by Allan, S. H.
Chris hadn’t known that Brady felt this way about his life at JHL. And Chris thought he’d done a decent job of masking the hostility he sometimes felt toward the firm that often took Brady away from him for long hours of the day and night. Chris thought he’d hidden it well, but perhaps Brady had picked up on that resentment.
Perhaps Brady felt some of his own….
Brady met Chris’s gaze, and his eyes were clear with purpose. “It’s not okay. I’m not okay with it, and I’m going to try harder, I swear. The job and the clients are important, but not as important as you. You’re the most important thing in my life. I want you to know that.” Brady searched Chris’s gaze. “I need you to know that.”
A small smile curved Chris’s lips. He knew it, but it was nice to hear it sometimes. Really nice.
Brady returned it with a slow smile of his own. Brady looked down at their hands and clasped Chris’s hands between his palms. He cleared his throat and suddenly looked nervous. “And I….” He took a deep breath, then lifted his gaze to meet Chris’s. “I want to talk to you—not now, but soon—about what I’m doing with my career. I’ve put a lot of thought into it, and I was thinking of branching off from the firm. Leaving them and going solo. You know, trying it out on my own.” Brady’s voice rose with enthusiasm, yet still held a note of nervousness.
Chris’s eyes widened, and he nodded encouragingly.
Brady’s gaze was earnest as he continued. “I just mean… building my own practice will be a lot of responsibility. I know it’ll be a lot of hard work and long hours to establish my name with my own shop, but I’m hoping it’ll also eventually mean more flexibility. So that the time I have is my own, not the firm’s.” Brady’s lips quirked up in a tiny smile. “I don’t know—maybe we could even get a dog.”
Chris’s heart raced at the prospect of Brady’s independence from law firm life, which he’d never even considered possible. “That sounds nice,” Chris said slowly, his lips curving into a smile as he met Brady’s gaze with a hopeful look. “All of it.”
Brady’s expression softened, and he leaned forward to press a gentle kiss to Chris’s lips. “I think so too. It’ll be nice to have time that’s my own. Because I know how I want to spend that time.”
Chris leaned into Brady with a contented sigh. “Oh yeah? How’s that?” Chris asked, his heart feeling inexplicably lighter.
Brady turned his head, and his breath tickled the hairs that fell by Chris’s ear. “With you,” Brady murmured. Brady reached into his pocket and presented Chris with a small box covered in black velvet. “As husband and husband.”
Chris’s breath caught in his throat as he met Brady’s eyes. The love he saw there was vast and unwavering. It instilled in him a belief that, no matter what the future held for them, they would always be that much stronger because they would be facing it together.
Chris accepted the jeweler’s box and lifted the hinged lid. Nestled in a bed of black satin were two platinum bands. They were solid and strong, just like their love for each other.
Swallowing past a lump of emotion, Chris closed the lid and looked up. “I’d love that, Brady.” Brady’s answering smile was breathtaking.
Chris reached up to frame Brady’s well-loved and familiar face and looked into his smiling gaze. By the sun’s setting rays on that beautiful spring evening, they shared a kiss that sealed their promise today, their future tomorrow, and their love for years and years to come.
THAT night, Chris dreamed.
The stalks of corn weren’t as high as they usually were in the peak of summer. Rather, they were up to his waist and still young, and Brady was clearly visible in the middle of the field. Chris walked straight toward him.
And Brady? He stayed right there.
When Chris reached the center, Brady smiled and opened his arms wide. Chris savored Brady’s warmth as they embraced.
It felt like coming home.
NICO JAYE thinks reading is awesome and loves that she can hang out night after night with crinoline-wearing debutantes, brawny firemen in suspenders, and werewolf shifters with Scottish brogues. After spending time doing stuff (yes, very mysterious stuff!) in Los Angeles, Chicago, and New York, she now lives in her native San Francisco. An overall feline enthusiast, she may or may not have a cat named “Nico” from whom she borrowed this pen name. She can be found online chitchatting about cats, popcorn for dinner, spontaneous trips to Iceland, and boys who like boys at any of the following:
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If you’d like to read more by Nico Jaye, then please feel free to check out her website for online freebies and additional info about other publications. Happy reading!
