by Con Riley
Despite picturing the scene so often, it’s nothing like Jon imagined.
He’d been sure he knew how this would go down, but the reality is different and so much better. A couple of minutes of Tyler’s complete attention, and he’s way out of his depth, submerged in pleasure so deep that he’d welcome drowning. He grabs at Tyler’s hair like that might hold him under.
“Hey!” Tyler lifts up on his elbow, expression caught between aroused and indignant. The movement of his fist around Jon’s cock doesn’t let up as he grumbles. It’s tight and wet with saliva, each stroke leading to more sensation that’s so sweet, at odds with his stern warning.
It’s an evening of first times for Jon: the first time he’s openly dated where work colleagues might judge him and the first time he can’t make himself care if that news travels. Another first dislodges someplace deep inside when he comes, both his hands back in Tyler’s hair no matter how much he bitches.
He doesn’t have words for this new free space inside him, not when he’s more focused on Tyler getting off too, and when he rolls to the side after coming over Jon’s chest, complaining that his jaw aches, Jon adds another first to his list.
It’s the first time he’s ever wanted so much more than he has already.
More of evenings like this, spent with people he has time for, doing shit that matters, and so much more of Tyler.
Moving around with his job won’t make having any of that easy, even if Tyler did want the same.
It’s a thought that he carries through the next week, filling his head at Hallquist Holdings when he should be on the clock and working. Instead of the figures he should be scrutinizing, he inspects how he can’t wait to leave the building, reliving each touch and tease of Tyler’s during endless meetings that he barely tunes in to. In fact, he daydreams more than can be good for his long-term career prospects, but even knowing that doesn’t stop him. He aimlessly stares instead at the glass wall where he once drew dollar signs like they were all that mattered.
He should be compiling evidence against someone he knows is decent.
He should.
But he can’t.
He leaves early a few times to avoid typing reports that are damning and distracts himself by eating at the diner whenever Tyler’s working.
Candice leans into the booth to retrieve dirty dishes the second night he’s in that week, and she inclines her head toward the counter where Peggy chats with her boy. “They’ll both miss you when you get done here.”
It’s a jolting reminder of a fact he can’t keep packed away like the crates of his mom’s stuff in the garage.
It doesn’t matter if he wants more.
It really truly doesn’t.
By the end of the summer, he won’t have a choice. This is an interlude after all, not a happy ending.
Chapter 20
JON’S IN a world of his own, zoned out midway through a finance meeting the next week, when a screwed-up ball of paper hits him. It bounces from his chest onto the legal pad on his lap. Forty-five minutes into this meeting and the blank, pale yellow page he started with is now covered with doodles. The tight twist of pea-shoot tendrils curl around the handle of the shovel he’s drawn, and Peggy sits by a bed of spinach holding a book of crossword puzzles. The ball of paper someone threw covers the face of a man Jon’s drawn next to her. It almost rolls off his pad when he instinctively sits up straighter.
Who the hell had thrown it, and how long had they been watching?
He guiltily glances each way, but the meeting drones on. The same middle managers debate departmental budgets as thirty minutes ago, and they’re just as frustrated now as a half hour before about figures that are contradictory. All of their arguments are pointless, Jon knows; Stan already okayed all the numbers despite the accounting department’s many fuck-ups. To be honest, it’s a waste of time any of them being there at all.
When the ball of paper almost falls from his lap, he carefully unfolds it. A single word is written on it.
Busted.
Anthony Nelson’s gaze flicks instantly away when Jon looks up, but a smile ghosts his lips and he makes a show of retrieving his phone like he just got a text message. “Dang,” he says like he’s regretful. “Can you believe my next meeting is about to start already? Excuse me everyone, won’t you?” He stands and then speaks directly to Carl. “You good to catch me up later on anything I miss here?”
