“The book.” I smacked my hand down on the top of Lavender Love, as much to make it stop shaking as anything. “This was moved.”
Russell stiffened, rising to his full height, and his face paled. “Are you serious? How can you tell?”
“I stack them perfectly. Always.” I wasn’t sure why that required explanation. All of the spines on all of my books—didn’t matter if they were upstairs, in the bookshop, on a shelf, or stacked vertically like these—always lined up with the titles facing the same way. “This top one is upside down, the title is backward compared to the other ones.”
“I don’t think Neal snuck in here to turn a book over. I’m sure we’re fine.” Regardless of Russell’s words, clearly he didn’t mean them, as I still picked up on a note of panic.
“It’s just one more of his messages. Letting me know that he’s near. That he can do what he wants. That I’m not safe.” I left the counter and started a brisk walk through the aisles, searching for other misplaced books, to see if there were other signs he’d left.
“Jasper, Neal wasn’t here. Trust me. You don’t need to be worried.”
I didn’t bother looking back. “I’m not crazy, Russell.” I paused and chuckled despite my stress. “Well, maybe I am. Harrison always teases me about how anal-retentive I am about book placement. But that’s only more proof that I know what I’m talking about. Neal was in here last night. He had to be.”
“No. He wasn’t.” Russell crashed against the countertop with his elbows and hung his head. “I moved the book.”
His confession was so unexpected it took me a moment. Gradually, it sank in that it meant Neal hadn’t snuck in during the middle of the night.
I’d already reached the midpoint of the store and paused, looking at him over the shelves. “You moved the book?”
He nodded and kept his gaze downcast.
“Why?”
He let out a long sigh and somehow collapsed in on himself even more. “I came down in the middle of the night and took a copy upstairs. I couldn’t sleep, and I was… curious.”
I stood there, speechless, simply studying him. It made absolutely no sense. I could understand not sleeping, could understand needing a book to pass the time or help fall back to sleep. And I could most definitely understand why he would want to look at Lavender Love, especially with all the people of the town dropping by to sign their pages. But Russell looked completely humiliated and sounded defeated or something. Maybe he thought he’d crossed some boundary or protocol. Though the notion seemed ludicrous, considering what had happened between us a few nights ago.
“Russell, I don’t care if you look through the books. You can borrow any of them in the bookstore, or any of them in the alcove.”
He nodded again, and I sensed he was about to say something but hesitated. After nearly a minute, he gave a little nod. “Okay. Thanks. Sorry about that.”
“There’s nothing to be sorry for.”
He cleared his throat and straightened, though he still didn’t meet my eyes. “Well then, I’m sorry that I startled you. That I made you think it was Neal.”
“Not a big deal.” There was something he wasn’t saying, clearly. But I wasn’t going to push. Things were already awkward between us.
As if to prove me wrong, he left the counter and walked over to the mystery section and pulled out Doughnuts and Deception. “In that case, I’ll start book three.”
I almost said I was glad he liked the cozy mystery series, but for some reason, felt like that would be pushing my luck. “Great.” Abandoning my search for misplaced books, I went back to the counter to get ready for the day. “And thanks for modeling how good the books are through the window again today.”
As I hoped, his gaze met mine for a second, and he flashed a little grin. “I do what I can.”
Part of my hesitation in agreeing to Harrison’s demand that I have a bodyguard, in addition to simply not wanting to give Neal that much power, was the suffocating nature of having someone constantly at my side and watching my every move. I anticipated it being suffocating and stressful.
I’d been both right and wrong in that fear. But in a completely different way than I ever would’ve imagined.
In Russell’s presence, some part of me, some part I hadn’t even been aware of, felt more at ease than I ever had in my life. With him simply across the room, not saying a word. There was some easy, comforting, low-level buzz between the two of us. As if my spirit had been meandering through life, humming a little tune, and suddenly there was another meanderer by my side, humming along in harmony. It just made life seem… fuller, somehow. More complete.
