Chase in Shadow

by Amy Lane

  And he kept that feeling of penance during his stay. He worked harder, packed stuff up harder, sorted, labeled, readied for shipping harder than he ever thought he could for a woman he didn’t know. He carefully culled all of her keepsakes, her jewelry, her plain and everyday clothes, her shoes, her books, her linens, for memories of Tommy and things that he would want, before going to Tommy in another part of the house and asking him. After they dropped Dex off, on the way back from the airport, Chase bought three gallons of basic eggshell paint and supplies and repainted all of the small rooms, fixing baseboards and clogged bathroom sinks and wonky light fixtures and anything else that came his way, so the place would be ready to sell. He kept Tommy fed, disposed of toiletries, fielded calls from the funeral home where Tommy’s mom had bought her insurance, and from the hospital, where Chase dropped Tommy off to spend three hours a day, watching a woman who was beyond knowing he was there.

  At the end of the six days, Chase had a couple of things and he knew a couple of things.

  He had a solid sense of Tommy as a mischievous kid, who’d gotten decent grades, and Chase should know because his mom had saved every report card. Chase knew that Tommy had been in baseball and soccer and even football, and had played second string—but that he’d been the most popular guy on the team. He was in the front of every picture, the boy with that unmistakable smile framed by smiling, laughing, supportive teammates who obviously adored him. Chase had a vision of a woman who had loved her son, who had come to his games when she could, who had made snacks for him and his friends, and who had been proud of him going off to live a shining, rosy future that was not at all what she had envisioned.

  One part of him was bitterly jealous, because God, that could have been his own mom, if she’d been brave enough to do it on her own.

  Most of him was thrilled, because he saw pictures of Tommy growing up happy, and thought that boy could be found again. He saw pictures of a reckless Tommy climbing a football goalpost to retrieve a ball caught in the net, and knew that the heart of that boy surely beat in the chest of Loki the Lunatic Sex God, who had so captured Chase from that first scene in the bathroom.

  Chase also knew that holding Tommy in the middle of the night was both torture and one of the most wonderful things he’d ever done. It was better, more powerful than those furtive hand jobs he’d asked Donnie for. It was more memorable, more personal, than making love to Mercy had ever been. He knew that he would regret for the rest of his life never holding Tommy again.

  And he knew that when he got back on the plane for California, that was exactly what he had to resign himself to do.

  Two nights before Chase had to leave—all the better to be in the airport over New Year’s Rockin’ Eve—Tommy’s mother died.

  Chase held Tommy Matthew Halloran in his arms as he fell completely apart, and then held him up some more as they went to the tiny service with some women from the neighborhood and people from Gloria Halloran’s church. He kept his arm around Tommy’s waist, ignoring the speculative looks from the neighborhood, ignoring the sneering of the priest. Tommy was selling the house, giving her clothes to Goodwill, and shipping the remainder of his shit back to California. Nobody had to say anything to Chase about burning bridges and closing doors; Chase recognized all the signs.

  The night after the funeral, Chase called Mercy up and told her that his flight had been delayed and traded his ticket in for one on January 3rd. Tommy heard him make the arrangements and sat in the kitchen, pulling on an unapologetic cigarette and blowing smoke out in an agitated stream.

  “So that’s going to make it better,” he said when Chase was done. Chase swallowed and turned to him, shrugging.

  “Can’t make it worse,” he quipped, trying a lazy smile, and Tommy ground the butt out in a rapidly filling ashtray with unnecessary force. The neighbors had brought food over to the stripped-bare little house, all of them exclaiming sadly when they saw the whole thing was packed up, right down to the doilies. Not even the pictures on the walls were left to show this tiny, rickety little house had been a home, to memories even if nothing else.

  The bareness of the house had driven them away quickly, for which Chase was grateful, but he was also grateful for the leftovers in the refrigerator, because he knew that Tommy would have something to eat in three days, after Chase left and before Tommy was planning to come home.

  “God, Chase,” Tommy snarled. He reached for the pack on the table and Chase stopped him with a quiet hand on top of his. Tommy looked up at him, fury burning out of those black-bright eyes, and Chase held his ground.

