by Jerry Cole
“You can walk anywhere you want to go,” Isaac affirmed. “Especially if we suit you up all right in Austin. It’s a beautiful place. And any time you want to head out to the country, you know we can take you.”
This seemed to be good enough for Thomas. He clucked his tongue and tossed his napkin atop the table. “Well, that’s about enough talk for me,” he said, not unkindly. “Who here is gonna show me where I can sleep?”
“I’m gonna suit you and Marcia up in one of the kid’s rooms,” Monica said.
Monica and Trudy busied themselves, yanking out the underbelly of the couch to make it into a bed, and passing out spare toothbrushes for everyone who wanted one. Monica mentioned that her husband was a “packer,” and thus had prepared for the end of the world a few years ago. “I guess this kind of is the end of the world, though, isn’t it?” she sighed to Isaac, in a strange moment of reflection.
“Something like that,” Isaac returned.
Wyatt and Isaac were stationed in the guest bedroom toward the back of the house, with a window that overlooked the garden. It was just past five in the morning, and already, the sun had begun to peek over the horizon, casting everything in an eerie grey and orange light. As the door clipped behind them, Wyatt slipped his hand over Isaac’s cheek, lending a sleepy smile.
“I don’t think I’ve ever been so tired,” he whispered.
“Neither have I.”
They kissed, dropping against the door. Outside, a chicken clucked, a rooster crowed. “I’m home. Somehow, I made it home,” stirred in the back of Isaac’s mind. How was it that he’d never felt those words during his many years in New York City? Did one have to leave in order to understand how important reality truly was?
Wyatt and Isaac undressed and slid beneath the crisp white sheets. They seemed sent straight from Isaac’s dream. They pressed their chests together and inhaled slowly, trying to match one another. Isaac’s mind drifted to sleep almost immediately. He felt as though he were passing swiftly along on a cloud, watching the world swim around and beneath him.
Chapter Thirteen
Isaac
It had been three months since the nightmare. It had been the nightmare that had reinvigorated his life, shoved him down an alternate timeline, gotten him out of the chaos of a bad relationship in that sinister city, New York.
Now, Isaac found himself poised on the front porch of his new Austin home, listening as Wyatt sang in the kitchen. The sun blared down upon the edge of the steps, coating the top of Isaac’s toes. He held a cup of steaming coffee, and his stomach shifted with hunger. Wyatt was frying hash browns in the kitchen, having taken the recipe from Monica. Apparently, he hadn’t been accustomed to the classic breakfast dish, having grown up in the northwest. But Wyatt had taken to Texan fashion easily, saying that he’d never fallen for a culture more. “There’s a sense of family, of purpose here that I’ve never really heard of before,” he’d said, the day they’d closed on their first house together. “Honestly, I couldn’t have imagined a better world to inhabit. And having you by my side, Isaac. It means the world.”
After racing out of Rhode’s Pike, Isaac and Wyatt had stayed with Monica only a few days, assisting with the placement of Thomas and Marcia at an Austin apartment complex, close to a hospital. They hired a nurse to come and go three times a day to check on Thomas, but the check-ins soon became unnecessary. Each time Isaac saw Thomas Baxter, he seemed to shine with an inner glow he’d never before seen. He had to thank Marcia for that. She took to being Thomas’ companion with a zest and passion, ensuring that they had a tip-top household and helping Thomas to become softer, more in-line with his emotions.
“We’re helping each other,” Marcia had said several times, glancing sidelong at Thomas. “I ain’t had a love like this in my life, and I got to thank him for it.”
Before returning to New York to pack his things, Wyatt and Isaac had stopped by Hannah Baxter’s little apartment to say hello. She was every bit the woman Isaac remembered, still bright and sunny, quick with a kind word. Isaac had never allowed Hannah and Marcus to meet one another, fearing what she might say, but he was delightfully surprised to see that Hannah took to Wyatt with an almost fanaticism, telling him he was “absolutely gorgeous, like a Swedish Viking,” and forcing them full with cookies.
“I can see it between you boys,” she’d said, her eyes glittering over her teacup. “There’s a love there. It’s beaming off you.”
