Moving Day

Moving Day by Jaime Samms

Freya’s Bower.com ©2008 Culver City, CA

Moving Day Copyright © 2008 by Jaime Samms, pseudonym For information on the cover illustration and design, contact @aol.com. Cover art Freya’s Bower © 2009 Editor: M.E. Ellis ISBN: 978-1-935013-74-7 All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form without written permission from the publisher, except by a reviewer who may quote brief passages for review purposes. This book is a work of fiction and any resemblance to any person, living or dead, any place, events or occurrences, is purely coincidental. The characters and story lines are created from the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Warning: This book may contain graphic sexual material and/or profanity and is not meant to be read by any person under the age of 18.

If you are interested in purchasing more works of this nature, please stop by www.freyasbower.com.

Freya’s Bower.com P.O. Box 4897 Culver City, CA 90231-4897 Printed in The United States of America

Dedication Once again, thank you, Chris, for continuing to be my first line of defence against plot holes and bad grammar. For the most patient man in the universe who also happens to be the love of my life. Lucky me.

Moving Day

Chapter One I’d never driven a moving van before. The thing cut through the air like a toaster, the gas gauge dropping visibly on every slight incline. As it careened down the curving hill just on the outskirts of the city, I swore I would never, ever help Jay move again. Ever. Of course, I say that every time, and every time he breaks up with his current guy de jour, I pull up the horse and cart and haul his stuff on to the next hole in the wall. At least up to now, he only moved around the neighbourhood, at most, across town; moves we could accomplish in a few carloads. Now, an hour’s drive out of town to some dive called “Sam’s Place”, this move required a bigger cart and more horse power. He told me this place he’s going to belonged to his partner. The guy just died, and for once, Jay actually seemed a little shaken by it. He’s never been one to fight the inevitable, but this is the third partner he’s had to bury. Somehow, death has always been cleaner than the break-ups, but this time, he really felt it, I think. I’m not sure why. I always assumed he picked these guys because he could love them stupid and never have to leave them. And never have to spend the rest of his life with them, either. Maybe I was being harsh. Glancing at him as we bounced down the highway, his head bumping against the passenger seat window, I would have bet, by the bags under his eyes, it was the first thing he’d had that resembled sleep since the memorial. I hated to wake him, but his directions were shite, and I was running out of gas. Instead of endangering both our lives trying to shake him awake and stay on the highway at the same time, I pulled into a Tim’s parking lot and manoeuvred the behemoth around to the back lot. The abrupt quiet from cutting the roar of the engine jerked him out of sleep. “Wha?” He looked around and rubbed a heel of his hand into his eye. “Where are we?” “Actually,” I pulled the map from where it stuck half out of the glove compartment, “I’m not entirely sure.” I spread it out over the dash and peered at the snaking red line leading south out of the city. “I’m pretty sure I’ve gone too far, though.” He glanced out the window again to see where we were. It was a minute before I realized he wasn’t with me. His gaze went soft, and he stared down the highway. “Jay?” “Yeah?” He’d heard, but he wasn’t listening. Even his answer was far away. I heaved a sigh, aware of my own melodramatics. “Stay here. I’ll be right back.” He didn’t move. He didn’t acknowledge me. He might not even have noticed that I left. The little coffee shop, soothing in its familiarity, had a line up six deep. It was nice to know even out here, some things remained the same. I took my place and waited my turn as a tubby man sidled up to the giant coffee cup that served as the counter front. The people in line with me had a distinctly non-city air about them. Instead of cell phones attached to their ears, briefcases and umbrellas in hand, one mom pushed a stroller, and a couple chatted together while they waited, arms linked, the girl leaning lightly on the boy. Jeans and plaid took the place of

5

Moving Day business suits. A father glowered at his two sons in a booth near the window. They pointed to our van and speculated loudly. “I bet they’re brothers,” the younger boy said. His brother, a slightly larger version of him, snickered, and my hackles rose. “Not a chance.” He glanced over his shoulder at me. “Look.” He tossed his head in my direction. “They don’t even look alike. He’s too dark to be from the same family.” His brown eyes met mine, and he ripped his gaze away to his hands and the sugar packet he was playing with. I glanced to where Jay now leaned on the door of the van, a vacant expression turned to the traffic whizzing past on the highway. “Then they’re the moving guys. Mom said a couple bought the restaurant. Maybe a man and wife like Gerry and Miss Sam.” The boy prattled on, unaware of his older brother’s discomfort. “They could still be a couple,” the older boy said, barely heard over the rumble of ambient voices. His face darkened, and he slithered down into his seat. He might be twelve, I thought, and sympathy spiked through me. I remembered that age, that awkward, not-quite-sure feeling in my gut that everyone knew something about girls I just wasn’t getting. Their father turned to me and smiled, shrugged, and frowned worriedly at his son. I wanted to tell him he was probably right, what he was thinking, but it wasn’t any of my business. Not expecting anything more, I turned my attention back to the counter and the young couple placing their order in tandem. Instead, the father shook himself, pivoted to face me, and held out a hand. “Richard.” “Hi.” I shook, briefly, and tucked my hand back under my arm, pinning it between my elbow and my ribs. “Sorry about the urchins. Small town, you know?” His gaze travelled down to my trainers and back, and even though I wore jeans and a button down, I felt horribly overdressed for a Tim Horton’s shop in the middle of nowhere. “They know every nook and cranny, and since their Mom’s the real estate agent, they know the old restaurant sold. They’ve been curious. They used to play there.” I couldn’t help the sceptical lift of my eyebrows. “Your children played in an abandoned building?” “Sandy lot,” he corrected me. “Perfect for Tonka Trucks.” Of course. Boy’s boys. I glanced again at the boys in the booth, the older one still gazing out the window at our van, the younger one methodically tearing open sugar packets and dumping the contents onto the tabletop. I nodded and shifted, uncomfortable. Poor kid. He couldn’t be called flamboyant, but he couldn’t be mistaken for straight either. Small towns were rarely good places to grow up gay, in my experience. “You two.” He jutted his chin toward the truck, and I bristled. “You have any kids?” My jaw dropped. That question was about the last I’d expected him to ask. “Uh—no.” Richard nodded. “Best thing in the world, kids.” A roar went up as the boys tumbled from the booth onto the floor. “Hey! Settle, you two, or I’ll knock your heads together.” His voice boomed across the small room. No one blinked. The

6

Moving Day kids jostled back to their seats and sat, quiet only a moment before they broke into hysterical, rocking giggles. Richard sighed. “Best thing. Keep telling yourself that.” But he grinned, and his expression showed he really did think them something spectacular. “So.” He adjusted his belt and glanced again out the window at the truck. “You two planning on opening up the place again? I know they took the gas tanks out of the ground last year, but I suppose you could get the restaurant up and running again.” “I don’t really know what Jay’s planning.” I didn’t think, judging by the despondence I’d seen in him the last few weeks, that he had much of a plan at all. “I’m just helping him move.” “Oh.” Richard’s face turned pink. “Sorry. I thought you and him....” He twirled his finger in the air, as though that was supposed to mean something. “No. His partner just died, actually. They bought the place, but Jay’s no chef. He’s a painter. Darren was a fantastic cook.” I shrugged. “Well.” He hooked a thumb through his belt loop. “It’s good to see the place occupied again. Feels like the whole town’s shut down with it all boarded up.” “The whole town?” I couldn’t help a glance out the window to the dust blowing across the fields and the cars zipping past on the highway. He pointed back down the highway from the direction we’d come. “Four miles or so that way. You take the turn off past your place, and you’ll see Main crosses the river and town’s just on the other side. Sam’s Place is like the gateway. Or was, before fast food and the main highway got double-laned. Gerry couldn’t see the point in keeping the place going.” His face turned down. “Gerry?” Richard nodded. “Him and his wife, Samantha, opened the restaurant ’bout thirty years ago. After she died, he couldn’t keep it up. Think he didn’t want to. Then all the work on the highway started and gave him an excuse. Moved into the city to be with his kid, his daughter and her kids. Don’t blame him, really. Who wants to keep on in a place where all you see are the memories?” My gut churned. I looked back to the truck and I wondered again. Why was Jay doing this? He could sell the place and move back into the city where he belonged and not steep himself in the dreams Darren had taken to the grave with him. “Listen.” Richard pulled his wallet from his back pocket. “You two need anything, you let me know.” He handed me his card. “I can find a few guys to help lift the heavy stuff, maybe peel those boards down, let the light in. Don’t know what you’ll find inside, though. Been closed up almost a year. You’re definitely taking your chances.” I took the card and glanced at it. He was a cabinetmaker, according to the little cardboard slip. “Thanks. We have a contractor.” “Well,” again, he tugged his belt around a bit, “offer stands. Can be a bit dodgy, moving to a new neighbourhood. Small towns can be scary for…city folk, but we try and be friendly.” His gaze darted to his son and back to me, and I had a painful image of my own father and his awkward relationship with some of my friends. I almost wanted to reassure this man, but it wasn’t my place. I nodded. He had no idea how out of my element I was. Or maybe he did. Already, though, I felt a little more at ease about Jay’s predicament. I still didn’t

7

Moving Day like him being this far from his life, but maybe I wasn’t dumping him in the middle of hostile territory as well. “Thanks,” I told him again. I tucked the card into my own wallet. “I appreciate it.” I returned to the van a few minutes later with two steaming cups of coffee, directions to Sam’s Place, and the hope at least one decent person could be called on, if needed. I informed Jay of his neighbour’s dubious assessment of his new home, and he only smiled. “I know. I’ve seen it.” He climbed back into the cab and settled into his seat. “Okay, Jay. Now you’re scaring me.” Finally, he looked at me. “It’s fine.” He smiled again, marginally more coherently. “I’m fine.” I’d never seen him like this. If I didn’t know him so well, I would have thought he was on something, but he barely even drank, let alone took drugs. “Jay.” I turned to get a better look at him. The gearshift jabbed me in the thigh. He looked up at me, but his hazel eyes skipped off my face and out the window behind me. “Jay!” “I miss him.” The statement came at me out of the blue, and I had no time to duck. I guessed it left a mess of surprise and worry all over my face. He’d never missed any of them. At least he’d never mentioned missing any of them. “Really?” Brilliant. One corner of Jay’s mouth tilted up, revealing a sliver of perfect teeth. He settled back into his seat, opened the tab on his cup, and took a tiny sip. “Yeah. Really.” After another sip, he glanced at me. “Are we going to drive some more? Or is there a better way to get there than starting the truck?” I laughed, a little relieved. At least that resembled the Jay I knew. As the engine rumbled to life, though, his eyes slid back to the landscape and his mind went elsewhere.

8

Moving Day

Chapter Two I had gone too far, according to Richard’s directions. Back down the highway about five clicks, a yellow and red sign bolted between two truncated telephone poles read “Family Restaurant”. Below that, a white sign with faded black letters announced today’s specials were “Hot Steak and Potatoes or Ham on Rye”. Beyond the sign was a low white building with a blue-shingled roof. A sign across the top, in the same red and yellow letters, declared it Sam’s Place. Weeds tickled the low windowsills in the front of the building, and bindweed climbed the poles. I eyed the sandy lot doubtfully as I waited with my signal clicking for a long line of south-bound traffic to clear the far lane. “Would you order steak if it wasn’t hot?” Jay asked. “Sorry?” A transport careened past, and the wind of its passage rocked the truck. Stopped in the middle of the highway with traffic flying past left me a little too vulnerable for his riddles. “The specials.” He pointed at the sign. “Pretty sure any steak left in that place is beyond cold, Jay. Should be boxed and buried.” His hand fell back into his lap with a slap of flesh against tight denim. He didn’t sigh, but then, he wasn’t a sigher. He did look miserable as he continued to stare at the faded billboard. “Jay, I’m sorry.” He shook his head and pointed at the empty highway. “Traffic’s clear.” Swearing silently at myself, I hauled the truck off the pavement and barrelled it through the soft sand of the lot as far as it would go before it bogged down. I was happy enough for the moment to have arrived that I didn’t bother to worry about how I was going to get it out later. Jay didn’t wait for the engine to stop before jumping down, slamming the door. The echo of metal on metal reinforced my mental rebuke. After a minute, I climbed down and followed him to the front entrance. The glass doors had been boarded over, but the wooden door in the nearer end, adorned with flaking blue paint, yielded to his key. At two stories, this part of the building had once clearly been a residence. The restaurant was in the other, single story half. Plywood covered the windows there as well. Jay barely glanced in that direction but let us into the living quarters. It wasn’t as bad inside as I’d anticipated. The carpet smelled a little mouldy, the wallpaper, yellow and blue striped with what might have been pink flowers, was in pretty good shape except for the degree to which it had faded, and the ceilings were all intact. A flight of hardwood stairs led up into the darkness of the second story, and beyond that was what had probably been the living room, with rose-coloured plush and a lonely rocking chair near the far, boarded-up window. A doorway directly in front opened into a kitchen with pink Formica countertops and what would now be a very expensive ceramic, apron-fronted sink. A dish drainer with a cracked pink plastic coating sat on the counter next to the sink. In it, one bowl, one spoon, and one coffee cup waited, looking like they had just

9

Moving Day been placed there that morning, except they were coated in a thick layer of feltlike dust. The dust, in fact, covered everything, even the bare light bulb Jay turned on with a flick of the switch. After a minute, the smell of it burning off the heated surface overcame the musty smell of mould. “Well.” I wasn’t sure what to say. “The lawyer was here last week making sure everything was in order. He said the carpets would need to go.” He clicked his tongue. “Everything needs to go.” “Except the kitchen sink,” I said. “Everything but the kitchen sink.” He looked at me, and a smile pulled the melancholy off his face for an instant. “Okay.” He shrugged. “It looks like a decent kitchen sink.” He turned the light off and left the building, leaving me standing there in the dark. The clank of the lock on the back of the truck and the thunder of the door rolling up brought me back out into the sunshine. I blinked water out of my eyes to find Jay hauling his camping tent and tool box out into the sand. He kicked at a bit of the stuff with the toe of his runner. It puffed up and blew away across the lot in a fluffy grey cloud. “At least it will be soft to sleep on, I suppose.” “What?” He pointed at the building. “I can’t sleep in there with my allergies. I have to take out the carpets, and that wallpaper has to come down. Pink flowers?” He lifted one eyebrow. “I don’t think so.” He tossed the tent onto the ground and went back up into the truck for a cooler, handed it down to me, and settled himself on the planks of the floor, legs dangling over the back bumper. “Then, I think the countertop. It doesn’t look that big, so I can probably pick something up at the hardware store in,” he pointed west down the road, past his new home and away from the busy highway, “what was that town?” “Vernon, I think. I’m not so sure it has a hardware store.” “It has a Tim’s, it has a hardware store. Pass me up a beer, will you?” It also had a carpenter, so I figured he might be right. I popped open the cooler, pulled out two beers, passed one up to him, and leaned against the bumper beside him. It was good to hear him full of plans again. This was the Jay I knew, back from wherever he’d been on the trip out here. The crisp sound of the caps twisting off in unison made us both grin. “All right, then.” I peered up into the truck. “We didn’t bury the BBQ too deep, did we?” “Nope.” He tapped the side of his skull. “I was thinking ahead.” “Okay. But we should pull off the boards first. Let in some light.” “Just on the house.” The words were subdued, and I looked up at him. He was looking at the restaurant portion, something sad in his eye. “Jay?” He blinked and focused on me. “I’ll start with the house.” It was almost, but not quite, his proper voice. I chose to let the tone go, but corrected his words. “We will start with the house.” “You don’t have to, Mickey.” I smiled at the pet name, dredged from our childhood together. “Sure I do. This is big, Jay. I want to help.”

