by Cameron Dane
“At first I was so suspicious of your motives that I didn't want to tell you anything,” Marek explained. “Then you got under my skin, and I liked having you here, in this house, with me. I felt so close to you, I wanted to believe in your dreams and in how you feel about my house. I knew if I told you what I'd done, you would go away. But this piece of our history has been picking away at me a little bit more every minute we were together, and when you said you love me… I couldn't accept you saying that when you didn't have the full truth.” Marek looked as broken as Colin felt, and Colin could not tolerate this man's pain right now.
Colin's chest hurt so much right at that moment he thought his heart didn't have enough space to hold his grief. “I can't look at you right now,” he whispered. “I have to get out of here.”
“Wait!” Marek lunged and grabbed Colin's arm, branding his flesh. “Please stay.”
“No! Get your fucking hand off me.” Everything erupted inside him, and Colin swung a punch with every bit of pain and hurt in him, crushing his fist into Marek's jaw and sending the man careening into the wall. Marek grunted as his shoulder jammed into the plaster and his back jabbed into the edge of the counter.
For a moment, Colin stood stock-still, stunned that he'd attacked another person in violence. He had never hit anyone in his life.
Marek looked up, his gaze wide as the ocean outside. He took a step forward. “Colin—”
I can't be here anymore. Colin's arm tightened, and aggression burned unchecked in his gut. I might do worse than punching him next time.
With his stomach churning and panic setting in, Colin ran for the door. “Leave me alone!” Each step he took weighed his legs with excessive pressure, and Colin felt like he pushed through quicksand to reach freedom. The second he touched the door and swung it open, a tidal wave of crushing pain bore down on him, knocking him back a few steps.
“No!” Colin swore at the house. He hardened himself against the familiar hurt and fought the pull that worked to hold his body behind the threshold. “You will not keep me here. Let me go.” The invisible force screamed in his head, killing Colin, but the pressure keeping him inside the house finally released him, and Colin stumbled to his knees as he hit the porch. Cries echoed, sounds Colin knew did not come from him. Covering his ears, he righted himself and ran down the path over the beach and to the dock, getting as far away as he could without jumping into the Pacific. He dug into his pocket and produced his keys.
Footsteps thudded on the dock in quick order, and Marek snatched Colin's keys right out of his hands. Colin swung his head around and glared. Marek said softly, “If you want to go, I'll drive you back. It's dark, you had a few glasses of wine earlier, and it's not safe for you to operate your boat.”
Colin pulled his cell phone out of his pocket and searched for the boat rental company. “I'll call someone.”
Marek's jaw clenched, and it ticked a million beats a minute. “I'll keep your keys.” Anger edged his voice.
“Fine.” Hostility covered the hole torn inside Colin. “Leave me alone. I at least deserve that.”
Marek stood next to Colin on the dock, his body so close his heat still reached across the space between them, no matter that he wished it didn't. His blue eyes burned as they had the day they jumped through the waterfall, and Colin knew the man wanted to dare him to do something risky again. The fire was banked as soon as it shot high, and the light went out.
“Whatever you want,” Marek said. “Good-bye.” He walked away. His steps grew softer as he retreated, until eventually, Colin did not hear them anymore. He didn't dare turn around, though. He could feel Marek watching him, probably from the porch.
Colin could still feel and hear the house calling to him too. Despair suffocated the breeze floating in the night air.
Forcing a steel rod into his back, Colin didn't crumble until the taxi-boat came and drove him away.
Chapter Seventeen
“I will cut off his balls,” Jordan raged the next morning. She still wore her robe, and bed head tufted her short red hair. “I swear to God I will shove them down his throat and then hang the son of a bitch by his cock.”
Colin sat at the table, across from Jordan, in Jordan and Tag's honeymoon suite. Through the open balcony door, Colin could see Tag leaning against the railing and sipping a cup of coffee. He'd been unable to talk to his other friends about what had happened, so they had taken it upon themselves to contact Jordan first thing in the morning, and she had instructed one of them to drive Colin right to her hotel. Colin felt awful for crashing Tag's much-awaited honeymoon, but the man assured him it was okay.
