The Complete Veterans Affairs Romances: Gay Military Romances

by A. E. Wasp

  AUTHOR’S NOTE

  Benny Quintana and Mikey Washington from my novel Paper Hearts figure prominently in Bronze Star because the events of both books take place over more or less the same timeframe. You don’t have to read Paper Hearts first in order to follow Chris and Jay-Cee’s story, but if you are curious about the events alluded to or would like to get to know Benny and Mikey better, please read Paper Hearts and the follow-up novella, Paper Roses.

  This book, more than any of my previous novels, was influenced by music. All the chapter headers are lines from the songs I listened to over and over and over while I was writing it. (Sorry, roommates!) If you’d care to get a feel for the book, I’ve made a playlist on YouTube. (Spotify confuses me, sorry.)

  I think of “Monster,” by Imagine Dragons as Jay-Cee’s song. When I had a hard time figuring out how he feels about himself, I would listen to it on repeat.

  If you only listen to one song, please listen to Florence and the Machine’s “Shake it Out.” That song helped me get into both Chris and Jay-Cee’s heads during some of more difficult scenes.

  Jay-Cee and Chris talk about and quote from many different works in this book.

  “Howl.” Alan Ginsberg

  “With great risk, comes great reward.” - Thomas Jefferson

  Paintings by Mark Rothko

  “The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock” T.S. Elliot

  “What does that mean – ‘tame’?” the little prince asked.

  “It is an act too often neglected,” said the fox. “It means to establish ties.”

  “‘To establish ties’?”

  “Just that,” said the fox. “To me, you are still nothing more than a little boy who is just like a hundred thousand other little boys. And I have no need of you. And you, on your part, have no need of me. To you, I am nothing more than a fox like a hundred thousand other foxes. But if you tame me, then we shall need each other. To me, you will be unique in all the world. To you, I shall be unique in all the world . . .”

  “Men have forgotten this truth,” said the fox. “But you must not forget it. You become responsible, forever, for what you have tamed.”

  — Antoine de Saint-Exupéry, “The Little Prince”

  But it’s not this random

  life only, throwing its sensual

  astonishments upside down on

  the bloody membranes behind my eyeballs,

  not just me being here again, old

  needer, looking for someone to need,

  but you, up from the clay yourself,

  as luck would have it, and inching

  over the same little segment of earth-

  ball, in the same little eon, to

  meet in a room, alive in our skins,

  and the whole galaxy gaping there

  and the centuries whining like gnats—

  you, to teach me to see it, to see

  it with you, and to offer somebody

  uncomprehending, impudent thanks.

  — William Meredith, “Accidents of Birth”

  1 – Don’t know if I need you

  Chris circled the table, critically examining the collection of bronze statues crowding the space. Cold to the hand even in the sweltering heat of the studio, the metal cast a warm glow over his pale skin as he inspected each statue. Sun streaming through the high windows picked out the highlights on his platinum blond hair and threw sparks off the metal bars in the cartilage of his ear as he went around and around. A heavy metal lightning bolt pendant swung from a chain around his neck.

  Leaving the table, he paced over to the group of life-size bronze nudes standing near the door. He ran a hand appreciatively over Hermes’ perfect chest and Apollo’s firm buttocks, threading his way carefully between them.

  “When you’re done feeling up my sculptures, want to help me wrap them up?” Jay-Cee’s quiet voice rumbled from a dim corner.

  Chris had known he was there; had felt the sculptor’s eyes on him ever since he pulled off his sweaty t-shirt. The temperature outside had been climbing steadily all day, creeping over a hundred degrees by late afternoon. Even Jay-Cee had given in, unclipping the strap of his overalls and letting the soft denim hang down from his waist.

  Jay-Cee stepped into the rectangle of light on the gray cement floor. His sweat- and clay-stained white t-shirt clung to his chest, and Chris could make out the faint colored patterns of the tattoos underneath it.

  He’d often wondered if Jay-Cee’s clothes covered more tattoos to match the one that started on Jay-Cee’s neck and cascaded over his shoulder and arms to his scarred knuckles.

  “Seems a pity to cover them up,” Chris said, fingers trailing down the curved muscles of the statue nearest him. The nervous energy sparking up and down his spine drove him, and he flitted from statue to statue and then back to the table.

