by Sky McCoy
“It’s not me that you owe an apology to.” The elevator opened and I stepped into it just like I had a habit of stepping in a lot of things lately where it took me to the bottom floor. When I looked it was the basement. That was the story of my life, now I had to come up to the main floor in order to get out of the hotel, or this mess I found myself creating.
Inside the lobby, I’d gotten a call from Max. I paused long enough to answer. “Hey, dude, where are you?”
“I’m in your office. Did you forget our appointment?”
Fuck, yeah I did. I couldn’t go home now. “I’ll be there in ten minutes. I’m with Jack and I’m leaving now.”
Chapter 12
Dorian
“Why didn’t you tell him, Dorian?” Jack said, standing over me in disbelief as I wolfed down my food. I glanced up at him, silent chewing my cold buttered toast and equally cold eggs. “Don’t you care?”
I put down my fork, laid the half-eaten toast down, and stared into the plate, not meeting Jack’s eyes for a moment. Then I looked up and locked eyes with him. “Of course I fucking care, but I think Jeremy and I have a lot more to discuss or figure out than whether you fucked me or not.”
“Don’t you understand that he needed an answer and not you dicking around with him? How much time would it have taken to tell my brother that you would never do that to him? Hearing it from me, wouldn’t have meant as much as him hearing those words from you.” I remained silent, sulking, crossed my arms and listened. “I’ve gone through all that jealousy shit, Dorian. It happens when you love someone. It’s part of the process until you understand the person you’re in love with, and what it takes to calm their fears. Ask yourself what you did to contribute to his jealousy. I can think of a number of things.”
I could think of more than one thing. I realized by listening to Jack that I’d done the same thing that caused Jeremy and myself all those misunderstandings in the beginning of our relationship. If I didn’t do something and quick, our life together would be doomed. I had to do more to alter this disagreement between us than get angry. It wasn’t Jeremy’s fault he’d thought something irresponsible about me when he barely knew me.
I’d been to blame as well and I had to face it.
“Look at my part in this confusion. I should have told Jeremy that I’d married Austin and I’d planned on returning to New York with him. No one was closer to me than Jeremy, and yet I let him leave without telling him anything. I feel as much to blame as you do. Don’t get me wrong, you are more responsible. I can’t lug around your guilt because I have enough to carry of my own.
“I’m fucking tired of running from Austin. Do you know how many times I’ve left Austin only to return to him after I’d gotten exhausted from the men I’ve hooked up with? Austin is really all I want, and I need him more than he could ever need me. Maybe that’s what I’m running from. Facing that I need anyone and especially him.
“Austin pretends that he’s my Dom and I’m his submissive, and maybe I am, but underneath those exquisite suits and manners, a fucking hot handsome man, he’s hiding his insecurities, and I’ve exacerbated that by pretending to want Max. That’s how I keep Austin by pretending that I don’t love him when in reality, I’d die if he didn’t come for me and save me from myself.
“Austin is just like Jeremy, and you could be like me if you don’t go to him, tell him that you love him, and you have to make him understand why you didn’t tell him about your fears.”
“I need time,” I fretted. “We’re both stubborn as hell, me more than him, we butt heads, and we’re at cross-purposes most times. With that many things against us how can this work?”
“With respect and love for each other. That’s how it works. Not to mention the hot sex after you make up. With Austin and me, we could burn down a forest with the heat that comes after our arguments.”
“I’m not looking to burn down a forest, just light a campfire,” I joked. Burning down a forest? There’s a chance we’d get caught in it, and perish, I thought, listening to Jack.
I smiled thinking about Jeremy when I first met him. I’d loved him from the moment I’d laid eyes on his handsome face and gorgeous body. I couldn’t imagined my life with anyone but him.
“I have to go home and sleep in my own bed, Jack, wear my own clothes and then I’ll take stock on these days and try to tell him why I haven’t been able to function with him.”
“You’re not telling me that you haven’t—”
“No. I haven’t.”
