“I am,” she said. “I’m also aware that you’re the one who called pretending to be Jules Cassidy, and I’m about to pull Sam out of another important meeting. So if this isn’t a real emergency? I will never put you through to him again, so help me God, as long as we both shall live, and I don’t think I got the name of the SEAL who’s in the hospital in L.A.…?”
“You didn’t get it because I didn’t give it to you,” Adam told her. “Sam will know who I’m talking about.”
She laughed her disdain. “He’s just going to read your mind …?”
“Wyndham,” Adam said, enunciating clearly. “Is my last name. You may have seen one of my movies? I’m an actor. People take my picture when I go to the grocery store and if they could, they’d take my picture when I take a fucking dump. They like to speculate about who I’m shagging and since I also happen to be very, very gay, I’m not going to say this SEAL’s name out loud, because that will bring a rain of shit down on his head and quite possibly ruin his life, and I will not do that to him, even though I’m so worried and scared for him that I would step in front of a fucking bus if I thought that would mean he’s okay. So instead, yes, I’m just going to let Sam, who is a very smart man, read my mind. Is that okay with you?”
Tracy didn’t miss a beat. “I loved you in Snow Day,” she said. “Please hold, I’m putting you through.”
There was a click and then he was on hold, but he moved to the edge of the sidewalk and stood on his toes to look because there was another rush of traffic coming down the street. But again, there was no cab.
So Adam again took off toward the hospital, his phone still to his ear.
And then, alleluia, Sam Starrett’s Texas twanged over the open line.
“Okay, Wyndham, here’s the deal,” he said. “I’ve already left a message for Lopez, and Tracy’s trying to reach Jenkins, Gillman, and Zanella, too. Tom Paoletti’s in the office today, and he’s calling Team Sixteen’s CO. If he can’t reach him, he’ll call the senior chief, and then he’ll go down his list of both officers and enlisted until he hits someone with his phone on. We’ll take it from here and make sure the hospital gets the medical information they need.”
“Thank you so much,” Adam said, and his relief made his chest tight and brought tears to his eyes. God damn it, he was not going to cry.
“What the fuck happened?”
“He came to L.A.,” Adam said, stopping on the corner, waiting for the light to change, trying not to breathe too hard into the phone. “But I moved while he was away and … I got a call from my former landlord and … I guess he came here to see me.” He made himself laugh. “What a fucking idiot, right?”
“I’d go for fool,” Sam said. “Not idiot. Are you at the hospital yet?”
“Not yet.” Although he could see the sign for its ER, red and vivid, in the distance. Still, he slowed as he realized why Sam might be asking. “Should I … Is it better for Tony if I stay away?”
“You know what I think. And I believe you agree,” Sam said. “But your definition and my definition of what’s better for Tony might be vastly different from his. He was supposed to stay in bed another week, at least. But here he is, in L.A. Probably because you didn’t take his calls. Definitely because he wanted to see you.”
“He didn’t call,” Adam said. “Although if he had …” He laughed his disgust. “Who am I kidding? I would have answered. I think about him, night and day.”
“Hold on,” Sam said, and as Adam stopped outside of the ER doors, there was muffled talking, as if he’d put his hand over the telephone. But then he moved it and Adam could hear: “Yeah, that’s great. Thank you, sir. That was Tommy.” He was talking to Adam again. “He reached the senior chief, who put in a call to the hospital. He’s going to connect them with Tony’s doctor. Right now the diagnosis is that he’s dehydrated, but they’re running some other tests. They’ve got him hooked up to IV fluids and some anti-nausea meds, because when he first came to, in the ambulance, he did some heavy-duty lunch-launching.”
Lunch-launching was Sam-speak for vomiting. “When he first came to …?”
“Apparently he’s out again.”
“Shit. Did he hit his head when he fell?” Adam asked. “Have they given him, like, a CAT scan, or …?”
“I don’t have that information,” Sam said.