Happy Holidays
Anna Butler
“DO YOU know what day this is?”
John Hogarth started, taken by surprise by his partner’s sudden and stealthy appearance in the dimly lit storeroom. He suppressed a quiet little shriek, and only the convulsive tightening of his grip stopped him from dropping his clipboard. How in hell did Kit Lewis do that? He was perpetually creeping up on John when John was least expecting it.
Kit leaned up against the doorframe. The light of the hallway behind him edged down the side of his cheek as he turned his head, sliding across his nose and jaw to illuminate the mouth that only that morning had kissed John into jelly-kneed submission. Nice images, both Kit limned by light and the memory of the fun in the shower they’d had earlier. Both were guaranteed to appeal to the artist in John.
John swallowed and loosened his grip on the clipboard. His fingers were aching. “What?”
“Do you know what day this is?”
Heart hammering, John considered the question. He looked it in the face, noting its innocent and inoffensive expression, and thought about it. He walked round behind it, considering it from all angles, carefully scanning every surface, eyes narrowed in concentration, looking for even the slightest, microscopic sign of trouble. And then he picked it up and shook it vigorously to see what sort of scam and trap could possibly fall out of it.
Nothing. It seemed harmless enough. But then, he’d been caught by Kit’s seemingly harmless questions before. More than once and far too often.
“Er… Tuesday?”
“Well, of course it’s Tuesday!” The you idiot! was unspoken, but so loud it was deafening. “But what else?”
John shook his head. He dropped the clipboard onto a shelf and straightened, stretching his back.
“You got me there,” he admitted.
“That’s very bad of you, John. It’s not very enlightened, this ignorance about the world. I always thought you were a liberal kind of guy.”
John stuck his hands into his jeans pockets. “Fully paid up and card-carrying member. I’m as liberal as they come.”
“Caring. Sharing. With a social conscience.”
“But of course. I support human rights. I support the idea of helping those less fortunate than me. I’d rather my tax dollars went on job creation than nuclear weapons. I support my local mom-and-pop coffee shop over heartless global megacorporations. I’d rescue a kitten in distress if I knew where to find one—”
“But you don’t know what day this is.” Kit’s mouth curved upward into the familiar lopsided grin. “I’m disappointed with you. Any true humanitarian would be working to increase understanding of different cultures and our city’s minorities. They’d reach out to others, encourage everyone to join in each other’s celebrations and share their cultural heritage.”
John sighed. It hadn’t been a harmless question after all. “All right,” he said with the deep fatalism that came from too many years as Kit’s favorite fall guy. “Enlighten my ignorance. What day is it, and what does that have to do with my liberalness or the lack thereof?”
“It’s Health and Sp
orts Day in Japan,” said Kit, and smiled.
“Health and Sports Day.”
“Yeah.”
“In Japan.”
“That’s what I said.”
“Kit, last time I looked, your family was of Scottish descent and mine was so English they didn’t have blood in their veins, they had tea. We’re both Caucasian. We’ve never even been to Japan on vacation. You hate sushi.”
“We should go. Anyhow, the recruitment agency just sent us details of a likely candidate for junior graphics designer. Miko Takahashi. She’s Japanese. She sent me a link to her online portfolio.”
“Looking good?”
“Very good. She’s only a year out of school, but she’s done some good work, and we can train her up. I’ll send you the link. I’ve arranged to do a phone interview tomorrow, and if that’s good, I’ll bring her in to meet everyone and maybe she can start Monday.”
“Great. There’s more work than we can handle right now. Which is why I’m the one in here checking how much PVC mesh substrate we have for the banners Williams Consulting wants to hang in their atrium.”