“What he told me last night…” Colin still trembled, all these hours later. “I felt beaten up all over again, only this time it was like I had the person who did it right in front of me, and I hit him. I was so out of control, I punched him, and it felt good. It felt right.” Colin rubbed his gritty eyes. He hadn't slept one minute all night. “But it scared me too. What he did to me…” Colin couldn't even get the words out anymore. It had cut him up inside to relive the confession and ensuing fight when telling everything to Jordan. “I don't know what to think or what to do.”
“You get the hell out of Fiji tomorrow is what you do,” Jordan instructed hotly. “Just like you would have done if you never saw that house or met that man in the first place. You do not give him the chance to crush you again.”
“Now wait a minute.” Tag spoke from the balcony. He moved from the railing and leaned his shoulder against the sliding door. “A week ago, you believed this man to be your destiny. You saw that house and then met Marek, and you were sure something bigger than you could understand had guided you to Fiji and to him. From what you've told me, I thought you accepted on a fundamental level that those dreams you had, and the emotion and connection you experienced in them, was real, and that Marek was the source of that pain you were driven to heal.”
Jordan shot up from her chair, and if she had fur running down her back, it would be raised on end. “Tag, the guy had a hand in Colin's beating.”
“No, he didn't,” Tag answered. He walked inside and put his mug down on the table. “He made a really stupid, jerk move when he was seventeen, a mistake that clearly haunts him to this day. But he did not go with those guys and aid in what they did. And he didn't turn a blind eye knowing they were going to do it either.”
Growling, Jordan said, “But he didn't do a damn thing afterward once he figured it out.”
“Guys.” Colin stood and got in between the couple. “Please don't get in a fight over this. I don't want that.”
Tag circled around Colin and put his arms around Jordan. He pulled her against his chest, and their hands twined at Jordan's stomach. “Colin,” Tag began, “Jordan and I disagree all the time, and it's certainly something we're going to do more than once over the course of a marriage. We both have strong personalities, and conflict is going to occur. It's part of being honest about who you are in a relationship and trusting the other person will accept you.”
Colin narrowed his stare at Tag. “Are you trying to hint I didn't do that with Marek?” His voice rose in disbelief. “I didn't pick a fight with him. I never hid myself from him. He sold me out, and then he lied to me about it for a week.”
“He showed you the ugliest, most secret part of himself, something that filled him with shame.” Tag paused, but his hazel eyes pinned Colin right to the wall. “And you walked away.”
Tearing his gaze from the penetrating scrutiny, Colin rubbed his neck and took to pacing the hotel room. “This is different than what most people consider a 'big' secret they're afraid to tell a spouse.” Colin slipped back in time to lying on that gravelly concrete, battered and cut open; he shivered with renewed fear. “Marek instigated something that put me in the hospital and gave me nightmares for months afterward. I have scars on my body that will never go away.”
Jordan untangled herself from Tag and sat back down at the table. “I have to go with Coli
n on this one, babe.”
Tag took a seat too, facing his wife when he next spoke. “For someone who had such difficulty showing me her demons and deepest fears, I would have thought you'd have some understanding for Marek.”
“Maybe if it were anyone but Colin,” Jordan answered, “I would. But I met Colin while he was still healing from the assault, so I know the pain and trauma he went through. I can't be on anyone's side but his.”
“I think that's where you're mistaking my viewpoint,” Tag said. “I don't see myself as being on Marek's side.” He shifted in his chair and put his focus back on Colin. “You know I am your friend and I only want you to be happy.”
A small smile forced up the edge of Colin's mouth. “Yeah. You don't even have to say it.”
“Thank you.” Tag dipped his head, but then continued to follow Colin's movements from where he sat. “I wouldn't be pushing you to reexamine this except for the fact that I saw how you were all this week. Jordan told me how strongly you felt about those dreams you experienced, and you even talked to me about it some during this time in Fiji. You were so certain the man and that house were your future. When you met Marek, you had more life in your eyes than I've ever seen in you. What has really changed? Nothing. Except that this Marek might actually need you now more than that man in your dreams ever did.”
