Suddenly Yours

by Jacob Z. Flores

  “I don’t think someone’s called me a butthead since middle school.”

  Cody snorted. “Not to your face.”

  Julian couldn’t help but laugh. Cody was more than likely right about that.

  “Are you going to try for sleep now?”

  Julian nodded even though Cody couldn’t see him. “Yeah. I’m tired, but I don’t know if I can drift off just yet. I was hoping hearing your voice might help.” As soon as the words left his mouth, he tensed. Why had he said that?

  “Well, I have something that might help with that.” Muffled sounds echoed on the other end of the phone.

  “What are you doing?”

  “Getting in bed,” Cody answered. “Naked.”

  Julian liked where this was going. “Hold on.” Two seconds later he was out of his clothes, his phone in one hand and himself in the other. “You were saying.”

  “You have your iPad with you?”

  Well, that hadn’t been what he’d been expecting. “Um, yeah. Why?”

  “Where is it?”

  Julian eyed the device on the nightstand next to him. “Right here. Why?”

  “Open it.”

  An impish grin danced across his lips. Had Cody left him a naughty surprise? He was the best husband ever. Julian snatched the device off his nightstand and switched it on. He quickly flicked through the pictures in his photo album, where not one naked picture of Cody graced his screen. “I’m not finding anything.”

  “Go to the Movies app.”

  If Julian were any happier, it would be Christmas. He’d never been a fan of lovers taking explicit videos of themselves, but that had been before he married Cody. He opened up the app and found a movie file uploaded to his device. His cock throbbed. “You didn’t?”

  “I did.” The grin in Cody’s voice couldn’t be more obvious. “Don’t open it yet. We have to do it at the same time.”

  “Why?”

  “We’re going to watch together.”

  Now Julian was completely confused. Why would Cody want to watch a video of himself posing naked or jerking off? “You’ve lost me.”

  “You’ll see in just a moment.” Cody huffed on the other end as he no doubt reached for his iPad. “Okay. Start the video.”

  As soon as Julian did, he was greeted with a poor-quality recording of some show he’d never seen before. “What is this? Who are these people?”

  “It’s Days of Our Lives,” Cody replied, as if the answer were obvious. “But it’s an old arc. I figured you needed to get caught up on some of the basics before you plunge into the current storyline.”

  Julian groaned on the phone. “You didn’t have to.”

  “Oh, shut it. Okay, that woman is Marlena Evans. We love her.”

  “Even though she’s trying to kill that man?”

  “That’s Doug Williams, her good friend.”

  “Why is she trying to kill him if he’s her good friend?”

  “She’s a serial killer.”

  Julian rolled his eyes. “Why the hell am I supposed to love a serial killer? This soap opera is ridiculous!”

  “She’s not really killing these people. Everyone thinks she is, but they’re all alive, whisked away to a private island by the bad guy, who is trying to destroy Marlena and her husband, John.”

  This plot was getting more absurd by the moment. “That makes no sense.”

  “Will you just shut up and watch? I’ve spliced together footage of this storyline for you. It’s one of their best plotlines of all time.”

  Julian seriously doubted that. What he didn’t doubt was this show’s ability to put him to sleep, so he set the iPad on the mattress, lay back on the bed, and waited for sleep to claim him.

  An hour later Julian’s heartbeat raced in his ears. “Holy shit! They just shot Marlena!”

  “I know!” Cody screamed from the other side.

  “She can’t be dead. Please tell me she’s not dead. John wouldn’t let her die.”

  “Keep watching.”

  “I’m never going to get to sleep. You know that, don’t you?”

  Cody chuckled. “Now you know why I love this show!”

  Julian wasn’t quite ready to make that claim yet. If he did, he’d never hear the end of it. “It’s okay.”

  “You love it. Admit it.”

  He didn’t love the show. Cody, on the other hand—

  Julian sat up in bed. An eerie chill settled across his body. “Um. I’m really tired now. I need to get some sleep.”

  “Oh. My. God. You’ll do anything to admit you don’t love this show.”

