When the kiss broke, so would the fantasy, and they would step away from each other, and laugh or cry, or simply turn and walk away. But in that moment of night and chill and holiday and hope and regret and want and love, so much love, Paulo took all of what he was offered and more. The deep, perfect pleasure of Harrison’s mouth.
His lips were seraphic.
And the trip had been worth it after all.
Chapter Thirteen:
Best Laid Plans
“Ainda me lembro do nosso primeiro beijo,” Paulo said when their lips parted.
Harrison couldn’t see, he couldn’t think, and he still couldn’t understand much Portuguese. But the way Paulo clung to him and he clung to Paulo, he thought Ainda me lem…whatever mustn’t be a bad thing.
“This feels really good,” Harrison groaned, claiming Paulo’s lips over and over again. “But… I really shouldn’t.”
“Why not?” Paulo asked, tightening his hold on Harrison’s waist. The grip was possessive and Harrison loved it, loved him. He never wanted Paulo to let go. He linked his arms around Paulo’s neck, tangling one of his hands up in Paulo’s hair. He luxuriated when Paulo cupped his bottom and hauled him upward. It was like old times.
Old times…
“Because…”
Harrison let the thought die on his tongue, pushing it deep inside Paulo’s mouth, tasting him as if it would be the last time he’d get to kiss deeply in his life. Maybe it would.
Harrison had neatly laid out all his reasons on a bookshelf in his mind only yesterday. They were dust free, because he’d gone over them so often of late there was no time for dust to settle. Then he’d seen Paulo’s dark eyes—seen them again for the first time in eighteen months—and damned if he didn’t pop his fist up under that shelf and send everything flying. Books, papers, reasons, all of them thrown every which way.
Paulo’s lips were worse. They’d taken a match to the tinder of those reasons, and set them all ablaze. All except…one. It was hazy, at best.
He could convince himself so easily he hadn’t seen it. As their tongues danced and they pressed against each other, hardness screaming their longing, he could lie to himself. He could forget. But he’d done that for years after Ashmore, and it had led to the breakdown and the separation and…
Harrison broke their kiss and buried his face in Paulo’s chest, hiding the tears that had suddenly come.
“Ari?” Paulo murmured. “Are you OK?”
No, not at all. He’d missed this man so much. It was like being on a ventilator and then suddenly being forced to breathe on his own. The rich air tasted good, but it was painful, and at first, he was so weak. He must be drowning.
“Look at me, love,” Paulo gently commanded, and brought Harrison’s face out with the tender coaxing of his fingers.
Harrison could hardly see Paulo’s face. It was hidden in shadows, backlit as it was by the warm light coming from the house. They should go inside, so they could see each other. But the house seemed so full, even with most of its occupants down at the pub.
“I didn’t stand you up at the Bentley party.” Paulo had said it before, but Harrison had been so shocked, it hadn’t sunk in. “The matriarch of the family has started a new tradition. Multiple nights. You and Pru were invited on the seventeenth, my family was on the eighteenth. I’ve been searching for you ever since. I searched Midday, I called, I went by your old apartment, I talked to Jill—”
“You talked to Jill?” Harrison’s heart leapt and twisted at everything Paulo was telling him. He hadn’t been stood up. Paulo had looked for him! Then he remembered something. What Pru had said as they drove to Barry’s Farm. She’d heard from Paulo. “Did Pru know you hadn’t stood me up? Did you tell her?”
“I filled up her voicemail telling her.”
Harrison didn’t mean to stiffen in Paulo’s arms, but he was confused. A party with multiple nights? Pru knew and kept it from him? Why? And then there was the worst part—the part that had made him flee from the house in the first place.
There was such a look of anger on Paulo’s face as he watched Michael.
Anger.
Always anger.
Anger haunted Paulo and burned them both.
He could hide it, but it never fully went away.
As Paulo reached to touch his face, Harrison pulled hard out of his hold. The Christmas lights in the windows blurred in front of his tears. He’d spent eighteen months trying to heal his wounds, trying to become a man worthy of Paulo. So why had he only just realized that he’d needed something from Paulo too…?