Colin's head hurt, his heart ached, and betrayal sat like rancid food in his stomach. “It's not that simple.” His fists clenching at his sides, he whirled on Tag as the events of his time with Marek all caught up to him. “Marek knew. From the day I set foot on his porch, he knew everything. From the first second he saw my face, he knew the part he played in my beating, and he never said a damn thing about it. He fucking touched my scars while we…were intimate. Every time he saw them, or each time we talked about my assault, or when he told me about Payton's murder, he knew I didn't have the answers to my own beating or to how we were connected, beyond being acquaintances as teenagers, yet he never said a word.”
Colin dropped down into a chair at the table, depleted. All week he had been running on adrenaline, the discovery of the house, but mostly on the thrill of being with Marek. Now, everything caught up to him and crash-landed his body straight down to earth with a jarring thud. Holding his forehead in his hand, Colin finally said, “He wasn't straight with me from the start. Worse, he still wasn't upfront with me each day we were together and grew closer. He had to know I was falling in love with him, but until I actually slipped and said it, he kept me in the dark.” Colin shifted his focus back and forth between Tag and Jordan, still searching for answers through the blur of exhaustion. “What if I hadn't said 'I love you' last night? How much longer would we have gone on without him telling me the truth?”
Tag reached across the table and grabbed his cup of coffee. He looked at Colin from over the cobalt blue rim. “You sound more upset Marek withheld his confession than you are with what actually happened all those years ago.”
“Maybe I am.” Colin's eyelids felt weighed down with ball bearings. “I don't know. I don't know what to think or feel or believe anymore.”
“So maybe this is where the rubber hits the road,” Tag said. “Maybe this is a test of how you guys really feel about each other and what you are willing to fight through and for in order to be together. Marek made a terrible mistake, on both occasions, but he also let you into his house and his life, giving you the benefit of the doubt, even though you were pretty much a stranger to him. And I have to tell you, if it had been me, I think I would have said you were nuts and threatened to call the cops if you ever came back. Marek is imperfect, but so are you. Either you love the man, the whole, flawed man, or you don't. The same goes for him.”
The roar of waves crashing in Colin's ears nearly drowned out Tag's words. “I do, but… I can't think anymore.” The noise grew louder, and Colin didn't think it had anything to do with the ocean outside. “I don't know.”
Jordan stood up and clapped her hands in Colin's face, helping to force his eyes open and on her. “Okay, come on.” She lifted him under his arm and guided him to the giant honeymoon bed. She laid him down, took his shoes off, and pulled the cover over his body. “Get some sleep. A couple hours of shut-eye might give you the clarity you need.”
Lead weighed his arm, but Colin managed to grab Jordan before she moved away. “But your honeymoon. Your room.”
“It's okay.” She untangled his fingers from her wrist and tucked him back under the sheet. “We wanted to do a few more things on the island before leaving tomorrow anyway. Rest. I'll leave you my key on the nightstand in case we're gone when you wake up.”
As unconsciousness pulled Colin under, he heard feminine and masculine murmuring, and then Tag's deep voice rumble, “I love you too.”
* * * * *
A boat engine cut across the chirps of the birds and the critters in the air, reaching Marek in the backyard. “Colin?” He threw down his pruning shears and raced around the side of the house, his heart beating triple the pace of his churning legs. “Colin!” Please say you forgive me. Speeding up the path to the beach, Marek nearly tripped in the sand in his effort to get to the dock, where a boat came to a stop. “Colin!” He put his hand to his forehead to block the glare of sunlight.
A shorter, stockier man emerged from the side of the taxi-boat, and Marek stalled to a stop, his heart plummeting into his stomach.
“I'm sorry.” Tag appeared, hoisting himself to the dock. “It's just me.” The taxi-boat pulled away, and only Tag remained. “I'm here to get Colin's things, and to take the speedboat back for him. I understand you have the keys?”
“Oh.” Stabbing disappointment lanced Marek in the chest, and he dropped his gaze as shame filled him to the brim. He knows everything. I can see it in his eyes. Even if he couldn't, Tag could surely see the bruise forming on Marek's cheek. “Of course. Come with me.”
