by Willa Okati
“Home,” Jesse answered, wondering why Daniel would ask. “Home with you.”
Daniel let go of Jesse’s hand and pressed it to his face. “Jesse…”
Jesse touched a fingertip to Daniel’s lips. “It’s okay. It’s all okay.”
“Soulmark drunk,” Daniel murmured. He shook his head, his hair making a soft swish on the pillow—then jerked hard, with a broken curse, when Jesse moved his hand in a slow stroke up and down Daniel’s cock. “Oh God. You…”
“Love you,” Jesse said against the small shell of Daniel’s ear. And why not? It was true. He’d loved Daniel since the brave brat had come to see him against all orders. Smart, tough…everything Jesse could have wanted. All he dreamed of at night. “Love you, Daniel.” He took Daniel’s earlobe between his teeth and nibbled. “Like you love me.”
“Jesse.” Daniel pushed his hand away. He turned before Jesse could stop him, wriggling around to lie so his chest touched Jesse’s. He stroked lightly at Jesse’s face. “Who am I? Tell me that.”
“Soulmate.” Why did he ask? Didn’t he know? “My soulmate.”
“I thought you’d say that.” Daniel let out his breath in a long, slow sound. “You’re not awake. You’re still asleep.”
Jesse didn’t mind lying face-to-face. He slipped his hand down between them. “Feels awake to me.”
“Not like this.” Daniel groaned through gritted teeth and took Jesse’s wrist in a hard grip that hurt. “Wake up, Jesse. Open your eyes and wake up.”
Jesse blinked.
He saw Daniel, and—
And—
Oh God.
Daniel watched him through half-closed eyes. The pillow swallowed part of his face, and his hair fell forward to nearly cover the rest, but Jesse saw him clearly just the same.
“There you are,” Daniel said, still hard against him, but keeping back, holding himself away. “You were dreaming, Jesse. I hope it was a good dream, but it’s time to wake up now.”
And if he ever knew what that had cost Daniel to say no to…
But not like this. Not when Jesse couldn’t say yes or no. It’d be meaningless, and Daniel had had his fill of empty nights. He swung his legs over the edge of the cot and stood with his back to Jesse, giving him a moment.
Though a moment might not be long enough. When he glanced over his shoulder, he saw that Jesse had covered his face and pushed his head into the pillow. Daniel felt his mouth tighten into a hard line, and it wasn’t the only thing hard about him. His balls ached with a sullen throb, denied again.
Tough for them. Daniel took care to keep his hands away from anything south of the waist, and tucked them under his armpits. He propped his hip against the side of a battered old desk stacked high with invoices and flashy brochures, the detritus that accumulated in any business. “Do you know where you are now?” he asked.
Jesse’s shoulders twitched. Daniel thought he wouldn’t answer until he heard Jesse’s voice, muffled though it might be by the pillow. “No.”
As Daniel had thought. He itched to sit beside Jesse again and smooth the hair away from his face, but managed—somehow—to restrain the urge. “We’re still at the tavern. It’s a back room that used to be an office, and used to be storage, but I don’t think it’s used for either anymore. Cade helped me bring you in here. I don’t know where he found the camp bed. Do you remember any of this?”
Jesse shook his head once— no. “What happened?”
“I was hoping you could tell me.” Daniel stayed put despite the rising urge to go to Jesse and make the pain disappear. Soulmate’s instincts, he knew, and hard as hell to deny. “Cade dropped a tray of glasses. He says his hands were slippery from the soap he used giving them a first wash. Made a hell of a noise, and you—dropped. Went down like you’d been shot.” For a terrifying second, he’d thought that was exactly what’d happened. “When you hit the floor, I thought you’d bashed your head in. But your eyes were open. I don’t know where you went, just that it wasn’t here. So.” He took a deep breath. “Cade wanted to take you back to your place. We changed our mind when we tried to lift you. You’re heavier than you look.”
“And here we are,” Jesse said, still covering his face. “I thought you jumped in front of me. Did that happen?”
“Mmm,” Daniel vocalized, meaning it as agreement. “I didn’t plan it out. Just happened.”
“Like a soldier,” Jesse said. He dry-washed his face with the heel of one hand. “Did I hurt you?”