“What’s wrong?”
“I can’t do this,” Harrison murmured. “I-I don’t know if I can do this.” He tried to push the glasses closer to his face, but they were already as close as they would go, and they weren’t providing him comfort. “I thought seeing you would be enough. But the way you looked at Michael, like you wanted to hurt him—”
As Harrison strode past, Paulo turned and Harrison couldn’t help but look at him. In the light he could finally see Paulo’s face. Confusion, hurt, grief, jealousy, anger, all played together across his features.
“Are you sleeping with him, Ari?”
Harrison took a deep, controlling breath. “No.”
“Do you want to?”
“What? No! He’s my friend, Paulo. My friend. He listens without judgment. He can make it through my tears without talking about disemboweling anyone.”
He was hurting Paulo, he could tell. He didn’t want to hurt him, he wanted to be kissing again—but there was no way to stop this forward motion or the words that had needed saying for years.
“He gets to see your tears?” Paulo asked.
No. He hadn’t cried in front of Michael. But they’d sat together and they’d talked, and he’d been honest and shared with him what happened with Ms. Ashmore.
“I’m…so, so sorry, Ari. You’re right! OK? You’re right. I’m an angry bastard. But I can not be. If it means you won’t walk away. I’ll not be angry anymore.”
“It doesn’t work like that, Paulo. You have to work on that sort of rage.”
“Are you listening? I’m saying I’m sorry. For all that shit I said about wanting to kill Ashmore. And…and for being jealous of the twerp. I’ll apologize every day we’re together.”
“I’m going inside now,” Harrison mumbled. “This isn’t my house. I can’t invite you to stay, but the Williamses are kind people, and you can probably get a room if you want. I… need some time to think.”
“What about you, Ari?” Paulo called after him. “Are you ever going to say sorry to me? I’ve been waiting, on hold for you, for a year and a half. And goddammit, I’m going to keep on waiting. Even though I never decided this.”
Harrison whipped back toward him. “You think I did?”
“You told me to seek sexual comfort with other men. You have no idea how that made me feel.”
“Yeah, and you left!”
The second the words were out of his mouth, Harrison gasped. Jesus. He was usually so much more introspective. But there it was. He had pushed Paulo away and then resented that he’d left. He blinked hard against his tears.
“I’m sorry I left,” Paulo said quietly.
Harrison went to Paulo, threw his arms around him and hugged him tightly.
“Shut up.”
“Ari, I—”
“Paulo, I’m sorry I pushed you away. I’m sorry I asked you to leave. I’m sorry I hurt us both. I missed you so much. Both when you were there and when you were gone. I was just so lonely.”
He felt Paulo’s hands slide comfortingly around him.
“I want to be with you,” he said against Paulo’s hard chest. “But I can’t live you, me, and the rage anymore.”
He squeezed Paulo even tighter, never wanting to let go of the man he loved so desperately.
Paulo was the one who pried them apart the second time, but he did not push Harrison away. He simply kissed the back of his hand and sai
d, “Your sister asked me to work on forgiving Ashmore. It was her terms for contacting Pru for me.” Harrison never wanted Paulo to stop speaking. He could have crawled into his voice and lived there. “What do you want from me?”
“Forgiveness takes more than that, Paulo.”
“I know. I’m not saying I have.”
“No, I mean, forgiving her for what she did to me? That’s a personal choice, and Jill doesn’t have the right to ask it of you. What I want? Is for you to learn to be with me. Just us. No Ashmore.”
<<< >>>
Harrison lay awake in the bedroom he was sharing with Pru, trying to form the words that had eluded him for the last two hours. Part of him wanted to ask her to find somewhere else to sleep, while another part was desperate to have his best friend nearby. There was so much he wanted to tell her, but at the same time, so much hurt at what she’d done.
“Why—” He swallowed hard, not wanting to cry. “Why did you actively stand in the way of us reconciling?”
