One Night

by RJ Scott

  The diagram stared up at him for an hour and had morphed steadily into a doodle that looked suspiciously like his dad, with horns and a pitchfork. An hour later, he noticed his camera sat on the desk, its very presence shouting at him to grab it and deal with the case law and ethical issues later. Despite his dad wanting answers, in real terms, he had a full seven days before he had to present his conclusions to the man.

  Sighing, he pushed the papers to one side. The sun was high in the sky, and he had promised himself an exploration of the pier to add to his portfolio. Grabbing his Canon and the trusty Nikon, he left his suite before he could change his mind. Meeting and apologizing to Micah this morning had left him feeling unsettled and anxious. Photography would center him.

  The hotel was only a couple of miles from the pier and dressed in jeans and a T-shirt, he blended immediately into the crowds of tourists who thronged the California streets. He itched to pull his camera out to capture the images in his viewfinder of moms and kids and family life on the back road he was taking. There were no people crowding on corners, waiting for the lights to change or workers in short-sleeved shirts and ties scurrying past with Starbucks coffee cups grasped in their hands. This road, Ocean Front Walk, was full of apartment buildings and cleared areas ready for building until it widened out, and finally, he was strolling along the oceanfront.

  He spent a good hour at the Venice Beach Art Walls, his camera capturing bold designs, listening as people around him read from leaflets about its history. He wanted to come back again. The urban art was amazing, but the pier was calling.

  Keeping up a good pace, he passed stalls to his left and the sea beyond and cafes on his right until finally he was at the outer edges of the pier complex. He was pleasantly tired when he returned to the hotel with two memory cards full of images of the pier. Being tired through physical exertion was a new feeling for him. Desk-bound, his physical output in a day was limited to coffee runs, the odd lunch with clients, and using the gym in the mansion. He stripped out of the jeans and T-shirt and stood under the shower in his suite until he was clean, the water this side of painful on his sun-sensitive skin. He imagined pulling the photos together in a slideshow for Emma, showing his daughter the entertainment venues and the views of the beach, and it passed the time until it was time to get ready for dinner.

  When it came to dressing, he was unsure what to wear. He was intending to eat at the fish restaurant off the main lobby, and last night in his suit he had felt severely overdressed. Jeans would be too street, a suit clearly too much, so finally he decided on black pants and a blue button-down. Then, in front of the mirror, he rubbed gel through his still damp hair, hoping to hell it managed to stay halfway decent for the rest of the evening.

  Part of him hoped to see Micah, the part that was confident and adventurous. The other part was hoping not to see Micah. His head was busy, and his thoughts were confusing and irritating and halfway pathetic. Given the way his luck ran, it was inevitable he would meet Micah. What he hadn't expected was to meet and exchange pleasantries with him in the lobby and then to find himself offering to share a table in the restaurant.

  "Sounds good," Micah replied to the offer, standing back and letting Liam pass first. The waiter placed them in the far corner, with a view out over the beach, and left them the wine list.

  "So you know why I'm here. Are you at the hotel on business?" The question was innocent, nothing more than polite conversation, but Liam struggled for the right answer.

  "I needed a week to myself, away from it all. I wanted to photograph the pier and the sea, and I chose this hotel randomly." There. That covered it all, even if the words had fallen from his mouth like a machine gun.

  "A week away from what?" Micah clearly wanted to know more.

  "Corporate law."

  "Oh." Micah laughed, leaning back in his chair and smiling, before then leaning forward and half whispering, "A lawyer, eh? Your secret is safe with me."

  Suddenly the ice was broken. Liam picked up the wine list and stared at the blur of descriptions for a good thirty seconds before he passed it to Micah.

  "You're the expert."

  "So they say."

  The waiter came and took their order, and Liam searched for just the right subject to fill a sudden silence.

  "You said you own a vineyard, is it—er—big?" Which was a good question. He was doing okay. This was casual conversation; he could do this. He needed to pretend, firstly, he wasn't gay; and secondly, that Micah wasn't hot and fucking sexy with his hazel-green eyes that spoke volumes when he talked about family and friends. Oh yes, and lastly, that he hadn't been half hard the entire time they were talking.

