Aftermath

by Tricia Owens

  “I take priority over dumplings, do I?”

  Ethan smiled, breaking the tension between them. “Just barely. If I hadn’t grabbed a pretzel at New York, New York about an hour ago, I might be sitting down with chopsticks at this moment.”

  “I wouldn’t have blamed you at all.” Encouraged by Ethan’s easy smile, Max headed back to the kitchen. “I was about to prepare a plate. Would you like me to prepare a half portion for you?”

  “No, thanks. I’ll just grab some grapes.” Ethan followed him inside and they each took what they needed, moving easily around and against each other as though the blow-up that afternoon hadn’t occurred.

  They settled at the dining room table and Max did his best to eat unhurriedly, though it was difficult with Ethan watching him after finishing his bunch of grapes.

  “Is it good?” Ethan asked, indicating his dinner. “Looks good.”

  “Analisa is quite skilled.” Max wiped his mouth and set his napkin aside. He’d eaten as much of his meal as he could while nerves tightened his stomach. “Let me get this cleaned up and I’ll join you in the living room.”

  “Alright. Take your time. I’m going to change out of this suit first.”

  “I’ll pour us some wine.”

  “That sounds nice, Max.”

  As Ethan retreated to the bedroom, Max cleaned up after his meal and then selected a pinot noir from their collection. If Ethan’s mood was any indication, the lighter wine would be enough to relax them.

  Nonetheless, Max took a few healthy swallows from his own glass before refilling it and carrying both glasses and the bottle out to the living room. He could admit to himself that he felt some trepidation about his upcoming conversation with Ethan. His lover’s seemingly good mood could be a front to hide inner turmoil. If so, it would be turmoil caused directly by Max’s actions that afternoon.

  As he waited, seated on the sofa with his wine glass balanced in his lap, Max searched for the words to defend what he’d done at the Cosmopolitan. They came easily, but as he mentally reviewed them, he realized he cared less about justifying his suspicions and proving himself right than he did about whether Ethan was happy. In the end, that mattered more than Max’s ego.

  He looked up and smiled when Ethan emerged from the bedroom dressed only in a pair of gray boxer briefs. While undergarments were normal attire for them around the condo, Max remained dressed in his trousers and dress shirt because he had debated going downstairs for dinner. A devious part of him noted that this could be the opening of a sexy scene where the power was tipped decidedly in the favor of he who wore the most articles of clothing.

  “Thanks,” Ethan said as he accepted the glass of wine Max handed him. He sat on the sofa beside him, one knee cocked on the cushions so he could face Max. He took a sip of the wine and ran a finger around the rim. “I wanted to talk about today.”

  “I understand and I agree that we should discuss it. I’m sorry that I upset you by—”

  He stopped when Ethan raised a hand.

  “I know you’re sorry, Max. Of course I do. But, well, I think you should hear what I have to say first.”

  Slightly alarmed, Max lapsed into silence.

  Ethan gazed down into his wine glass, a lock of hair falling loosely across his forehead. Max yearned to brush it back with his fingers, but he refrained, afraid of giving the appearance that he was trying to manipulate Ethan.

  “After we talked in the parking garage,” Ethan began, “I went back to the casino where Merrick was waiting for me. He was pretty embarrassed and I could tell we needed to get out of there—away from the scene of the crime, so to speak—so we returned to his hotel room.”

  Max took a healthy swallow of his wine to keep up the appearance that he was content to wait Ethan out even though this latest information did not sit well with him at all.

  When did I become so jealous? he asked himself. But in truth, he had to admit that he had always been possessive of Ethan and bristled whenever a man showed him too much attention. Certainly the situation with Max’s school friend Gordie hadn’t helped matters. It was likely after that episode that Max became more fixated on who interacted with Ethan and harbored more suspicions about their motives.

  He wasn’t proud of himself, but he wasn’t ashamed, either. He loved his husband more than he loved anyone in the world, himself included. While Max trusted Ethan’s fidelity, he didn’t trust the world at large. He had too much experience for that.