Adam moved slightly closer to the doors, and they opened with a whoosh. “I’m going in,” he decided. “I gotta hang up.”
NO CELL PHONES BEYOND THIS POINT, said a big sign on the wall.
“Keep me posted,” Sam said.
“I will,” Adam said and hung up. He pocketed his phone and took a deep breath and approached the formidable-looking nurse behind the triage counter, who was guarding the entrance into the actual ER. “Excuse me. I’m, um, here to see Tony—Anthony—Vlachic.”
She finally looked up. “The Navy SEAL.”
“Yes. May I …?” He pointed. “Is there a room number …?”
“Are you one of his teammates?”
“Yeah,” Adam said, and it wasn’t a lie because according to some people both he and Tony were playing for the other team. Which made them teammates of a sort.
“He’s in fourteen,” she told him, granting him access. But he nearly tripped over his own feet as she added, “Another of your friends is already in there with him.”
“Oh,” Adam said. “Good.” And it was good, because it meant the ER doctor had access to more detailed information about Tony’s recent injury. And that goodness outweighed the tragic fact that Adam really couldn’t go in there now—for fear of outing Tony. Because even though the triage nurse didn’t recognize him, surely someone would.
Still, she was watching him now, so he kept going, searching not just for the little ER room labeled fourteen, but also for the men’s, where he could duck in, hide in a stall for a minute or ten, and then exit back the way he’d come in, with a breezy Looks like things are under control, gotta get back to the navy base to the nurse-guard.
Although anyone who thought he could be a Navy SEAL was either blind or naive.
And there was room fourteen, a tiny space with a hospital bed and the door wide open. He glanced in, and God, there was Tony in that bed, hooked up to an IV drip, just as Sam had said. His eyes were closed and his face was pale and he seemed to be alone in there. But as much as Adam wanted to go in, if only to touch him as he slept—just briefly on the head the way he’d touched Adam all those weeks ago—he didn’t dare.
Instead, with a lump in his throat, he swerved to the right and detoured into the men’s room, pushing open the door and heading almost blindly for the stalls, unable to see through the sheen of tears that were back in his eyes.
“Whoa, heads up!”
Shit, he’d nearly crashed into a man who was exiting the room. “Sorry.” Adam moved to go around him, but the man moved the same way, and they did that stupid dance that people sometimes did, trying to get around each other, until one of them gave up and stood still.
But when Adam stopped, the other man did, too, which was awkward, because there they were, face-to-face, with those stupid tears still in Adam’s eyes, threatening to overflow. And of course, the guy had to be a SEAL, wearing gleaming Navy dress whites, with that eagle pin on his very broad chest.
And then it got even more awkward as the SEAL said, “You’re Adam Wyndham.”
Perfect.
And there they stood, in an uncomfortable silence.
Adam honestly didn’t know what to say. He had no clue if the SEAL knew that Tony had come to L.A. to visit Adam, or if the guy was merely a movie watcher who would be aghast to know the truth.
With his dark hair, brown eyes, and almost perfectly even features, he was handsome enough to be a movie star himself. He was a few years older than Tony—closer to Adam’s age—but Adam wasn’t military-literate enough to read his rank. He was enlisted—Adam could tell that, thanks to the sailor style of his uniform.
“I�
��m Dan.” The SEAL held out his hand. “It’s nice to meet you. Have you been in to see Tony yet?”
Oh, thank God. Adam managed to shake his head as he took Dan’s hand. “I wasn’t going to stay. I didn’t want to … I wasn’t sure who, you know, knew.”
“I’m the only one,” Dan told him, his brown eyes serious. “I mean, we all know, but I’m the only one who, well … Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell means we can’t talk about it, but last month we were in a little bit of trouble, and … Well, T. wanted to make sure you knew how much he, you know, cared. Cares. About you. He didn’t want it to go unsaid. So he trusted me. I’m glad we’re meeting under much better conditions. He’s okay, by the way. The doctors are pretty sure it was food poisoning. Under normal circumstances, he would have been pretty damn sick, but since he wasn’t quite up to speed … He’s, um—”
Dan probably would’ve just kept talking and talking if Adam hadn’t cut him off.
