Pipe: (A Romance & Suspense Mystery) (Red Doors of New Orleans Mystery Series Book 1)

by Wade Lake

  "Somebody needs to cook dinner."

  Mack starts to stand up—

  Chase catches his arm and gently urges him back. "I was joking. I need you here for more than your cooking. You know that."

  "I know," Mack says. "It's … just not funny." The day has been way too exhausting, way too long.

  "It's funny because it's true," Chase insists. "My cooking might kill them."

  "And that would be a bad thing?"

  Chase snickers despite an effort not to. "You crack me up." It's a weird thing to say because Mack almost never cracks Chase up.

  Maybe the evening's drama has left Chase just as disoriented as it's left Mack. Maybe this is how Chase reaches out after being brought to tears over the dinner table. Maybe this is how Chase asks for forgiveness. Maybe, after five years, they're finally getting to know one another.

  As if intuiting his thoughts, Chase loops his arms around Mack and pulls him closer.

  Mack turns his head to look at him.

  “You know I love you," Chase says. "I don't say that enough. I'm gonna try to say it more."

  "I love you, too," Mack says, scolding himself silently for ever doubting this man. Why does he never give Chase the benefit of the doubt? How did Mack become so unappreciative, so uncharitable? Maybe it built up slowly, the way lime builds up in a drain. But that's a problem he can fix. He's determined to fix it. He's going to snake out that drain. Flush out his distrust, his suspicions. He loves this man sitting beside him. He loves him so much … it hurts. It hurts to have ever doubted his sincerity. It hurts that he doubts it, just a little bit still.

  Once again, it seems Chase is reading Mack’s mind. He leans in until his lips touch Mack’s ear. "You're thinking about it too hard," he whispers. His words tickle. "Let life happen. Let us happen. Don't try to steer it. It's all good."

  Mack goes instantly hard. It feels like his cock might split his jeans. He releases his grip on the balled-up socks—they fall into his lap and roll onto the floor. Maybe this night will bring them together for more than picking out paint colors. Maybe this was how it had to be—the hot coals they had to cross in order to reach a better understanding of themselves and each other.

  Pulling away slightly, Chase gestures around the bedroom. "Take a last look."

  "Last look?"

  "This is our last night in this ugly room," he says. "By the time you get home tomorrow, I'll have it painted. Down to the trim. It's gonna look great. Maybe even perfect."

  Mack nods and smiles a genuine smile. "I am looking forward to having some color in here. I wish I could help."

  "Not that big a room. I'll be fine."

  "But I like it when you and I work together—we should do more projects together, like we did with the floors—"

  "Yeah, floors weren't much fun," Chase reminds him.

  "True," Mack agrees. "But it felt great once the job was done. I want more of that feeling. Imagine the both of us painting this room. Could be like a scene in a romantic porno."

  Chase props his chin on Mack's shoulder. "Oh, I like porn."

  "You and me, we’re painting the same wall from opposite ends with our rollers working towards the center. Finally, our rollers meet."

  "Ahh, that sounds dirty. I like it."

  "We could make it real. We could paint the room together after I get back from work tomorrow," Mack suggests. "You'd have to cancel the dinner—"

  "Good try, babe, but no." Chase releases Mack and reaches toward the ceiling with a long yawn.

  Mack shrugs. "Was worth a try," he says. "I do wish I could take tomorrow off to help you. I like us working together."

  "We are working together," Chase insists. "I'm getting up early to get the bedroom painted, and you're getting home early to get things ready for our dinner with the neighbors. Teamwork."

  Mack glances around the room. When his chin is parallel with his shoulder, his eyes pause at the window behind the headboard. It's closed again. Chase keeps closing it. "Don't forget to open the window while you're working tomorrow. I don't want to come home and find you high on paint fumes."

  Chase rolls his eyes. "I'm not retarded, Mack."

  "Sorry."

  "I'll put a fan in the window. I'll turn it on high." He yawns again. "Still, fumes'll be strong for a couple days. I doubt we'll be able to sleep in here tomorrow night.."

  "We survived a similar scenario," Mack reminds him. "If the fumes are too strong, you can have the couch, I'll take the floor beside you."