  “Chris,” Jay-Cee said, the one word heavy with meaning.

  Chris’s next pass around the table took him within inches of where Jay-Cee stood, and he slowed to a stop. Jay-Cee stood silently in front of him, and Chris felt a different kind of heat filling up the space between them now. He didn’t even try to hide his appraisal as he took in the man who was his boss, but could be so much more if he would let Chris in.

  He knew Jay-Cee was attracted to him; he didn’t particularly hide it. He’d never acted on it, and Chris hadn’t pushed it, so they stayed in this precarious stalemate.

  Everything about Jay-Cee was perfect in Chris’s eyes, from his thick silver hair to the short beard Chris would give anything to feel rubbing against his thighs, to the wiry muscles of his arms. The twenty year age gap only added to his perfection.

  Chris had experienced more in his twenty-two hard years than most people ever did and a lot of it was bad. In Jay-Cee’s eyes, Chris thought he saw a shared pain, and he wanted Jay-Cee to tell him how he’d survived it; to tell him how Chris could survive it, too.

  Jay-Cee took a step towards Chris, watching as a bead of sweat traced the slender curves of Chris’s chest. Chris’s heart beat against his ribs.

  A truck rumbled into the parking lot. “Thanks a lot, man,” a voice called. There was the heavy slam of the truck door and Benny Quintaña barreled into the studio hands full of water bottles. “It is hot as balls out there,” he said cheerfully.

  Benny was the newest resident of Jay-Cee’s Home for Wayward Queers, as Chris liked to call it. They didn’t actually live in the studio like Jay-Cee, but Benny and Chris weren’t the first lost boys Jay-Cee had helped find a new chance at life. He took on apprentices every now and then at the request of friends.

  Chris had seen a few come and go during his year there. He kept expecting Jay-Cee to ask him when he was leaving, to maybe even suggest it was time he went on his way. He didn’t know what he would do when that happened. There wasn’t really any other place for him to go.

  Chris hoped Benny stuck around. Jay-Cee had taken the twenty-six year old in not just because of his art skills, but because he was a veteran. A Marine to Jay-Cee’s years of Army service, but Chris sensed they had a bond he never would.

  Benny was cute. He had the whole ‘dark eyes, dark hair, swarthy skin’ thing going on that Chris usually liked, and they had slept together a couple of times when Benny had first moved to Red Deer. The sex had been fun, but nothing either one of them took too seriously. It was for the best. AA frowned on addicts hooking up, saying it wasn’t healthy for either party. So, of course, it happened all the time.

  Somehow it had been Benny’s addition to the studio that had disrupted the precarious balance between Chris and Jay-Cee. Benny was a giant puppy; unpredictable, and full of energy and excitement. Every time Jay-Cee and Chris shared a look over something ridiculous Benny had said or done, Chris stepped a little further across the boss-employee boundary Jay-Cee was trying so hard to maintain.

  Benny bounced over to the table, and with a last unreadable look into Chris’s eyes, Jay-Cee stepped back.

  Benny slapped Chris on his naked
shoulder, the sound ringing in the air. “Ready to load up the truck? This Pride Weekend is going to suck if it doesn’t cool down. I really hope you’ve got some fans or something for that tent, Jay-Cee.”

  Benny shoved an ice-cold water bottle, sides dripping with condensation, into Chris’s hands, then gave one to Jay-Cee. He looked at the statues on the table. “Oh man, these aren’t even wrapped up, yet? Chris, stop standing around and help me. Time’s a-wastin’. Are we bringing all those huge ones, too? Damn.”

  “Be there in a second,” Chris said. Holding Jay-Cee’s gaze, Chris rolled the wet bottle across his head and then tilted his chin to roll it down the curve of his neck.

  Jay-Cee narrowed his eyes and shook his head, but Chris caught the edge of his grin as he turned away. Yes. Victory would be Chris’s. Eventually. Hopefully, he wouldn’t die of blue balls before then.

  The sun streaming in through the open barn doors shot arrows of light into their eyes, and the parking lot smelled like hot tar and exhaust. Benny stood with his hands on his hips staring sadly at the mess of bronzes, large and small. “This is going to take for-freaking-ever to pack up.”