10

Moving Day “I thought you were never helping me move again?” There was too much uncertainty in his voice. I turned to face him. “I say that, but you know I don’t mean it, right?” He nodded. “Good, because I swear to God, this is the last time.” He smiled. He was trying, he really was, but somehow, I knew I wasn’t enough. I couldn’t keep the hurt away this time, and it surprised me how much it mattered that I couldn’t. Jay and I have been friends for a long time. We don’t hug, we don’t touch very much at all, but I wanted to just then. I wanted to hold him and let him hurt and not have to pretend this wasn’t bothering him, but he wouldn’t have let me if I’d tried, so I just smiled back, and we finished our beers in silence. It took us most of the rest of that day to pull the plywood off the three sides of the house. The sticker was, our ladder was just about precariously too short to easily reach the upper windows, and neither of us, it turned out, was very comfortable more than six feet off the ground. We got it done, though, and neatly stacked against a shed behind the building. As darkness set in, a red and silver truck pulled into the lot, spraying up sand and dust as it churned through to a grassy spot beside the restaurant. “Hey!” A tall, sandy-haired, brown-eyed man swaggered around to where we had the BBQ set up just under the front porch light. The gold glow pressed the evening gloom back just enough to include a third lawn chair into a little semicircle. “Hey, Bri. Glad you could make it.” Jay tossed another few sausages on the grill as I settled the third chair into the sand. “Jay, my friend.” Brian slammed him affectionately on the back. “You give lousy directions. I drove ten miles too far. Had to stop and ask at the coffee shop.” “And you didn’t bring any back with you?” I admonished. He laughed and pulled the cardboard tray from behind his back. Nestled in it were three tall brown paper cups, still steaming. “What do you think, Mike? You would have sent me back for it if I hadn’t.” He handed the coffee cups around and casually glanced at the progress we’d made. “So. Tomorrow we get some real work done?” “You know you guys don’t have to,” Jay began, but Brian held up a finger. “Don’t even. Pat practically kicked me out of the house. She’s got some girl’s thing on this weekend.” He shook his head. “You couldn’t pay me to get in the middle of that. You’re stuck with me. Besides,” he set his coffee down in favour of rooting through the cooler for a beer, “I blackmailed Andrew and Jacob. They’ll be here in the morning.” “Perfect,” Jay muttered. “The Jackson Triplets.” “Hey.” Brian wagged a finger at him. “You couldn’t ask for a better team of contractors than us. Even if you were paying.” “But I didn’t ask.” “That’s the beauty of it.” Brian sat back, dwarfing his chair and swigging his beer. Jay watched him silently. I couldn’t quite decipher how he felt about this turn. Brian was a great guy. He and I had known one another almost as long as I’d know Jay. He’d helped me get over my fear of dating men, and I’d confirmed for

11

Moving Day him that he mostly preferred women. I couldn’t ask for a firmer friend. If he had a fault, this pushy intrusion was it. Jay hadn’t asked for the help he’d arranged, but then, Jay wasn’t one to ask, even when he should. “Bri?” I looked past Jay’s tensed back at him. He just smiled at me, confident he’d made the right decision despite Jay’s annoyance. “Maybe you should call them? Off?” “No.” Jay focused his attention at the deadly stab of his tongs on the sizzling grill. “It’s a good idea. There’s too much to do myself.” “Hey! I told you already, Jay.” “Too much for just us, then,” Jay corrected, cutting off my indignant protest. “It will go faster. Less sleeping in the tent.” “Okay.” I tossed a glance at Brian, who shrugged and looked a little perplexed. It was at least gratifying to know he had expected more of a fight. It meant I wasn’t imagining Jay’s odd behaviour. He was a little off. The next morning, honking horns drew us from the tent at a barely decent hour. I crawled out, stood, and snapped and cracked out the kinks. The tent would have been comfortable for Jay and I. With Brian’s enormous frame stuffed in too, I could only say it was a good thing we were all friends. “Rise and shine, my beauties!” One of the twins jumped from another silver and red pickup, this one with “Jackson’s Contracting” written across the back window in clean white script. The truck was brand new. Brian beamed at it paternally. “It really is lovely, Bri,” I muttered, clutching the coffee handed to me by a tooexuberant Jackson brother. “Don’t give me that. You know you want one.” I smiled and ran a hand over the box lip. It really was a nice truck. “Your straight is showing again, Mickey.” I slid a look at Jay where he sat on the mat in front of the tent, tying his sneakers. It was good to see him grinning up at me. “Sorry, Jay. Can’t help it. I yam what I yam.” He popped up and adjusted the pj trousers riding low on his hips. A twin handed him coffee, and he settled back against the box. His too-long black hair fell in his face, the morning sun shimmered over his bowed head. I swallowed a little convulsively when his tongue darted out to lick at the dripping coffee along the lip of his cup. Brian shook his head at me. He knew my state of ambivalent sexuality accounted for my perpetual single-dom and wouldn’t believe I was content. “You really should get you one of those too,” Brian whispered in my ear as he passed. I would have belted him, but he was too quick and out of range before the thought penetrated the remaining sleep fog. I let it go when one of his brothers rattled a tool box out of the truck bed and pulled forth a pry bar. “Please tell me I can start my day with some demo.” That had to be Andrew, lover of chaos and women much too wild for him to handle. I noted his boots. Hats and shirts could be switched, and they loved to play tricks on me. They wouldn’t swap boots, though. Jay jumped up and went to the house, ready to direct the swinging of hammers and prying of nails. He wanted a reno, not a rebuild, and the brothers were known to get carried away.

12

Moving Day He didn’t stay long. Ten minutes into the work, he came out, his eyes streaming, his nose red, and launched into a bout of sneezing that almost knocked him off his feet. “I’m dot doing to be adle to do dis,” he sniffed. Clearly not. He went in search of his antihistamines, and I went inside. The dust was incredible. All three brothers had Darth Vader masks covering nose and mouth, and Brian waved me out of the building. A few minutes later he came out himself and took off the mask. “We’ll have to do this on our own. There’s no way not to raise the dust. Take Jay shopping for a new countertop or something. At least while we get rid of the carpets.” “Bri….” “Don’t worry. I’ll keep the dynamic duo in check.” “He wants to keep the sink.” “No problem.” “And the walls.” “Mike.” “Just saying.” “Have faith. Go.” “Bring back food!” That came from Jacob. That always came from Jacob. Brian handed me his Mastercard and shrugged. “Business expense. Can’t be helped.” I held out my hand a little longer. He just looked at me. “You don’t think I’m driving that monster into town, do you?” I asked, pointing at the U-Haul. He just grinned. “Oh, come on.” “Knew you wanted one.” “Never denied it. Gimme the keys.” “You owe me.” “I’m leaving you alone in there with a sledge hammer. I think it’s you who owes me.” “You drive a hard bargain.” He gave up a set of keys that looked as new and shiny as the front bumper of the truck. “Bring her back in one piece.” I couldn’t hide my glee as I climbed up into the cab. Jay just shook his head and climbed up next to me. “Gah! You are such a breeder.” “Oh, please. This is a sweet ride. Even you aren’t gay enough not to have noticed.” He grinned. “I noticed.”

13

Moving Day

Chapter Three Contented silence filled the cab on the ride to town. It was good to sit next to him and know he was there with me. A night’s sleep must have been what he needed. Though it concerned me that he slept better in a cramped tent than his own bed these days, I couldn’t say at this point I was hugely surprised. We spent a good portion of the morning picking out flooring and paint colours. At the hardware store, we ran into Richard and his boys. “Hi.” A big grin encompassed both of us, and Richard held out his hand. “Good to see you again,” he said to me and took Jay’s hand. “Richard.” “Jason.” Jay shook his hand. “This is Mike.” “We met yesterday.” “At Tim’s,” I chimed in. “He’s a carpenter. Lives here in town.” “Daddy!” His younger son careened into him. He swayed, but his feet remained planted firmly in front of us. “This hooligan is Pete.” Richard glanced around. “The other one is Randy. Feel free to ignore them. Pete,” he looked down at his son, “go find your brother.” The boy peeled off again, and Richard hollered after him. “This time, stay out of the paint aisle!” We watched him go, then turned back to an awkward silence. “So. Where are you staying, then?” Richard finally asked. Jay frowned, leaving me to supply the answer. “We’ve set up camp for the time being. It shouldn’t take more than a few days to get some space liveable enough for a sleeping bag or two.” Richard laughed. “You do know we have a perfectly good hotel. Nice view of the river.” “We saw.” Jay’s eyes shifted. His gaze slid past Richard’s shoulder. “I’d rather just stay close to home.” “Up to you, of course, but I insist you come for dinner one night.” “I don’t think—”Jay began, but Richard cut him off as a long, lean woman slipped up beside him. “Maggie.” He wrapped a beefy arm around her waist. “These are the men we told you about. They’ve moved into Sam’s Place.” He pointed to each of us in turn. “Jason and Mike.” She shook hands with a firm but gentle touch and smiled. “Nice to finally put faces to the rumours.” Beside me, I sensed Jay’s ire rise, though his gaze remained firmly fixed in the cracked tiles. Maggie quickly covered her own embarrassment. “Everyone has been speculating for weeks about who bought the place, and I didn’t want to speak out of turn.” She bit her lip, and I was glad Jay missed the sympathetic look she shot him. “It means a lot to the town it isn’t sitting vacant anymore.” “A lot to the town,” Jay repeated stiffly. “It’s my home. It means a lot to me too.” He turned to go, and Maggie and Richard glanced at one another.

14

Moving Day “I’m sorry.” Maggie put a hand on his arm, stepping forward quickly, and he stopped. “I didn’t mean anything by it.” “I know. I appreciate the sentiment, but I don’t need a welcome wagon.” He shook her off and moved away down the aisle. I faced the couple with a weak smile. “He isn’t normally like this.” I don’t know why I felt I had to apologize for him, but he would have to deal with these people for the foreseeable future. “He’s been through a lot lately. It was never his plan to move here on his own. I don’t think he’s adjusted to the idea yet.” “Well,” Richard laid a hand on his wife’s waist, “you have our number. If you need anything, just call.” “I appreciate that.” It was nice, if a bit surreal, to think they actually were that friendly, but I had no reason to doubt their sincerity. “We’ll help if we can,” Maggie added. “Richard?” “I’ll go find the boys.” He wandered off, and Maggie turned back to me. Her smile was kind. Long fingers tucked some of the short, straight blonde hair behind one ear then slipped under her purse strap. “Richard can be overly enthusiastic sometimes. He likes people to feel at home.” She paused and shifted her feet. “I didn’t mean to offend your—” “Friend. You didn’t. Not really. It’s just a difficult time, and he’s not exactly neighbourly.” I smiled at her, wanting to put her at ease. “You almost never find good neighbours in the city, and he moves around a lot. He tends to be a little standoffish. It can be a hard habit to break.” “I noticed Jason kept saying I?” I nodded. “I’m just a friend. I’m helping him get settled.” “Marlene told me a couple had bought the place.” “He and his partner. He’s a widower now, though.” “Oh.” Her face fell. “No wonder. And you’re leaving him out here by himself?” My jaw tightened. “Not by choice, believe me. But he can be stubborn.” “Well,” she laid a hand on my arm, “please make sure he knows he can call us. I know you don’t know us, but Gerry and Sam were terrific people, and we like to think they rubbed off on this town a little bit.” “I’ll tell him.” She nodded, smiled, and finally moved off to find her family. They were nice enough people, but I wasn’t sure Jay was ready for that much goodwill being forced down his throat. I wasn’t sure I was. “Can we get out of here, now?” Jay asked, glancing over his shoulder as I angled up beside him. “Have we covered everything?” “The floors, the walls, the kitchen counter, the nosey neighbours. I think so, yeah.” “Jay, they’re just trying to make you feel welcome.” “They can keep their welcome. I don’t need it.” “Yes, you do.” I pulled him around to face me so I could glare at him properly. “You are going to be on your own out here. You need friends.” “I have friends.” “And they might as well be a million miles away.” “I know.” He spun away and stalked out the sliding doors.

15

Moving Day “Jay?” I caught up to him in the parking lot. “Talk to me.” He leaned heavily on the tailgate of the truck, staring into the empty box. “For all anyone can do about this, Mike, they might as well be on another planet. Even you.” “I’m trying here, Jay.” “I don’t need you to.” “You need Darren.” He pushed himself away from the truck and dropped a heavy look on me. “And he’s dead. Can we go now? I’m hungry.” That was the end of that conversation. At least the belligerent anger animated his depression. It wouldn’t make my day easier, but it eased my mind to know he could show something other than that blank emptiness. We stopped at a small family restaurant for a late breakfast and to discuss the merits of returning to the city for the bigger things like kitchen cupboards and lighting. “I want to get it here.” “Here?” That surprised me. He’d rocketed from not needing friendly neighbours to wanting to spend an extra fortune supporting their tiny businesses. I jabbed my fork into a breakfast sausage and waved it at him. “You’ll get a much better selection in the city.” “They’ll order me what I want if they don’t have it.” “It’ll take so much longer that way, Jay. Months.” I bit off half the sausage while he looked out the window. “Might I remind you you’re essentially homeless until we can get that place fit for habitation?” “I know. Homeless, jobless, partner-less. I know.” I grunted and laid into one of the eggs on my plate. The sticky yellow goo was half way to my lips when it clicked. “Wait a minute, back up. Jobless?” Finally, he looked back at me. “Explain.” “I missed too much time. Looking after Darren.” “What about compassionate leave?” “Used it up.” “Personal?” He nodded. “Family?” His face darkened. “Didn’t apply.” “But—” He reached over and put a hand over mine, and I realized I had been waving the fork around madly. He pushed my hand down until the tink of metal on ceramic sounded and I let the fork go. He didn’t remove his hand right away. “You and I know he was my family.” “Hell, Jay, the tax man knew he was your family.” “But not Brasco and Damon Fittings.” “They can’t do that.” “They did. I took their severance.” He met my angry gaze, and I swallowed a lot of the indignation, but it turned my stomach. “It’s fine. I have a few commissions I need to finish anyway, and I can get more. It was time for me to move on.” “You met him there, didn’t you?” There was a long moment of silence during which his eyes went from amusement at me to fondness for something he obviously missed to true sadness,

16

Moving Day and knew it was something I’d never seen there before. He nodded. “Yeah. You finished?” Standing, he reached into his pocket for his wallet. “The trio of doom will be waiting for their breakfast.” I wasn’t finished, but the congealed mass of yellow yolks and half-eaten sausage had suddenly lost its appeal. I pushed the plate away and stood. He didn’t argue when I brought out Brian’s card and paid for our meals and the brown paper bag full of food we were taking back with us. We grabbed coffee at the counter and went out to the truck, climbing in and settling the food between us. As I pulled out of the lot, I managed, finally, to find something to say. “Look, Jay, I’m sorry if I—” “You didn’t do anything.” It wasn’t particularly reassuring in that dull, half-distracted voice. I didn’t do anything. I hadn’t and I couldn’t. Unlike me, I wanted to. I glanced over, but he was looking out his window. I was losing him again, and this time, I saw him sinking into the grief he had always denied himself in the past. I wanted to reach out and take his hand or something, but the bag rattled on the bench; that kind of gesture wasn’t us anyway. I couldn’t see his face, and in any case, I didn’t think he would welcome me overstepping the long-established bounds of our friendship. The minute we got back, the boys fell on the food and didn’t notice how subdued he was. I followed him into the house, and we looked at the disaster. The hideous wallpaper was gone. The pink Formica, shattered on the floor. The bowl and spoon and mug sat on the front windowsill, and I saw the rocking chair out the back door, sitting in the middle of the lawn next to the carefully extracted kitchen sink. All the plumbing was intact, but the rubble of the cupboards was in a heap beside the house along with the mouldering carpet and bags and bags of other trash. They hadn’t quite got down to bare studs, but Brian had yanked out all the electrical plugs and switches to look at the wiring. I could tell it had been a close thing and that he was still going to try and talk Jay into it. Knowing what Jay just told me over breakfast, I thought I should circumvent that conversation before it happened. Jay could be particularly impractical. He wouldn’t think how much gutting the place could cost. As I contemplated how to broach the subject, Jay wandered up the stairs, his hand trailing along the smooth wooden banister. I called after him. He didn’t say anything or look at me, so I left him to explore the upper floor alone and went back outside. “Hey.” Brian held out his hand, and I looked at him innocently. He waggled his fingers. I deposited the truck keys, expense card, and receipt in his palm. “It went well, I see,” I said, glancing back at the house. The twins beamed. “It did.” Brian didn’t look at me, but concentrated on his breakfast. I knew that look on his face. “But?” “The wiring.” “No.” “It all has to come out, Mike. He needs the upgrade.” “Is it going to burst into flames?” Reluctantly, he shrugged. “It’s not post and tube, but….”

17

Moving Day “Well then don’t do it.” “It ain’t your place,” one of the twins piped up. I drew Brian away a little. “Listen. He’s tight. And he’ll kill me if he knows I’m telling you this, but he can’t go whole hog just now. Make it liveable for him, give him a chance to settle in and let him decide later.” “After it’s all fixed up and we have to tear it apart again. That’ll only cost more in the long run.” “And if he decides he doesn’t want to stay?’’ “Even if he doesn’t, Mike, now’s the time to do this. And as for it being liveable, for him, we should really go down to the studs and start over. Styrofoam insulation, new wiring, proper floors, get rid of all the crap that’s going to make him sick. As is, you watch when he comes out of there. He’s going to have to mainline those allergy drugs.” “Alright.” He was right about that. Jay’s allergies made his life hell. Reluctantly I had to agree. “Pitch it to him, but lowball it.” His eyes narrowed, and I shrugged. “I’ll make up the difference.” “I’m not worried about that. Just why you’re so reluctant.” I looked over at the building. It had its charms. Jay liked it or he wouldn’t have even considered this. But it was a long way away from his life. “I’m not,” I lied. “You know you can’t lie to me, Mike. You never could. If you wanted him to stay, you should have said a long time ago. Now he’s here, you have to let him get on with things.” I didn’t reply. I was still trying to believe what I wanted had nothing to do with anything. If I could just re-convince myself I didn’t know what I wanted, this would be so much easier. Had he acted as he did every other time, it would have been easy to shake off the vague yearning. He hadn’t, though, and it wasn’t so vague anymore. “Look, just tell him what you think you need to do and see how he reacts.” “How am I going to know if he can afford it? Clean building is expensive, and you know he isn’t going to tell me anything.” I sighed. He was right about that too. But the choice was between Jay living in a rat hole that would make him sick or having a home he could at least be comfortable in. “Look, I’m good for whatever he can’t pay.” “He will never take your money in a million years.” I glared at him because, again, he was right. Never mind that I had more than enough to spare and no one I’d rather spend it on, Jay wouldn’t let me help him with it. It just wasn’t in his nature. Unless I had some stake in it, he would consider it charity, and any argument I could come up with would be a waste of time. “Now, if you lived here,” Brian said to the bottom of his Styrofoam breakfast box, “that would be different.” “But I don’t.” “But if a real estate agent called you and wanted to give you an obscene amount for your condo, you might consider selling if you had a place to crash. And if you committed to the long haul of helping a friend fix up a dump of a fixerupper, he might have to give you a place to stay for a while.”

