by Jet Mykles
Aaron could see now that he hadn’t been quite rational. There had been no reason for him to jump to the conclusion that if Rachel intended to stay the night, Ki would be in agreement. Very likely, Ki really had wanted Aaron to stay. Rachel’s words and some things he’d overheard at the party indicated that Ki had been avoiding all of his friends during his time with Aaron.
Things were better this way, though, Aaron tried to tell himself as he dumped noodles in the water and watched the combination hiss. Ki was a social creature. He wouldn’t have lasted much longer in a secret, secluded affair with Aaron. Aaron’s hang-ups would have gotten to Ki sooner or later, and he would have left. This way, at least, Aaron had some dignity intact. He’d done the leaving. Hell, it might actually be a relief to Ki.
By the time he’d finished eating and had dumped the bowl into the sink, Aaron had convinced himself that Ki should have slept with Rachel. She was much more like what he deserved. She looked good on his arm. She was good in social situations, and she was probably pretty good in the sack. Well, if you liked that sort of thing.
Miserably, Aaron curled alone in his cold, uncomfortable bed and refused to wish for Ki’s warm body even as he cried himself to sleep.
Chapter Nine
“Earth to Aaron.”
Aaron blinked at the hand Vivian waved in front of his face. He looked up at her frown. “What?”
“You okay?”
He reached up to pull off his glasses and drag a hand down his face. “Yeah.”
“Where were you just now?”
He didn’t answer that. She didn’t need to know that he’d just been imagining Ki’s lips sinking down on his cock. “Did you need something?”
“Yeah. Mr. Fukui just called for you.”
Aaron’s heart leaped. He fought to contain it. “Can you go?”
“He asked for you.”
“Can Tom go?”
“I think you need to go.”
“Why?”
“He said, and I quote, ‘Tell him to get his skinny ass up here, or I’m coming down to get him.’ End quote.”
Aaron winced.
Vivian’s big blue eyes were intrigued. She reached out a hand to stroke his shoulder. “What did you do?”
Aaron put his glasses back on and rose from the table, shaking off her touch. “I didn’t do anything.”
He felt her curious gaze on him as he left the room.
He’d known it couldn’t last. He’d seriously considered calling in sick today, but that would have only postponed the inevitable. He had to see Ki again, if only to end things properly. And he did want to end things. Even if the mere thought felt like it was tearing his heart in two.
The receptionist smiled at him and waved him past. He wondered at that, since he hadn’t come here often during his time with Ki, but he didn’t wonder long.
He stopped in the office doorway.
“Shut the door.”
His heart clenched at Ki’s tone. The man leaned back against the front of his desk, facing the door, arms and ankles crossed, head down so that his loose blond hair hid his features. Softly, Aaron shut the door and leaned back against it, mimicking Ki’s posture, except that his hands were at the small of his back, pressed against the door.
“Why didn’t you return any of my calls?” Aaron had checked his voicemail. Ki had called on Sunday. Five times.
Aaron shrugged. “There didn’t seem to be a point.”
“What the fuck is that supposed to mean?”
Aaron flinched, staring at his tie.
“Damn it, Aaron. I know you don’t like parties. How many times can I apologize for that?”
“It’s not the party.”
“Then what the hell is it? Talk to me.”
When he didn’t ‑‑ couldn’t over the lump in his throat ‑‑ answer, Ki growled. In an instant, Ki’s hands slammed against the heavy door to either side of Aaron’s shoulders. Alarmed, Aaron lifted his gaze.
Ki was beyond angry. Those black eyes boiled, and he was even flushed red beneath his tan. “What? What is it? Tell me.”
“Did you sleep with her?”
Aaron fancied he heard Ki’s teeth grinding. “No. I did not sleep with Rachel.”
“She wanted to, though.”
“Yeah. She wanted to. I had an entirely different partner in mind.”
Aaron felt the tears start in his eyes, but there was nothing he could do to hide them. So he let them well up and dribble down his cheeks. “You should have slept with her.”
His words deflated some of Ki’s anger into confusion. “I should have?”
“Yes. She’d be good for you.”
“You know this how?”
“She wants you. You must want her, or you have in the past. She said that she normally spent the night.”