Carl blinks like Anthony’s spoken to him in a foreign language. He sounds dubious when he agrees. “Sure, I guess.” It’s a rare moment of détente between leaders of opposing camps that has all eyes focused on them. Jon uses the moment to slide the note into his pocket and to flip his page of doodles. He looks up when Anthony speaks directly to him.
“Hey, Jonathan. Remind me.” He sounds rueful, like he’s genuinely forgotten. “Is my meeting the one you needed to shadow?” That ghost of a smile returns when he adds, “I’m almost certain it is, but I understand if you need to finish up here.”
“No.” Finishing up here means at least another hour of pointlessly wasted time. He takes the out that Anthony offers. “Thanks for the reminder.” He pushes back his chair and then follows Anthony, who walks purposefully along the hallway like he’s really in a hurry. His pace slows when they get to the breakroom.
Jon leans against the counter as Anthony pours two cups of coffee. “Thought you were in a hurry to make this meeting that I have no recollection of at all.”
There’s nothing faint about Anthony’s next smile. It’s broad as he passes Jon a steaming cup and a stirrer. “I’d feel guilty if I didn’t know you spent the last twenty minutes doing something else instead of listening.” When Jon sets down his legal pad to doctor his coffee, Anthony turns back a page. “Huh. You really were bored.” He traces ink that describes Jon’s backyard. Then he taps the outline of Tyler. “Or maybe you just have something else on your mind.” He takes a sip of his drink.
It could be an awkward moment. Anthony lightens it with humor. “Tell me, did you hear the latest office scuttlebutt?”
“Scuttlebutt?” Jon can’t help smiling at that. “No, I can’t say that I have.” He tucks the pad of paper under his arm and follows Anthony to his office. “I don’t get to hear much in the way of gossip. People tend to shut up around me.”
“Well, the big news this week is all about the hotshot consultant from New York.” He sets his cup down and then crosses to his window. “Heard you helped out at some kind of rebuild project last week.”
“Yes. At an animal shelter.”
Anthony nods, his back still turned. “The big news is that you brought your ‘super-cute boyfriend’ with you.”
Ah.
Jon couldn’t imagine Carl mentioning meeting Tyler to anyone at the office or the words super cute coming out of his mouth. “Eric,” he decides aloud, but Anthony shakes his head.
“Nope. Although I overheard him telling one of his interns that it was uncool to out people at work even if they were hot.” He turns, and his expression is perfectly smooth. It’s an odd look on him when he’s usually expressive. “I wanted to apologize. I wouldn’t have come on to you if I’d known. I don’t like it when someone steps on my toes, and I wouldn’t knowingly do it to anyone either.”
Jon takes a moment to process that admittance. Anthony had been very careful to be oblique when he’d first asked Jon out, leaving ample room for a different interpretation. That had been wise given that his work was being investigated. His honesty now isn’t necessary, but he appreciates it. It means he must have meant it when he said that Jon’s report wasn’t his motivator. “You don’t need to apologize. When you asked, I didn’t….”
“Have a super-cute boyfriend?”
“He’s not my boyfriend.” Those words feel wrong the moment he says them.
“No?” Anthony tilts his head toward the pad of paper. “You sure about that, Jonathan?”
Everything in the picture he’s sketched during the meeting clearly
points toward Tyler. From more pea-shoot tendrils to the direction of Peggy’s warm glance; it’s all there in plain sight and smudged ink.
“I’m no expert about people,” Anthony adds, “but it kinda looks like that’s someone you want to be close to.”
No expert about people? Anthony’s observation is a snapshot that brings recent events into focus. A mental image of Tyler buying him dinner from a food truck is so clear he can almost smell Cajun spices. And remembering Tyler speckled with ash and yet still looking so good to him, prompts his own admittance. “I mean, I guess we are seeing each other.” Was there even a term for someone you just hooked up with for a summer? “While I’m here, anyhow.”
Anthony simply nods and says, “Well, at least you have a valid reason for being distracted.”
