by J. M. Colail
“Hey, I remember this couch,” Jack remarked, trying to lighten the mood.
“Shipped over from Brussels courtesy of the British Foreign Service. Now sit!” Lucas commanded. He returned a few minutes later with two cups of tea and sat down next to Jack.
“I owe you an explanation for AnnElise.”
“No, you don’t.” Jack rolled his eyes. “Not that I don’t want to know. I just don’t want you to feel you ‘owe me’ anything. She’s lovely and no one would ever mistake her for anything else but your daughter.” Jack took Lucas’s hand in his and squeezed it.
“She’s Lucy’s,” Lucas stated, looking at their hands.
“And where is Lucy now?” Jack asked carefully.
“I actually haven’t seen her since she left me in Brussels. I didn’t even know she was pregnant then.”
Jack looked confused. “So how?”
Lucas sighed. “I left Brussels after our…. You know. You know when I left.” He smiled at Jack. “I needed to get away, get my priorities straight. So I went back to Stanford, figured if I buried myself in books it would clear my head and I might end up with the Master’s degree I needed so much.”
Jack shifted in his seat and turned a bit more toward Lucas, never letting go of his hand.
“I knew it was futile to try and get in touch with her. It wasn’t like I wanted her back and I knew she didn’t want me, so…. One morning, I got a phone call from her sister. I mean the woman could never stand me when I was still seeing Lucy and now she’s calling me?”
Lucas looked up at the ceiling and inhaled deeply. “She told me to come to the University Hospital if I wanted to see my daughter before she was handed over for adoption.”
Jack raised his eyebrows. “Wow, what a way to tell a guy.”
Lucas snorted. “Well, I told you she didn’t like me.”
“If she didn’t like you, she would have stayed quiet about the whole thing.” Jack looked as if he was trying to understand the situation. “Sounds more like she wanted to hurt you.”
“I suppose. Anyway, you can imagine it was a bit of a shock, but I went over there; what else could I do? The nurse showed her to me and I knew right then that I had to fight for her. She was going to give my daughter away! I talked to a doctor and an adoption counselor there and they told me she had put ‘father unknown’ on the birth certificate.”
It didn’t escape Jack that Lucas had called Lucy by her name only once this evening.
“So it took two paternity tests and a judge, but two weeks later I was shopping for baby stuff like a mad man.”
“And you never looked back after that, hey?” Jack asked, compassion in his eyes.
“Man, it was tough!” Lucas chuckled at the memory. “I can tell you. The sleepless nights pacing the bedroom, trying to get her to settle down? I often wondered where I had left my brain when I signed her papers.”
“And now?” Jack tried to look into Lucas’s face, but the young man was staring at the floor.
As Lucas looked up, Jack saw that his eyes glistened with tears. “She’s so much a part of me, Jack, a part of my life. All the sacrifices, they’re nothing compared to the love I get from her. She loves me, Jack, even when she’s cross with me for not allowing her to do certain things, even when I tell her no and she throws a tantrum. In the end, she always comes back to me and puts her little arms around my neck and I just melt.”
“Well, I can certainly see she would have that potential, yes,” Jack acknowledged. He wanted to take Lucas in his arms, but was afraid to. They weren’t exactly sitting close together, so he tried a different approach. “This couch certainly brings back memories.”
Lucas chuckled. “Yeah, it does. That’s why I couldn’t leave it behind in Brussels. I sold all the other furniture to my replacement, but I couldn’t imagine anyone else… sitting on this.”
They were both thinking of the past, smiles on their faces, when a shrill cry pierced the silence.
“Was that?” Jack asked.
Lucas nodded and got up. “I don’t know what’s wrong with her tonight.”
Jack got up as well. “Listen, I better leave.”
Chapter Twenty-One
“NO!” LUCAS sighed, “I mean, I’ll be right back, I’m sure she’s fine and I… I want to say good-bye to you properly.”