  “I’ll throw the pack away if you don’t stop right now,” Chase told him. “I’ve watched my father nurse that nasty-assed habit, I’m not going to watch you fuck with it. You don’t need another cigarette, Tommy. You’ve got something on your chest, spit it out. Be mad. You’ve been sad, you’ve been strong—now just be fucking mad, let’s get it over with, and we can go back to being friends.”

  “Is that what we are?”

  Please, Tommy, let’s not have this conversation again. It’s not going to get any easier.

  “God, I hope so. I just painted your fucking house, Tango—tell me that gets me a spot on your Facebook page!”

  Tommy stood up and took a restless step away. “Is it the faithful thing? You can’t be with me if you know I’m going to be with other men—outside the office, that is?”

  Jesus, Tommy, how do you think that makes me feel?

  Chase grunted. “Now that would make me a complete jealous asshole, wouldn’t it?”

  Tommy turned around, his eyes narrowed in puzzlement. “That’s it, isn’t it?” he asked, like he couldn’t quite put it together.

  Swallow. Breathe. Shove that door shut again and ignore the cracks around the frame.

  “That would hardly be fair, would it?” Chase asked a little desperately. “I’m living with a woman, right?”

  “Yeah, Chase, and why is that?” Tommy’s upper lip was curling in anger, and Chase flinched. “You’ve got ‘straight’ on your resume, you’ve got a girl at home, but the way you touch me… the way you touch men… why are you living with a woman?”

  Because I’m supposed to be straight. I can’t be gay, or stupid, or a failure. I can’t. If I’m gay or stupid or a fuck-up, that means she left me and not him!

  “I made a promise,” Chase said woodenly, backing away from the table. He thought he was backing into the living room, so he could get away, but his sense of direction was off. He ended up backed against the wall next to the doorframe instead.

  “Yeah? People break promises all the time!” Tommy snapped, something inside of him so jagged that his voice sounded like bloody glass. “Why can’t you break this one, when it’s so obvious you were wrong when you made it!”

  Because I’ve seen what a broken promise looks like!

  “It’s easy for you!” Chase snapped, surprised at how sharp his voice sounded, and how raw his chest felt when he spoke. “It’s easy for you! Nobody’s ever broken a promise to you! Your mom promised to love you and she did—right up until her last fucking breath, and I know you’re ripped up because that wasn’t so long ago, but man, she fucking loved you! I just spent five days packing up her memories, and they’re all about you, and they’re all fucking awesome. You’ve been done right by promises, so you can talk. You’ve never seen what a broken promise looks like, but I have!”

  He wasn’t backed up against the wall anymore. His shoulders and his chest were leaning forward, and his eyes were narrow and his lips were pulled back into a snarl. That door was being forced open, but he didn’t have to let it go easy.

  “This isn’t the same thing!” Tommy shouted, and Chase nodded his head violently.

  “Yes, oh yes it is! I made a mistake and a promise and I don’t give a shit if I knew damned well what I was getting into, it was my mistake, and it was my promise, and I’m not going to make her pay for it, I’m not! I can’t! Don’t you see how wrong that would b
e?” His face threatened to crumple on those last words, and his whole body shook in that terrible agony of shoving the disintegrating door shut with everything inside him.

  Tommy wasn’t giving him any help, either—not Tommy. Tommy was right up in his face, chest to chest, so close Chase could smell the nicotine on his breath and see the creases in the corners of his eyes where the tears tracked whenever he squeezed his eyes shut.

  “Is it any more wrong than you are now? Jesus, Chase, it doesn’t take a genius to figure out why you’re in gay porn—you practically come when a man touches you!”

  That wonderful, awful indulgence of lust with Reg slammed behind Chase’s eyes like a freight train, and there wasn’t enough of him to hide his next answer.

  “Not any man, dammit! Just you!”

  “So you gave a promise, and that’s it? You’re not going to leave her? You’re going to graduate and get married and have two-point-four children and the whole time, you’re going to know your heart’s not in it? You’re going to fuck guys on camera for money just so you can know what it feels like when you’re touching who you want, but you’re never really going to let your heart engage? Chase!!!” Tommy passed his whole hand in front of his face and shook his head, his voice graveled down to a whisper. “Jesus, Chase. That’s fuckin’ awful.”