Jack snorted. “No wonder he’s acting like a lunatic.”
I realized that I’d behave the same way if Jeremy had done that to me. Although I’d given Jeremy a blowjob, I hadn’t had a good fuck with the man I loved. Now I realized why I’d been unreasonable. There was nothing like touches and kisses from the man you loved to make life bearable.
Jack stopped talking, shook his head, looked away, and then back at me with a closed smile. “What were you thinking, Dorian?”
“I wasn’t thinking. All that was on my mind was that I could have cancer, and I didn’t want Jeremy to see me bald and emaciated and he’d have to look at me like that. I was afraid... I was afraid of him not loving me because I was no longer his Dorian.”
“Oh fuck, Dorian. I didn’t know you felt like that.” Jack pulled me into his arms as I leaned my head on his shoulder. Then I heard a key in the lock and Austin came inside. He glanced up at us with our arms around each other, and passed without saying a word and sat down, then opened his New York Times and began reading.
Looking up at us he said, “Do you know where the fuck I had to go to get this?” He shook his head, holding up the paper, then separated it, and folded it the way a commuter read on the subway. However, I couldn’t stop thinking that Austin didn’t look like a man who’d ever gotten close to a subway, or a bus for that matter.
With Jack still embracing me, I leaned my head in Austin’s direction. “What’s up with him?”
“As long as the man I’m holding isn’t Maxwell Gold, he doesn’t give a fuck. He could walk in here and I’d have my cock down your throat—”
I pulled back, aimed a disapproving glance at Jack, he chuckled, and stopped in the middle of his suggestive sentence.
“I can guarantee you and Austin that will never happen.” When Austin heard his name he gestured to me with a smile.
“Why are you interrupting my fantasy with the facts?” Jack added with quiet laughter. “Austin knows that I’d never leave him for anyone but Max, and I like to keep him a little jealous,” Jack said, leaning and whispering in my ear. “It keeps our marriage new. Every time we fight and he tracks me down wherever I am, Rome, Paris, San Francisco, Seattle...” Jack smiled and his eyes lit up, “It’s like we’ve met and fucked for the first time. But then that’s how we keep our love and sex fresh.”
“Isn’t there an easier way to do that?”
“Well, if there is, then you tell me, and I’ll do it. But for now, it works for us, and as soon as I end my business here, I’m going back to New York. There’s more excitement there. You and my brother should come to visit us one day and bring the baby or two.”
“You have a lot of confidence in us getting back together.”
“I have a lot of confidence in Jacqueline keeping you two together.”
“Sweetheart,” Austin said in an endearing voice. “I have to make arrangements where we can travel back to New York, and I have to do some shopping. I need something different. I’m bored with the suits they have in New York. I think I’ll go out and I’ll be gone most of the day.”
Jack commented, “Dorian and I have something to do today as well. I’ll tell you about it when we return.”
“I just need to get to my apartment. Maybe we can meet up later, Jack. If I need you, I’ll call. I want to check on my apartment and pack some of my things ready for if Jeremy accepts my apology. The way it stands now, it could go either way.”
Jack hunched his should
ers as he strolled over to the sofa and sat near Austin, took the paper and tossed it on the table across from the sofa. He reached for Austin’s face with his palms rubbing Austin’s stubble, and biting his bottom lip. Austin tugged at Jack’s lips with his teeth. They kissed each other hard, biting and sucking lips and necks as if to punish the other for staying away so long because of the time they’d wasted by their antics.
That was how I felt about what was going on between me and Jeremy. We’d wasted too much time because he’d been stubborn, and I’d been equally as obstinate by not sharing my fears with him, thinking that he wouldn’t want me. The only way to find out would have been to say it. Say what was eating at my gut. That would be one way I’d discover whether I’d been right about him, or completely wrong.
Jack would know Jeremy better than me. He assured me that if I’d told Jeremy he’d be the one with me. He would be my strength.
“I’m leaving, Jack. It was good meeting you, Austin.”
