More Than My Words

by Ann Lister

  “Hey,” he said as his fingers slipped around Tessler’s forearm. Warm flesh greeted his fingertips, and he almost lost the thoughts inside his head before he had a chance to say them. “I want to thank you for this—all of it. This is probably the nicest thing anyone has ever done for me.”

  Tessler tipped his head to the side, and his face seemed to flush with pink. Gone was his cocky self assurance from a few moments ago, and in its place was a veil of something that looked a lot like shyness. Tessler’s hand pressed to Mason’s chest and his fingers fanned. “I’m happy to do it,” he said quietly and the timbre of his voice had Mason falling a little bit more for the man. “Truth is, I’ve never had someone I wanted to do this for.”

  Mason pulled Tessler flat against him and kissed the side of his head. He hadn’t felt this light in months. In that moment, he didn’t feel pain from the fire, and his leg felt strong enough to run a marathon. He felt invincible while holding Tessler and leaned back to make eye contact with him. There were so many things he wanted to say, feelings he knew he should try and share, but his stomach chose that very moment to growl in hunger.

  “Let’s eat before it gets cold,” Tessler suggested. He stepped out of Mason’s embrace and walked over to the refrigerator to get the bowl of tossed greens he’d prepared to go along with their meal.

  “Where do you want me?” Mason asked, and Tessler’s feet stopped short. Their eyes met and Mason felt his cock twitch behind his zipper. “I mean, where do you want me to sit?”

  “I knew what you meant,” Tessler said and grinned before he started to walk again. He set the bowl of salad onto the table and then pointed to the chair at the end. “Right there is fine.”

  Mason pulled out the seat Tessler had directed him to use and sat down. He watched Tessler walk back over to the refrigerator and pull out two bottles of wine—one white and one red.

  “You never said what you wanted to drink, so I’ll pour you a glass of wine,” Tessler said.

  “That’s because you distracted me,” Mason admitted.

  “Is wine okay?” Tessler asked.

  “Wine is fine. Thank you.”

  Tessler finally sat in the chair beside Mason and uncorked the bottle of red, then began to fill their glasses. Mason couldn’t take his eyes off of Tessler to even see which vineyard the wine came from. The flickering candles on the table in front of them had cast such beautiful shadows across Tessler’s face it left Mason’s mind empty of any rational thoughts. He finally managed to clear his throat just as Tessler was passing a glass of the wine over to him.

  “Beautiful,” Mason choked out.

  “What?”

  “The lighting,” Mason explained. “It’s … beautiful.”

  Tessler nodded as if he understood the real meaning behind Mason’s explanation and lifted his glass. “Should we do a toast?”

  “To first dates?” Mason asked.

  “And hopefully a second?”

  Mason chuckled at that statement. Unless Tessler flat out told him to fuck off, Mason had every intention of seeing him again. He wasn’t sure he could stay away even if Tessler did tell him to hit the road. If that was the case, he might become Tessler’s newest stalker, just so he could continue to be near him.

  “Dig in while it’s hot,” Tessler said as he offered Mason the plate of grilled meat.

  “So, tell me about Key West,” Mason began. He took two strips of the steak, then passed the plate back to Tessler.

  “What about it?”

  “You go to the same place every year?” Mason asked.

  “I’ve been doing that for about three or four years I think,” Tessler stated with a shrug. “I know the people there now, and no one bothers me. It’s a bonus when I can find a location like that where I can hide in plain sight.”

  “A place where you can sunbathe naked,” Mason said like he were revealing a big secret.

  Tessler laughed. “Is that your not so subtle way of asking if you can see my all-over tan?”

  “Maybe,” Mason said and smiled. “You were right about being able to cook. This food tastes amazing.”

  “I’m glad you like it,” Tessler said and his cheeks pinked up again. He seemed uncomfortable taking compliments, which Mason found adorable. He watched Tessler wipe off his mouth, and their eyes connected again. “The Keys are always a great vacation destination,” Tessler added, which shifted their conversation back to his trip. “Have you ever been?”

