by Rachel Kane
Liam glanced at Mason, and they both glanced at Noah, but the lack of words was as loud as any conversation.
“Um…brother of mine,” started Liam, “you know you have problems listening to people.”
“What? I listen all the time. I’m a great listener.”
“No, you’re a great troubleshooter. You’re a fixer. Any time anyone has a problem, you have an opinion on how to fix it. But… Okay, I’m going to regret bringing this up, but take the lions as an example.”
Judah picked up his fork and began to rub the tines with his thumb, nervous over what Liam might say next, nervous that he had brought up the lions himself. “Go on…?”
“Ever since you found those things, you’ve been coming up with schemes to bring them up here. And when I bring up my objections, you try to out-engineer them. Finding ways to bring them up with tools, chains, ropes, whatever, as though I was trying to tell you it wasn’t physically possible to do it, and if you just found the right way to lift them, everything would be okay.”
“But…but that is the problem!” Judah looked around the table. “Isn’t it?”
The uncomfortable silence was punctuated only by the sound of his thumb strumming the fork tines.
“Isn’t it?”
“Judah, I have interviewed a hundred and twenty people for staff positions in the past couple of weeks. Mason has been over every inch of the house with inspectors from the county and the state. Noah…well, Noah’s been off with Dalton—”
“Hey, I’ve helped plenty!”
“I was going to say, every minute Dalton has been gone, Noah has been here helping out. And I don’t think you’re hearing us when we say, we’re too busy to worry about those lions. I know you like them. But moving them would be a massive project, displaying them, well, I can’t even conceive of the issues finding a place for them. And yet, when I try to tell you that, your first thought is to run off to Alex to get more ammunition, like if you knew just the right trick, I’d tell you to go ahead?”
“I don’t even know why I’m asking your permission, this house is as much mine as it is yours—”
“It is! But that’s not the point, man. The point is…you don’t hear me when I say how busy I am. How tired. And to bring it full circle, maybe the reason you’re feeling weird about Alex is, you’re not hearing him, either. You think you know how to solve the problem, so you rush in…but not everything is that kind of problem. Sometimes people just want to be heard.”
“Yeah, well…”
Ugh. He hated these kind of conversations. All this talk of listening. When did anyone ever listen to Judah? When did they ever take his opinion into account on anything? Everyone wanted you to listen to them, nobody wanted to listen to you in return.
Confused, and feeling a little bit helpless, he got up from the table. “Thanks for the lecture, everybody.”
“The point wasn’t to make you feel bad,” said Liam.
“I guess that was just a bonus, then.”
He walked out into the foyer, feeling worse than ever. Why did Liam have to do that? Why’d he have to play the big wise brother all the time? It was bad enough that apparently everybody knew about his stupid crush on Alex, but to get that kind of advice about it?
Absolutely humiliating.
Although…was it wrong? It made a sort of sense, when it came to Alex. Judah did have to keep picking him up every five minutes. Maybe that was an assault on Alex’s dignity, and he didn’t even realize it.
Okay, fine, so we’ll talk instead. He wouldn’t offer to help. He wouldn’t do anything except listen. He’d let Alex do all the talking.
Although he wasn’t sure Alex would want to talk to him alone, after this morning. Maybe he’d need a break from Judah. Maybe that was a better idea than listening…leaving Alex alone instead. Letting him be. They could get back to their friendship later, couldn’t they?
He heard Alex’s clicking crutches in the art gallery, and walked in that direction. And as he paused next to the entrance, he thought he heard an angry whisper:
“You won’t. No, you won’t. I’ve had it. Goodbye. I said goodbye.”
Judah’s instinct was to ask if everything was okay.
To help.
But if Liam was right, that was exactly the wrong thing to do. The anger in Alex’s voice meant there was a problem that didn’t need solving, it didn’t need action, it needed listening.
Okay. Okay. New day, new Judah. Judah the listener. Judah the anti-problem-solver.
“Oh,” he said casually as he stood next to the entrance. “Hey, Alex.”
