Easy Does It Twice (Till There Was You Book 1)

by Gianni Holmes

  “Son of a bitch.” He had already hung up the phone. I dressed in haste, not taking note of what I had on. I swiped my keys from the dresser and bounded down the stairs. My hands shook so badly as my thought raced with all kinds of crazy theories about what they had done to him. I dropped the keys to my lap and rested my face against the steering wheel, trying to get the fear to subside. I gripped the steering wheel hard and tried to rein in my emotions. I had to keep it together until I at least knew what was going on.

  Eric. How could he do this? Our friendship ran for years. We’d argued before but were mostly on the same side of the fence. How could he flip on me like this because I was in love with a man? Why couldn’t he see I was no different than the man he grew up with? He knew me better than anyone else and if he treated me this way, how would others react when they discovered I was gay?

  I pushed the thoughts aside. Beau was my priority right now and getting him home. I didn’t know how or when, but if Eric had harmed Beau he would pay for it. I couldn’t believe I was thinking of my friend in such a way, wanting to hurt him, but a man had a right to protect those he loved. A man had a right to love who he wanted and to not have anyone threaten that.

  I calmed down enough to get the truck started. As much as I wanted to burn rubber to get to the hospital, I couldn’t. The last thing I wanted was to be stopped by a patrol officer and carted off to jail again. The journey was frustrating, but I eventually arrived at the only hospital Lacovia had. Located in the south side which was much quieter, it was small in comparison to other hospitals, but it served its purpose well. Severe cases were usually brought to the nearest city hospital to be taken care of.

  After parking the car, I slipped my phone into my pocket and entered the hospital. I was a nervous wreck, not knowing what I would find. My mind could not conceive why Beau was in the hospital. He had been fine when I left him at the police station. Eric had agreed to release him in twenty-four hours without charging him, although I couldn’t have decided on his logic.

  I made a beeline for the receptionist desk but spotted Drew getting to his feet. He had a shiner where I had punched him. His nose was an ugly shade of purple and was still swollen. He scowled when he saw me.

  “Where is he?” I demanded. The three people sitting in the waiting area glanced at us.

  “This way.” He nodded towards the corridor, and I followed him.

  “Will you tell me what’s going on, dammit?” I asked him.

  He didn’t respond but continued walking, and I had no choice but to follow him. He made a sudden stop at the door with an emergency exit sign and pushed it open. I frowned, hesitant to follow him.

  “I just want to talk,” he said. “Now get in before someone sees us.”

  I glanced down the empty corridor. “Where’s Beau? I know damn well he’s not through that door.”

  “I’ll take you to him after.”

  Frustrated at my lack of choice in the matter, I walked through the door but prepared myself to fight back should it come to it.

  “What the hell is going on?” I asked, facing him at the top of the stairs.

  “I want to apologize for what happened,” he said, and I cocked my head at him, not sure I believed him. “Things got carried away. I was only trying to help calm down the situation, and when you punched me, I saw red. I was too angry not to see that Eric was irrational. I thought we’d scare you guys a bit then release you.”

  “How do I know this isn’t another one of Eric’s ploys to hate on us because we’re gay?”

  “Because we’re not too friendly with each other at the moment,” Drew answered, then ran his fingers through his hair. “Maybe it’ll help if I tell you that-” he swallowed hard, his Adam’s apple bobbing. “I’m gay too, something I could never share with anyone because I’m afraid of being kicked from the force. I’m only telling you this because I feel bad about what happened and also because seeing what Eric wanted to do to Beau, I’m scared of being found out.” He leaned back against the door blowing hard.

  I nodded, deciding he was sincere. “Don’t worry. Your secret is safe with me. Where’s Beau?”

  “He’s getting a few stitches from the doctor.” He hung his head. “It could have been much worse. I got there in time to find Eric beating the shit out of him and put a stop to it. The others agreed he had crossed the line.”

  My hands curled into fists. “He should have never been there in the first place! It should not have been allowed!”