Isaac had told his mother they were planning to move to Austin, to be closer to the family. Of this, Hannah had asked Wyatt what he would do regarding his career.
“Isaac can teach anywhere, I’m sure,” Hannah had offered, which was true. Already, Isaac had sent inquiries to various universities around Austin, including University of Texas. As he was from NYU, he could essentially have his pick.
“Wyatt is something of a journalistic celebrity these days,” Isaac bragged, watching as Wyatt shifted, quasi uncomfortable, yet clearly enjoying the praise.
“Oh, that’s right. Monica mentioned something about your story about the Venus 50,” Hannah said, offering up the title as though the Venus 50 had been around for all eternity, like the sun and the moon. “I read up on it online. You’re really quite the writer, aren’t you? Not so much fiction, like our Isaac.”
Wyatt’s eyes glowed toward Isaac. “I’ve never been as good at making things up,” he said. “I couldn’t have imagined this. Moving to Texas. Taking a job here. To be frank, I never really took to Los Angeles the way you’re meant to. I wanted to be an actor for, like, a second. But of course, that never really panned out.”
“A little competitive, I hear?” Hannah offered.
“You could say that.”
Marcus had agreed to be away from the apartment when Isaac and Wyatt entered to pack his things. It was a bizarre thing, entering the vessel of his old life with his new lover. But Isaac was surprised at the ease with which Wyatt worked alongside him, slotting his books into boxes and loading up the truck. After four hours of intense labor, Isaac treated them both to his favorite pizza, down the block, and found himself waving at several passers-by, people he’d known for years and years. He suddenly felt a neighborly friendliness, one that churned directly from his Texas roots. Their waves in return were lackluster, perhaps another reason it was essential for him to leave New York. He needed community.
The house in Austin they’d chosen was just a few blocks from Wyatt’s new publication, WTHR, where he would operate as the head news writer and occasional anchor. Apparently, Wyatt had met one of the journalists there at the ranch itself, although his eyes grew shadowed when he spoke of her. “I never really took to her. But she likes me, and the money. It’s far more than I ever made writing about restaurants in Los Angeles.”
Isaac sensed this would be a steppingstone on a brighter path for Wyatt. He was a well-known figure, a sought-after reporter. “A man who goes after the stories he wants to write,” someone said recently at a party, beaming at Wyatt. “He’ll go far in this life.”
Wyatt yanked Isaac from his daydream on the porch, sweeping a hand across his shoulder. He dotted a kiss on the back of Isaac’s neck.
“What are you doing out here? Aren’t you starving?” Wyatt asked. His breath was hot on Isaac’s neck.
Isaac turned into him, drawing his cheek across Wyatt’s chest. He inhaled the morning smell of him, watching as the Texas morning swept out before them; an introduction to a brand-new day together. This was supreme happiness.
“You’re cuddly today,” Wyatt murmured.
“I can’t help it,” Isaac returned. He drew his lips toward Wyatt’s, closing his eyes for a deep, solemn kiss. He tapped the half-drunk coffee cup on the porch railing, drawing his fingers across Wyatt’s white tank top. The little blond hairs crinkled out of the fabric. He loved every inch of him.
Isaac pressed Wyatt into the foyer of the little house they’d chosen for themselves. “We don’t need too much space. I never want to f
eel like you’re too far away from me,” Isaac had told Wyatt, genuinely feeling the power of his words. They weren’t like his parents, years before, with Thomas running as far from his wife as he could. They would face every situation, every dilemma, every day with love, with companionship, with truth.
Isaac didn’t bother to kick the door closed. He hustled Wyatt into the sitting room, where they’d positioned only a single chair thus far—a fainting couch that Wyatt had just fallen in love with at a nearby vintage shop. They both affirmed you couldn’t get anything like it in either New York or Los Angeles and took the chair as a kind of sign that they were meant to be there, directly in the heart of this southern, slow, welcoming, spicy-hot state.
They both could begin anew.
Isaac’s lips dotted along Wyatt’s neck, toward his nipple. His fingers fluttered beneath his tank top. Wyatt moaned, whispering, “You know your breakfast will get cold.”
“I couldn’t care less about breakfast,” Isaac told him, cutting him a wild smile.
