by P. W. Davies
Victor knew why, of course. He was just taking his time admitting it to himself.
Putting the car back into gear, he checked his mirrors and pressed down the accelerator to merge back into traffic. It was time to head home, to his condo, where he still needed to change the sheets.
Because even with the events of the day, there was little chance he and Christian would ever get near each other again. Victor knew too much, and he’d been very clear about his career concerns. Nothing about today changed any of that.
Deciding he didn’t want to go home just yet after all, Victor changed lanes to take the entrance onto the highway. He would go back when he was good and ready. And he wasn’t ready yet.
It was late when Victor did finally return to the city. He parked his car in the garage and sat in it for a long time, resting his eyes. Dozing might have happened, which finally got him up and out of the driver’s seat.
He was quiet on the elevator ride up to the condo, doing his best not to think. Especially not to retread any of the thoughts that had been plaguing him all day.
Victor was intent that he was simply going to go inside and sleep on the couch again. So intent that he didn’t notice the lamp near his couch being on, which was not how it had been when he’d left this morning.
A shadow stood on the other side of it, finally grabbing his attention as his keys hit the counter in the kitchen. For half a delirious moment, Victor wondered if it was some sort spectre, if Samuel’s ghost was back to judge him for not stopping Christian.
“I’m not the bogeyman, love. And even if I was, I wouldn’t be here for you.”
Victor sagged in relief. “Christian.” Then his mind caught up and he frowned. “You broke in.”
“I considered joking about whether or not this would be the right time to ask you about getting a key,” Christian said, but there was much less humor than the sentence would have suggested. “Decided it probably should wait until we get through this bit of our chat.”
“And what bit of our chat is this?” Victor asked, his voice gruff. “Why did you come back?”
Christian eyed him from the living room before risking a few steps toward him. Victor didn’t budge but refused to let his expression give his thoughts away, schooling himself into a well rehearsed neutral. Christian stopped walking. “I needed to apologize.”
“Are you going to tell me this was all some prank or figment of my imagination?” Victor asked.
“No.” Christian looked down. “I’m sorry for lying to you.”
Victor stood up straighter. “You can’t tell me you’re sorry for that. It’s what you do to people like me. How could I be expected to understand, right?”
That got Christian’s attention. Victor didn’t care if he was throwing gasoline on a fire. He was exhausted. Wrung out. And if there was going to be a point to this conversation, better to get to it quickly.
“Forgive me for not wanting to confess the sins that made me into a monster to someone who doesn’t know the world the way I do.” Christian’s eyes blazed, but Victor held his ground. “I am sorry I can’t tell you. Not yet. But I won’t tell you, just so you can judge me.”
The words impacted. Victor pushed away from the counter and walked closer to Christian. “Is that what this is about? You think I’m judging you?”
“If the shoe fits.”
“I don’t need to know why you do what you do, Christian. I don’t want to know.” He saw Christian’s confidence waiver but preempted any further words with more of his own. “Things happened to you. Around you. The world makes sense to you this way, that much is obvious. But I don’t want to say you’re wrong and I’m right. I have no desire for you to think that I’m looking down at you. I’m not in an ivory tower. I’m right here, in front of you. And I want to know if this job of yours is something that you would ever consider not doing.”
There was a long moment before Christian answered. “It’s what I’m good at.” Victor saw him hesitate over what else to add, darkness flickering across his eyes along with hurt, fear, and that damning spark of hope again. Darkness won out. “My father was murdered. He died in front of me.” Whatever Victor had been expecting that wasn’t it, but he listened with rapt attention as Christian continued, “I didn’t jump right into this. It took years. Steps. None of them were pretty. But it kept me in the world that had taken my father from me and let me find things out I wouldn’t have been able to otherwise.”
Christian looked away. “My older brother took a different route. He became a copper. But he hadn’t been there when our father was bleeding out from a gunshot wound. I’m certain psychologists could give you terms for what happened to me, but none of them would matter.” He looked back at Victor. “I kill people because some people need killing, and I’m good at it. I don’t take jobs where kids could be involved. And I’m not part of the mafia, I freelance.”
Victor took that all in. Bits and pieces stuck out at him as being the complete raw truth. Others showcased how Christian clearly thought of himself. All of it, though, was honest.
“Does this mean you’re no longer denying there’s something here?” Victor knew he was switching topics, but that seemed wiser than continuing over the hurdles of how Christian justified his profession. Truth be told, Victor found himself thinking it made perfect sense, which was almost more damning than the other fact becoming more and more apparent as they spoke.
Christian fidgeted. “I never denied it. I’ve been fighting it because of not knowing how to tell you what I do.”
“Yes. Which is why I’m asking now. I know, so there isn’t any reason to keep pulling away.”
He watched as Christian looked away again. “You told me your fiancee left you.”
This time it was Victor who was caught by a rapid shift in topic. “Six months ago,” he said, uncertain how else to respond.
