Pick Up the Pieces

by Tinnean

  And afterward, I’d have professionals come in to make sure everything was up to code.

  I handed him a spare key for the attic apartment.

  “By the way, do you have the paperwork on that tenant?”

  “Yes. I don’t throw away anything. But I don’t think it will do you any good. Didn’t I tell you we tried to find her?”

  “Let me give it a shot, okay?” He gave me a lazy smile.

  “Okay.” I shrugged on my suit jacket. “Ready? Then let’s get going.”

  PAUL THOUGHT it was a good idea when I brought it up to him the next day, so after I left the hospital, I drove directly home and went into my office.

  I had just found the paperwork Wills said he wanted—I really didn’t know how he’d succeed when our private investigator hadn’t—when there was a tap on the front door.

  “It’s me, babe. I’m just going up to the attic to take some measurements.”

  “Wait!” But he must not have heard me, because by the time I got out onto the landing, all I could see of him was his lower body as he mounted the stairs.

  “Oh, my God!” The words came out in a reverent whisper. He wore jeans almost white from wear. They hugged his hips and thighs and molded to his ass. Work boots were on his feet, but what had my cock at attention was the tool belt that hung low on his hips.

  Who’d have thought I’d have a weakness for construction workers?

  I ducked back into the apartment and ran to the bedroom for a tube of lube and a handful of condoms.

  We might not use them all, but I sure as hell intended to try.

  I WAS surprised at how often Wills came by after work, often not even stopping at his apartment to change. Sometimes I’d make him dinner, sometimes we’d go out, but always after we would have sex. He’d catch forty winks—I loved watching as he slept in my arms; he had the thickest, softest hair—and then he’d dress, kiss me good night, and drive himself home.

  “Babe,” I said one night as he was getting back into one of those nothing-special suits, “wouldn’t it be easier if you left from here in the morning?”

  He paused, the ends of his ordinary tie in each hand. “Are you asking me to—”

  “Leave a change of clothes, okay? I have spare hangers in my closet, and I can make some space in a drawer for socks and underwear. What do you say?”

  “Sure, Theo.” His smile was crooked, and he went back to knotting his tie. “That sounds like a good idea.”

  HE DIDN’T stay over very often, though. I liked it when he did. Making breakfast in the morning, having it with him at the breakfast bar…. It felt domestic.

  This was one of those nights. “That son of a bitch took my parking spot again,” he groused after I’d opened the door for him and he’d kissed me.

  “I hope you didn’t have to park six blocks away again.”

  “Nah. There was a space a few doors down. Someone else will have to park six blocks away.” He hung his jacket in the closet, took off his shoulder holster, wrapped it around his gun and placed it on the upper shelf, then loosened his tie and helped me set the dining room table.

  I was determined to dazzle him with my culinary brilliance, and I’d made dinner for him, one of my mother’s recipes. He ate with obvious enjoyment.

  “Can you stay over tonight, baby?” I asked as we brought the empty dishes into the kitchen.

  “You’ll have to set the alarm. Tomorrow’s a work day.”

  “That works for me.” I finished putting the dishes in the dishwasher. I’d been thinking about this for some time. I loved fucking him, but… I licked my lips. “How would you feel about—”

  “Watching some TV, popping some popcorn?”

  I smiled at him. “That isn’t exactly what I was going to say.”

  “Oh, no?” He gave me the grin that always did funny things to my insides. “What did you have in mind? As if I didn’t know.” He began unbuttoning his shirt.

  “Fuck me, babe.”

  Wills looked surprised. I’d always fucked him, and he seemed happy with that, but we’d been seeing each other for about four weeks now, a long time in rent-boy terms, and I wanted this. Okay, I wanted to show off a little too, wanted him to know how good I was, why I brought down the big bucks.

  He backed me against the sink, running his hands from my waist to my hair. “Are you… are you sure?”

  I stroked his cheek. He needed to shave, but I wasn’t going to interrupt the moment to tell him that. “I’m sure, Wills.”

