Can't Let Go

by David Horne

  “You’re never bored with art history.”

  “That’s true.” He smiled at Joshua. “I saw you in Gaston Hall at Georgetown. You were with some of the other instructors from the criminal justice department.”

  “I remember seeing you there.” Joshua shook his head. “We clicked immediately.”

  “I thought so too.” In response, Joshua pressed his right hand against Trevor’s face, the bandage-free hand.

  “I’ve been doing a lot of soul searching. You can guess that.” He sat back on his heels. “I went to the storage unit to search for files, and I got caught up in looking at my life, our life in the collection of stuff we’ve accumulated and put in boxes. It’s like there’s no room in here,” he said tapping his skull. “And we put things that somehow mattered to us into boxes and rent a storage unit because our lives are so full, we need extra places to store our memories.”

  “I’m worried about you. You didn’t even think for a second when you rushed into a burning building.” A tear burst and ran down his cheek into the day-old stubble on his face. “You just went, and devil may care.”

  “I love your words. I love that you rush to danger but have an analytical mind about it. You had the common sense to bring the fire extinguisher. But this isn’t about that business next door.” He had to think again. “Well, it is, in the sense that what happened made me remember something from the past.” He breathed deep, closing his eyes, trying to table scuttling thoughts. “What I’m trying to say is this: When I went looking for the past, I found you. I found your high school and college yearbooks. I found old photographs of you and us together. I found some of your college papers, and I saw one of your theses.

  “I got lost in the storage unit not because I forgot why I went there, but because I discovered something I didn’t realize I’d lost until I went through those things.”

  He opened his eyes. Trevor had been quietly crying. Staring back at Joshua, he was silent and waiting.

  “I love you, Trevor. I’ve been in love with you forever; it seems. And now I’m worried that all those memories, everything that has to do with you are going to be lost to me.” A catch in his throat happened the same time he’d felt the tears stinging his sinuses. “I don’t feel old. This retirement thing is eating me up inside. I’m having a hard time processing not doing something every day that I’m so used to doing. I can’t figure out how you’ve adjusted so well.”

  “It took a while.” Trevor had retired from Georgetown and fell into the daily life of doing nothing. “I haven’t stopped living. And you’re not old!”

  “I’m older. We’re older. Remember when we were young, ambitious, and incorrigible?”

  “Well, that last part isn’t true for either of us. But I remember the spontaneity we once had.”

  “Where does it go? Why do people who’ve been together for years just stop doing things they once found interesting and meaningful.”

  “Well, when women get older and start meta—” To stop Trevor from going into a dissertation on the changes of life, Joshua pressed his mouth against Trevor’s mouth. The kiss was deep and passionate. It was the kind of a kiss that two people who were so comfortable with each other could pull off without being sloppy or inexperienced, or afraid.

  When their lips broke, both of them gasped for air. “Wow,” Trevor whispered. “I miss that.”

  “Me too,” Joshua agreed. They were on something, a turning of the heart between them, opened by the confession. Joshua moved his hands over Trevor’s legs. He felt the muscular thighs under the material of his pants.

  He watched Trevor’s eyes as they took in his face, glancing behind Joshua to the open curtains and shades on the front of the house as the button and zipper opened to the front of his pants.

  Joshua ran his hands over the material of Trevor’s underwear. He felt the familiar bulge of his cock against his side. The teasing article separated him from gripping the thick penis as it grew hard inside the underwear.

  “Maybe I should close the shades,” Trevor whispered worriedly.

  “Sit back, relax. If Hocking wanders across the street to look in our windows, maybe he’ll learn something.” Joshua pulled at the waistband of Trevor’s underwear. Once his thick cock was free, Joshua pushed his face against Trevor’s lower stomach and breathed deep. “I love your smell,” he mumbled. His right hand traced the length of Trevor’s cock, starting from the soft, pliable balls and moving up to hold it gently in his grip.

