Clay laughed. “That’s not spontaneous.”
“Yes, it is,” Daniel insisted. “It was totally impractical. My Silverado is all I need. The Jeep was just for fun.”
“All right. Buying a vehicle for fun is”—he did air quotes—“Daniel spontaneous.”
Daniel’s cheeks warmed with embarrassment and pleasure. Clay still knew him so well. “I’m also entertaining an old boyfriend who I haven’t seen in over twenty years. That’s sort of spontaneous, right?”
“I think I get credit for that spontaneity because it wasn’t like you were gonna let me freeze to death.”
“This is true. But don’t talk about dying. It’s back luck,” Daniel chided.
Clay chuckled and shook his head at Daniel’s superstitious nature.
Overly aware of what Clay’s grin did to his insides, Daniel felt his blood warm and his groin stir.
Damn, Clay hadn’t been there an hour and Daniel kept thinking about sex. But Clay had always had that power over Daniel, as if his body weren’t his own, rather a sexual plaything for Clay.
Some things never change.
Clay’s presence stoked a fire that had never quite gone out. The longer they talked, the more Clay blew life into that smoldering ember. Daniel had loved his wife, but he’d never had the intense passion with Tracy that he’d shared with Clay, not even in the beginning.
No one affected Daniel the way Clay Fisher could.
But just because Daniel couldn’t get sex out of his head, didn’t mean Clay wanted it too. They were just old lovers, awkwardly stuck together in his house on Christmas Eve.
That’s not weird at all. Right?
Chapter Four
“YOU STILL take ice in your milk?” Daniel asked, standing in front of the fridge.
Clay’s heart skipped. He remembered that?
“Yes, please,” he managed, then bit into a cookie to hide the stupid grin wanting to surface. The refrain from “I’ll Be Home for Christmas” drifted through his mind as he watched Daniel retrieve two glasses from the cupboard. When Daniel smiled at him, he half imagined that gleaming smile was the lovelight from the song. Because being here with Daniel felt so familiar. Light and warm.
Like coming home.
Clay had always envied the fond way Daniel used to talk about his hometown. Everyone knew everybody and their uncle, and people were always ready to lend a helping hand. Sometimes he’d envision the two of them moving here, starting a perfect life in perfect little Gilead. But Daniel had never invited Clay home. In fact, he’d kept him as far away from Gilead as possible.
And now Daniel was the mayor. Would there be some sort of scandal if Clay stuck around? Hell, would Daniel even want him to come back after tonight? Maybe making cookies was all they’d ever have again.
Daniel placed a glass in front of him. “I’d offer you something harder, but all I have is grape vodka my son left. It’s terrible, but he swears it’s good with Red Bull.”
“This is perfect. I don’t drink anymore.”
His brows shot up. “You don’t?”
Clay had been quite the party boy when they’d been a couple, so Daniel’s surprise wasn’t unexpected. He took a long swallow then set the glass down. “I’ve been sober for nine years.”
Daniel smiled. “Congratulations.”
“Thanks.” High or drunk most of his twenties, Clay had struggled with his addiction through his thirties. He’d finally gotten sober at forty after being diagnosed with lung cancer—though he’d never smoked a day in his life. After a knee replacement at thirty-six and then cancer, Clay figured he didn’t have a body destined for longevity so he’d best take care of the one he had. On the backside of forty, with fifty on the horizon, statistically, more than half of his life was gone. Wasted really. Only one thing hadn’t been a waste, but he’d royally fucked that up.
“How long have you been divorced?” Clay asked, not wanting to dwell on his post-Daniel life. He remembered enough to know most of it wasn’t worth remembering.
“Seven years,” he said, leaning across the island.
“Did you love her?” He shouldn’t have asked, but he had to know.
“I did,” Daniel said, smiling. “We had a good run for a while. Had a son. Jared.” He pointed at a picture of a young man on the fireplace mantel who resembled the Daniel that Clay used to know more so than the man before him.
“Looks just like you.”
Daniel grimaced. “Yeah, poor kid.”
Clay chuckled. “Hardly.”
Their eyes met, and they both smiled and glanced away.