  "An ex of mine said it wasn't big enough, said we should be expanding."

  "Is there room for expansion, I mean—" Shit, what's the word I need? "—land and stuff?" Eloquent, not.

  "Yeah, a parcel is coming onto the market, but I keep holding back, even though my accountant is desperate for us to do something with our capital."

  "Why are you holding back? Is it not good land?"

  "More than, but it's small and pushed way back into the foothills. Beautiful, but parts of it are remote." Liam felt that it sounded perfect, the idea of both beautiful and remote suiting the artist side of him.

  "So your ex didn't persuade you?"

  "He only wanted to add to Seneca Blue so it made it more viable to sell."

  Liam stopped listening after the he.

  "Liam… earth calling Liam." He snapped back to Micah's words. Micah had an ex that was a man. This wholly non-effeminate, totally wholly completely masculine, dark-haired, hazel-eyed god of a man was gay, or at the very least bi? How the hell had he not picked it up? Weren't men like him supposed to be equipped with some kind of gaydar or shit like that? "Liam?" Micah's voice had turned cold, suddenly icy cold, and Liam snapped himself back to the here and now with a sudden confusion in his head.

  "Sorry?"

  "Split the bill and charge it to my room; I'm in 553." Micah was standing, no, he was only half standing, hesitating, his face set in stone. Wait? Micah was leaving?

  "Wait." Liam needed to say something and get him to stay. Micah leaned in and started to talk in a low growl.

  "Yes, I had a partner who was a man. Seeing you zone out about it… I'm not interested in talking to a homophobe." Micah's voice was dripping with ice, his face carefully blank.

  "Gay," Liam spat out in a sudden flurry of sound then he looked around nervously as he realized he may have said that loudly. No one looked over or formed an immediate mob with flaming pitchforks. "Me…" Micah was now fully standing, and Liam's brain circulated so many responses he was dizzy. "I think… I know… me too."

  Micah stopped. All Liam could think was thank god.

  "You too what?"

  "Me, I'm…" He paused and lowered his voice. "…gay." Micah tilted his head in confusion, and then slid back into his seat. The waiter arrived at that moment with the wine.

  Liam sat back in his chair. It hadn't been that difficult to say the words after all. Micah drew a deep breath, pouring himself a large amount of Oak Chardonnay. Liam gave the other man the time to calm down, biting his lower lip and realizing the enormity of what the hell he had said. He had never said those words to anyone other than Jan, and after meeting this guy a few times, he was already… what? Already labeling himself as the very type of person he couldn't let himself be? Hell.

  "Is that a new thing?" Micah finally said, his expression serious.

  The main course arrived at that moment, and it gave Liam the breathing time to think of an answer. All kinds of clever replies that were well considered and included a lot of justifications sprang to mind as to why being gay was a bad thing for his daughter and for his life in general. When the waiter left, and Micah refilled Liam's glass, it was time for the answer.

  When it came down to it, there was only one thing to say.

  "No. I haven't admitted it before or talked to anyone about it." And t
hat was the truth.

  "Have you—" Micah gestured vaguely and then stopped, raising his eyebrows in silent question.

  "Jeez." Liam was so embarrassed, but he couldn't deny he knew exactly what Micah was asking. "College, but not since."

  "Why?"

  "It's complicated."

  "How old are you?"

  "Twenty-five, nearly twenty-six." He heard himself rounding his age up like some twelve-year-old who craved being a teenager. More years on his age weren't going to make him any less confused about this whole thing.

  "Shit." And with that Micah sat back in his seat. "There must be one complicated reason to wait so long." His words immediately put Liam on the defensive. He certainly wasn't ready to have the dead best friend/single dad/fiancée conversation with a man who wasn't far off from being a complete stranger.

  "There is."

  Micah hunched forward over his ravioli with wild mushrooms, and Liam found himself leaning in over his own plate of perfectly medium-rare fillet of steak. For a while, there was no talking, only exchanged murmurs of appreciation for the food. As the main course segued into sharing a platter of tiny bite-sized desserts, Liam felt courage build inside him. He wanted to extend this evening. Micah was good company, funny, well educated, and passionate about his vineyard, and Liam wanted to learn more about the man currently in rapture over the tiny white chocolate cheesecake he had popped into his mouth. Micah had a beautiful mouth, strong with lips just made for kissing and marking.