For a long time she was silent, and he waited. Would she make excuses? Or own up to it?
“I did what I thought was right.”
That, he believed. No matter what it was Pru did, she always thought she was in the right. She’d even had strangely sound arguments for her drug use, even though she did ultimately come around to their way of thinking.
“I was always nervous about you two meeting up at the party, but I didn’t sabotage it. I promise you that. I didn’t even think about intervening until you had that panic attack.”
Harrison inhaled steadily, promising himself she wasn’t blaming him, and said, “Go on.”
“If you two had met up while we were still in Midday, you would have fallen right into bed with each other. Don’t tell me it’s not true. It would have been the gooey, wonderful start to your relationship all over again. Except you still wouldn’t be honest with him and he still would be struggling with anger issues.”
“So you—”
“Completely and totally meddled, yes.”
“How’d that work out for you?”
“Well, he’s here, sincerely apologizing. And you’re here, talking honestly about what you need from him so… Pretty damn well, I’d say.”
Harrison reminding himself that he was a trained counselor. (As if the piece of paper on his wall back home would keep him from exploding in pent-up anger at his best friend.)
Pru walked over to the window where the moon cast its silver glow over her. She looked ethereal.
“When I gave Paulo this address, I honestly thought I’d be encouraging you guys to finally end things.”
“What?” Harrison asked, more surprised that he could still feel shock than anything.
“Do you know how heartsick I’ve been, watching you torture yourself over him? The fear in your eyes. The ‘Prudence, please please please don’t tell me he’s seeing anyone, but I have to know right now’ look?”
“I’ve never asked you about his love life!”
“You don’t have to, H. That’s the thing. I know you pretty well. I thought you deserved to…to be able to move on.” She came over to the bed and sat beside him. “And he’s the same damn way about you. He’d call with some excuse to talk, but I always knew he just wanted to know about you. But he didn’t ask either. I thought if you could give each other that good-bye, then—”
“I don’t want to say good-bye, Pru. You brought him here for an idyllic Christmas and we kissed each other stupid outside and I love him with my whole soul and I love you even though you’ve…” He couldn’t force out the words betrayed me. “I don’t know what to do.”
She took no offense to this and instead pulled him up off the mattress into a hug.
“You have really strong arms,” he muttered miserably.
“Like I said, when I first gave him the address I thought good-byes were in order. I was wrong about that. But I’m not sorry I made you two wait, because now I have hope it will work out.”
Chapter Fourteen:
The Midnight Hour
When Paulo walked through the door to the pub, he expected to find it mostly empty. Instead, Marie’s was more packed than when he’d left it, with games, drinks, and a chorus of drunken singers performing “Little Drummer Boy” in a round.
Dee was sitting up on the bar, a mug of something fizzy in her hand, her legs over her daddy’s shoulders. She was the first of the group to notice him, and she waved him over.
“Paulo!”
He grinned at her weakly. He knew they were all at this pub, because that’s where they said they would be, so why had Paulo told the taxi to drop him off here? He couldn’t hide his pain with all of them so close.
Maybe he thought they’d be too drunk to notice, but then he’d forgotten about Dee, hadn’t he?
“Marie!” she called to the owner. “Paulo’s back. He’d like a…” Her eyes twinkled as she worked to show off her liquor knowledge. “Moscow Mule.”
She wiggled her eyebrows at him in a hey, how about that? sort of way.
He didn’t tell her he hated lime.
“Don’t go shoutin’,” Marie swatted Dee playfully in the shoulder. “I might have a few years on ye, but I’m not deaf.”
“Paulo.” Chancey greeted him with a slow nod.
“Where’s Seamus?” Paulo asked, not because he was desperate to see the tall Irishman, but because it was polite, and because it kept the attention off of him.
“Playin’ darts.”
“I won ten quid earlier,” Dee beamed.
“Oughta toss you out for gamblin’,” Marie said.
Dee leaned over so that she could murmur in Paulo’s ear, “It was Father O’Neill I was playing against, too. He’s a lousy shot. Said it was on account of his back. Wanna play?”
