by J. M. Colail
Before he could go further, Roz picked up the bouquet and whipped her arm sideways, sending up a spray of leaves and petals around Jack’s head. She repeated the motion again, and he put his arms up to fend off the blow. The whipping of the bouquet across his blistered hand stung badly enough to bring tears to his eyes. “I am not a fucking pimp, Jackson Strange. Do I make myself absolutely clear?”
Aw, shit. Jack froze, apparently stunning Roz enough to make her realize the absurdity of her actions. Of course. She was angry with him for the way he’d treated her brother. Well, she’d have to get in line. Jack had hardly slept last night, his conscience had been bothering him so badly. He didn’t know what his problem was. After all, he was sure Julian had known the score beforehand. He could have walked away from Jack at any time, but he hadn’t.
Roz must’ve sensed the change in his demeanor, because she took one look at the remnants of the bouquet and snorted, tossing it in the garbage bin. “Let me see your hand.”
Reluctantly, Jack held it out. She took a cursory look. “I’ll get the cortisone. Don’t move.”
Jack contemplated making a break for the door when her back was turned, but decided against it. She’d probably torch his house. The worst part was, he almost felt like he deserved it. “Listen, I was sort of hoping you could give me some advice.”
“I’m not your goddamn therapist.” A drawer slammed in her office, and Roz came stalking back out again, brandishing a tube of cream. She threw it at his head; Jack only just managed to catch it with his unburned hand. “You want advice, write to Dear Abby.”
“Dear Abby’s not Julian’s sister,” he said, working off the cap with some difficulty and applying the cream. He started to feel better—physically, anyway—right away. “And before you hit me again, I’m not just looking for a way into his pants, okay? Though I’m not going to rule it out.”
Roz flopped down onto her leather sofa and looked up at him. Jack felt like he was some kind of specimen under a microscope. “I wish I could tell you he never wanted to see you again.”
Hope—and guilt—sparked inside him. “I deserve that,” he admitted. He hadn’t been one hundred percent honest with Julian—or himself—about what he wanted, which was a first for him. “Look, I know I’m not good at,” he gestured helplessly, “talking about relationships. Or having them. Or thinking about them. Or wanting them. I don’t know the first thing about them. Hell, I hardly know anything about Julian!” Except that he has a really hot birthmark on his stomach and he really likes strawberries. Jack managed to tear his mind away from that dangerous path. “All I know is, I made a mistake, and I’d like the chance to correct it if I can.”
Roz eyed him with obvious mistrust, then got up and went to the wall, closing the blinds to the hallway. “Take off your pants.”
Jack dropped the little tube of cortisone. “What?!”
“Take off your pants,” Roz repeated slowly, as if to a little child. “I need to make sure your leg’s not infected after all you probably got up to yesterday. Then we can get on with your appointment and maybe, if you’re very lucky, I’ll mention to Julian you’d like to grovel for his forgiveness and answer the phone when you call later tonight. Around seven-thirty. After he’s had a chance to decide whether he wants to talk to you or not.”
Oh. Right. He supposed that was really the best he could ask for. “Thanks.” He undid his belt and hopped up onto the table Roz sometimes used for therapeutic massages, though never on him. He wasn’t actually sure she did those herself. “I think it should be okay.”
“Yeah, it looks fine,” Roz agreed after a cursory inspection. She stood back, as if looking at something else. “Oh, for Christ’s sake.”
Jack followed her eyes. There was a purple bruise on his right leg, just below his boxers. He blushed a little. “Ummm….”
“Never mind; I’m not going to ask. I have the feeling that that one wasn’t an accident.”
“He did seem to have his heart set on getting all of the chocolate off. And I just didn’t have it in me to tell him no.”
Roz rolled her eyes, then reached for the clipboard she kept with all of his various strength and flexibility exercises on it. “Why do I get the feeling I’m going to need to invest in a good set of earplugs?” she teased. “Come on; get your workout clothes on. I’m going to work you hard today to make sure you can take it. Probably not as hard as you worked Julian yesterday, but it won’t be as much fun.”