  He leaned forward and kissed the tip of Trevor’s cock. The immediate reaction from the sensation made his cock flex. It encouraged Joshua to do more, to run his tongue around the head of Trevor’s circumcised cock. It moved again in Joshua’s hand. He pulled on it.

  A noise emanated from Trevor. He stretched, turned, and lifted his bottom while Joshua pulled at the cuff of the pants. Then the underwear came off, and he dropped bottomless in the armchair again. Joshua ran his hand up Trevor’s naked thigh. They watched each other. Eye to eye, there was no apprehension in what he did. They had a life together, a deep and meaningful existence that mattered more to both of them than anything else in their world. Joshua didn’t show displays of affection when they were in public often. There was no question of their relationship. It didn’t come from handholding or kissing in the park. It came from their continued and unlimited closeness that no one ever questioned.

  Trevor closed his eyes when Joshua hovered over the tip of his cock again. Anticipating the velvet texture of Trevor’s cock on the inside of his mouth, he felt his own erection tangled in the confines of his cargo shorts and boxer-briefs. It wasn’t about releasing his cock at that moment; he wanted Trevor to feel the exquisiteness of their union together.

  He squeezed Trevor’s thick cock; a dollop of precum sprang from the tip. Joshua pressed his tongue against Trevor, taking in the rich and robust taste of him before putting as much of the man’s cock into his mouth as he could handle. Trevor’s cock was straight and firm. As Joshua worked the cock in and out of his mouth, his fingertips caressed the man’s balls.

  There was life in them. They were catapulted back to their youth. There was no gray, receding hair. No aching knees and joints to complain while they were together. It was an embrace of their youth, a joining together on a level that only two people can experience when they are so in love.

  Joshua pulled his mouth off Trevor’s cock. He undid the button on the cargo shorts. He stood up allowing the shorts to fall off his hips while he pulled off the underwear. Trevor’s moaning told Joshua they weren’t done. He wanted more. Kneeling in front of Trevor again, this time without the constriction of the shorts, Joshua began rhythmically stroking Trevor’s cock. Carefully, to keep his bandage out of the fun, he ran a finger under Trevor’s tightening balls. The sensation sent a shuttering wave through Trevor.

  Joshua sat up, pressing his knees against the edge of the cushion, while Trevor slouched in the armchair, opening his legs more. Joshua pressed against him, kissed him hard. Trevor’s hands found Joshua’s hips, coaxing him closer. His fingers went around the outside of Joshua’s ass, gripping tight, pulling on him.

  While they kissed, Joshua reached down with his right hand, gripped his cock gently and watched Trevor’s face as he pressed the head of his cock against Trevor’s anus. The man shuttered, moaned and opened for Joshua.

  Their first time together had been about experimenting, testing and teasing each other. They had a relationship that gave way to exploration, discovery, and love. While Joshua fucked Trevor, he pulled at Trevor’s stiff cock. Their eyes never wavered; neither man looked away, was distracted by anything outside their lovemaking.

  Joshua felt the surging of his orgasm. His cock moved reflectively inside Trevor and the man tensed. The eruption of cum, spilling out of Trevor’s cock, washing Joshua’s hand and Trevor’s shirt was a glorious sight. It was so exciting to see his cock cum that Joshua’s orgasm pumped Trevor full and the two men rode the lasts of their pleasures and the
n held each other.

  Chapter Eleven

  Dinner was late. The creamy garlic sauce Trevor made to sauté the baked chicken breasts had congealed on the stove. The chicken dried out in the oven after Trevor had turned off everything, so they had time together. It was a terrible meal. Joshua didn’t complain because both of them agreed, as they used the sauce as a dip, and ate at the breakfast nook after they showered together, it was the best meal they had together in a long time.

  “I’m sorry I was a jerk earlier,” Trevor said. “I shouldn’t have gotten so worried about you taking off.”

  “It’s not a big deal. I got the storage unit organized. We have a lot of crap.”

  “We do, maybe we should go through it together and get rid of stuff we don’t need.” The files and boxes on the patio table were visible in the dark. The breakfast nook overlooked the back porch. “What were you looking for in those files?”

