by Josh Lanyon
I racked the slide a couple of times. There was no round in the chamber; the magazine was upstairs in the drawer, but that’s not the kind of thing you ever want to be get careless about. I aimed at the window over the sink and pulled the trigger to release the firing pin.
“What are you doing?” Stephen asked from behind me, and I nearly knocked the table over.
How the hell was I supposed to survive in the field when these days I wasn’t even aware of someone coming up behind me in my own home?
I don’t think I concealed my start from him, but I managed to drop back in the chair and say calmly, “Did I wake you? Sorry. I couldn’t sleep.”
“So you’re cleaning your pistol?”
I shrugged. “It relaxes me.”
He pulled the chair to the side of me out and sat down at the table, studying me. His eyebrows made a silver line of disapproval.
I grasped the slide, pulled it back, and pulled the release tabs.
I said, “It really only needs minimal lubrication for proper function. The main thing is to avoid getting oil or solvent into the striker channel.”
“I’ll keep that in mind.”
I could feel him watching me.
“Is everything all right?” he asked finally.
I met his eyes briefly. Nodded.
“For a spy, you’re not a very good liar.”
“Ex-spy.” Neither of us smiled. I said, “I can’t lie to you. I don’t want to try.”
He eyes darkened. “What’s going on, Mark? I thought when you got home you seemed strung up.”
I shook my head. “I have to work some things out in my own mind before I try talking to you.”
He said dryly, “Is it that hard to talk to me?”
“No, of course not.” I put the gun down, but my hands were oily, so I ended up spreading them, palms up. “I…I’m just used to…keeping my own counsel.”
“I know. That’s not exactly what being in a relationship is about.” He was giving me a long, narrow look—a look I hadn’t seen since I’d returned bloodied and battered from Afghanistan the last time. “All right. I’m not going to try to winkle it out of you.”
His chair scraped back. I looked up quickly. Stephen didn’t appear angry, just tired.
“Let me know when you’re ready to talk.”
“I will. I promise.” He turned away, and I said, “Stephen, it’s nothing to do with us.”
“Oh, for God’s sake, Mark,” he said disgustedly. He didn’t bother to glance around as he left the room.
But when I crawled into bed two hours later, he sleepily welcomed me into his arms.
Funny thing, that, because I had never liked being held when I slept, but with Stephen there was something comforting about curling up against him. I liked his arms wrapped around me, liked the heat of him all down my back, the warm breath stirring the hair at the nape of my neck.
I loved him. That made all the difference.
Chapter Two
When I opened my eyes the next morning, it took me a few seconds to place myself after the violent chaos of my dreams. Uppermost was relief to realize that the nightmares had been just that, that the dangerous labyrinths I’d been wandering were imaginary. Then I remembered Malik, and my body seemed to freeze.
I turned my head, but I knew Stephen was already up; I could hear him humming in the shower. But I continued to stare at the indentation his head had made in the pillow next to mine. The sheets where he’d lain were still warm, and when I hauled his pillow over to me, it carried his scent. I pressed it close to my face and breathed in deeply.
Picturing Stephen walking in and seeing me, I gave a shaky laugh and shoved the pillows and blankets aside.
The bathroom was warm and steamy and scented of something pleasantly herbal. It used to surprise me that Stephen went in for all these posh bath gels, but his days were spent in an antiseptic environment, so maybe it wasn’t so surprising.
I pushed open the frosted glass door and followed him into the shower. He glanced over his shoulder, surprised, as I crowded in with him. His hair looked like molten silver plastered against his head, and his eyes were shining green as mallard feathers.
“My turn,” I said.
Stephen laughed as he always did at my aggression. A little disconcerting that, but nice too. Nothing about me frightened Stephen.
“What did you have in mind, bath mitt or back scratcher?”
In answer, I presented my back to him and straddled my legs to give him easy access.
“I see.” He kissed my nape, and I shivered.
He put one hand on my hips and used the soapy fingers of his other to ease his way into me. Dear God, I loved the feel of that, of his long fingers moving inside me. It didn’t get more personal than that, did it? That informed press of fingertips on spongy flesh. Nothing clinical about it, nothing medicinal, just…informed.
“Yeah, you’re ready,” he murmured.
I moaned. I loved his cock too—although I’d never enjoyed bottoming. Good manners require taking turns, but I’d never got much out of it. It was just a way to get what I wanted. But I loved being fucked by Stephen. Loved the way it filled me up, left me with no room to think of anything but Stephen.
“You are sweet as a peach.” He groaned, shoving into me.
I steadied myself with a hand against the wall and raised my face to the steamy spray.
I loved the feel of him all down my back, loved how hard he held me—how hard he fucked me—I could feel his heart pounding against my back, our bodies warm and wet and slippery together. I reached behind to try to touch him, to urge him closer still. He hung on tight, and I rocked and pushed back into him—a brisk, vigorous fuck to start the day.
We were still panting, laughing as he turned off the taps; I opened the shower door, grabbed a towel, and handed it to him. He scrubbed the pearl gray plush against his face.
We made room for each other as we toweled off, went through the routine of shaving and brushing teeth.