  “I’ve been to Florida a few times, but not as far south as the Keys.”

  “You should go. It’s definitely worth the trip,” Tessler said.

  Mason wouldn’t mind visiting the Keys, but he found himself wanting to make that trip with Tessler, not by himself or with anyone else. Partly, because he knew Tessler would show him around, but if he were to be completely honest, he knew being there with Tessler would make the trip really feel like paradise. Jesus, you’ve turned into a Hallmark greeting card, you sappy douche bag!

  “You came back much earlier than you expected to be gone,” Mason said.

  Tessler nodded and chewed around the piece of steak in his mouth. “I was ready to come home,” Tessler stated. “And the unexpected visit from my sister didn’t help matters. After she showed up, I couldn’t wait to get the fuck off the island.”

  “Why’s that?” Mason asked, then he added, “If that’s too personal, don’t feel like you have to tell me.”

  “Typically, she contacts me a few times a year looking for money,” Tessler said. “I’m tired of dealing with her and allowing her horrible spending habits to continue. When she asked for money this time, I said no. I thought by refusing her she’d just leave, but she didn’t. I didn’t feel like arguing about it, so I left the island instead.”

  “Jesus, that sucks,” Mason scoffed.

  “I’ve already done way too much for my sister,” he said. “In the end, I’ve become an enabler for her to continue being a leach off of those around her.”

  “I hear what you’re saying,” Mason agreed. “My parents wanted me to move home after I was injured in the fire so they could take care of me. I knew if I went home that I’d never learn how to deal with this on my own. Their hearts were in the right place, but this was my own hell to face, much like when I returned from the Middle East.”

  “You have balls of steel to face what you have in your life, Mason.”

  “I was only doing my job,” he countered.

  “It was way more than a job, and you know it,” Tessler stated as he chewed another bite of steak.

  “I was one of the lucky ones,” Mason added. “I got to come home.”

  “I’m really glad you did,” Tessler said with a soft smile.

  “Will your sister follow you back here looking for you to give her the money?” Mason ventured.

  “Not if she knows what’s good for her,” Tessler replied. “I was very clear when I said no to her. There’s no way she could misunderstand that.”

  “That’s kind of sad,” Mason said.

  “I’d say it’s totally fucked up,” Tessler countered, “but it doesn’t matter either way. I’m not giving her another penny.”

  Mason didn’t like to see the tension coiling in Tessler’s body and suddenly wished he hadn’t asked about his vacation or pushed to know more about his sister. He wanted to get the easy-going Tessler back, the guy who seemed about ten seconds away from mauling him senseless. That’s who he wanted to be with on this date and hoped to be making out with later on.

  “I’m sorry,” Mason said. “I didn’t mean to bring down the mood we had going on with conversation about family.”

  “No harm done,” Tessler replied and reached for Mason’s hand to squeeze. “I want to get to know you better, so it’s only fair I share some things with you, too.”

  Chapter Fifteen

  His sister, Colleen, had a way of throwing a wet blanket onto everything she touched. Why was that? Since they were kids, she was always stirring up the
pot; either getting Tessler into trouble or causing trouble herself, she somehow involved her brother so he’d get stuck cleaning up her mess. They might be siblings, but they looked nothing alike, certainly didn’t act the same, or have the same moral compass, and that meant they’d never really gotten along. On a good day, Tessler tolerated her; on a bad one, Tessler went out of his way to give her a wide berth and stayed as far away as he could.

  A soft touch on his forearm brought Tessler back into the moment—a perfect moment with a man who was changing the way he looked at life and at himself. Tessler’s eyes dropped to the spot where Mason’s hand was and where warmth was now radiating out in waves from that one simple touch. He placed his own hand on top of Mason’s and squeezed it.

  “Where’d you just go on me?” Mason asked quietly.

  “Childhood,” Tessler answered. “Sorry about that.”