“Not really. But thanks for giving me an excuse to get out of that meeting. I already know the figures they’re discussing, so I didn’t exactly miss much, but still”—and this was key—“it was unprofessional.”
“Don’t sweat it.” Anthony takes a seat. “Falling for someone takes up a lot of headspace. Love will do that to you.”
“I’m not in—” He fishes out his phone when it suddenly rings. Tyler’s name is on the screen like he somehow knows Jon’s talking about him. Jon holds up a finger—one moment—and answers. “Hey, Ty—”
Tyler’s voice sounds so wrong, Jon’s already standing before he gets out a whole sentence.
“I’m at the hospital. Can you come?”
A brand new mental image rises. This time it’s the rough red mark Danny left across Tyler’s throat that he pictures. “Of course. I’m on my way right now. Are you…? Did Danny—?”
“No!” Tyler’s voice is still horribly thick. “No. I’m fine,” he insists when he plainly isn’t. This voice doesn’t belong to the calm man who knelt on shattered glass to assess wounds. It’s not the warm and teasing tone Jon’s coming to think of as his either. “I’m not here for me,” Tyler promises.
Then he says something far worse.
“I’m here with Peggy.”
TYLER’S PACING from left to right when Jon gets to the emergency room entrance. When he sees Jon, his relief is instant. It’s right there in the way he breathlessly calls out his name and abortively reaches out once he gets close, as if about to hug him. He drops his arms and stutters back a step, perhaps only then aware that they’re out in public, but he doesn’t resist when Jon wraps both arms around him. Tyler doesn’t let go. In fact, he holds on real tight for several long, extended seconds until Jon loosens his grip and asks, “What happened? Is she okay?”
“Yeah. Yeah, I think she will be. It was an accident. They stopped the bleeding real fast. Scalp wounds always look worse than they are.” A faint shudder runs through Tyler as he speaks. Jon feels that quiver run through him, more aftershock than full-blown quake. “Of course, the one time she really hurts herself, I was right there with her.” His voice hitches a few times like it’s caught somewhere between a laugh or a rough sob. “Jesus Christ, I was right there, Jon. Right there, and still I didn’t manage to stop it from happening. If only I’d—”
“Hey, now.” Jon’s pats on his back are instinctive, resonating as his palms make solid contact. “Hey, listen to me, okay? You said it was an accident.” A horrible thought crosses his mind again for the hundredth time, at least, since getting the phone call. “Did it… did it happen on the stairs? Did they give way, or did she trip down them or something?”
“No. No, it was those stupid slippers. You know which ones I’m talking about? The mules that she loves wearing so much?”
“The fancy ones with all the floaty marabou?” He could see them plain as day in his mind’s eye, neatly paired at the foot of the stepladder the last time he saw them.
“Yeah. The heels aren’t high exactly, but one caught on those uneven pavers by the greenhouse and she cut her head when she fell. It happened so fast. I was right next to her, Jon, watering the tomatoes.”
“So it’s not your fault, is it? You didn’t know it would happen.” He slowly lets go when Tyler eventually starts to pull back. “Can I see her?”
Tyler shakes his head. “Not yet. They’re still checking her over.” He scrubs a hand through his hair. “I only got to stay with her as long as I did because they thought I was her home health aide.”
“So she’s alone right now?”
“For now, yeah. She was too disoriented to give permission for me to stay. I overheard them put a call through to her niece. She must be down as next-of-kin in her record. She’s flying in tomorrow. I didn’t even know she existed. Where the hell has she been the last few years?” He blows out a long, slow, shaky breath and then studies Jon’s face like he’s only now focusing on him. “What time is it?”
“Right now?” He glances at his watch. “Almost noon.”
“Shit. I don’t know what I was thinking. I didn’t mean to get you out of work in the middle of the day. I— You should go back. I don’t know how long Peggy’s tests will take. I… I don’t even know what made me call you like that.” He scrubs a hand helplessly through his hair again until Jon takes it in his and holds on, his grip good and steady.