“It makes you uncomfortable, doesn’t it?” he asked. “The idea of Tony and me. Together.”
Dan laughed his surprise at Adam’s directness, and hit back with a truckload of directness of his own. “Yes, it does, but it doesn’t make me even half as uncomfortable as the idea of you taking advantage of him, or worse—coming here like this and outing him, inadvertently or not. I mean, it’s one thing if you, you know, love him, too. But from what he told me, it doesn’t particularly sound like you do. And if you’re going to fuck around with him—both literally and figuratively—and he gets discharged, only to have you ditch him a few weeks later …? That’s what makes me uncomfortable, because he’s a good man and a great teammate.”
“He doesn’t love me,” Adam told this virtual stranger, confessing that which he hadn’t dared express to anyone. “He loves his idea of me. He loves the man he wants me to be. He doesn’t know me. What he feels has nothing to do with reality.”
“His reality or yours?” Dan asked. “And why is yours more valid than his? Maybe he sees something that you can’t or won’t see because your mirror is warped. You know, I used to get into trouble—really stupid stuff—all the time when I first joined SEAL Team Sixteen. And we had an officer—he’s not with us anymore—who sat me down and told me that I had to let go of the past, because I wasn’t that kid anymore. He told me that I had to redefine myself by the people who were around me, by the company that I keep right now—today. I had to start seeing myself through the respect that I saw in their eyes.
“Tony sees something in you. You might want to take another, more careful look at yourself through his eyes. Join him in his reality.”
“The one that includes Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell?” Adam felt compelled to ask, to argue. It was either that or give in to the tears.
“Unfortunately, yeah,” Dan said. “It’s going to change. It has to. I hope it does soon, because T. doesn’t deserve that bullshit in his life. And as far as DADT goes, he told. Even though he had every reason to believe that I would report him. He chose to tell, because the idea of you going through your life unaware of how much you meant to him was worth more to him than a career that he’s worked hard for, that means everything to him.” He corrected himself. “Almost everything.”
Dan stepped around Adam, heading for the door. “I’m going to go out in the ER waiting room. I’ll be able to intercept anyone else who might come in. I don’t know who else is in town. I’m here on a fluke—I was doing a program at an elementary school. Anyway, I’ll be out there, if you want to go in to see him. If you don’t, well, that’s fine with me, too. Just don’t do it half-assed and halfway.”
And with that he was gone, leaving Adam staring at his reflection in the bathroom mirror.
Someone was touching his head, their hand warm and solid against him.
It was probably the nurse, checking for fever, except the hand that was touching him wasn’t against his forehead, which was odd.
Whoever it was exhaled just a little—the smallest of sighs.
And Tony kept his eyes closed even though he’d woken up, because as long as his eyes were closed, he could pretend that that hand, that sigh, belonged to Adam.
But it wasn’t Adam who’d been by his bedside the last time he’d woken up. It had been Dan Gillman and it was a little too odd and disconcerting to think that the other SEAL might be touching him like that—this hand lighter now as he pushed back and even played with Tony’s hair.
So he opened his eyes, and God, it was Adam standing there, looking down at him with those incredible, luminous hazel eyes, with his very heart and soul bared for Tony to see.
Neither of them spoke. There was nothing to say that could even come close to everything that Adam was saying by the gentleness of his touch, and that look in his eyes, and God, by the very fact that he was standing right there—right there.
But then Adam laughed, just a little, and said, “I missed you.” He looked away then, as if his words embarrassed or—probably more accurately—frightened him.
“I missed you, too,” Tony told him, then tried to lighten things. “You look delicious.”
Adam forced a laugh, almost unbearably ill at ease. “You look like shit.”
“I feel great.”
“Great?”
“Very much so. It kind of happens to me when you’re in the room.”
