Pick Up the Pieces

by Tinnean

  “Listen to me, Paul. I haven’t slept in almost two days. In the past twenty-four hours, I’ve been in three different time zones, six different airports, flown four different airlines, and driven the rental car from hell.”

  Did that mean…. That had to mean he hadn’t been home! But then, who had I heard in his apartment? It hit me. His television. Lots of people had their TVs set on a timer when they were away so no one would know they were away and crooks would think someone was home and wouldn’t burgle it. Yeah, that made sense. I thought that made sense.

  Or did I just want that to be the way it was?

  Meanwhile, Wills’s voice rose, angrier than I could have imagined it. “I get home to find out I’ve been broken up with over the tele-fucking-phone, and I no longer have a lover. Now, you’re Mr. Vincent’s friend, and he would hate it like hell if I hurt you. So I’m advising you, for both our sakes, to get the fuck out of my way”—his words came in short, machine gun bursts—“because If. You. Don’t… I will go through you.”

  I opened the door—after all, I didn’t want him hurting Paul—and squinted at him. “Mr. Matheson. What do you want?”

  “I want to know why you’re throwing away what we had.”

  “All we had was some hot, sweaty sex.”

  He turned pale. “You can’t believe that.”

  That hurt him? Good. “Don’t you tell me what I can or can’t believe, you cocksucker!”

  “But I’ve never sucked your cock, have I?”

  Suddenly I was stone-cold sober. No. Not a single one of my clients had offered to blow me, so why should I have expected him to? And besides, I hadn’t wanted to take the chance of maybe turning him off to the whole gay thing.

  He shoved me backward into the apartment and followed me.

  “Hey!” What the fuck?

  “Find somewhere else to be,” he growled at Paul. “Theo’s gonna be tied up for quite some time!” He slammed the door shut and locked it.

  “What’re you doing?” I’d never seen the look in his eyes before. He’d always struck me as easygoing and laid-back, but now he looked…. I swallowed. He looked dangerous.

  “You need a bath.” He grabbed my arm and started to drag me toward the bathroom in my bedroom. “You smell like a brewery.”

  “Well, it’s your fault.” I tried to yank free. “Why couldn’t you tell me to my face if you didn’t want to… if you wanted to break up with me?”

  He stopped. “What?”

  “Vincent told me you weren’t available, but I….” I suddenly realized I couldn’t tell him I’d been to his apartment. He’d think I was some kind of psycho stalker, and no one wanted a psycho stalker for a boyfriend. I made up a quick lie. “I saw you, goddammit! You were walking away from me down Massachusetts Avenue.” I thought adding that last bit was a nice touch. “And you fucking ignored me when I called your name.” Okay, that was just stupid, but it was the best I could come up with. I just wasn’t a good liar, which was why I’d told Poppa the truth about me and the guy from my algebra class, who one of our nosy neighbors had seen me holding hands with.

  “Theo!” The lie must have been better than I thought, because he didn’t call me on it. “Did it ever occur to you that it might not have been me? Why wouldn’t I answer if you called?”

  I couldn’t face him. It was my biggest fear, that he’d found someone who hadn’t spent the past twelve years getting fucked by every Tom, Dick, and Harry who had the money. “Because of my past,” I said in low tones.

  “What? Never the fuck mind!” He stalked into the bathroom, and before I knew it, he was out again. He was like a big jungle cat coming toward me, and I couldn’t help myself. I backed away from him and would have turned and run, only he grabbed my arm, yanked me forward, and then gave me a push. “Get in the bathroom and get those clothes off!” He went to the closet.

  I stood there with my jaw hanging while he jerked open the closet doors.

  “What are you doing?”

  “Paul said you had company. He’s not in your bathroom, he’s not in your bedroom, so I’m assuming he’s hiding somewhere.”

  No one was in the closet.

  Well, of course no one was in there.

  Wills spat something that sounded like a curse. He turned on his heel and headed toward the bedroom door.

  “Wait a minute! Where are you going?”

  “I’m going to find him, beat the shit out of him, and throw him the fuck out. And then I’m going to whale the tar out of you too!”