  “Back at his room, Merrick had a sort of breakdown.” Ethan grimaced, as though remembering the scene. “At first, I thought it was because he’d been so intimidated by you. You can be fierce when you’re upset,” he added with a quick smile sent Max’s way.

  “I’ll take that as a compliment,” Max said mildly.

  “You should.” Ethan took another drink from his glass. The wine painted his lips rosy. “Merrick had been scared of you, but I could tell there was something else bothering him. So I point blank asked him: had he come up with this ad campaign in order to try to win me back?”

  Max paid careful attention to how tightly he held the stem of his Reidel wine glass so he didn’t accidentally snap it. “How did he respond?”

  Ethan drank half of his wine. “He said it was complicated.” He tipped back his head and groaned. “’Complicated.’ That was the last thing I wanted to hear. Well, besides ‘yes’. I’d stood up for him and made myself look like a fool to you and now he was telling me his motives were ‘complicated.’ I couldn't believe it.”

  “At no time did you appear the fool to me, Ethan. Let’s get that straight right now. Even if your friend proved to be a liar, that stigma is on him, not on you. Your only crime, as faint as it is, is in trusting him to tell you the truth.”

  “Let’s not get ahead of ourselves,” Ethan said quickly. “I never said Merrick lied to me. I asked him to explain why things were complicated and he told me he does need to nail this campaign for the money and for the exposure it will bring him. But there's more to it. He also needs to clear his name after nearly being accused of inappropriate behavior by another model.”

  Ethan explained what had happened with Moira and the model from Chicago, a story which raised Max’s eyebrows and made him doubly glad he had assigned Giuliani to further explore Merrick’s stalking case.

  “Merrick doesn’t know if word got out about all that,” Ethan continued as he stared into his wine glass, “but he thinks some rumors may have, and if that’s the case, his reputation is ruined in the industry, at least among the models he’s always worked with. So he thought that by using me in this campaign it would prove to those models that he’s still trustworthy. He thinks a lot of them respect me and believe I wouldn’t stand by someone guilty of assault. Me working with him would clear his name, give him some validation, I guess, so he could continue working with those models. I don’t know if he’s right and that I have that much influence, but that was what he was hoping for with this campaign.”

  Complicated, indeed. Merrick had already misled Ethan once. It wasn’t out of the question that he might have done so numerous times. Max kept his opinion to himself for now.

  Ethan finished off his glass. Max refilled from the bottle for him, though he didn’t top off his own. He could see where the night was heading, and what his role needed to be in it.

  “When he and I were together,” Ethan said after drinking again, “I didn’t have to wonder whether he was telling me the truth about things. I know you probably don’t want to hear this but it’s relevant. He was one hundred percent committed to me. I was his world. I mean, I was younger than him and a model, so I get it. I guess I was sort of a trophy for him. But he cared about me.”

  He frowned slightly, as though he hadn’t thought much about it until now.

  “You’re a trophy for anyone,” Max offered gently. “Not because of the cache of having you, but because you’re intelligent and kind-hearted and the most genuine person I know. It may often seem like I desi
re to hoard you as though you’re a precious jewel I won’t allow other men to look at or touch, but it’s less about them than it is about you. You’re that valuable, Ethan. When you give someone your love, it’s a gift no one wants to share.”

  Ethan smiled before finishing his wine. His cheeks held the faintest stain of pink as he allowed Max to empty the bottle into his glass.

  “If you feel that way, then you’ll be happy to know I never gave that gift to Merrick. I liked him a lot, obviously. He was good to me and he made me feel special. But that final connection wasn’t there and he could tell. It was why he offered to be my sugar daddy rather than suggest something as meaningful as marriage.”

  “As I said previously, a man would try anything to keep you.”

  “He never did anything bad, though, and that’s my point. He didn’t lie to me that I’m aware of, so what’s happening now with this campaign is…a shock. You said I shouldn’t feel like a fool, but how can I not? He’s using me, Max. Not in a way that negatively affects me, but I’m still being used to rescue his reputation.” He sighed heavily. “It’s disappointing.”