Adam’s laughter was a little less forced. “You’re so full of shit.”
“I look like shit, I’m full of shit. If this is shit, I’ll take it,” Tony said, catching Adam’s hand and interlacing their fingers. “It’s really good to see you.”
Adam looked down at their hands but didn’t pull away. “I don’t think I’d be as forgiving as you.” He looked up. “That picture from Big Richard’s,” he started.
“It doesn’t matter.” Tony brought his hand up to his mouth for a kiss.
“I went there to try to, I don’t know,” Adam said, as one of the tears that were making his eyes shine slid down his cheek before he could brusquely brush it away.
“Exorcise me,” Tony said quietly. “I do know. I, um, had a lot of time to think about it.”
“I wanted to belittle what we shared,” Adam confessed, fighting hard to keep more tears from falling. “To prove it was meaningless. So I went to the club—”
“Adam, it really doesn’t matter.” He could say that in all honesty.
“It matters to me,” Adam told him. “It matters that you know that nothing happened. I mean, yeah, I went there. And yeah, I went into the back room with this guy and … I don’t know. He wasn’t you so I walked away. Which really freaked me out on top of everything else.”
“I bet,” Tony said. God, he’d lost sleep over that picture that had showed up online. At first he’d been hurt, but then, in the long run, he’d realized that the picture had provided him with a gauge of just how scared Adam was of him and by him. It had made him cautious—maybe too much so—about calling or emailing, for fear Adam would run away, or again try to prove how little sex mattered.
But now, knowing this—Adam had walked away—he had to reevaluate. But first he had to take a moment and grin his ass off.
Adam knew why he was smiling. “It doesn’t matter,” he said mocking Tony. “You’re a crappy liar.”
“I wasn’t lying,” Tony protested. “It really didn’t matter. It will matter, now, though. I’ve got three weeks and I’m going to spend them with you. And after that, I’m going to say some things that’ll really scare the hell out of you, and one of them’s going to be a demand that you don’t hook up with anyone else while I’m away.”
“Demand?” Adam repeated.
“I was going to say request,” Tony told him, “but I thought demand would make you get all oppositional, and up in my face. I love it when you do that, baby. It’s incredibly hot.”
Adam laughed, but then his smile faded. “God, you really do scare me. I care, way too much.”
Tony’s heart actually leapt. “No such thing.”
“Yeah, there is
,” Adam argued. “I’m standing here, and I’m trying not to say it, but here it comes, because I am such a needy little fuck and … You really believe me, don’t you? About the picture? God, it’s stupid that it should matter this much, but all my life, I’ve been such a fucking liar. The truth is a variable. It becomes true if I can sell it, if I can convince you. But this time, I’m not lying and—”
“I believe you,” Tony told him. “And I happen to really like needy little fucks.”
He tugged Adam closer to him, and the other man didn’t resist. So he pulled him in for a kiss. Gentle at first, then hotter, deeper. Ah, God …
Adam pulled away, but only to make sure that the door was tightly closed. Not for himself, but for Tony, for whom it mattered.
Adam kissed him again, but again only briefly before pulling back to look into Tony’s eyes. “Thank you,” he whispered. “For believing me and … for not believing me when I said what I said …”
“Whatever,” Tony whispered back. “I knew what you meant.”
“Still,” Adam said, echoing the very words Tony had used before leaving all those weeks ago. “It means everything to me.”
Wednesday, December 22, 2010
Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell is repealed, almost three years to the day after the cold winter night that Tony met Adam.
They’re planning a summer wedding in Tony’s hometown in Connecticut.
If you loved When Tony Met Adam, then you won’t want to miss Suzanne Brockmann’s New York Times bestselling novels that tell the story of openly-gay FBI agent (and kick-ass romantic hero)
Jules Cassidy:
Hot Target
Force of Nature
All Through the Night
“Jules Cassidy is one of the most charming and original characters in popular fiction today.” —Library Journal
When Tony Met Adam (Short Story) Page 6