  “What? I didn’t do anything! I wasn’t the one who cut and ran! And there’s no one else here but me and the guys. Well, me and you. You locked the guys out.”

  “Is that what you think I did? It was work, Theo. I left you a message. And what do you mean there’s no one else here? That isn’t what Paul said.”

  “He was just trying to protect me and get you to leave. The message you left wasn’t worth shit.” I’d listened to it enough that I could recite it by heart. “‘Hi, Theo. It’s me. Um… I can’t make it tonight. I’ll call you, okay?’” I made the words mocking, trying to conceal the hurt that was ripping through me all over again. “Only you fucking didn’t. What was I supposed to think?”

  “You’re an idiot, you know that, Bascopolis? You’ve known Mr. Vincent for how many years now? You know when work is involved he can be gone for weeks. That’s my job too! If you can deal with him being away, why is it such a problem with me?”

  “Because I don’t fucking love him!” I yelled. I stared at him, horrified, not even wondering how he’d learned my last name. Oh, great. I smacked myself in the head. Way to give him your heart on a platter, Bascopolis. “Oh, fuck.”

  He blinked, opened his mouth, shut it and blinked again. “So, that means what? You love me?”

  “Don’t let it bother you, Matheson. I’ll get over it.” I wished he’d leave. I was going to fall apart and start crying in a minute, and I didn’t want him to see how he’d broken my heart.

  “Yeah? You think I’ll let you?”

  “Huh?” It was my turn to blink.

  He shoved me into the bathroom and turned on the shower. “I’ve got a newsflash for you, babe. If I couldn’t get things sorted out with you….” He got my clothes off, wrinkling his nose. I’d spilled some of the retsina all over them, and… well, I hadn’t exactly changed them in a while. “I was going to make you return something of mine you’ve got. Get in.” He pointed to the shower.

  “What are you talking about?” I got in. Goddamn, the water was hot! He always did like it…. I stopped that train of thought and turned the cold faucet, making the spray more temperate. “I don’t have anything of yours.”

  “No?” In seconds he had shed his clothes and climbed into the shower with me. He bracketed my head with his arms and leaned forward to lick my lips. “My heart, Theo. You’ve got my heart.”

  Did that mean….

  Wills slid to his knees before me, nuzzled my groin, and took my cock into his mouth.

  Oh, Jesus, when had he learned to suck cock like that? I must have said something out loud, because he let my cock slip from his lips, grinned up at me, and pushed the hair back off his forehead.

  “You just assumed, babe. I was never fucked, but I sucked cock. I was damn good at it too, if….”

  I pressed my fingers against his lips. I didn’t want to hear about his other lovers. I’d never had one, just a shitload of men who had fucked me. “And you… you don’t want to break up with me?”

  “Never, Theo!” And he went back to sucking my cock.

  “Uh….” I tugged on his hair.

  He pulled off. “Now what? You’re not gonna tell me you don’t like what I’m doing.”

  “No… but….” I clapped a hand over my mouth and stared down at him, feeling absolutely miserable as my stomach started to heave, then said between my fingers, “I’m… I don’t really have a head for drinking.”

  “Ah, babe.” He rose to his feet, and at any
other time I’d have taken great pleasure in how graceful that action was, but just then all I wanted was not to embarrass myself in front of him.

  I swallowed three or four times before I had to acknowledge that I was definitely going to embarrass myself. I nearly tripped getting out of the bathtub and diving for the toilet, but somehow I didn’t fall. I yanked up the lid and seat and started to throw up.

  My nose ran, and tears streamed down my cheeks, and I just wanted to die. And then an arm came around my waist and a cool palm braced my forehead.

  “It’s okay, Theo. Let it all come out. I’ve got you.”

  Any thought I could have dredged up after that went flying out of my head. I was down for the count, and I didn’t care.

  Chapter 18

  AFTER I’D upchucked everything that was in my stomach, Wills gave me some toilet paper to blow my nose and dry my eyes.

  “Better, babe?”

  “I’m sorry. Fine welcome after you’ve been gone a month.” I threw the toilet paper in the john and flushed.