  “As long as you’re back with me now, it’s all good.”

  They finished eating and talking about this and that and Tessler loved every minute. When he saw Mason push away his empty plate and moan, a sense of pride washed over him. Listening to the sounds of satisfaction come from Mason throughout their meal had Tessler discreetly adjusting himself more than once beneath the table. If Mason sounded like a porn star while he ate, he didn’t dare imagine the sexy noises he’d make in bed.

  “Did you work while you were away?” Mason asked.

  “I actually started writing a new story,” Tessler informed. “I did about forty k.”

  “What does that mean?” Mason asked.

  “I’m around forty thousand words into the manuscript,” Tessler explained. “My books usually run in the ballpark of eighty or ninety thousand words, so that is a great start to a new story.”

  “Sure sounds like it,” Mason remarked. “Is this another installment to your Axis Of Babylon Series?”

  Tessler swallowed the food in his mouth, set his fork down beside his plate, and briefly considered his answer. “This new one won’t be part of a series.”

  “A stand-alone?” Mason asked.

  “You know the slang?” Tessler asked.

  “Some.”

  Tessler sat back in his seat and decided to put part of himself out on the table. Maybe it was time he trusted someone enough to let them below the hard exterior he wore like armor. Maybe Mason was the one who’d be strong enough to hear it, and man enough to stand by him if there were ever any fallout from this truth in the future. His eyes shifted to Mason, who seemed to be waiting expectantly for him to say something. He appeared to be holding his breath, same as Tessler felt he was doing himself. Shit. This isn’t easy. He drew in a deep breath and closed his eyes.

  “I need to tell you something, and I have to know I can trust you implicitly,” Tessler began. “Can I trust you, Mason?”

  “I’d say something sarcastic right now, but I can sense you’re being very serious with me, so I won’t make a joke,” Mason said. “You have my word, and then some. Whatever you say, or anything we might do together, stays completely between us and only us.”

  Tessler nodded and exhaled loudly. “You already know I write books for a living,” he explained. “What you don’t know is I do it using different names and that I write in different genres, too. I’m known for my work within the science fiction genre, but the money I make—the really big money, comes from another genre and a particular trilogy that no one knows I wrote.”

  “Is that why you keep such secrecy about yourself?” Mason asked. “I Googled you on the internet and couldn’t find a single photograph of you anywhere.”

  “And you won’t. That’s not a coincidence,” Tessler stated. “It’s why it is extremely rare when I do any kind of public appearance or book signings. And when I do, I refuse photographs and attend wearing a hat and dark glasses that are never removed. I can’t risk the backlash if it got out who I am.”

  “Can I ask why?”

  Tessler pressed his fingertips into his eye sockets.

  “If I ask something too personal, just tell me to shut the fuck up,” Mason said. “No hurt feelings and no explanation needed. I’m just trying to figure out my boundaries with you, that’s all.”

  Tessler shook his head and forced a weak grin onto his face. “It’s not that, it’s more the fact that only very few people have complete knowledge of all three of my identities. The main burden of protecting those identities rests solely in the lap of my agent, who also acts as my business manager.”

  “Sounds complicated,” Mason added.

  “It’s beyond complicated,” Tessler explained. “I wanted to be honest about this years ago, but the agent I had at the time urged me not to. He said the mystery behind me was a driving factor in book sales and also due to my charitable donations.”

  “I’m not sure I’m fully following you,” Mason said.

  Tessler paused for a moment, then stood up from the table. “Let me clear the table, then we’ll go sit by the fire pit and get comfortable, and I’ll tell you the rest.”

  Mason helped him carry the leftover food to the counter. He covered it up with the plastic wrap Tessler had handed to him and then set everything inside the refrigerator while Tessler loaded all their dishes into the sink.

  “You wash, I’ll dry?” Mason suggested.

