Foreseen: Lex (The Four Book 2)

by Sloane Kennedy

  I opened my mouth to apologize for yet another fumble on my part, but when I heard Gideon growl "Jesus Fucking Christ" in exasperation, I felt a little more at ease. Maybe I hadn't overstepped.

  "I have to know," I said. I felt emotionally drained, so having this moment of lightness between us felt like a good way to get back on track. Gideon had said he’d forgiven me for my behavior, but I most certainly didn't want to risk screwing up our tentative friendship—if you could even call it that—again.

  Gideon let out a long sigh and said, "It was the summer before I turned eighteen. I was crazy for music and was in a classic rock phase. I’d always been particularly fascinated with The Stones. Mick Jagger was my personal hero. Anyway, that year they were kicking off their No Security tour. I had this friend who’d scored an extra ticket to their concert in Tampa. I spent my entire savings paying for the ticket but I didn’t have anything left over to actually get me to Florida. So I begged my grandparents to take me. I told them since the concert was the following March, they could make a vacation out of it and I’d finally get to see my idol, Mick. I had this dream of Mick pulling me on stage to sing with him.”

  Gideon sighed again. “I spent the whole summer begging them to take me, but they waited until the day before I went home to tell me that they were going to.”

  “So you got to go to the concert?” I asked.

  “I went to a concert,” Gideon hedged.

  “What does that mean?”

  I was sure I heard Gideon grumble something under his breath before he said, “Did I mention my grandparents weren’t exactly connoisseurs of fine music nor did they have the best hearing in the world?”

  “I don’t unders—” I began to say but then stopped when I considered his words along with the nickname the woman in the other car had called him.

  “Oh my God,” I said.

  “Yeah,” Gideon said dryly.

  “Oh my God!” I repeated as I began laughing like a loon. “They—they took you to see Mickey Mouse in concert?” I didn’t wait for Gideon to respond because I was laughing too hard. I felt him give me a light shove on my arm, and I tried to squelch my laughter.

  “Do you want to hear the rest of this or not?”

  “There’s more?” I asked. “I would sell my firstborn child to hear more!"

  "Needless to say, I was a bit disappointed when I found out once we were in Tampa exactly why we were there. But my grandparents had scrimped and saved for the trip, so I went. Since I didn’t have the heart to tell them the truth, as soon as we got to Disney World, I found myself posing for pictures with a particularly annoying rat in trousers. If that wasn’t bad enough, my grandparents had worked it so I’d get to be a VIM at Mickey’s concert.”

  “VIM?”

  I could practically feel Gideon’s eyes on me. I could only imagine the dark looks he was sending me. It was all I could do to contain the ridiculous giggles that were buried in my throat.

  “Very Important Mousketeer.”

  “Oh God,” I barked as I gave up on trying to contain my laughter. Tears began slipping down my face. When my belly began to hurt from laughing so hard, I was forced to try and control myself.

  “You finished?” Gideon asked drolly.

  “I make no promises,” I admitted. “Does being a VIM come with any perks?”

  Gideon didn’t speak right away. When he did, he said, “You ever hear of that saying, if looks could kill?”

  “Sorry,” I choked out. But no amount of effort on my part kept me from sputtering and coughing as I tried to not laugh. “So, perks?” I reminded him.

  I heard a very put-out sigh from the other side of the cab. “VIMs get to join the Mickster on stage to perform.”

  I started laughing all over again. “Oh God, it hurts,” I bellowed as I grabbed my belly. “What—what song did you get to sing?”

  When Gideon didn’t answer, I forced myself to go silent, even though I was sure I’d explode from trying to hold my glee in. “Please, Gideon, I’ll behave. What song did you sing?”

  A good fifteen seconds passed before Gideon responded. “Zip-a-Dee-Doo-Dah.”

  I knew the trying-not-to-laugh thing was going to kill me. “That’s really nice,” I managed to get out, though I had to say it fast and without breathing.

  There were several long beats of silence in which I was pretty sure Gideon was looking at me, probably testing me to see if I would break. For once, my lack of sight was proving to be useful because I surely would have exploded in laughter if I’d been able to see him.