Jack couldn’t resist the young man’s pleading face and sat down again. As Lucas left to go into the bedroom he could hear his soothing voice speaking to AnnElise. He couldn’t make out what Lucas was saying, but the intonation was sweet and loving. After a little while, his voice went silent and Jack wondered what was going on. He got up again, slowly tiptoeing over to the half opened bedroom door. When he looked inside, he could see Lucas standing over the baby bed. AnnElise’s bedside lamp twirling slowly, painting elephants and mice and giraffes on the ceiling and all over her father and Jack could clearly see Lucas’s smile.
He quietly moved over to stand behind Lucas, careful not to startle him. He could feel the heat radiating off the Brit’s body and tried not to touch him, but when Lucas leaned ever so slightly toward him, Jack moved close enough to let his chest touch Lucas’s back.
“She’s beautiful, isn’t she?”
Jack moved even closer, peering over Lucas’s shoulder at a peacefully sleeping AnnElise, his hands still clasped behind his back.
“Mmmh, she is,” Jack kissed Lucas’s shoulder and his neck, “just like her father.”
Lucas let his head fall back. He reached up to place his hand on the nape of Jack’s neck and the American wrapped his arms tightly around Lucas’s body. Lucas twisted his head and offered his lips, so Jack did what he had wanted to do since laying eyes on the Brit a few hours earlier and for every hour since they’d been apart: taste his lips, mouth, tongue.
Lucas spun in Jack’s arms and deepened the kiss. The last two and a half years simply disappeared as Lucas moaned into the passionate kiss, opening up completely for Jack.
They managed to stop kissing when AnnElise stirred, but they were still in each other’s arms as they both peered into the crib. AnnElise moved restlessly, but remained asleep.
Lucas chuckled.
“What?” Jack asked quietly.
“I feel a recurring theme in our relationship coming up.”
Jack gave him a questioning look.
“You’re staying over, aren’t you?” Lucas asked brazenly.
Jack nodded. “I’d like to.”
Lucas kissed him quickly, then took his hand and switched off the bedside lamp. “Come on.”
He led Jack out of the bedroom and back to the couch. “I’m sorry but I’m not ready for a two year old watching us while we’re making out.”
The American smiled. “Well, this couch does hold some very fond memories.”
The couch had soft cushions and a deep seat that easily accommodated both Jack and Lucas lying close together and they took their time getting reacquainted, touching and occasionally kissing. After all their hurried, passionate lovemaking of the past, it was as if they had all the time in the world now.
“So how did you manage to divorce Maria?” Lucas asked, his hand slowly caressing Jack’s back. “She made it pretty clear to me she would never let you go.”
Jack kissed Lucas’s forehead. “Yeah, I’m sorry about that.” He rolled his eyes. “I had to resort to some fairly drastic measures.”
“Oh?” Lucas asked, slightly amused at Jack’s frown.
“It’s a long story. “
Lucas checked his watch. “We have about six hours until AnnElise will be screaming for my attention. Until then, I’m all ears.”
Jack chuckled. “Okay.”
“WHAT ARE you doing, Christensen?”
Gallagher was clearly furious, but Jack couldn’t care less. They were on a short break from yet another meeting with the Belgian Prime Minister and Defense Secretary, trying to persuade them to see the joint American-British standpoint that NATO needed to send a large amount
of peace keeping troops to help the war effort and that the Belgians were not helping at showing a united front.
Jack was tired, still not fully recovered from the busted ribs and bruised jaw he had received in the kidnapping attempt, and he was fighting for something he didn’t believe in.
“Do you think we should send hundreds of young men and women into battle for this?” Jack narrowed his eyes at his friend.
“My point is, it doesn’t matter what we think, Jack. Our job is to stand by the choices our countries make and to support them.” Sean turned around, his hands raised in defeat. “Why am I explaining this to you?” He looked at the American and whispered, “This is treason, Jack! Those guys that manhandled you fucked with your head, didn’t they?”