18

Moving Day “Not to mention,” Andrew said, approaching the truck where we sat, “that if you were any sort of friend, you wouldn’t leave him out here by himself right now. He’s going through something, and I don’t think it would help any if he had to rattle around here nights with no one to talk to.” I stared at the younger Jackson. He almost never spoke directly to me, and I’d never really heard him say anything with any real thought behind it. “What?” His brows came down over his nose. “I’ll have you know I pay attention.” “So it would seem.” Brian jumped down from the tailgate and popped his empty food container back into the paper bag, tossing the fork and napkin after it. “It’s settled, then.” The crackling of the bag punctuated his statement. “Let me know when you’ve sealed the deal, and then I’ll talk to him.” “Hey, wait. Even if that plan would work, which it won’t because it’s still his place, I haven’t had a call from any real estate agents in over a year.” Brian smiled. “You think I don’t have any connections? I know half a dozen greedy bastards who will flip that place in under a month. And all you will have to do is answer the phone. All I need is a day and half and your cell number.” “You’re serious.” “You hate that place.” “Yeah, but it’s my place!” Brian stopped cleaning and shooed Andrew back to work before looking me up and down carefully, making sure he had my attention. “You and I go back, Mike.” I nodded. “And you know I care.” I nodded again when his face grew a little bit pinched. “So take some advice. This whole ambivalence thing? It’s old and it’s a pile of shit. You and I both know it. We knew it twenty years ago, and that’s why I dumped you. I’m giving you a golden opportunity here to make a life that means something. I know you want to help him. Maybe it’s time you took a good look at why.” It was ridiculous of me to be angry with him. Just because he’d punched holes in my camouflage and exposed me to my own cowardice was no reason to snarl at him and walk away without replying. I headed for the house, feeling his indignation on my back, but I didn’t stop. I almost ran Jay down in the doorway. “What’s going on?” He peered at me through bleary pink eyes. “Mike?” I swept past because the turmoil Brian had stirred up couldn’t be contained and I didn’t want to add to Jay’s distress by spilling it all over him. Banging in to the kitchen, I swept through to the back door, intent on going through to the back yard, but I stopped. Beside the door leading back outside was another partially opened door leading into the restaurant side of the building. I pulled it open a bit more so I could peek inside, expecting it to be dark. It wasn’t. Someone had left a workman’s light hanging from a dark chandelier. The room was empty except for a long bar down the back of the room, a huge heavy table at the far end, and one of the swinging doors to the kitchen leaning against the back wall. No sign of the other door. I couldn’t see into the kitchen, but I remembered Jay saying

19

Moving Day something about the real estate agent having found a buyer for the equipment and asking him if he was going to be needing it. The thought stopped me. Jay wasn’t a cook, he was an artist, but Darren had been. I went through to the back of the room, taking the light with me as far as the extension cord would allow. The shushing sound of the plastic snake across the floor gave me the shivers as I remembered the long, sad looks and Jay’s refusal to take the boards off the restaurant’s windows. I peered into the dark space. There was nothing there. So he had sold the stuff. I leaned in the doorway and rested my head against the frame. A spider walked across its web in the upper corner of the doorway, and for a minute I watched it as it travelled, top to bottom, and rapelled down a foot or so to swing over and onto the frame again, then turned to scurry back up the thin thread it had laid. All I had to do was reach up and poke a finger through the delicate work and the pattern would be ruined. It could be mended, but it would never be the same. “Mike?” Jay’s voice snapped me back to the dim room and the bright pool made by the trouble light. “What are you doing back here?” His voice was tight, his eyes narrowed. “Just having a look.” “Well.” He turned and purposefully walked back toward the house. “Brian needs you.” I followed him, snapping off the light and leaving it hanging where I had found it. Outside in the bright mid-morning sunshine, Brian was sketching and talking at his brothers. Jay joined them, leaning against the tailgate, but not really listening to anything Brian had to say. The demolition lasted the rest of the day. Brian brought up the dining room only once, offering to remove the boards and haul the old wood away. Jay refused again. There was no reason for the brothers to stay. There was nothing else they could do until materials arrived and Jay decided on what to do about the wiring. In the tent, after it had grown dark and the hum of traffic on the highway had dwindled to intermittent transports rumbling toward the city, Jay rolled over to look at me. I couldn’t see him, but I heard the movement and I felt his eyes on me. “You’ve been watching me.” “Sorry?” “You keep watching me, like you expect something you’re not getting.” “I don’t expect anything.” “What did you and Bri talk about that got you into such a twist?” “Nothing.” “Bullshit.” “He thinks you need new wiring and insulation.” “What? You think he’s trying to fleece me?” “No.” “So what’s the problem?” “He wants to do a clean build.” “And?” “And. It costs money.” “Fuck you. You told him I have no money.”

20

Moving Day “I didn’t tell him anything.” “Well, I don’t have any.” “I know.” A loud rustle of his sleeping bag and a grunt sounded. He must have rolled over. “I don’t need his charity. I gave him a budget. He can do what he can do within it.” “You need a clean build, Jay. This place is going to kill you otherwise.” Silence from the other side of the tent. It lasted long enough for me to decide he had gone to sleep. “Will you let me help?” I asked, on the off chance he hadn’t. “I don’t need—” “No one’s saying you need anything, asshole. I need a place to stay for a while.” It was shitty, turning it back on him with a lie like that, but I’d thought all day about what Brian had said. Jay did need a clean house. And Andrew was right too. He needed someone with him. “You have a perfectly good condo.” “I sold it.” Brian had better come through on that agent. The fabric rustled again. I looked over and saw Jay’s silhouette, propped up on one elbow. “You what?” “Sold. Some agent called. Made me a good offer.” I waited, but he appeared to have nothing to say. Maybe he didn’t believe me. “I hate that place.” “It isn’t like you not to have a plan,” he said finally. “I know. It was a limited time offer. Then this thing with Darren came up, and….” “Thing with Darren.” I could definitely see him now as he rolled over and put his back to me. “You are not fucking staying in my house.” I know I’d said stupider things in my life. I just couldn’t think of any right then. My apology went unanswered. It rained the next day. All day. The tent almost floated away. Jay spent a good deal of the time in the truck digging out boxes for me to carry inside. Around noon, the hardware store delivered ten gallons of primer and no brushes or rollers. Brian called and said he couldn’t get in touch with his agent, so it was a good thing I didn’t need her after all. I told him to try harder and spent the rest of the afternoon sweeping and scrubbing and vacuuming the upper floor. By the time the rain stopped and the sun went away somewhere behind the blanket of thick clouds, exhaustion had claimed us both. “Jay, come inside,” I said from the doorway. He was soaked through to the bone standing beside the grill with a beer. He was shivering. I had made coffee and found his mugs. I held one up where he could see the steam billowing up from it. “Come and get dried off.” He spun the knobs on the BBQ and lifted the lid, quickly scooping out the burgers and stepping into the filthy kitchen. “I thought you said you had everything ready.” He glanced around the empty room. “I do.” I pointed to the stairs. “I cleaned a room so you could sleep inside. Everything’s up there.”

21

Moving Day The room at the top of the stairs on the right was the largest of three bedrooms. The light fixture was missing, though, so I had taken up the trouble light and found a few candles. I had our sleeping bags spread out and pillows on the floor facing the television. There was no cable, so only three channels. Jay stood in the doorway with the plate of burgers in his hand. “Cozy.” I took the food from him and pointed down the hall to the bathroom. “Go get into dry clothes. I’ll get these ready.” I set the plate on top of some boxes and started dressing them as he went to change. I didn’t realize he had come back until he spoke. “You can stay.” I couldn’t quite hide my start. “I liked Darren you know, Jay.” “Funny.” Jay came in and sat down beside me. “He didn’t much like you.” “Why?” Jay shrugged. “You were almost the only thing we ever fought about.” He took the plate I handed him and lifted the bun to see what I’d put on his burger, but he didn’t pick it up. “Then, at the end, he told me to keep you close. To be patient.” I looked at him. Damp hair clung to the back of his neck and flopped down over his eyes. He had on a tank top and loose pyjama bottoms, and the warmth of the room after the cool rain flushed his cheeks. There had to be a mourning period my libido was completely ignoring. I took my plate and shuffled back to lean against the wall. “Patient?” Close to him was something I definitely should not be when he looked like that and I had Brian’s voice in my head telling me I was full of shit. He was wrong. I could admit when I wanted something this badly. I wasn’t full of shit. I was just a shitty friend because me with my mind in his pants was definitely not what he needed right now. “You alright, Mike?” “Yeah. I’m…hungry.” I tore into my burger and concentrated on it, hoping it would help. Later, with both of us licking condiments off our fingers and guzzling the last dregs of cold coffee, the silence grew thick. The TV was quiet, and wind whistled outside the window. A low rumble of thunder in the distance startled Jay. He jumped and set his plate down with an over-loud clatter. “You okay?” I studied him through the wavering candlelight. He’d turned out the too-bright trouble light in favour of the softer glow. “Yeah.” Adjusting his pile of pillows gave him an excuse not to have to look directly at me. “Just the thunder.” He’d never been comfortable during storms, and he’d moved the entire mess of pillows closer to mine. He settled in, laying on his back with his hands clasped over his stomach. “Why’d you sell the condo?” “Told you.” I cleaned the last bit of ketchup off my fingers and set my own plate aside. “Got a good offer.” “So what was your plan, then?” “What do you mean?” “You sold your condo. Where were you going to live? Did you have another one lined up? Is there a closing date? What do you plan to do with all your shit? You

22

Moving Day haven’t said a word to me. And don’t tell me it’s because of the ‘thing with Darren’. That never stopped you before.” “It was pretty sudden; a now or never kind of deal. I mentioned it to Brian but I hadn’t worked anything out yet. I suppose he and Pat would have let me crash.” He peered over at me. “So this is pretty convenient for you, then.” He waved a hand into the dim corners. “No screaming kids or smelly pets.” “Look, Jay, I’m not going to pressure you. If you don’t want me to stay here, I won’t.” “I do.” He rolled a little bit toward me. The way he looked at me didn’t help my struggle with self-restraint. “Do you know the last time we had sex was here? In this house. In this room, in fact.” “What?” “Darren and I. Right after we took possession. We drove out here. He toured the kitchen, touched every knob, every surface, like he was falling in love with the place. We spent the afternoon making love on this floor in the sunlight. He brought me up here and we....” “Jay.” “He knew he was dying. He knew and he still made plans, had dreams. He was going to go out living. He made me want a future with him. What do I do now?” “Come here.” He scooted over the floor and propped himself against me. Thunder rumbled closer from the west, and a flash of lightning illuminated the room for an instant. His face was stark in the bright light, then plunged completely into shadow behind the fading glow. “The worst part,” he whispered, “is that I don’t even know if it’s him I miss, or the dream.” I didn’t say anything. I had a strong urge to tell him there were still dreams out there, ones we could share, but that wasn’t how we worked. That he was even taking comfort from me pushed the boundaries more than I was comfortable with. The candles burned low, the tea lights eventually going out. The storm rumbled over us, and he snuggled in against my side. We both pretended he didn’t jump with every growl of thunder and flash of light. Eventually, the worst passed, and he fell asleep. I lay a long time, listening to the rain on the window and his breathing and telling myself I wasn’t getting myself in too deep. Eventually, after the last candle burned itself out, I fell asleep too.

23

Moving Day

Chapter Four When I woke, he was gone. I found him in the kitchen pulling hunks of drywall off the studs. His eyes streamed, rimmed pink and puffy and bloodshot. It could have been the dust he raised. I didn’t ask and he didn’t say. We stashed the paint in the restaurant half of the building, and he went outside when the tip arrived to start tossing the refuse inside. I continued in the kitchen, stripping the room down to bare studs and old, black wires. Around noon, I called Brian and told him the rebuild was on. We talked finances while Jay listened and frowned but didn’t argue. When I hung up, he went back out. For a while I heard the sounds of garbage viciously clanging against the sides of the tip, but eventually, that stopped. Jay didn’t reappear until well after I’d made a cold supper of peanut butter sandwiches and beer. “Where were you?” “Nowhere.” I would have pressed the issue, but he really did look as though he’d been nowhere. His expression was blank and tired, and he offered no further explanation. He was snuggled in his nest of pillows when I came out of the shower. The moment I lay down in my own spot, he moved. Like the night before, he curled against my side and fell asleep. I liked the feel of him there; the steady rhythm of his breathing and faint thud of his heart against my ribs. I could get used to it, but there was no telling how long it might last. As much as I wanted to stay there with him, I had a business to run. I had a very capable manager with two more-than-adequate assistants, but a legion of office managers and their assistants couldn’t deal indefinitely with the thin skins stretched over pretty model faces or every bright flash of photographer temper. Not for the first time, I tried to remember when I’d put my own camera down to lead the madness. “You’ll be back on Saturday?” Jay asked, holding the truck door open as I fastened my seat belt. “Sunday.” He scowled, and I came close to capitulating just to get the expression off his face. Beside me, Brian started the truck. “I have that fundraiser Saturday night.” “Don’t go.” “Come with.” I’d suggested it before. Some clearly misguided part of my brain thought it would do him good to get out and mingle in a crowd of strangers. His lips tightened, and his knuckles whitened around the metal door frame. “Can’t.” He made a vague gesture toward the house. “Work to do.” His eyes remained rooted in the sand, though. It would do no good to remind him it had been months since he’d done anything but sit beside a sickbed, mourn, and renovate. I let his excuse stand. “That’s okay.” I gave Brian’s shoulder a limp slap. “Bri’ll be my date.” I winked at him, and he grinned. “You take it easy. Call if you need anything.” He nodded and moved back, swinging the door closed with a bang. Brian pulled out of the lot and onto the highway. When I turned to look back through

24

Moving Day the lettering on the back window, Jay still stood watching us drive away, his arms wrapped around himself and wind blowing hair across his face. Brian sighed heavily and shook his head. “What?” “You.” “What?” “Why don’t you just tell him how you feel?” Now I shook my head and glared out my window. “No.” “Don’t be stubborn.” “It’s not that.” “If you’d said something to me all those years ago—” “What?” I looked over at him. “Because sleeping with you wasn’t enough? You needed me to tell you?” “Yes.” No joke loitered behind the one word. He said it quietly, levelly, his eyes fixed on the road, his fingers tight on the wheel. “That’s the trouble with you, Mike. You figure if you just wait, everything will decide itself, and you won’t have to do anything. The fact you never did say it out loud was more of a confession than all the declarations you could have made. That’s why I left. But that doesn’t matter.” He seemed to shake himself, and a little tension drained out of the cab. “That was then. Now, it’s him.” I bit my lip and watched a low barbed wire fence flicker past, keeping pace with the road. “It’s always been him.” “Finally!” I couldn’t help a little smile as the word exploded from him. He reached over and cupped a hand around the back of my neck, squeezing and giving me a little shake. “You see? Fifteen years late, but at least you recognize it.” His hand fell away. Tires hummed on the road, trees and fields passed. The smell of new car permeated even the quiet. For a brief second, our eyes met. “I needed you to tell me how you felt. When you didn’t say anything, I knew.” “Bri—” “No.” He held up his hand. “Now it’s him. You and me, we had our fun. Concentrate on Jay. He needs you.” There it was. He needed me. “I don’t know what to do for him.” “It’s pretty simple, really.” Brian navigated around a transport, quietly humming to himself. I watched out the window, waiting for him to elaborate. He just kept humming. “He’s lost so many people,” I ventured. “And you’re always there to pick things up for him.” He glanced at me. “You’re his constant, Mike. He keeps coming back to you.” “Because we’re friends. He knows I’ll be there for him.” “Ever wonder why he never commits? Why does he pick the ones who are going to die? Or leave him?” “I wish I knew.” “Then maybe you don’t deserve him.” “Excuse me?” “Goddamnit, Mike! For as long as I’ve known you, you’ve been following after him, fixing things for him, picking up the pieces. And he lets you. He wants you

