“Are you hurt?”
Cal pulled him close again. “I’m fine. Thank god you’re a lousy shot. Brendan, is it really you? Please tell me this isn’t a dream. If it is, I never want to wake up again.”
Brendan sank into his arms. After the week he’d had, it felt like the first comfort of his lifetime. He gripped Cal hard, moaned, kissed the side of his face.
“It’s me. I found you, and I’m never going to let you go.”
Cal’s body quivered against his. Brendan thought they might both faint from shock, so he gently stooped down to the earthen floor of the gazebo with Cal. As Cal lay on his back, Brendan straddled his hips while holding his precious face. He choked out words that he’d feared he’d never have a chance to say.
“I’m sorry. I said horrible things. I was wrong. And I scared you away.”
“It was my fault too,” Cal said. “I shouldn’t have run off on you.” He gazed at Brendan in wonder. “You came to rescue me. My hero.”
Brendan leaned down and kissed him deeply. He had found his Cal. He nuzzled against Cal’s neck, tasting his sweat, nipping gently on his earlobe.
“God, I missed you so much. My baby.”
Cal’s quickening breaths fanned his cheek. “My darling. It is you.” His hands slid beneath Brendan’s shirt, discovering the sweat-slick skin of his back and gliding up his sides. “I thought I’d never see you again.”
“I thought so too.”
A primal need overwhelmed Brendan. He pinned Cal’s hands behind his head, pulled his lover’s undersized shirt up to his armpits and ravished every wondrous part of his chest and stomach. This was the homecoming Brendan had needed to claim, and for all he knew, with the violent clash all around them, it might be their last. He tugged open the button fly of Cal’s shorts and slid them down to his knees. He made love to Cal with his mouth, there in the gazebo, transported for a moment from the gunfire, missile strikes, and the cries of revolutionaries.
Afterward, he lay beside his husband while they caught their breaths and entangled themselves in an embrace. An enormous smile grew on Cal’s face.
“For this, it was almost worth being kidnapped.”
Brendan combed through Cal’s sweat-dampened, curly hair. “I’d fight through an army for you. Ford seas and deserts.”
“And golf courses,” Cal pointed out.
They both chuckled.
Just then, violent sounds echoed through the grounds. Rat-a-tat-tat rifle fire. Someone calling out on a megaphone. Cheers of victory. The rebels must have taken the king’s home. The two men looked at each other, awakening to the danger of their situation.
“What do we do now?” Cal said.
Brendan grimaced. He pulled up his fatigues and stood to look out from the gazebo. He couldn’t see the estate house from their location. A dark expanse of trees and hills led back that way. The golf course was still. Though it would be better for them to get a move on sooner than later.
He reached his hand to help Cal get up on his feet. “I wish I could say I had a plan. We need to find somewhere to hole up for the night until things calm down. When it’s safe, we’ll have to figure out a way to the U.S. embassy. If this crazy country even has one.”
He just then took a full account of his husband’s strange outfit.
“It’s a long story,” Cal said.
Brendan was curious to hear it. He had a hell of a story to share with Cal as well. But that would have to wait. Right now, they had to get to a safer place than the backyard of the king’s besieged home. He pulled off his shirt so Cal could tie it around his waist and cover up in the back.
The menacing clamor of the revolution was coming from one direction, so Brendan led Cal to head off the opposite way. But they’d barely ventured out of the gazebo when a terrifying sound and sight froze them in their steps.
A military helicopter. Swooping down from the sky, practically on top of them within a span of seconds. Its searchlights caught the two men like a UFO on the hunt for human specimens. Cal tugged at Brendan’s hand to make a break for it, but Brendan was strangely transfixed. Bassam didn’t have aircraft in his militia. And if the helicopter belonged to the Sultanate’s military, why would it bother with the two of them when all the action was happening acres away?
The helicopter whumped down on the golf course about thirty yards away from them. Brendan’s jaw dropped. In the aircraft’s blinking lights, the American flag was emblazoned on the side of its cabin. The rear door of the aircraft swung open, and a U.S. marine, holding a rifle, climbed out. Grandad emerged behind him in what, Brendan supposed, was his most search-and-rescue-appropriate outfit—an Oxford shirt and sweater vest, khakis, and tennis shoes.