  He threaded his fingers through my hair. “You’ll tell me if I do something you don’t like?”

  “You’ll be the first to know.”

  He kissed me. He tilted my head first one way, then the other, for the first time becoming really aggressive.

  I shivered and sank into the kiss.

  “Babe. Oh, babe.” He buried his face against the side of my neck. “I….”

  “Let’s get naked.” I tried to step around him, but he tightened his arms around me for a long second. “Wills?”

  “Yeah.” He let me go, his eyes bright and excited.

  I yanked my shirt off, not even bothering with the buttons, and tossed it aside.

  Wills’s tie and shirt joined it.

  Paul was still in the hospital, and Spike was with him. I laughed to myself. If Spike decided to come home tonight, he’d find a trail of clothes leading from the kitchen down the hallway to my bedroom.

  I turned down the bed, stacked pillows in the center, and draped myself over them. I spread my legs and glanced at him over my shoulder. The skin over his cheekbones was tight, colored with a flush. “Don’t keep me waiting, baby.”

  Wills took his time preparing me, in spite of me urging him to speed things up. He rolled on the condom himself. He had a nice-sized cock, good length and girth. He positioned his cock at my hole, there was the briefest resistance, and then he slid all the way into me.

  I wished he didn’t need to wear a condom. I’d always tested clean, but after realizing the risks I’d taken before arriving in DC, I’d never been tempted to not use a condom. The thought of… of my lover taking me bareback drove me closer to the edge. Maybe in a few months….

  He talked to me and stroked and petted me, and I wondered foggily if he was trying to shove out all the other men who’d ever been in bed with me, to make sure I knew who was fucking me.

  I’d been fucked since I was fifteen, by more men than I sometimes could remember. Why did this feel so different?

  “Come for me, Theo,” he whispered, his voice a hoarse cross between a growl and a groan, his breath warm in my ear.

  I never came without touching myself, but this time I did. He couldn’t catch it all, and it splattered over my chest and abdomen.

  After he came, he disposed of the condom, then turned me over and licked me clean.

  When the aftershocks subsided and I finally caught my breath, I managed to say, “That was great, Wills! You were great!”

  I could feel his smile against my collarbone. “No applause, just….”

  We fell asleep. He draped himself over me like a blanket, and although we might have moved in our sleep, we stayed wrapped around each other.

  SOMETIME IN the early hours of the morning, I woke to find him making love to me again, this time holding our cocks in his slicked hands. “I like it like this, babe,” he whispered. “I like being able to look in your eyes.” He stared into my eyes as he stroked up and gave a little twist that teased my foreskin, and I gasped and thrust into his grip as he reversed his movement.

  “Wills.” His name was a whisper on my lips, “Oh God, Wills!”

  “I’ve got you, baby.” He lowered his head at the same time I arched mine up, and our lips met. This time, our lovemaking was slow and languid, with none of the earlier frenzy.

  This time, when he fell asleep, I did something I hadn’t done in twelve years. I whispered, “I love you, Wills.”

  Chapter 16

  WILLS WAS up befo
re the alarm went off. He was quiet, but without him in my arms, I woke up anyway. He was heading toward the bathroom.

  I could still feel what he’d done to me, and if he’d been a paying customer, I would have cheerfully refunded his money and tipped him as well.

  The shower went on, and I rolled out of bed, intending to join him. As I neared the door, I heard him singing, something about being in love perchance, and I came to a halt. The song was one of those old standards he seemed to like so much, and he sang it with such heart, his voice curling around the words, caressing them.

  Could it mean he… cared… about me beyond being a good time in bed?

  No, I was reaching, but…. What would it be like to have him here always, to wake every morning to the sound of the shower running and my lover—

  My lover. I went back to the bed, picked up his pillow, and stroked it, bringing it to my face to inhale his scent, a combination of his aftershave and him.

  He came out of the bathroom, a towel around his hips, and I wanted to strip it off, tumble him back onto the bed, and take him into my body again.

