“Fuck yeah, and I asked for the best booze for the flight, huh?”
“I knew I loved you, Javi.”
The ride was comfortable and unforgettable. Javi told Ian about all the places he’d been, islands, deserts and even a long trip down the Amazon. Ian was envious of his adventures and hoped theirs would be as exciting.
“How was the Amazon?”
Javi took a sip of his Chivas and shrugged a little. “Lot of bugs, man.”
Ian laughed then sipped his scotch. “Good scotch. Shit, another thing I didn’t know I missed. Domestic beer with the boys at the bar after work is my thing now.”
“Don’t knock a good can of beer with the boys. Many a long hard day was eased for me with that. Playing some darts, pool. I miss those days.”
“I am terrible at darts, but I’m getting better at pool. The pub we go to, they have poker machines, and I kill at those. If it was for money, I’d be rich again.”
“I can’t believe you guys gave up all that money. Hundreds of billions, man. Hundreds of billions.”
“Blood money. We didn’t earn it, it was passed down, and made bigger by terrible things. You and the army, you’ve earned it. The people we’re helping did. Not my family or any of the others.”
Javi gave him a slap on the back and wink, then they clinked their glasses together and watched out of the windows as they soared over the clouds.
When they landed, Ian had no idea where they were, only a jungle, in a small airport that couldn’t be considered an airport. There was an old shed and a hard-packed dirt runway, and that was it. “Well, that explains the rough landing.”
“Sorry, pretty boy, but you’re on the ground in one piece, so don’t bitch.”
There wasn’t a limo waiting, like Ian was used to jumping into after deplaning private jets. Instead, there was a camouflaged Jeep. “Jesus, Javi, where are you taking me?”
“Shut up and get in the Jeep.”
They stored Ian’s luggage in the back and Javi climbed into the passenger seat while Ian climbed in the back and the driver, who nodded to Javi briefly before they got in took off and soon Ian was holding on for dear life as they sped over dirt roads, through dense forests.
He tried a few times to ask where they were going, but neither of the men up front would tell him. Ian had been to jungles before on a couple of his travels, but he’d flown into actual airports, had hotels accommodations and maid service. He had a sneaking suspicion that wouldn’t be part of the package on this get-a-way.
They drove up a hill that made Ian nervous as he looked down the side, a sheer drop covered in trees and bush. Near the top, they pulled into a driveway and through a tall gate, and there was a small villa that had views of nothing but green covered mountains.
Ian hopped out of the Jeep and walked around, the clouds hanging over the peaks were some of those they’d just flown through. For miles and miles, there were no homes, no electric poles, nothing that would point to civilization.
“Pretty, huh?”
Javi was next to him and Ian breathed it in before he whispered, “It is. Jesus, Javi, this is perfect.”
“Come on in. The place isn’t a palace, but it’s got everything it needs, including electricity. No internet connection, and you can forget cell phone coverage, but who needs all that shit when you’ve got this?”
He couldn’t agree more. Sometimes he hated his phone, for all the calls he got and all those that he waited for that never came.
The inside wasn’t fancy, thick plastered walls and hopper windows that opened by swinging out, letting in air while keeping rain out. There was a wicker sofa with thick cushions that had seen better days, a huge fireplace and beautiful rugs.
An old, thick table was in the corner with five chairs, a few empty beer cans sitting on top. No artwork was on the walls, no drapes on the windows, but that was all the better, bringing the eyes to the windows, showing the art that was the view.
“There’s three bedrooms, none very big. You can have mine, it’s the biggest, I’ll bunk with Roderigo.”
Roderigo and Javi took the bags, and Ian followed them down the hall that was off the living room. They passed four doors, all closed, and all carved with palm leaves. The end of the hall was where they took the bags, and Ian saw where he’d be staying.
There was a big hopper window there, a double bed and dresser. There was nothing in the room that was personal for Javi. “This is your room?”
“I already took my shit out, Ian.”
“Oh.”
That was the first time it was hitting him, that something wasn’t right. Javi was acting strange, checking his phone, despite the fact he’d said there was no service, and glancing out the windows every few seconds.
As Roderigo left, Ian shut the door and pushed, “What’s going on, Javi?”
“Huh? Going on? It’s your vacation, mijo, that’s all!”
With the high octaves his voice had achieved, Ian knew he was lying. There wasn’t time to question him further, however, as another Jeep drove by the window. Three men were inside, all with bushy ponytails and bushier beards.