  “You punched an officer, Gordon. Of course, nobody at the station gave a crap what happened to you guys afterward. An attack on one is deemed an attack on all.”

  “I’m not going to apologize for doing it,” I answered. “You were hurting him.”

  “I get that.” He held out a hand to me. “No hard feelings?”

  I ignored his hand. “I’ll decide after I see him.”

  He dropped his hand and sighed. “That’s fair enough. It’s not as bad as it looks.”

  We left the stairwell and walked the endless corridors until we came to a stop at a door. I hesitated outside, scared of what I would find inside.

  “He’s inside,” Drew said. “The doctor should be finished with him, and he’s free to go. I told him I’d drop him home afterward but then thought better of it and called you. I saw you were his emergency contact on the form the hospital had me fill out for him.”

  I nodded. I could appreciate him calling me although I wasn’t too much in a generous mood. “Thanks for calling me.”

  “It’s the least I could do.” He started to walk away before turning back to me. “I’m sorry about all this.”

  I nodded, still pausing outside the door when he was gone. I took a deep breath and prepared myself for what I would find. I pushed the door open and found Beau sitting at the edge of the hospital bed. He glanced up when the door opened, and his eyes filled with relief. My heart fragmented at the sight of him. He had a nasty bruise above his right eye which broadcasted stitches. He also had a shiner on his chin, and the right corner of his lip was swollen.

  “Oh God, baby,” I cried and reduced the space between us. He stood and I enveloped him in a hug.

  He moaned in pain. “Be careful. My ribs took most of the impact.”

  I ran my hands down his side and felt the bandages then. I pulled back not wanting to hurt him. Plunging my fingers in his hair, I kissed his face, being gentle with his lips and the bruise on his temple.

  “I’ll fucking kill him,” I murmured.

  He clutched the front of my shirt and rested his head against my chest. “You’ll do no such thing. Physical wounds heal. It’s the emotional ones that we should take care with. How are you doing?”

  I stared down at his head in disbelief. “How am I doing? You’re the one who just got beat up by the man I considered my best friend.”

  He tilted his head to peer up at me. “Exactly. Your best friend. That must be hard on you.”

  I swallowed the lump in my throat. “Yes, it hurts. I didn’t expect him to accept it right away, but he blew it out of proportion. I don’t think I could ever forgive him for what he did to us— to you.”

  “I’ve survived worse. Even worse than what I already told you.” He gave me a quizzical look, but I shook my head. “We’ll talk about that some other time. Can we just go home?”

  “You’re free to go?”

  “Yeah. As I said, it’s nothing too serious. Just a few bruised ribs and a fat lip. Hope you don’t mind kissing a man with a fat lip.”

  I kissed him then, rubbing my lips softly over his not to irritate his wound. “There, you have your answer.”

  I walked him from the hospital to my truck, keeping an arm around his waist to support him. I helped him inside then got behind the steering wheel.

  “Do you want to go back to my place or yours?” I asked him.

  “Mine, please.”

  Once in the truck, I didn’t know what to say. “I’m sorry,” I croaked. “If I hadn�
��t introduced you two, you wouldn’t be hurting now.”

  He reached across the console and grabbed my hand, sliding his fingers between each of mine. “It’s not your fault. You can’t blame yourself for somebody’s actions.”

  Fifteen minutes later we entered his apartment, hoping to put this night behind us. I couldn’t resist hugging him again as soon as the door was closed behind us and we were alone. He had acted so calmly since I picked him up, but now we were alone I could feel him unraveling against me.

  “Do you want to go to bed?” I asked him.

  “Can you run me a bath first?”

  I nodded. “Okay.”

  I left him in the bedroom to fill up the tub. While the water was running, I went to check on him and found him sitting on the bed, staring at his feet. His face looked pale.

  “I need some help getting undressed.”

  “Okay.”