Oh, boy. Why did he have the feeling Roz was going to razz him as badly as she’d ever gone after her brother? “Before you do, I just wanted to mention….”
“That your little affair with Julian doesn’t mean you’re coming out of the closet anytime soon?” she finished for him.
What is this woman, psychic?
“Don’t worry. I won’t be outing you. In case you hadn’t noticed, Julian’s not exactly forthcoming about his sexuality, either. Except in select circumstances. Now move it! I’ve got another appointment at four and I want to see you sweat.”
JACK SWOOPED down and caught the running girl in both arms, swinging her up onto his hip. “How’s my girl?” he asked, wincing a bit. He thought he might have overextended himself this weekend—not that he was regretting it in any way, shape, or form—and Roz’s intense physio session wasn’t helping matters. He knew he needed to keep pushing himself, and with any luck, next time it’d be with Julian, instead of his sister.
“Miss Jacqueline is going to teach us ballet!” Hallie said excitedly, throwing her arms around his neck. “And we’re going to have a recital and I get to wear pink shoes!”
“Pink shoes, huh?” he said fondly. “Sounds stylish. Got all your stuff?”
Hallie nodded, and he set her down gratefully.
“Okay, let’s go. Say good-bye to Miss Piet, Hallie.”
Roz waved over at them from the front desk, then stood. “Oh, I almost forgot.” She pulled an envelope from the stack in the message tray and handed it to Hallie. “That’s for your daddy. Okay, sweetheart?”
“Okay,” the little girl said cheerfully. “Bye, Miss Piet! See you tomorrow!”
“Talk to you tonight?” Jack asked, voice serious. Oh yeah. He was totally fucked. He was already way too nervous about how wrong this could potentially go, and he was doing it anyway. Shit.
Roz nodded at him. “Seven-thirty. Don’t forget.”
Grasping Hallie’s hand in his own, Jack nodded to her and headed for the doors.
Ten minutes later, they pulled into Hallie’s driveway. Jack helped her down from the truck and grabbed her dancing bag from the back. “What do you think, half-pint? Has your dad got supper ready yet?”
“We’re having shepherd’s pie,” Hallie told him, taking his hand again like it was second nature. “It’s my favorite.”
“I thought spaghetti was your favorite?”
“Uncle Jack, I have two favorites.”
Grinning to himself, Jack pushed open the door to the kitchen. “Is that so?”
“Yes! Shepherd’s pie is my other favorite.” Spotting her father taking dinner out of the oven, Hallie ran over, flinging her arms around his legs. “Hi, Daddy!”
“Hi there, half-pint. What’s that in your hand?”
Hallie handed him the envelope proudly. “It’s a letter from Miss Piet. She knows Uncle Jack, Daddy!”
Uh-oh, Jack thought, panicking a little.
Roy met his eyes across the room. There was something a little odd about his expression. “Oh she does, does she?”
“Uncle Jack,” the little girl said, crossing the room to stand by him again, “are you and Miss Piet friends?”
Great. Jack should definitely have thought twice before buying her those flowers. Now people were going to get the wrong idea entirely, and he wasn’t sure Julian would like it. Hell, he wasn’t sure Roz would like it, although she would probably just find it all very amusing. That was the sort of person she was. “Yes, we are,” he hedged, looking to Roy for
help.
None came. Roy looked like he was trying not to laugh.
“Are you going to get married, Uncle Jack? Can I be in the wedding?”
What the hell? “No, Hallie, Roz and I are not getting married. We’re just friends. Sometimes,” he said, glancing up to glare at Roy for laughing through this impromptu twenty-questions session, “sometimes, a man and a woman can just be friends. They don’t have to get married just because they’re friends.” Especially if one of them is gay.
Hallie deflated a little, then brightened. “But if you ever do get married, I can be in the wedding, right? My friend Jessica is going to be a flower girl in her sister’s wedding. She gets to wear a pink dress!”
“Well, if I ever need a flower girl, you’ll be the first one I’ll call,” he said, managing to keep a straight face (ha!) somehow. Yeah, right. Even if he wanted to get married, he doubted many people would want to attend. “How about that?”