25

Moving Day to. And he waits for you to take the next step and you never do. Why?” He paused in his tirade a minute to catch his breath and temper his voice. “How many times do you have to watch his heart break?” “Hey, I’m not the one breaking it.” I stared out the windshield, watching the yellow lines dash past. “I don’t know why he chooses the men he does. I know he never chooses me.” “And you don’t think he’s worth the risk of making a choice yourself? Because if you don’t then you’re right. You don’t know what to do for him, and you should back right off. I’ll finish the reno, and you should let him get on with his life. Alone, this time.” The thought of leaving Jay out there, alone, to live in that place, fix that house, by himself, tightened into a knot in my stomach. “I can’t do that.” The tension in my belly leant conviction to my words, and I looked up to find Brian watching me between glances at the road. I swallowed hard and made a stab at smiling. “Like you said, he needs me.” Brian nodded and turned his full attention back to the road. “For real, this time, Mikey. I don’t want to see him go through this again.” “That’s a big step.” “Well.” His face set. His voice turned serious. “You’re a big boy. And so is he.” “He’s not leaving that house.” “So? I wasn’t kidding about being able to sell the condo. And you do hate it.” “I have a business to run. I could try running it from out there, but I don’t know how well it would work. It’s a lot of egos to manage. Works better face to pretty face.” “It’s like having kids, Mike. There’s never a right time. There will always be a better time. Either you want it, or you don’t.” His voice changed again, and he waggled a finger at me. “Do, or do not do. There is no try.” I chuckled. “Okay, Yoda.” But he was right. The thing with Brian is that he’s often right, which makes his enormous ego a little easier to bear. It’s almost justified. We rode in silence for a long time. I had a lot to think about. The office, when I finally got there, was, as I expected, a mess of pouting models and fuming photographers. Nothing was getting done, and I had no stomach for smoothing over ruffled feathers and salving bruised egos. Taking my manager by the arm and ushering her into my office would have given me a good vent for my own pent up nerves, but I managed not to embarrass her. Instead, I went in alone, fixed a pot of coffee, and called her in when it was ready and two steaming cups sat on my desk. “Tell me everything.” It took her an hour. “And mostly,” she ended, “because I needed your go ahead. I couldn’t reach you at home, your cell was off. The agency wanted to know yesterday, and I had to put them off. Twice. The photographers are furious, the models are, well, models. Every shoot is behind. The gala space is too small, the prints aren’t ready, Gustav broke another light stand, and everyone needs a signature or a personal fucking invitation to piss from God himself! If I had the authority to make these decisions, it would all be done by now! Yesterday, even,

26

Moving Day and I’d have the day off.” Big brown eyes blinked at me from behind very stylish glasses. “Sir.” I tried very hard, but the laughter bubbled up anyway. She stared at me, her cheeks pink with indignation, her eyes wide and her pretty mouth tight and annoyed. “I’m sorry. It isn’t funny.” In a flash, she was on her feet. “No. It isn’t. You want to take off and console your boyfriend, you can find another office manager, because I qui—” “Please.” I stood too and shuffled around the desk. “It’s been a hard week. You’re right about everything. Especially the part about you being able to make the decisions. You should make them. You do anyway. When is the last time I didn’t go with your recommendation?” “I don’t remember.” Her arms crossed in front of her. Clearly, this would take more than a little bit of sweet talking, but I didn’t want to lose her. If things went the way I hoped, I needed her expertise. “Neither do I, so here’s the deal,” I said. Her eyes narrowed, but she inclined her head a tiny bit to one side. “The office is yours. You run the place already, so I’ll make it official.” “How?” “Not sure yet, but we can talk about it.” Lidia drew herself up, arms uncrossing, fists clenching, ready to go off on me again, but I held up a hand. “Hear me out.” I realized, as I perched on the edge of the desk, that I’d already decided. “I’ve spent the last ten years running a business I used to love, watching other men do what I should be doing. I need to refocus. Get back behind the lens.” I paused, hearing how ridiculous that sounded, and Lidia snorted. “Okay. But I’m serious. I didn’t start this company to be a business man. I started it because I wanted to take pictures. You’re the business…person. You’re good at it. You love it.” She grinned at me. “So you do it.” “I want a raise.” “Of course.” “And a real office.” Her gaze roved around my plush space, really the only place in the building closed off from the ruckus of the studio. “You can have this one,” I told her, even as I eyed the big, bright room on the other side of the glass wall. “In fact, I think it’s time I took on a partner.” “That’s it? Just like that? Partners?” I grinned. It was right. This was what I needed. “You sort out this gala on Saturday, and it’s yours.” “Already done.” She gathered up her papers and headed for the door, but stopped before she opened it. “You’ll tell them?” Just as she jerked her thumb at the window and the bustling chaos on the other side, another light stand crashed to the ground. “And please tell me I can fire Gustav.” A light shone in her eye that I remembered from when I’d hired her. I hadn’t seen it in quite some time. I smiled. “Fire away.” That turned out to be easier than I had anticipated. The solution had made itself pretty clear, and this time, I was keen enough to see it and jump on it. I wasn’t a business person, it was true, but I knew a good business decision when it

27

Moving Day sauntered into my office and presented its case in that clipped, stern voice and peered at me from those pretty brown eyes. Lidia knew her own worth and never let me forget it. As for the rest of my life, I wasn’t sure it would be that easy. With the gala out of the way, I had pretty much nothing to occupy my time for the rest of the day. I snatched up my Nikon and headed out of the office. Lidia could handle everything. I wasn’t worried about it, but I needed to think. Snapping pictures usually calmed me. Now, I couldn’t find anything worthy of the effort. I kept picturing Jay, standing in his parking lot, wrapped in his grief. I wanted to go back. I wanted to be where he was. He needed me there. However, letting Lidia plan the gala was one thing. I still had to attend. I’d come up with the idea; I had to be there if anyone I’d invited was going to be coerced into giving up their pocket change in the name of science and the greater good. All I could do was tough it out for a day and a half and go back to him when the fete was over. Under a light rain, I headed back to my apartment. I hadn’t managed to fill even a single roll of film.

28

Moving Day

Chapter Five Letting myself into my place was about the loneliest thing I’d done in a long time. Funny how, in just a week, I’d gotten accustomed to having company. I flipped on a light, but the place still felt too empty. Just as I got to the kitchen, a knock at the door gave me a start. I almost ran to open it. “Listen, Bri, if you’ve come to lecture me some more—” The sight of Jay standing on my doorstep froze the rest of my words in my throat. Since security didn’t let just anyone wander up to knock on people’s doors, I’d expected Brian. They knew him and would let him in, but then, they knew Jay too. “Hey.” “Hey yourself.” I stood back and motioned into the room. “Come in. How did you get here?” “I called a cab.” “Are you nuts?” “No.” He smiled at my eyeballs popping out of my head. It was good to see him smile. “I called Bri. You owe him one.” Smoothly, he shrugged out of his coat and hung it on a peg by the door. “I decided you were right about my needing to get out, so here I am.” “Here you are.” In my apartment. He’d been here plenty of times before. “You want coffee? Beer?” “Coffee’s fine.” He settled on a stool at the breakfast bar, and I went to the kitchen to fill the coffee pot. His silent gaze wandered over the room. “You haven’t started packing?” “Sorry?” I’d been distracted with the way his hair clung to the back of his neck. He must have stood out in the rain a few minutes before coming in. Even from a few feet, I could smell the spicy scent of his cologne. “No boxes.” He waved a hand around the room. “When’s the closing date?” “Oh!” I slapped the tap closed and put the carafe on the coffee maker. “Um. It’s...complicated.” “I knew it.” A growl of anger underlay his words, jolting my heart into my throat. “Knew what?” “You lied about selling the place.” “Why would you think—” “You’re a crap liar, Mike. Always have been.” He was right about that. “It was Brian’s idea.” I plopped the filled filter into the machine and clicked on the button. It took some effort to force my heart back where it belonged and calm the flutter of my pulse. “Why didn’t you just tell me the truth?” He leaned forward, resting his arms across the counter. “Why didn’t you just say you wanted to stay a while?” I propped myself against the sink behind me and crossed my arms over my chest. Like the slight distance and the flimsy barrier of my forearms would protect me. “I should have told you I was worried about you? That I wanted to stay and make sure you were going to be okay? That would have gone over well.”

29

Moving Day He slumped back into his seat. “If that’s the only reason you want to stay, forget it.” “You see?” I waved a hand at him. The frustration of his stubborn refusal of aid overcame my fear of his anger. “You don’t like people trying to help.” “Because I don’t need your help. If the only reason you had for staying as long as you did was to babysit me, you needn’t come back.” “Jay—” “It’s not like it’s the first time I’ve done this. I can handle it.” “It’s the first time it’s hit you this hard.” His gaze dropped. His hands twisted into a knot, and before I knew what I was doing, I had moved where I could reach to cover them with my own. The smooth skin warmed, and his hands stilled under my fingers. For a second, I forgot to breathe. “Did you think I hadn’t noticed, Jay? I never understood why you pick the guys you do, but you had to know you’d eventually fall for one of them.” Jay raised his face. His eyes shone, luminous and full of pain. “I did fall, Mickey.” He rose from his seat, and after a second of searching my face, pulled his hands out from under mine, turned away from me. “This time, I almost thought I could be happy. I bought into his dream because I thought he might be right, that there might be something left after.” His voice broke. “After what? You knew he was dying when you met him, Jay. What did you expect? Did you think living with his ghost in that godforsaken place would be enough?” “Maybe I thought there would be more time.” He sighed and sank back into the chair. “I’m so tired.” “It’s been a long few months.” I rounded the counter to be closer to him, but he shifted, shut me out with his shoulder. “Bri and I will help you any way we can. You know that.” “I already told you.” He stood and went to the hooks where he’d hung his jacket. “I don’t need your help.” “Then what do you need?” I wanted to make him stay and talk to me, but I was moving in slow motion. He’d already shrugged back into the coat and now he looked at me again, with that same, searching expression on his face that made me want to take him in my arms. “You should know.” He reached and opened the door. He was halfway out before he turned and spoke again. “If you don’t then it doesn’t matter. You can’t give it to me.” Out in the hallway, he stopped and smiled, but it was that same sad smile that he’d been tearing my heart out with all week. “I’ll get Bri to bring your stuff back for you on Monday. You must have things to do. You don’t have to look after me. I’ll be fine.” He patted me on the shoulder, stretched his lips up at the corners a little bit farther, but didn’t for a second give me any reason to think he’d be alright by himself. “Jay, you should stay here for tonight.” “Brian and Pat are expecting me.” He turned toward the elevator and spoke over his shoulder. “I’ll call you.” The elevator dinged, the door opened. Jay got inside and was gone. Like a fool, I let him go. He didn’t call when he got to Brian’s, and I told myself I hadn’t expected him to. He didn’t call the next day, and when I phoned, Pat said

30

Moving Day he and Brian had gone out to a meeting with a carpenter from Vernon. I assumed she meant Richard. “When are they coming back?” “Brian’s staying out there tonight.” Her words were to the point, but her voice suggested this was something she was less than pleased about. “He says he wants to get an early start since he’s got a meeting here in town in the afternoon.” “Pat?” “He expected you to show up with Jay today. What happened?” “Nothing.” “Hmm.” “We had coffee. Talked.” “About?” “The weather.” I rolled a corner of the notepad by the phone under my finger. “About nothing. We talked about nothing.” The top sheet of the notepad crumpled under my fingers. “Let Bri know I don’t need him for the gala. I’m going with Lidia.” “A date?” “Your business?” She harrumphed again. “I’ll let him know, though really, Mike, you should have taken Jay. He needs to get out.” “We need some time.” I needed time. Jay had practically asked me how I felt about him, and I’d brushed it off. I needed time to figure out why and to think of a way to make it up to him. Subjecting him to a black tie charity gala to raise money for the disease that had killed his lover was likely not the best way to do that. Not with his loss so fresh. Pat let out a breath. “I hate seeing him like this.” “I know. It’s new still. We have to give him time. It hasn’t been very long, and he was really invested in this one.” “You make it sound like Darren was some sort of business proposition. A deal gone bad.” I didn’t respond. “You didn’t like him much, did you?” “Not that I didn’t like him. I liked him fine, as a person.” “Just not as a partner for Jay.” “He should have left Jay alone. He had no right to make him think they had a future, when he knew perfectly well he’d be dead before they really got started.” “He never let Jay believe anything but the truth. Jay always knew how sick he was, how much time he had. You just don’t want to admit that it hurts to know Jay risked this heartache to be with him even for that short a time, that yes, he invested, knowing he was going to lose his heart. You hate that he did that for some random guy, however nice, and not for you.” “I don’t think—” I glared at the phone, gathered my fragmented calm, and placed the instrument back to my ear. “I don’t think it should have been Darren. I think he should have been more careful. Is that so surprising?” “No, honey. It’s not.” She relented with grace. Or, I thought for a second that she did. “But there will be an endless line of Darrens until you tell him, point blank, you don’t want him. You’re the one who keeps him hanging on, and he’ll get more and more careless until he ends up dead too. Is that what you want?” “Pat, give Brian the message, will you, please?”

31

Moving Day I took the phone away from my ear, pressed the hang up, and gently set it down on the table. And glared at it for a long time, seething. Is that what they thought? That I was stringing him along? I wasn’t. He needed time to get over Darren. I needed time to get my life in order. Once I figured I could speak to another human being without snapping their head off, I called Lidia. Thankfully, she hadn’t thought to invite anyone to go with her to the fundraiser and agreed to accompany me. I picked her up at her smart, tidy brownstone. Seeing her every day in casual office attire didn’t prepare me for the vision she became in an evening dress. “Well.” I grinned at her. “You look spectacular.” She smiled, preening. “Didn’t think you’d notice.” “Oh,” my gaze travelled down her very shapely legs again, “I noticed. How could I not? Look at you!” My comment was rewarded. Her big brown eyes widened, and her smile turned shy. “I thought you were....” “Gay?” She nodded. “Not exactly.” I held out my arm. “Shall we? The car is across the street.” “Okay.” She took my arm and minced around the puddles, and I opened the car door for her, waited and closed it again once she was settled safely inside. The gala was well underway when we got there. Many art lovers had already arrived, and half the work had been snapped up. One of my very favourite pieces by a talented photographer who was probably leaving the studio soon, to go out on his own, had become the object of an impromptu bidding war. The price escalated as Lidia and I entered the gallery. “I knew that one should have been priced higher,” she whispered to me, standing on her toes to reach my ear. Her hair wafted around my face, fragrant and soft against my cheek. She wobbled, and I put a hand on her elbow to steady her, receiving a grateful smile in return. A little shock of surprise sizzled through me when she folded her fingers over mine and held my hand there. We watched the fiasco a little while longer. At last, one of the bidders dropped out, and the proud new owner approached me. “That was considerably more than I had expected to spend, Michael,” he told me, a genial smile on his face. “George, I can’t tell you how much your generosity will mean to the hospital.” “I know.” His smile dipped a tiny fraction. “I would spend a great deal more to find a real cure. To have had it ten years ago.” Pale blue eyes met mine, and I saw the same thing there I’d seen in Jay’s just that afternoon. God, I didn’t want Jay to still carry that sadness ten years from now. “So,” George straightened and turned to Lidia, “I understand we have you to thank for this wonderful party, my dear. And then you make Michael look the luckiest man in the room walking in on his arm.” Lidia didn’t blush. I loved that she didn’t blush, but just nodded and accepted the compliments graciously. “Thank you, Mr. Conway. The gala looks like it’s going to be a tremendous success. We all worked hard.” She squeezed my arm, including me in the we, though all I’d really done was have the idea and dump the work on her shoulders.

32

Moving Day She was right, of course. The fundraiser brought in more money than I’d dared hope, and everyone seemed to enjoy themselves. Nothing went terribly wrong, no fires to put out, and I was graced with Lidia’s charming company the entire night. “We should celebrate,” she said as we finally left the building to the cleaning crew. “Did you have something in mind?” She had her arm linked through mine, and I honestly wasn’t ready to give up her company quite yet. “There’s a bar down near your place. It’s classy enough for these get ups.” She ran a hand down the sheer material of her dress. “Want to go get a drink?” “Sure. That sounds like an excellent idea.” I’d refrained all night, eschewing the champagne for sparkling water, just in case. I was ready to relax a bit and loosen my tie. It seemed like a good idea to leave the car at my building and walk down to the bar. The night retained the warmth of the day, and it wasn’t very far. The place was quiet, the music good, and the house wine better than average. I might have had a few too many glasses, because when she suggested we walk back to my place, I agreed. At the door to my building, she stopped. “Now what?” Her question drifted up to where I stood, already halfway up the steps. She waited for my answer on the sidewalk. “How far should we be taking this partner business?” Her wicked little smile cleaved through straight to my groin. “Uhh.” I retreated back down to her. “I—” “Relax.” Her fingers tripped up my shirtfront to my lips. “No pressure.” Rising up on her tiptoes, she replaced her fingers with her lips. She tasted sweeter than the wine we’d been drinking. Her warm fingers snuck around the back of my head, and I didn’t hesitate at the feel of her tongue licking along my lips. I opened my mouth and let her in, wrapping my arms around her tiny waist. Many minutes passed before she broke away to speak. “Does this mean I can come up?” I tugged her closer, revelling in her soft warmth and sultry female scent. “Lid....” I closed my eyes, breathing her in, but when I imagined a warm body next to me in bed, it wasn’t her. I dropped my head a little, hiding my face in her hair. A tiny sigh escaped her, and I felt pressure against my arms holding her close. “I thought not.” I had to let her go. Disappointment touched her features, but thankfully, nothing worse. “You are a beautiful woman.” I traced her jaw with my fingers. “I would love you to come up.” “But?” Her gaze didn’t waver. Nor did my heart. “There’s this guy.” She nodded. “I figured as much. You’ve been worried about him for weeks.” She took my hand away from her face and smiled. “If you care about him that much, shouldn’t you be doing something about it?” “You’re not mad?” She kissed my knuckles and dropped my hand. “You’re a wonderful kisser, and I’d love the company, but I get the feeling you’re a one-at-a-time kind of guy.” I

33

Moving Day nodded. “That’s a good thing, Michael. He’s lucky, your Jay. I hope he knows that.” I wish I’d given him more reason to believe it. “I’d drive you home, but...want me to call you cab?”