  I was trying hard to make the night better by not bringing up what had happened to us. However, each wince he took, I wanted to go find Eric and nail his ass to the ground. I helped Beau remove his trainers and had him stand to assist him out of his jeans and underwear. Everything went fine until I lifted his shirt and saw the bruises on his body, his collarbone and chest. I was sure the wrap around his ribs hid more injuries.

  “Fuck!” I exclaimed in disgust that someone I once called a friend would do this. I ran my fingertips lightly over his wounds. “Oh God Beau, I can’t let this go.”

  He reached up to grab my hands and bring them to his lips to kiss. “You have to. For me. I can’t afford for the school to know about this. Even when we were wronged. If they ended my contract, I have only so much time in the country before I’d have to return to France. I’d have to leave you.”

  “Damn!” It hurt more knowing I would have to let this evil slide. I couldn’t risk Beau losing his job. If I forced the issue for disciplinary action to be taken against Eric and his friends, everything about my relationship to Beau would come out. The kids would find out in the worst way. Given the treatment we got today, the community may be divided and only think we got what we deserved. I’d never felt so helpless in all my life, and it frustrated me.

  “Are you sure you should be taking off the bandages?” I asked him when he unwrapped the gauze around his stomach.

  “Don’t worry. I know how to set it back after my bath.”

  He dropped the gauze onto the bed, and at the sight of the mass of ugly bruises on his naked body, I had the urge to howl and cry.

  “Aren’t you joining me?” he asked.

  I shook my head at him, glancing away, so he didn’t see my tears and how shook up I was. “Go ahead. If you need any help, just call.”

  As soon as the bathroom door clicked to a close, I sank onto the bed and buried my face in my hands to muffle my sobs. Seeing him like this hurt. A mixture of emotions crippled me. Fuck, why did it have to hurt to love him? How long would we have to face this kind of disdain from others before they accepted us, and would we ever be accepted?

  Could the delicate flower of our newfound love bloom when it was being choked by the weeds of hatred around us?

  Chapter 21

  Beau

  “Beau, Beau wake up, honey. You’re scaring me.”

  I shuddered out of my nightmare to find myself in Gordon’s arms. My heart thudded so hard it hurt. My face was tear-soaked, and I was trembling. It was too much for me now. I broke down, burrowing closer to him. I wrapped my arms around him and buried my face in his chest. The tears I had worked so hard to hold back for the past four days found release.

  “It’s okay,” he mumbled. “You’re okay. I’ve got you.”

  I could feel how much he had me. Since his friend had handcuffed me and beaten the crap out of me four days ago, he was always around. I had taken the days off from work with a note from the doctor to give my ribs time to heal. His kids were back at school, but he’d left someone named Glenna in charge at his trucking business so that he could be at my beck and call. Because he was always around, I rarely ever had the chance to relax and let it out alone. I pretended everything was okay because I didn’t want to alarm him. But everything was far from fine.

  The nightmares were back. Before Gordon shook me awake, I had been back in England, Ian’s hands around my neck, as I lay broken and bleeding. I thought I was over it but not. It had been so real. Instead of Gordon’s love, what I had felt was my fear, and all because his friend had reminded me what it meant to be helpless and broken before another person.

  I hated myself for being so weak. I should be tougher than this. I’d tried to be tougher, so Gordon didn’t have to question what was wrong with me. Maybe it was finally time he learned the truth. The whole truth. While I’d never faced the discrimination I had from Eric, I had felt fear and hatred from the man I had loved at the time.

  Eventually, I calmed down enough for the tears to stop. I lay against him spent while he stroked my back. The bandage had been removed from my ribs which were healing just fine. My face was almost back to normal as well, and tomorrow I would be showing up for work. Afterward, I’d work vigorously with the drama group at the community center to make up for the days we had missed. Physically everything seemed to be healing, but it was inside that was broken.

  “You were screaming,” Gordon whispered, dropping a kiss on my forehead. “Want to talk about it?”

  I sighed and moved away from him to lie on my back. “Turn off the lights.”

  “What?”

  “Please. I’ll feel less naked talking to you about it.”

