Gambling on Love

by Jane Davitt

  “Is it bringing back memories being here?”

  “Good ones.” Gary shrugged. “Like I said, I had fun. Didn’t sightsee, but I got a huge kick out of the casinos, and the food’s to die for. You need to let your inner hedonist come out to play. Indulge yourself.”

  “You told the lawyer we’d be arriving by noon. We’re early. Want to go and get a coffee or something?”

  Gary had called Peter’s lawyer from the motel that morning, wearing a towel and a smile. Abe had found it difficult to concentrate on the one-sided conversation, because he was smiling himself after the way the day had begun. Gary had turned around and burrowed down between the sheets headfirst, his intent clear. After making sure he could breathe down there, Abe had split his attention between the erection nudging his chin and what Gary was doing to his dick. The angles had been strange, and his bruised head had gotten bumped by Gary’s knee, but he had no complaints. Gary’s dick had felt good in his mouth, and he had gotten to play with Gary’s ass, exploring Gary’s reactions to each caress with interest. He wanted to know what worked for Gary, partly to make the sex as good as it could be, partly because when it came to Fox, he needed every edge he could get. It turned out a featherlight touch across the underside of Gary’s balls made him shiver and press closer, and a spit-wet finger rubbed hesitantly over his hole made him snap out a terse, “Jesus, Abe, shove it in if you want to. It’s not off-limits. You can fuck me, you know.”

  He had moved his hand instead and gone back to what he’d been doing, distracting Gary successfully enough that Gary hadn’t brought the matter up again.

  From what he’d gathered by listening, Ms. Daniels had cleared her schedule to see them. That in itself made him grasp how much pull Peter must’ve had. Lawyers, in his limited experience, weren’t accommodating.

  “Coffee? No. If she’s not ready to see us, we’ll wait. They’ll give us coffee in there.” Gary tugged irritably at his jacket. “I look like shit.”

  They’d traveled light, leaving most of Gary’s belongings back at the cabin, but Gary had insisted on bringing his precious suits, though they were crumpled and smelled of mothballs inside their protective bags.

  “You look fine,” Abe assured him. No matter what they wore, he had the feeling the lawyer to a multimillionaire would agree with Gary, but who gave a fuck?

  They made their way to the law firm, a short walk through air that felt springlike after the chill, wintry temperatures they’d left behind. It was no more than sixty degrees, but he wanted to roll up his sleeves and lift his face to the sun. Even something as mundane as walking along a sidewalk bare of snow and ice raised his spirits, and he amended his first impressions of the city.

  “You’re smiling,” Gary accused. “We’re not doing anything and you’re smiling.”

  “It’s a nice day.” Abe filled his lungs; even laden with exhaust fumes, the air was somehow still fresh. “It wouldn’t hurt to stick around for a day or two. I’ve got a couple of thousand dollars saved. It’s time I spent some of it. Yeah. If she sticks us in a dump, we’ll upgrade. It’s on me. Maybe we can do one of those helicopter rides along the Grand Canyon.”

  Gary stopped dead. “Helicopter rides? You?”

  Abe grinned. “Surprised you, huh?”

  “In a good way.” Gary patted his ass. “Don’t stop. In fact, when we get to our room—the nice one—you can surprise me all you want by sticking your dick in my ass.”

  Abe’s face heated with embarrassment. “Fox! For fuck’s sake—”

  Gary steered him to a set of double glass doors, discreetly tinted. “You don’t want to fuck me?”

  “I don’t know. I do know I’m not discussing it in the middle of—”

  “Can I help you, gentlemen?”

  A security guard, wiry rather than burly—but giving off an indefinable air of being able to inflict great pain with little effort—subtly blocked their way into the building. Abe opened his mouth without a firm idea of what to say, praying Gary’s words hadn’t been overheard, but Gary beat him to it.

  “Mr. Stratton and associate to see Ms. Daniels. We’re expected.”

  The guard touched a finger to his earpiece, turning away without taking his eyes off them. “Kay? Is Ms. Daniels expecting a Mr. Stratton? Uh-huh . . . Thanks.”