Daniel opened his mouth to answer, but hesitated. “When do you mean?”
A muffled, scoffing sound answered him. At least it got Jesse to open his eyes. He blinked at Daniel, looking at once both as tired as an old man and as vulnerable as the new-minted soldier Daniel had met on a sunny day once upon a time. “Just now. I know I hurt you before. But did I…?” The faintest hint of red blossomed on his exposed cheek. He lifted his chin. “I didn’t mean to.”
“You were dreaming. I know.” Daniel bounced his heel against the cold floor. Already, the warmth he’d shared with Jesse while lying in bed together had faded, leaving him colder than when he’d been soaked by the rain. “Dog’s asleep on his blanket out in the corridor, before you ask. I tried to get him to come in, but he seemed to want to stand guard.”
“He would.” Jesse winced, but nodded. “Thank you.”
“Don’t thank me. You know where you are now. Where did you go, when you disappeared on me before?”
He saw in Jesse’s sudden stillness that here was a question Jesse didn’t want to answer. Maybe enough that he wouldn’t answer. Fine. It wasn’t as if Daniel couldn’t guess. PTSD, and a hell of a lot of repressed—everything.
Daniel knew better than to sit beside Jesse—he couldn’t trust himself that far again—but went to one knee at the edge of the cot. Jesse exhaled. Tension bled away from him. As Daniel had thought it would.
“How are you feeling now?” He flicked his fingertips at the worst of Jesse’s scars, the starburst near his temple. “I know you have headaches. You told me yourself that you get fuzzy. Any trouble with that right now?”
“No.” Jesse swallowed, a dry sound, and kept his gaze trained on Daniel. “You know that, or you wouldn’t ask.”
“Fair enough.” Daniel laced his fingers together. He should move back, but… “You said you were my soulmate,” he blurted. “You were holding me like you never wanted to let me go.”
“I didn’t.” Jesse’s face had colored, but he held Daniel’s stare. “You could have let me finish. Why didn’t you?”
Daniel sat back on his heel. “What?”
“No, that’s not what I meant. Not like that.” Jesse pushed himself up to rest his weight on one elbow. “I wouldn’t have known the difference.”
“I would have.”
Jesse stared at Daniel as if willing him to make sense. When Daniel said nothing, he sat up fully. Still half-hard, Daniel noticed, though he doubted Jesse did. “I don’t understand. In the clock tower…”
“I was trying to help you.” Daniel chafed the soulmark on his wrist. “I still am. And I’m trying to learn from my mistakes. I can do that, if I put in the effort. Can you?”
Jesse lifted his head with the sharp jerk of a stung horse.
“I should have told you who I was at the start,” Daniel said. He’d meant to hold back on the confession until they were both awake—and dressed, for God’s sake—but plans never did seem to run smooth when it came to Jesse. “I know that now. Even if you ran away, I could have run with you. I was trying to help, but I did it wrong. Maybe did us both more harm than good.”
Jesse watched Daniel with wide, startled eyes, and said nothing.
Daniel pressed his palms together, prayer-fashion, and pressed the narrow sides to his mouth. “So that’s my confession. But I can’t take back what I did. No more than you can. ‘And here we are’, like you said. I could have let you finish. I don’t want to ‘let you’. I want to be with you, and you want to be wi
th me. Lie, if you want. You don’t hurt when you’re with me. You sense things you’ve been missing for years. And maybe you even like me a little. You used to.”
“I…” Jesse worked his jaw. “I still do, Daniel. God. I just…”
“Just what, though?” Daniel dropped his hands and held them apart, palms up. “That’s all I want you to tell me. Just. What. Because if you don’t, I can guess. I can tell you I think you don’t want to be with me until you’re better, but that’s never going to happen on your own.”
He could see that cut Jesse deep, and knew he’d put his finger on the pulse. So be it.
“I could guess that,” he said, slower now, “and you could walk away. Or you could let me in, and I can help. Let me help you, Jesse. Not because I have to, but because I want to. Are you brave enough, though?”
Jesse’s eyes were too wide and too bright. He looked as if he’d been slapped in the face, and it hurt to see that, but…good. Good. He needed to wake up, and not just from a happy dream where everything was sweet and nothing hurt. That was just it, though. It was all a dream.