34

Moving Day

Chapter Six Sunday, I stayed in, lay awake in my bed well after the sun came up, and stared at the plain white ceiling. I missed the sound of Jay breathing next to me, the whirr of speeding traffic on the highway that spoke to me of people going places. Traffic in the city was different. Honking horns and the constant rumble of idling engines only cried standstill. That was my life, I realized. For years, it had been, even before Darren. I’d been standing still. Now, I wanted something different, something more. Having made the decision, I wasn’t sure what to do about it. Jay had said he’d call, but the way he’d said it.... I tossed back the covers, grabbed my cell, and started making my own calls. First, the real estate agent. They always worked Sundays. “Hello?” Her phone crackled with bad connection. “I’m just on the bypass. Can you call back?” “Sure, but it’s important.” I didn’t even know if she knew who I was, and the high buzz of static in my ear blurred out her next words. “...voice mail. I’ll...you back.” The line silenced. When I redialled, I was shunted straight to her voice mail. I left her a message to return my call and headed for the shower. Hot water washed away the last of my reservations. I had an office manager, I’d made the call to get rid of the condo I didn’t like anyway, and had a firm picture in my mind of some sort of domestic bliss painting and hammering and snapping photos with Jay at my side. By the time I’d rinsed the suds away, I was humming. I took my time dressing, making my bed, fixing coffee, but eventually, I had nothing left to do. I wanted to wait for him to contact me, but I knew what I had to say. I shouldn’t leave him to think maybe I would never say it. What if he made some other arrangements, with someone he could love, who wasn’t going to die on him? Or worse, dither about making up his mind on something this simple and obvious. I sat at my dining table, coffee cup and phone in front of me, and drew in a deep breath. There was no point waiting. I knew what I wanted. I called. His phone rang once, twice, and then someone knocked on my door. “You have got to be kidding me.” I thought about hanging up and trying again after I got rid of whoever was standing out in the hallway, but decided a hang up would only make my case harder. As the phone rang a third and a fourth time, I opened the door. Jay stood in the hallway, a frown on his face as he peered at the screen on his cell. He turned it off, and the ringing in my ear stopped. “Hey.” His expression was bland. “Hi.” No move to come in. “You came back.” “I wasn’t going to. I don’t really know why I did.” Finally, I unstuck my feet from the tiles and moved to let him in. Still, he stood on the threshold, his hands in his pockets while I held my apartment door open and watched his thoughts flit across his face. He didn’t want to take a chance. I

35

Moving Day saw him decide against coming in. I knew the moment before he turned that he was going to, and I reached for him. “Don’t.” “I can’t.” “Please. Let’s just—” “Talk about it?” He shook his head and gently pried my tight grip from his arm. “I already said everything I had to say. You didn’t have much of a reply.” “I was surprised. I—” His lips tightened. He didn’t want my excuses. The elevator opened, and my neighbour, Melody, and her daughter stepped out. Jay glanced at the open doors. I was out of time and out of ideas but one. I yanked his attention from the elevator by grabbing the front of his coat and pulling him close enough to kiss. For a split second of frozen hesitation, I thought I’d made a mistake, but then he kissed me back. It was a long kiss, sloppy and imperfect. I’d been saving it up for a lot of years and was too frantic to do it right. Finally, he gave me a little push, but I held on to him, my hands tightening on his clothing, instinctive refusal to let him go forming tight fists of my fingers. “Mickey, they’re staring.” “So?” I lowered my face until his breath ruffled the hair on top of my head. Slight pressure, a kiss against my hair, and one hand, warm and reassuring on the side of my head gave me enough courage to look at him. The pant of his breath on my face, the way the fingers of his other hand gripped mine where they tangled in his jacket, intoxicated me. His smile, as it finally touched his eyes, lit a fire in me. I wanted to swing him around, pin him against the wall, kiss him hard, but I just extricated a hand and tucked it behind his neck. “Please stay.” The husky plea surprised us both. In an instant, the smile vanished. “I can’t.” “What? Can’t what?” I dropped my hands, took a step back. I couldn’t help a glance around as Melody hurried her daughter past, a look of sympathy glancing off the brittle silence before Jay’s response. “This has to be real, Mickey, or it will kill me. I could stand it when the others left, but not you.” “Where would I go?” I forced myself through the cold barrier of fear to take his hand. “How long have we known each other? And I’ve always been there.” It was easier with every inch, to get close to him again. The panic that he would shut me out receded. “I’m not going anywhere.” I kissed him again, less fiercely this time, more tenderly, because I could taste his uncertainty. He was hurting. I did have to be careful, but I loved him. It didn’t all have to happen in one afternoon. “Just come inside. Have some coffee. Stay at Brian’s if you want. Just don’t go yet.” I touched his cheek, and he turned his head to kiss my thumb. I knew him well enough to know he wasn’t ready. I also knew, if I didn’t put it out there, he’d walk away and I wouldn’t get another chance. He could grieve as long as he had to. I’d met Darren. I knew there was a lot to love about the guy even if I hadn’t liked him much. But then, I’d been insanely jealous and furious that it was Jay’s heart getting broken, so I’d had my reasons.

36

Moving Day “Come here.” I pulled him close. It was the first time I’d hugged him in years. Through the warmth and solidity, he shook. I gathered him up under my arm and led him back inside. The door clicked solidly shut behind us, and he glanced over his shoulder at it then looked up at me. His smile wavered. “I gave up on you so long ago,” he whispered. “I decided it wasn’t ever going to happen.” He touched my face with soft artist’s fingers, running them down my cheek and across my jaw. “Darren told me to be patient with you. That you’d figure it out. I’m glad I listened to him.” “He told you that?” Jay nodded. “I thought he loved you.” “He did. But he was dying. We both knew that.” Tears filled his eyes again. “I used to think how unfair it was that I met him so late, that I didn’t know him before, when he was healthy. He was so much like you. Easy to love, and we could have done so much more together. But he reminded me what I was really waiting for.” Jay leaned his head against my chest, and I thought I heard his breath hitch. “It was nice,” he said after a minute, “once he realized how I felt and we stopped arguing about it. He let me keep loving you while I was with him. He didn’t take that away or begrudge it.” “Because he knew he’d have to leave you alone,” I reminded him. We both heard the anger in my voice, and Jay lifted his head. “But he didn’t, did he? I have you.” “You always have had. Long before he came along.” “And for a while, I had him too.” “Well.” I ground him in a tight, tight hug, and buried my face in his hair. He smelled of rain and of wood dust and old, empty houses, of spicy aftershave, and damp leather. “Don’t think I’m going to be sharing from here on.” He didn’t go back to Brian’s that night. We spent the afternoon with old James Bond movies, a bit of reminiscing, and cuddling that threatened to turn into more if I wasn’t careful. I’d never had so much trouble keeping my hands to myself. Goldfinger ended with both of us comfortably ensconced on the couch, our feet entangled on the table. “Is this weird?” Jay squirmed to look up at me from where his head rested on my chest. “Or is it weird that it doesn’t seem weird?” “What?” “Shouldn’t this feel....” “No.” I wrapped my arm around him a little tighter. “I’ve wanted this a long time.” Easy to admit it now, for whatever reason, and the admission earned me one of Jay’s deep smiles that darkened the blue of his eyes and transformed his face. “Jay....” My jeans were too tight. My heart hammered, and I wanted him. “We should...,” his smile faded, “call it a night, maybe. Brian is picking me up early, and you probably have a lot to do tomorrow.” I nodded. That was for the best. My head knew that, even my heart. I didn’t want to rush him. My body, on the other hand.... “Yeah.” I shifted, and he got up, leaving me instantly cold. “I’ll sleep on the couch.” I’d barely opened my mouth to ask the question. “Uh, sure.”

37

Moving Day “That okay?” The concern in his voice smacked me in the face. He was worried about me when it should be the other way around. “Of course it is. I’ll get sheets and blankets. I think I probably have track pants or something if you want.” “Too hot.” He peeled his sweatshirt off and patted his jeans pockets, drawing out his wallet and keys. “Boxers are fine.” “God, Jay.” “What?” He glanced up, his white t-shirt stretched across his chest, his bare feet sticking from his cuffs, and his face a mask of confusion. “Nothing.” I could strangle him. If I could breathe myself. Trying not to make my discomfort obvious, I waddled off to the linen closet for bedding. The next week slipped past in a blur with me trying to be in too many places at once, but it snapped back into focus Saturday morning when I woke groggy and befuddled to the smell of coffee brewing and the sound of talk radio issuing faintly from the kitchen. For a few minutes, I basked in the idea of not waking up to an empty apartment. Jay had spent only one night in his house before Brian banished him until it wasn’t quite so hard on his allergies. To make the work go faster, Jay had agreed to hire Richard after all, because he could be there every day, where Brian had other jobs on the go. So Jay resided on my couch, on the other side of my bedroom door, by his choice. I left it open every night. He never took the invitation. Still, the fact we slept under the same roof wrapped me up, warm, satisfied, and safe. I slipped out of bed and wandered out to the main room. He was sitting at my dining table in his pyjamas. A cup of coffee cooled near his elbow. Charcoal smudged his cheek and covered his fingers, and sketches lay like fallen leaves around his feet, on the other three chairs, across the tabletop. He didn’t look up, so I leaned on the doorframe to watch. On the page in front of him a face came to life under his pencil. He’d moved on from the charcoal. I recognized the gaunt planes of Darren’s face, his cleft chin, and pale eyes. His short, light hair had thinned to wisps by the end, and Jay had let it form a kind of disappearing halo around his head. Still, it didn’t make him look angelic. Just frail. The portrait could have been a heartbreaking one if not for the eyes. Darren might have conceded to death, but he had never given up living, and it showed in Jay’s memory of him. Resisting the urge to crawl back into bed, I tiptoed past Jay to the kitchen and poured myself some coffee. As I passed him again, he reached out and touched my arm but didn’t look up. I continued on to the bathroom, then to my darkroom. There, I could close the door and not be shutting him out. I had work to do, and I made myself do it rather than sit and stare into the dark, or acknowledge that a little graphite on paper constricted my chest until I could barely breathe. An hour and a half later, with all the film developed and no more excuse, I conceded to the unease and lost myself for a bit in the red glow. My uncomfortable stool and empty mug finally dragged me out of the funk. I didn’t want to interrupt Jay, but I couldn’t just sit in the dark. Besides, I wanted more coffee. And, I wanted him not to be sitting in my home drawing loving portraits of his dead ex.

38

Moving Day With a sigh, I picked up my empty cup. Just as I put my hand on the doorknob, there was a soft knock. I paused a minute, took a breath, and opened the door. On the other side, Jay smiled up at me, a fresh, steaming cup in his hand, fully dressed and looking happier than I’d seen him in weeks. “Sorry about that. I just got….” He waved his hand in the air. “Had an idea.” “I saw.” His smile faltered, but he managed to hold onto it while I swore at myself in my head. I took the cup and hid the fact I couldn’t quite smile back by sipping from it. By the time I lowered it, I could look him in the eye, tell him it was a fantastic portrait and almost mean it. “Thanks. I thought you might be mad....” “No.” This time the fake smile came easier. “No. Just surprised to see you working so hard. I didn’t want to disturb you.” “Thanks.” He glanced past me. “You get everything done?” I nodded. “Good. Come on.” He hooked his hand into my elbow and towed me from the room. “I’m taking you to breakfast, then shopping. Lidia seems to think you’ll need a reliable car. We’re going looking for leases.” “A car?” He hurried down the hall to my room ahead of me, his head down. “We’ll just look today. Once you decide what you’re going to do—” “Wait, Jay.” He stopped. His hand came up to touch the wall beside him, just his fingertips brushing the smooth surface. He didn’t turn around. “I’ve already decided.” “You have?” His hand flattened out against pale blue paint. Sunlight from the bathroom window crossed the hall and lightened the hairs along his arm, picked out the tiny scar near his wrist and highlighted the way the tendons stood out on the back of his hand. Still, he kept his back to me. “Yes.” I touched his hand, laced my fingers between his. “I have. I lied about selling this place, the first time, but I’ve called an agent. I’ll get it listed. Furniture and all. Lidia’s right. I’m going to need something to commute.” His fingers curled away from the wall, and his arm fell, my hand and fingers intertwined with his. I had to move closer, until my chest brushed against his shoulder blades and the sun fell across my face. “What about your darkroom?” “We’ll figure it out.” I already knew there was a room off the kitchen of his defunct restaurant that would suit, but it was too soon to suggest altering what had been Darren’s to fit my needs. His bout of inspiration that morning was proof of that. To my relief, he finally turned. “Okay, then. Go shower.” He gave me a little shove toward the bathroom. “Change, and let’s go. I’m starving.”

39

Moving Day

Chapter Seven And so our days went. It was a relief, in a way, to be back in the city for a little while. As long as we still had the apartment, there was no reason to camp out in his half-demolished house. Brian kept us well apprised of his progress, and the less Jay had to breathe the dust and depression floating about the place, the better. Soon enough, I knew, we’d have to go back. I hoped by the time I sold the condo, Brian would have at least finished the dry-walling and priming. Three weeks passed. Jay divided his time between long evenings at the house and hours upon hours in my dining room-cum-studio. He had commissions to work on, and the light there was good. I was happy to have him close. I spent the time acclimatizing my staff to the change in command and getting used to the idea that I could carry my camera around again and actually find the inspiration to use it. I used it on Jay a lot. Most times, he knew. He would sit in front of his canvases, ear buds in place, and a tiny smile lifting his lips to tell me he knew I was snapping frame after frame of him working. Once, so engrossed in his work was he, he had no idea I was even there. With mid-afternoon sun streaming in the window, I didn’t need a flash. He’d turned his easel to face the window, so this time, the camera captured only the back of the canvas, but I finally got a clear shot of his face. This was a side of Jay I had never been privy to before. It reminded me of that first morning when he’d sat at my table and drew pictures of Darren from memory, only a hundred times more intense. I snapped a few pictures, shifted a few feet, and snapped a few more, but the camera got in the way and I found myself just watching. A smear of bright blue paint crossed his cheekbone and highlighted the strands of hair tucked behind his ear. Paint covered his fingers as well, but his eyes galvanized my attention. They grazed across the surface, following his brush, flicking over the plane of paint and linen like over the skin of a lover. I’d never seen him so intent. The way he gazed at the canvas turned my knees weak, dried my mouth. I don’t think I’d ever wanted him more. Then he glanced up. I felt like I’d been caught masturbating. Or that I’d been watching him at it. He turned red, and my own face heated. “Mickey. I thought you were...out.” The red flushed away to pale. He looked away at the painting, then not quite back at me, and I knew he had to be working on another portrait of Darren. He didn’t get that way painting pictures of strangers from photo references. “I was.” Glancing around, I spotted a film canister on the counter and snatched it up. “Came back for this. Don’t let me interrupt.” I held up my hand, camera and all, with its dangling lens cap, and backed to the door. Without waiting for him to respond, I made a run for it, dashing out and down to the corner of the hallway where I could melt against the wall and he couldn’t see me if he came out. “Unbelievable.” I muttered at myself, gathering my wits enough to stand straight, walk the four feet to the elevator, and punch the button. “Not like you didn’t know.” Didn’t know what? That he’s that attractive, or that his attachment to Darren hurts this much? 40

Moving Day I’d promised him I wouldn’t walk, but how long could I stand being this close and not touching? How long could I possibly wait for him when I wanted him this much and I couldn’t have him? The elevator chimed, and the doors opened. I thought, as I stepped inside, that I heard the apartment door open, but then I was closed inside the metal box and whisked down to the lobby. A little fresh air would do me some good, anyway. I stayed away much longer than normal. It’s amazing how many fascinating things there are to capture on film when the alternative is confrontation. That I would normally seek Jay out and confide in him, ask his opinion on what to do, didn’t help my mood much. After listening to my ring tone four or five times, I screwed up my courage and answered. “Hey.” Jay’s voice sounded small on the other end. I tried to blame a poor connection. “You coming home?” Him calling my place home shot a spear of something poisonously alluring into me, almost distracting me. “You finished working?” Residual embarrassment and anger at my own waffling emotions warped that last word into an accusation he couldn’t have missed. “It wasn’t work.” Having that suspicion confirmed twisted knots around my gut. “It was something else, but you knew that, didn’t you? That why you took off?” His voice hardened ever so slightly. “It’s one thing to acknowledge you miss him, Jay. Something else to watch you practically making love to his memory. I’ll come home when I come home.” I flipped the phone closed and jammed it back in my pocket. It rang again almost immediately. I pulled it out and turned it off. After that, I couldn’t even force myself to lift the camera. All the joy had leached out of the activity as I tried to explain to my ego how incredibly unfair that had been. But I couldn’t bring myself to call him back. So I sat at a tiny round table in Starbucks and watched the people clear out of their office buildings and head home. In my mind, they all had people waiting who wanted them and not some ghost of love, or worse, a dream of a man who couldn’t let go of that ghost. The noise of rush hour traffic sped past outside the window, and I nursed a cold latte until the barista finally kicked me out. When I got home, I somehow knew, before I opened the door, that he’d gone. The apartment was dark, like it hadn’t been in weeks, and silent. I almost didn’t turn on the light, but I missed the hook and dropped my coat to the floor, so I had to. In the center of the living room was Jay’s easel and a half-finished portrait. Of me. I knew it was the same canvas he’d been working on that afternoon. I recognized the size and shape of it and the clear blue paint that had been smudged across his cheek. He’d used it in the sheets draped over my torso as I lay sleeping. He must have sketched the idea on one of the many mornings I’d slept later than him. It was a pretty accurate portrayal, although I looked a lot calmer, more peaceful than I’d actually felt in ages. I dug out my cell and pressed his number. Not surprisingly, it went straight to voice mail.