“That’s not like you,” Wyatt said, chuckling. “Are you sick or something?”
“Shhh.”
Isaac tore at Wyatt’s pajamas, shoving them to his ankles. The heat of Wyatt’s rock-hard cock emanated toward Isaac’s face. Isaac shivered, drawing his tongue across his lips. Then, he pulsed forward, licking from the hilt of Wyatt’s thick member, all the way to the tip. A tiny droplet of cum appeared at the top of Wyatt’s cock, glittering in the light. Isaac sucked at it. Wyatt’s eyes closed; his face grew lax. His fingers found routes along Isaac’s head, sweeping through the black, bedroom curls.
Just when Isaac felt sure that Wyatt would cum inside him, cast his cum across his tongue and down his throat, Isaac drew himself back from Wyatt. He blinked, looking as though he was far away, lost in his own pleasurable thoughts.
“I want you inside me. Now,” Wyatt murmured. He turned around on the antique fainting couch, drawing his ass upward.
Isaac’s eyes flickered toward the window. They hadn’t yet bought drapes. Anyone could walk past. Naturally, he didn’t care at all.
Quickly, Isaac kicked his pajama pants to the ground and stood, a muscular force, his cock pressed against Wyatt’s perfect ass. He reached for the lube, which they’d left sloppily on the side table from a particularly raucous session a few evenings before and dripped a bit onto his fingers. He eased a finger, then a second one into Wyatt’s ass, watching as Wyatt stretched himself out like a cat. He arched his back, drawing his face skyward.
It was time.
Isaac drew his cock to the darkness within Wyatt, filling him. The pressure was immediate. He felt he would cum immediately, if he didn’t move slowly. His hand stretched across Wyatt’s back, steadying him. The world seemed to bleed into strange colors, bizarre light. He hadn’t a care for a bit of it, save for what happened between him and Wyatt in this impossible, beautiful moment.
When Isaac finally came, Wyatt flipped onto his back, his cock still hard and pointed toward the ceiling. Isaac immediately raced to fill his mouth with Wyatt’s cock once more, but Wyatt stopped him with a sure hand across his chest.
“Wait. Let me just wait for a minute,” Wyatt murmured. “The expectation of what happens next, that’s sometimes the best part. Delaying your pleasure. Come on. Come lay with me. Just for a second.”
Isaac was relieved. His motions wavered, unsure of themselves, while he cast himself onto the fainting couch beside his great love. The couch shifted a bit beneath them, not accustomed to holding the weight of two grown men.
“Don’t worry. She’ll get used to us,” Wyatt murmured, speaking of the couch.
Isaac’s eyelashes pressed against his cheeks. He inhaled and exhaled, trying to exist solely in this moment that burned between them. He had never been so captivated with anyone, so sure of anything in his life.
In the kitchen, the hash browns cooled. The coffee became lukewarm, almost undrinkable. None of it mattered in the slightest. Slowly, Wyatt allowed Isaac to reach up and grip him again, wrapping each of his fingers around his firm cock. There wasn’t a rush.
Their lovemaking was slower now, enriched with a thousand kisses, a million I love you’s. Their hearts slowed, like bears in the winter, hibernating. They were building a life, which required no adrenaline. Only peace.
Isaac knew his father understood this better than most. He’d learned of the relationship between Thomas and Zane over the previous months; that Zane and Thomas had loved one another more than any two people possibly could. Though, Thomas had been unable to give Zane the sort of sexual love he required. His death had eaten at Thomas’ core, forced him to reckon with what he’d given up. Which, Isaac thought, was perhaps part of the reason Thomas had allowed himself to love and BE loved by Marcia. This was the only life he’d been given, and he’d lost something beautiful along the way.
Of what had happened with Hannah, his mother, Isaac had no ill will. They’d been youthful, vibrant, sexual creatures, and they’d given one another children, during a time when Hannah had wanted that more than anything in the world.
Love was complex, a kind of accident. It had been Fate that had brought he and Wyatt together, there in the most unlikely place on the planet, waiting for Venus to arrive. But Venus wasn’t coming for any of them. Isaac knew they had to care for one another. Instead, becoming the kind of salvation they all hungered for. It would have to be enough. It always had been.