Daniel was done with dreaming. He wanted the real thing, and Jesse did too. If he didn’t, he wouldn’t be here. He’d have bolted from the camp bed as soon as he woke. Wouldn’t have spoken to Daniel and asked him what and why and how.
Daniel had to believe that, in the real world.
He waited. Not forever, though. When he heard the sharper tick of a full minute passing on the clock in the corner, he stood and took two steps back and away from the bed. “I’m trying to help you now,” he said. “Whether you let me or not is up to you. If you choose it, we could have a good life together. We could at least try. Or you can do nothing, and I can go back where I came from tomorrow night.”
Jesse lost all the color he’d gained. “Daniel, no.”
“Then stop me,” Daniel said. It took all the strength he had not to let Jesse reach for him, or to reach back. “I don’t want to leave you, but if that’s what it takes, I will. I spent years waiting, Jesse, like you told me to. I’ve come after you three times. It’s your turn to catch up, now.”
Daniel made himself turn his back on Jesse. It took all the strength he didn’t know he had.
And more than that to walk out, leaving him behind. Praying he would follow.
Chapter Five
Daniel pulled the heavy door closed behind him without waiting for Jesse to ask. Let him have his privacy, and time to make up his mind. If he chose to come out…
Careful, now. Daniel tamped down the wisp of wishful thinking. What Jesse would do now, he had no idea, and he wouldn’t guess. He’d laid down the gauntlet. Jesse’s move now.
Outside, he’d expected to see just the dark emptiness of a bar after business hours. Places like that gave Daniel the creeps, so still and echoing, empty, when all a man’s life experience insisted it should be otherwise. Probably did the same for everyone, giving them a moment of wondering if they were the only person left in the world.
But not tonight. A pair of lamps still burned on either side of the bar. Cade loitered behind it, looking more than half asleep but still gamely scrubbing the wood top with something that smelled of clean, fresh lemons. Coffee burbled into a decanter somewhere behind him that Daniel couldn’t see, adding its dark, hearty fragrance to the mix.
Cade glanced up at Daniel and tipped him a casual salute. “It lives! I didn’t expect to see you before morning, unless you rolled out of that cot and broke your head. I doubt it was made for two.”
“I didn’t mean to fall asleep. It isn’t morning now?” Daniel had picked up his sneakers on the way out of the little storage room. He dropped them to the floor and toed his feet in. His eyes were dry, but not as dry as his throat. “What time is it?”
“Getting on to five or so, I think,” Cade said with a shrug. He stretched his arms over his head. A good-looking guy, Daniel thought absently. Not his type at all—he only had the one type, and that was Jesse, in any shape or form—but easy on the eyes. He gave Cade as quick a once-over as he could, still not spying a soulmark anywhere. “Coffee? If you want tea, you’re out of luck. I never make that except when my baby brother Nathaniel whines for it.”
Daniel found the stool he’d perched on earlier. Dark whimsy made him choose it again. “Mmm.”
“I’ll take that as a yes.” Cade hooked a thick ceramic mug from a shelf below the bar and set to work pouring. “You’re also out of luck if you want anything to go in it.”
“I think I’ll live.”
“Odds are. So…how’s Jesse?”
From the higher vantage point, he could see Dog had changed stations, and now lay fast asleep on a blanket under the taps. His legs paddled as he chased rabbits in his dreams. Daniel chuckled despite himself. “Jesse is Jesse. Aside from that…”
“Heh! Sounds about right.” Cade poured himself a mug as well and leaned over the bar. “Before you ask, I’m not hanging out because I’m worried about him or anything.”
“Heaven forbid,” Daniel murmured.
Cade swatted-and-missed at Daniel. “Nope. I’m doing penance.”
Daniel cocked an eyebrow. Not what he’d expected to hear, exactly. “Penance for what?”
“Oh, this and that.” Cade rocked one hand to and fro. He sipped at his coffee, made a face, and kicked back in a lean against the bar. His eyes were sleepy, but they didn’t fool Daniel. He knew the type. There would be more than enough native cunning going on in that brain to outfox a chess master. “I’m the worst cook you’re likely to come across, for one thing.”