  Chase couldn’t look at him. He turned his chin away and studied a drip down the corner of the almost flawlessly painted kitchen wall.

  “Not quite as fuckin’ awful as that… that thing in the pit of my stomach when I found out you slept with Dex,” he said, his voice raw and honest. Maybe if he slipped this bit of reality under the door, it didn’t need to explode outward, did it?

  “Then ask me,” Tommy insisted, and now it wasn’t just their chests touching. It was their hips and their groins, and Tommy was almost as tall as he was, so it was almost, almost their lips too.

  “That’s not fair!” Chase pulled back so his head smacked against the wall.

  “Yeah, nothing about this is fair! You’ve got two choices here, ‘Chance’. You can live without for your entire life and wonder if, or you can be the fuckin’ bad guy and know what you’re giving up. What’s it going to be?”

  Goddamn you, Tommy. Goddamn you. I could have just held you. I could have held you as you slept and thought that was everything love had to offer, and I would have been happy. I would have tasted it and I would have been happy. What you’re asking….

  “Oh God…,” Chase whispered, and his hips bucked up against Tommy’s, because while he could shove his shoulders and his spine against the wall, somehow that part of his body was crystal-clear on what it wanted. “Tommy, what you’re asking….”

  “Not me, Chase,” Tommy said bitterly. “I’m not the one who’s got to do the asking.” Tommy shoved his groin up against Chase’s, and Chase’s breath caught on a sob.

  “I can’t do this…,” Chase whispered.

  “You’d better fuckin’ do this,” Tommy said back, and his voice caught on a hitch of desire. “You’d better fuckin’ do this. I’m not gonna make it if you don’t.”

  “I can’t do this if you cheat on me, Tommy. I can’t. I know that doesn’t make the first amount of sense. I know we’re both gonna go to work and fuck total strangers, but I don’t care about that. I know that. It’s fun, but it’s not….”

  Tommy’s lips barely caught Chase’s, and Chase leaned to try to catch them before he could stop himself.

  Tommy leaned back. “That’s not what this is.”

  Damned straight. This hurts a hell of a lot more than what I do at work.

  “You can’t,” Chase muttered. “You can’t. Not no more. You can’t fucking do what we do with anyone else, you hear? Mercy, she doesn’t exist as far as you and me. There’s the office, and then there’s us, you got it?” Oh God. He was the bad guy. He was. He was asking something horrible and unfair and painful and Tommy was nodding furiously.

  “I swear. I fuckin’ swear, Chase. You and me. There’s work, and there’s you and me, and nothing else in the world—”

  Chase grabbed his shoulders and threw him up against the wall to his right, plowing his mouth into Tommy’s like he could kiss right through his skull.

  Tommy kissed back, and they were furious and ferocious, their teeth and their tongues tangling, tormenting, fighting in lovemaking like they couldn’t fight in conversation. Tommy caught Chase’s lower lip and bit down, hard, and Chase grunted and shoved his crotch against Tommy’s abdomen hard enough for them both to gasp in discomfort, but none of it hurt as badly as the things they’d just said, as the space between them earlier, as the thought of living without. The memory of that pain made the pressure of Tommy’s teeth on Chase’s throat sweet, the bruises left on his arms by Tommy’s bony fingers were foreplay, and the pain in Chase’s balls as he ground up against Tommy’s thigh was damned near tender.

  “Skin!” Chase growled, mostly crazed, half desperate. Tommy’s hands went to his own belt and he fumbled, while Chase kicked off his high-top tennis shoes and unbuckled himself simultaneously.

  Tommy was faster—he was naked from the waist down with his hands propped up against the wall before Chase could even shove his pants down and shiver as the underheated air hit his swollen cock.

  “God,” Chase gasped, pressing himself along Tommy’s back and kissing the rasp of his jaw and nipping his ear. “I don’t have lube—really?”

  Tommy was pushing a tiny prep-pack into his hand and he whined at Chase in explanation.