Jack sighed and took a sip of his cup of coffee. “This is the decision of a few ego-trippers, Gallagher, and you know it. It’s my President’s economic reasons and your Prime Minister’s brown-nosing. Christ, Gallagher, the guy is so far up my president’s ass that he has a say in what he has for breakfast.”
Gallagher snorted and shook his head. “There are ways of doing this, Jack, and this is not the diplomatic way. They’ll have your head on a plate for this, and mine too, if I’m not careful.”
The Belgian Prime Minister and his tubby Defense Minister returned to the table, and Jack and Sean sat down as well.
Jack cleared his throat. “Sir, can we talk off the record for a moment?”
Sean shot him a deadly glance.
The PM nodded to the secretaries to leave the room, and Jack got up again. He walked over to the door to close it after them and then paced toward the window.
“I realize my Secretary of State was instructed to threaten you with sanctions if you didn’t help us persuade the French and Germans to close the ranks. I was asked to tell you as well, that the American Military would stop using your Antwerp port and that there would be trade sanctions. As a last resort, I was to threaten the extrication of the NATO headquarters.”
Jack looked at Sean who was sitting upright in his chair, staring at the tabletop.
“I can tell you now that the threats are all bullshit.”
He saw the two ministers look at him, then at Sean, then back at him.
“If your people don’t support this, neither should you. You’re a small country, but an important one, because you don’t let the big guys stare you down. I’m not saying you can stop this war, or that you can actually accomplish something by not joining NATO’s peace keeping force, but I’m telling you to follow your heart, something I should have done a long time ago.”
Jack nodded at the two stunned politicians and walked out.
“YOU ACTUALLY said that?” Lucas asked, his eyebrows climbing toward his hairline.
“Yeah,” Jack answered shyly. “I was sick and tired of hiding, of lying to everyone.” He kissed Lucas tenderly. “I knew Maria would never grant me a divorce unless I was everything she didn’t want me to be.”
Lucas looked him in the eye seriously. “Sean was right. What you did was treason, Jack!”
“I know, but you know what? It felt damn good. It was like the world dropped off my shoulders. I walked out of that building, and there was oxygen in the air. I could breathe at last. The Prime Minister knew better than to blab about what I had said, so nobody outside that room ever knew. They figured I had suffered a nervous breakdown, and I went along with it. I even saw a shrink. Had her write me up as vulnerable and a bit of a loose cannon. They gave me six months of ‘vacation.’”
“And Maria?”
Lucas still had deep lines on his forehead and Jack let his fingers gently ghost over his lover’s furrowed brow as he brushed aside the loose curls.
“She understood that if I was willing to blow my career over this that I was serious. We had a really long talk. Both did some crying. Talked some more.”
Lucas’s worried smile made him continue.
“We shared a lot in fifteen years of marriage, Lucas. She’s a wonderful woman; I’ll always think that. She deserved an explanation.”
“What was there to explain?” Lucas wondered a little sternly.
Jack rested his forehead against the young Brit’s. “I told her I loved her. Like a sister, or a friend. I told her I loved you in a way that was so different that I had got to the point where I couldn’t hide it anymore.”
“But I was gone. I wasn’t there anymore, and you didn’t know where I was.”
Jack smiled at the way Lucas was trying to look at him without breaking contact.
“You sound like Maria.”
Lucas poked him in the ribs.
“Owww.” Jack put his hand on the spot Lucas had prodded and feigned pain, pulling away as much as he could
“I’m sorry; your ribs still hurt?”
Jack pulled Lucas close, hoping this would wipe the worried look off his face. “No, silly. It’s all healed. I meant what I told her, Luke. I knew I loved you more than I had ever loved anyone. The pain of losing you dulled a little over time, but when I saw you again today….”
“I didn’t know if I could face you,” Lucas admitted. “I saw your mug shot on the visitor’s pass in my briefing folder and my heart stopped.”
“Why?”
“I walked out on you, Jack! And even if you forgave me for that, there was AnnElise and….”
Jack silenced him with a kiss.