“What’s your schedule like?” I asked. “Can we meet for lunch?”
“I think so. Don’t you have class today?”
“The professor’s off sick,” I said, lying. I watched myself in the mirror, watched the razor gliding up my throat in brisk, smooth strokes. No point killing myself to complete course work if I wasn’t going to be around for the final.
“I’ll call you when I know for sure.”
I nodded.
He moved past me into the bedroom. I heard the brisk slide of drawers.
* * * * *
I spent the morning going through papers, locating the shoes—the false passports—I used when traveling for The Section. I told myself I was just making sure everything was in readiness if I did decide to go ahead, but in fact it felt uncomfortably like I was making sure my affairs were in order. All that double-checking bank books, insurance documents, my will, verifying the i’s were dotted and the t’s crossed. I was simply making sure—if I did decide to return to the field—that everything was where Stephen could quickly find what he needed. I continued to tell myself I had not made up my mind.
I hadn’t made up my mind. And yet when I tried to imagine telling Malik no, tried to think how I would phrase it, the picture wouldn’t come. I couldn’t visualize it. What I could visualize—only too easily—was myself on a plane.
Through the floorboards I could hear Lena Roosevelt vacuuming the study. I closed my eyes, thinking how unfair it was that I hadn’t had a chance to get bored yet with these little details of domesticity. But that was just feeling sorry for myself. Embarrassing.
I finished going through everything and went downstairs with my copy of Nicholas Nickleby to read in front of the fire while I waited for Stephen to phone.
“Aren’t you having breakfast, honey?” Lena asked, poking her head into the study. She was a large-boned but very thin black woman of a robust seventy-something. She had sharp, striking features that hinted of a mixed and intrepid herit
age. She wore a brown wool dress—always dresses—and sensible shoes and iron gray hair in a tight bun. Old-fashioned wire spectacles perched on her pointed nose. I don’t think she was overly impressed by me, but she adored Stephen, and so she was always briskly kind.
“I’m supposed to meet Stephen for lunch.”
She studied me over the tops of her specs, nodded crisply, and withdrew, leaving me to the adventures of the idealistic and impulsive Nicholas Nickleby.
I read for a while, my stomach growling now and then. The house was redolent with the pumpkin pies baking in the kitchen. Lena was a wonderful cook, which more than made up for any flaws in her personality—such as not liking me. It was so easy to start to take all the lovely things in this house for granted; things like good food and warmth and comfortable chairs. Wouldn’t be much of any of that in Afghanistan.
Stephen called around ten o’clock.
“Bad news,” he said briskly. “I can’t make lunch. Hart is calling an impromptu staff meeting. He’s concerned that all these sick people with costly medical conditions are messing with our performance rates and profit index.”
“Right.” I knew my disappointment was all out of proportion. I swallowed it down and said, “Well, I’ll see you tonight then.”
Something must have crept into my tone, though. I felt Stephen’s hesitation, and then he said, “I’m sorry, Mark. I’m disappointed too.”
“Not important.” I tried to laugh and, to my horror, heard it catch in my throat.
I could hear his name being paged in the background noise. Stephen said, “I’d offer to take you to dinner tonight, but I’ve got that damn scholarship trustee meeting. What about tomorrow night?”
“Halloween.”
“Hell. Mark —”
To my relief, my laugh sounded normal that time. “No worries. It was just a thought.”
Someone came up to the phone and I heard him turn away briefly to answer a question. He came back on the line and said, “Okay. I’ll see you tonight.”
For nature gives to every time and season some beauties of its own; and from morning to night, as from the cradle to the grave, is but a succession of changes so gentle and easy, that we can scarcely mark their progress.
I had read somewhere that Nicholas Nickleby was a turning point in Dickens’s writing career. It was his third novel but his first true romance. Nicholas is a hero in the classic mold: young, poor, brave, mostly noble. He gets on my nerves like no other Dickens character, including that poor little rat Oliver Twist. The novel was probably the wrong choice for my mood—A Tale of Two Cities would have been more like it—but I have a thing about finishing what I start.
By five o’clock, I was down to the last chapters of the novel—and no closer to making my decision—as I settled down with one of those frozen chicken pot pies and a glass of milk. I heard the front door screen bang.
I experienced another of those uneasy flashes. How had I missed a car pulling up outside the house? That kind of obliviousness was liable to get me killed when—if—I went back into the field.
I tossed the book aside and went to the front hall. Stephen, framed by the doorway, was making a fuss over Buck, who was wriggling all over in puppylike ecstasy.
“Hey, what are you doing home early?” I asked, surprised.
He straightened and came toward me. “Hi. I thought I’d take my lover to dinner.” He put his hands on either side of my face and kissed me with what felt like disconcerting intentness.
When he released me, I tried to joke, “Do you suppose he’d mind if I tag along?”
But he wasn’t letting me laugh it away. “You choose. Where would you like to go tonight?”
“Now I feel like an idiot. You didn’t have to skip your meeting to have dinner with me, you know.”
“I know. I wanted to. It dawned on me this afternoon how little time we’ve had together lately.”
