead. I don’t see any movement inside from the others.” Enemy fire drowned the Master Sergeant’s words even more. “I’m covering Lucas! I can’t get to Hicks, but I saw his head move. He’s still alive.”
Scanning, scanning, Hunter finally homed in on the upper half of a familiar body sticking out from under the side of an armored vehicle some fifty meters away. Shit. Will. Please. A savage roar escaped Hunter, but too much gunfire drowned out his anguish.
“Someone cover me!” Hunter pulled a handgun from his gear-belt and got himself into a crouch. “I’m going!”
“Now! Now! Now!” Gabon’s command thundered above the weapons firing. “Run now!”
Hunter tucked his head and booked across the open sand, waving his gun in the direction of enemy fire. He popped off a few rounds, just in case, and then did a baseball slide into place next to Will. Right on top of him, another body dived for home. Hunter raised his gun on instinct but immediately lowered it when the army uniform registered in his brain.
Bradford, a compact, mahogany-skinned sergeant first class with a crack shot, immediately took point behind a wheel. “You take care of him.” First he banged on the side of the truck and shouted their unit name, just in case someone was alive inside. He then used the fender to steady his weapon and took a half-dozen shots toward the road. A muffled scream said he’d hit at least one of their attackers. “I’ll cover you both.” He fired his gun a few more times. “The master sergeant has Lohan on the radio trying to reach camp for assistance.”
One quick assessment of Will had Hunter stifling another barbaric shout. Son of a bitch. A road map of gashes riddled Will’s face, telling Hunter the guy had flown headfirst through that busted windshield. The second truck had landed sideways and had Will buried under it from the hips down, but that barely registered with Hunter as more than mere information. A thick, hollow steel bar, dislodged from the blown-up truck, had penetrated Will’s lower belly -- just under where his Kevlar vest ended -- with such force it drove more than half the pole through his body, surely indicating the bar had exited through the small of Will’s back and sank straight into the sand. Crimson saturated Will’s fatigues around the hole. There’s not a damn thing I can do.
Screams and shouts and tears shrieked through Hunter on the inside, battering his organs, guts, and muscles, leaving no part of his being unscathed. On the outside, he dug a little ditch in the sand under Will’s body and tucked himself in under his friend to cradle him in his arms. “Jesus, Hicks.” Hunter rubbed his thumbs across Will’s cheeks, uncaring that he smeared the blood even worse. “You didn’t have to do this to get that redhead in supplies to notice you.”
Will blinked and
showed Hunter clear, hazel eyes. “She’s so pretty, though. Be sure to” -- he coughed up thick, almost black blood -- “tell her what I did today. Okay?”
“No.” Hunter shook his head, needing to make himself believe. “You’ll tell her yourself. Help is on the way. We’re going to get you all fixed up.” Hunter rubbed his hands vigorously up and down Will’s arms, trying to push heat and life back into the man. “Maybe you’ll hook up with a nurse while you’re recuperating.”
“I don’t think so.” Lifting his head to look at the huge bar running right through his body, Will groaned, coughed up more blood, and dropped his head back into Hunter’s lap. “I think I got my number punched pretty good today.”
“No. Huh-uh.” Hunter undid his gear, tore off his heavy uniform shirt, and tossed the camouflage fabric over the pole. “Don’t look at it. You’re gonna be okay. You have to be.” He found Will’s hands and squeezed. “For me.”
“Fuck.” Sucking in a gurgled breath, Will blinked as wetness started to streak his blood-covered cheeks. “I really wanted to go home a hero and get all the girls.”
“Shh.” Sounds of life inside the truck barely registered in Hunter’s ears. He could do no more than focus on Will in this terrified state without losing it and bawling worse than Will. “You are a hero. You’ll get all the girls you want.”
Under Hunter’s fingers, Will’s pulse slipped to thready. “Listen.” Will somehow found the strength to reach up and clutch Hunter’s shoulder. “You gotta do it for me now. You gotta get lots of ass when you go home. Go to New York.” Shards of gold, brown, and green shone brightly in his eyes. “Have fun, like we were planning on doing.”
“We still will.”
He barely moved, but Will shook his head. “No. You have to do something for me. Promise me.”
Around them, more soldiers from the armored truck joined Bradford in holding the enemy from overtaking the vehicle, but Hunter could only see Will. “Anything,” Hunter whispered. “Anything you want.”
