by Gregory Ashe
“Not a chance,” Magnus said, trying to force his way past.
Laughing, Knight caught his arm, wrestling just enough to slow Magnus down without seeming like a threat. “Easy, easy,” Knight said with that infectious grin. “I won’t bite.”
“There is no way in hell I would ever—” But before Magnus could finish, the world swam, and he stumbled. Knight caught him before he could hit the ground.
“That settles it,” Knight said. “Come on; I’ll drive you up to the house.” Magnus opened his mouth, but before he could object, Knight added, “Or to the hospital. It’s your choice.”
Grudgingly, Magnus allowed Knight to help him toward his car—a showy Mustang that belied the cowboy veneer. As he did, Magnus slipped a white envelope out of his jacket and passed it to Knight. On the white paper were three words in chicken scratch: A Sexy Complication.
“This isn’t too stupid?” Hazard asked in a small voice.
“This,” Somers whispered with another of those mile-wide grins, “is the best thing of my entire life.”
III
FEBRUARY 23
SATURDAY
5:59 PM
TOWELING HIS HAIR, Magnus studied the guest suite in Knight’s home. Home was a small word for the building; it verged on a mansion. But it wasn’t ostentatious, at least, not in the way Magnus had expected. Marble instead of granite, solid-wood furniture instead of particle board, and room after room after room. But oddly impersonal. No sense of Knight himself anywhere in the building. And no sense that Knight felt at home inside these walls. It wasn’t anything Magnus could put his finger on, but he’d noticed it in the way Knight had carefully toed off his shoes near the front door, in the way he’d fumbled doors, checking one after another until he seemed to find one that Magnus could use.
Magnus’s clothes, dirty from when he’d fallen on the wet gravel, were gone. A spare outfit had been provided in their place—a big, fluffy, well-worn Mizzou sweatshirt, and a pair of jeans that fit Magnus just right, which was surprising since Magnus was bigger than a lot of people. Barefoot, he left the bedroom and padded through the house to find Knight.
The blond man was sprawled in front of the TV on a sofa that had probably cost as much as everything in Magnus’s apartment, legs kicked out on the table, slumped so far down on the cushions that he was practically horizontal. He glanced up at Magnus, smiled, and got to his feet. Every movement was lazy and easy on his long, lean build. His smile faded as he studied Magnus.
“Thank you,” Magnus said. “My head’s fine, really. I’ll just take my clothes, and if you could drive me back to my car, I’ll be fine.”
“Sorry about that,” Knight said. “I threw your clothes in the wash. They’ll be clean and dry in—I don’t know, a couple of hours. Sit down and relax. Let me get you a beer.”
Magnus tried to think of a way to say no, but he couldn’t find one that wouldn’t make him sound like a petulant child. After another minute, he sat down. True to his word, Knight got him a beer, and they watched a Tigers’ game against Mississippi. Magnus had never really followed basketball, but he tried to pretend he was interested while sneaking glances at Knight, who was lolling on the sofa again, taking up way more space than he needed and raking his fingers up and down his stomach absently.
A bell rang, and Knight grinned and stretched and sat up. “Dinner.”
“Dinner? When did you order pizza?”
Knight held out a hand, and before Magnus knew what was happening, Knight was helping him up again, his hand warm and pleasantly callused. “I promised myself,” Knight said, “that if I could ever afford a personal chef, I’d make them ring a bell to call me to dinner. That’s the way my grandma always did it.”
It was a surprisingly personal opening, and Magnus almost seized it. Almost. But then he remembered that this was the same guy who was trying to raze half of their town, including Page Turner Books, and he grimaced and worked his hand free of Knight’s.
“I don’t want to interrupt your meal. I’ll just get an Uber.”
“They don’t come out here,” Knight said.
“I’ll call a friend.”
“If you want,” Knight said, with a huge smirk that read So you have friends? “But you can still eat. It’ll take them half an hour at least. Plenty of time to have a small meal and finish drying your clothes.”
“I don’t like imposing on strangers. I’ll just wait here, thanks.”