  Chase ruffles Mack's hair. "You know, there's another option.”

  Mack’s whole body gives Chase its full attention.

  “You could join me on the couch."

  Mack can’t believe what he just heard—sounds like a solution the old Chase would have suggested. Mack's cock throbs, and he feels a surge of precum dribble down the shaft. He forces himself to put on a neutral facade. "Uh, sure. I’d like that. Might be a little tight."

  "Mmm, just the way I like it." Chase places a hand on the back of Mack's head. Slowly, as if asking for permission, he leans in. He kisses Mack's lips: just a brush of tongue. It lasts exactly one second.

  When Chase pulls back, the look on his face is one of focused lust.

  Mack takes the lead now and leans in quickly. Their lips press hard this time. Mack opens his mouth just enough to pull in Chase's upper lip. The tips of their tongues touch. Their breathing comes faster. Mack’s hands are shaking … his whole body begins shaking. He hopes Chase won’t notice.

  Taking back the lead, Chase’s left hand goes to the side of Mack's face. His index finger traces Mack's ear. His right hand slides down the back of Mack's neck and settles on the center of his back near the base of his spine.

  Their clothes are still on, but it feels like they're already making love.

  Mack is ready. He wants this.

  This is all Mack has wanted for weeks now.

  Chase's hand on his back gives Mack confidence. Feels like all the kindness he's ever asked for is holding him upright. With that one touch, Mack has stopped shaking.

  Chase's index finger tickles Mack's ear … teases; the sensation feels so good; round and round the malleable flesh; feels like both the conception and conclusion of a traveling itch, a soothing whisper, vibrating and quieting, vibrating and quieting.

  It's dizzying.

  Mack closes his eyes to keep the room from spinning.

  Mack reaches for Chase's hips … finds them by feel—he loves finding things by feel—one hand on each of Chase's thick hips … from opposite ends, his hands follow the wide leather belt around Chase’s waist ... and meet at the buckle lying low over Chase's crotch.

  Mack tugs on the belt, releasing the buckle's brass tongue from the hole in the leather strap.

  Chase exhales a moan straight into Mack's mouth, and Mack sucks it in as deeply as his lungs will allow.

  Chase grips Mack's wrists gently … very gently … and pushes them away from his buckle.

  Mack's eyes snap open.

  Chase stands up. It takes him a second to catch his balance. "Whoa," he says, shaking his head. His mouth is wide open as if to suck in extra oxygen.

  Mack stands up, reaching once again for the buckle.

  Chase blocks his hands.

  Mack stops, confusion raising his eyebrows. "What's wrong?"

  "As much as I'd love to follow through with what we started—"

  "You're kidding me."

  "Sorry, partner, but it's late, and I've got a long day of painting tomorrow." He smiles. A broad smile. It's such a genuine smile, it breaks Mack's heart.

  "I thought we were gonna ..." Mack's voice trails off. "Are we ever gonna ... get back to … doing the things partners do?"

  "Of course," Chase says. His voice is kind and reassuring. "Just not tonight."

  "When?" Mack asks softly.

  "After the room is painted. Soon."

  18

  Chase is snoring.

  Mack can't fall asleep.
<
br />   It's too hot for anything more than a sheet.

  A tent, leaning slightly to the left, stands between his thighs. His heartbeat pulses up and down the tent pole, swelling the tip and causing the tent to lift and sway with the rhythm. Moonlight falling through the window lies on the white bedsheet. It looks like liquid. A milky, glowing liquid. Mack imagines himself in a warm bath, up to his chest in syrupy waves of semen. His balls feel bloated. They actually ache.

  Mack turns his head to stare at Chase's sleeping face. He looks at peace … and just a little smug. He's sleeping on his back nowadays. It makes his snoring even worse. Beneath the thin bedsheet, Chase is naked. Moonlight and stretched cotton outline his beautiful body. His hands lay half-open with an invisible grip to either side. Between his legs, it’s a mirror image of Mack’s situation: an impressive pole holds up the bedsheet. But Chase is experiencing one lucky difference: a wet dot the size of a quarter caps Chase's tent. As Mack stares, the circumference of the dot grows. Chase's hands twitch simultaneously. The dot becomes a Rorschach inkblot with goby appendages. After ten seconds, the entire canopy is soaked, and the tent falls sideways. At their age, a wet dream only happens when a guy is horny as hell and holding back all normal resolutions. Why the hell is he holding back?