“Okay,” Hallie agreed begrudgingly. “But don’t wait too long, Uncle Jack. In two more years I will be too old to be a flower girl!”
He grinned sheepishly, having no idea where the girl got these notions, but gladder than he usually was that he could just escape the questions by running home with his metaphorical tail between his legs. “I’ll try to hurry and find the right one. Deal?”
“Deal.” They shook on it.
Roy was still snickering behind his hand. Jack leveled a look at him that said, quite clearly, you’re next. He stopped laughing. “Jack, we’ve got plenty of food. You’re welcome to stay for dinner.”
Jack thought of Robot waiting at home to be let out, and the groveling he was going to have to do later, and decided against it. “Thanks, man, but I’ve got to run home and let Robot out, and I’ve got a ton of stuff to get done tonight. Rain check?”
“Sure,” Roy said easily, waving jauntily. Jack was already making his retreat. “See you tomorrow, Jack.”
“Bye, Uncle Jack!”
Jack returned the wave, absently closed the door behind him, and walked back to his truck. He had some serious thinking to do, and only a few hours to do it in. Steeling himself, he started the engine and headed for home.
“MR. STRANGE, I presume?”
Jack’s stomach coiled into a tense little ball. “Hi, Roz.” If she was answering, did that mean Julian didn’t want to talk to him? Had he fucked up already? “How’m I doing so far?”
“You usually only get points for remembering your date’s name, not his sister’s,” she pointed out. He could almost picture her lounging carelessly on the sofa downstairs, reveling in making him sweat like she did in physio.
“I mean, do I get a chance to apologize?”
Jack really did feel like an ass. He’d screwed up a really good friendship with sex in college when his roommate had started developing feelings for him. Jack hadn’t known how to deal with that then, and he still wasn’t sure. The thing was, he kind of wanted to learn, and that was terrifying.
Especially since he might not get the chance.
“Hold on.” There was a rustling sound, like something covering the receiver, and a few moments of silence.
Jack held his breath.
Finally: “Hello?”
Sagging in relief, Jack sank into a chair at his kitchen table. “Julian, it’s Jack. Listen, I wanted to apologize for yesterday. I’m not very good at, uh….”
“Manners?” Julian suggested a little coldly. Still, at least he was talking.
I deserved that. “Yeah, I’m a little out of practice. Or I never had any to begin with.”
There was a long sigh on the other end. “It’s all right. I’m not exactly the picture-perfect gay man myself, seeing as you are now the fourth person in town to know I’m gay.”
It looked like he might be forgiven, after all. “Really? I know Roz knows, but who are the other two?”
“I told Dan before I took the job at the clinic. And Brenda walked in on my boyfriend and me making out in the bathrooms when I was eighteen.”
Jack had to laugh at that. Oh, to be young again. “Classy. Very discreet.”
“I was young and in love,” Julian defended, a little wistfully if Jack was not mistaken, “and horny all the time. What can you do?”
“Make out in public restrooms?” Jack suggested. He was thinking of the hockey game, when he’d nearly jumped Julian in the shower. It was a dangerous train of thought if he actually meant to have a conversation.
“Exactly.”
There was an awkward pause as Jack tried to work out what he wanted to say next. He was sure he hadn’t quite resolved everything just yet. “Can I….” Call you sometime? No, that was wrong; he was calling him now. Take you out implied, well, out and he knew he wasn’t ready for that. Fuck it; this was why he wasn’t an English major. “Can I see you again?”
That seemed to be the right one. He thought Julian might even be smiling. “I, um, yes.”
Cute. Jack smiled, relaxing into the conversation. Maybe this could work out, after all.
“WHERE THE hell did you two come from?” Brad panted, drinking his beer like it was going out of style.
It was Wednesday, and Jack and Julian had played on the same hockey team this week. Apparently they worked together well outside of the bedroom as well as in it, because they had completely dominated the match, even though they’d staged a few checks just for the sheer fun of it. Jack had gotten in a particularly good one when Julian was looking the other way, resulting in the other man falling flat on his behind.