The one in the back towered over the other two, and Ian spun on Javi, gritting, “What is going on? Did you bring me up here to kill me or something? Did someone pay you to do something to me?”
Javi’s brows went into his hairline. “Kill you? Mijo, stop. Come on and meet my friends.”
“Friends? They look like fucking thugs from some cartel.”
“That’s the old you talking, Ian. Come.”
Ian reluctantly followed him out, thinking of what he’d seen that he could use as a weapon. Not that anything would work, not with the rifles slung over the men’s shoulders in the Jeep that had just passed.
He hung back in the hall as he heard the men enter the living room, ready to duck into one of the other rooms to hide until he could escape. Not that escape would do any good either, they were hundreds of miles from safety.
He wanted to kick himself for letting himself be pulled into the situation, trusting people that had been killing for money for years. That’s when he heard a voice that chilled him completely.
“Javi, you little shit, how was your trip?”
“Papi, you look like you’ve been through the jungle or something.”
As his heart started slamming in his chest, Ian leaned back on the wall, hearing the slapping of their hands on each other’s backs as they hugged.
“What’s to eat, man? I haven’t been on the jet, flying around the world for a month. I had to actually work.”
“Fuck you, Papi, I ain’t your bitch.”
Ian wanted to flee back to his bedroom, but he found his legs wouldn’t move. All the thoughts of their time together, the way Pat used to look at him, hold him when Ian needed him the most, and making love on the beach…
Then, he’d gotten angry, and threw Pat away, to become what Pat had never wanted to be, a hired gun.
“Let me go grab something. Boys, wait outside while I show Papi his present.”
Ian heard this and managed to push himself off the wall, ready to head back down the hall, but Javi was quick. He came into the hall, and seeing Ian there, he frowned. “Oh. You heard.”
“Javi, what the fuck?” His voice was less than a whisper, but it was harsh and hurt his throat.
Without saying a thing, Javi gripped the front of Ian’s shirt, and nearly dragged him into the other room.
Ian stumbled, but luckily didn’t fall. That would have been a great sight after two years, Ian on his face. Pat turned to him, and when he saw Ian, he growled at Javi, “What the fuck?”
“See? I knew you guy were meant to be. He just asked me the same damn thing.”
Pat spun on his heel and headed for the door, and Ian stood mute as he did. Wanting to call out to him, he didn’t have the voice to do it, or the air in his lungs, as it had left him, and he couldn’t manage to get any back.
When Pat slung the door open, the two me
n he’d come with in the Jeep were standing in the doorway, arms crossed over their chests. “Get the fuck out of my way.”
Javi walked behind him and slapped a hand on his shoulder, his voice filled with humor. “Papi, stand down, they’re not letting you out.”
“Oh yeah?”
Pat tried to muscle his way out, but soon, guns were drawn on him.
“They ain’t letting you out.”
Pat turned on him, his eyes red and full of rage. “Javi, I’ll give you to the count of three.”
“Go ahead and count. You and the kid gotta talk. Neither of you have been happy since you broke up, and it’s getting old.”
Ian did find his voice then, heading right for Javi and grabbing his arm to turn him around. “What the hell does that mean? Have you been watching me?”
“I don’t have to, mijo. Your moms tells me all I need to know.”
Pat glared at Ian while he said to Javi, “She didn’t tell you Ian’s engaged?”
Javi and Ian both stared at him but Javi was the first to say, “What?”
“I went back a few months ago, to see this fuck. I saw him with another guy, and they spent the day, eating at some romantic café, the guy buying Ian roses, then they picked out rings. I got the picture, he’d moved on, and so have I.”
Javi turned, his jaw hanging until he asked, “Ian?”
Ian wanted to laugh if the urge to scream and cry wasn’t so powerful. “You’re a fucking idiot,” he spit at Pat. Then, not knowing what else to do, he turned and walked as fast as he could without breaking out into a run back to the bedroom to retrieve his bags.
He felt him before he heard him, and barely got inside the door of the bedroom before Pat had a vice grip on his shoulder, throwing him into the dresser. “What the hell did that mean?”
Ian recovered fast and faced him, spitting, “Nothing. Get the fuck out and go play soldier.”
Before he could respond, they both heard the Jeeps taking off. They ran together to the door, Pat getting there first and then outside, but all they saw was the dust as the Jeeps took off down the mountain.
“Mother fuckers left us!”
“Ya think?” Ian mumbled, heading back inside. “Javi wanted us to stay here and make up, and that’s not going to happen.
