Signs of Life

by Melanie Hansen

  Jeremy immediately turned in Kai’s arms and wrapped him up tight, pulling Kai against him. He didn’t say a word. Kai sagged against him, letting Jeremy support almost his entire weight as he just held on.

  After a minute Kai said, his voice muffled against Jeremy’s chest, “I went over to the hospital, but of course as non-family they wouldn’t tell me anything. They wouldn’t even let me see her. When I was walking back out to the parking garage, I saw a cop that I know, a friend of Loren’s, and I went up to him and asked him if he had any idea what happened.”

  Kai felt tears start up in his eyes, and his voice grew more ragged. “It turns out that he was one of the—one of the responding officers.” He sniffed, hot tears flooding the front of Jeremy’s T-shirt.

  Jeremy kissed his hair and whispered, “I’m here. I’ve got you.”

  “The mom’s boyfriend was stinking drunk. Shauna’s son Dante tripped and fell, started crying. The mom said that the asshole picked up a—picked up a goddamn baseball bat and went after the kid. Shauna got between them, and he bashed her head in with the bat, fracturing her skull.”

  Kai felt a shudder run through Jeremy’s body, and he tightened his hold on him, realizing in an instant they were now holding each other up.

  “She’s alive, Jeremy, but might be brain damaged.”

  “Oh God,” Jeremy whispered.

  Kai continued on, “It’s just a waiting game to see how badly her brain was injured. They have her in an induced coma, machines breathing for her, and there’s—there’s nothing anybody can do but wait.”

  “I’m so sorry, Kai,” Jeremy whispered hoarsely.

  “That bright, beautiful girl,” Kai gasped out. “Talented and kind. Wanted to make a better life for her and her son, that’s all she wanted. And a drunk piece of shit took it all away. Oh fuck, Jeremy. Fucking hell.”

  Jeremy just held him while Kai shuddered in his arms, weeks of pent-up worry and anxiety spilling over in a huge wave of emotion.

  “What do you need, Kai? Tell me what you need,” Jeremy murmured.

  Kai scrubbed his hands over his face, his eyes burning, his head pounding. “I could use some sleep. I didn’t sleep much last night.”

  When they reached the bedroom, Kai washed his face and brushed his teeth while Jeremy closed the blinds and made the room as dark as possible. Kai trudged over to the bed, where he found a glass of ice water and ibuprofen waiting for him. He swallowed some gratefully, wincing as his head throbbed worse with every movement, and collapsed down into the bed. Jeremy pulled him close and spooned up behind him, and Kai finally drifted off into a shallow, restive doze.

  He woke sometime later, disoriented and anxious, and he heard Jeremy whisper, “Shhh,” in his ear, rubbing his hand soothingly up and down Kai’s chest.

  Suddenly craving the contact, Kai turned and desperately pulled Jeremy’s mouth to his, sucking and nipping at his lips, moaning, “Please,” not even sure what he was begging for.

  Jeremy eased him to his back, then kissed his way down Kai’s chest to his belly, where he nuzzled the trail of hair below Kai’s navel.

  “You don’t have to, Jeremy,” Kai whispered, even as he bent his knees and let them fall to the sides, caressing Jeremy’s hair and cheek with his fingers.

  “Let me take care of you,” Jeremy whispered back, stroking Kai’s cock with firm yet gentle pulls, kissing his way across Kai’s abdomen and groin, mouthing his balls until Kai was fully erect, the tip slick with arousal.

  “Lie back and close your eyes, love,” Jeremy murmured. “Just feel.” Kai obeyed, letting his eyes drift shut, feeling Jeremy slowly caressing his way up his shaft with his lips and tongue, where Jeremy licked around the head, groaning in quiet appreciation when he took Kai’s flavor onto his tongue. He brushed his lips across the straining tip, making Kai catch his breath before slowly engulfing Kai’s cock in tight, wet heat.

  There was no sound in the room except for the soft sucking noise of Jeremy’s mouth sliding up and down, Kai’s hitching breaths and the rustling of sheets as Kai writhed under his ministrations. Ragged breaths soon turned to gasps, then to moans as Kai arched his back and exploded down Jeremy’s throat. Jeremy hummed as he drank Kai down, then licked him clean. Exhausted by pleasure, his body thrumming, Kai finally slid into a healing sleep, held tightly in his boyfriend’s arms.