  Chris clapped him on the shoulders with both hands. “That’s why we start early. Welcome to the glamorous world of art.”

  Benny covered one of Chris’s hands with his. “I don’t know. I expected more berets and wine and less weight-lifting.” Benny asked, pulling a stack of flat packed cardboard boxes off the shelf. “Got any plans for Pride?”

  Chris dragged a box of recycled packing peanuts over to him. “Yeah, I’ve got some parties lined up. Going to hit a few of the smaller ones, I think. You sure you don’t want to come?”

  Benny didn’t have a year sober yet, and he didn’t trust himself in the clubs, but Chris hated to think of him spending the nights alone at Pride. Chris probably shouldn’t be going to the clubs either. His judgment was questionable at best.

  Looking where all his choices had led him in the past, it was a miracle he had made it to twenty-two. But losing himself in the pounding beats and relentless rhythms of the music and grinding up against a stranger on the dance floor took him out of his head as well as any drug or drink ever had. Well, almost.

  Benny pulled the packing tape gun down the side of the box. “Nope, I’m sure. I’m good. I’ll just hang out at your place if you don’t mind.”

  “You know I don’t mind, but I’ve decided I have a goal. I’m going to get you laid by the end of this weekend if it kills me,” Chris slowly stuck his hand deep into the box of peanuts.

  Benny groaned. “I don’t want a hookup. They’re so awkward sober.”

  Chris laughed. “Truer words, my friend. I don’t particularly want a hookup either. But it beats being alone.” He couldn’t help looking at the door to Jay-Cee’s office willing the man to come out so Chris could stare at him more. It stayed firmly closed.

  Benny stood up with a groan, rubbing his knees. “What do you want?”

  Chris shrugged and pulled his hand out, smiling at the results. His hand was gloved in Styrofoam up to the elbow. “I don’t know. Someone to tell me I’m doing the right thing.”

  Benny looked incredulous. “I can tell you that, dude. You’re like the best artist I’ve ever met. Stay the fuck here and learn from Jay-Cee. That’s what you’re supposed to do,” Shaking his head, he turned back to making boxes. “Shit. If I had half your talent.”

  When Benny turned his back, Chris flicked packing peanuts off his arm at his head. He wanted to see how many he could get to stick in Benny’s hair before he noticed.

  The answer was six. On the seventh, Benny flinched as the poorly-aimed peanut flicked him in the ear. “What the?” He ran his hand through his hair. “You idiot.”

  When Jay-Cee came out of his office thirty seconds later, they were in the middle of a double-fisted peanut flinging battle.

  “Chris,” Jay-Cee called from across the floor.

  Eyes adjusted for the bright sunshine, Chris could barely make out Jay-Cee’s expression.

  “Pack more. Play less,” Jay-Cee shoved his hands deep into his pockets.

  “Yes, sir, Major, sir,” Benny saluted. Ever since he’d found out Jay-Cee out-ranked him, he’d taken to saluting.

  Chris couldn’t tell if it amused Jay-Cee or irritated the crap out of him. Probably both. Benny had that effect on people.

  “Relax, Marine,” Jay-Cee said, amusement clear in his voice. “I’d better stay out here and supervise, or we won’t be packed up until next Pride.” As he drew closer, he saw Chris’s peanut-covered arm. Raising an eyebrow, he circled his hands around Chris’s upper arm, dragging his clasped hands down slowly, pushing the peanuts to the floor as he did.

  By the time he reached Chris’s hand, Chris was breathing heavily through his nose. As quickly as he could, he excused himself and headed for the bathroom, his goal for the weekend cemented in his mind. Whether it was a bad decision or not, he would end up naked in Jay-Cee’s bed one way or the other.

  2 – Give me an hour to kiss you

  The temperature had topped out at 103 degrees on the last day of Pride. During the parade, people had pressed into the narrow shadow of the buildings lining downtown Denver’s Colfax Avenue and crowded under the small grove of trees near the Capitol building. The gold dome of the stone building scattered the sun, sending bright rays into the exuberant rainbow-bedecked crowd.