“Strangers?” Knight said. “Well, considering you tackled me and we rolled around in the mud, I think we’re past the point of strangers.” He scrubbed a hand through his hair. “Mom left when I was five. Dad left when I was fifteen. I spent three years with my grandma ranching in Montana. I got my mining engineering degree at Montana Tech, and I was smart on a few deals and got lucky on a few others. I moved here so we could be closer to my boyfriend’s family, and then he decided he’d had enough of me, but I’m too damn stubborn to give him the satisfaction of leaving. And I hate eating alone. So, there. Not strangers anymore.” The corner of his mouth quirked, and he added, “And I really do like Louis L’Amour books.”
Magnus worked his jaw for a moment, reeling from the barrage of personal revelations, hating the way he suddenly felt sympathy for Knight. He settled for saying, “I hate eating alone too.”
“Well,” Knight said. “Think we can be civil long enough to have a meal?”
“We did pretty well so far,” Magnus said, “but that’s probably because we weren’t talking.”
“I think I’d like to talk. And listen. I told you my stuff; you can tell me yours over dinner.” Taking Magnus’s hand, Knight squeezed it once and then pulled him toward the kitchen.
“You’re so good at this,” Hazard grumbled as he worked the next envelope out of his pocket. This one said The Fight. “How are you making all this stuff up on the fly?”
“As you like to point out,” Somers said, “I watch way too many romantic comedies.”
Hazard wasn’t sure if it was Nickolas Knight or John-Henry Somerset who crashed into him, peppering kisses along his neck before laughing and dragging him towards the candlelight dinner in the next room.
IV
FEBRUARY 23
SATURDAY
7:01 PM
MAGNUS STORMED THROUGH Knight’s house. Over the last few months, as he had spent time there—first nights, then weekends, then stretches of days at a time when he’d leave from Knight’s house and go to work, only to come back at the end of the day—it had started to feel like a home. Now, though, the illusion was stripped away. Now he could see what had been going on the whole time.
“You fucking monster,” Magnus said as he came into Knight’s study. Dark wainscoting, bookshelves, windows that looked down on the river. Magnus threw down the eminent domain notice. “I cannot fucking believe you.”
Knight was typing on a laptop; he frowned, glanced up, and then his attention went back to the screen.
“Don’t ignore me,” Magnus said.
“I’m working,” Knight said. “Shouldn’t you be back at Joaquin’s place by now?”
The words were a slap. “Excuse me?”
“You make such a pretty couple. And he’s not—how did you describe me? ‘An arrogant, uncultured asshole obsessed with things that are totally meaningless in the big picture.’ He’s a painter, right? Poor as dirt, but at least he’s got ‘culture.’”
“What the hell are you talking about?”
“You said—”
“I know I said those horrible things. But I was angry, and I didn’t know you back then. You weren’t supposed to hear that. I’m sorry.”
“Fuck your sorry,” Knight said. “You were just fucking me to keep me from moving forward with the redevelopment of downtown.” Knight trembled, and then he shoved the laptop away and stood. He wasn’t as tall as Magnus, but he had so much anger right then that he seemed to fill the whole room. “I told you things I’
ve never told anyone. You want to talk about someone who doesn’t know what’s really meaningful? Take a look in the mirror, dickwad. I can’t believe I thought we had something.”
“I was fucking you to get what I wanted?” Magnus laughed. “God, you are unbelievable. This is what I wanted? This?” He shoved the eminent domain letter across the desk. “Good job, Nickolas. You screwed with my head until I told you what you needed to know. As soon as I told you that the store’s historical designation had been withdrawn, you turned around and used it against me. You stabbed me in the back. I trusted you. They’re going to chop up my store so they can build a fucking road to your new stripmall—”
“For which you’ll be fairly compensated.”
Magnus laughed again. “You are really unbelievable. You know that’s not going to be enough money, not with the debts my aunt left me. This is it. Page Turner Books is done. I’m done. You ruined me. I hope you’re happy.”