  Joshua’s face brightened. “Do you really want to know?”

  “Of course,” Trevor said, wiping his mouth with a napkin. He stood from the stool and collected the dishes from the table. Joshua retrieved some files from the patio table.

  Once the breakfast nook table was clear, Trevor grabbed his reading glasses as Joshua spread out a file.

  “So, this is a case I investigated years ago. It was ruled an accident. It was almost identical to what happened to Stuart.”

  Trevor scanned the report. He saw grammatical errors, misspelled words, and run-on sentences. It was apparent that a man who had an education but not something in the academic field wrote the paper. Trevor knew it was Joshua’s work.

  “So how are they similar?”

  “It was the way it happened. When I went to Stuart’s house, saw what happened, it must have triggered something in my brain because I couldn’t stop thinking about this case I had from years ago.”

  “But you said they were ruled accidents.” Trevor pulled off the reading glasses and placed them on the table. “Why did you write a report on this case?”

  “I felt it was too close to ignore,” he explained. “I don’t think Gordon Green’s death was an accident.” Joshua fished through other manila files until he had a copy of an insurance policy. “See here, the man’s wife, Lydia Green got a serious chunk of money from the insurance policy.”

  “That seems pretty up and closed for motive.”

  “It does. I know. But at the time, Larry wasn’t interested in pursuing the case. There wasn’t enough evidence at the scene to rule it anything but an accident.”

  He went through papers until he found the autopsy report. “Green had smoke in his lungs, which means he was alive when the fire started instead of using the fire to mask a murder.”

  “I get that. What made you think there was something more to it?”

  “It was a hunch. We interviewed the wife once. She got defensive. After that, we couldn’t talk to her again without her attorney.”

  “You said Larry didn’t see anything suspicious?” Trevor had met Joshua’s former detective partner. The man was old and bitter before they investigated crimes together. He died of a heart attack alone in his apartment eight years ago. No one shed a tear. “And you didn’t have enough to satisfy the woman’s attorney to question her again.”

  Joshua nodded with a smile. “That’s why I love your brain. You get it.”

  Trevor sat back. He saw the excitement in Joshua’s sparkling eyes. The effervescent life bubbling out of him when he was focused and thinking on his feet, Joshua was in his element. “What are you thinking with Stuart?”

  “I want to see the autopsy report. I want to have a conversation with the pathologist. Sometimes they’re a lot like us. If there’s no evidence to support their speculations, they can’t write it down.”

  Trevor nodded. Academia was a lot like police work, and if there wasn’t enough evidence to support the claim, the process was stilted. He didn’t want to lose the enthusiasm he saw in Joshua. Nevertheless, Trevor felt obliged to point out the obvious.

  “You’re not going to have an official conversation with the doctor.”

  “I know.”

  “Your daughter will have your ass, and tan my ass for encouraging you to go into detective mode again.”

  “I know that too.”

  “So, how can I convince you that what happened to Stuart was unfortunate? There’s nothing you or I can do about it. There’s nothing that suggests it wasn’t an accident.”

  “Actually, there is,” Joshua pointed out. “He didn’t smoke.”

  Trevor made a face. “Well, we never saw him smoke. That doesn’t make it fact. He might have been self-conscious about his smoking. It’s not exactly a social thing anymore.”

  “That’s true. What about the smoke detectors?”

  “That’s unfortunate and ridiculous. Did you know after I saw his detectors had missing and dead batteries, I replaced all the batteries in our smoke detectors?”

  Joshua nodded. “I saw you increased the fire insurance on the house too.”

  “Yeah, I meant to tell you about that.”

  Joshua put his hand on Trevor’s hand. After their shower, Trevor took time to examine and clean the burn on Joshua’s hand. It was healing, still red and irritated. “I thought it was a good idea.”