  “Do it, you know you want to,” Gideon said.

  “No, no, I’m good,” I said as quickly as I could. Then I had to hold my breath again.

  I probably could have made it if Gideon hadn’t chosen that moment to hum the song. When it came time to sing the chorus, he chanted, “Zip-a-Dee-Doo” and I was gone. I laughed so hard, I didn’t even hear the rest of the song. By the time I was done, I could barely breathe, my stomach muscles hurt like the devil, and my eyes felt wrung out.

  “You okay there?” Gideon asked. I was relieved to hear the humor in his voice.

  I nodded. When I felt mostly normal, I said, “So I still don’t get why people call you Mouse.”

  “By the time I came back here to visit my grandparents the following summer, they’d been telling anyone and everyone about the trip and how much I’d loved meeting Mickey. I’m pretty sure they gave everyone I knew pictures of me on stage next to that damn mouse. I have no idea who started the ‘Mouse’ thing but everyone started to call me that and it just stuck. To this day, anyone over the age of sixty-five in this town thinks I still have a thing for Mickey Mouse and they're constantly giving me any kind of souvenirs or knickknacks depicting that stupid fucking mouse.”

  “Did you ever tell your grandparents the truth?”

  Gideon was quiet for a moment. “No. Their health started to decline pretty quickly after that but they still always talked about that trip. I lost them both that following year.”

  “I’m sorry, Gideon. They sound like amazing people.”

  “They were,” he said, his voice soft and warm.

  A gentle silence fell between us and I found myself feeling more at ease than I had in a really long time. I was reluctant to lose the feeling, so I asked, "What's Merv's?"

  "The drugstore, the grocery store, and the hardware store."

  "That's all?" I joked.

  "It's technically the post office right now too, but only because Sally broke her hip and can't distribute the mail."

  "What's in aisle seven?" I asked. When Gideon didn't respond right away, I said, "Gideon?"

  "Aisle seven?" he asked.

  "Yeah, aisle seven. That lady said you were in aisle seven—"

  "The, uh, foot cream."

  "Foot cream?"

  "Yeah, foot cream. For feet. For my feet. I have… bad feet."

  I could feel my brow furrowing as I considered his words. I wasn't sure why foot cream was town-worthy news, but I supposed things did work differently in a place like Fisher Cove.

  "There's other creams too," Gideon continued. He sounded like he'd swallowed a frog or something. "Your rash creams, your wound creams, your hand creams, your face creams… your…"

  "Creams?" I offered. Once again, I sensed Gideon's eyes on me. This time, I did my best not to laugh. I was rewarded with a gentle nudge on my arm. I was also pretty sure I heard him tell me to "shut the fuck up." I figured I'd needled the man enough, so I changed the topic by asking, "So you spent your summers here?"

  "Yeah, it started when I was maybe around eleven or so. My parents were getting divorced, so they sent me to spend that summer with my grandparents. I enjoyed it so much that I asked to go the following year and then it just became this thing."

  "Did you keep coming back here after you lost them?”

  "A few times. They left me their house. I knew I never wanted to live up here full time, but I kept the house so I could someday bring
my kids up here and show them what it meant to slow down a bit."

  Some of the lightness left his voice and I didn't miss the fact that he'd said kids with an “s,” not just kid. I wanted desperately to know how many additional kids he had besides the daughter he'd lost, but I knew we weren't in that place. We probably never would be. It was the same as if he'd asked me about my brothers. There were just some things I wasn't willing to share, especially with someone I didn't know all that well. I’d learned my lesson from Grady. And while I didn't believe Gideon was anything like him, there was no way to know for sure.

  "What kind of video games are they?" Gideon asked.

  "What?" I asked.

  "You said your company makes video games. What kind?"

  I must not have responded quickly enough because Gideon said, “You don’t have to tell me—”

  “RPG games mostly,” I said quickly.

  “RPG?”

  “Role playing games,” I clarified.