Ki cursed under his breath. “That was in the past. How did you get it into your fool brain that I wanted her Saturday night?”
“Why wouldn’t you? She’s beautiful. She’s sophisticated. She’s social.” He gulped. “She’s a woman.”
Ki breathed, his face a mask of confusion as he stared at Aaron.
“You can be with her in the open.” Losing his momentary bravado, Aaron let his head fall forward, shaking his shield bangs down between him and Ki’s sharp gaze. “None of which you can get with me.”
“Jesus, Aaron.”
Aaron shrugged, struggling to stifle his tears. “It’s my fault, really. I should have known the score. I finally figured out that what we had was temporary. It’s okay.”
“Aaron.”
That sweet, lovely voice. Those elegant, beautiful hands reached out to gently cup his face and tilt it up. Aaron’s eyes were closed, so he didn’t see the kiss coming. It was warm and gentle, a spring breeze in a biting cold winter. He wanted nothing more than to sink into it and let Ki make it all better.
With a pained whimper, he brought his hands up and shoved Ki away. Caught off guard, the older man stumbled back as Aaron shot sideways.
“No,” he cried softly, bracing one arm against the wall, half facing away from the man who unknowingly held his heart. “No, Ki, I can’t.”
“Red ‑‑”
He held out his other hand, palm facing Ki, fingers spread, a universal sign for Stop. “I should thank you,” he said, hating the warble in his voice. “I’ve been ... I’ve had a lot of fun these past few weeks. And I know I was supposed to leave it at that.”
“Red ‑‑”
“I was stupid. I let my heart get in the way. I went ahead and fell in love with you even though I knew what we had couldn’t last.”
“Red, listen ‑‑”
“I wish I could just let it be fun, but I can’t, Ki. You’re going to need a woman soon. If not Rachel, then someone like her. Men like you need that in their lives. And I. Just. Can’t. Share.”
“Men like me?”
Aaron was on a roll. As long as he didn’t look at Ki, he could say the words. Ki deserved them, after all.
“You need a woman and, someday, kids. Not a pathetically unsocial, mixed-up geek like me.”
He pushed away from the wall and turned back to the room. Thankfully, Ki stood nearer to the desk, an unreadable roil of emotion clouding his beloved features. Aaron crossed to the door, then paused. Resolutely, he reached into his pocket and took out his keys. Slowly, he took Ki’s house key off the ring and very deliberately placed it on the low bookcase beside the door.
“I’d appreciate it if you could bring my stuff to the office. We can arrange for me to get it without being seen.”
“So that’s it?” Ki’s voice sounded as hollow as Aaron’s own.
“It has to be.”
Ki said nothing else.
Aaron opened the door and left.
Chapter Ten
Aaron was surfing the net, shopping for a new laptop. Ki had yet to contact him about when he could pick his up, and even four weeks later, Aaron didn’t have the courage to face him again.
He’d quit his job in IT. He’d finally decided that he made plenty of money on his freelance jobs and didn’t need the desk job. It was feeble anyway. He got jobs like that in a pathetic attempt to keep himself around people. It rarely worked out well. He usually ended up a bundle of nerves, and that almost always led to poor performance.
True, he’d done better at this last job. Tom and Vivian had seemed genuinely unhappy to see him leave. During his last two weeks, both of them had tried, repeatedly, to get him to reconsider. Vivian had even come to him one lunch hour, tears streaming down her face, to assure him that she wouldn’t try to get him to go out with her anymore, if that was the reason he felt he had to leave. Touched, he had actually been able to speak with her. He hadn’t told her the exact reasons, but toward the middle of their conversation, it came out that he’d recently discovered he was gay. She was surprisingly supportive and actually had some advice. It turned out that her much-loved brother was also gay. She gave him all sorts of suggestions and made him promise that he’d keep her number and call her if he needed to talk. To his great shock, he actually did store her number in his phone. If she guessed it was Ki who’d helped him come to that particular revelation about his sexuality, she said nothing.