There were no heads in view when I moved in the direction of the door leading out of the suite, but I heard Austin’s voice. “It has been my pleasure, Dorian. I...” And then there was a muting of words, and I thought it was because Jack had captured his attention and mouth.
When I reached the lobby, I realized that time was the one thing that I didn’t have in abundance, and I needed to talk to Jeremy, to tell him how much I cared, and loved him. I wanted to marry him, and be a father to his child. Make his child mine.
I called Jeremy’s phone and left a text when it went to voice mail. Waiting to hear from him I decided to swing over to my office first and then to my apartment.
Chapter 13
Jeremy
After leaving Jack’s suite, I’d been pissed with myself for being such a hothead, but fuck, what was I to do? Dorian hadn’t let me inside his body but once since he’d been staying with me. I didn’t know what it was, but he should have said what was bothering him. I had learned that that was the only way to solve our problems. We had to talk to each other. It had taken me a while, maybe Dorian had to learn that too. But we didn’t have that time, our relationship was new and fragile.
I had choices though, but made the wrong ones. I could have tried to speak to Dorian about Jack, however, I’d managed once again to piss him off by my ability to come to the wrong conclusions by listening to Parker’s hints concerning Dorian. And I should have gotten some sleep and something to eat first.
And that reminded me. I’d let Parker into my life, and now he’d giving me his opinion even when I hadn’t asked him for it. Jacqueline was my baby, but Parker was a worker. I wanted him to feel as if he was a part of the family, but he had taken it too far. Which was probably my fault. I shouldn’t have listened to him. My fault too because I didn’t take the time to get someone else for Jacqueline. Someone that would have been more appropriate, and stayed the fuck out of my business.
Talking to Parker, listening to him, I’d managed to piss off the brother closest and dearest to me. I didn’t need to alienate Jack, especially since I had no one on my side but him. I needed Jack to help me with Carter and I needed Dorian to help me with myself. I had been out of control since all this shit happened to me, since I’d come out and admitted I was gay.
Now that I’d thought about what I’d done, with regards to Dorian and Jack, not one fucking thing happened to me that I didn’t cause. Parker didn’t make me barge into that hotel and accuse Dorian of doing something despicable. What was wrong with me? I’d aimed these horrible accusations at the man I knew and loved. I should have known better than to say what I said. Now I knew that I’d lost the only man I’d ever loved.
Carter had lost everything, and my child had lost her mother, and here I was crying about what I’d lost. Not one fucking thing, and when I got Dorian back then I could try to stabilize everyone’s life, but until then I’d have to manage. Maybe that was what was wrong with me. I was trying to alleviate everyone’s pain and I couldn’t. I could only initiate some control over my own life, I thought as I entered my office.
“Where’s everyone?” I asked my secretary as she turned off her computer and reached for her purse.
Leaning over her desk drawer, reaching for sensible shoes whatever that meant for a woman in her fifties, she placed one on her foot and glanced up at me, and said, “You must have forgotten, but today is the indoor rock climbing group meeting, and if you insist on having more of these, I’ll have to send you my resignation. You tell whoever thought up this shit to do some of that himself.”
“It was Max Gold’s husband.”
“Then you can tell him from me, this is my last outing because I can’t get any work done with these gatherings.” After she placed her right shoe on her foot and stood, even with shoes, my secretary had to be five three at most. “By the way, don’t forget to tell Mr. Gold what I said. He’s waiting in your office.”
“Why don’t you tell him yourself?” I asked.
She walked to the door and turned around. “Do you think I’m stupid? He’s Maxwell Gold.” And she stepped quickly out of the office and into the hall leading to the elevators.
I’d wondered what he wanted when he said that he would be here early. I’d picked up Jack last week from the airport, and through his hinting around I’d gotten nothing from him. I’d asked Jack if he’d done anything that would cause Max problems in his marriage, and he crossed his arms and didn’t want to say anything more. All he’d said was to ask Max.