Kit’s grin widened. “I know we’re busy. Great, isn’t it? Better than when we started out, when one job a month if we were lucky was all we had between us and financial ruin. Thing is, since we took on our own printing shop and expanded the studio, we’re getting to be quite the mixed team here. I kind of like it. So I vote we start celebrating everyone’s holidays.”
“We’d never get any work done!”
Kit rolled his eyes. “I didn’t say we should have the day off. Just that we should celebrate the holidays.”
Another jolt of suspicion screamed at John to be careful. To be very, very careful. “If this celebration involves me paying for all the drinks in the bar tonight, or sponsoring your next Vegas trip, or—”
“My, aren’t we the suspicious one! Nothing like that. It’s more fun than that.”
“Uh-huh,” said John, unconvinced.
“What do you think about when someone says Health and Sports to you?”
John crushed down the memories of humiliating field days at school where his straight As hadn’t done much to stop him from coming last in the 400-yards relay every year. He hadn’t shone at sports.
“Running,” he offered, and from Kit’s wry grin, the double meaning hadn’t escaped his clever partner in crime.
“Good!” Kit applauded. “Very good! We’re getting there. Close, anyway, and here’s a clue. Try thinking about physical activity and exercise.”
Waggling eyebrows were a clue? Who knew?
“Physical activity and exercise,” said John, playing for time.
“Will you stop repeating everything I say? It’s beginning to get to me. Physical activity.” Kit smiled and reached to turn the key in the lock. “Physical. Activity.”
“Ah,” said John, understanding at last. He grinned. “Well, now. Physical. Activity.”
“And exercise.” This time Kit didn’t complain about his words being repeated, right down to the significant pauses between them. “Slow but sure, that’s my boy John.”
“Oh, I dunno. I don’t think I have the time. There’s so much to do, and problem is, I have this business partner. He’s very driven. Demanding.”
“I checked. He’s okay with a little physical activity, and you bet he’s going to be demanding.”
Kit pushed back against the doorframe to give himself some momentum and moved forward. He was beside John so fast his feet blurred. John, backed up against the wall, had nowhere to go. Kit blocked him in, pressed up against him, warm and close. Kit’s expression was the one he wore when they had a tricky design to pull together, like the concepts they’d done for the Met’s last exhibition. It was his focused and intent expression. John liked having Kit focus on him like that, watching Kit’s gray eyes sharpen and brighten, seeing the little frown between the eyes smooth out as whatever the issue was fell victim to Kit’s invention and creativity. John had fallen victim himself there, once or twice, over the last fifteen years.
“I wish we were home.” Kit lifted his hand and rested it against the side of John’s face. “I could show you properly there.” He winked. “Some real one-on-one physical activity. Until then….”
His voice trailed off. He brushed his mouth against John’s, so gently John had to strain to feel it, had to press right back with his lips. He pulled John in close, tugging until John leaned in and pressed the side of his face against Kit’s. He could feel Kit’s warm breath on his ear.
They stood quiet and entwined for a long time, just holding on. Until, that is, their studio manager banged on the door, yelling about the Williams account. Even then, it was several minutes before either of them felt inclined to move, and it was only to close up early and head on home.
They both felt the need for some exercise.
“DO YOU know what day this is?”
John jumped, startled. All right, he wasn’t supposed to be working this hard over the weekend—at all, really, as that was one of the things he and Kit had promised each other, that they’d leave the business behind on weekends and damn the deadlines—but the following week was going to be damn awful with two client presentations and a reception to organize. If he didn’t get a little ahead, he’d spend all day Monday running to catch up.
“Huh?” He got his heart rate back under control and stared.
“I said, do you know what day this is?”
John considered the question. He looked it in the face, noting its innocent and inoffensive expression, and thought about it. He walked round behind it, considering it from all angles, carefully scanning every surface—hey! Wait a minute.