During those last two weeks, a part of him had hoped that Ki would come to him. It was irrational. He wanted Ki to protest his absence, but obviously Ki had seen the reason in Aaron’s last words to him. Aaron had heard that he went out of town the weekend after his birthday. Aaron had filed away the comic books he’d bought to give to Ki for the occasion. He told himself he’d sell them. He’d get on with his life as, obviously, Ki had gotten on with his.
Aaron sighed, clicking past another ad with a beaming, waving Santa Claus. Since it was Christmas Eve, those ads would soon be a thing of the past, but until they went away, they would depress Aaron. Tomorrow morning he’d call his parents. He already had the online gift certificate they’d sent him, and he needed to check to make sure that his dad’s books and his mother’s cookbooks had arrived safely. He would assure them that he was doing well despite leaving his job and listen to his mother’s scolding that he should have come home to Indiana for Christmas. Perhaps he should have. It would have been better than moping around in his little apartment. But he wasn’t quite ready to face his parents. He wasn’t ready to come out to them. He was pretty sure they’d be okay with it ‑‑ they were always supportive of him ‑‑ but over the past few weeks, he’d done a lot of research over the internet. The coming-out stories he hated the most were those that happened on the holidays. To him, they seemed to only make the holiday weird for everyone on whom the news was sprung. That is, if the families involved didn’t toss the newly announced gay out in the cold for the holiday.
He’d made tentative plans to go to Indiana at the end of January. He’d tell them, even though there was no significant other who made the confession necessary. It’s not like he had boyfriends lined up.
He’d just about narrowed things down to the laptop he was going to buy, when the door buzzer rang. Frowning, he crossed the room, kicking aside dirty laundry, and pushed the buzzer button. “Yes?”
“Hey, Red, it’s me. Open up.”
All the blood drained from his face. Ki was at his apartment building?
“I’ve got your stuff.”
Aaron’s heart clenched. Of course. Without a word, he pushed the door button. He left the front door of his apartment open a crack and stepped back toward the computer to close down the programs he had open.
Ki opened the door, Aaron’s duffle bag slung over one shoulder and his laptop bag dangling from his hand. He wore a long, black leather overcoat atop a cream sweater and thick woolen trousers. His hair was tousled and his cheeks rosy from the windy cold outside.
He looked wonderful.
Aaron ached.
“Hey,” Ki greeted, stepping inside and letting the door close behind him. Three steps took him to the bed, where he dumped the duffle. He set the laptop bag on the floor. “Here’s your stuff.”
Aaron braced his butt up against the lip of the computer desk, nervously crossing his arms over his chest. “Thanks. How’d you find me?”
Ki straightened and ran a hand through that glorious dark blond hair. “You’re not the only one who can use the internet.”
Despite their situation, Aaron was proud. Before meeting Aaron, Ki had never used the internet to successfully find anything. But he’d used it to find Aaron. That was a big accomplishment.
How pathetic am I? Aaron berated himself.
Ki cast his gaze around the apartment. Nothing of his feelings showed in his face. “You quit.”
“Yeah.”
Those black eyes finally focused on him, and the intensity made Aaron’s heart skip. “That seems to be a habit with you.”
“What?”
Anger slowly seeped through the icy mask Ki wore. “You gave up on the party before you bothered to get to know anyone. You gave up on your job. You gave up on me.” He crossed his arms over his chest, the buttery leather of his jacket whispering softly. “It’s the last one, understandably, that pisses me off.”
“Ki, I ‑‑”
“Shut up. You had your say that day in my office. It’s my turn.”
Judging by Ki’s tone, silence seemed to be the wisest course of action. Aaron nodded.
Ki’s arms came down, and his hands fisted at his side. Those black eyes stared at the handlebars of Aaron’s exercise bike, but didn’t seem to really see it. “For your information, I hadn’t thought as far as giving you up. It was, in fact, the furthest thing from my mind. Stupid me, I was having too much of a good time with you to even think of giving you up.” He cast a heated glance at Aaron. “See, I thought we had something pretty good. I was doing just fine like we were.”
Aaron opened his mouth, only to shut it when Ki raised a warning finger.