  "There is a club I go to when I come here. You want to go after we finish eating?" Micah asked as they signed for the meal. Liam blinked at the sudden change in conversation and forced himself away from the sweets to focus on his dinner companion.

  "A gay club?" He was aware that the words sounded kind of ambivalent as they tumbled quickly from his mouth, but Micah didn't appear to judge the reaction badly.

  "Yes, gay friendly."

  "I don't really do clubs." Liam really didn't. He hadn't done the club scene in college. He was too busy getting his degree; he wasn't the partying sort.

  "There are quiet areas where we can get a drink. Just this once?"

  "I don't want to go to hook up with a random stranger," Liam snapped and then winced inwardly. He was very aware he was coming across as a prude, but seriously, he had appearances to keep up. He was aware he was literally and figuratively miles away from Seattle, but what if someone who knew him happened to be here and spotted him? Micah looked affronted at the suggestion of the random stranger, and that didn't help matters.

  "That's not what I go for," Micah defended.

  "What do you go for, then?" Liam was curious, genuinely so. Why else would a gay man go to a gay club than to pick up another gay man?

  "Fun." Micah shrugged. "Dancing, some drinking, relaxing where people aren't going to judge, people-watching."

  "Fun?"

  "Yeah. Fun."

  "I'll give it a go." Why, as Micah grinned wolfishly, did Liam suddenly feel like he had signed a deal with the devil?

  Chapter 7

  The club was called Liberation and was on the very edge of Venice Beach, yet it looked very normal from the outside. Liam somehow imagined that it should look more gay, although his definition of gay-only covered bars with big signs outside proclaiming an up and coming twink night, or painted in pink, or some brightly colored rainbow combination. He stopped at the threshold looking down at his Armani pants and five hundred dollar button-down. He wasn't dressed right. He glanced at Micah, who was chatting to the guy at the door. Micah was wearing similar clothes, but they weren't a designer brand familiar to Liam. Micah could wear a sack and still look hot, all sexy hard-muscled male. Liam sighed. He had this attraction thing bad. Micah looked up over at him and gestured they should enter. What Micah wore, or how much his shirt cost, didn't matter. He was a nice person to know. If Liam could push through the look of the man and get to the person beneath the "hot" then maybe he could even be a friend. Liam didn't really have any friends—didn't allow himself friends. Friends could get to know him and could find out his secrets, which wasn't acceptable.

  "Liam?" Micah snapped fingers in front of his face, and Liam forced a smile, steeling himself for loud music and flashing lights and sex on the floor as he walked through the large wooden doors.

  When they opened to actually reveal a large, airy, restaurant-type lower floor, Liam wasn't entirely sure how to react, but something must have passed over his face as Micah was smirking at him.

  "Not what you were expecting then?"

  "Not really."

  "It isn't all Queer As Folk you know."

  "Oh." Liam had seen a few episodes of that; he called it research, and it was actually one pop reference he could understand. He nodded and smiled. He could do this social thing. Easy.

  Micah walked through the restaurant, and Liam watched more than one man, and a few women, take a second look. The view of the man's front was hot as hell. Add in Micah's butt in those trousers, his broad back and tapered waist, and he was one sexy guy. Liam moved closer, suddenly feeling very territorial and ever-so-slightly smug that it was him following Micah to wherever the hell they were going.

  They reached the bar, Micah climbing on a stool, and Liam copied quirking a brow when Micah ordered a Sam Adams on tap and waited for Liam to add his order.

  "Same please," he said to the bartender, and they waited as the order was filled. Micah took a healthy swig of his and then leaned towards him in a manner indicating confidentiality.

  "I can't believe you drink beer." Liam said, laughter in his voice.

