by Brazil, Lee
Chapter Seven
I gazed down into Jason's green eyes, noted the glitter of a single tear trickling down into the hair at his temple. I wanted to erase the hurt that tear represented, but I understood that it would take time. I wished I had the skill with words that Paul had. Then I could maybe make Jason understand how I really felt.
I bent to kiss him again, to show him how much I wanted this, wanted him, when he stopped me with the touch of his fingers on my lips.
"I'm going to ask you to do something I have never asked you to do before. Promise me you'll say yes." He whispered so softly that, even close as I was, I had to strain to hear it.
I didn't think about it. Didn't analyze it. As far as I was concerned, Jason could have anything he wanted from me. Not because I owed it to him after all these years, but because I wanted to be whatever he needed.
"I promise." I forced my voice to normalcy, though the urge to whisper was there as well.
He met my eyes, looked away, then met them again. A slight flush colored his cheeks when he glanced away again, and I brushed my fingers along it, then down to trace his jaw. The softest of stubble grew there, and I rubbed it gently with my thumb before tipping his face back so I could gaze into his eyes again.
"Anything." I allowed my finger to touch the soft wetness of his lip where my own mouth had been, reminding him of the kiss we'd just shared, the intensity of the emotion I'd wanted to convey.
His Adam's apple bobbed as he swallowed, and his tongue flicked tentatively against the whorls of my fingerprints. "I don't want to be away from you again. Promise me that you'll stay, or that if you go, I can go with you."
Tears gathered in my own eyes, and I nearly jerked away. Shit. Jason's words hurt, there was no denying that, but his willingness to accept a promise from me, when I'd so badly mangled the last one I'd made—that was what caused my heart to ache.
"I'm staying. I'm not leaving." I couldn't dismiss the skepticism in his expression. Time would prove the truth of my words better than repetition. I brushed his hand away and leaned down to cover his parted lips with my own.
If our last kiss had been controlled, then this was anything but. Hot, wet, deeply sensual, our mouths slid together, tongues warring with one another for dominance until Jason slowly guided the kiss in the direction he wanted, gentling the fury of passion with the soft tenderness of love. The last kiss had been my promise, my vow; this one was Jason's.
I had understood all along that Jason still loved me. It had been in his every action since we’d met again. And even in the long years of silence, I had always known, at the back of my mind, in the depths of my heart, Jason loved me. By not returning when I had promised to nine years earlier, I had taken that certainty from Jason. He'd lived not with the assurance that somewhere in the world was someone who loved him, as I had, but with the uncertainty of his place in my affections.
He'd asked me for one promise, one I was more than willing to grant, but I made him another one that he didn't ask for, couldn't hear. I tried to convey that second promise with every touch, every glide of my hands over his slowly uncovered flesh, every gently placed kiss. My esteemed parents always said that actions speak louder than words, and since words have traditionally failed me, I let action speak for me. There were words to be said, indeed, but time would allow for that.
Jason must have felt the same need, because he was uncharacteristically quiet as we made love there among the sticky, drying paint and the debris of his studio. As kiss melted into kiss and caress to culmination, no words were spoken.
***
The hours we spent afterward cleaning up the mess Jason had made of his studio were a mix of golden silences and babbling conversations. Ever awkward in such situations, I never seemed to catch on to just when to speak and when to shut up. Jason smiled indulgently as he answered my random questions, teased mercilessly when I expressed myself badly, and every word exchanged solidified the belief in my heart that this was right, this was meant to be; at this time, not nine years ago, I was ready for this.
And as we worked, I formed a plan of my own. The park at sunrise had been a place and a time special to Jason, Paul, and me. We needed to keep Paul with us, in our hearts, but we also needed to create a new us—new times and places that would hold that same meaning. And, for once, I had the idea. Linear-thinking, prosaic, formula-following fool that I was, that I knew the perfect place and the perfect time to start creating those "just the two of us" memories. I could probably have successfully blamed it on the fumes from the paint thinners, or the cleansers, or the intoxicating sensation of just being near a smiling, happy Jason again. Instead when he asked about my secretive grin, I told him flat-out I was plotting.
He laughed and yanked me down for another kiss, his lips brushing mine with the lightest of touches, before he released me. He studied my paint-smeared jeans, grimaced ruefully at my ruined boots, and smirked outright at the way his T-shirt stretched across my chest, the sleeves too short for my longer arms.
"Let's get you more appropriately attired, shall we?" he offered as we exited through the front door of his gallery, which we'd never bothered to open for the day. As we locked the gallery door, I noticed a help-wanted sign displayed in the window.
"I could do that, you know," I suggested.
"You could," he agreed. "If I were willing to hire you. Which I am not."
Ouch. What the hell? I was giving him my whole life, and he wouldn't give me a job? "Think of all the time we could spend together." I swallowed my hurt.
He stared at me skeptically. "Right. I know you, Morgan. You'd drive me nuts measuring the distance between the paintings to the nth of a degree, creating order out of my carefully crafted chaos. There's only one way you and my art are going to mesh."
