The First Hello

by Willa Okati

  Nice way to avoid the real question, Shawn thought, rubbing slowly at the back of his neck in stumped frustration. He couldn’t ignore or explain away the absolute honesty in Raleigh’s words. It got under his skin and clung there, like being wrapped in a blanket warmed by the sun. “You change your mind about buying the old house?”

  “Not hardly.” Raleigh shrugged his coat off and laid it atop the far side of the diminishing cord, near enough for Shawn to catch the scent of exertion and the warmth saturating the wool. Where Shawn could—not that he would—pick it up and put it on if he got too cold. “I’ve worked too hard to turn back now. Too much at stake that I already care about.” Raleigh glanced at him once, then chopped half of a log into quarters. “You changed your mind about selling it to me?”

  “No,” Shawn said, surprised that Raleigh hadn’t. He knew his attitude would have sent any other buyer off with their tail between their legs, or gotten him punched in the face. I’m crazy, and I’m rough, and I don’t have any manners to speak of. Life had made him far too hard to bend in the breeze. But nothing puts you off. “If you’ve got the money, I’ve got a deed.”

  “What do you need the money for?” Raleigh asked, too casually to fool Shawn.

  “Things that are my business.”

  Raleigh raised one shoulder as if to say fair enough. “Stand up, would you? I need to get to the logs you’re using as a chair. And I could use some help fixing the old place up, if you’re willing.”

  Shawn stiffened in surprise and caught his hip hard against the edge of the stack. He winced and rubbed at the bruise that was sure to form. “Say again?”

  “You keep asking me to do that,” Raleigh said. “When I know you’ve heard me.” He dropped the ax into the block and stood back, lifting his chin. Exertion made his cheeks as red as apples. “Della told me that you would be willing to try. That’s good enough for me.”

  “You—” Shawn shook his head hard. “I’m not an expert. I’ve dicked around and done a few jobs that paid under the table; that’s all.”

  “Do you know how to hammer a nail and saw a board? How to patch a window or sweep a floor? Or how to pull down ivy?” Raleigh looked pleased when Shawn nodded. “Then that’s more than I do, and that’s all I figure I need, at first. Most of the repairs are cosmetic. If anything comes up that I need a contractor for, I can cross that bridge when I come to it, but I need help unearthing the place enough to get to that point. You can stay here while we do the work. We can get Della to fix the paperwork so that your use of this cottage until it’s all finished is a condition of the sale.”

  Shawn bit at the inside of his lip. His mind whirred as he thought through the details. What Raleigh proposed sounded good in theory, but— “I don’t have the money for any repair materials,” he said, resignation tight in his shoulders. At least, he didn’t have it yet. He didn’t know how long it might take to fence any coins he might find in the old wishing well, either. “Anything that needs green, I can’t guarantee. And I’m not being modest when I say I’m not an expert. You’d do better by that old place to find someone else.”

  Raleigh didn’t seem bothered. He nudged Shawn out of the way of the woodpile and selected a fresh-looking slab of maple from the top. “I don’t want anyone else,” he said with a jut to his jaw as stubborn as Shawn’s could be. “Besides, I’d pay a handyman a fair wage.”

  “I can’t take your money for that. It’s my responsibility to start with.”

  Raleigh shot him a good-natured sort of grimace. Almost teasing. “I’m not offering you a salary, Shawn. You didn’t let me finish. But if I were, what’s the difference? It all goes to the same place. If you don’t believe in reincarnation, then surely you can believe in good karma. You don’t want a salary? I can use the money I would have paid a handyman, and put that toward any materials we need.” He raised one shoulder. “The rest can be an adjustment on the price of the property. Della can work out all the details. Selling a house takes a while, you know. You might as well have something to do and somewhere to live. There’s nothing wrong with taking what I’m willing to give, okay?”

  Sure, but… Shawn still held back. “That kiss, last night,” he said, making himself lay it out flat and clear. “I don’t think it’d be a good idea for that to happen again.” Even if I want it. “Not professional. I’d rather that wasn’t negotiable.”

  A flash of some emotion Shawn couldn’t put a name to passed across Raleigh’s face. “That wasn’t why I asked.”