  Chase's chest is exposed.

  Moonlight illuminates his chest hair.

  Looks like thousands of curled, lit wicks.

  His nipples are erect and dark red.

  It crosses Mack's mind that he could easily reach over, place one hand on Chase's chest and rub his fingers through the short hairs. He would love to feel the rub of a hard nipple underneath his palm. With his other hand, he could grip himself. A couple pulls, and he'd be done. He considers it. Imagines it. Wants it.

  Of course, he doesn't do it.

  As much as his instincts want that, it's not what his heart wants. His heart, his brain—everything other than his cock—wants a long night of holding one another so close neither can escape.

  Mack pushes the sheet off himself.

  Throws his legs over the side of the bed. His feet hover over the newly lacquered floor. The waltz of shadow and moonlight falling through the window creates the illusion of footprints. Or are those the stains that wouldn’t sand clean? The ones he dreamed about, still showing through the polyurethane? He glances further out across the floorboards and he sees them all over the bedroom now: Stains, blotches and the illusion of footprints … as if someone has been in here with them, every night, silently dancing with paint on their feet.

  Mack shakes the idea out of his head. Drops his own bare feet onto the floorboards and heads toward the kitchen for a snack.

  When he flips on the kitchen light, his eyes go straight to the fridge. He avoids even a passing glance at the sink. He doesn't want to know what the pipes have to say. Not tonight. He just wants the blood in his cock to rush to his belly. He wants his body to shift into slow-motion. Wants his thoughts to soften and fade and disappear incomplete. He wants to sleep. A peaceful, well-fed sleep without worries, without this craving for affection, without the sound of Chase's snores rolling around his ears.

  He opens the fridge door and peers inside.

  A brick of Swiss cheese, a shrunken head of cabbage ... a basket full of eggs. He pushes Chase's beer out of the way and finds a glass bowl covered with aluminum foil: left-over macaroni and cheese. It can't be more than a week old. He pulls it out, tosses the foil aside, covers the bowl with a paper plate, pops it into the microwave, and hits the 1-Minute button.

  He watches the bowl turn round and round.

  Imagines the individual noodles waking up, inhaling and stretching, the cheese on their little bodies softening.

  It's hypnotic.

  He closes his eyes and almost falls asleep right there—

  A familiar voice startles him.

  His eyelids pop open, and he glares at the crooked faucet.

  But the voice didn't come from the faucet … or from under the sink … or anywhere near the sink.

  The microwave dings. The bowl inside stops turning.

  Mack draws a deep breath, filling his lungs with air … holds it … exhales.

  "Down here," the voice whispers.

  Mack looks at the floor … at his feet … at the feet of the kitchen chairs …

  "Down here." The voice is unmistakable: hollow, metallic … but somehow different this time, like multiple tones of the same voice, all muffled, distant, as if speaking through the walls.

  Mack squats, touching the floor with both hands for balance. "Where are you?" He turns his head sideways to hear better.

  No answer.

  He lies flat on the floor and peers underneath the refrigerator … it's too dark under there to see if anything. He needs a flashlight. Should be one in the kitchen drawer where he stashed their emergency batteries, candles, and easy-strike matches. He raises up to his hands and knees and crawls over to the bottom drawer adjacent to the fridge.

  Pulls it open.

  So … where did he put the emergency flashlight? He digs in with his right hand—past the candles, past a box of unused switch plates and an extension cord on a retractable reel.

  He knows it's in here.

  He goes in deep.

  Up to his elbow.

  All the way at the back of the drawer ... his longest finger touches what feels like the flashlight—but his second-longest finger touches ... something else. Something that shouldn't be there. Something Mack didn't put there. Thicker than a flashlight. Wrapped in a plastic bag.

  Ignoring the flashlight, he works his hand around the mystery item … grips it, pulls it out of the drawer, and drops it on the floor.

  A metallic bang scatters with a rush of whispers.

  Mack's whole body goes cold. An icy sadness creeps down his naked back.