“I am happy,” Knight said, whirling away and yanking open the drawer of a filing cabinet. He pulled out an envelope and tossed it at Magnus. When it hit the floor, photographs spilled out.
Magnus picked up one, his stomach churning. He recognized himself in the picture. And Joaquin. Naked.
“Where did you get these?”
“See, you can’t even pretend to deny it,” Knight said. “Your face is right fucking there, pardon the pun. His too. If you want to talk about being stabbed in the back—” He cut off with a furious noise, gesturing at the photographs. “Get the hell out of my house. If you come back, I’ll have you arrested for trespassing.”
It should have been a laugh, but what came out instead sounded like a sob. Magnus waved the picture. “This? You believed this? These pictures are old, Nickolas. Joaquin and I have been broken up for over a year, long before I met you. I don’t know who took these pictures or how you got them, but I can’t believe you’re so fucking naïve.”
“I’m naïve?”
“Yeah, Nickolas. Take a second look at the picture. Joaquin got a tattoo on his neck right when you and I started dating; you’ve seen the tattoo. You saw the bandages right after he got it.” Scooping up the photographs, Magnus flipped them one by one onto the desk. “No tattoo. No tattoo. No tattoo.”
“I saw you two at dinner. I saw you laughing. I saw you touch his cheek.”
Dumping the rest of the photographs, Magnus said, “I knew it. I knew it, that first night, when I let you lure me back here. I knew it. I knew you were an asshole. I knew I should have punched you in the face. I never should have let you lie to me, use me, play with me. I knew you were going to break my heart. Goodbye, Nickolas. I never want to see you again.”
At the end of the speech, Hazard threw down another envelope, this one marked The Grand Gesture, and Somers snatched it up, jogging around the desk to follow him out of the office.
“This is amazing,” Somers breathed as he opened the next set of instructions. “You have no idea how amazing this is.”
“Maybe you could, uh, not be so convincing. Especially in the fights. It’s a little disconcerting.”
“You get what you get,” Somers said, shrugging as he read. “And you can thank Mrs. Crackenberger for molding my raw talent in her Acting II class.”
V
FEBRUARY 23
SATURDAY
11:16 PM
THE REGIONAL AIRPORT was a small building of corrugated metal; Magnus had been inside once when it was raining, and the pinging of the drops hitting the roof was so loud that it had drowned out the announcements. Fortunately, there were only two gates, and it wasn’t hard to tell when the boarding began.
Now, he slumped forward on the hard, plastic seat, hands between his knees, playing with the micro-perforations in his boarding pass. His whole time in this podunk town had been a dream. A silly dream. He’d thought he’d had a second chance, another try, he could get things right with himself, with life. Maybe with somebody else in his life. He’d even been stupid enough to believe, for a while, that it could be Nickolas. The universe had delivered a solid kick to the balls, though. Again. Page Turner Books was literally going to be bulldozed in half. Magnus would never be able to recover from the losses, not with the debts and crazy accounting his aunt had left. And, of course, Knight hated him now. Why hadn’t Magnus been reasonable? Why hadn’t he just explained that the pictures were old, that someone was trying to drive a wedge between them?
Why? Magnus snorted. Because Knight had been such an asshole.
That was what he wanted to believe, anyway. Until he got on the plane. Until he couldn’t change his mind.
Overhead, a voice announced that boarding for the flight to St. Louis, Missouri would begin in five minutes. An elderly couple across from Magnus swept up their spread of crossword puzzles; down the row of seats, a woman with a mop of Clairol red going gray let out a sigh of relief and wiggled a stroller, as though checking that the occupant was still alive; in the airport’s only amenity, a bleak, hundred-square-foot shop with an ominous ripple in the linoleum, a man shouted, “Just get the damn Skittles already. I don’t care if they’re five dollars.”
This was it, time to go. Time to never look back. Never think about afternoons when Knight insisted on going horseback riding together—work be damned. Never think about nights out by the fire pit, drinking buttered rum and watching Knight make a face and pretend to gag and only drink it because Magnus had said how much he liked it. Never think about waking up next to him, the whole house quiet, and see Nickolas Knight, the ferocious cowboy tycoon, vulnerable, his face transparent in sleep. To know, in those moments, how much Knight needed him.