  Max set his glass, still partially full, on the coffee table before stretching a hand out and cupping Ethan’s knee. “I imagine it hurts.”

  “A little.” Ethan didn’t quite pout, but the alcohol allowed him to be more expressive. “Mostly I wish I hadn’t stood up for him the way I had. I yelled at you today, Max. I was so mad at you—I felt betrayed by you. And yet you were right.” He raised his free hand to his face and covered his eyes. “I’m so gullible. I’m always going to be a hick, aren’t I? No matter the fancy clothes or the beautiful condo—I’m still the idiot who’d never tasted pinot noir before meeting you.”

  Max smiled, though he wouldn’t have if Ethan had been looking at him. He shifted closer and gently pried the wine glass from Ethan’s hand and set it safely beside his own. Taking Ethan’s hand, he turned it palm side up and traced the lines there with a fingertip.

  “Thanks to meeting Gordie,” he began, “and from things that I may have revealed during our time together, you likely have an idea of the sort of upbringing I had and what my life was like as a young man.”

  Ethan lowered his other hand from his eyes to look at Max quizzically. “I think so, yes. What does that have to do with anything?”

  Max brought Ethan’s hand to his mouth and kissed the fleshy mound at the base of his thumb. “I come from a wealthy background. Financially, I wanted for nothing. Opportunities existed wherever I looked. I was surrounded—by choice and by circumstance—by people who were much like my father. They placed emphasis on the acquisition of things, be it money, objects, or status. Even as a child, I swam among sharks. It was the status quo, and I thought nothing of it.”

  He glanced up and saw Ethan’s bemusement. Smiling again, Max kissed the center of his palm and felt Ethan curl his fingers slightly to caress his jaw.

  “Meeting you and realizing that your openness and faith in people are genuine attributes was something of a revelation, Ethan. Yes, I teased you about your naivete in the beginning, and perhaps I still do. But between us, naivete has become an endearment. I speak the truth when I tell you that I wish that I had grown up with a fool like you. I wish that I had had hick friends like you who didn’t try to stab me in the back to gain leverage over me.” Max folded Ethan’s fingers over and kissed their knuckles. “The qualities about yourself that you are ashamed of are the qualities I love you most for. They are qualities I have never known for myself, though I wish I had.”

  “You don’t want to be clueless like me,” Ethan protested, though his eyes were soft. He brought his free hand up to comb through the hair at the back of Max’s head. “People like me get stuck paying the bill at the end of dinners and lose money when we loan it to people who never pay it back.”

  “Perhaps. However, there is a difference between being trusting and being ignorant. You’re a highly intelligent man, Ethan. Nothing in the world can convince me otherwise. When your opinion about someone turns out to be slightly off the mark, as it was in this case, that’s not a condemnation of your judgment or your intelligence. In a perfect world, everyone would behave as you do. The fact that this world is so flawed is why cynics like me exist.”

  “You’re not cynical. You’re skeptical. That’s healthy.” Ethan sighed. “I could use more of that, I think.”

  “I could use more of your optimism, so I say we balance each other nicely.”

  “I guess opposites do attract.” Ethan smirked when Max’s expression turned sour. “Oh, you had to know I was going to say that at some point. It’s not like you don’t cultivate it, Max. You dress like the Prince of Darkness and force me to dress like a virgin sacrifice. You get off on us being so different.” His green eyes darkened as his lashes swept down. “To tell the truth, I get off on it, too. Maybe sometimes I play up my innocence because of that. Just a little.”

  “I retract my prior assessment of you. You’re not naïve at all. You’re devious.”

  Ethan laughed as Max pushed him backwards to sprawl across the sofa cushions. Max loomed above him, his arms braced above Ethan’s shoulders. He greedily drank in the handsome vision beneath him, asking himself, not for the first time, why he deserved this man. Ethan wasn’t pure, but he was purely good. He could easily find happiness with a man who was similar. A man who wasn’t as standoffish as Max. A man who was as warm as Ethan was.