  He tears away the plastic bag.

  Of course, it's the wind chime.

  Kids didn't steal it.

  It was Chase.

  The miserable fucker took it down himself and hid it in the back of the drawer!

  Cursing under his breath, Mack scoops up the wind chime. He grips it by its hook and stands to his full height. The copper, steel, brass, bronze, and aluminum pipes bang, bang, bang, bang, bang loudly without rhythm. Without pausing to think it through, Mack carries the chime out of the kitchen, across the living room, into the bedroom, and flips on the light. There's Chase. Sleeping on his back, mouth open, snoring. Mack holds the wind chime over Chase's head and shakes it wildly. The pipes sing loud enough to wake the neighbors.

  Chase springs up with a frightened convulsion, hands shielding his face.

  Mack drops the wind chime onto Chase’s lap.

  19

  "You told me it was stolen!"

  "I never said that," Chase says, sitting up fully. "You assumed that, and … I didn't want to hurt your feelings."

  "It was a gift!" Mack shouts. "From me to you! I made this for you!"

  Chase pushes the chime off his lap, and it falls to the floor with a crash. "Come on, you fished it out of the fuckin' tree."

  "For you!" Mack screams. He looks like he’s about to either cry or sneeze. He does neither. Instead, he squeezes his forehead as if to squeeze out the anger then adds, more calmly now, "I thought you'd like it."

  Chase wipes the sleep out of his eyes. "I liked the sentiment."

  "Then why take it down?"

  "It was loud," Chase says. "We had complaints."

  This is news to Mack. "Who?" he asks. "Who complained?"

  Chase shakes his head and climbs out of bed.

  "Who?!" Mack demands. The volume of his voice takes them both by surprise. Chase instinctively steps backward—his bare foot lands on the chime, throwing off his balance. The back of his leg bumps he mattress, and he almost falls back into bed. The whole bed frame rocks, and the thin glass in the window behind the headboard rattles.

  Chase regains his footing and takes a determined step forward, over the wind c
hime, right up to Mack. Their noses nearly touch. Chin down, chest up, he looks Mack in the eyes. It's a pose meant to intimidate. "The neighbors," he says coolly. "The neighbors complained. Jim said it looked trashy and sounded like a trailer park."

  "And you didn't tell him to go fuck himself?"

  Chase maintains eye contact but blinks rapidly three or four times—a gesture that, for Chase, means No. He draws a slow breath as if to decide whether to continue this path. "Here's the thing," he finally says. His voice is just a little bit softer, less steely, now. "Truth is, I agree with Jim on this one. I never liked wind chimes. My mom had a dozen of them on our front porch in Delacroix when I was a kid, see … and, well, when Hurricane Florence blew through, we nearly died in that house. It's my worst childhood memory. Bar none. After Florence, every time mom's wind chimes started ringing, I was sure a hurricane was coming. Used to scare me to death." His hands go to his head, and he rubs his bald spot. "To this day, I hate the things."

  Mack's never heard Chase tell that story. His heart sinks, and his resolve to keep fighting goes limp. He pictures Chase as a frightened seven-year-old: windows bowing inward, horizontal rain pelting the glass; high-tide rolling in over the sidewalk, submerging the yard; and all the while, wind chimes screaming. Mack doesn't know whether to apologize or pick a new complaint. His anger is still there, but it's drowning in guilt now. He steps back, putting some space between Chase and himself. He wants to hug Chase, but he hugs himself instead … nods, shakes his head, nods again. He has no idea what to say. How many other important stories has Chase kept to himself?

  Chase is stepping around Mack now. He's heading to the bathroom. Mack hears him turn on the faucet. Hears him filling up his water glass. When Chase returns, he steps around Mack, back over the wind chime, and back into bed. He takes a couple sips then, setting his water glass on the nightstand, says, "Turn off the light on your way out."

  Mack scoops up the wind chime and walks away slowly. He switches off the light as he exits the room. Behind him, he can hear Chase punching his pillow.

  The window rattles.

  In the living room, Mack drops the wind chime onto the couch and drops himself onto the cushion beside it. Mentally exhausted, he folds his arms behind his head. Props his feet up on the coffee table.