  “Then why?” Shawn asked. He kept asking, and no one ever gave him an answer that made sense. Nor did the fact that he thought, almost despite himself, he was starting to like the guy. “Why do you care, Raleigh?”

  “Because I do,” Raleigh replied. He brushed sawdust off his hands, and made a noise that drew Shawn’s attention, looking up at the man. As he did, Raleigh held out one broad palm in clear offer. “Work with me, will you? Please. Stay.”

  Shawn started to reply. He meant to. He just got interrupted in the middle, and—

  * * * *

  “Stay with me. Just until the morning.” Sean’s lover stroked deep inside him, a hard shape that split him open, pushed him up and back on the tangled bedding. “Promise me you’ll stay.”

  Firelight shone almost too hotly against Sean’s cheek to bear, but he wouldn’t move. Couldn’t move. He brought his knees up to cradle his lover and to draw the man tighter, his heels hard against the man’s thighs.

  “Can’t promise,” he said—gasped—bending his head back and slamming shut his eyes. His lips were strung open, air drying them between presses of his lover’s eager mouth. “You know. Anything could happen to part us. It has before. It will again. I can’t swear to what I’m not sure of.”

  “I know. Doesn’t mean I won’t try to change your mind.” His lover took Sean by the thigh and bent his knee higher, spreading him wider open, and thrust in. So deep Sean cried out, though he muffled the sound with the back of his hand. “And I’ll try some more, until you say yes.” A warm mouth found the side of Sean’s neck and lavished it with warm lips, the prickle of sharp teeth. He took Sean’s cock in hand and soothed him when he jumped, body arching upward in search of more. “It’s you I want, only you, and the rest of the world can go to hell so long as you’re with me.”

  Sean thumped the man in the back, below his shoulder blades, for having the temerity to waste his breath on speaking when it could be better spent in fucking. “You’ll be—missed,” he said, rocking his hips up in a plea.

  “Don’t care.” His lover began to stroke Sean’s cock, sharp and short, no mercy. “Stay.”

  “Can’t—”

  “Can,” his lover said as he bit at Sean’s earlobe. He drove his cock in, deep and hard, bottoming out. Sean could feel how he strained not to come yet, could read it in every tightening of each muscle, in the jut of his jaw and the clench of his hands. “Can. Will. Yes?”

  Sean gritted his teeth. He needed to come or he’d burst, and he wanted—he wanted— He thumped his lover again, harder. “Never play fair.”

  “No,” his lover agreed, thrusting once more, hand just so at Sean’s cock. “Not when it comes to you.”

  “Ah, God,” Sean said, head back. “I tell myself, time and time again, that I can’t do this again. I can’t have you and lose you again. Over and over and it never stops, but every time I see you for the first time, I fall, and there’s no taking it back. As you have made sure of, here and now.” The pressure was building, building. He bit at his own wrist. “You know my heart. You know me. Do you need to hear me say it?”

  His lover ran a thumbnail down Sean’s cock and caught him as he arched up with a shout. Swallowed the noise as it rained over his own tongue, and didn’t let go until the last, when Sean lay ruined beneath him, less a man and more a collection of ragged nerve endings, all of them alight.

  Then— “Yes,” his lover said. “Tell me. It’s your choice. Will you stay?”

  * * * *
<
br />   “Shawn?”

  The images in Shawn’s head popped like a soap bubble stretched past the point of integration, shattered with a gossamer touch. The world rushed in with the cold cruelty of a slap, one that knocked Shawn back off his feet and down, hard, on the jumbled cord of chopped firewood. Cold sweat rolled down the back of his neck.

  He looked up. Raleigh stood just out of arm’s reach, head tilted at a curious angle.

  “You’re doing it again,” Shawn rasped. “The staring.”

  He’d thought Raleigh might, but Raleigh didn’t reach for him or try to touch him. “Out of concern. Are you all right? You looked like you went away for a bit there.”

  Shawn shook his head. “How long?” He sounded even worse than before. He could feel that shout in his throat. The insides of his jeans were fucking sticky, for God’s sake.

  “Not long,” Raleigh said. “A few seconds. Are you okay?”

  Shawn drew his hand over his face to palm away the chilly perspiration before it could make him shiver. “I’m fine.”