41

Moving Day “Jay. I don’t know what to say. I mean, besides that I’m sorry.” I went over and touched the canvas. The oil paint was still wet, and a bit of blue stained my fingertip. “And I wish I looked this good. Jay, I—” The words crowded to the tip of my tongue but refused to fall. “I’m sorry.” Not what I should have said. Not what I wanted to say. I hung up. He didn’t call me back. He didn’t come home. I called Brian, and one of his kids answered the phone. When she realized it was me, she sing-songed down the line, “You’re in trouble!” The phone crackled, and a furious voice assailed me. “He was here.” Pat. “Brian’s taking him home and checking on the house. You should just leave him be.” She hung up on me. I called back and got their answering machine. I apologized again, not that it would do any good. Pat was fiercely protective. She would just erase it, and I didn’t blame her. Days passed, and the only call I got was from the real estate agent. I almost hesitated, but in the end, I still wanted one thing. Three days of silence only made me want it more, but I knew I had to prove it to him. I told her to come by and look the place over. She came the next day, we settled at the table, and talked about a list price, the market, and what needed improvement. Finally, she addressed the actual showing. “If there’s someplace you can stay for a few days, that might be better. We can clean the place up,” she glanced at my portrait, still sitting on its easel in the middle of the dining room, “clear out some of the art and furniture, and make it a little more generic.” “Less bachelor?” “Less,” she made quotes with her fingers, “gay-couple-lives-here.” Her hands dropped to the tabletop to busily shuffle papers. “It isn’t really a gay neighbourhood, and we don’t want to give the impression it is. Let’s face it. You’re a minority, and we want the best possible chance to sell as quickly as we can. Am I right?” For a moment I just stared at her, wondering if she had any clue how many insults she’d just flung at me. But Brian swore she was good, that she got results, and right now, that’s what I wanted, so instead of popping her heterocentric bubble, I just nodded. “Right. Only there’s no place I can go, so schedule the visits for the day when I’m at work if you can, and give me a heads up when you can’t. I’ll make myself scarce.” “And the art?” “I’ll deal with it. What furniture needs to go?” We made lists of what to get rid of, what to move, what to replace, and what was missing. I could call and leave a message on Brian’s machine. Pat would give it to him, and he would come by with a truck and a few pairs of hands. He might be mad at me for screwing up, but he wouldn’t desert me. The hardest part was clearing out Jay’s painting supplies. Sooner or later, I knew he would need them, and since he still wasn’t talking to me, I could only assume he wouldn’t be using them here. He was probably working on fixing up his studio in the house I had promised to help him renovate. Now, someone else was helping him, and it was just another black mark against me.

42

Moving Day Brian actually came himself, two days later, to help with the furniture. The first thing out of my mouth when I saw him jump from the cab of the truck was about Jay. He handed me a cup of coffee and shut me down. “I am not a middle man. You want to know how he is, ask him.” “He won’t take my calls, Bri.” I opened the steaming drink and sipped. “I’ve left enough messages to qualify as stalking, and he hasn’t called me back. Hell, Pat still isn’t speaking to me.” “Because you’re a jerk.” “Thanks.” He wrapped an arm around my shoulders and gave me rough hug. “You know I mean that in the best possible way. Pat will come around.” He released me and held the door open as we entered the building. “That’s nice to know, but she’s your wife. I don’t really care as much about that.” The elevator dinged, opened, and we got on. “But don’t tell her I said that.” He smiled. “She knows. She loves you anyway.” “Again....” “And so does he, Mike. He’s hurt. You hurt him.” I closed my eyes and sighed. “And I’m sorry if you don’t want to hear it, but the truth is the truth.” We had exited the elevator, and I let us into the apartment. “Holy shit,” Brian breathed the words. “Damn, Mike, if that isn’t truth, I don’t know what is.” “I know.” Miserable, I perched on the edge of the table. “You have to help me.” “I can’t keep you from opening your big mouth, my friend.” He was still gazing at the painting. It was a little disconcerting, given it was a naked portrait of me. “Bri.” I snapped my fingers. “Focus.” “Oh, believe me, it’s hard not to.” Heat exploded up my neck into my cheeks when he turned and grinned. “Really hard.” He gave a little squirm of his hips and tugged at his jeans. “Oh, for christsake!” He actually laughed, shrugged, and didn’t apologize for the obvious bulge in his pants. “Only because I know what you can do with it.” “Brian!” “Just saying.” At last, he turned his back on the painting and gave me his full attention. “If you want him, you have to go to him.” “Can I borrow your truck?” He lifted an eyebrow at me and crossed his arms over his chest. “Please.” With a little shake and a tinier sigh, he dug his keys from his pocket. “Do not screw this up.” I held out my hand, and he placed the keys in my palm, but didn’t let them go. “I mean it, Mike. There’s only so many times you can chase him away, and I fear you might be running out of chances with him. I don’t want to see either one of you miserable.” “Thanks.” He left me the keys and hailed a cab back to his office, which was when I noticed he hadn’t brought any help. That made me smile and be grateful for friends who knew me better than I knew myself.

43

Moving Day On the ride out, I rehearsed a hundred times what I would say. It always came back to five short words. “I love you.” And “I’m sorry.” I could only hope it would be enough.

44

Moving Day

Chapter Eight All the lights were on inside when I arrived. It was the first thing I noticed. The boards had come down from the restaurant windows, giving me a little twinge of disappointment I hadn’t been there to witness it. Inside, bright lights reflected off long, empty white walls. The second thing I noticed was the strange truck in the parking lot. I pulled up beside it and got out. I marched straight to the door and knocked, leaving myself no time to think about it, or to chicken out. Around me, the night sounds of sparse traffic and humming crickets got louder as I waited. Finally, I heard footsteps, a male voice calling words I couldn’t make out, but that quickened my pulse and made my palms sweat. The door flung open. “Mike!” Richard stood in the doorway, backlit by the hallway light and naked to the waist. “Hi.” He stepped back to let me in, but I stood frozen to the bare slab of concrete. My speeding heart thudded to a halt. Nerves drained away into my shoes, replaced by anger I couldn’t see through. “Rich?” Jay’s voice tumbled down the stairs ahead of him, warm tones barrelling into me. “Is that pizza already? Money’s in the kitchen.” He stopped halfway down the stairs. “Mickey.” One towel draped low around his waist, and another over his shoulders. He’d been drying his hair, but he stopped, as frozen as I. “What are you doing here?” “You wouldn’t take my calls.” The words slid out, dull, flat, grey. “I see why now.” Him having someone else hadn’t even entered my thought process. “Sorry.” “Mike, I should explain.” Richard opened the door a little wider, as if that would entice me inside. His broad, bare shoulders soaked up the light from the hallway, cast a shadow over me out on the porch. “No.” The shadow shifted, falling across my face, and I looked up at him. “I don’t think I want to know.” “Mickey, don’t be an ass.” Jay trotted down the remaining steps toward us. “What the hell, Jay?” I pushed my gaze past Richard to better glare at Jay. “Are you out of your mind?” I pointed an accusing finger in Richard’s general direction. “He’s married. With kids, for God’s sake!” “Listen.” Richard approached, but I whirled on him. “You shut up! You have no right!” “Mike!” Jay glared at me. “And I suppose you think you do?” Richard asked, his voice low and calm. “You can’t commit, so no one gets him?” “Richard, please.” Jay’s warning came too late to stop my fist. Richard staggered under the blow, almost went down, but caught himself on the wall. Blood seeped from his lip, and he glared at me, his own fists balled tight, brown eyes bright. “Mike.” Jay stepped between us. “You should go.” “Jay.” “Just go.” “Don’t do this again.” “Get out of my house.” He swept past me to Richard. “Just let me—” 45

Moving Day “Get out!” He whirled, one shaking finger pointed at the door. His chest heaved, his eyes blazed. “You—” He had to take a deep breath, and even then he just glared. “Before you do any more damage, Mike, just leave.” His arm dropped, and he turned back to Richard. “I’ll get some ice.” He padded away from me without looking back. Richard straightened and set himself between me and the kitchen door. “I don’t want a fight.” I snorted, thought of a dozen things to say about what he did want, but couldn’t say any of it, because it all applied to Jay, and I couldn’t insult him like that. I’d had my chance. I’d blown it. I slunk out the door. It closed softly behind me. The porch light clicked out. I could do nothing but get back in the truck and drive home with my tail between my legs. I’d lost him. There was no way I was winning him back from this one. Part of me was too hurt to want him back if he was willing to give up on me that fast. I hadn’t ever imagined losing him. Now I had, my thoughts lingered on the little things. Eating burgers by candlelight and listening to him sleeping next to me on the floor of a dark room; the way he didn’t notice when he’d smudged charcoal across his face. Memories I didn’t have enough of sifted through my mind. I wanted more of them, but he was making them with someone else. Instead of going home to The Painting and all it represented, all I’d lost, I headed for downtown and a bar, any bar, where no one would know me. I parked Brian’s truck under a bright light and went inside where I proceeded to get blistering drunk. “Buddy, this is it.” The bartender plunked a shot glass down in front of me. It took a minute to work my way through the memories I hadn’t succeeded in drowning to look up at him. His deep voice bounced around painfully in my head. “Anything else I serve you tonight is coming in a mug, got it?” “It isn’t lass call yet.” “It is for you.” He held out a hand. “Keys.” “What?” “Your keys. I’ll call you a cab, or you can call a friend. If you have any. You aren’t driving, and you aren’t leaving here with your keys.” He pointed to the till. “You can come get ’em in the morning. Eleven. Now hand ’em over.” “Gimme your phone.” He just looked at me. “Please.” He handed over the receiver, and I dialled Brian. “Hello?” Pat sounded severely stressed and distracted. I’d only heard that tight, nasal pitch of her voice the time Brian had been working out of town and got stuck in a snow storm. He’d stopped to wait it out, but couldn’t get through on the phone to let her know. We’d both sat in her kitchen all night, waiting and worrying. “’Lo, Pat.” “Mike?” “Jesus, Mike!” Brian’s voice cracked into my head. “Where the hell are you?” “Ummmm.” I fumbled across the bar for a pack of matches and squinted at the cover. “Dee’s Sport’s Bar, on, ummm….” I glanced at the bartender. “Jarvis.”

46

Moving Day “Jarvish. You know it?” “No, but I’ll find it. Sit tight. Asshole.” He hung up, and I blinked at the buzzing receiver. The bartender pried it out of my hand and set it back in the cradle. “You gonna drink that?” I looked at the jigger of scotch, shook my head. “No.” “You’re still payin’ for it.” But he scooped it away before I could change my mind and replaced it with a cup of black coffee. “On the house.” “Gee, thanks.” I was on my second cup when Brian stormed in. “Give me my keys.” I handed them to him, and he tossed them behind him to where one of the twins waited. “Come on. You pay your tab?” I nodded, and he dragged me out the door. Not a word passed between us as he bundled me into his car and slammed the door, came around to the driver’s side and got in. Then he sat there, keys in his hand, staring at the wheel. “What the hell, Mike? You had everything you wanted. Right there in your apartment, for weeks. And you still blew it.” “He was with Richard! The asshole’s married!” “Richard was borrowing his shower. He painted the studio and wanted to take his wife out for their anniversary. He was trying to surprise her. Good job helping him out there. I’m sure she wasn’t expecting the fat lip.” He stuck the keys in the ignition and gave them a vicious twist. The engine came alive, and he peeled out of the parking lot. “I didn’t know,” I ventured finally, after deep, black silence had settled around us. “Of course you didn’t, because you’re an idiot.” The city lights sped past outside, random and chaotic. Brian’s voice buzzed on, keeping me from drifting off into the swirling brightness. “You never stop to think, to figure out what’s really going on before you blow everything out of the water. If you didn’t have friends around who care enough to save you from yourself, God help you.” “Where are you going? Take me home.” He’d pulled off the main drag onto a feeder lane and from there onto the highway. “Where are you going?” “You’re going back to apologize and fix this. I’m not letting you screw it up again. You’ve got an hour to sober up and figure out how you’re going to get him to forgive you. Now shut up. I don’t want to talk to you.” Thin strains of jazz trickled through the car, not even substantial enough to cover his silent anger. My mind spun around the information Brian had just delivered, and Jay’s hurt reaction fell into place. I’d imagined him protecting a new, vile boyfriend, and he’d only been protecting his own crushed feelings because I’d accused him of being faithless. Brian was right. I’d completely fucked everything up. Twice, now, and there was no reason for Jay to give me a third chance. I must have dozed, because we were pulling into Jay’s yard long before I was really ready. Brian parked near the door, set the car in park, and looked at me. “I should kick you out and leave you here. Serve you right if he doesn’t let you back in and you have to sleep in the lot.” I didn’t say anything.

47

Moving Day He sighed and turned off the engine. “I know you’re scared, Mike, but you love him, right?” I nodded. “If you don’t make this right,” Brian said, words softening, “he’s out of your life forever. You know that, don’t you?” “I know.” That thought hollowed me out inside. “I know.” “Then make it right.” I got out of the car, closed the door. The sound of metal on metal reminded me of the day we’d first arrived, the sound of the moving van’s doors, and thinking this was such a final step. I’d felt then he was moving out of my life. I’d practically shoved him out the door. I prayed he’d open his for me now. I knocked. Silence flowed out of the dark windows, drifted down from the shabby shingles, kept me company as the scotch abandoned me. I could feel Brian sitting in his car, waiting with that mixture of anger and support the liquor hadn’t been able to replace. I knocked again. As if I could polish scotch and darkness off of me, I rubbed my hands against my pant legs, bit my lip, and raised my hand to knock one last time. A yellow square of illumination splashed across the edge of the porch and the sandy ground behind me. It didn’t quite reach me, or my pocket of darkness. A shadow passed through the light. I heard bare feet on the stairs, soft steps across the floorboards inside. Or I imagined I did, though I still jumped when Jay’s lonely voice filtered through the door to me. “Go home, Mickey.” “Jay.” I side-stepped into the brightness. “Please.” “I can’t.” I touched the bevelled wood, leaned my forehead against the chipping paint. “I’ll do anything you want, just let me in.” “I want you to go away.” Silence tightened around me, the ground tilted along the slanted line between the warm glow of light and the cold night it protected me from. “Jay.” “I want,” he started, and I moved a little closer to the barrier of faded blue and exposed wood. “I want you to be the guy on the couch. The guy sleeping late, the one whose smile melts me inside. The one who drops everything and helps me move across town without asking a single question, knows what I like on my burger and doesn’t laugh because I hate thunderstorms.” “Not the one who punches your guests,” I offered, “or jumps to conclusions because he’s hopelessly in love with you and can’t control his raging jealousy?” “Not that one.” I peeled a bit of the old paint away, leaving a spot of pale, unprotected wood. I pressed my finger over the mark, shielding it. “Give me one last chance. I can do this.” “So you said before.” “Please, Jay.” “One chance.”