But above that buzz was a different electricity, and nothing about it was low-level. It caused both my head and my body to ache in ever-increasing ferocity.
Maybe I wasn’t making a strong enough effort, but I couldn’t shake my visceral attraction to the man. It took constant mental reminders to not stare at him, and even so, I’d catch myself inspecting Russell when he wasn’t looking. And then, inevitably, getting caught. But even that made it so much worse, so much more frustrating. Because he was doing the same damn thing. I’d be working along, feel his gaze on me, look over, and sure enough, those brown eyes would be filled to overflowing with desire and lust.
Why we were playing games and forcing ourselves to stay apart made absolutely no sense. I supposed that wasn’t true. On the one hand, it did make sense. It was the professional, the correct, thing to do. There was a power differential, there was money changing hands, though not from mine. There was protocol to follow, or some such shit. Shit that I normally would fully and wholeheartedly support and expect.
But not in our case. We might be strangers in the truest sense of the word, or at least had been a few days ago, but as Russell had put it about Debbra and Robert, we knew each other biblically. Why pretend like we didn’t? We’d proven, twice, that we had sexual chemistry in spades. That we were good at it.
We weren’t accomplishing a damn thing by living in this tormented agony hour after hour. Both pretending, while—at the exact same moment—we both knew we weren’t fooling the other. Or ourselves.
As another tension-filled day transitioned to another tension-filled dinner, and then faded into another tension-filled night of Russell reading on the couch and me curled up in the alcove, I was ready to throw myself out the window. It was the first time in my life that novel after novel failed to sweep me away. I’d sink in for a page or two and then feel Russell’s gaze on me. Get lost in another page or two, and then wonder why I didn’t feel his gaze on me and look up to check, then start the pattern all over again.
It was fucking ridiculous, fucking frustrating, fucking torture. The only thing it fucking wasn’t, was actual fucking.
The last glow of sunset faded from the night sky, leaving it cloudless, inky black, glittering with stars. I’d managed ten entire pages without looking over at Russell. The very fact that I knew I’d made it ten pages, had actually been counting, meant I’d not even begun to get lost in what had promised to be a very good book.
I’d just turned to the eleventh page when Russell’s voice broke over the soft singing of the Joy Williams album playing in the background.
“You and Harrison had a mom and dad, right?”
I lowered my book to the cushion, holding the place with my finger, not that it mattered. Turning to him, I replayed his words to make sure I’d heard them right. “Yeah. Didn’t you?”
He considered, then nodded. “Yeah.” He returned to his Peridale book.
I started to follow his lead, then decided to leap at the chance. At least we were talking, not pretending we weren’t constantly noticing each other. “Why did you ask?”
“Around here, seems like lots of the kids have a mom and a mom or a dad and a dad.”
“Oh. Of course. Yes. Harrison and I had a mom and dad.”
He simply nodded.
“Why were you wondering?” I’d not pushed him all day, not
pushed him since the night at the Sanctuary. And even if I couldn’t satiate my desire for him, at least we could talk, forced or not.
To my surprise, he barely hesitated before responding. “Do you notice any difference around here? With the normal families and the gay families?”
Okay, so… not so much a response, as answering a question with a question. I nearly pointed out that by calling them gay families, he was implying they were abnormal families. But I didn’t want to end the conversation before it had begun, and clearly Russell hadn’t meant any offense. “No. I haven’t. They have just as much love in them as the straight families. And just as many challenges and obstacles as well.”
His brown eyes flitted back and forth, not focusing on anything as he thought. “You think that’s a Lavender Shores thing?” His gaze was back on me, and intense. Though it lacked the fire that normally accompanied his intensity.
Clearly wherever this was headed, it was something he’d been pondering. Suddenly I remembered the borrowed Lavender Love book that I’d forgotten about during the day. “If you mean, do I think the families are the same whether they’re based around a heterosexual couple or a homosexual couple simply because they live in Lavender Shores, then, no. I think that’s true across the country. Across the world, I suppose.”
He just nodded slowly and licked his lips.