  WHEN KAI woke again, it was late afternoon, almost evening, and he was alone in the bed. He sat up and swung his legs over the side, groaning as his head throbbed anew and the room spun. It was like the worst hangover ever along with gritty sandpaper eyes. He found the glass of now-tepid water and popped a few more ibuprofen, wincing as just the movement of tipping his head back to swallow made nausea well up in his throat.

  He shuffled his way to the kitchen, where Jeremy was sitting at the island with his laptop and a mug of what looked like hot tea. When he looked up and caught sight of him, he leaped up from the barstool he was perched on and guided Kai to a chair at the small kitchen table, then grabbed the teakettle and poured him a mug of his own. Kai sipped it gratefully, enjoying the tang of lemon on his tongue as the ibuprofen started to kick in and made the headache slowly recede, the tea settling his stomach.

  “How long has it been since you’ve eaten anything?” Jeremy asked quietly. “Let me scramble you an egg and make you some dry toast. It’ll help.”

  Kai nodded, and soon Jeremy set a plate before him with some steaming eggs sprinkled with cheese and a piece of thick sourdough toast. Kai managed to eat half of it before pushing the plate away, and he realized with relief he felt much more human again.

  Jeremy held out his hand and they retreated to the living room, where Kai settled in one of the thick leather recliners with his feet up, a fresh mug of tea on the side table. Jeremy curled up on one of the adjoining loveseats and turned on the TV, flipping channels until he found a mindless action movie, the volume on low. They just hung out, Kai dozing off at one point and waking up to find Jeremy working busily on his laptop.

  When he noticed Kai was awake, he set his computer aside and leaned over and took Kai’s hand, squeezing it gently.

  “You okay?” he asked softly. “Do you need anything?”

  Kai shook his head. “No, I don’t need anything, thanks. And I’m okay. I pretty much just needed to sleep. What time is it?”

  “About 10:00 p.m., I think. Tomorrow morning I can run you over to the hospital if you want.”

  Kai shook his head again, saying, “There’s nothing I can do there, and I don’t really belong. I’m not family, and I don’t know her mother. Shauna was my student, and earlier I was lying here trying to figure out why I was taking this so hard.”

  Jeremy squeezed his fingers again encouragingly, and Kai went on, “I just really wanted her to make it, you know, make it out of that cycle of poverty and violence. She had—has potential. She had the motivation, and she’s smart. I think she symbolized for me all the girls I’ve known that didn’t even have the chance to try, both in my past and as my students. I wanted her to be the one, and she could have done it. She could have done it, Jeremy.”

  “It’s okay to grieve for that loss at the same time you grieve for her personally, Kai,” Jeremy said softly.

  “So many girls,” Kai whispered. “Trapped in that cycle, pregnant too young. Taught that they’re not worth anything more than to be some loser’s bitch.”

  He took a deep breath, then went on, “Right before we were all busted and sent away, my brother and some of the other crew came back to the house covered in blood. I mean, their faces were speckled with it, there were huge patches of it on their clothes, their knuckles were torn and bleeding.”

  Jeremy got up and perched on the arm of Kai’s recliner, carding his fingers gently through Kai’s hair. “What had happened?”

  “They’d run into, quote, some disgusting faggots, unquote, leaving a restaurant. Apparently they were walking arm in arm or holding hands, something like that, so my crew knew th
ese guys were pillow biters. Followed them for several blocks until Antonio picked up a brick and smashed it into the back of one of the guys’ heads. They beat them, and I have no idea if they died or not. From the amount of blood I saw—”

  Kai shuddered. “They came back drunk, ranting against gays, and somebody pointed me out. ‘Look at L’il Slick! He so pretty, put a dress and high heels on him and he could be somebody’s bitch.’ Antonio walked over and leaned over me where I was sitting on the couch and said, ‘You a filthy faggot, Slick? ’Cause I ain’t never seen you fuckin’ no pussy.’ He was covered in blood and it was still wet, so wet that I could smell it, the rust. I was terrified.” He shuddered again, and Jeremy pulled him close.

  “Just then some of the girls who usually hung out with us walked in, hoping to score some drugs. Antonio said they could have a dime bag if one of them fucked me and proved I wasn’t a fruit. They weren’t all that enthused because I was just a kid and a low-ranking pendejo. But I was desperate, and I convinced one of them, hoping like hell the guys didn’t notice that I picked the most slender, most boyish-looking one.”