George joined them at the counter beside Clay, begging for food. “Can he have a cookie?”
“A small piece,” Daniel said. “We’re supposed to be on a diet.”
Clay gave Daniel a thorough once-over, then grinned. “He looks great.”
When Daniel blushed, Clay kept staring until Daniel fussed with the cookies drying on the wax paper.
The attraction is still there. That means there’s hope….
Grinning, Clay broke off a corner of cookie, and George devoured it. “Why did you divorce, if you don’t mind my asking?”
“I don’t mind.” Daniel picked up one of the pink trees and dunked it into his milk. “We were having problems after I retired from the service. We had two different lives going, and we just couldn’t get them to mesh with me being home all the time, so we went to counseling. The therapist always talked about communication and honesty, so I decided to tell Tracy I was bisexual. It was the beginning of the end. She couldn’t shake the idea that I found men attractive or that I’d had sex with one.”
One? That meant Clay was the only man Daniel had been with before he married. “Did you tell her about me?”
“No, not by name.”
Clay wasn’t sure how he felt about that. He’d been Daniel’s legit boyfriend, not a dirty little secret.
“Tracy couldn’t let it drop,” Daniel went on, chewing his cookie thoughtfully. “She thought our problems were because I was gay, and I’d been lying to her about it our whole marriage. She started the rumors around Gilead that I was gay.”
Clay said nothing. He hadn’t believed bisexuality was a real thing when they’d been together either. He’d been convinced Daniel was gay and just didn’t want to admit it because he was a chickenshit.
Hadn’t that been what he’d told Daniel the night they broke up?
Daniel set his empty glass down. “I loved her when I said I do, but I fell out of love with her in the end. Love doesn’t work without trust, and she never trusted me again. I should’ve told her before we got married, but I thought it didn’t matter because I was never going to cheat. Told myself it wasn’t relevant.”
Clay hadn’t been relevant? That stung more than he expected.
Daniel must’ve read the look on Clay’s face, because he reached out and placed a hand over his. “I was stupid. Embarrassed.”
“Embarrassed?” he repeated, snatching his hand away.
“No, Clay, please don’t look at me like that. I never regretted us.” His face softened. “I regretted how it ended, but nothing else. I swear it to you. Swear on my mother’s grave.”
The sincerity in those hazel eyes and the vow Daniel would never make lightly soothed Clay’s ruffled feelings. “I regret how we ended too.”
They were quiet for a moment, both reliving that night. Clay had been so angry, shouting and calling Daniel a coward, a liar, and a bastard. Anything he could think of to hurt Daniel as much as Clay was hurting. Daniel had cried—something Clay had never seen from the controlled man—begging him not to leave. But Clay had been so full of anger that he hadn’t listened. He’d hardened his heart to the only man he’d ever loved. And it sounded like Daniel just went on with his life, living his American dream in Gilead, while Clay, still stuck in the past, had drunk his future away.
“Tracy’s not a homophobe,” Daniel insisted. “Our son is gay.”
“Really?”
>
He nodded. “Jared came out when he was fourteen. Kids these days are so much braver than we were.”
“Fourteen, huh?” Clay had been so nervous telling his parents he was gay, and he’d been thirty. He’d known he was gay at fourteen, but he’d never told anyone. Hadn’t even admitted it to the first boy he kissed. “I guess it’s a different world.”
“That it is,” Daniel agreed. “Tracy and I were separated at the time. She was so supportive of Jared that I thought we could fix our marriage. Then in private, she blamed me.” An incredulous look crossed his face. “Like I passed on my gayness? Cursed our son to a more difficult life than he should’ve had? Whatever. That’s what she thought I did to her. But that’s Tracy. Always jumping to conclusions, filling in with elaborate stories when she doesn’t know what’s going on. We co-parented Jared the best we could, though. Turned out to be a great young man. Just graduated from Shiloh U. He’s an electrical engineer.”
“What did your son think about you being bi?”