Marek led the way, and Tag fell in beside him. The men walked up the stairs to the porch; Marek let them inside, and started up the steps. “His bag and things are in the bedroom.” Finally, Marek could speak of intimate things about a male partner, to another person. Only, he no longer had the man he wanted to be with at his side. Too little, too late. He walked into the bedroom and couldn't stop the image of Colin sleeping in his bed from filling his mind. Christ. Marek's throat scratched with the loss. I miss him so fucking much already.
“Marek? Dude?” Tag's voice yanked Marek out of the welcoming picture in his head. “You okay?”
“Yeah, sorry.” Marek forced his feet to move and slipped Colin's duffel bag out from under the bed. “I tossed the boat keys somewhere in here too.” While making his way to the wardrobe, Marek glanced at Tag where he stood at the door. “Check that dresser right near you there, will you?”
Nodding, Tag moved to the chest of drawers and did as asked. A few seconds later, he said, “Found them.”
“All right. I'll try not to keep you longer than necessary.” Removing a handful of Colin's T-shirts and shorts from the wardrobe, Marek barely resisted the urge to put them to his face and see if any traces of Colin's scent remained. The bed last night had been so full of Colin's spring-fresh smell Marek had gone down to the TV room to sleep on the couch. Once there, the talk they shared in the dark replayed in front of him repeatedly, and eventually he gave up any pretense of sleep.
A throat cleared across the room, and Marek looked up to find Tag watching him. “For what it's worth,” Tag said, “I really am sorry things are ending this way.”
Clothes clutched in his hands, Marek gave up any facade of detachment or cool. “How is he?” Marek grasped for anything, feeling like he could achieve some sense of closeness with Colin if he could just hear something about him. “Are you allowed to at least tell me that?”
“He's hurt, and he's angry.” Tag assessed Marek openly. Marek tried to stand up straight and not flinch through it, knowing he deserved much worse than what this man was showing him right now. “He's equally exhauste
d. He slept the better part of the morning away. He's with Jordan at the hotel right now.”
“Right.” Still feeling so raw inside, Marek busied himself with packing Colin's clothes. He didn't have anyone to talk to though, and Tag's sympathetic tone pulled him to speak. “I know it's not going to make any difference, but can you please tell him again that I am so sorry for everything. I know I should have told him everything from the beginning, but the thought of his reaction scared me, and I didn't know how to force myself to do it.” He went into the bathroom to gather Colin's toiletries. Returning, he slipped them in the duffel, zipped everything up, and handed it to Tag.
“Thanks.” Tag transferred the bag to his shoulder, and offered a small smile. “I guess I should get going.”
“Wait!” Marek strode across the bedroom to the wardrobe again. He opened one of the bottom drawers and withdrew the leather satchel. Closing his eyes for a moment, breathing through the fresh wave of loss, Marek walked back to Tag and adjusted the strap over the man's shoulder. “They're Beatrice's journals,” he explained. “Colin should have them. I want him to keep them.”
“I'll make sure he knows.”
“Thank you.” Marek lifted his arm in the direction of the door. “I'll show you out.”
The men reversed their steps through the house. At the front door, Tag stopped and looked at Marek. He held quiet for a heartbeat, then said, “Can I say something about all this?”
“Please.” Marek was surprised he didn't leap on Tag and beg for his wisdom.
“Colin is a lot like my wife. He might not say so if asked, but believe me when I say he is. Trust is a must with Jordan, but making sure she feels safe with me was the hugest obstacle I had to hurdle with her. And I'm not talking physically safe; fact is, that woman knows many forms of self-defense and can kick my ass.” Pride filled Tag's voice at that confession; earnest passion animated his face and had his hands gesturing as he spoke. “I'm talking about, does she feel safe enough with me to say whatever she thinks the second it pops in her head, without worrying how I'll react or if I'll mock or leave. I'm talking about, does she feel safe sharing her secrets or expressing her fears without worrying I'll use them against her. I'm talking about, when she's afraid, does she automatically turn to me before anyone else, because she knows I will do anything and everything to protect her and make it better. I'm talking about, does she believe what I say is true because she knows I respect her enough that I would never lie or deceive her.”