  Raleigh put his hands on his hips, not quite in fists but not far from it, and when he studied Shawn now, it was with a frustration nearly matching his own. Maybe perversely, it made him decide he did like this man after all. Humanity made him believable. Temper made him appealing. “The deal,” he said. “Will you stay and help me? Just say yes or no, and I’ll get out of your hair.”

  Shawn turned his head to watch Gabrielle through the kitchen window. Though it was almost certainly his imagination, he thought he could hear her humming, happy for once.

  It wasn’t a bad place, this corner of the coast.

  “I’ll stay,” he said, letting the decision fly out of his hands. What would be, would be. “Not sure how it all works legally, but we’ll figure something out. We’ll go over the damage and see what needs to be done. I promise. Just—”

  Never would he figure Raleigh out. Shawn knew he must have looked like hell, but that was the moment Raleigh chose not to push. “Good,” he said, and from the sound of it hung the chopping ax up on the two nails driven into the cottage wall for that purpose. He turned his head and gave Shawn a broad, brilliant grin. “I’ll see you this afternoon. Thank you.”

  Shawn looked down sharply and waited until he heard the sound of footsteps walking away. Then and only then did he draw in a deep, lusty breath of cold air. Maybe it would work out. He’d see. But he had some stolen eggs to eat first, and even if they were boiled to the point of petrifaction by now, he wanted that bite of normal.

  When he stood, he realized that Raleigh had left his sheepskin coat. He’d draped it around Shawn’s shoulders. The wool was skin warm, and the points of the upturned collar brushed against his cheeks like the memory of a kiss.

  Chapter Four

  Della never minded staying open late—or so she said. Not that you’d ever be able to tell what time of day it was just by looking at the sky outside. Shawn held the edge of her office window blinds between two fingers, holding it just far enough out to look through the panes of glass to the street beyond and the clouds above.

  The clock said six thirty. The skies said eternity.

  A light cough made his fingers slip on the blinds. “Everything all right?”

  Raleigh Carter had taken the desk chair nearest Della’s door, as if putting himself like a shield between Shawn and the wider world. He didn’t have to, but there’d be no telling him that. Shawn thought he was slowly starting to understand Raleigh’s habits and manners. They didn’t fit in with the modern age, no more than Shawn’s ways did. Two of a kind, huh?

  Shawn cleared his throat. “Yeah, fine. I’m good.”

  Raleigh raised an eyebrow. Shawn almost snorted. He hadn’t figured Raleigh would buy that, but at least he didn’t push.

  He did jump to attention as Della made her way back in, carrying an armload of documents thick with finely printed text. Though it was well into the late afternoon, she looked as calm and composed as if she’d only just started her day. Warm. Kind. “I think that’s almost everything,” she said, giving the papers a critical eye as she divided them neatly in half. “If you’re sure this is what you want. Both of you. It’s far harder to unpick a bargain than it is to make one. If this doesn’t work, what will you do then?”

  “Cross that bridge when we come to it,” Raleigh said. “All I can do is try. Same for him.”

  He gave Shawn a frank look. Shawn guessed it was meant to be a chance to change his mind.

  Shawn shook his head.

  Della sighed. “Well, I suppose we both know a thing or two about stubbornness,” she said. “All of us, come to that.”

  “I know.” Raleigh made a gesture that encompassed surrender and acceptance all in one, then reached for the pen Della had already extended to him. “To successful collaborations,” he said, but instead of using the pen to sign, he held it out to Shawn.

  “Pushy, aren’t you?”

  “You have no idea,” Raleigh murmured. Odd. There was a smile on his lips but not in his eyes. Almost made Shawn hesitate before taking the pen.

  Almost. He did it anyway. With Raleigh Carter watching him and Della bearing witness, Shawn closed his eyes, crossed his fingers, took up the pen, and made a start.

  Would you look at that.

  * * * *

  Shawn had never gone in the front door of the house when it belonged to him. Strange. Felt even stranger to be doing it now. He kicked his feet against the solid stone of the steps, where he could see a welcome mat had lain until time had rotted it into shreds that the coastal winds carried away. He’d bet some birds’ nests in the Spanish oaks and the cypress still had a few threads here and there.