Stung, I was unable to deny the truth of my OCD meticulousness when it came to organizing and planning. I asked, not sure I wanted to hear the answer, "And that is?"
He clasped my hand in his and swung them together between us as he opened the door to a vintage clothing shop. "You are a great source of inspiration to me. That's your role in my work. Remember that first painting I did, back in seventh grade? The expression on your face when you saw it...that's what I paint for every time, to put that look on your face."
I did indeed remember that painting. I had no idea what expression he was recalling, but I remembered how that painting had made me feel. We'd all been forced by the state-mandated educational guidelines to take art in junior high for a semester. I hated it. I couldn't understand the works we studied. The teacher didn't appreciate my suggestion that Monet needed glasses, nor the randomly expressed thought that Salvador Dali smoked too much crack. I was frustrated by the techniques that weren't exactly science and my inability to recreate what I saw before me.
Jason reveled in it. He absorbed it all and translated it onto pages with whatever medium he had at hand. Much as Paul was with a word, that was Jason with a crayon, a pen, a marker, and eventually a paintbrush. The first painting he finished, that he showed us...it was of the view from the window of his studio. The gravel drive, the untrimmed grass—because by seventh grade it was Jason's job to cut the grass and we just never had the time—strewn about here and there with daisies and shaggy-headed yellow dandelions, and two indistinguishable figures running up the path. The painting had been immature, nothing like what Jason was capable of today, but it had filled me then with a sense of waiting. I understood as I looked at it exactly how Jason felt when he painted it, as he stood at that window, waiting for us to arrive, day after day.
I allowed Jason to choose jeans and shirts as he wished while I leaned on a countertop in contemplation. Waiting. Jason had done his share of waiting for us over the years. And then, I'd made him wait longer. Had he truly been on the verge of giving up as his letter indicated?
He caught my brooding gaze lingering on his face and called across the narrow shop, "What?"
"Were you really going to move on? Without me?"
"Did you open the packages?" As though opening them would have made that question unnecessary?
The perceptive gleam in his eye forced the truth from me. "No. I didn't need to open them. I already knew I was staying here." I could tell by the widening of his smile that though that hadn't been the answer he expected, it was the right answer. "With you." I clarified, lest my entire meaning wasn’t obvious.
I turned my gaze outside and noted the descending gloom. It was time. I ambled to the counter where a bored teenager tapped a pen against her lip ring while scowling at a textbook. She'd ignored us the whole time we'd been in the shop, so I rang the bell on the counter.
Slowly, the girl straightened and gave me a disbelieving glance. "I'm right here."
I scanned her page of work while she muttered and Jason smiled, and handed over my debit card when required. Fortunately it worked. When she handed back my card and the package, I placed my hand at the small of Jason's back and urged him toward the door, throwing back over my shoulder as I exited, "You should use the slope intercept formula to double-check your graphs."
Jason's chuckles as I guided him to my rental car diverted his attention from the fact that he had his own car. We could come back for it. I had him buckled in, and we were halfway to our destination before he remembered it. I ignored his quizzical glances as I steered through the slushy streets. I wanted to arrive at our destination at a certain time, and then it occurred to me that after nine years, it might not be there anymore.
On the opposite side of campus there was a second park. This one was more popular, being closer to the student union and the dorms, and that was one of the reasons we'd preferred the other. That park was on the east side of campus; this one was on the west.
That park was perfect for watching the sun rise over the tree line. This one was perfect for watching the sun dip below the mountains. This one was perfect for a new beginning, a new memory, a new promise.
I guess I'm not as subtle, or as romantic, or as hard to read as I might like to think. Jason caught on to what I was up to right away, and he was all smiles as we left the car.
Hand in hand we crossed the park, ignoring the half-shoveled walkways to traipse through the thick layer of snow, ignoring the raised brows—whether they were caused by our clasped hands or our paint-spattered clothes—as we searched for the perfect place to observe the sun sinking below the horizon.
Once again, seated on a snowy bench, I scarcely felt the icy water seeping through my jeans. I leaned my head against Jason's, gazed down into his eyes again—I could spend the rest of my life drowning in those green depths.
"I'm going to ask you to do something I have never asked you to do before. Promise me you'll say yes." I whispered his words from earlier back to him. I felt his smile more than I saw it.
"I promise."
THE END
KEEPING HOUSE
Truth or Dare #1
Mischa knew his brothers were up to something. He didn't know it would lead him to Donovan Holloway and change his carefree lifestyle forever.
Donovan Holloway, advertising executive, newly made vice president of the company where he's worked for twenty years, grew up in a free love hippie commune, taking care of the parents who should have been taking care of him. He's worked hard to put himself through school and achieve the American dream. All he's ever wanted was a normal family life—house in the suburbs, two cars, two kids, a shaggy dog. A family to come home to—to care for, and to care for him.
Mischa Blake is the green eyed, liberally-pierced, black-haired, Mohawk-wearing spoiled youngest son of a Hollywood producer and his actress wife. Mischa has made a terrible mistake. In a fit of childish pique, he's accepted a dare from his older brothers. The dare? Live on his own, supporting himself completely for a year without accessing his trust fund. No problem. Except Mischa has never worked a day in his life, hasn't finished college, and has absolutely no skills that he can bring to the table.