  Julian let out a fake yawn. “I really need to sleep. Long day tomorrow.”

  “Fine,” Cody grumbled. “But we’ll watch it some more later. Okay?”

  “We’ll see.” He tossed his iPad off the bed as if it were possessed. “I’m gonna be pretty busy the next few days.”

  “Are you still coming home on Sunday?”

  That had been the plan, but right now he needed some space. The walls were closing in around him. “I may have to stay longer.”

  “How much longer?” The disappointment in Cody’s voice couldn’t have been more apparent. It worried Julian.

  “A few more days at least. Maybe a week.”

  “A week?”

  The tone of Cody’s voice made his chest tighten. Julian didn’t enjoy the feeling. “I’ll let you know more tomorrow.”

  Cody sighed. “Okay. I just miss you.”

  Julian gripped his phone so tightly the casing popped. This couldn’t be happening. Not again. “Thanks. I’m really beat, so I’ll talk to you tomorrow.”

  He ended the call before he got a response.

  It was an asshole move, he knew that, but what else could he do? Everything that had once been clear had muddied. He had to clean things up and get some perspective. That was the only way to deal with whatever was going on. When his world had righted itself, he could deal with Cody and redirect them both onto the path of certainty they had somehow deviated from.

  Chapter Fourteen

  OVER the past week, Julian had accomplished a great deal of work in his office at the Capitol. He’d made progress on his immigration bill, winning over a few more needed votes, and he’d stayed on top of his campaign, which was still going strong.

  All that work kept him from dwelling on Cody.

  Every time Julian’s mind drifted back to his first night in DC, when he’d allowed his thoughts and emotions to get away from him, his shoulders tensed and a pit opened up in his stomach.

  What had he been thinking?

  That was exactly it. He hadn’t been thinking. He’d allowed himself to get caught up in the moment—no, in the moments he and Cody had shared over the past few months. He had invested so much energy into convincing Cody that they were good for each other, that they could make this marriage work, that he’d foolishly fallen into the trap of creating some impossible ideal for the two of them.

  That explained why Cody sounded, well, why he sounded so disappointed and lonely. It also explained how Julian had allowed himself to become someone he wasn’t. Never in his life had he pursued a man the way he had chased Cody. Over the past few months, he’d practically dedicated every waking moment to being the kind of man Cody would stay married to instead of being the man he had always been.

  Cody had been right. Julian had created something that was too perfect. Building a future on such lofty foundations basically amounted to constructing castles in the sky. They wouldn’t last.

  He saw the error of his ways now, and Cody had been smart enough to see that and to point it out to him. Now they had to fix it. They had to return to the original parameters they had agreed to. That was the only way this marriage would work for them both.

  “Senator Canales?”

  His secretary’s voice pulled him out of his thoughts and toward where she stood at his open door. “Yes, Sarah?”

  “Mr. Hughes from Senator Whitmore’s office is here to see
you.”

  “Great. Show him in.” He took a deep breath and blew all his troubles from his body. A distraction was exactly what he needed. He couldn’t afford to lose focus now. If Karsten was here, that meant he had an answer from Senator Whitmore on the upcoming vote on his bill. His problems at home could wait. Besides, he could figure out this mess with Cody on the flight back to San Diego later this afternoon.

  “Hey, stranger.” Karsten strolled into his office as if he owned the place, which irritated Julian’s secretary to no end. She believed Karsten should show a bit more respect for Julian. Julian couldn’t agree more—he was just smart enough to realize that was never going to happen. When Karsten looked at him, he saw the college kid who was trying to make a name for himself and not the senator he’d grown up to be.

  Karsten plopped himself down on the leatherback chair and propped his feet up on Julian’s mahogany desk. “How’s married life?”

  That definitely wasn’t a subject he wished to discuss right now. “Off.” He swatted Karsten’s feet from the desktop. “You know I hate when you do that.”

  “Why else do you think I do it?”

  “So has your boss come to his senses yet? Will I have his support?”