I didn’t think he was going to respond any further, but I also thought I knew where he was going. We were from the same city, for crying out loud. Chances were high that our families had similar concepts and beliefs. Chances were also high they were more along the lines of my father, than how my mother had seen the world. So I took a gamble. “A little bit different than how we were raised, huh?”
That earned me a snort and smile. “Yeah. You could say that.”
Again he fell silent, and though I wanted to keep him talking, I couldn’t think of a way to do so, not that didn’t feel forced or contrived. So I returned to page eleven.
I made it four lines before he started talking again. “I get that a lot of people don’t like the gay thing because of religion and shit, but that wasn’t the deal for my family. None of them went to church.”
I slowly lowered my book once more, afraid I’d startle him and he’d clam up.
Russell didn’t even seem to notice. Though he stared in my direction, he was clearly lost in the past. “But still, being gay was wrong, still sick. I think if I’d been raised that being gay was going to send me to hell or some crap, I could’ve just sloughed it off as the beliefs of some cult or something. But that’s not how it was. It was simply a human expectation. Men did certain things, women did certain things, and then there were other things that men simply did not do. Things that women didn’t do, for that matter.”
Though his wording was a little convoluted, I thought I was following fairly well.
Either way, it didn’t matter; he kept going. “I always knew that I was attracted to boys.” He flinched and his gaze refocused suddenly, holding mine with an expression of panic. “I don’t mean I like boys, I just meant I knew I liked boys when I was a boy. And that I liked men when I was a man. None of that other shit. Being gay does not mean—”
I couldn’t hold back a laugh. “I know what you mean. You don’t have to explain that part. Believe me.”
He studied me, seemed satisfied, and to my relief, continued. “I always knew, but I also didn’t… know, if that makes sense. Like, I felt it, strumming around in the back of my mind or in my gut, or—” He gave a dark chuckle. “—in my cock. But that didn’t make it real, you know? Because that simply wasn’t how it worked. It wasn’t what a man did, wasn’t what a man was. And it sure as fuck wasn’t what a Wallace man did or was. So”—he shrugged—“it didn’t really matter what I felt, because I wasn’t… that. It wasn’t even in the realm of possibilities.”
His words brought to mind my own childhood. Made me even more grateful for my mother. If she’d been like Harrison’s and my dad, that’s exactly how it would’ve been presented to us as well. But thanks to her, I never wondered if what I felt was really me or not. I always knew it was. And thanks to Harrison, I never needed to hide it. I didn’t want to make the moment about me, but it also seemed like Russell was a little stuck. I needed to urge him on somehow. “So, when did you come out? How did that work?”
Panic flared behind his eyes, and he didn’t answer.
I feared I’d gone too far, pushed too hard. But then I decided to push a little more. If not, we’d just go back to how we were before, so what was there to lose? “Did it change with your first time with a guy? How old were you? Were you in high school or college? Or maybe the police academy—does a person have to go to college to be a police officer?”
His panic only increased, and I was sure I’d royally fucked up. But he didn’t look away, though his voice was barely a whisper. “You were my first time with a guy. And I was forty.”
If Russell had delivered those lines in any other way, I would’ve laughed, thought he was joking. But there was such weight to his words that they were clearly true. And he was obviously terrified how I was going to respond.
And I had no idea how to respond. Had no idea how to even take that in. He hadn’t been with a man until he was forty? Hadn’t been with a man until… me?
I was Russell’s first gay experience? No way. It didn’t make sense. It could have been possible. We were….
“Your first time was at a bathhouse?” Shit. I’d failed at keeping the mix of shock and horror I felt out of my tone.
He didn’t even flinch. “Yeah.”
That night had been my first time in a bathhouse, but far from my first gay experience. And I’d been petrified. “How the hell did you get up the nerve to go into a bathhouse for your first time?”
“I….” He blinked rapidly, and somehow looked smaller, younger. Fragile.