  “I’ve had it in my pocket for days.”

  Excellent. Only one more question. “Condom?”

  “No.”

  “No?”

  “You use them with her?”

  “Yes.”

  “No condom.”

  “Tommy!” For a moment his shock almost outweighed his need, but Tommy was bucking his ass at Chase imperiously.

  “My only rule. You and me, all skin. You’d better not give me the fuckin’ clap.”

  It had a poetic simplicity, actually, and suddenly the thought of being inside Tommy, skin to skin, almost made Chase come. He coated himself with the little packet of lubricant and then, conscientiously, used a finger around Tommy’s rim to see if he was ready.

  Tommy’s groan rocked Chase to his bones, and he added another finger, knowing his whole hand was shaking, and Tommy slid down the wall a little, sticking his ass out further.

  Chase spread his fingers and Tommy started to beg.

  “Please… oh God… please… all of you. Now….”

  Chase was so close. His whole life, he couldn’t remember wanting something so badly, not with Donnie, not with Mercy, not with the scenes he shot. Not once in all his life had he ever needed with this much power, and he could no more tell Tommy no than he could tell his heart not to thunder in his ears.

  He felt every millimeter. He felt his cockhead sliding past Tommy’s muscle and into Tommy’s body, and he felt that muscle clamp down on his shaft when he was inside. Tommy’s body was soft, grainy, warm, and welcoming, and Chase slid all the way into him, shaking as Tommy’s grateful howl rocked the empty little house.

  “Oh God….” Tommy panted. “C’mon Chase… would you just fuck me!”

  There was a sound then, from the front door, as someone did one of those “knock on the front door and turn the knob” things that people did when they felt really comfortable in a home, and Chase paused and looked up just as the priest entered, a rather curious expression on his face.

  Tommy’s face was pressed up against the wall, and he turned it toward the priest just as he yelled, “Jesus fuck me harder!”

  For Tommy, Chase forgot the priest as he got an eyeful of the two of them and backed out of the house and fled. For Tommy, Chase pulled his hips back and slammed them forward, shivering as Tommy groaned again, from the pit of his stomach, hard enough to vibrate in Chase’s balls.

  Chase’s hips started to rocket back and forth and Tommy kept urging him on, loud
, vocally, shamelessly needing, begging, pleading for Chase and Chase alone to make him feel all good.

  “God, Tommy, gonna—”

  “Me first!” Tommy demanded, and reached down between his legs and started stroking with a hand that knew what it was doing. Chase remembered that hand, as they had touched in the dark, and on Chase’s body, through his sweats, it had always been gentle. But Tommy’s arm was quivering with tension as he stroked himself, and Chase thought he probably wanted it hard, rough, the way only a man could treat himself sometimes, and the thought just pushed Chase that much closer to the edge.

  Chase heard Tommy’s long drawn-out cry of “Fuck!!!” just as he heard an honest-to-God spatter on the kitchen wall, and for some reason it was that second sound that did him in. He keened once and then groaned low from his balls before spasming into Tommy and coming with enough force to drill his insides with holes.

  His hands, which had been hard on Tommy’s hips to hold him in place, wrapped around Tommy tightly and held him so hard Chase could hear Tommy’s breath catch when Chase cut it off. Tommy gave a grunt of protest and Chase pulled back, sliding out spent and deflated. Chase didn’t look at himself as his cock fell out of Tommy’s body. Once it had been used up, it seemed sort of pathetic in a way it never did when they were on camera, and he didn’t want to be reminded that, without it and its spectacular size, he and Tommy might never have had enough in common even to meet.

  Tommy turned around in his arms then, and this kiss was very different than the one they’d started out with. This kiss was exploratory, a mild brush of lips and tongue, a tasting, a gentle act of familiarization, and Chase’s relief flowed out of his chest, making his next breath feel free. He’d been so afraid they’d lose this in the heat of what they’d just done. He was almost weak with the glorious idea that the heat of passion didn’t burn away the sweetness of those first moments with Tommy Matthew Halloran.

  Suddenly Chase started a light laugh, not sure whether or not Tommy would think this was funny now that the sex was done.