  “Against my better judgment, yes, you will.”

  Although Julian was pleased to hear his bill would get the votes it needed to pass, Karsten’s answer worried him. “You tried to talk him out of it?”

  “Sure did.”

  “What the hell for? You know how much that bill means to me.”

  Karsten cast him a blank stare. “To you? Yes. That doesn’t mean it’s important to me or what I think is vital to Whitmore’s reelection.” He leaned back in the chair, resting his hands on the back of his head. “Personally, I think crossing the aisle on this bill will hurt Whitmore more than help, but he’s convinced aligning with you might actually help him with his reelection.”

  “Why does he think that?”

  “Well, you’ve cultivated quite the public image since your nuptials. Whitmore is hoping to ride those coattails of yours.”

  What the hell was Karsten talking about now? “You’ve lost me.”

  “I’m not surprised. You’ve always been a bit clueless, Alicia.”

  Julian hated when Karsten called him that name. It was a reference to Alicia Silverstone’s character in Clueless, a movie Karsten had forced him to watch in college. “Less Amber and more Tai.”

  Karsten grinned broadly. He always enjoyed his movie references parroted back to him. “Look, when you got married, few people bought the act you were putting on. Anyone who knows you knows you don’t do shit without thinking about it for years. Hell, you and Blane dated for two years and were engaged another two before you split.”

  “What’s your point?”

  “The point is that when you were suddenly married in Vegas, most of us thought it was a publicity stunt Adria devised for your reelection. It certainly addressed all the public’s concerns with electing a single gay man into the Senate for another term, especially considering your opponent.”

  Julian had grown tired of hearing that argument. Many had claimed that if he and Blane had called off their engagement before the first election, Julian never would have won. Spencer loved that sound bite and repeated it every chance he got. “Marrying Cody had nothing to do with publicity.”

  “I know that. Now,” Karsten said with one firm nod.

  “What makes now any different from then?”

  Karsten snorted. “Are you kidding me? Have you not been reading the papers?”

  Of course he did. He read the important articles on the world and the economy. He didn’t pay attention to what reporters had to say about his private life. That was Adria’s job. If an image problem cropped up, she dealt with it. That was what he paid her for.

  “The public has been eating up your romance. Who doesn’t fall for a political figure who is clearly in love with his new spouse? They’ve been devouring that shit by the truckload.”

  “What the hell are you talking about?”

  Karsten rolled his eyes. “I can’t open up a damn paper without reading about you and Cody moving in together, or going out to the movies, or what was it last week?” He scratched his chin. “Oh yeah, going out for ice cream and fawning all over each other in public. It’s been so saccharine I’m just about diabetic.”

  All that had been in the papers?

  Karsten wiped a pretend tear from his eyes. “It’s been so beautiful.”

  “Cody and I are not in love!”

  “Yeah, right. Not even you could fake that.” He stood up from his seat and leaned against the desk. “But can I ask you a favor?”

  Julian couldn’t answer. His throat muscles had constricted.

  “Will you please stop rubbing it in our faces? Not all of us are clearly as lucky as you.”

  Long after Karsten had left his office, Julian remained at his desk, unable to move or breathe. He had to get home to Cody, and he had to get home now.

  CODY couldn’t hate himself more if he tried. He was actually sitting in the living room, not writing, not watching television, hell, not even enjoying some good old-fashioned boy-on-boy-on-boy porn, but waiting for Julian to finally come home.

  Could he be any more pathetic? This reminded him too much of the dumbass kid he used to be, the one who waited for each stepfather to come home after they left his mother, the one who hoped beyond all hope his family wouldn’t be torn apart again.

  He just couldn’t help himself. He had to get to the bottom of Julian’s mood change, and he planned to do that tonight, when Julian got home.

  Things had been trucking along just fine, and then blam! They’d hit some invisible wall. It happened that first night on the phone. They’d been watching Days, and Julian had been enjoying every single minute of the campy melodrama, even if he refused to admit it, and then a switch suddenly flipped. He went from the laughing, kind, considerate man Cody had grown to know and transformed back into the closed-off, businesslike person he first met in the bar in Vegas.