Well, Magnus thought, he should have thought about that before ripping out my heart.
Looping the strap of his bag over his shoulder, Magnus got to his feet. He shuffled a few steps down the row, spotted Clairol Red turning the stroller into an impromptu roadblock, and shuffled back the other way. He thought, one last time, about calling it quits. He could go back to his apartment over the bookstore. He could sleep. Twenty hours ought to do it. And then he could go back and talk to Knight, try to figure this out.
Maybe. Maybe if Knight hadn’t set the demolition plans in motion. Maybe if Page Turner Books wasn’t going to be gutted to satisfy Knight’s greed. Over time, Magnus had come to think Knight was a better man than that, but it turned out his first impression had been right.
“Wait!”
The shout rang through the airport. It boomed against the corrugated walls, echoed back. People stopped, turned, looked.
“Mag, wait!”
Nickolas Knight was running through the airport like a man on fire. Or, for that matter, like a man about to miss his flight. His blond hair was even more of a mess than usual, and in one hand, streaming petals behind him, he clutched a bedraggled bouquet.
Staring down the terminal, Magnus froze. His heart kicked into gear, beating so hard that he could feel himself shaking, the sound as loud as a hailstorm on that corrugated roof. His stomach turned over, queasy and slick, and Magnus couldn’t talk, couldn’t move. He just stood and stared as Knight and his bouquet did a spur-of-the-moment flower-girl act in the middle of the airport.
The rubber on Knight’s soles actually squeaked as he came to a stop in front of Magnus. He wasn’t wearing boots—a rare change. Instead, he had on the designer sneakers Magnus had bought for him, the ones he had suggested Knight wear to a meeting with a tech startup. The ones Knight had grinned and nodded and then, when he thought Magnus wouldn’t notice, dumped at the back of the closet.
“Don’t get on that plane.”
“Nickolas—”
“I’m serious, Mag. Don’t get on that plane. I messed up. I made a huge mistake. I never should have believed that you’d go back to Joaquin. I should have talked to you. I shouldn’t have—I shouldn’t have betrayed the trust you placed in me. I know you hate me, but will you please give me one last chance? I love you. You’re the only p
art of my life that matters. Please.”
Magnus had to wipe his eyes and swallow. But he forced his voice to be cool and matter of fact as he said, “Nickolas, it’s not that easy. Page Turner Books is dead, and I—”
“No, it’s not. It doesn’t have to be.”
“I don’t want your money, Nickolas. I won’t accept it.”
“But the bookstore doesn’t have to close—”
“I don’t care if you see it as a business investment or as an opportunity. I’m not taking your money. I want Page Turner Books to stand on its own, and I—”
Laughing, Knight grabbed his arm and squeezed. “Let me finish one sentence. God, you’re a tiger when it comes to that place. Page Turner Books is going to be just fine. On its own, without any help from me. I just talked to Narcisa—she’s been trying to call you, but your phone is off. She finally figured out those strange account entries. Your aunt had sent several rare books to auction, and they just sold.” Knight grinned as his hand slid down to squeeze Magnus’s. “It’s a lot of money, Mag. A lot. More than enough.”
Magnus could barely hear him; he was focused on the thought of money, lots of money, coming in. All the debts he could pay off. All the improvements he could make. For a moment, with Knight’s touch connecting them, Magnus could believe everything was perfect. Then, shaking his head, he tried to work his hand free.
“No,” Magnus said, “it’s not going to be enough. Moving the store and rebuilding—”
“You don’t have to. I called an emergency meeting with the city planner and my guys. I told them I’m pulling out of the project, no matter how much money I lose, unless they find a way to do this without tearing down Main Street.”
Magnus blinked. “What?”
“It was the right thing to do, Mag. I should have done it a long time ago. I knew it was the right thing from the minute you assaulted me in my barn.”