“Boys, get the hell over here,” Grandad shouted. “There’s a goddamn revolution going on.”
They traipsed over to the helicopter hand in hand. Brendan stared at his grandfather in awe.
“You’re lucky the CIA director is an old buddy of mine,” Grandad explained. “A Yalie Sigma Chi. From back in the good old days before the liberal-fascists turned the university into a petting zoo for neutered, teetotalling weirdos.” Grandad regained his train of thought. “The CIA was keeping tabs on this little coup in Maritime Kin-dah. When one of their agents, cached in the king’s household, called in a sighting of Cal, my old pal rang me up, worked out some authorizations, and we took the jet down to the nearest air base pronto.”
Cal ventured toward the cabin. Did he recognize someone in there? Brendan didn’t understand much of what was going on, but he was mesmerized. An Arab man in a business suit waved out from the open helicopter door.
“Irfan!” Cal exclaimed.
The CIA agent smiled. “At your service, Mr. Panagopoulos.”
“But how did you find us out here?” Cal said.
“I sewed a radio chip into your shorts,” Irfan said.
Grandad took Brendan by the shoulder to lead him into the cabin. “And happily, Brendy, that tracking device bought us two for the price of one.” He glanced at the two of them. They were both half-naked. Brendan’s fatigues were worn down in the knees. Cal looked like he’d been set upon by nymphomaniac groupies, and they each had dirt and grass clinging to their skin.
A tick of understanding showed on Grandad’s face, and he pushed them toward the door of the aircraft. “Let’s burn ozone, lover boys. We’ve got a rendezvous with the U.S.S. George W. Bush, and then a sea voyage to the air base in Al Dhafra. With all due haste, we can be back in Hydra in three days.” He added, dryly, “A shower and a change of clothes will spare us all some straits at the reunion with the children and the ladyfolk.”
Brendan and Cal climbed into the cabin of the helicopter and belted themselves into seats across from Grandad, Irfan, and the uniformed marine. The rotor blades chirped into high gear, and they lifted off the ground.
Brendan exchanged a dumbfounded grin with Cal. They were soaring in the night sky, leaving behind scud missile attacks and machine-gun fire and every other terrifying detail of their visit to the Sultanate of Maritime Kindah. Their lives had fallen apart in the blink of an eye, and it seemed they’d been put back together just as quickly. Brendan gripped Cal’s hand. After everything, they would have their happily-ever-after story.
Epilogue
SEVEN MONTHS LATER
The following April, on an unseasonably warm Sunday in New York City, Cal and Brendan hosted an Easter brunch on the roof deck of their penthouse apartment. It was their first time entertaining since making the place their home. They’d needed a break from the world after their near disastrous wedding vacation, and with all of the media attention after their return to the States, it had taken several months for life to begin to approach feeling routine again. Brendan played off their first home-warming get-together as a low-key affair, but Cal wanted everything to be perfect.
He ordered a marble-topped dining table with cushioned banquettes to seat the twenty guests, replacing Brendan’s wooden booth set. He hired a contr
actor to install aisles of stone planters and filled them with red azaleas, and updated the space with rose bushes, spiral junipers, and billowing canopies. At his uncle’s shop, Cal found a Valencia cherub fountain, which was perhaps too much, but its sentimentality overtook his doubts. A cherub cameo had brought him and Brendan together. His husband loved the idea.
Brendan was wonderfully supportive of all of Cal’s ideas. Cal worked with the caterer to put together a menu that was a blend of Greek and New American sensibilities. Lamb chops, charred eggplant salad, dolmadakia, eggs benedict sliders, truffle fries, and Virginia ham with a spicy pineapple chutney. Cal was calling the theme “casual but classy.” He wanted their guests to be comfortable while giving the occasion the touch of (called-for) refinement.
After everyone arrived, Cal drifted through the party, making stops to chat with each group of guests so everyone would feel welcomed and appreciated for coming, while he also kept an eye on the service by the chef, the cater waiter, and the bartender. He wore a candy-red, textured, Cuban-collared shirt that had caught his eye at Barney’s, and fashionably baggy slacks and slip-on vintage sneakers.