  “It’s better than being told I don’t have a boyfriend anymore.”

  “I’m sorry.”

  “How much did you have to drink?”

  “I don’t know. There was the Seagram’s.” I squinted, trying to remember. “And about half a bottle of vodka, and a couple of those little nips of Kahlúa, and most of the retsina, but Paul wouldn’t let me finish it.”

  “Jesus, Theo! You could have died of alcohol poisoning!”

  “I didn’t care. If I’d lost you….”

  “Oh, baby.” He hugged me, but he was very gentle about it. “Are you feeling any better?”

  I had to think about it for a second. “Yeah. Yeah, I am.”

  “Brush your teeth. We’ve got a little unfinished business.”

  It was a relief to get the taste of bile and Kahlúa out of my mouth. “Now what?” I asked after I’d rinsed and spit, hoping he was talking about the blow job he’d started.

  “Now you get back in the tub.”

  “Okay.” I guessed I deserved not having that fantastic mouth of his swallowing my cock. I turned the water back on—I’d been so miserable I hadn’t even noticed when Wills turned it off—climbed back into the tub, a little surprised when he climbed in with me. “Wills?”

  He grinned and sank down to his knees again.

  “THEO?”

  “Mmm?” My legs were like jelly and couldn’t bear my weight as I shook in the aftermath of the most amazing sex I’d ever had. I slid down to the bottom of the tub, landing on my ass with a thud.

  Wills… white-bread Wills… had given me a blow job to top all blow jobs, attempting to suck my brains out through my dick. Franky could have taken lessons from him!

  I shoved all thoughts of Franky out of my mind.

  Wills hadn’t come, though. He’d turned me around, careful not to upset my stomach, bent me over, and fucked me until we’d actually run out of hot water. I’d had water heaters put in for every floor, and this was the first time in all the time we’d lived here that it had been all used up.

  “C’mon, babe. You’re shivering.”

  I looked up at him and gave him a lazy grin. “Only because of what you’ve done to me. Jesus, Wills. Where’d you have the condom and lube stashed?”

  He grinned and pushed the hair out of his eyes again. “You’re pruning up.” He turned off the water and held out a hand to me.

  “You’re not gonna tell me, are you?”

  “Let me just say I used to be a Boy Scout.”

  “Really?”

  “Yes, really.” He hauled me to my feet—I’d never have thought he was that strong—and helped me out of the tub. “Let’s get you dried off, okay, babe?”

  “And then?”

  “And then could we maybe get some sleep? I haven’t slept in….” He yawned, took a towel off the bar, and ran it over me before wrapping it around me.

  “Um… Wills?”

  “Yeah, babe?”

  “Uh…. When you go out of town, do you have your place set up so the… the lights, say, will go on automatically?”

  “Sure.” He took another towel and dried himself with quick, efficient movements. “And I’ve got the radio set to go on for an hour in the morning and the TV for a couple of hours in the afternoon.” Aha! “Why?”

  “Just wondering.”

  He yawned again and rubbed the towel over his hair. “Can we go to bed now?”

  “Yeah. Wills. I’m sorry.”

  “So am I.” He took my arm and studied it. “You’re gonna have bruises.”

  I was. I hadn’t realized he’d been gripping my arm so tightly.

  “I should have told you before, Theo.”

  “Told me what?”

  “How much you mean to me.”

  “You… you really love me?”

  “You bet your ass I do.”

  “But why?”

  “What do you mean, why?”

  “You know what I’ve… how I’ve made a living for the past twelve years.”

  I thought he looked sad, but then his expression smoothed out and became simply inquiring. “Yeah. So?”

  “Wills!”

  “Theo, I’m really wiped. Can you give me some time to think about it?”

  “Yeah. I guess. Uh…. How much time?”

  “Forty, fifty years?”

  Was he saying that was how long he wanted to stay with me? I pounced on him and pulled him into a hug. Maybe it really didn’t matter to him.

  “Let’s go to bed.”

  “THEO, WHAT are you doing for the Memorial Day weekend?” Wills asked the next morning. He’d been given the day off, and now he lounged in bed and sipped the coffee I’d made for him.