  “Nope, you and I are going to pour ourselves another glass of wine and go get comfortable on that couch by the fire,” Tessler said. A moment later, he had Mason seated beside him with those expectant eyes waiting for him to finish his story.

  Tessler sipped his wine as if looking for liquid courage, then folded a leg up under him on the cushion. “After I started to make some serious money, I wanted to give back in some way,” Tessler began. “It was a matter of finding the right charity for me to help. It was right around that time when I heard about an old boyfriend who was beaten to death because he was gay.”

  “Jesus, I’m sorry to hear that,” Mason sighed.

  “I hadn’t thought about him in years, and hearing of his death prompted me to look into what he’d been up to before he was murdered, since I’d lost track of him after our sophomore year in high school,” Tessler said. He took a slow breath before he continued. “He was outed when his parents found out he had a boyfriend. They sent him to live with relatives in another state, and when he ran away from that relative’s house, he bounced around in foster homes for a year or so until he aged out. Same sad, old story, but when it happens to someone you know, it really hits home. He managed to do all right for himself, though, and decided to dedicate his life to being a camp counselor to help LGBTQ teens get a leg-up in life. He was driving a camp bus covered in rainbow flags and filled with kids from the facility for a day trip somewhere and stopped for gas.” Tessler swallowed hard and Mason touched his leg to try and soothe him.

  “You don’t have to talk about this,” Mason whispered.

  “I want to,” Tessler countered. “It’s okay. His story needs to be told.”

  Mason nodded in support and Tessler took another sip of his wine. “It was while he was standing beside the bus pumping the gas when three guys jumped him. They called him all kinds of names for who he was and for driving a bus loaded with other fags, then they just started beating on him in full view of the kids on the bus. It happened so fast, even the kids couldn’t get to him in time to save him. Witnesses said he was trying to get away from his attackers when one of the guys used a tire iron to land the fatal blow.”

  “Holy fucking shit,” Mason said. “Please tell me they caught the guys!”

  “Oh, they did and they’re all doing life in prison, but since I heard about that horrific story, I decided to dedicate a large portion of my royalty money to continue to fund what he was doing. In the last four years, I’ve opened up six more camps in his honor.”

  “What are the camps called?” Mason asked.

  “His name was Lancing Littleton, so I used his initials and named the camp organization Lancing’s Legacy,” Tessler said. “Th
e kids like to refer to the facilities as Camp Double L.”

  “I’m so sorry about your friend,” Mason said softly.

  “Well, the reason I’m telling you that long story is because my ex-agent feared if word got out who was funding the camps, and where the money was coming from, some of the kids might not be allowed to attend since a few of the organizations helping out with resources have religious undertones in their backgrounds. I didn’t want to give anyone a reason or an excuse to take a pass on offering assistance.”

  “People would care where the funding was coming from, more than the services being provided to the kids?” Mason asked.

  “When kids are involved, yes. That’s the simple answer,” Tessler said. “They’d be subtle about it, and their reason for not funding would be disguised as something else, but the bottom line would be obvious to me. It’s why I’ve been using my birth name to fund the camps. This is just one more example of why, after several years, I’m still hiding behind pen names. I’m not sure I’ll ever be able to openly admit to those pen names or that what I’ve written makes a lot of fucking money. I might never be able to step forward and tell the world what I did in Lancing’s name, and sometimes that bothers me.”

  “Can you tell me the genre?”

  Tessler smiled broadly. “First, I’ll tell you the name of the trilogy and see if that rings a bell.”

  “Okay, what is it?”

  “The Black Key Trilogy,” Tessler stated. “Does that sound familiar?”

  “Those books came out a few years ago, right?” Mason asked. “They were all over the news back then, and a movie was made about them. I also seem to remember the storyline was really controversial. Am I correct?”

  “Yeah, three very toned-down, vanilla movies were made about each of the books in the trilogy,” Tessler offered. “Hard to believe they could somehow sanitize a story based on a sex club and make it seem mainstream enough for the horny housewives of middle America to enjoy.”