48

Moving Day The door opened. Jay stood, a beam of light from upstairs laying gold over his hair, highlighting his bare shoulders and glancing off the shimmer of his basketball shorts. Red rimmed his eyes, stubble poked from his cheeks and chin, and his hair dripped down over his face. I’d never seen anything so perfect. I almost wished I had my camera. “Jay.” “You get one chance, Mickey. We’ve known each other a long time, and I know you. I know how you are. You get all worked up and you panic. Then you leave. I can’t watch you walk out on this and be left wondering what the hell happened.” “I’m not—” Words knotted up around my tongue. “I’m not walking.” “But you’re not committing, either.” “What? Not committing? I sold my damn condo! I bought a car, gave up half my business.” “But you haven’t touched me since that first kiss. You’ve wrapped yourself up in work and business deals, hid out in your darkroom. You think I like sleeping on your god-forsaken sofa? You told me you wanted this, Mickey, and—” He finished the sentence with an angry gesture. “How long do you expect me to wait while you wrap your head around things?” “I’ve been waiting for you! There are pictures of Darren everywhere. Little bits of him, everywhere I look.” “And there always will be.” Jay shuffled back into his house. He didn’t invite me to follow, so I waited. “There will always be little pieces of all of them.” I shook my head. “I don’t get that.” “You don’t carry little memories of the people you’ve been with? The people you’ve loved?” “I’ve only ever loved—” I stopped, my mouth half formed around the last word. His expression didn’t change, and I couldn’t find enough spit to speak or swallow. His gaze drifted past me to the car, still waiting to take me back to the city. “I picked the men I picked because the one I wanted had his head up his ass and I didn’t want to spend my life waiting for something that was never going to happen. Still, I couldn’t quite give up on you.” He looked at me. “The wait’s over, Mickey. It’s now, or—” “Now. Don’t say never.” I fumbled forward into the house. He didn’t come to meet me. “Then say it.” “Say what?” “Tell me what you want. Exactly what you want, because before I let you stay here another minute, we have to be clear.” “You.” How much clearer could I be? How had it taken me so long to formulate that one, simple thought, to develop it into a few simple words? “I want you. In my life, in my home.” He continued to stare at me. “In my bed.” His breath hitched, and I thought, for a moment, I might have gone overboard, but he reached out and grabbed a fistful of my shirt. I had no intention of resisting his tug or his kiss. The door swung shut behind me with a soft click. I already knew his kiss could liquefy me, but his touch, his fingers tripping up my torso under my shirt boiled my blood, and I was grateful when his lips left mine to trail down my throat. I couldn’t even concentrate on kissing him

49

Moving Day properly. He pushed me back against the door, my head thudded against the wood, and I had a flash of memory, of wanting to do the same to him on that first night. “I can’t,” I whispered. Sudden cold assailed me as he backed off. “Can’t what?” Anger flashed over fear in his eyes. “Stand. I can’t stand.” I touched the place on his cheek where a splash of light filled in the dark shadows of sleeplessness, traced it with my fingertips, and brought him close again. I needed to feel his lips, soft but firm, on me again, and he obliged, just for a minute, pinning me against the cool wood, brushing my lips with his tongue. I opened my mouth, eager to let him in, but he stopped, drew back to look into my eyes. “Did you really think I could sleep with someone else? That I could hurt you that way?” “I wasn’t thinking. Not at all. I just jumped to a conclusion, and my brain turned off.” His stubble chafed against the back of the bruised knuckles I ran over his cheek. I had to ignore the sting behind my eyes with the realization of what I’d almost thrown away over a stupid flare of jealousy. “I did the wrong thing again. Every other time, I walked away when I should have fought, and this time....” He smiled grimly. “You aren’t going to punch out every guy that looks at me, are you?” I yanked him to me again, kissed him, hard, desperate to convey the ideas jumbled in my brain, caught on my tongue, unsaid over decades, and too intense to explain any other way. Also desperate to stop myself affirming that I would, indeed, pummel any man who thought of looking at him sideways. Now I had him there, in my grasp and ready to forgive me, I wasn’t risking putting my foot in my mouth again. He responded with his own intense pressure, his tongue finally finding its way past my lips, filling my mouth, sliding along my teeth and forcing me past thought, past worry, straight to desperate need. Together, we stumbled up to the bedroom and collapsed across the bed. There was a frenzy of undressing, and I had my hands on his shorts’ string when he retreated. His weight rested on his hands and hips, pinning me to the bed under him and trapping my hands between us. “Slow down, Mickey.” “Sorry.” I tried to hoist him up so I had room to move. “Can’t do that either.” He freed my hands, shifting so he was sitting up, straddling my hips, and brought my knuckles to his lips. “If you don’t, this will be the shortest first time in history.” He leaned forward, trapping my hands above my head and leaning close for another kiss. “I want to take my time. I’ve been waiting a while for this.” His lips left mine, and I tried to talk him back. “I don’t think....” My words trailed off, my thoughts following kisses that travelled once again down my jaw, then across my chest and found a nipple. He couldn’t reach any more to immobilize my hands, but when I tried to move, to touch him, he grabbed my wrist again, twined his fingers around through mine, and held my hand against the mattress. He wasn’t exactly restraining me, but the effect it had on my cock, he might as well have. What was left of my thoughts drifted away on a sigh.

50

Moving Day “You’re like putty,” he teased a moment later. He’d let go of my hand and worked my jeans down past my hips. His dark eyes glittered from under long bangs, and I pushed the hair away with my free hand, but he was already moving again, out of my reach, and removing the rest of my clothing. For a second, he stood at the foot of the bed looking down on me. I shivered a little. The hungry look on his face, the cool air whisking over my abdomen, chilled and excited me. He was beautiful in his half-naked glory, standing over me, looking possessive and commanding. I pushed myself up on my elbows to see him better, and he descended, kneeling on the bed near my knees. His fingers trailed through the hair on my chest, down along my ribs, and I squirmed. “Ticklish?” “No.” “Liar.” I groaned as his long fingers curled around me. “Jay, what do you want me to do?” He didn’t answer. He just bent his head and took me in his mouth. I flopped back. If he wanted this to last any length of time, he was going about it all wrong. I tried to tell him that, but only managed a low, throaty, incoherent moan. His mouth, hot around me, had my hips rocking up to find more of the sensation. His fingers teased gently, wrapping around the base of my cock, cupping my balls and playing over my hole, until I made tiny, embarrassing noises that had him humming with satisfaction. The vibration on my cock sent spirals of sensation through me, and I gripped his shoulders. “Jay!” He released me, covering me up with a warm hand and crawling up to whisper in my ear. “Can I fuck you?” I think I whimpered. He’d never struck me as a top, but then, I’d spent a lot of time forcing myself not to imagine anything about him in case this never happened between us. The idea tightened my balls, and I squeezed my eyes shut. “Mickey?” “Yes.” The one word, embarrassingly breathy and weak, was all I could manage. Our lips met, fierce and hot, and I sensed him reaching beyond me until I heard the crash of the bedstand drawer hitting the floor. I jumped. He cursed, and I sat up, shaking. He touched my shoulder. “You alright?” I nodded. “Fine.” He drooped beside me. “I have no condoms.” Reality careened into me, a Mac truck hitting me in the chest. “I can’t—” His hands fluttered in his lap. “I know.” A black cloud of anger smothered me at the panic infusing his eyes. “I probably shouldn’t have.” He whipped the back of his hand across his mouth. “I wasn’t thinking.” Above the hand splayed across his lips, the panic took on dimensions I could have killed Darren for, if he wasn’t already dead. My fist clenched, balling up a wad of sheeting, and he glanced at it. I forced myself to relax. This wasn’t his

51

Moving Day fault. Darren had been the sick one, and I knew Jay well enough to know he’d be careful. I managed a smile and tipped his face up from where he stared at the comforter. “Don’t worry.” “You’re mad.” “Not at you.” He drew his face away from my hand, glared angrily at the far wall. I saw the fight he put up against his own fierce protectiveness of a beloved no longer able to protect himself. My teeth ground. I pushed away thoughts of blame. After a minute, I touched his shoulder to get his attention. “Jay, it’s fine.” “No, it isn’t.” He slid to the edge of the bed, gripping the mattress with desperate strength. I wrapped my arms around him and rested my bare chest against his back. “Jay, listen to me. This is not a big deal, all right? I trust you.” He remained stiff in my embrace, and I knew he needed me not to threaten his memories. “Darren loved you. He would never have done anything that put you at risk.” It wasn’t as hard as I feared, giving up a perfectly good and rational excuse to hate Darren. Jay needed me not to hate him; a small thing to grant, given what he offered in return. I sent a breath of a kiss dusting across his ear and rested my cheek against his. “We can wait until you’re sure. I don’t mind.” “No.” He took the hand I’d spread across his chest and pulled it downward, through the hair, across the smooth expanse of his belly, and reached to kiss my cheek. “We can be careful. Safe.” I let my hand drift down, under his guidance, and wiggled my fingers inside his shorts. He groaned but rewarded my efforts by shifting his hips to allow me better access. He was hot and hard under my palm. His weight rested against me, and he slipped his own hand in over mine. My heart raced at the firm feel of his hand curling around my fingers and holding them tight around him. “So good,” he whispered. I pushed his shorts out of the way, and he raised his hips to let me shove them down. As I stroked and watched, he moved his hand from mine, lower, to touch himself. He’d gathered his own first juices on his fingers, and now my breath hitched to see him push them inside himself. His head fell back against my chest, and his breath gusted hot and fast across my cheek. “Jay?” All I got in response was a low moan, then he pressed his lips against my neck, hiding his face, but suckling and nibbling frantically in his need. Heat sizzled through the touch into my core, and my dick hardened, pinned against his back. He was ready. It would be so easy to lift him up and enter him. I bit hard on my bottom lip and stroked him harder, faster, taking out my desperation on him. He didn’t seem to mind. His teeth brushed my neck, nibbled along my jaw. I watched him thrust another finger inside himself. His back arched up away from me, and he shot hot, sticky cum over my fingers and his. For only a minute, he relaxed against me, before squirming around and casting about for something. “Aha.” He held up a sock and took my slippery fingers in his. “Let me get that.”

52

Moving Day “Hey! That’s my sock!” He only grinned at me and proceeded to use it to wipe his spunk off my fingers and kissed the back of my knuckles. “Then I guess you’re stuck here until I feel like doing laundry.” “Darn.” “Uh-huh.” He crawled across the bed toward me. “Bet you’re all broke up about that.” I didn’t get a chance to say anything more before he was dropping my hand, the sock, and kissing me, hard and demanding and wrapping his hand around my very eager erection. He pumped me in a fast, merciless, but expert rhythm, bore down on me until I flopped onto the bed. He pinned me there, his mouth ruthlessly hard against mine. I couldn’t breathe, sunk deep into his bed, lost in his kiss, and when I pushed to back him off, he grabbed my hands again, abandoning my cock, and held them tight, stretching me out, straddling me and panting. “Be still.” “Jay?” His grip loosened slightly, but he didn’t let me go. “Let me do this.” I nodded, wondering what ‘this’ would be. Hazel eyes I knew turned dark, hooded, and just the touch of that gaze heated my skin until I squirmed. Shifting so he could clasp both my wrists in one hand, he ran the other down my front, wiggling over my belly and pulling a long, slow stroke down my cock to the end. He let it go, and it slapped back against my stomach. I gritted my teeth at the impact on my oversensitive tip. He clucked his tongue, but touched a tender finger to the sting and soothed it away with a bit of my own slippery wetness. I squirmed again, trying to keep that tiny contact as long as possible. “I’ll let you go, but you can’t touch.” “Can’t touch you?” “Or you. Can’t touch anything.” My eyes widened. Not just a top, then, but a bossy one. Once again, that realization struck me dumb, and I could only nod. Slowly, he released me, as though he thought I might make some sudden move to topple him from his perch. I didn’t mind being under him, though. Keeping eye contact was hard, but I managed, as heat crawled up into my face. My blush made him smile, and he leaned over to whisper in my ear, even while he started stroking me again. “You have any idea how much I’ve wanted to get you here?” Some frantic reply gurgled out of me, and he chuckled, breath hot in my ear, hand steady in its movement. “Desperate yet?” I couldn’t move. God, how I wanted to make him go faster, harder. I wanted to buck my hips up into his fist, or reach down and do it myself. His slow, steady pace was torture. Then he stopped, took his hand away, and I snarled at him. He only smiled, lowered himself over me. “That a yes, then?” Lacing his fingers through mine, he trapped my forearms under his and distributed his weight over me, leaving me no space for leverage to move at all. His hard cock pushed against me, rubbing mine as he rocked his hips. If anything, this was worse. Sensation enough to excite, but nowhere near

53

Moving Day enough to satisfy. Feeling this helpless should have made me uncomfortable, but this was Jay, taking over, taking me, the only way he could, and it was working. God, was it working. He didn’t stay where he was long. Just when I thought I was close, straining for more sensation, more contact, like his entire body laying the length of mine wasn’t enough, he crawled off. “Spread your legs for me?” As if he needed to ask. I was only too happy to release my balls from their tight prison between my thighs. I shifted my legs apart. “No, really spread them.” He crawled between my legs and stretched them out and up, propping them apart with his knees. My arms still lay on the mattress above my head, and he leaned back on his heels, watching me. The only point of contact between us were his knees against the underside of my thighs, holding them further apart than I could have on my own, but not quite so far that it hurt. There was nothing between the very dark lust in his eyes and every part of my extremely exposed body. I couldn’t believe my luck. Jay, my affable, easy-going Jay, whom I’d always pictured as the one to follow into his romantic relationships, turned into this lustful, domineering creature in bed. I hadn’t anticipated how much that would turn me on. “Okay?” he asked. I nodded, and he smiled. “You have no idea what you’re doing to me right now.” “Nothing. You won’t let me.” One hand spread across my stomach, and he ran it up to stop over my heart. No doubt he could feel it pounding. “Not nothing. I could eat you alive, the way you look right now.” I sincerely hoped he would, because if he left me hanging on much longer, my heart would explode. He didn’t, of course. He just let me watch while he lubed up his fingers and teased my cock with more long, slick strokes. “I have toys.” A little gasp popped out of my mouth, and I started to nod, but he only smiled and shook his head. “For next time, maybe. This time, just you and me. No props.” His hand moved from my cock to my entrance, and he teased me open, pushing a finger inside, then two, in quick succession, letting me feel the burn. I hissed but pushed against him, wanting more. A third finger, more stretch, but still, it wasn’t enough. It was all I was going to get. No matter how much I begged, he wasn’t going to fuck me until we had protection. It didn’t stop me begging. He just thrust his fingers deeper, fisted my cock, and leaned close to whisper again. “No, Mickey.” He licked my ear, pressed a kiss against it. “I’m sorry, but I can’t. Not this time.” He settled back to kiss the stretch of skin over my hip, and his tongue dipped into the soft, oh-so-sensitive valley just where my short and curlies stopped at the top of my leg. That soft exploration contrasted deliciously with the rougher motion of his hands and drew moans from somewhere around my bellybutton. His hands worked in wonderful unison, both hard and fast, driving all thought out of my head, driving me closer to the brink and dropping me over in a rush I wasn’t ready for. My orgasm hit, hard, tumbled me into oblivion. Everything spiralled away from me as my balls tightened. I couldn’t feel his hands, his lips, couldn’t see his face. There was just, for that split second, a brutal

54

Moving Day force driving through my body, wave after wave of hard, fast release, draining me dry and leaving me with a queasy feeling of complete disorientation. Then I felt his hand stroking across my abdomen, heard his voice whispering in my ear, though the words were off and incoherent. His weight forced me into the mattress, grounded me and warmed me, and I finally managed to focus on the light fixture. “Take your time,” I heard him say. “Uh-hungh.” He chuckled. His lips touched my cheek, joining the steady stroke of his fingers. I turned my head to look at him. Focusing on his face took some effort. “What did you do to me?” “A little thing we initiates like to call safer sex.” “God.” He smiled a broad, perfect smile. “I hear He invented it. Who am I to argue?” I pushed up onto one elbow. “That was almost scary. I think I blacked out for a second.” “You sort of did.” He frowned a little bit. “Sorry.” “Don’t be.” I touched his face, ran a thumb over the scar high on his left cheek where I’d clocked him with a baseball when we were ten. He smiled a crooked smile. “Anything else I’ve been missing out on?” He moved away from me. “You’ll learn.” His voice flattened blank and dry, and I sat up. “Jay?” His bottom lip disappeared behind white teeth. He nibbled on it, his eyes serious, skittering off my face. “Not what I would have wanted for our first time, Mickey.” “Jay, I’m not complaining.” “It’s going to be a little while still before I know for sure Darren didn’t infect me. We were careful, but anything is possible.” Nimble fingers plucked at a spot on the sheet, creasing it into a tight twist. “Then it’s possible, likely, even, that you’re fine.” I covered his fidgeting hand. “This isn’t something to get worked up about.” Still, he stared at that spot and refused to look at me again. “Jay, please.” I shifted a bit, fluffed the pillow beside me, and patted the mattress. “Just lie down.” After a minute, he spooned against me, stared out the window across the room at the night. He lay stiff and silent, and it took some coercion to get him to let me wrap an arm around his waist. Finally, after long, silent minutes, he laced his fingers through mine where they lay against his abdomen. “I’m sorry,” he whispered. “Don’t be.” I gave him a little squeeze. The pinched tone in his voice sent a crackle of pain through me. I breathed through it. “Whatever happens, Jay, we’ll deal with it.” He nodded. It took a while for him to find his voice again. “You kill me, you know.” “What? Why?”

55

Moving Day Finally, he rolled over, onto his back to look at me. “Only you can brush off the chance I might infect you with a potentially deadly disease but go squirreling off over a few drawings. Life and death, you shrug off.” “But break my heart, and I’ll kick your ass.” He smiled, but the look in his eyes was serious. “I’m not going to do that.” “I know.” I searched his eyes, but couldn’t find what I wanted there. I had to ask. “Do you miss him that much?” “I started missing him the day he told me how sick he was. Which is not nearly as long as I waited for you. This is real, Mickey.” “For me too.” I kissed him to seal that promise.