He flushed as he admitted, “I didn’t tell him right away. I waited until our divorce was final. Jared was upset at first, pissed that I waited to tell him. But we’re cool now. We’ve even gone to a few Pride events together. He bought me a bisexual pride bumper sticker. But those ruin the paint on your car, so I hung it on the mirror in my bedroom instead.”
Clay smiled. “Always so practical. But I’m glad you have a good relationship with your son.”
“Me too.” Daniel smiled, then walked over to a cabinet and opened it, pausing to glance at Clay. “I don’t go around waving a rainbow flag, but I don’t hide my sexuality anymore.”
“That’s good. Do you date?” He almost asked if Daniel dated men or women, but he didn’t want the answer.
“Haven’t for some time. Too busy. When I brought a woman to last summer’s music fest, that got tongues a wagging. Is he gay or isn’t he gay? Nobody knows,” Daniel said in a mysterious voice. “But people must be okay with it, because I’m on my second term.”
“Does that bother you?” Clay asked. “People talking about you?”
“It was awkward at first, being outed by Tracy and the town gossips,” he admitted. “But I was tired of feeling like I couldn’t just be myself. So if half the town think’s I’m gay and the other thinks I’m straight, well I guess they’re both right and they’re both wrong.”
“That has to be hard.”
“I’m over it. Jared calls it bi-erasure, but I call it nobody’s business but my own,” Daniel said. “I wasted enough time trying to convince myself who I was. I’m not gonna bother to try to make someone else understand it. Not unless they’re genuinely listening.”
Clay nodded, and he thought about apologizing for not believing bisexuality was real, for acting dangerously close to this Tracy, but opening the door on that topic seemed a bit premature over milk and cookies.
“I missed this,” Daniel said with a smile. “Just hanging out, ya know?”
Clay nodded, throat too tight to say how badly he’d missed this too. How much he’d missed Daniel. But what if hanging out was all he wanted?
Dear God, I want so much more.
“Do you want any more cookies?” Daniel retrieved two plastic storage containers from the cabinet.
“No, thanks,” he said, grateful for the subject change.
Daniel nodded, pursing his lips as he put the cookies away. “You can take all the pink trees home with you. Trees are supposed to be green, ya know?”
He’d made the trees pink just to mess with Daniel, and it pleased him that it had worked. He’d always loved teasing the serious man.
Clay joined him, and they both layered the cookies between wax paper in the two containers. “I think you need some pink trees,” Clay insisted, putting a few beside Daniel’s impeccably decorated cookies.
“Okay, fine,” he relented, smiling.
The holiday music changed, and “All I Want for Christmas Is You” by Mariah Carey began to play. Unspoken tension still moved between them, and while time had soothed the anger, regret hung on the air like a poisonous cloud.
Well, Clay refused to keep living with regret. Their past was their past, and no amount of wishing or talking could change it. But that didn’t mean they had to throw away a possible future. From the moment they saw each other tonight—hell, from that first “Hi” on Facebook—the chemistry had returned, too powerful to deny. Daniel might not be interested in starting over, but dammit, Clay was. And he wasn’t going to wait another second to let Daniel know why he’d come here tonight.
When Daniel set the containers to the side, Clay moved in to fill the gap between them. Daniel flinched but made no move to leave Clay’s personal space.
Heart pounding, Clay whispered, “Can I hug you?”
Daniel’s eyes widened, but he nodded.
Awkwardly, they stepped together.
Clay shook, his every breath coming hard. Wanting to be close—needing to touch Daniel—he dipped his shoulders a little, to line up together. His heart jumped in his chest when tentative hands touched his back. They bent to the side in unison, Daniel’s arms on the bottom and Clay’s on the top, the same way they used to. Easy, with no confusion as to who went where.
Unsure chuckles danced around them along with the festive music. That warm body brushed against his own, and for one terrifying moment, Clay feared Daniel would step away too soon, leaving it no more than a bro-hug.
But he didn’t.
Rather, he rested his cheek on Clay’s shoulder. Then he let out a breath, and his entire body eased against Clay.