“I left someone six months ago.” Christian paused before laboring on the significance. “I left him. We were in love. Happy, I daresay” Victor tried not to look surprised at hearing those words. Christian was not looking at him and so didn’t see. He continued, the words slow, careful. Weighty. Christian was confessing the thing that had kept him stepping back from Victor, and it wasn’t his job at all. “My life is complicated. There are times I make it more complicated than it needs to be. I am not an easy man to be with, and I wish I’d been able to tell you that sooner.”
“Are you telling me that you might leave me one day?” Victor asked, his voice soft.
“No.” The answer was firm as blue eyes flicked up to his. “You need to know what you’re getting into, but I have no desire to break another heart. To be honest, I don’t think mine could handle it.”
Victor weighed all that against what he knew he felt for Christian. They both studied each other for a long time, wondering in their own ways how this could work. If it could work.
Christian reached for Victor’s hand. Victor found himself clasping back before he could process the action. “I’m sorry. I never expected to meet you, to get a second chance at something like this. And I’ve been shit at handling it.”
“At something like what?” Victor asked, trying to keep his thudding heart out of his ears.
“Don’t act coy. You were the one just asking me about denying something being here.” Christian risked a playful smile, but there was worry in his eyes about what Victor was thinking.
Victor said, “There would need to be rules.”
It took a few heartbeats for that to sink into Christian. Victor saw the instant Christian parsed the unspoken intent behind the words. Blue eyes sparked to life, blazing with a very different sort of intensity than before. “Anything.”
Looking from one eye to the other, Victor flushed at being the focus of that look. “Good. Because I think we need to talk about that later.
“Right now, all I need is you.”
Christian didn’t disappoint. His mouth was hungry, bruising, his touch like a man starved for contact. Victor let it car
ry them into the bedroom, reciprocating and making his own unspoken reassurances in return. Both of men let that tone carry them through the rest of the night.
Tomorrow they could worry about the future. Right now, was just about them. Damning or not, it felt far righter than anything else Victor had ever experienced.
My lover is a hitman, he thought at some point during the night. Following by, I wouldn’t have him any other way.
Epilogue
Christian felt Victor watching him while he maneuvered around the room, lighting candles and picking up stray items he’d missed on his first sweep through the flat. “I apologize,” he said. “I promise, I tidied in here, but it seems the other rooms got proper attention while this all went to pot.”
“It’s quite alright,” Victor said, and though Christian heard amusement in his voice, Victor managed to sound as impartial as possible. While Christian stood upright with his coat and a few stray pieces of rubbish in his hands, he looked into Victor’s eyes and saw something warm and inviting in them. “Other rooms?” Victor asked, raising an eyebrow. “Like the bedroom, perhaps?”
“Well…” Christian shrugged, feigning innocence. “Can’t have that be a mess, now, can we?”
Victor chuckled and walked further into the apartment, beyond the entryway where he had been watching his lover’s final preparations for his arrival. As he set a grocery bag down on the counter, Christian snuck into the small kitchen, depositing the trash into a bin. Victor hummed. “Much smaller than I’m used to working with,” he said. “I took to heart you mentioning the fact that you didn’t have any pots or pans.”
“Yes, I received the package from Amazon. Though, that might’ve been a bit unnecessary. I don’t know how much cooking I plan on doing.”
“They weren’t for you. They were for me.” Victor glanced over his shoulder and smirked. “Where did you put them?”
Christian sighed. “In the cupboards. After cleaning them”
“Very good.” Pivoting to face the other man more fully, Victor touched the side of Christian’s face. They both leaned close at the same time, a lingering, but chase, kiss exchanged before they brushed noses. He still worried about Christian. He always would. And Christian would always have that in the back of his thoughts whenever a job crossed his path. Samuel had been several weeks ago and while there had been one other in the interim, Christian had held up his end of the bargain.
The hitman, he decided, would be forever at odds with the lawyer.
As they pulled away, Christian winked. Victor chuckled and started to unpack the groceries he had purchased, laying them out on the meager counter space before folding the paper bag. Christian produced two beers from the refrigerator and opened them both. Handing one to Victor, he then extended the one in his hand. “To our health,” Christian said.
“To us,” Victor said, clinking bottles with Christian and taking a long drink of his beer. Once he’d set the drink down, he freed himself of his suit jacket and rolled up his sleeves. Christian hung the coat from a chair at his underused dining room table and as he sat, he found himself marveling over his lover’s skill.
“I never thought I would see you standing there,” Christian said, breaking the tranquil silence which had settled between them.
Victor sighed, cleaning pieces of zucchini off the knife’s blade with a swipe of his finger. “I never knew that I’d want to see this place,” he said, casting a quick glance at Christian before reaching for a pepper. “I’m still certain that I shouldn’t come here too often, but it makes me feel better to see it.”
Christian breathed a soft chuckle. Taking a drink from his beer, he lingered on the sight of Victor. Yes, the rules remained intact, but even he saw how they had begun to erode. The edges chipped away with each week that passed, both men pushing the envelope in several different ways. Christian had snuck into the condo one night after surveilling a mark, still armed. Victor had left a key on the counter sometime after that, a note attached which read ‘Please stop picking the lock.’ During a more recent chat, Victor idly mentioned getting a larger condo. “If there’s one in available in this building.”