  Associate? Abe mulled that over while the guard, all polite smiles now, ushered them across a vast sweep of floor done in cream stone. Granite? Marble? He didn’t know, but it had to be a full-time job to keep it looking this clean. They ended up in an elevator heading for the fifteenth floor.

  “Big building,” he said, while they were swept up with a minimum of noise or jolting. The buttons were only labeled with numbers, but the building couldn’t all be one law firm. At least he didn’t think so.

  “Yeah. I came here with Peter, but we were seeing someone else then. Something to do with a merger.” Gary shrugged. “I wasn’t invited to the meeting. Strictly private.”

  “So why did he bring you along?”

  The elevator stopped and the doors opened. They stepped into a reception room carpeted in pearl gray, the walls painted ivory. Elegant and cold summed it up.

  Gary grinned. “In case he wanted a blowjob in the men’s room?”

  “Can we go back to not talking about Peter?” He was aware his voice had dropped to a growl. The elevator doors closed before he could give in to his instincts and jump back inside, dragging Gary with him.

  “Might be difficult when we’re on our way to meet one of his lawyers. I’ve got a feeling his name will crop up now and then.”

  “Fine, but every time it does, I want you to know I’m calling him an arrogant little shit in my head.”

  The receptionist at the desk outside the inner office waited for them to approach her, pretending to be busy with some paperwork. Abe had kept his voice low deliberately, but Gary didn’t bother. Abe stepped back when Gary stabbed his finger an inch away from Abe’s face, his eyes flashing.

  “Then you stay the fuck away from the meeting, because I don’t want to see you sneering. He was my lover for years, and he died too fucking young and in pain. Yeah, he was a manipulative, selfish, kinky son of a bitch, but you know what? So am I, and you still love me, don’t you? Or was that bullshit to try and get me to stay with you in that crappy, shitty little town because I’m the only one who’s ever loved you?”

  The receptionist stood and disappeared into the inner office without bothering to knock. Giving them privacy, or calling security. Abe wouldn’t blame her if she did. Gary was yelling now and poking his chest hard.

  “No. No, it wasn’t bullshit. Fox—”

  “Don’t call me that. Don’t say it as if it means something special.” Gary lashed out, his fist striking the wall with a dull thud. “Fuck you, Abe. Go and leave me to do this for him. I don’t need you. I don’t need anyone.”

  He turned to walk away, but Abe grabbed his arm, swinging him back so they were face-to-face. “Yeah, you do. You need me. And I need you, always have, but I didn’t have you, Fox. You weren’t there, and I missed you. So fucking much. I was out of line and I’m sorry, but cut me some goddamned slack, because it’s not easy to like your Peter.”

  “And he wouldn’t have had it any other way.”

  Startled by the amused, husky voice, Abe glanced over Gary’s shoulder. A woman stood a prudent distance away, watching them. He supposed she was the lawyer, but she didn’t look like the ones he’d seen on TV, and she didn’t match the discreetly elegant surroundings at all. Her hair was a no-nonsense pepper-and-salt that looked as if she’d trimmed it herself, and her navy suit was baggy and even more creased than Gary’s.

  “Sorry to interrupt the drama, but as you’ve gotten here ahead of time, I might make my lunch date. So get in here and let’s do this, and you can kiss and make up afterward.” She pursed lips smudged with a vivid red lipstick. “Or fight some more. Whatever turns you on.”

  She turned on a heel pointed enough to drill holes in
concrete, and walked back to her office without waiting for a response.

  Abe cleared his throat, suitably abashed. “I can wait in the lobby.”

  “No,” Ms. Daniels called back over her shoulder. “I need a witness signature, and you might as well be it.”

  Gary gave him a simmering look. “Fine. Come with me. But if you say one fucking word out of line—”

  “I apologized, in case you didn’t notice.”

  The receptionist was back at her desk, but she didn’t smile at them when they walked past her, settling for a disapproving sniff that told Abe what she thought of them. Chastened, he slunk into an office as messy as its owner. It wasn’t dusty, but it was cluttered. Bookcases lined three of the walls, crammed full of double-stacked books, and filing cabinets obscured the window. On top of the cabinets were file boxes, and on top of those were sheaves of loose paper, presumably waiting to be filed.