That was a departure from his usual attire of mall-bought shirts and jeans. Cal had needed to update his wardrobe to fit into his husband’s world. Though his brothers teased him New York City had made him uppity, and his eldest brother, Sandy, called him a fashion whore, Cal hadn’t given up his own sense of style. He still wore his wavy, golden hair in a barely tended mop, halfway covering his ears. He couldn’t part with his woven bracelets. Marriage was about blending lives, and sharing new things, not giving up the old. Cal liked to think his earthy touches, like hand-knotted carpets and antique candelabras, had made Brendan’s apartment homier. It belonged to both of them now, after all.
He made a stop to catch up with Genie and Louis Jeffries who were standing just outside the balcony’s double doors, snuggled up together. Since the wedding in Hydra, the two had started dating, which was really fabulous and unexpected. Though Genie had always liked an alpha-dog kind of guy. Cal suspected there was actually a puppy dog beneath Louis’s sardonic exterior. Genie still lived upstate, but they were spending nearly every weekend together. Louis had an arm around her waist, and they were grinning and whispering to one another in that flirty manner of a newly sexually acquainted couple. Cal left them to their PDAs and moved on to the next group of guests.
His dad and mom had taken over a shaded alcove with Brendan’s grandad and grandmum. Millie was proudly wearing the cherub cameo Brendan had bought at the antiques shop, that morning when Cal and Brendan had met. They were all engaged in lively conversation. That foursome taking a liking to one another had been an even more surprising development. Grandmum had a knack for making everyone feel like an old friend, and it turned out the two patriarchs could talk for hours about politics and college football even though they came from entirely different worlds. Cal’s dad was presently educating Brendan’s grandfather on the discontents of the European Union. Though he hadn’t gone to college, Mr. Panagopoulos never missed his daily New York Times and To Vima newspaper from Athens. The ladies meanwhile chatted about their gardens and the latest true crime miniseries on cable TV.
Cal moved on and gently sidestepped his three-year-old nephew Alex who came toddling after a beach ball thrown to him by his six-year-old brother, Manny. A beleaguered shout at the boys traveled across the deck from Cal’s youngest brother, Demetri, who had driven his family down from Syracuse Friday night. His wife, Victoria, was admiring the rooftop’s westward view of Central Park. She was eight months pregnant, yet far more cheerful than her sleep-deprived husband.
Brendan’s half sisters, Daryl and Riley, corralled the restless brothers for an indoor game of Just Dance on the home theater. Their mother, Belinda, stood at the bar, twirling the sugar cane in her caipirinha while chatting up the handsome Puerto Rican bartender. Apparently, Brendan’s mother had not yet discovered Gustavo was gay. Cal waved to her and made a stop next to her husband, Roger, who stood holding the handbags of his wife and daughters. Cal called over the waiter to unburden Roger of the bags, and he tried to cheer the man up by talking about his and Brendan’s visit to the Hamptons that summer. Roger had promised to take them windsurfing.
Cal was accosted out of nowhere by Brendan’s hug-happy father, Donovan, who was in good spirits considering his girlfriend, Gabriela, had recently left him and moved back to Venezuela. Of all the things that had happened since the wedding, Cal was happiest about the fact Brendan had thawed a bit to his father. This was Donovan’s second visit to New York in as many months. Though Brendan had said, cynically, that his father was only interested in reconnecting because he was lonely after getting dumped, Cal thought Donovan was really trying to get to know his son.
Seeing Cal as an intermediary for that purpose, Donovan treated him like an old buddy. In semi-awkward, weepy moments, he had bared his soul and asked for advice on how to repair his relationship with his son. Brendan needed to come around at his own pace, so Cal didn’t push the issue with his husband. Inviting his dad to the party showed he was getting there.
Meanwhile, Donovan was vetting TV and film studios to make a biopic of the whole Hydra ordeal. People at the Discovery channel were interested. Donovan also had encouraging meetings with a gay TV network, and even Angelina Jolie’s production firm was considering going in on the project. The story had gotten a storm of press back in October. It had been exciting for a while to see his face on local and national news, and then Cal started receiving letters from fans, some of them on the creepy side.