  Jay-Cee hadn’t missed a Pride celebration since 2009, the year his sexual orientation became the reason Uncle Sam cut him loose after fifteen years of exemplary service. Somebody in command had asked and someone who’d known Jay-Cee was gay had told.

  Shaking off thoughts of the past, Jay-Cee strode across the sunny fairground, sighing with relief when he stepped onto the shaded path of the park.

  Benny stood at the front of the booth, staring at someone in the booth across from theirs as Jay-Cee walked up.

  “Where’s Chris?” he asked Benny. Damn it. He hadn’t mean to ask that. Why was his first thought about Chris? That kid had gotten under his skin.

  Benny pointed down the path. “He ran that way after some roller-skating bear. Not the funny Russian Circus kind. The human daddy kind. I think the kid has daddy issues.”

  “Don’t we all?” Jay-Cee murmured. It was funny to hear Benny call Chris a kid. Jay-Cee felt like pointing out that Chris was only four years younger than Benny, and the same age as many of his soldiers.

  But he understood why Chris seemed younger than his actual age. He had that kind of blond fragility Jay-Cee remembered from so many of the beautiful boys he had fallen head over heels for a long, long time ago in a prep-school far, far away. The ones he had stared at, but never touched. He’d resisted then, he could resist now.

  There was no slot for Chris in Jay-Cee’s life other than the one he currently occupied. Chris was his student, his responsibility. Jay-Cee’s job was to help set him on the right path, to give him the tools he would need to succeed. Chris wasn’t a potential play partner, not a one night stand, or even, God forbid a potential relationship.

  Jay-Cee wasn’t supposed to want throw Chris into bed and show him how very good he could make it for him, even if every cell in his body told him to.

  Lately, though, Jay-Cee had found himself seeing Chris as more of a peer than protégé. He was becoming someone Jay-Cee could picture as a friend. He couldn’t remember the last new friend he’d made or even the last old one he had spent any time with. He was becoming a hermit, a recluse.

  When Chris came back licking an ice cream cone, Jay-Cee did his best to ignore him.

  The sun was low in the sky as the park emptied out on the last day of Pride, tinting the snowcapped Rockies pink and purple. Everybody was headed home or to one of the many parties spread out through downtown Denver. Business had been good, and the heat dissipated with every inch the sun sank below the mountains.

  Benny worked outside the back of the booth packing up the collection of food and souvenirs that had accumulated
there over the three-day weekend. Inside the dark canvas booth, Jay-Cee checked the remaining inventory, comparing it against the sales list. Something seemed off.

  He turned to ask Chris about the discrepancy and froze, caught by the way the setting sun haloed Chris’s body and painted his hair with pink highlights. A slight breeze gusted through the park, sending paper cups and discarded fliers rustling down the path. Chris stood at the edge of the booth, facing into the sunset, his foot tapping restlessly against the blacktopped path, hand beating out a rhythm on his thigh to music only he could hear.

  Moved by an impulse he refused to examine, Jay-Cee reached out and hooked a finger into the belt loop of the ridiculously skimpy jean shorts Chris wore. Chris stumbled backward with a loud “Oh!” and windmilling arms.

  Jay-Cee laughed as Chris crashed against him. “Sorry,” Jay-Cee said into his ear, with a hand on either hip, pushing the boy off of him, his hands sliding up the bare skin just over the waistband of his jeans. Chris’s skin was cool to the touch, a welcome contrast to the close hot air under the canvas.

  Chris turned and looked at him, eyes wide and blinking, either from the change from light to dark, or the unexpected feel of Jay-Cee’s hands on his skin. It was the most he had touched Chris since he’d started working for Jay-Cee.

  Jay-Cee refused to lie to himself. He knew what he was starting, where this small touch was going to end. He just wasn’t sure why he was doing it now after months of denying himself. Three days’ exposure to a parade of men stripped down to minimal clothing in the face of the relentless heat explained some of it. The unexpected sexual tension crackling between him and Chris was another part. But Jay-Cee had resisted his desires before. If he hadn’t, he wouldn’t have made it through military school and fifteen years in the Army.

  Even during the years he and Jason had been together, with both of them being in the Army during the height of Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell, he had been able to control himself in public during the short times they had actually been able to get stationed together.