“I’d like to keep my money where it is,” Paulo said with a wink.
“Where’s Harrison?”
She was damn sharp, and from the arch of her father’s eyebrow, Paulo could tell he was interested in the answer, too.
“Back at the house.” He tried for unconcerned. “Did the rest of your gang wander off?”
“Patrick and Aidan are having sex in the bathroom.”
“Deidra!” Chancey snapped, then sighed.
“Well, they went into the bathroom together, Daddy. And they’re married. And I’m not a little kid.”
Paulo couldn’t help but laugh at that. They probably were having sex in the bathroom, though he thought if the stern-faced Marie caught them, she’d probably pull them out by their ears, pants down and everything.
“Dee,” Chancey said, raising his beer to his lips. “Why don’t you go see if you can help Shay out?”
“With playing darts?” she asked doubtfully.
“He’s gonna lose all our money if we don’t get a ringer in there.”
She rolled her eyes and looked at Paulo heavily. “What Daddy means is, ‘Deidra Ann, go away and let the grown-ups talk for a minute.’ He wants to ask you about Harrison. Or talk to you about Harrison. Or something to do with Harrison.”
She swung her legs so she wasn’t over his shoulders, and Chancey playfully pushed forward so she slid from the bar to the seat below with an oompf!
“She’s something,” Paulo said, taking the seat she’d vacated, and watching her push her way through the crowd. On the one hand, she seemed so small and childish, on the other hand, she talked a big game. Undoubtedly, she would hustle more drunks tonight.
“Somethin’ is right,” Chancey agreed. “Pain in my ass and my princess, both.”
“Was she right? Did you want to talk about Harrison?”
“Not really. None of my business.”
Paulo’s respect for the man grew just a little.
“But you’ll probably get it from Aidan, and if you get it from Aidan, you’ll definitely get it from Patrick.”
“Assuming they ever stop having sex in the bathroom?”
“Yep.”
Chancey took another slow
sip. The pub song had changed, something the locals seemed to know but Paulo was unfamiliar with. It was fun, upbeat, and involved a lot of stamping.
“Chased the man all over the world, and he ran away from me.”
“Sounds like every love story ever.”
“Eh. I’m sure yours was a lot more tame. You and Seamus seem pretty solid.”
Chancey snorted and laughed. It was a great laugh that came from his core.
“OK? Maybe not solid?”
“Solid as bedrock,” Chancey agreed. “But the ‘tame’ part’s what got me.” He kept drinking and staring out at the sea of people. “We had one night together, Shay and I. Then you know what the son of a bitch does? Leaves a good-bye for me with the bartender and does a runner for Ireland. Talk about halfway across the world! We were in Kansas at the time.”
Paulo’s lips twitched. None of this made his situation with Harrison any better, but it was nice to know he wasn’t completely alone.
“So what did you do?”
“Called him.”
“That worked?”
“Well, I kept on calling him. It worked eventually.”
They were silent for a time, Paulo taking tiny sips of his god-awful Moscow Mule so if Dee came back she wouldn’t be too insulted.
“What are you doing about him?”
“What can I do?” Paulo shrugged. “If the man doesn’t want me, he doesn’t want me.”
“Hmm.”
“What’s that?”
“Nothin’.”
Paulo took another long drink of the Mule. It tasted like ass. “You’re thinking that I’m a coward, right? That I should be forcing him to talk to me. To be with me? But that’s how we got into this mess—someone forcing him. I wish I could tie the stubborn little bird down but… Then how am I any different than her?”
Chancey nodded, though Paulo wasn’t sure how much of the story he knew.
“I love him enough to let him go. If it comes to that.”
But do you love him enough to forgive her? Jill’s voice was still so clear in his head.
“Hard, ain’t it?” Chancey asked. “Lovin’ someone like that.” He shook his head. “Pardon the accent. I think I’m a bit drunk.”
Seeds of Tyrone Box Set Page 57