So today I had to ask Max.
Opening the door to my office and stepping in, I saw Max standing waiting with a cup of coffee in his hand. He didn’t drink it, he just held it as if it was a lifejacket, and he was prepared if the ship sank. I wondered if he’d throw me a lifejacket if he had gotten bad news, and Jack had been the reason.
I embraced Max, then dropped my satchel behind my desk. He just stood facing the skyline and said, “You have a great office here. The view is spectacular.”
“I know you, Max. When you begin a conversation with the weather and now how great my view is, something is bothering you. Tell me it’s not Jack.” He stared at me.
“Do you have fresh coffee? Mine seems to be cold.” I walked around and took the plastic cup from Max’s hand, emptied it into the sink, and dropped the cup in a basket, reached for the coffee pot my secretary made earlier, and poured him a fresh cup. Max took a sip and smiled.
“Jack is fucking up my life,” Max confessed after his smile dipped into a frown.
“What else is new?” I poured and drank more than a sip of my black coffee. I needed something to wake me up.
“When Jami found out that someone purposefully broke into my home in LA., he left and took our twins with him. Jami wasn’t angry, he just didn’t want to expose the children to that, and he said that I should take care of it. So here I am to take care of it.”
I was floored with that news. No wonder Jack agreed to handle the break-ins in Max’s house. He knew something about it.
“Did he tell you that his husband—”
“Wait. Wait.” I raised my hand and stepped out from behind my desk. “Jack is married?”
“What the fuck? He didn’t tell you? He’s married to Austin Rhone.”
“He told me nothing.”
“When I confronted him he admitted that he’d married Austin.”
“Isn’t he that rich industrialist, oil, gas, and metals?”
“That’s the one, and he has a lot more resources than I have, and he’s using them to make my life a living hell. All because Jack likes playing games with him,” Max said.
“It’s no game.” We both turned around and looked to see the same man who’d come looking for Jack and I’d sent him to Jack’s suite. I’d hoped Jack hadn’t involved Dorian in this shitstorm.
“It’s good to see you again, Jeremy, however, it’s been a long time, Maxwell,” Austin said, moving like the alpha he was, sizing up Max then facing him. He extended his hand to Max, and Max tightened
his jaw but didn’t step away, however, turning and showing his back to Austin as he glanced out at the Seattle skyline. With the clouds and rain, there was nothing for Max to see, but it appeared it was better view than looking at Austin.
Austin quickly turned to me and extended his hand. “I didn’t know that there was another man as handsome as my Jack, but when I saw you the other day I was in such shock to discover that he had a twin. I might have left out the fact that I was his husband. I knew he had brothers, but not a twin. I don’t remember seeing you at Max’s wedding to Paige.”
That’s because there were so many people at the wedding of the century that it would have been impossible to see the same people twice, and if he did, we were dressed in identical tuxes, and no one knew there were two of us except Max.
“You should have told me who you were,” I said, shaking his hand.
“I didn’t think it was my place to tell you that I was part of your family,” Austin admitted. “That was up to Jack.”
That’s when Max turned quickly. “But you thought it was your place to interfere in my life and frighten my husband and children,” he barked.
“For that I apologize and I hope I can—”
“You will need to do more than apologize to me. I plan to sue you.”
“Well if you must. Since I admit my wrong doing, I’m willing to compensate you for all the damage I’ve done. But hear me out. What would you give if you were in my place to get your husband back? A man that you knew you couldn’t live without, and you were taunted every day by a man who you thought he was still in love with?”
“I understand what you’ve been going through, but that doesn’t excuse what you did. You don’t have enough money that will ease my husband’s mind. He doesn’t want to come back to L.A., and now I have to leave before my business is complete. And I have you to blame for that, and Jack.”
“I don’t know what more I can do, but tell you once again that I will make things up to you in whatever way I can. If you were in my shoes, and you thought you’d lost Jami, what would you be willing to do or give?” It appeared that Max couldn’t answer that question.