  “Did you—”

  “Did I fuck her? Yeah, I got through it while the guys cheered me on, bowing to peer pressure not to use a condom because it was a badge of honor to knock up a ho, a macho thing, make her your bitch. We got pinched not too long after that, and I never saw her again. I could have made her pregnant that night, Jeremy. And she would have been alone, trapped. None of those girls ever got abortions. I used her, and bonus, I might have fucked up her life and created another little gangbanger to carry the torch.”

  Kai could hear how bitter his voice was, and Jeremy stroked his hair soothingly. “You were just a kid yourself, and scared shitless.”

  “But you see why I kind of made Shauna my own little personal crusade, and why it was eating me up inside for weeks, knowing that even now, with all the resources I have behind me, I couldn’t help her. Couldn’t even help one girl.”

  “That dirtbag of a stepfather is the one who did this to her, not you,” Jeremy said fiercely. “You did everything you could. Don’t you dare blame yourself for what he did to her.”

  Kai leaned his head against Jeremy’s thigh. “I’m trying not to, Jeremy, I’m really not. I’ll get there. I just needed to wallow for a while.”

  “Wallow all you want.”

  They sat there for a little while, Jeremy stroking Kai’s hair, Kai letting old demons scorch him with remembered pain, Jeremy shoring him up with quiet strength. Finally they went to bed, and Kai surprised himself when he fell almost immediately into a dreamless sleep.

  THE NEXT morning Kai woke to find himself entwined about Jeremy, his head on his shoulder, Jeremy rubbing a warm hand up and down his back. Kai nuzzled further down into his shoulder and whispered, “Thank you.” Jeremy hugged him a little tighter in response, and they lay in silence for several minutes until Kai screwed up his courage and whispered, “I’m sorry, Jeremy. I handled all of this in completely the wrong way.”

  Jeremy stroked his thumb over the back of Kai’s hand where it rested on his chest. “I’m sorry I made you feel like you couldn’t come to me with your burdens, Kai.”

  Kai pushed up on his elbow and looked squarely into Jeremy’s eyes, saying fervently, “I want you to know that I think you’re amazing, Jeremy, in every way. Never doubt that. All of this was my very misguided attempt at trying to spare you pain. The thought of causing you pain just guts me.”

  “And the thought of you suffering in silence guts me,” Jeremy whispered, “knowing that I made you feel like you have to turn to someone else because I’m not what you need.”

  “You are what I need, Jeremy,” Kai said earnestly. “And you’re what I want. Loren is—well, he said it best, actually. He’s my comfort zone. He knows me because he’s had eight years to get to know me. He’s like—I don’t know, like a security blanket or something. He’s become a habit. I have a problem, I run to him.”

  “Because I made you feel like you couldn’t run to me, Kai. We could sit here all day going back and forth with this, but the underlying issue is lack of communication. I just—I guess I expected you to know that I was ready to take on the good and the bad in your life, and that’s not fair because I didn’t tell you that. I didn’t tell you that I love you. I love you, Kai.”

  Jeremy cupped Kai’s face in his hands and kissed him, and when he pulled back, Kai stroked his cheek. “But I knew that already, sweetheart,” he said gently. “It’s in everything you do. It’s in the way you worry about me, the way you take care of me, the way you—the way you try for me. The spoken words are just a bonus.” They kissed again, and Kai whispered, “And even though I hate to ever see you hurting, I love that you let yourself be vulnerable with me, that you let me comfort you, let me love you. It’s not a burden to be there for you, it’s a privilege, and yesterday I gave the same privilege that should be yours to someone else. Jeremy, I’m so fucking sorry.”

  Jeremy took Kai in his arms and murmured, “Please don’t apologize any more, Kai. You were doing what you thought was best for me, and I see that, I do. But I have to be honest, okay? I can’t share you emotionally with him.”

  Kai interrupted before he could say anything else. “I know. If he’s my emotional habit, I’m his physical habit. Having me around for convenient sex has kept him from dealing with who he really is and has enabled him to live a lie. Our relationship has become unhealthy in recent years, and we weren’t willing to admit it, much less deal with it. Meeting you has forced that issue, Jeremy. He’s moving away, and I hope he can find himself and find happiness.”