  “Ignore the crap.” Ms. Daniels waved them to two chairs that stood out because they didn’t have anything on them. From the stack of files teetering on the corner of the large desk, Abe suspected that hadn’t been the case a few minutes ago. A computer screen took up one side of the desk, large and barely thicker than the file in front of Ms. Daniels, but it wasn’t turned on. “I know where everything is, and that’s the main thing.”

  He sat, trying not to mind that Gary edged his chair an inch or two away so their arms didn’t brush. Gary’s loyalty, once given, was absolute. No one knew that better than Abe, so why he’d thought he could get away with that jab at Peter . . . It’d been stupid of him.

  “So you’re Peter’s protégé?” Ms. Daniels gave Gary an appraising look. Abe reflected that it was one way to describe Gary, but probably not the one Gary would’ve chosen. “I’ve seen you before. A year ago? You were waiting in Jenson Smith’s office, looking bored.”

  Gary nodded. “That sounds right, but I don’t remember—”

  “Oh we didn’t talk. I was passing by, but I never forget a face.” She tapped her head. “It’s all up here. Okay, I won’t bore you with condolences. I knew Peter for the best part of thirty years, and it sucks that he’s dead. You know it, I know it, and there’s not a damn thing we can do, so we move on.”

  Gary leaned forward, a frown appearing on his face. “You knew him well? He never mentioned you.”

  She grinned. “I said we knew each other. I didn’t say we were friends. He married my sister. Briefly. They were eighteen. Shotgun wedding, without the shotgun—and no baby, as it turned out. When they found out how much they had in common, which was zero, it fell apart. Peter and I, well, let’s say we kept tabs on each other.”

  “Peter was married twice?” Gary seemed surprised. “He never said—but he never talked much about his family.”

  “You’ve met his kids, though?”

  “Yeah. They hate me.”

  Abe wasn’t surprised. Gary had told him Peter had been married with two children, now in their midthirties, but hadn’t shared much more than that. To Peter’s children, discovering so late that their father was gay—and in a relationship with a much younger man—must’ve felt like an insult to their mother’s memory. He didn’t agree with them taking their anger out on Gary, but he understood their reaction.

  “Didn’t he protect you from that?” he found himself asking. It came out sounding harsh, demanding, but picturing Gary outnumbered and vulnerable brought out every protective instinct he possessed.

  Gary gave him the most fleeting of looks. “He shut them up if he was around, but he wasn’t always there.”

  “Moving on,” Ms. Daniels said firmly. “As you know, he left you instructions to complete a task for him with the money he left you. One final job as his employee.”

  There was no hesitation before the last word. Abe couldn’t make up his mind if she knew the form Peter and Gary’s relationship had taken and didn’t care about the kinkier aspects, or if she only knew they’d been lovers.

  “That’s why I’m here.”

  Ms. Daniels looked at Abe. “How about you? Why are you here? And who the hell are you?”

  All good questions.

  Gary spoke before Abe could reply. “I told you I was with someone when I called.”

  “You said you’d totaled your car in a blizzard, and a guy you knew was bringing you the rest of the way. It’s obvious there’s more going on between you two than that.”

  “Is it any of your business?” Abe asked her. “I’m not being rude, but is it?”

  She used the pen she held to scratch her head, looking thoughtful. “It might be.”

  “I don’t see how.” It was hot in the crowded office, and he was tired of sitting after hours behind the wheel. He wanted to get this over with and find some way of making Gary see him again, because right at that moment, he felt invisible. “It doesn’t matter. None of it’s a secret. My name’s Abe Carter. Gary and I grew up together, and he totaled his car by crashing it into my pickup. I hadn’t seen him or heard from him in eleven years, so it was a surprise, but I can’t say I regret meeting up with him again.”

  He met Ms. Daniel’s gaze calmly, refusing to expand on what he’d said, though she waited, eyebrows raised, for him to do just that. She’d overheard enough of his argument with Gary to know they were together, but he didn’t intend to spell it out for her.

  “Well, at least now I know where you got the bruises.” She dismissed Abe with an impatient jerk of her head and turned back to Gary. “You know what you have to do?”

  “Take ten thousand dollars’ worth of chips and keep playing roulette until I lose them all.”