  He needed to get ready for work, I reminded myself.

  “Tell me something, babe. How’d you get that bullet scar on your butt?”

  When I’d asked about the long, curving one on his back, he had gotten that closed-off look for a second, but it had vanished so fast I wasn’t sure I had seen it. “Car accident, babe.” And he wouldn’t say anything else about it.

  I wasn’t sure if he would tell me about the scar on his butt, but he laughed softly.

  “I didn’t think my question was particularly funny.”

  “I’m sorry. It’s just… it isn’t a bullet scar. It’s from a nail gun.”

  “Ouch!”

  “Yeah, that was my reaction. I worked construction during summer vacations until I graduated from college.” He’d fixed the damage in the attic apartment and done some additional wiring, the job so professional that the electrician I’d called in to make sure it was up to code had been impressed.

  Wills wasn’t aware of it, but the sight of those 501 jeans clinging to his ass and thighs had been the cause of me unbuckling his tool belt, lowering those jeans, and fucking him over a stool—one of the few remaining pieces of furniture that hadn’t been destroyed.

  I shivered from the remembered heat of the act, of the moment.

  Wills dropped the towel and began to dress.

  “Mmm, so that’s how you got these nice muscles.” I draped myself over his back, nuzzling and nibbling my way across the firm flesh.

  “Right.”

  “Tell me about it?”

  He turned his head, grinned, and shrugged. “This happened just before the start of my sophomore year in college. As I mentioned, it was my uncle’s company, and all the cousins worked for him at one time or another, and we learned the various trades. Uncle Jake won the bid on a single-family housing development, and we were framing out the first six houses. My cousin Harry thought I was paying too much attention to the girl who was running the electrical wire, so—”

  “A girl, Wills?”

  “Well, yeah. Uncle Jake has always been an equal-opportunity employer. Didn’t matter if you were male or female. As long as you could do the job, you had the job.”

  “That’s nice, babe, but what I meant was… you dated girls?”

  “Yep.”

  Well, of course he’d dated girls. He was bisexual. I’d had bisexual johns who’d been seeing women at the same time they were seeing me.

  “Um… do you still date girls?” I was stunned to hear the words come out of my mouth. I never questioned a john about his private life, but that was the problem: Wills wasn’t a john. He was a… a boyfriend. I’d never had a boyfriend, in spite of what I’d thought those first couple of months when I’d lived with Franky, and I had no idea how to act in a relationship.

  “Theo, in case it escaped your notice, I’m dating you right now.”

  Yeah, he was. Stop making waves, you idiot! If Wills wanted to be exclusive with me…. I dropped the subject.

  “You’ll come by for dinner?” I asked as he was about to walk out the door.

  “If I can. I’ll call, okay?” He came back and kissed me.

  I COULDN’T remember an April when I’d been so happy. Maybe 2002 was going to turn out to be a good year.

  Instead of going back to bed as I would have B.W.—Before Wills—I went into the bathroom and showered. It was still humid from his shower, and the moisture seemed to wrap around me. I adjusted the showerhead, leaned against the tiled wall, and let the water mist down on me. I stroked my cock, imagining it was his hand on me, his cock and not my finger in me.

  My orgasm wasn’t nearly as shattering as the two I’d had the night before, but Wills would be back tonight, and then we’d do it again.

  I finished showering, and as I dried off, I decided today would be a good day to have my torso waxed. It had been a while, and Wills would be bound to notice the stubble growing out, if he hadn’t already. Very observant, was my Wills.

  I laughed at how besotted I was, but I loved it. I… loved… him. I sang what words I could remember of the song Wills had crooned earlier in the shower, making up the ones I couldn’t remember.

  It was a good thing Spike had spent the night in the hospital with Paul. Singing wasn’t my forte, although I’d been pretty good at the chants in church.

  I practically danced down the stairs. While I was at it, I decided to pick up a nice rib roast for dinner, and a red wine. And fresh vegetables. And some flowers. Most of the spring flowers were in bloom, and there was a little florist just down the street from the mom-and-pop shop I bought produce from.