Alex looked up, startled. Then his face changed, from anger, to a strange determination Judah had never seen on the bookseller. Wordlessly, he strode—as well as anyone could stride with crutches—up to Judah.
At first he thought he was in trouble for eavesdropping, and his mind raced with explanations, proof he’d heard next to nothing—
And then Alex kissed him. Lifted his hands, cupped his cheeks, and pressed his lips to Judah’s. A deeper kiss than Judah had ever experienced in his life.
Wait, thought Judah, what?
13
Alex
It wasn’t like Alex had started the day with a plan to get Judah in bed by the end of it. Just the opposite, such an idea would’ve seemed outlandish earlier, an impossibility.
What happened was an accident. Another accident. A trip, a fall, unintended.
He hadn’t recognized the number on his phone. Did he know anyone in California? There were a few booksellers he’d met at conventions and on the internet, a rare book dealer, another had a shop focusing on gay fiction, but why would any of them be calling him?
A flutter of foreboding had come over him. Unlisted numbers could mean anything, but right now? Tonight? He had the horrible feeling he knew what it meant.
Excusing himself, he’d walked out of the room and answered.
“Alex,” said Ian over the line, “you’ll never guess where I am.”
A sledgehammer right in the chest would’ve been less painful than to hear Ian’s voice again. “Ian? What the fuck. I told you. Do not text me. Do not call. I blocked your number.”
“I thought so! I was just telling Bastian, I bet he blocked me, and Bastian said, Darling, it’s not like there aren’t more phones in the world—isn’t he smart? I picked up this phone at the airport. Have you ever been to LAX? It’s beautiful. So much better than Hartsfield. Honestly it makes Atlanta look like a dump.”
As quickly as he could, the phone jammed between shoulder and ear, Alex scuttled far from the dining room and the Coopers. He found a dark, quiet gallery and made his way to the far end of the room.
“Ian, I’m just going to say this one more time. Leave me alone. I don’t want you calling me.”
“But what about your foot? I’m worried. You were never any good at taking care of yourself.”
“That’s none of your business.”
“No, of course it isn’t. You’re your own man. Independent. A wonderful thing, independence, except when you wind up crippled with no one to help you. I don’t suppose any of those farmers down there have offered to assist? Are they carting you around on their tractors?”
“I’m hanging up now.”
“Apologies!” Ian said with a chuckle. “I know how sensitive you are about your rural surroundings. It was unkind of me, I know. But listen: You’re not the only one with news. You haven’t asked me why I’m in LA.”
“Because I don’t care, Ian.”
“Shanghai was lovely. Really energetic, although you know in a way it reminds me of Berlin, the way a city can be vibrant but is perhaps trying too hard? Do you know what I mean? LA is different. It’s all work, work, work. That’s why I’m here. They’ve picked up my books. Did you hear me, Alex? Inspector Kestrel. They’ve optioned them for a television series, and I know what you’re going to say, you always hated Hollywood so much, and I know it’s silly to be excited, but apparently the director i
s very motivated, and—”
“Ian. Listen to me. I’m hanging up. I don’t want to talk to you. You have to stop calling, texting, anything. Do you get that? We’re broken up. It was a hard break-up. It has taken me months—” No! Don’t give him any information!
“Oh dear,” said the voice from the phone. “I knew it hurt you when I left. I knew. But I never imagined the pain would go on like this. A heart once broken is usually so easily mended. That’s why I sent the postcard, you know. I kept imagining you in some lonely hovel, surrounded by moldy books, and I felt so guilty. Bastian said guilt is foolish, the heart will love where it will, but Bastian has always been a romantic, you know, not like me and you, not practical the way we are.”
At the beginning of the break-up, in those early days when Alex was practically unable to breathe from the pain, Toby had lectured him. Don’t talk to him. Don’t engage. He’s nice, yes, he’s sweet, and I know he’s worried about you…but he caused this. He can’t see the damage he does to other people. He’s too well-meaning.
Alex knew that was right. He knew he had to hang up. But Ian was wrong. And surely Alex could convince him of that. Surely with the right words, the right argument, he could show Ian why he had to stop calling.