Later, when they made love, Christian had lain in the crook of Victor’s arm and thought about the flat.
“Would you like a key to my place as well?” he had asked.
Victor had looked down at him when Christian peered up. Staring into Christian’s eyes, Victor had weighed the question, but in the end, Christian saw relief win over discretion. “Yes,” he had said. “Maybe I can make you dinner there.”
“It’ll be a considerable downgrade.”
“I don’t care. I want to do it.”
Christian could still see the sparkle that had been in his eyes – feel the tenderness that had been in his kiss – when he agreed to let Victor there. Even then, watching Victor turn around in the small kitchen and deposit the food he had been chopping into a frypan, Christian felt the vibrant energy in the air. “It’s only a flat,” he had said, as if apologizing for it, “Your place is far homier than mine.”
In that moment, though, Christian knew home would be wherever Victor was.
Victor looked up at him and grinned. “You’re staring,” he said. “Where did your mind just wander?”
“Oh, to the normal places,” Christian said, punctuating the half-truth with a shrug. “I’m more stunned that you’re able to accomplish anything with that stove.”
“It’s less-than-ideal.” Victor lifted the frypan and tossed around its contents. “But I can imagine the kitchen was the least of your concerns when you moved in here.” The way he looked at Christian communicated the unspoken double meaning in his words.
Christian laughed. “Ah, you’re going to get me talking about work if you’re not careful.”
“Talk about something else, then.”
“What are you cooking?”
“Pasta Primavera and before you ask, no, I’m not making my own pasta. I knew better than to expect that much from this small space.” He reached for the bottle of white wine on the counter. “I have an idea. You probably don’t remember this, but a while ago, you and I had agreed to answer honest questions, three for each of us.”
“I vaguely remember that.” Christian blinked. “What made you think of that?”
“I happened to be thinking about how we started dating the other day and it dawned on me. I had a question remaining. Technically, you did, too.” Pouring some of the wine into a different saucepan, he set the bottle down once he’d finished. “Which of us wants to go first?”
“Oh, this could be dangerous,” Christian said, drinking down another healthy swallow of his beer. He paused in thought. “Alright. You thought this up for some reason. I’ll let you go first.”
“I was hoping you’d say that.” Victor filled a pot with water. After salting it lightly, he focused a moment of his attention on the burners, turning the dials and, Christian assumed, getting each of them set on their correct resting points. He lifted the beer bottle he’d left idle and, walking closer to the dining room, Victor weighed Christian in his sights. “You’ve never told me why you left London.”
Christian took a deep breath. He’d been expecting something like this, though hearing it voiced made an ancient part of his heart ache. “Now, that’s hardly fair,” he said. “You can’t answer the question, too. I remember that being part of the game.”
“I can tell you why I left Las Vegas,” Victor said.
“Let me guess. College?”
He chuckled. “Among other reasons. I liked the idea of setting out on my own. Columbia had a better offer than Stanford, and so, I set off for the East Coast.” Victor set down the beer and brushed off his hands. “Now. Your turn.”
Christian nodded. Sobering slightly, he allowed himself back into that corridor of memory while picking at the label on his beer bottle. “I know I’ve worded it as a mistake that I made,” he began. “And I know that you know it was far more than that. I left a lover behind.
Everything we had built there and for the stupidest of reasons.”
“What reason was that?”
Sighing, Christian looked back at Victor. “I chased a few ghosts from my past. People I thought had murdered my father. I wasn’t wrong, but what I did muck up was who I trusted along the way. I let myself get in too deep with a girl and it all turned into a sodding mess by the end. One of the largest organized crime families in England wanted my head and I had only a few hours’ head start.”
Victor nodded. He glanced at the food to check on it before looking back at Christian. “Why didn’t you ever contact your lover?” he asked.
“Because, Paolo was established there. It was my silly mistake that had ruined everything. And I didn’t want him a marked man purely because of his association with me. I left the country, bought a new phone, and served my penance. You weren’t supposed to be part of that all.”
While Victor smiled, Christian also saw a hint of sadness in his eyes. With a nod, he returned to cooking, but something in the air had shifted. Frowning, Christian looked at the half-emptied beer again, placing a finger on the rim and tracing the edge. Soon, the smell of sauce cooking and pasta boiling filled the flat, and when Christian finished off his beer, he walked into the kitchen to retrieve another one. Victor had drained the noodles – not made by him, no, but still homemade by someone – and filled two bowls with them. After he turned off the remaining burners, Christian snuck up behind Victor, wrapping his arms around him from behind.
Christian rested his head on Victor’s shoulder. “This is the end of the line,” he said.
“What does that mean?” Victor asked, a hand lifting to touch Christian’s arm.
“I mean this is my last stop. I was forced away from one home. I’ll not be running anywhere else.” He lifted his head to kiss Victor’s cheek. “If you were at all concerned I’m prone to wanderlust.”
Victor chuckled, the sound soft and laden with affectionate amusement. He turned in Christian’s embrace, facing his lover, and touched foreheads with him. “I wasn’t afraid. I didn’t hear a threat in your story.”