  He sighed but complied and turned off the bedside lamp. He lay back down next to me, feeling between us for my hand. I never knew how much I needed that touch until he did it. It was amazing how thoughtful he could be.

  “I know I’ve said this like a dozen times since it happened,” he whispered in the dark. “I’m sorry about Eric, that I let him hurt you. I brought you into the situation. He was my friend, and I should have known what he was like. I swear to you I didn’t know.”

  I squeezed his hand to reassure him. “You have to stop apologizing for that, Gordon. It wasn’t our fault.”

  “For all my life I was afraid of this same thing happening. That’s why I took the easy way out and married Barbara.”

  “Don’t worry. It doesn’t change the way I feel about you.” I forced the words out past the panic that threatened to close up my windpipe. “You tried to protect me. Ian was the opposite.”

  I paused, waiting for his reaction but he was silent. I couldn’t read his body language. He stiffened beside me, holding his breath for a few seconds before he let the breath out in a slow and controlled manner.

  “I told you I never hid that I was gay while I was growing up,” I continued, starting over from the beginning. “My dad was the hardest to come around, but eventually he did, and they loved me regardless.”

  “I wish I knew how my mother would react. You’re lucky to have open-minded parents.”

  “Yes, I was lucky, but I didn’t appreciate it.” I sighed and stared straight ahead in the dark, the memories returning. “I should have never been in the situation I ended up in with Ian.”

  “Go on,” he said when I paused for breath.

  “I fell in love with him. I thought he was the greatest guy ever. He treated me well, bought me gifts, took me out, showed me around London. We flew to Thailand, France. I felt alive with him.”

  “You told me about this before, Beau.” His tone was terse. "Is there a reason we're rehashing this?"

  “The physical abuse was bad," I answered. "Real bad. He put me in the hospital a couple of times and swore each time was the last.”

  “Shit.”

  “The last time he picked a fight, it was bad. I had cracked ribs, a concussion and while I was unconscious, he used me in the worst possible way. When I couldn't have consented. I was too humiliated to press charges. I woke up in the hospital broken and feeling like shit. The other night when Eric had
me hand-cuffed, it brought back everything to me. I’d never been so scared in my whole life.”

  Gordon scuttled over close to me, lying on his side. He brought a hand up to my face in the dark and leaned forward to kiss me. His mouth connected with my nose.

  “It’s okay to feel scared,” he told me. “I was scared to leave you alone with Eric. I didn’t know what he would do to you.”

  “That’s not just it,” I said, taking a deep breath before I told him the rest. “That day when you slammed Eric in the wall for coming after me, I’d never seen you so angry before. You-you reminded me of Ian.”

  When he moved away from me, I squeezed my eyes shut. I would surely lose him after being honest with him about that. Instead, he turned on the light and joined me on the bed again. He straddled my hips, and I stared up at him and how sober he looked.

  “Are you taking a good look at me, Beau?” he asked.

  “Yeah.”

  “Good, because I’m nothing like Ian. I’d never hit you. I'd never force myself on you.”

  “And I know that,” I answered, clutching at his thighs. “Deep down I do, but it just popped into my head that there’s so much power in you.”

  “I don’t want to be in control of you, Beau. I want us to be equals.”

  He leaned forward and kissed me. I melted beneath him, wrapping my arms around him and pulling him down.

  “I don’t want to hurt your ribs,” he said, staring into my eyes. “I also want you to make love to me.”

  The meaning of his words took a while to sink in but then he switched our position, so he was lying flat on his back. He reached for his underwear and tugged it off before I could say anything to him.

  “Are you sure?” I asked him, though my blood was already running hot to see him naked and waiting to give himself to me.

  He nodded. “Yeah, I want you to.”

  I tugged off my shirt and underpants, rolling over to my side of the bed to get the lube and condom. I returned to Gordon and dropped the items beside him on the covers.

  “Gordon.” I kissed his neck, running my hands over his broad shoulders. He didn’t have an ounce of fat on him, and I enjoyed the feel of his muscles.