Couldn’t he?
But it was always such an onslaught. It always had been. Ian could be a torrent, a waterfall of words. It was why the break-up had taken so long. The moment Alex would think about leaving, Ian would sense it, and down would come the words, all the words, rapid and voluminous until Alex felt like he was drowning in them.
An image came to his mind then, something he’d read months ago about Henry James, his favorite writer, he of the obscure hurt. After a friend’s death, he had a gondolier take him out into the Venetian lagoon, the gondola loaded with dresses. The dresses of the friend who had died. He pushed them over the side of boat, attempting, it was said, to drown them. Was it grief that had driven him to this symbolic gesture? No one knew. But the dresses would not drown. They kept coming back up, over and over, bloated, swollen, shining with the wet. He tried again to push them down, to bury them beneath the water, but still they rose up.
That’s how it had been with Ian.
No matter how many times Alex had tried to push him over, he just kept coming back.
It would’ve been a great horror novel if it hadn’t been so sad.
Silence was hard. He really wanted to argue. He’d never really had the chance to tell Ian off. Never had the chance to tell him all the harm he’d done in Alex’s life. You left me for another man! And even now you act like you have my best interests at heart, as though Bastian does as well! Instead it had been this simple warning, stay away, don’t call, don’t text. Laying down the law, the rules.
He knew he must not speak to Ian now. Couldn’t keep engaging. This wasn’t a chance to tell him what he thought. Because doing that would only entangle him further, and that was the last thing he wanted. He needed to be free of Ian.
“I’m hanging up now,” he said simply.
“I know, of course you are. But I haven’t told you about my agent! Oh, now you’ll like this. He got his start in New York in a poetry commune, of all things—”
“Goodbye, Ian.”
“Alex, wait. Come on. Talk to me. I’m living the life we always dreamed of. What are you doing? You’ve backed yourself into a corner. You’ve taken the easy way out. Given up everything you wanted, for safety.”
“Goodbye. I’m blocking this number as well.”
“Oh dear, I’m muddling things again! Giving you advice! Bastian said to me, Darling, you must not advise Alex. He is his own man. Forget I said anything. Look, I was thinking, now that I’m the states, once I’m done with these meetings, it really isn’t hard to get across the country—”
“You won’t.”
“It’s no trouble, and both Bastian and I are dying to see you, and we worry—”
“No, you won’t! I have had it!”
“Don’t get over-excited, that has always been the problem with you, whenever you face a challenge, you—”
“Goodbye.”
“You always do this!”
“I said goodbye.”
He was nearly panting when he hung up. His heart was thrumming against his chest, too fast for individual beats, practically vibrating inside his ribs like it might burst at any second.
How dare he? How fucking dare he?
Through this haze of anger and dismay, he saw someone was lurking at the entrance of the gallery. When he looked up, he saw it was Judah.
What had Toby said? That Alex needed to get his mind off things?
Suddenly that seemed very, very reasonable.
Suddenly the idea of doing something definitive, something so very anti-Ian that it would be an unmistakable break with that part of his life, was overwhelming in its urgency.
An utter mistake, but his own mistake. His and his alone.
Judah said hello, but before he could get another word out, Alex rushed at him.
Maybe this is wrong.
It’s kind of like a delayed rebound.
Alex didn’t care at all. He was so angry, frustrated, humiliated, and Judah was right there, single, available—
He kissed him.
For a moment, surprise held them both in suspense, lips touching but very little else moving. Judah clearly had not expected this.
Yet it was only a moment before both of them seemed to accept what had happened, and softened against one another. The kiss had begun almost chastely, closed lips to closed lips, and now they opened, and Judah stole away Alex’s breath. He felt his face flush, not with embarrassment, but with an excitement that could not be veiled. His skin tingled with anticipation. Through his hands he felt Judah’s warm flesh, the working muscles of his jaw, then he drew his hands down Judah’s neck, to his shoulders, pulling him closer.