“You’re busy. You’ve got a lot of commitments. And I’ve got”—I changed that in time—“one hell of a lot of homework.”
He seemed to examine my face. “You’ve worked so hard these last months. I don’t think I’ve even told you how proud I am of you.”
This was much worse than being neglected. Not that he’d ever neglected me; the most he could be accused of was being occasionally preoccupied. “Don’t, Stephen. Really.” And I meant it. “I’m happy. The happiest I can remember. I wish —”
I wish it could have lasted forever.
I cut that off.
* * * * *
We ate at La Peu de Cuisine in Winchester. It was a charming little French restaurant; Stephen and I had had our first official date there nearly two years earlier. The service was, as always, impeccable, the food excellent, and the atmosphere suitably romantic: pale blue linens, crystal chandeliers, oil paintings of the Pyrenees on exposed brick walls, and large, comfortable and private booths.
Stephen had the Dover sole and I had the foie gras-stuffed guinea hen. We ordered a bottle of chardonnay from the terrific wine list, and I listened to Stephen rant about having spent the morning on the phone with flunkies at an insurance company while trying to get the necessary approval for tests one of his patients urgently needed. It was so blessedly normal that I could almost convince myself that this was how the rest of our life was going to be.
“People don’t understand. Insurance company clerks are determining who can live and who dies. Insurance company clerks are playing God.”
“And that used to be your job.”
He glared at me, then registered the teasing in my voice. He expelled a long breath, managed a rueful grin. “It did, yeah.”
“So what kind of perks does God get?”
He laughed and reached for the wine bottle. “Not enough to make up for the lousy hours.” He topped my glass up.
“You don’t have to get me drunk,” I said. “You can have your wicked way with me anytime you like.”
He grinned, very beautiful in the candlelight. I thought again how lucky I was. Even if it was all ended, I had been lucky. Most people never got close to this.
“So what did you do today?”
“Today? Today I skived off. Read mostly. Tried to teach Buck to roll over and play dead.”
“Did you succeed?”
“No. He’s not much for tricks.”
“How are your classes going?”
“Piece of cake.”
Stephen was still smiling, but he sounded serious as he asked, “Are you bored, Mark? I don’t mean today. I mean in general.”
“No. Of course not.”
He scrutinized me as though not completely convinced. “I know how quiet it is around here. How dull it must be for you. It’s only reasonable that you might get frustrated, fed up.”
“I’m not. I don’t.” I was truly startled that he could think that. It was almost funny given my idea of heaven would have been to spend the rest of my life living and loving quietly with him. In fact, I’d have taken that over heaven any day—let alone the place I was probably destined for.
“It’s a drastic change from the last decade.”
I shook my head. “You know better than anyone the shape I was in after that last op. I’ve no desire to go back.”
I realized that this was the time to tell him of my meeting with Malik. To tell him what the Old Man wanted. To warn him that, desire or not, I might have to make one last run. But, gazing at his smiling face across the table, my courage failed. I knew, knew with absolute certainty that no matter when or how I broached it, such a conversation was not going to go well.
It didn’t matter how hard I’d worked to prove myself over the last five months. Two years of insecurity and resentment lingered as was proved by this very conversation.
I needed to tell him, but I needed to find the right moment. The problem was that my moments were running out.
He changed the subject. “You didn’t eat much dinner. Do you want dessert?”
“I was thinking we migh
t head home. There’s that pumpkin pie Lena made today.”
“Ah. Pumpkin pie means fresh whipped cream,” Stephen said, his grin utterly frank and utterly sexy.
My jeans were suddenly far too tight—and not from eating too much dinner.
We ran into Bryce Boxer on our way out of the restaurant. Bryce was Stephen’s ex, the man Stephen had turned to when he decided I was a lost cause and it was time to move on. He was, as Stephen had told me one too many times, a very nice guy. Not Bryce’s fault that I disliked him intensely. That evening he was dining with a short, stagily handsome Latino man—I pegged it as a first or second date. They were awkwardly attentive with each other.
“How are you, Bryce?” Stephen inquired, pausing by their booth.
“Stephen!” When Bryce gazed up at Stephen, his heart was in his eyes. For the first time I felt a flicker of empathy for him. I knew how it felt to lose Stephen. I’d been gutted when it had been my turn.
Bryce introduced his date, we chatted briefly, and then Stephen yielded to my silent urgings and we said good night. When we were outside on the pavement, he commented, “He seems nice enough.”
“Who?”
“Alan.”
Bryce’s date. I’d barely registered his name. Once again I felt that glimmer of unease. I was supposed to notice things. Without trying.
“I don’t think he’s right for Bryce, though,” Stephen was saying.
My empathy for Bryce vanished in a stab of irritation. “Why not? He seems just the type to go in for jazz festivals and Sunday brunch at the Regency Room.”
“There’s nothing wrong with those things.”
“No. You seemed to enjoy them, certainly.”
He gave me a level look. “I did enjoy them. Bryce is a caring, decent guy. And he’s a lot of fun.”
I laughed. I didn’t mean for it to come out so derisively, but I could feel a mounting wave of aggression as it occurred to me that with me out of the way, Bryce would have a clear field again.