So when he sees Donovan's ad for a housekeeper/gardener, he has nothing to lose by applying, because really...how hard can it be?
EXCERPT
"So, tell me why you want to work for me." That should give him pause.
"I don't. My brothers dared me to get a job, and it's been a lot harder than I expected. I just came from a McDonald's where the manager had a guy with a BS cleaning the toilets and an MBA flipping burgers. The economy sucks." Mischa sounded dejected.
"Ahh." He wanted a job on a dare? What the hell? Who told a prospective employer they didn't want to work for them? "Let me tell you a little about the parameters of the job."
Mischa gazed at him quietly, waiting. Maybe the daunting aspects of the task would send the kid the way of the first applicant. "You'll be responsible for preparing meals. I eat breakfast at six, daily, take a boxed lunch to work, and expect a minimum of a three course dinner. Sometimes I have guests, and occasionally dinner parties." He didn't really, but threw out the possibility anyway. For a moment, he was distracted by the amusing vision of a room full of elegantly clad clients and coworkers staring in horror as a Goth-garbed Mischa, hair spiked and piercings glittering in the candlelight announced that dinner was served.
"Got it. Cooking. I can do that." Mischa seemed to be trying to convince himself as much as Donovan of that fact.
"You'll have to do the shopping. I don't have time for things like that. Then there's the cleaning. I expect the house to be spotless at all times." He assiduously ignored the fact that the house was currently anything but clean.
Mischa wasn't inclined to be so kind, though. He glanced pointedly around the kitchen, at the stack of dirty dishes in the sink, the debris from several takeout meals on the counter tops, and the unpacked boxes of kitchenware. "OK. Clean. I can do that."
"I need the house put together, too. The boxes," he waved around, "unpacked and stuff put away. The walls painted, furniture ordered and assembled and put in place."
Mischa looked shocked. "You trust me to decorate your house?"
"No. I have the plans here." He thumped the red leather-bound album that held the dream house drawings he'd labored on over the years on the marble counter. "I need my housekeeper to coordinate the workmen, decorators, deliveries and so on."
More nods. "I can do that."
Donovan stared helplessly at the kid. Stop calling him kid. It's too pervy. What else? "References? Do you have references?"
Mischa bent over and the tight black t-shirt rode up as the skinny jeans inched down. Damn. All that creamy white flesh, hairless and smooth tempted him to reach out and touch, to examine the texture and resiliency. He wondered if there were any more shiny piercings hidden under that severe black garb.
"Hey," Mischa was waving a handful of papers in front of his face, and Donovan flushed slightly. Could Mischa tell he'd been staring inappropriately at his exposed skin?
"I'll, ahh, I'll keep these. I need to call on them later." He searched desperately for something, anything to turn the kid-man off the idea of working for him. Recalling the indignation and vitriol of the second applicant, he took a shot in the dark and threw it out there. "I'm gay."
No response.
"I said I'm gay, a homosexual, a flamer."
No response. Just inquiring green eyes locked on his face. Someone must have told the kid—man that eye contact was important.
"I sleep with other men?" Shit now he was making statements as questions.
The pierced brow rose slightly at that in an enigmatic gesture, but no response was forthcoming.
"This is a live in position. You don't mind working for and living with a gay man?"
Finally, Mischa smiled. Donovan's heart lurched at the sexy sweetness of that smile. The tiny silver hoop in his lower lip glinted seductively. Wonder how that piercing would feel when he pressed his lips to Mischa's? It certainly drew attention to the swollen plumpness of the full red lower lip. Yeah—he really needed to get laid this weekend.
"No. I don't mind worki
ng for a gay man, as long as you don't mind hiring one." Mischa's smile was now a broad grin, and he settled back more comfortably on the barstool, as though he were suddenly making himself at home.
Sudden sympathy overrode Donovan's concerns. Why not give the kid a chance? If Martin Weston hadn't hired him to work in the copy room at his company all those years ago despite his being an underage gay hippie he wouldn't be where he was today. He'd probably regret this, but it looked like the skater-Goth-boy/man had talked himself into a job. And the corporate advertising executive was sentencing himself to a series of cold showers.
Other Books by Lee Brazil
Available as ebooks from Breathless Press:
Holidays With Jacob
The Accident
Willow
Saint's Curse
It's Simple, Simon
Loving Eden
The Librarian
Loving Jacob
Mark’s Opening Gambit
Trapping Drake
The Man Trap
Truth Deeper Than Logic
"The Park At Sunrise" in Word Play: Story Orgy, Vol 1
TRUTH OR DARE
Keeping House
Telling the Truth
Giving Up
Taking the Dare
Risking it All
Donovan's Deal
As e-books With Story Orgy
"The Old Soda Shop" in And The Prompt Is... Volume One
"The Interview" in And The Prompt Is... Holiday Edition
As an e-book From Silver Publishing
Less Than All
In Paper Back
Encounter
A Beautiful Silence
Loving Jacob