Their tongues danced an uncertain minuet, but one that grew more confident by the moment. At first Judah hesitated, the return of the kiss tentative, but Alex pressed forward, his mouth insistent on what it wanted, and Judah did not resist him.
In fact, Judah’s arms found their way around him, and Alex felt himself warmed by that grip, found himself remembering how it felt to be held by those arms, their unexpected strength. This was a man who could erase the past…at least for a night. That’s all Alex needed. One night. Things could go back to normal tomorrow.
Their lips broke for long enough for Judah to say, “But Alex—”
His fingertip touched Judah’s mouth. “Shh.”
“But—”
“No talking,” Alex whispered. “Please.”
He hoped no hint of the mad desperation he felt could be heard in his voice. Hoped Judah wouldn’t question this wildness that had possessed him. It was vengeance. It was justice. It was what Alex deserved.
“Take me upstairs,” he whispered to Judah.
“Do you mean—”
“Pick me up and take me to my room. Now.”
The other times he had been carried might have been exercises in humiliation, proof that Alex could not properly take care of himself. But now? Now there was a sense of wickedness, of getting away with something, when Judah lifted him. There were no more questions from his friend, just a rapid step toward the creaking old elevator which brought them up to the second story.
Judah set him on the plush bed, and Alex took his hands before he could get away. “Stay,” he said.
“Alex…I don’t know what’s going on.”
“You don’t have to know, okay? I saw the way you looked at me this morning.”
“I tried so hard not to look at you.”
“And I sure as hell saw the hard-on you walked out with.”
“Oh god.”
“Don’t be embarrassed! Do you get what I’m trying to tell you? Don’t ask questions. Just…stay here.”
Judah swallowed. “I’ve never… I mean, no one has ever…”
“Good. Exce
llent. Now stop talking.”
Alex let go of his hands and took hold of Judah’s belt. He yanked on it, pulling it from its loops, tossing it to the floor, half tempted to swat Judah’s behind with it before he did, for punctuation, for emphasis. But he was too eager to get to the next stage, where he was unbuttoning and unzipping.
You know this is a mistake, some part of him said. Again.
Of course it was. Everything in Alex’s life had been a mistake. But at least this one would blot out the others for a while.
You’re going to wreck the friendship you have with him.
He knew. But he dared not pause. If he stopped now, the guilt would set in, the uncertainty, and then he would lie here all night hating himself. No, there was only one way forward, pushing things as far as they would go.
Judah might have been nervous, but he was also entirely receptive. While Alex worked on his pants, Judah was pulling up his shirt…and Alex had to glance up with approval and an unhidden delight. Judah’s nipples were dark against his pale skin, dark and hard. As hard as this lump in his briefs that Alex was now teasing out.
“Oh goodness,” he said, as the heaviness of Judah’s cock lay in his hands. “I guess we’re even now, aren’t we? You’ve seen mine, I’ve seen yours…”
But before Judah could respond—and Alex knew how he’d respond, apologetically—he flicked his tongue-tip out to lick Judah’s cock-head. His slit was salty with the first few drops of precum.
A visible shudder went through Judah, like he was standing in the midst of an earthquake. Alex lay one hand flat against Judah’s belly, to feel that shudder. It was the sort of thing that drove Alex wild, feeling this effect he could have on someone.
And Judah’s cock responded as well, jumping out of his hand, standing straight and tall. It dripped with anticipation.
God, Alex loved precum. It was the perfect symbol of desire. Like a little orgasm before the orgasm, proof that someone wanted you, proof that you could bring them to their knees. Even though his instinct was to suck down Judah’s cock right away, he held off long enough to touch Judah’s cock-head with his fingers, to feel the sticky, salty juice on his skin, to rub it in circles on Judah’s sensitive shaft. It was so shiny and wet, and as he squeezed Judah’s shaft, more came pouring out. He thought briefly that he should do just this, just squeezing, slowly, over and over, until Judah climaxed. That would be something. Maybe bring him to the brink, get him so close that he was squirming in Alex’s grip, then let go, back away, let him collapse without coming, make him suffer.