Last time Kit asked this question, it led to some very enjoyable physical activity and exercise. It couldn’t possibly be Health and Sports Day in Japan again, but it was all too probable Kit had something up his sleeve….
“Er… Saturday,” said John, tentatively.
“Of course it’s Saturday!” Kit shouldered John out from in front of the Mac and held out an imperious hand. “Come on.”
John sighed and got up. He was too well-conditioned, he realized, to put up much resistance when Kit crooked a finger. “You should be the one doing the presentation to Michael Bowyer next week, anyway. You’re better at schmoozing the clients than I am.”
“Equal partners, remember? You’re the creative director, and it’ll be your work you’re showing off.”
“I can’t believe you suckered me into doing this. I need my head examined. You really are better at this than me, Kit.”
“You can do it. I hook ’em, you land ’em.”
“I hate fishing.” But John was grinning as Kit linked their hands together and tugged him out of the study and into the living room. Kit had the sound system remote in his hand and used it as they stepped over the threshold. He’d pulled out all the stops while John had been working on that damn presentation. Dinner, dim lights, Lou Reed on the sound system. John let his grin widen. Lou Reed. Right.
“Romantic,” he said, and half turned to meet Kit’s kiss.
Kit licked his way into the kiss, parting John’s mouth with his tongue, and licked his way out again, leaving John aching for more. “As you said, it’s Saturday. Date night.” He tilted his head to one side. “Do you know what day this is?”
John nodded to the iPod deck. “A perfect day, by the sound of it.”
“It will be,” promised Kit, “but it’s also Cry of Liberation Day in Mexico.”
John made a helpless gesture with his free hand. “Cry of Liberation Day.”
“Yup.”
“In Mexico.”
“We aren’t going through that repeating-every-word-I-say thing again, are we?” asked Kit uneasily.
“You’re making it up. No one could have a holiday called Cry of Liberation Day.”
“They do in Mexico. Well, it’s Cry of Dolores, really, but I don’t want to get us confused by bringing girls into it. It was something t
o do with a revolution. Don’t ask me what or which revolution. Mexico’s had a few.”
“And how do you propose to celebrate that?” John glanced at Kit’s preparations. “With takeout General Tso? That’s the best you can come up with to celebrate the Cry of Dolores? Couldn’t you at least have got tamales?”
“I like General Tso,” said Kit, and grinned. He tugged at John’s hand, getting him over to the long sectional couch and pushing him back onto it. “Cry of Dolores, Johnny. You’re the noisy one. I’m going to liberate you outta those jeans, and if I don’t have you crying out loud with delight, then my name isn’t Kit Lewis.”
John smiled. “I love a challenge. I don’t cry out loud, for God’s sake!”
“That a bet?” asked Kit.
“It is. What is your name, anyway?”
It only took a mere half hour to prove it was Kit Lewis, of course. The man won his bet. As always. John didn’t mind. He didn’t even protest at the time it took. He liked slow and deep.
Good thing they had a microwave, or they’d have had to eat the General Tso cold.
“DO YOU know what day this is?” Kit rolled over in bed, ignoring the Sunday paper he crushed on the way. He rolled right over the arts section without so much as a by-your-leave and certainly without remorse.
He was naked and so very beautiful, even with his brown hair on end and mouth still sticky from the syrupy pancakes they’d had for breakfast. John decided he could live without remorse. He had more of a struggle about living without licking the sticky syrup away. That was more of a moral dilemma.
John’s reading spectacles slid down his nose as he folded the business section carefully—the article on Bowyer Industries was desperately uninteresting, but he kept on going for the sake of their little company. Bowyer’s would be the biggest contract they’d ever landed.
Kit glanced at the paper and grimaced. “Your sense of duty is overdeveloped. You have the presentation done, and you’re good, John. You’re always good. Bowyer will take one look at your designs, and he’ll want to marry them and have a dozen children with them. You’ll sweep him off his feet.”