“But you made some good points that day in my office.” Clearly, Ki was struggling to be reasonable. His carefully modulated tone, however, cracked enough to show the boiling lava beneath. “Men in my position and my type of lifestyle do probably need to be careful. Men in my position really should find a nice woman, settle down, raise some rugrats. That’s the normal thing. That’s the accepted thing.” He nodded, staring out the sliding glass door that led onto the miniscule balcony overlooking a main street. “So I gave it some thought. I really did. I mean, if I wanted to come after you or if I wanted to let you go, I had to really decide, right? It wouldn’t be fair to play with your feelings, or, for that matter, with mine.”
With his? Aaron clenched the edge of the desk beside his hips.
Ki kept staring outside rather than look at Aaron. “I won’t lie to you. I was pissed at you. I was pissed and hurt enough that I did call Rachel. She helped me celebrate my birthday. We got out of town and spent that weekend together.” He began to shrug out of his overcoat. “We fucked. We fucked a lot. I enjoyed it.”
Aaron shut his eyes, heartbroken at the mere thought.
“But, funny thing. You know, I ended up wanting her ass more than her pussy? Not that Rachel’s against that, but she pointed out that I’d never wanted it quite that much.” He tossed the coat onto the duffle that sat on the bed. “I think the deciding moment was when I called out your name when I came. And I can’t say that it was an entirely unconscious move on my part.” Black eyes came back to rest on Aaron’s face. The room suddenly seemed smaller. “Because I wanted her to have this gorgeous red hair. I wanted to see these huge green eyes looking up at me all dazed. And, strangely enough, I kept wanting her to have a dick, of all things.”
He took a menacing step toward Aaron, who stumbled aside in alarm. The studio apartment, however, was tiny, and two steps backed him up against the wall beside the bathroom.
Aaron held out his hand, palm toward Ki. “Wait.”
Ki did, but only when his chest pressed against Aaron’s palm. The wool of his sweater scratched softly at Aaron’s skin
. His eyes never wavered from Aaron’s. “Why?”
“What about your job?”
“What about it?”
“The wife? The parties? None of that goes away.”
Ki’s fingers closed around Aaron’s wrist and tenderly lifted the hand toward his lips. He took another step closer. “Neither is really necessary. Hell, a third of the men I deal with are halfway out of the closet anyway. If anything, they’ll be jealous I’ve got a beautiful redhead to show off.”
Aaron swallowed. Ki closed in, pressing his groin to Aaron’s belly. “The parties.”
Ki shrugged, pulling Aaron’s wrist up to drape the shorter man’s arm around his neck. “They’re not an essential part of my job. Not anymore. And if I do have to go to them, I can go stag.” He took hold of Aaron’s other wrist and did the same.
Aaron was unable to resist settling his palms on the back of Ki’s head and neck, stroking the silky softness of his hair. “That’s not fair to you.”
Ki’s arms slid around Aaron’s waist, holding him firmly. The scent of sandalwood and skin-warmed wool surrounded Aaron, seeping under his skin to start a low simmer.
“What’s not fair to me is to take you from me,” Ki murmured. “What’s not fair to me is not giving us the chance to work this out together.” Some of the anger returned, displayed by the brows that furrowed down over his eyes. “You gave up on us way too easy. It makes me wonder if you really do love me.”
Aaron gasped.
Ki bent his head until their noses were almost touching. “Did you mean it when you said it? Did you fall in love with me?”
Aaron swallowed, lost in Ki’s bewitching black gaze.
“Because I finally realized that I fell hard for you. I was fooling myself in not admitting it when I had you with me.” A tiny grin hiked up the corners of his mouth. “I’ve never devoted a full month to anyone. I’ve never gone on a business trip and not picked up someone to fill up the time and take the edge off. Never.” He shook his head, blond strands of his bangs mingling with the red of Aaron’s. “And I had the chance. Don’t think that I didn’t. My associates in Kyoto offered me all sorts of goodies, male and female, to keep me company.” Ki tilted his head to brush his lips over Aaron’s cheek. “I said no, without regret, and went back to my hotel to have chat sex with you.” He chuckled at Aaron’s blush. Then he sighed, pressing his lips to Aaron’s forehead. “I should have admitted it to myself ‑‑ to you ‑‑ then. I meant to talk to you when I got back, but my head was so full of fucking your brains out, I forgot.”