  Jeremy’s eyes widened with shock. “I didn’t mean for you to totally separate yourself from him, Kai. I don’t want to do that to you. And I know saying that I don’t want to share you emotionally makes me sound like the worst kind of hypocrite, but—”

  Kai shushed him again. “I don’t resent the part of you that will always love Brent. Loving him is a huge part of who you are, and I never want to take that away or diminish it. If Brent hadn’t died, you’d still be with him. Loren and I were never meant to be together that way, and it’s time for us to move on. It would have happened sooner or later, with or without you, Jeremy.”

  Jeremy cupped the back of Kai’s neck and pulled him into another gentle kiss. “I don’t know what I did to deserve you, why fate decided to bless me twice in one lifetime. I’m a selfish bastard, but I’m not going to question it, I’m just going to take it.”

  “I’m not sure I’m all that much of a catch, to be honest,” Kai warned teasingly, watching with delight as the last of the shadows were chased from Jeremy’s face, his silver gaze lighting with laughter… and love. He would spend the rest of his life trying to put that look in this man’s eyes. “I’m stubborn, bossy, and always busy.”

  Jeremy smiled and pushed him down onto the bed, kissing him slowly, deeply. “And you’re infuriatingly independent, and way too smart for your own good.”

  Kai wound his arms around Jeremy’s neck and pulled him down on top of him. “But I love you, and I’m yours.” He took Jeremy’s mouth in a passionate kiss.

  Jeremy broke the kiss just long enough to whisper against Kai’s lips, “That’s all I ever need to know.”

  Epilogue

  “IT IS now with great pleasure that I pronounce you married.”

  There was an audible sniff from someone in the audience as a man’s slender, graceful hands cupped his groom’s cheeks, and then the lush sounds of a tender kiss, followed by cheers and various shouted comments ranging from congratulatory to lewd.

  It was a perfect day, bright and sunny, a cool refreshing breeze blowing every now and then through the patio area, the glass panels having been removed for summer and especially this occasion. It was a small gathering, only the people absolutely closest to the couple having been invited.

  Jeremy tightened his fingers around Kai’s, looking over at his boyfriend of almost two years, wondering
for the millionth time today what the fuck he’d ever done to deserve to be sitting here now, with the man he loved, watching one of his best friends marry the love of his life.

  Jase pulled back from the kiss and stroked his thumb over his new husband’s lips, whispering something meant for Carey’s ears alone, and then he whooped, sweeping Carey up into his arms and hugging him so tightly Carey choked out a sound between a laugh and a cough.

  “About time! Yeah!” The petite redhead standing up for Carey as his witness pumped her fist, then squealed as Jase’s best man, her husband, pulled her into his arms and gave her a smacking kiss too.

  “Makes me wanna renew my vows,” he rumbled to general laughter, submitting to good-natured ribbing about letting himself be so visibly moved by the ceremony.

  Besides Jeremy and Kai, who were hosting the wedding at their cabin, and Quinn and Layla, the official witnesses, the only attendees were the other members of Jase’s band, Eloquent Isolation, and their various crew and significant others. They were a raucous, happy bunch, and Jeremy and Kai had retreated to their house in town and given the San Diego contingent run of the cabin for a week, letting them enjoy some downtime with hiking and relaxing before the wedding ceremony and then the Seattle kickoff to the band’s international tour in four days’ time.

  Jase called Jeremy a few months ago with the news that he finally proposed to Carey, asking if they could possibly descend on Jeremy and Kai for the actual ceremony, grumbling something about media circuses and not wanting to deal with “fuckin’ bullshit.” Jase’s band had hit the big-time with several number-one hits in a row, and suddenly Eloquent Isolation became a hot media commodity, especially considering its sexy, charismatic lead singer and his closely scrutinized relationship with his boyfriend, a war veteran and amputee. The gossip rags ate it up and paparazzi were everywhere, all the time.

  Jeremy agreed instantly, and looking now at Jase, dressed in a black, long-sleeved graphic T-shirt and dark jeans, his only accessory the bright, shiny new wedding band on his left hand, he knew it was the right decision. A circus wasn’t Jase, but this was, a quiet simple ceremony in the woods with only the people he loved most in the world at his side, everyone dressed comfortably and at ease.