  “So what, the player pretends to be someone else? Isn’t that the point of all games?”

  “Not quite,” I said. “If you think about old arcade games like Pac-Man or Donkey Kong, everybody played the same characters and had the same levels to get through. There wasn’t a lot of immersion or character development. With RPGs, players can create characters and go on quests or missions. The experience is very different for each player, even if the end goal might be the same. For online RPGs, players can interact with others in that particular fictional world. They can work together to accomplish their missions.” I paused when I realized how fast I’d been talking… and how much. “Sorry, that was probably more information than you wanted to know.”

  “No, it’s really interesting,” Gideon reassured me. “What’s one of the games you developed?”

  “Well, my company has quite a few, but the first one that I built myself is called Dominion of the Gods. Players battle these gods who’ve enslaved them…”

  “Wow, I think I’ve heard of that one,” Gideon said.

  I was sure his eyes were on me but I had no idea how I knew that. “Gideon, are you looking at me right now?” I asked as I turned my head in his direction. He was still just one big dark shape that much of the blind spots covered up.

  “Yes,” Gideon said softly.

  A warm sensation went through me and not just because the man next to me was watching me but because I’d been able to tell he was. I had no clue how that was even possible, but it gave me this odd sense of power. How long had it been since I’d felt this way? Like I could still see things even though my eyes didn’t work?

  “We’re here,” Gideon said a couple minutes later.

  “Oh,” I murmured. The truck shifted slightly as Gideon got out and a handful of seconds later, my door was being opened. Gideon’s fingers closed gently around my upper arm and I reluctantly got out of the truck.

  Instead of him leading me to the cabin, we ended up standing there. I was caged in by the truck and Gideon, but that just made me feel oddly safe. I could smell that intoxicating clean scent on him. I found myself breathing it in.

  “I’ll make sure you get inside okay,” I heard Gideon say after a long pause that had felt strangely charged.

  I nodded. “Thanks for the ride, Gideon.”

  “You’re welcome,” the man before me responded, then he was weaving my hand around his arm so I would have something to hang on to. I hated knowing that I had just moments left with him. I tried to think of something to say in the short amount of time it took for him to get me into the cabin.

  “You have my number, right? Call me.”

  My heart leaped at the knowledge that he wanted to talk to me again, but it plummeted just as quickly when he said, “In case you have any problems with the cabin.”

  “Oh, yeah, right,” I said.

  “Okay, unless you need something else—”

  There was no missing the impatience in Gideon’s voice as he spoke, so I quickly said, “No, I’m good. Thanks.”

  A beat of silence followed, then Gideon murmured, “Alright, see you later, then.”

  “See you,” I managed to say as lightly as I could. “Oh, and Gideon?” I called because I’d heard him take a few steps and knew he had to be near the door.

  “Yeah?”

  “Thanks for taking the long way home.”

  Chapter Ten

  Gideon

  I didn't hear from him for a whole week. One week of not knowing whether he was okay or not. One week of driving myself crazy imagining him lying unconscious on the floor of his cabin because he'd taken too much insulin or because the cuts on his feet had gotten infected. The only thing that had kept me from banging on his door had been seeing the little wisps of smoke coming up from his chimney, as well as the footprints in the snow by the log pile in front of the cabin. I'd checked up on him daily from afar and while I hadn't seen him, there'd been enough proof that he was alive and well, so I hadn't had an excuse to go see him.

  That wasn't to say I didn't help him out a little bit. Like making sure the small pile of logs in front of the cabin near the door was always full so he wouldn't have to try and figure out where the larger pile of chopped wood behind the house was. We’d also had another power outage after a rough storm, so as soon as I'd realized the electricity was out, I’d hurried over to his cabin to get the generator started and I’d turned it back off as soon as the power had returned. Beyond that, there hadn't been much I could do. I’d found myself wanting to call him several times via the cabin's landline, but I'd resisted each time. I'd chalked up the conversation we’d had in my truck to us both having vulnerable moments and nothing more. I was also more than a little bit bothered by the fact that I’d come so close to leaning in and kissing him.