As much as Cal had fantasized about his story becoming a bestselling book and movie, he decided he wasn’t interested in being a celebrity. Too little privacy went with that, and his awful experiences with crazy admirers made him wary. Brendan agreed double on that score. They both needed some peace and quiet, a return to normalcy. Cal had started his online master’s degree and had an eye on a position at the department of antiquities at the Metropolitan Museum. Brendan had finished an intensive course in nonprofit management and was meeting with potential board members to start a fund for homeless LGBTQIA youth.
Cal told Donovan again they preferred to put the incident behind them. Brendan’s father had good intentions. He just needed to be reined in at times.
Cal spotted Derek behind the cherub fountain, texting on his phone, and he wandered over. Forgiving his best friend had not come easily. Derek had nearly ruined his marriage. His sabotage of the wedding had nearly gotten both him and Brendan killed. Cal hadn’t wanted to hear Derek’s apologies when he’d first returned to Hydra, and he hadn’t returned his friend’s calls all through the holidays.
Then the new year came with its promise of fresh starts. Cal had sent Derek a brief reply to his latest text, which led to him agreeing to a FaceTime call, and a tearful conversation, and a follow-up handwritten thank you letter. Derek then wore him down with texts with all of Cal’s favorite emojis, and a link to his Instagram account where he had posted photos from their college days, and even some pics of their “gay tour” of New York City.
It helped that Brendan had put in a good word for Derek, explaining how he’d been instrumental in the search to find Cal. After much deliberation, Cal had agreed to meet Derek for coffee while he was on campus in Syracuse for a monthly advisement meeting. Things turned a corner when Derek told him he was seeing a therapist to work on his issues with self-esteem and jealousy. He told Cal he’d learned he hadn’t truly been in love with him. He’d clung to that idea because he was afraid no one else would ever love him.
It was still too soon for the two of them to go back to being besties. Maybe that would never happen. Cal believed in second chances, and Derek would always be part of his life. He’d written his place there with an indelible magic marker. But that mark he made still felt like it had threatening edges at times. Cal wasn’t sure that feeling would ever go away. He was happy for Derek though. His friend was presently sending cutesy tex
ts to a graduate assistant he’d started dating. It was the first guy Derek had shown interest in since freshman year.
A lot of things had turned out for the better since Hydra, Cal considered. New relationships. New friendships. The people of the Sultanate of Maritime Kindah had their first-ever representative government under the presidency of Bassam El-Amin, the man who had given Brendan the chance to rescue Cal from Abbas Barundi. U.N. Special Forces had intercepted King Abdullah’s flight. He was in prison in The Hague awaiting trial for crimes against his people.
Cal had even received good news from Faraj, when a “Beach Bum” postcard, emblazoned with a rear view of two guys in thongs, arrived in his mailbox. The young navy ensign had somehow tracked down Cal’s address. Free from naval service, he’d taken up residence in Cape Town, South Africa and gotten a job at a gay bed-and-breakfast. He was a liberated gay man now, making his own way in the world without the crutch, and the restraints, of his family’s wealth. Cal tended to skim through Faraj’s correspondence, however, since he still had a tendency to overshare about his sexual habits.
He spotted the cater waiter bringing the brunch meal to the table. Cal took a seat at the head beside Brendan who kissed him on the cheek while the guests went on about the gorgeous table setting. Cal had decorated it with pink tulips and white lilies and put dyed eggs in holders in front of every seat in lieu of name cards. Brendan led a champagne toast to family and friends.
Looking around the table, a big grin spread across Cal’s face. There was Brendan’s family and his family, and good friends like Louis, and Betsy Schoonover, and Derek who was doing his best, and little kids, and children on the way. For a moment, Cal felt like his heart would burst from the great bounty of happiness the universe had given him. Most of all, there was Brendan, who interlaced their hands and placed them on his sturdy thigh. This would be their life together. It was more than he’d ever dreamed of, and it was only beginning.
Irresistible Page 24