  Speaking of the wind. Shawn shivered as a particularly sharp curl of cold air cut beneath the borrowed coat he’d thrown on at the last second before leaving the caretaker’s cottage. Sheepskin and brown suede, the coat Raleigh had left behind on the morning they chopped wood and struck a deal together. He kept forgetting to give it back, and Raleigh was the kind of stubborn gentleman who wouldn’t ask.

  He flipped the collar up to protect his neck and sighed with relief. The man did know how to choose a warm coat.

  Might not be so good at timekeeping, though. Shawn would have checked his watch if he’d made a habit of wearing one. “Meet at the front steps around nine in the morning,” Raleigh had said once all the papers were signed. “Might as well get started right away.”

  Shawn had done his part, but Raleigh was nowhere to be found. At least not anywhere near the steps.

  Shawn tapped his foot against the ground, weighing his options. The house didn’t feel empty. Funny how that worked, but he could sense the difference. Like it was aware it no longer lay abandoned, and it’d warmed up somehow. Like sap rising in trees in the spring. He couldn’t hear a radio going or any creaks of the flooring, but he knew Raleigh was in there. Somewhere.

  Shawn rolled his eyes—at himself, at Raleigh, who knew—and lifted his hand to rap his knuckles smartly against the front door.

  Ask, and ye shall receive. The knock rolled more loudly than he’d intended, the staccato sharpness nearly startling him, and the tenor of the house’s aura shifted from placid to curious. It wasn’t locked, he saw. His knock budged the door open a good three inches, and he made a note of that. It’d need fixing.

  Through the slight gap between door and frame, Shawn thought he heard someone shouting from deep inside, though he couldn’t make out the words. “Raleigh?” He took a step forward, easing his head inside. The air smelled different. Fresher, less like dust and more like polish. Made him uneasy, as if any second someone in an old-school butler’s uniform would jump out and wag a finger at him in his semistolen coat. “Hello?”

  “Shawn? Come on in,” Raleigh shouted. Shawn’s ears pricked up. Definitely Raleigh.

  “Where are you?”

  “Library,” Raleigh called back. “Shut the door behind you, would you? I think I got the heat working just now, and I
don’t want to let any of it out.”

  Shawn sniffed the air as he eased the front door shut behind him. It was faint, but he thought he caught a whiff of old dust burning away from heating elements. “Are you trying to blow us both sky-high?”

  Raleigh laughed. “Don’t worry. I had someone from the gas company come out to make sure it was safe. As long as we’re careful, we should be fine.”

  “Says you,” Shawn replied dubiously, wondering if he had the upper body strength to throw Raleigh over his shoulders and make a run for it if they had to.

  He didn’t know whether to be glad or grated by the way his rough manners seemed to tickle Raleigh’s sense of humor. “God, you’re such a hedgehog.”

  “I am not.”

  “Yes, you are. Prickly, but you have a sweet face.”

  Shawn stopped short, his cheeks heating up. “Smooth talker, aren’t you?”

  “I like hedgehogs,” Raleigh went on, unruffled. “Hang on; don’t meet me in the library.” Footsteps sounded from—somewhere. “Okay, now I’m in the ballroom.”

  Jesus Christ. Shawn edged forward, step by careful step, looking up and then up some more at the vaulted ceiling of the entryway. He hadn’t noticed how high it went before, with the spiral staircase winding up three stories. Blowing a breath over the dust on the old wood revealed surprisingly deep amber. A coat of wax and some hard work, and it’d glow when the light hit it. And he didn’t mind hard work.

  “This place has a ballroom?” he called. “You didn’t show me that the other day.”

  “Small ballroom,” Raleigh replied.

  “Define ‘small.’” Shawn decided Raleigh sounded louder to the…left. Yes, left. He took the turn at the staircase and kept his head cocked, listening. Something about the old place made him want to tread lightly.

  “Bigger than a bread box, smaller than the White House,” Raleigh called back. “Here, see if this helps.”

  Shawn heard a click, and then a radio cut on. He exhaled with relief when he pinpointed the noise as definitely coming from the left. It really wasn’t that huge of a house, but it sprawled like a rabbit warren inside. The music helped. Pushed the shadows and the silence of standing still for so long to one side, and brought some life back to the eaves.