  As hard as I tried not to think about what any of it meant, it was almost always at the forefront of my mind. I still couldn't believe that I'd missed the obvious signs of my sexuality when I'd been younger, but in all fairness, I hadn't been a particularly busy guy when it had come to sex.

  So when the phone rang and I saw the number for the cabin on my caller ID, I nearly sprained my thumb trying to answer the damn thing fast enough.

  "Hello, Lex? Is everything okay?" I asked.

  "Hi. Yeah, everything's good," Lex responded. He sounded really good. He sounded light. The fact that I was even recognizing when the man sounded light versus when he sounded dark was pretty telling. I really needed to get a grip.

  "Good, good," I said.

  Smooth, Gideon. Real smooth.

  "Is there something you need?" I asked, injecting a bit more formality into my voice.

  There was a beat of silence on the other end of the phone.

  "Lex?"

  "Yeah, I'm here. Sorry. I, um… you know what, never mind. I'm sorry to have bothered you." Just like that, the lightness in his voice was gone and I wondered what the hell had happened.

  "Wait, what's up? It's okay, you can tell me."

  Lex seemed to hesitate a moment before he said, “My driver is having some car trouble, so he won't be able to get to the store for me and I'm running a bit low on food. Is there any way—"

  "Yeah, sure. I can pick you up some stuff. Just let me know what you want."

  Another moment of silence. "I was hoping you could take me to the store. I know this sounds weird, but I've been practicing trying to move around a bit and I just… I want to get out there and see what it's like…"

  When he didn't say more, I said, "Absolutely. I can pick you up in fifteen minutes. Will that work?"

  "Yes, that would be great, thank you."

  I felt ridiculously giddy at the prospect of seeing the young man again. How the hell had I gone from enjoying the solitude of my life to being excited by the prospect of seeing one particular person who I’d only just met and who was stirring up feelings within me that I never would've expected?

  I considered what he'd said about wanting to get out there. I wasn't sure if he meant that he wan
ted to see how people would react to him and his limitation or if he just needed to get out of the cabin for a while. God knew it was easy to go stir-crazy after being cooped up for even a few days in a cabin that had no internet and limited television channels. And since reading wasn't an option, I wondered what Lex had been doing to entertain himself for the past week.

  I reminded myself that it was none of my business and went to the kitchen to pull on my boots and shrug my coat on. Today was supposed to be a relatively mild day, but it was still only in the low forties. Once outside, I called for Brewer with a sharp whistle. The husky mix bolted out of the tree line and was in the back of the truck before I even reached the vehicle. I gave him a pat and then quickly got underway.

  It took just minutes to get to Birch Cabin. As soon as I saw Lex waiting outside, something inside of me lifted. I shook my head because I just didn't get it. I thought back to when I’d met my wife. There had most definitely been an instant attraction there, but I couldn't remember having had this sensation of rightness every time I'd seen her. I couldn't help but wonder if maybe that had been a sign of things to come.

  Thoughts of my ex immediately crashed whatever high I'd been riding and by the time I got out of the vehicle and near the porch to where Lex was waiting, I no longer felt like doing anything but going home and crawling into my bed or, better yet, to the bottom of the bottle of whiskey I’d bought but hadn’t consumed the day Lex had apologized to me.

  Brewer reached Lex before I did and as soon as the large dog licked Lex's fingers, he smiled widely and greeted my dog with excitement. As I climbed the porch steps, my eyes dropped to where Lex's hands smoothed over Brewer's body. My dick reacted to the sight and that only served to darken my mood even more.

  "Are you ready to go?" I asked gruffly.

  I saw Lex's hands come to a stop on Brewer's body and his whole frame went stiff. "Yeah, I'm ready," he said. I could hear the confusion in his voice, and I wanted to kick myself for being such an asshole. It wasn't his fault that I was so messed up in the head about him… about everything. I wanted to just get back on track to the way life had been before Lex had arrived. I missed my mundane days where routine was my best friend. Where keeping busy kept me from having to think about things.