Stifling a whimper, Clay drew Daniel into a fierce embrace. They held on to each other tightly, bodies flush and breaths coming steady but rough. Daniel trembled, or maybe Clay did, he couldn’t be sure. He shifted and squeezed Daniel tighter. The slight roundness of Daniel’s belly fit against his own, those warm arms solid and strong around him.
So safe, so familiar.
Pressing his cheek against Daniel’s hair, Clay inhaled deeply. The sweet, musky scent of his skin inundated his senses, ripping him out of the now and into the past.
Damn, I forgot his smell. How could I forget that?
With a moan, he splayed both hands down Daniel’s back, savoring the way the years had kept him strong, and how his muscles shifted beneath his shirt. Daniel burrowed closer, his hands moving too, curious but hesitant on Clay’s back.
“I missed you,” Daniel whispered.
Clay’s stomach leapt. “I missed you too, Danny.”
And then Daniel’s hands began to wander with more purpose, one moving to Clay’s shoulder, the other down, hesitating at the edge of his jeans.
Clay brushed his lips over Daniel’s sultry, salty neck. His mouth watered, and he longed to bite down on Daniel the way he used to. Instead, he left a tiny kiss there.
Daniel shuddered in his arms. “Clay?”
He couldn’t tell if it was a plea for more or a request to stop. But when those hands clutched his shirt and firm hips shifted into him, Clay knew—
The scratch of nails on the wood floor was the only warning before a big dog pushed between them with a bark.
Chuckling, they broke the embrace.
Thump thump, George’s rudder-like tail whacked Clay’s leg as he wagged his hind end, staring up at his master.
“He wants to go outside,” Daniel explained, and Clay didn’t miss the subtle adjustment he made to the front of his jeans.
“How are you gonna let him out in this blizzard?” Clay shifted his dick too and looked out the windows. The storm howled, not letting up. The cheery blaze in the fireplace fluttered as a stronger gust sent a draft down the chimney. Shivering from Daniel, not a chill, Clay faced him, pleased to catch Daniel staring at the hand on his crotch. He let it linger, fighting a smile when Daniel swallowed hard.
Daniel looked down at his dog. “The storm is coming from the west, and my back porch faces east, so it shouldn’t be too deep. He likes the sno
w.” Without another word, Daniel hurried to his back door, George hot on his heels.
Clay smiled.
Nope. He hadn’t made a mistake coming here tonight.
Chapter Five
WHAT ARE you thinking?
Daniel’s heart raced as he watched his dog from the doorway, waiting for George to do his business. But George was in no hurry, sniffing the snow and bounding into a bank like a puppy, heedless of the strong winds and cold.
Oh, Clay….
He’d never forgotten how well their bodies fit together, how he’d missed being held by Clay, surrounded by a man bigger than himself.
And damn, Clay had gotten ripped.
Wider and more muscled than Daniel remembered, Clay made Daniel’s body stand up and take notice, just like in the old days. Back then, Clay used to horse around on the basketball court, playing offense almost on top of Daniel, and sometimes even wrestling him to get the ball away. Daniel remembered the day he stopped trying to escape Clay, how Clay’s hard dick had rubbed against Daniel’s thigh. Their eyes had met, and they’d both flushed in the Georgia heat, breathless but smiling. Clay had wanted to kiss him, of that Daniel had no doubt. Daniel had wanted to be kissed. But they hadn’t been alone, so like a moment ago, they’d been forced to step apart. Daniel had jerked one out that night, shocked how hard he came thinking about a man.
He remembered their first kiss as if it were yesterday. They’d been alone in the barracks—such a rare occurrence—and Clay was instigating another play-fight, pushing and teasing Daniel, which he hadn’t minded. He loved Clay touching him, roughhousing together. Then without warning, Clay had kissed him. No passion, no tongue, just a quick peck on the lips.
I froze in place, eyes wide.
Did he…?
Clay’s cheeks were flushed from fooling around in the heat, and his jet-black hair was matted with sweat that smelled amazing. “That okay?” he whispered, his expression unsure.
It was more than okay, but I couldn’t speak around the lump in my throat. I think I nodded. I must have, because a wicked grin crossed Clay’s face, and he moved in to kiss me again.
Welcome Home, Soldier Page 4