  “I think what you’re doing is a good idea too. But you’re not going to find anything. And looking at this old case might make you see things that aren’t there with the fire next door.” Trevor smiled. It was hard to say what was on his mind; Joshua saw how Trevor held back. Taking an interest in something wasn’t unhealthy. He needed to direct his energies to something that made more sense. The past case was trivial, insignificant. It was because of the fire that prompted Joshua to think of the past situation. Both instances were accidents, and nothing would change that.

  Chapter Twelve

  Getting through the night in fitful sleep was difficult. Sometimes his bladder questioned why Joshua wanted to sleep so many hours. He’d have to get up periodically throughout the night to relieve the pressure.

  When he was awake, it was difficult for his brain to turn off. Something would come to mind, keep sleep at bay, and force Joshua to reflect on life choices or relive memories that hadn’t resurfaced in years. The scare with the MRI weighed on him more than he’d ever admitted to Trevor.

  They’d made love like their youthful counterparts, and he’d never ruin a beautiful moment by pouring worry in Trevor’s ear. Joshua saw the man he loved more than anything lying asleep next to him in the dark. A man who changed the course of his world by just appearing one night at a college function and he’d never let go. They had more years together than his marriage to Nora’s mother. Joshua regretted putting the woman through the façade. But he never regretted having Nora as a daughter.

  These are the things that plagued his mind once he’d wake in the night. That night it was a dry pallet and a full bladder. He chose to relieve his bladder first.

  Slipping from the bed shortly after kissing Trevor’s shoulder, Joshua went to the bathroom and then walked through the dark house to the kitchen. Next door, the municipality had sent assessors to check the property and structural damages. The day before, they cordoned the house off, boarded up the windows and door. It made Joshua uneasy looking at the empty burned-out shell of a house. From the dark of the kitchen, peering at the home through the window over the sink, Joshua sipped at the water he’d poured into the tumbler. It still didn’t feel right.

  The empty house, the fire, the death of a neighbor, these were troubling things to keep him awake, and the past continued to needle at him. Joshua felt the relevance between the two cases. Even if he couldn’t prove it, lacking substantial evidence—

  A light glowed from the neighbor’s house. It was hard to see, but for Joshua, the intuitive nature of the detective’s blood coursing through him made it seem as if he’d witnessed a supernatural event.

  Staring at the house, the plywood over the windows, the
edges of the plywood glowed with a stark white illumination. It wasn’t anything ghostly about it. He was a cop and what he saw was merely a play of light inside the house, and just like water, light followed the path of least resistance.

  “Trevor, wake up,” Joshua called when he ran back to the bedroom. The man stirred as Joshua slid his feet into slippers. “Call 911. There’s someone next door.”

  “What?” he whispered, then caught his breath. “Wait! Where are you going?”

  Joshua ran through the house, out the back door, and around the side where the properties had separation with the fence. Since the kitchen was elevated, a privacy fence was moot, but they never complained about the seclusion. The kitchen light came on inside the house when Trevor went to the kitchen. Then other lights began to switch on.

  Joshua didn’t intend to make contact. He had no weapon; he just wanted to get a visual on whoever was inside Stuart’s house. Vagrants, vandals, it could be anyone. In Joshua’s view, it was a suspect first.

  When he saw a silhouette looming at the back porch of Stuart’s house, the hairs on his arms and neck bristled when goose bumps covered his face.

  “What are you doing?” Joshua had an authoritative baritone when he was playing cop. People responded to it. They usually felt a genuine sense of guilt or surprise. He turned on the flashlight he’d grabbed from the kitchen drawer and shined it into the man’s eyes. “What are you doing here?” He kept the flashlight leveled on the man’s face. An arm hooded his eyes.

  “I can’t see.”

  The shrill of a siren pierced the distant and otherwise quiet night. The police were on their way. Joshua hadn’t seen a car out front of the house. The man was either on foot or walked a distance from a vehicle before he got to the house.

  “What are you doing here?” Joshua demanded.

  “What’s going on?” Another voice said. There was scraping as an intense flashlight beam washed over the back porch from inside the house. Someone passed through the makeshift plywood door. “What are you doing here?”