Daniel propped his chin on one hand. He glanced back at the hallway where he’d left Jesse, hoping against hope…but nothing came of it. Because Cade wanted him to, he asked, “Then why are you here?”
“So glad you asked.” Cade raised his mug. “I’ve been hunting for my brother’s soulmate.”
Daniel’s frown deepened. “I don’t understand.”
Cade shrugged. “What’s to understand? My brother has a soulmate. I know that. I got a peek at his soulmark once. But he won’t tell me who his mate is. Not even so much as a name. Honestly, I ask you. It’s almost as if he knows I’d hunt them down and give them the third degree. Possibly put the fear of God in them in case they should ever think about putting a foot out of line when it comes to Nathaniel.”
Daniel chuckled a second time. “God help Nathaniel, then.”
“He’s done a fine job of keeping secrets so far, I’ll tell you that.” Cade went briefly serious. Enough so that Daniel spared a wince for whomever Nathaniel’s mate might be. If they failed to treat Cade’s brother in anything less than a princely manner, he had no doubt Cade would use their head as a football. “And I don’t like that. The road to true love never did run smooth, and I’ve seen for myself how it fucks with people’s lives.”
True. Daniel drank from his fast-cooling mug. It wasn’t as bad as Cade made out. A little bitter, but it had a smooth finish.
Cade drained his cup and set it aside with a noisy clunk. “Which puts me right about on par with you, from what I can tell.” He ignored Daniel’s reflexive bristling. “But see, I’m not going to let that stop me. Are you?”
Daniel regarded Cade steadily and with a straight face. “I changed my mind. God help whoever your soulmate might be.”
Cade had a surprisingly rich laugh. “Don’t I know it?”
“At least you’ve got that going for you.” Daniel finished his coffee and pushed the mug aside in the same direction Cade had sent his. “Okay. You have an answer for everything. One more question?”
“Maybe. Depends on what you’re asking, but you’re welcome to try your luck.”
“Fair enough.” Daniel cast one more longing look down the corridor, wishing he could at least see the door. He could feel Jesse’s presence inside. If he closed his eyes, he could almost see the tangled mess of raw nerves and frayed edges in Jesse’s aura, like a ball of yarn after a dozen cats had had their way with it. No wonder
he was a dog person. He wanted to help, still. Always. But… “If you were me, what would you do?”
Cade snorted. “For one? Not ask stupid questions. Or questions you already know the answer to.” He thumped Daniel’s shoulder almost companionably. “Go on, get out of here and take a breather. I’m going to shut this place down and get a nap before the next round starts.”
* * * *
Jesse didn’t know how long he spent sat on the edge of the camp bed, head in his hands, after Daniel had slipped out. Though Daniel had closed the door, he hadn’t known to turn the latch to stop it from sliding open a half-inch once he’d turned his back. Old building, old doors. Images of old keys and old locks swam through Jesse’s head as he caught the scent of brewing coffee, and the faint murmur of Cade and Daniel trading friendly fire.
He found himself almost smiling. Cade and Daniel couldn’t be more different if they tried, and yet they got along. Daniel deserved someone like that, he thought. Someone who’d shake him up and keep him on his toes. Not a broken, battered old…
But he was the one Daniel wanted. Stubborn. God, so stubborn. Jesse massaged his temples. And not wrong. A hint of headache threatened. Not as bad as it could be, with Daniel still in earshot. He did feel better with Daniel around. He felt. And it almost made him want to say yes. But how would that work? Should he take a folding chair and a packed lunch and sit by the side of the road while Daniel sweated for a living? How was that fair?
No. If he looked at it one way, there was but the single right thing to do. It’d hurt, same as always, every other time he’d tried to do the right thing. And it was right. Jesse knew it.
Except for how this time—as ever, as always—it felt like the wrongest thing ever.
Jesse dug his fingers into his hair and growled.
Outside, Daniel and Cade fell silent. He heard the squeak of the main door to the tavern—that’d be Daniel, leaving. For good? Jesse’s pulse quickened. He shook off the brisk spark of panic. He wouldn’t hit the road just yet. If nothing else, Daniel was a man of his word. He’d leave Sunday, and not before. Maybe he had a room in one of the boarding houses.