This time I didn’t push at his silence. He was clearly struggling, hurting, and it took every ounce of my willpower to remain curled up in my window, not to go over and wrap him in my arms. But every instinct I had told me that if I did anything, anything at all, this would shut down. I wasn’t sure where it was headed, but I’d been in enough groups at the Sanctuary to feel a turning point when it was about to arrive.
This was Russell’s moment.
He took several deep breaths, like he was about to dive in, only to shake his head and shut his mouth. Over and over again he did that. To the point that tears slowly began to roll down his cheeks and the shaking of his head became more emphatic.
“Russell….” I wasn’t sure if it was a mistake or not, but I whispered his name.
Those terrified, pain-filled brown eyes flashed up at mine. It was terrible to see such a mountainous man begin to crumble.
I didn’t move a muscle. “You’re safe. You really are.”
He sucked in a ragged breath, and the tears increased. “It was the worst night of my life, after the worst couple of weeks of my life.” He’d barely been understandable, his voice thick with emotion and moisture. He cleared his throat, took a deep breath and launched in again. “The thing I told you about, what I did to that kid’s father. That had just happened the week before. That day, the day I was… with you… That was the day the decision had been made, when I was told I was losing my badge, that I’d never be a cop again. I had a couple drinks at a bar, then went home and told my wife.”
Wife!
I must’ve flinched or given some other reaction, because he paused to explain. “I married Chelsea… I mean, Chelsea and I had been married for twelve years. Like I told you, I wasn’t gay; I couldn’t be. I just… wasn’t. The marriage was okay. Never great, but it was there. Exactly like almost every other marriage I saw. The last couple of years had been really rough. Really, really rough. We’d not slept together in ages and ages. I was distant and criticizing. She was mean, constantly calling me a faggot.” He laughed, which only seemed to increase the tears. “I don’t know how she found out.
I wasn’t doing anything. Never watched any porn, never…. Well, never anything. I guess she just wasn’t stupid.”
He gave a snotty sniff and ran the back of his forearm under his nose, and then jammed the heel of his palms over his eyes. “That night, when I came home, told her what happened at work, I thought all holy hell would break loose. Anticipated screaming, throwing dishes, all kinds of names. I was going to let her. I knew I deserved it. There was only one thing in my entire life I was meant to be, and I’d just shoved it down the drain. Threw it all away, for a gay kid no less. One who was going to die anyway.” He looked directly into my eyes again.
God, the intensity in those eyes.
“She laughed.” Russell laughed as well then. “She just laughed. Said my timing was perfect. Said she’d been sleeping with Reid—he was an officer at another precinct—for several years. Years, Jasper. She’d been fucking him for years, and I hadn’t noticed. Probably hadn’t even cared. She said she just found out that day that she was pregnant. That day. She found out she was pregnant that same day.” He laughed again. “Obviously the whole shitshow was meant to be, predestined or something. Though I still haven’t figured out if it was providence or—” He fluttered his large hand. “—whatever the opposite of providence is. It all just lined up. My career and my marriage in the shitter. My life in the shitter. She left.”
He wiped his eyes again, and his breathing calmed, as did the tears. I knew those signs as well. He was wrapping up. The story was almost done, and I could hear the relief begin to arrive. Just a bit.
“I wasn’t heartbroken that she left. I don’t blame her. Not for the affair, not for any of it. I wasn’t abusive or anything. I wasn’t mean. But I was a shitty husband. Horrible. I didn’t mean to be, but I was. She deserved better. I know I made her sound like this awful bitch to you, but… that’s not her. At least wasn’t who she was when we got married. I did that to her, or at least helped. But still, my marriage was over. I’d failed at that. I’d failed at the one thing in life that I was meant to be, the one thing I actually cared about. And there was no greater shame I could bring on my family. None.” He smiled, a real and gentle smile. “I mean that. There was no greater shame than me fucking up being a cop. I guess I figured just go for broke. So I went to the bathhouse. I’d already failed at being a man, so what did it matter?” That smile met his eyes, just slightly. “And, there you were.”
The Alcove (Lavender Shores Book 7) Page 16