  Micah shuffled closer on his stool. "The wine here is shit," he half whispered. His breath warm on Liam's ear, and suddenly Liam found himself hard and needy in his pants. Shit, that voice sounded like whisky over ice, smooth and damn sexy. Liam turned his head, and their lips were literally a breath apart. It would be so easy to lean that extra inch and steal a kiss, taste the beer on Micah's lips. Blinking, he pulled back, embarrassment flooding him. He didn't do kissing, not in public, and certainly not with men. Micah seemed not to register the move and began chatting again, something about the land for sale, checking his phone at a couple of points in the conversation. Liam kept up. He found it fascinating that this man loved his land and his family so much.

  "What do you keep checking? Is there a problem at home?" Liam asked. Micah dropped his gaze, and god, was that embarrassment coloring his face?

  "Sorry, it's kinda rude to do that."

  "It's fine. If you need to check, it's cool."

  "I don't. Not really. My sisters and their husbands have everything in order."

  "But you need to check?"

  "I'm a control freak, according to my sisters," Micah grumped and shrugged.

  "Do you agree with them?"

  Micah actually hesitated before answering, then laughing he nodded. "Yeah, mostly."

  They talked sisters and babies. Micah even shared pictures on his phone of his new niece, Lydia Paige. When Micah excused himself to go to the bathroom, Liam pulled out his own phone, sliding through each photo he had of Emma, realizing in every one she was dressed pretty and so perfect, and it grated on him. He had been shown pictures of Micah's exhausted sister, still in the hospital, the widest smile on her face despite the evident exhaustion, happiness in her every pore, a tiny mewling scrap of humanity in her arms. All he had were static, posed photos of his perfect daughter, and his realization that it had been Leigh that had sent these particular photos to his phone made him feel sad. He had hundreds of photos of her when she was being her normal scrappy self that were on his camera as well as filed away. He quickly pocketed the phone when Micah returned. He didn't want to mention Emma, nor his family, his money, or even his impending marriage.

  "Do you want to dance?" Micah's voice broke into his internal musings, and not for the first time this break, Liam had alcohol loosening his restrictions. Stumbling off his stool, realizing the combination of the wine earlier and the beer now
added up to make his head spin, he showed he wanted to dance in actions rather than words. Bringing his half bottle of beer along, he did some more Micah following, this time blatantly checking out his ass. Micah pushed open a set of doors, then another, and there they were, on a dance floor. The floor itself wasn't full, but it had another bar, and the two of them gravitated towards it, the music heavy and enticing and the dark stripping the inhibitions from Liam one by one.

  "Love this," he said into Micah's ear.

  "You like to dance?"

  "Can't dance to save my life," Liam replied cheerfully, and immediately began to prove that fact.

  From one song to the next, until his arms ached and he buzzed with alcohol and the high of the music, Liam danced around a broadly smiling Micah. Each song made him braver, and he stopped in between for more beer, until after five or so songs, he was brave enough to touch Micah. In fact the Black Eyed Peas made it very easy for Liam to press himself close to Micah, and Micah certainly wasn't pushing him away. If anything he appeared to be concentrating on catching Liam closer, pressing a thigh between Liam's legs and pushing for friction. The beat changed, segueing into Justin Timberlake, and suddenly, all Liam wanted was Micah, closer, harder, more.

  Unspoken, Micah guided Liam back into a corner. Liam didn't care if it was dark or not, they were off of the dance floor, and there was no one else there. They kissed, and it was sexy and hot and explosive. Liam couldn't believe he had waited this many years to kiss a man again. Micah held him rigidly still, his tongue twisting and tasting, and Liam knew he would be begging if he could talk. He needed more than kissing. Twisting as well as he could with so much alcohol in his system, he moved so he had his back against the wall, and then he moved his hands, grabbing at Micah's hard butt, digging his fingers in, urging the man closer. He added teeth to the kisses, nibbling and biting at Micah's soft lips. He could taste beer, and the intoxication of it all brought him to his knees. He pulled back.

  "You have gotta fuck me," he breathed on fumes of beer. Suddenly Micah moved, guiding him back out onto the floor, out through doors, through a room filled with light and then outside into the warm Californian air. "Are we fuckin'?" Liam slurred, leaning into Micah, letting himself be literally poured into the cab. Micah said nothing, well, nothing Liam could hear over the buzz in his head. The cab stopped, and Micah was helping him out. "Are we fuckin' now?" he asked again.