  The shift had been so jarring it gave Cody whiplash.

  He had chalked it up to Julian’s exhaustion from travel and work, but that didn’t explain the awkward phone conversations that followed. They still caught each other up on the events of their days, but it had turned into more of a report than the playful banter they’d previously enjoyed.

  The suffocating waters of anxiety, which had plagued him ever since that night, suddenly threatened to drown him. He picked up one of the throw pillows from the couch and screamed into it.

  Afterward, he felt more at ease and less like a hot mess. How the hell had he allowed this to happen to him? He had to get a grip. He had to remember all the rational, logical conclusions he’d come to last night. They had no basis in emotion or hysteria.

  Julian wasn’t going to leave him, not after putting as much effort into their marriage as he had. Cody hadn’t known Julian for long, but he did know this: Julian only ever pursued something he truly wanted, and ever since Julian had remembered he had been the one who proposed, Julian had pursued him in a way Cody had never been chased before.

  It made him feel wanted, safe.

  He had been the one to disturb all that with their argument about being real, about Julian needing to stop being so damn perfect. Julian had clearly taken him up on that challenge. He was letting his guard down, allowing Cody to see all the faults just the way Cody had asked him to do.

  That explained it all. It had to.

  The ringing doorbell caught his attention, and he sprinted to the front door. It had to be Julian. Who else could it be? Maybe he was trying to surprise Cody by suddenly appearing on the doorstep with a dozen roses. How sweet would that be? It certainly would make him feel better, as if he wasn’t about to be pushed out of a plane without a parachute.

  Cody flung open the front door and the huge smile that tracked across his features suddenly retreated. A man with a thick head of blon
d hair and piercing blue eyes stood in front of him. Instead of the casual shorts and tee Cody wore, this guy sported tan pants and a light blue shirt under a blue blazer. Why was he so dressed up? This was southern California, not Boston.

  “Good afternoon.” The plastic smile that stretched wide across the man’s pale features told Cody he had to be a politician friend of Julian’s. “You must be Cody.” He took a step forward and held out his hand.

  Cody gave the hand a shake. “That’s me.” He flashed the smile he reserved for Julian’s public life. “But I’m afraid Senator Canales isn’t home yet. He’s been in DC all week, but his plane should be landing in a couple of hours.”

  “Well, shoot.” A scowl even phonier than the previous smile wrinkled his lip. “And I’m off to catch a plane within the hour. I just thought I’d pop in and say hi. He and I haven’t spoken in years, and I wanted to personally offer him my congratulations on your marriage.”

  “That’s very kind.” Cody gestured for him to come inside. “Would you like a drink before you head to the airport?”

  “That sounds divine,” the man replied as he crossed the threshold.

  By the time Cody closed the door, his unexpected guest had strolled over to the bar. He took a glass from the shelf and poured amber liquid from one of the Waterford decanters. “So you must know Julian pretty well?” He motioned to the tumbler filled with scotch.

  The man took a long sip from the glass and nodded. “Yes. Extremely well.” He grabbed another glass from the shelf and poured a second drink, which he offered to Cody. Why did he suddenly feel as if he was a guest in his own house?

  “No, thanks.”

  “Suit yourself.” He poured Cody’s drink into his glass, staring at him in silent judgment the entire time. “So tell me. How did you do it?”

  “Do what?”

  “Get Julian to marry you.”

  The answer stopped Cody in his tracks. “Blane?”

  Blane tipped the glass toward him. “In the flesh.”

  Had he stumbled onto the set of Days of Our Lives without realizing it? “Why are you really here?”

  He expected Blane to throw back his head in maniacal laughter. He prepared himself for a monologue about how he was here to get his revenge by kidnapping Cody and holding him prisoner in some dungeon. He wasn’t ready for Blane’s face to twist in misery or for the suddenly wet eyes that gazed back at him. “I’m just here to get some closure, I guess.”