Jack caught Julian’s eye and winked, reaching for his own beer. “I’ve been giving him pointers,” Jack grinned.
Julian rewarded him with a roll of those chocolate-brown eyes. “I taught him how to skate on the weekend. Just another in my big bag of tricks.”
Choking on his beer, Jack spluttered, nose burning as the liquid tried to exit through his nostrils. Brad and the other guys were laughing, but Julian was smirking. It was sexy as hell, especially since Jack knew just what he meant. Jack adjusted his towel surreptitiously, glowering at Julian a little.
“You’re funny, Doc. Tell me, who’s going to stitch you up after I get you back next week?”
“Brad’ll do it,” Julian said automatically, fluttering his eyelashes. “Won’t you, Brad?”
Brad put on a highly affected seductive expression. “Sure, baby. I’ll kiss it better.”
Jack snorted. Bartenders. They just loved being in the middle of things. In Brad’s case, hopefully not literally. Jack was not prepared to share Julian with anyone—even if it would be kind of hot.
Glancing at his watch, Jack realized how late it was getting. Poor Marianne would be wanting to close up soon. “Guess we’d better get our butts in gear. Don’t want Julian’s sister to beat us up for keeping Marianne out all night.”
That drew a couple of raised eyebrows, and Jack winced inwardly, making a mental note to never again mention Roz when he didn’t need to. These guys were like vultures, waiting for him to mess up and betray the slightest detail. More than likely they were also a little jealous.
“She could probably take you,” Brad said with a grin.
Jack flipped him off and dropped his towel to dress. The other guys filed out, one by one, until it was just him and Julian left in the changing room.
It could have been awkward, but it wasn’t. After an embarrassingly honest apology on Jack’s part that had revealed a lot more about himself than he’d honestly wanted it to, Julian had agreed that they should give a relationship of sorts a chance. Jack had the feeling that there was still a lot they weren’t telling each other—he knew for a fact he was holding rather a lot back—but that was okay. He wasn’t exactly looking for a lifelong commitment.
They hadn’t seen or spoken to each other since Sunday evening, except for their too-brief telephone call. Roy had dropped Hallie off in the middle of the conversation so that he could run some errand or other, and they’d talked on the phone for a moment or
two before it simply became too awkward. The important things had all come out, and now that the tension between them seemed to have disappeared for good, Jack couldn’t have been happier about it. It was nice, not having to hide from everyone.
“What’re you thinking?” Julian asked him as they slung their hockey bags over their shoulders and made for the doors.
Jack gave him a sideways look. “I’m thinking maybe you’d like to come home with me,” he said slyly. “Got something I want you to take a look at. Do you make house calls?”
Snorting, Julian held open the outside door, then followed him out into the night. “Oh, like I haven’t heard that one before.”
Jack pouted. “I thought it was good.”
“Cliché,” Julian corrected. He took his bag off of his shoulder and put it in the bed of the truck. Looking around the parking lot, he must have noticed how far away Jack had parked, because he raised his eyebrows. “Felt like a hike?”
Hardly. Jack had had one thing in mind when he’d parked so far away, and one thing only. He held his tongue, waiting for Marianne to close and lock the doors to the complex. She waved as she got in her car and drove away into the night. Then he started leading the way back to his pickup. “Not really. Hey, Doc, do you think it’s cold enough to get frostbite?”
It wasn’t, and both of them knew it. The past few days had been unseasonably warm, a kind of almost-Indian-summer that Jack knew, from years of experience of living in Alberta, meant that the first snowfall could only be a week or so away. The cold would snap back any day, and with a vengeance. But for now….
Jack tossed his hockey bag into the bed of his pickup, then turned around and grabbed both of Julian’s hands, pulling him tight against his body. “Damn. I don’t know how I thought I could ignore this. Or why I was convinced I wanted to.”
“Not the swiftest fish in the barrel,” Julian teased, mixing his metaphors beautifully. Jack growled at him and bit his lips, then soothed the imaginary hurts with his tongue. Julian’s mouth opened right up, welcoming the invasion of his tongue and greeting it with his own.