  Gary’s expression was one of bored indifference, but Abe saw half a dozen signs Gary was losing it, starting with the clenched fist hidden behind his other hand where they rested in his lap. That clenched hand had to be hurting after its collision with the wall. He wanted to take it in his hands, straighten out the folded fingers, and ice the pain away—and Gary wouldn’t let him do any of that.

  “Essentially, yes. You were also left some traveling money. Two thousand dollars, I believe.”

  Gary moved, leaning forward in his chair. “Yes?”

  “I’ll need receipts and whatever’s left of it.”

  “What? No!”

  “You expected to keep it?” Ms. Daniels shook her head and made a scornful tsking sound. “No. The balance is to be returned to the estate. If you’d spent it all, that would have been allowed, but if you were uh, economical with it, well, too bad.”

  “I didn’t keep receipts.” Gary sounded annoyed and Abe couldn’t blame him. Peter had been worth millions. This penny-pinching seemed petty beyond belief. Of course, rich people were notorious for spending big and fussing over pennies, but after they were dead?

  “Oh dear.” She didn’t look sorry at all. “Well, if you provide a list of expenses, we can assess them on an individual basis, I suppose, and if they seem reasonable—”

  “The hell with it.” Abe was outraged on Gary’s behalf. Fox had been so damn proud of saving part of that money to give himself a starting point. He took out his wallet and snatched out a credit card, tucked under a loyalty card for his local garage. He slammed it down on the desk. “That’s got a five-thousand-dollar limit. Take the whole two thousand back and leave it at that.”

  “I won’t let you do that.” Gary rose to his feet and brought out a wad of bills from the inner pocket of his jacket. He placed the notes down on the desk, followed by a handful of change. “Satisfied?”

  She gave him an oddly intent look. “That’s it? Every penny?”

  “Want to search me?”

  “No, but I’d like you to empty your pockets.”

  Abe gaped at her. “You’ve got to be kidding me. If he wanted to hold out a few dollars, he’d put them someplace else. He wouldn’t keep them on him.”

  “My instructions are to make sure when he walks into the casino, the only money he has is the ten thousand that Peter left him.”

  Gary fro
wned at her. “That’s it, that’s all. Look.” He took off his jacket and emptied the pockets onto her desk, leaving the cluttered surface dotted with lint and the small bag holding his lucky quarter. He’d handed his key ring over with his Taurus, Abe had seen him do it, so he didn’t even have that. “Now my pants . . .” Gary turned his pockets inside out, then slapped his ass. “Nothing in the back.” He gave Abe a smile. “Always happy for you to pat me down, of course, Abe.”

  “No, that’ll do.” Ms. Daniels reached for the bag before Gary could, deftly scooping it up. She shook it. “What’s this?”

  “Give it back!”

  “It’s his.” Abe got to his feet to stand shoulder to shoulder with Gary. “A lucky quarter. He’s had it since he was a kid. I can vouch for that.” He felt uneasy. Gary wasn’t reasonable when it came to that quarter.

  “It’s money. You can’t take it into the casino with you.”

  “Why?” Gary demanded. “It’s mine.”

  “You’ll get it back afterward. I’ll give you a receipt.”

  “There is no fucking way I’m walking out of here without it.” Gary’s voice shook, but it was from anger, not fear. Abe could tell the difference.

  “You’re refusing to fulfill a dying man’s last request? Your lover’s last request, in fact?” Ms. Daniels asked.

  “I doubt it was the last thing he said before he died.” Abe was impatient with the details and the main event. “It’s a stupid waste of money, in my opinion. Why not leave it to a charity? Why benefit a casino of all places?”

  “I’d say that was Peter’s business, not yours,” Ms. Daniels said.

  “And I’d say, if you want to blow the money, do it yourself,” Abe shot back. “It doesn’t have to be Fox. Anyone could’ve done this. What would’ve happened to the money if he’d died crashing into me?”

  The thought made him feel sick to his stomach, but he kept that reaction off his face.

  “Provisions were made.” She smiled. “I should know. I made them. So, you’re refusing to do it, Mr. Stratton?”

  “Yes, he fucking—”

  “No, Abe. It’s okay. I’ll do it.”