“AnnElise is perfect, Luke. Seeing you with her, the way you care for her and love her…. It made me fall in love with you all over again. “
He looked up at Lucas seriously. “I know this is all very sudden, but I hope I can continue to be part of your lives, Luke, yours and AnnElise’s.”
Lucas looked up at him. “Are you serious?”
Jack nodded. “If you’ll have me.”
Lucas cuddled even closer to Jack. “You’ll be sick and tired of us soon enough, Jack. AnnElise is quite a handful, you know.”
Jack just smiled.
THEY BOTH woke up a few hours later hearing AnnElise talk to herself.
When Lucas realized they were still on the couch, limbs entangled, he apologized. “She does that all the time.”
“She never cries?”
Lucas shook his head. “She did when she was a baby, but now she doesn’t unless she’s really hurt. She ran through the house the other day and ran into the side of the door. All she said was ‘Lise bang’ and then she continued running.”
“She must feel really safe around you,” Jack answered quietly.
“You think so?” Lucas asked, a little unsure.
Jack nodded. “So what are the plans for today?”
“Well, it’s Saturday, so, we get up, have breakfast and around eleven, I drop AnnElise off at Liz’s to play with Liz’s boys, which she loves by the way, and then I do some grocery shopping and take a walk around. It’s usually my time away from everything, but I’d love to share it with you!”
Lucas looked at Jack in such a way that Jack couldn’t deny him anything. Not that he wanted to. “So when do you have to pick up AnnElise?”
“Around three. By that time Liz’s had enough of the kids, believe me!”
“Nice of her to baby sit,” Jack remarked.
“Well, single parents have to help each other out. You’ll get to know her two boys soon enough, because we take turns.”
Jack smiled at the idea that Lucas seemed to take for granted that he would be around from now on.
Chapter Twenty-Two
THE MORNING went by smoothly. AnnElise was still a little shy around Jack, but by the time they arrived at Liz’s place, she insisted on saying good-bye to Jack as well as her dad before running off to the playroom.
Liz was her usual forward self when it came to the introductions. “So you’re the Ambassador who’s had a hold on Lucas’s heart for the past three years.”
Jack smiled a little shyly, but figured his best defense was an offence. “Well, I was the married one, he was the irresistible one.”
He gave Lucas a sideways look and could tell Liz clearly liked what she saw. “Well, at least he has taste in men.”
She turned to Lucas and kissed him on the cheek. “Go have fun. Leave her here as long as you need.” She winked at Jack.
When they were outside again, Jack couldn’t help himself. “She’s quite something, isn’t she? Exactly how much did you tell her about us?”
Lucas chuckled. “One very desperate night, we ended up in the emergency room with AnnElise. She had a high fever and I couldn’t get her to calm down, so I called Liz, who had just been left by her boyfriend while pregnant with baby two. She poured her heart out while we were waiting in the emergency room and so did I. She pretty much knows everything, Jack.”
Jack wasn’t entirely sure how he felt about what Lucas had just told him.
“She’s really great, and she only cares who a guy sleeps with if she has the smallest chance of it being her. So you’re safe. In fact she probably set us up that day I gave you the tour. I’m sure she knew who you were from your bio, because I never mentioned your name.”
IN THE supermarket, Jack realized they must sound like an old married couple, discussing what they were going to have for dinner and for breakfast the next morning. They hadn’t even discussed any kind of future together, but already shopped as if they lived in the same house. Normally this would have scared Jack, but oddly enough, it didn’t now. They were going to try and build a life together, and all the discussions that could flow from that were reserved for later.
Now they were in the personal hygiene section and Lucas was waving around some “personal lubrication.”
“Now there’s a dead giveaway,” Jack responded a little quietly.
Lucas’s face turned serious. “Would you mind if the checkout girl thought we were gay judging from our shopping basket?”
Jack took some time to reflect on that question, but eventually answered, “No, I guess not. It just takes some adjusting, I suppose. I have to start thinking of myself differently.”