“I’m okay to be here. I don’t have to go back, and I can stay for as long as it takes.” All that waited for him at work was a half-written report he didn’t have the heart right now to complete. Not in line with Stan Hallquist’s instructions to ignore genuine issues, anyhow. “And I get why you called.” He follows Tyler inside to a waiting area. They sit next to each other, both leaning forward with their elbows on their knees, legs brushing against each other’s. “It’s natural to want to reach out.” Lord knows he’d felt a similarly strong desire when his mom had been hospitalized. “I tried to do the same thing once. Coming here was no problem. I’m glad that you called me.”
Of course, Tyler picks up on the one statement that matters.
“You ‘tried’ to do the same thing?”
Nodding is easier than speaking, as is staring almost unseeingly at the waiting room chairs opposite rather than at Tyler right now. He knows what he’d see if he did: caring, concern, and compassion that it turns out he’s still too raw to deal with.
“What do you mean ‘you tried’?” Tyler inches around in his seat until he’s facing Jon’s way. “You mentioned your mom before. Do you mean—?”
Something about his tone makes talking about it easier, for once.
“She had a heart attack. It took a while for me to get home after I heard. The closer I got to the hospital, the less I wanted to walk in on my own.” It had been the one and only time he’d tried to track down his dad just to hear him say things would be okay; a knee-jerk response that made no sense after so many years without hearing his voice even once. “I called someone just like you did, only the number I had was out of service. So I’m glad you called me. It would suck to be here on your own, and there’s no reason why you have to be.” There’s no one nearby, so Jon leans in to kiss him. Their foreheads touch afterward for a moment, and Tyler closes his eyes.
The afternoon turns to evening before they get the okay to go back. Tyler hesitates before they get to Peggy’s room. He holds Jon by the elbow until he stops, and when he speaks he sounds professional. It’s a real insight into a role Jon hasn’t seen Tyler work firsthand. His gaze is clear and steady instead of bloodshot like earlier, and his tone is level.
“She’s likely going to be confused. She didn’t knock herself out—she was conscious the whole time—but she gave herself a real fright. So she might be upset.” He hesitates and then plows on. “They’ll want to keep her overnight at least, and I want to stay with her, if I can, only—”
“Only her niece gets in on an early flight? You want me to go pick her up? No problem. Do you need me to call in to work for you too? If you were due to cover anything at the diner, I can drop by and tell Candice what’s happened. Maybe pick up some pie for when Peggy gets home.”
Perhaps Jon sho
uldn’t be surprised to see so many emotions cross Tyler’s face right then, but there’s relief followed by surprise. Gratitude comes next with another expression tight to its tail that Jon’s not sure he has a name for.
Tyler simply swallows and says a low-pitched, “Thank you.” He pulls in a deep breath and then says, “Will you give me a minute with her first?”
Jon nods and waits, lingering in the hallway for what feels like forever. He counts to ten and back a few times before he can’t wait any longer, but what he sees from the doorway abruptly halts him.
For the first time in his life, he sees how old Peggy is instead of how old she acts around them. It’s right there on her face, which is ghostly devoid of make-up and tearstained like she’s cried enough that day to furrow brand-new wrinkles. She’s teary right now, in fact, and querulous—argumentative for the first time that Jon’s ever heard her. She’s so pale it’s frightening and tiny in a bed that hems her in with guardrails, but she pushes weakly against one and then extends her arm like she’s desperate to get something that’s just out of her reach.
It takes a moment to register that she looks so small because her crowning glory’s missing.
Sparse white wisps of hair lie flat against her skull instead of her usual rigid red curls. It’s a small thing, yet devastating to see her like this, suddenly so fragile.
Tyler steps in to help her. He turns and catches sight of Jon, half hidden by the door, and raises a hand. He doesn’t have to say a word; Jon stills instead of walking in any further, listening when Tyler speaks so softly.