  A few hours later, my chest and ass smooth and my arms filled with grocery bags, I let myself into the house. The ladies downstairs had left our mail on the console table in the entryway. Most of it was junk mail, but there was also a business envelope addressed to Mr. Paul Stark. It didn’t have a return address. I tucked the mail into one of the bags and climbed the stairs to the third floor, where I juggled the bags while I unlocked the door.

  Finally I was able to push it open and enter the apartment.

  It was as empty as it had been earlier. Spike must still be at the hospital. I’d have to bring him a change of clothes if he was going to stay there again tonight.

  Not that that was a bad thing. Wills and I would have the apartment to ourselves again. Maybe we’d make love in the living room. Or maybe in my office. We’d play executive and personal assistant, and I’d bend Wills over the desk and fuck him senseless.

  I went into the kitchen to put the roast and the vegetables in the fridge and the wine on the counter—it would go in the fridge to chill just before dinner—and took a vase out from under the sink. I filled it with water and placed the tulips and daffodils in it. I’d arrange them later.

  I decided I’d better call Spike to see what he was doing and let Paul know he had mail. That was when I saw the light on the answering machine was blinking. I pressed the button to retrieve the message.

  “Hi, Theo. It’s me.” My heart did that beat-skipping thing again at the sound of my lover’s voice. “Um… I can’t make it tonight. I’ll call you, okay?”

  Well, although he hadn’t done it often, he had had to cancel before. It was no biggie. But why hadn’t he called my cell phone? I pulled it out and flipped it open. No bars. Damn. The battery needed to be recharged. I plugged it in and called Wills.

  I got his machine. “This is Matheson. You know the drill. Go.” He sounded so macho, and I shivered.

  “Hi, babe, it’s me. Damn, I guess I missed you. Give me a call when you get this, okay?” I hung up and then called the hospital.

  “White House, this is Dubya speaking.”

  What the hell? “Spike, is that you?”

  “Oh, hey, Sweets. Guess what? Paul should be able to come home in a couple of days.”

  “That’s awesome!” No wonder why he sounded so
giddy. “Are you staying again tonight?”

  “Yeah, I think I will. Are you coming up, or does lover boy have you tied up again?”

  “Smartass. Wills does not tie me up. However, I will be right up. Paul’s got some mail. Let him know, okay? Do you want me to bring you some clean clothes?”

  “Would you, Sweets? Thanks.”

  “No problem. Do you want anything in particular?”

  “My black Lee jeans and the Philadelphia Eagles sweatshirt.”

  “Anything else?”

  “No, that’s it.”

  “Okay, see you in a bit. And tell Paul I’m really glad he’ll be home soon.”

  We hung up, and I went to the bedroom Spike shared with Paul, took a duffel from the closet, and found the clothes he’d requested. I also packed some underwear.

  “SO WHAT’S this about mail?” Paul asked after I’d handed Spike the duffel. “Did I win the Publishers Clearing House?”

  “In your dreams. Here.” I gave him the envelope and made myself comfortable in a spare chair one of the nurses had brought in.

  “There’s no return address.”

  “I noticed that.”

  “Do you think it will explode if I open it?”

  “No way to tell until you do,” I said innocently.

  Paul flipped me off and then stuck his thumb under the flap, worked it open, and took out what seemed like an innocuous slip of paper. “Holy hell!”

  I was on my feet and rushing toward him. “What is it?”

  “It’s a cashier’s check.” He looked up at me, stunned. “For fifteen hundred dollars.”

  Vince had said he’d see Paul got paid. I had no doubt he was behind this, and I’d ask him about it the next time I saw him. I wasn’t sure he would answer me, but I’d ask.

  “What do you want to do with it?”

  “Would you cash it for me?”

  “You’ve got it, babe. Sign it, and I’ll stop at the bank first thing tomorrow afternoon.” I wouldn’t be working, but going to bed late and getting up even later was a hard habit to break.