56

Moving Day

Chapter Nine For once, I woke before him. Sunshine danced through the dust to the bed— our bed—and waltzed across his skin. He’d kicked off all the sheets except a scrap that lay over his leg and caught light that turned the shadows of its folds blue. I was torn between running for my camera and staying right where I was to watch him sleep. He mumbled something, rolled over, and his hand flopped out across the mattress, searching. Muscles along his shoulders tightened. Fingers tensed into claws, and a spasm shot through him, a tiny jerk of his body, every muscle knotting tight for the briefest of instants. A whimper darted out, bounced through the room. Who was he looking for? I scooted back into place. His fingers contacted the sensitive skin of my belly, and his hand slid up over my ribs. “Mmmmm. Mickey.” He snuggled closer, tangling his legs through mine, wrapping his arm around me, never opening his eyes, not really even waking up, but the tightness melted away as his body moulded along my side. He was close enough I could kiss the top of his head, and I did. “I love you.” Just a practice run, sure, while he was asleep, but someday soon, I was going to be able to say it out loud. In the meantime, I could only let him mourn, hold onto him, and show him it was true. As if on cue, the real estate agent called while we were sipping coffee and trying to decide what to do with the day. “We have an offer,” she told me. The whirr of a fax and distant voices sounded in the background. “Now it’s lower than we were asking, so I think—” “Accept it.” I glanced at Jay and grinned. He just tilted his head, puzzled. “We can do better. We can get at least the asking price. Higher, if we hold out a bit and encourage more offers.” “Just take the offer. Whatever it is. I don’t care.” I caught Jay’s grin from the corner of my eye as he realized what the call was about. “What closing date do they want?” “That was the other sticking point. Hang on.” I listened to the crackle of the phone as she covered it with her hand and spoke to someone, then she was back. “They want it as soon as possible. He’s moving here to work, and she’s following in a few weeks, after they sell their place, but you and I haven’t talked about when you’ll be ready to move out. Are you looking for a new place?” It was my turn to cover the phone with my hand and look at Jay. “Am I looking for a new place?” I didn’t want to presume he’d let me move in with him that fast. He smiled and shook his head. “You have a place to live.” A flood of relief washed through me. It took a moment to compose myself enough to convey my decision to the agent. “I’ve got a place to live.” Not to stay. To live. I stretched across the table and took Jay’s hand. “I’ll get my things out this week, and they can move in when they want. Let me know when you need me to sign papers.”

57

Moving Day She sputtered out a few more unheeded suggestions and concerns. I thanked her and hung up. “You know, Mickey, this is going to be a bit of a disruption to the construction, taking time to move your shit.” Concern spiralled through me until I realized he was laughing at me, the humour bright in his eyes. “And I’m only doing this once. Don’t expect me to help you haul your junk all over God’s green acres.” He leaned over the table and planted a kiss on me that curled my toes. It was funny how our roles reversed that week. He insisted on driving the moving van and sent the twins to clean up his storage unit so some of my things would fit. “You don’t have to do this, you know.” I was sorting my movies into two boxes—the ones I was keeping, and the ones I hadn’t watched in years. “You have enough to do at the house.” Jay took the movie I was holding out of my hand where I had been about to throw it into the ‘keep’ box. “I have this on DVD.” He tossed it into the ‘junk’ box and knelt in front of me. “Our house will get finished. I’m not worried about it. I want to help. The sooner we get this done, the sooner I have you in my bed every night and at my table every morning.” He kissed me soundly, his fingers twined through my hair. I had to twist my head away, tugging at the grip he had on me, so I could speak. “You keep doing that, there will be no packing going on soon.” He smiled and gently, firmly, pushed me back onto the carpet until he straddled my hips and crushed my hard-on. “Want a quickie?” “Jay....” His hands drifted under my shirt, warming my skin, and agile fingers plucked at my nipples. I was putty in his hands, and fast getting very used to letting him have his way with me. “You ever going to let me top?” Jay blinked at me. “You want to?” Concern creased his brow under the flop of hair. I shrugged. “I don’t miss it.” In fact, topping, for me, had nothing on feeling that weight and fullness inside, and Jay really knew how make it good. “Just wondered how you felt about it?” He dug in his back pocket and held up a condom. “I love fucking you.” A deep kiss had me ready to go in a few minutes, but he pulled back and looked into my eyes. “You know you don’t have to say yes to anything. I can be aggressive. If you don’t like that?” “I like.” I yanked him back down where I could reach his lips, holding him there with one hand while I unzipped and pushed my jeans away with the other, kicking and squirming until one leg was free and I could open my legs to him. “Good.” He grabbed my freed cock and stroked, ripping the condom package open with his teeth. He handed me the open packet and pointed to his straining jeans. “Put that on me.” He didn’t stop his firm, quick movement over my cock, now slick with precum, but he lifted himself to his knees and allowed me to unzip him. His cock sprang free from its prison, not confined by underwear, and my hands shook a

58

Moving Day little as I rolled the condom down over his thick shaft. I stroked my hand over the lubed condom a few times, but he caught my wrist and shook his head. “I didn’t give you permission to jerk me off.” “I just want you to feel good.” His grin shone down on me as his hand moved from my cock to my entrance. “I’ll feel good when I’m inside.” He didn’t warn me before he thrust a finger in, and I jumped a little in surprise. “Hurt?” “In a good way.” I spread my legs wider. “Can I please touch you?” I needed to feel his warm skin under my fingers. He relented and pressed my hand against his abdomen. His skin, hot to the touch and smooth on his stomach, grounded me as I ran my hand up to play through the hair on his chest. “Ready?” I nodded, and he didn’t waste any time. His slow, steady entry burned without quite enough lube, but he distracted me with his hand on my cock, and after a few strokes, I relaxed. He slid in, and the full feeling, his cock in me, his hand around me, his weight pressing me into the floor, and my own need rose. My fingers curled against his chest, I lifted my hips and begged. “Fuck me.” He kissed me instead, leaning down so his cock slipped almost free, and covered my mouth with his, invading with his tongue. I wasn’t quite expecting the jerk of his hips, but the surge of power through me, his thrust hitting just the right angle, made me gasp and moan into his mouth. It only made him move faster, harder, while I rocked into his fist. When I came, which didn’t take long, it was a long, sweet series of waves flooding through me, filling any last corners of my being he hadn’t already possessed. Then his mouth fell away from mine, and he struggled to maintain his rhythm. He buried his head against my neck and pounded into me, desperate to reach his climax. “Shhh.” The rug burned against my back, through my thin t-shirt, but I wrapped my arms around him, kissed his neck, and stroked light fingers down his spine. He slowed, his hips picking up a calmer rhythm, and I lifted a leg to snug around his waist. He had a better angle, then, more conducive to getting the friction he needed, even if it was more friction than I wanted. His movement became more insistent again, and he made a muffled sound against my shoulder I already recognized as a sign he was close. When he stiffened, jerking up tight against my body, the pulse of his release meshed with the heavy pounding of his heart. I held him close and waited until he relaxed. We slumped against the carpet together, his weight crushing me into the floor. After a minute, he reached down and pulled himself and the condom free, twisting it and dropping it inside the empty takeout bag from our lunch. Then he sank back, his chin on his hand on top of my chest. Hair covered his eyes, but his grin shone. “You’re supposed to be packing.” One finger tapped my nose. “Slacker.” “And you’re supposed to be helping.” He dabbed a quick, light peck on my lips. “I was packing.”

59

Moving Day That only earned him a groan, which made him laugh, but he did get up and hold out a hand to help me up. “Come on. Enough work for one day. Or at least for right now.” He handed me my jeans. “Let’s load up your car with your clothes and things and go out to the house. I have something to show you.” I got back into my jeans and changed my now sticky shirt, but sat back down in front of the videos. “I want to get this done.” A peek at my watch told me it was just past one. “There isn’t much left to box, and then in the morning we can pack the truck and get out of here. For good.” I looked over the dismantled room. It held no bad memories, but it hadn’t ever been any sort of real home, either. This condo had been a place to crash, to stage my life from, but the only real memories I would carry away from it were of Jay, and I didn’t have to live off those memories. Not that I wouldn’t cherish them, but I had him and the chance to make more memories. It wasn’t like the way he would have to be satisfied with what he had left of Darren’s memory. Funny how I was making peace with his ghosts so quickly. “Why don’t you pack up your workspace, and I’ll finish this.” “You trying to get rid of me?” I smiled. “Just trying to get some work done. You’re very distracting.” I didn’t have to look at him to feel his easy body language, translated in the sound of relaxed breathing and his footsteps padding over to the dining area. For a long time, we didn’t talk. It was just nice to have him there, working in the same space, listening to him shuffling around and fitting his things into a box that would soon be unpacked in the home we would share. His movements stopped, and I looked up. He had his back to me as he pushed things around on the table. From where I sat on the floor, I couldn’t see what he was looking at, but I had a fair idea. I got up and went to him. Sure enough, he had his sketches of Darren spread out on the tabletop. “Maybe I should just blue box these.” He shifted them around despondently. “No, you shouldn’t.” I found the black-and-white pencil sketch he’d been working on that one morning and put it on top of the others. “I like this one best. It will fit perfectly in the living room, where you want to put that hutch for the movies. Once we get it framed.” “You don’t want pictures of my ex hanging in your home.” “Our home, and yes, if it would make you happy, I do.” Folding him into my arms and kissing him on the side of his neck was the most natural thing in the world now—already—and I did. A slight tremble reverberated through him, up through my arms and against my chest. His hands came up to grip my forearms, and he held on rather tight. I nestled my head against his, my chin on his shoulder. He hadn’t cried in front of me since we were kids. Tears dripped silently onto my arms, and it tore my heart out because I couldn’t make this better. It didn’t last long. A few minutes only, and he twisted free, apologized. I cupped his damp face and kissed him. “Nothing to apologize for. You miss him.” “And you hate that.” “I love you.” I gathered him up again, and he didn’t resist my attempts to comfort him. “I don’t hate it. We can manage this, I promise. You’ll always miss

60

Moving Day him, and I’ll always love you.” I stepped back so I could look in his eyes. “Facts of life.” He was the most amazing creature in existence, but I couldn’t quite say that out loud. I kissed him instead and hoped he’d understand. The packing went quickly after that. It was time to move on. We both wanted that. We ended up going to bed late, though, and slept fitfully, reaching for one another often, just to touch and take comfort. Finally, I rolled to face him and leaned up on one elbow. “Jay?” “Yeah?” He settled onto his back. A faint gleam of moonlight glanced off his eyes. “There’s something I haven’t said, and I think I should.” He tensed. The sheet pulled toward him, as though he’d tightened it into the fists clutched on his chest. The prickle in the air around him raised the hairs on my arms. I rested a hand on his, and sure enough it was balled up around a hank of cotton. “Thank you.” “For what?” He glanced at me, eyes bright. I wished I could see his face, but there wasn’t enough light, so I moved my hand up to his cheek. “For not giving up on me.” I watched his profile as he studied the darkness. At last, he turned his head and kissed my palm. “We’ve been rearranging our lives for years, Mickey. It just took us this long to get the pieces in the right place.” He gave me a quick glance and a smile I sensed more than saw. “For a while there, I thought losing Darren would demolish me, you know. But if you think about it, maybe I needed that. Like Sam’s Place. Even when the right person comes along to claim it, after all this time, it needs to be gutted and rebuilt, right? Or it isn’t any good to anyone.” “Very poetic.” I let my hand drift down over his chest. His other hand had loosened, and he slipped his fingers through mine. “You’ve been hanging out with too many contractors.” He laughed. “Maybe.” After a minute of quiet, he looked over again. “I mean it, though. You have to understand how I feel. I did love him. He might even have been right for me, aside from the whole dying thing.” I winced, but he just shrugged. “I felt that, and I can’t turn it off because I’m with you now.” “And I already told you, I don’t expect you to and I don’t want you to. I love you. I’ll learn to love your ghost.” He slid a look at me, but didn’t seem too annoyed that I called him that. “As long as he doesn’t start knocking things off shelves.” “No, I think he’s at peace. I hope he is.” “Me too.” “You want to hear something a little creepy?” “Absolutely.” The conversation couldn’t get much weirder. “When Richard and I were painting the dining room of the restaurant so that he could put in the shelving I’ll need for my canvases and stuff, we thought about building storage into that little room off the kitchen.” “That is creepy.” He snorted and slapped the back of my hand. “We couldn’t light it. The first bulb burnt out, I dropped one trying to change it, then the next one blew. Bri redid all the wiring right from the box to the fixture, and it still blew. Even the

61

Moving Day trouble light, plugged in, in another room, fizzled three times while he was working. Richard refused to go in and paint it. His exact words were, and I quote, ‘I am not painting the fucking dark room.’ “Which, of course, is when it hit me.” He rolled over to face me, and we held hands, fingers twined together on the mattress between us. I got Bri to run some plumbing and rewire it again, and Richard built a nice high bench for you.” “That’s what you wanted to show me?” He nodded, pleased with himself. “It’s like someone was trying to tell me something, so don’t go dissin’ my ghost. He’s your ghost now too.” “I can live with that.” “Really?” “Really.” I kissed him, not the hard, demanding kisses he usually lay on me, but the kind that lingered longer and touched deeper, and lasted until we were both drifting into peaceful slumber. Early morning found us tangled in sunshine and twisted sheets, but ready to get the day started. By the time Brian and the twins showed up, we had the bed disassembled, the boxes piled by the door, and were taking the legs off the dining table. Work stopped briefly for the coffee and bagels they brought, but resumed at a hurried pace. It took longer to load the truck than I might have liked. We’d stored less than I expected. Jay had very little furniture of his own, and Darren had rented a furnished apartment. It was nearing dark when we finally found ourselves on the highway. “This is awful.” Jay frowned out at the road and gripped the wheel tightly. “What is?” “The handling on this thing.” “Want me to drive? I’ve got some experience.” “No.” He grinned at me. “This was my idea to move you so fast, and I’m going to do it. You’ve done this enough times for me, you deserve it. Though we probably would have got better mileage putting wheels on a toaster than we’re getting from this monster.” I laughed. His grin widened, and suddenly, the long, hard day behind, the long road ahead, all of it was less daunting.

62

Excerpt from Poor Boy by Jaime Samms A Freya’s Bower M/M Category Novel

Poor Boy Driving through the center of the city, the light from neon signs glided over the cars and flashed through the window, accentuating Stryker’s pale features and turning his hollowed out cheeks and bright black eyes ghoulish in their glow. The car slowed, and a teenager on the corner squinted in at us. Stryker liked people seeing him in this great monstrosity of a car. It made him feel rich even though his family kept him on a tight budget in an obviously futile effort to keep him sober. The kid on the corner grinned, nodded, and flipped a cord of blond hair out of his eyes. For a split second, I thought I’d seen a ghost of a kid with dead parents, then his face blended into the blur of people as the light changed and the car sped up again. “Roy, what did you do to piss him off?” “Hmm? Nothing. He’s been pissed off since I’ve known him.” “What are we going to do? My allowance only pays for the condo and the car. How am I going to pay for my shit?” “Maybe you should just cut down on the shit for a while,” I suggested, more than a little sulkily. He glared at me, the first focused expression he’d managed since I’d hauled him out of my father’s house. “You know....” He shifted to confront me a little more directly. “I’ve never asked very much from you, Roy. I give you what you want, and all I ask is a few bills and a good time. If you can’t supply one, do you really think you can afford to refuse the other?” “What?” The conversation slipped out of focus for a second, then snapped back, the new clarity making me sick. “This guy, I know what he’ll take instead of money, but you have to help. He likes to watch. Maybe join in, maybe not.” He shrugged like sex with a stranger to pay for his drugs was no big deal. “You’re trying to whore me out.” Stryker smiled. It wasn’t a nice smile. “You know you like being my bitch. Besides, it’s not like it would be the first time.” I hated that I couldn’t argue that point. “Fuck you.” I knocked on the glass again, and the window slid down. “Stop here, please.” The man blinked at me, as though the word please sounded foreign to him. “Stop the car.” He shrugged and pulled up to the curb. I shoved Stryker off me and opened the door. “Have a nice life, asshole.” I slammed the door, Stryker gave me the finger, and the black Mercedes slipped away from the curb, back into traffic, and disappeared into the dark. I flipped the collar of my coat up around my neck. It didn’t stop the chill wind sliding down between my shoulder blades or whispering in my ear how much this was going to suck.

Buy now!

1

If you enjoyed this story, check out Freya’s Bower’s other offerings: Genres: Freya’s Bower Angels & Demons Page Freya’s Bower Capture/Bondage Page Freya’s Bower Chick Lit Page Freya’s Bower Contemporary Page Freya’s Bower Fantasy Page Freya’s Bower Futuristic/Science-Fiction Freya’s Bower Lesbian/Gay Freya’s Bower Historical Freya’s Bower Military Freya’s Bower Mystery Freya’s Bower Paranormal Freya’s Bower Suspense Freya’s Bower Time Travel Freya’s Bower Werewolf/Vampire Freya’s Bower Western Ratings: Freya’s Bower Tangy Page Freya’s Bower Sizzling Page Freya’s Bower Spicy Page Freya’s Bower Sweet Page Freya’s Bower Beyond Sizzling Page And come chat with Freya’s Bower authors at: FB Author Circle: http://fbauthorcircle.blogspot.com/ FB Author Chat Yahoo group: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/freyasbower_authorchat/

Or join our newsletter: FB Yahoo Newsletter: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/freyasbower_newsletter/ FB Store Newsletter: http://www.freyasbower.com/ Or stay up to date with what is happening at FB: WCP/FB News Blog: http://wcpfbnews.blogspot.com MySpace: http://www.myspace.com/freyasbower Freya's Bower podcasts Freya's Bower on Twitter: http://twitter.com/wildchildeditor