  “If you don’t want me to continue with this ad campaign, I won’t,” Ethan told him as he reached up to cup Max’s hips. “But even after learning what I did today, I still want to help Merrick. See? This is why I’m a—”

  “Don’t say it,” Max cut him off. “You judge yourself more harshly than you do anyone else. I’d like you to stop doing that. It upsets me. You don’t want to upset me, do you? I thought you enjoyed pleasing me.”

  He watched as Ethan’s lips parted and his pupils expanded. He was incredibly receptive to Max and Max was certain that the response was tied to Ethan’s trust and openness. Ethan anticipated nothing but pleasure from his interactions with him. His faith in Max was absolute.

  Never change, Ethan. I love you too much like this.

  “You’re free to do what you like,” Max told him. “If you believe what he’s told you is the full truth and you can live with the situation, so be it. I don’t have the right to tell you to stay away from him.”

  “You do have the right. You’re my husband. And also my employer. This is still a job, remember? You’re paying me to ‘guard’ Merrick.”

  “Ah, I’d forgotten that salient fact.”

  Max thought it over, but not for long. He regretted how he’d behaved that afternoon. It didn’t matter that he’d felt he’d been acting in the best interests of Ethan—and obviously himself. By challenging Merrick that way, he’d left the impression that Ethan couldn’t fend for himself, which Max didn’t believe.

  He lowered his hips, bringing them in contact with Ethan’s, who dropped one foot to the floor to accommodate Max between his legs. They were both on their way to hardness. Max helped it along by rolling his hips slowly, lewdly. Satisfaction flared as Ethan’s breath caught.

  “I’m leaving this call entirely up to you,” Max told him. He rolled his hips again because the initial response from Ethan was gratifying. He wasn’t letdown on the second roll. Ethan pushed up against him. He gripped Max’s shirt, trying to tug him closer.

  “I still believe in him.” Ethan licked his lips. He lifted his foot from the floor so he could wrap his leg behind Max’s ass. “I guess I feel sorry for him, too. None of this was his fault. That client had it out for him.”

  Max ground down harder, rubbing his cock along the length of Ethan’s. He watched the cinnamon disks of Ethan’s nipples draw into pointed peaks.

  “Then it sounds like you’ve made up your mind,” Max remarked.

  “I think so. I hope I’m right.”

  “You’re a good man, Ethan Winter-Po
ole.”

  That earned him the smile he was hoping for. Max rewarded it with a deeper grind that brought out a soft moan from Ethan.

  “This afternoon,” Ethan went on, his voice thicker, “I thought about you. As the photographer, I mean. I fantasized about doing a photoshoot for you. Would you—would you be interested in that?”

  Still slowly rocking, Max considered the idea. He didn’t need to imagine it for long. His cock gave a happy twitch of interest.

  “I have a camera,” he murmured.

  “Take photos of me,” Ethan breathed, his excitement evident. “Let me be your model. Put me in the poses you want. I’ll follow your orders. All of them.”

  “You’re adept at pressing all my buttons,” Max said roughly, far from complaining.

  Ethan licked his lips again, clearly attempting to seduce. “Let’s push each other’s. I think it’ll be hot.”

  Max had to agree. Reluctantly, he peeled Ethan’s leg away from his hips so he could shift back and stand up.

  “The camera’s in the closet," Max told him. "On the top shelf beside my sweaters. While you retrieve it, I’ll set the stage out here.”

  Ethan jumped up off the sofa, eyes bright with excitement. “I’ll be right back.”

  He hurried to the bedroom, leaving Max shaking his head in amusement and adjusting the position of his very hard cock. He considered stripping, then decided that to play the part of a photographer—in this case a lecherous one—he should remain dressed.

  He was so absorbed in this burgeoning fantasy that he at first didn’t hear his phone buzzing. When he recognized the sound, his lust cooled slightly. Retrieving his phone from the sideboard, he stared down at the indication of a message from Giuliani. A response from the agent this soon meant that he’d discovered something important about Merrick’s case.

  Or, he’d reached a dead end.

  “Found it!” he heard Ethan call out from the bedroom. He sounded thrilled, as though he’d discovered a hidden sex toy.