  With all the alcohol out of my system, I felt much better. Or maybe it was just having him back in my bed.

  “Usually, we’ll visit the memorials during the day, and if we’re not working on Sunday evening, we try to catch the free concert on the West Lawn of the Capitol. Want to come with me this year?”

  “Actually, I’m going up to Cambridge to spend the weekend with my family.”

  “Oh. Sure.” Things were okay between us, he’d told me they were, but of course there would be times when he’d want to be with his family. “Well, maybe some other time—”

  “Theo, I’d like you to come with me.”

  I felt as if I couldn’t catch my breath. He did? “What will your family say?”

  “‘How do you do?’ Truthfully, I don’t know. I’ve never brought anyone home to meet them.”

  “What, not even when you were in college?”

  “Nope. So, will you come? And no double entendres, wiseass.”

  I hadn’t even thought to come up with a retort. I was so stunned by how fast this was all happening. One minute my heart was breaking, and the next it was filled to overflowing. He wanted me to meet his family! “I’d… I’d like to, Wills….”

  “Cool. I’ll call my stepmom and let her know we’ll be there.”

  “You have a stepmother? Are your parents divorced?” We’d never talked about family.

  “No, my mother was killed in an accident when I was five.”

  “I’m so sorry.”

  “Thanks. I don’t remember as much as I’d like about her, but Dad gave me a picture of when she was pregnant with me. I have it in my bedroom. I didn’t cry at my mom’s funeral. Well, Dad didn’t, so how could I?”

  That was so unfair to a little boy, but before I could work up a good mad, he continued.

  “We were miserable that first year, but after… things got better. Alice, our cook/housekeeper came to live with us.” He smiled through the hair in his eyes. “Neither Dad nor I are very handy in the kitchen.”

  Well, Wills had me to see he was fed now. “How do you feel about your stepmother?” She had looked nice enough, but pictures could lie. A couple of the boys had told me horror stories about the women their fathers had married.

  “Oh, Ji
ll’s the best. You’re going to love her.”

  “If you say so.”

  “Believe it. Jill used to be my babysitter. She came back into our lives about five years after we lost my mom. Dad’s twenty years older, but that never mattered. As I said, I don’t remember much about Dad and Mom together, but Dad and Jill… they’re one of the happiest couples I know. Aside from my cousin Harry and his wife, Uncle Jake and Aunt Charlie, Uncle Pete and his partner, Gram and Gramps….” He grinned at me, almost as if he knew a secret.

  “You have a photo of a boy and a little girl.”

  “That’s Jar—”

  “Excuse me?”

  “John Robert. I was twelve when he was born. Jill refused to name him after her father—from what my Grandpa Bill let slip, he wasn’t a nice guy.”

  “Bill? Were you named after him?”

  “Yeah, and my mom’s father also. We have this tradition where the firstborn son is named after both grandfathers. Jill is the one who started calling me Wills. Anyway, John is for Dad.”

  “And Robert?”

  “No idea.” His eyes sparkled. “Jill always said he looked like a John Robert. We shortened it to JR, and I started calling him Jar.”

  I was fascinated by the workings of his family. It was so different from mine. “What about firstborn daughters?”

  “We don’t have daughters.”

  “Uh… your sister?”

  “Marti.” From the expression on his face, I could tell how much he loved her. “She’s the only girl in the family, and if she wasn’t such a sweetie she’d be spoiled rotten.”

  “So her name is Martha?”

  “Actually, it’s Martinique. Dad and Jill took a vacation to the island nine months before she was born.”

  “Uh… okay.”

  “I overheard Gram talking to Aunt Charlie once. Dad and Jill are positive that’s where Marti was conceived.”

  I remembered Ma gossiping with Aunt Agalia, and I couldn’t help laughing. “Well, I’ll let you make that phone call.”

  I left the room to give him a semblance of privacy, but I hovered just outside the door. If Jill was like the stepmothers in fairy tales and might try to drive a wedge between us, I wanted to know as soon as possible. And even if she was a good woman, she might not like the idea her stepson was involved with another man.