Pat slammed the door behind him. “No, we couldn’t do that. I fucked up once and got tossed to the curb by the poor little rich boy.”
Ian ignored his disdain and bargained, “Until they come back, we stay out of each other’s way, and once they return, we’ll pretend to be back together, so they’ll take us out of here. Then, we don’t have to see each other anymore.”
“Fine by me.”
“Me too.”
Chapter Forty
For the first couple days, they did well, staying away from one another. When Ian would hear Pat in a room, he’d avoid it.
He went for walks, read some of the books that were on the shelf of the only bedroom neither was staying in and thought. He thought a lot.
The one topic that never left his mind was Pat, and it was getting to him. Being in the same home with him, so close, after all the time that had passed. He’d asked Javi about him, and Javi said he was finding his way, and Ian needed to do the same. Ian had always taken that to mean that he needed to move on from their love. He’d tried, and failed, many times.
The third morning, he was making coffee in the French press when Pat walked in, groaning. “Shit.”
“Sorry. I’ll be finished soon.”
Pat took a seat at the table in the small but well stocked kitchen and sneered, “Surprised you can make your own coffee. Without a cook to do it for you?”
“Fuck you, Pat.”
“Oh, you are the one who got fucked by me, Ian. Lots of times. Tell me something. Does your new man fuck you hard like you like? Hold you down on the bed and ram you like I did?”
As he poured the coffee into the thick mug, Ian smiled inwardly. “Like I said before, you’re an idiot.”
“I take that to mean he doesn’t.”
Ian turned and leaned on the counter, smiling over at him triumphantly. “For being a fed, oh, I’m sorry, a former fed, you sure are bad at your detective work.”
Pat’s cocky smile, which Ian could barely see through the thick beard, didn’t waver. “Oh? Enlighten me.”
“You’re not worth enlightening, or anything else. You know, I regretted dumping your ass back then, but now, I’m really glad I did.”
Standing quickly, the chair falling against the wall in his wake, Pat was heading to him so fast he didn’t have a chance to move.
His throat was gripped, and Pat’s heavily bearded face was right in his, “Mother fucker. Just because you’ve grown some muscles, you think you can talk to me like that?”
Without anything else to do, Ian moved like a viper, throwing the coffee at him, and as soon as the hot liquid hit him, Pat let go of his throat and moved back, screaming, so Ian ran for it, heading to the bedroom, hoping to get there in time to get the door shut against the angry man.
He didn’t manage it, having his hair grabbed and being brought backward until he was on the floor. Pat stood over him with his foot on Ian’s chest. “Tell me what the fuck you were talking about.”
Ian stared up and willed himself not to get hard. All of it reminded him of their former relationship, Pat throwing him around, being in charge, dominant. Not that he could take in air to speak, not with Pat pressing down on his chest, but he got out, “Never mind.”
The foot came off and he was being yanked from the floor, pushed to the wall so hard the little air he’d managed to suck in was pushed right back out again as Pat snarled, “If I’m an idiot, tell me why.”
Ian wanted to mess with him, to keep him at arm’s length. If he let Pat continue to believe that he was taken, it would all be so much easier. That’s why, when he heard his own voice, confessing, he wanted to slink away and die.
“The man you saw with me that day wasn’t my fiancé.”
After his eyes narrowed, Pat demanded, “What are you talking about?”
“That was Ted Barrett, my father’s fiancé. He asked me to help him figure out the best way to ask my father to marry him. I took him to a café I went to years ago with a boyfriend. It was the most romantic place I could remember in the city that didn’t remind me of you. I wear the same ring size as my father, so I was the obvious choice to help him pick the rings.”
Pat let go of him and took two steps back. What happened then, Ian couldn’t wrap his head around. After a full minute of him simply staring at Ian, a single tear rolled down from Pat’s eye and disappeared into his thick, curly beard. The moment it did, Pat turned from him and left the room, shutting the door behind him.
When he could manage to move, he sat hard on the bottom of the bed. He’d confessed to something he’d swore to himself he wouldn’t tell the man, and then, like he’d punched him in the face, Pat had walked away.
Ian knew then it was truly over between them. He’d held some hope in the deepest recesses of his heart that they may one day find their way back to each other. It was why he’d asked Javi about Pat so often, why he’d yet to make any real connections to another man.
The faces that passed him then, of all the men who’d tried to start something with him, and still, none of them compared to Pat. Ian felt his heart sink that he’d never find someone that could compete with the memory of the man.
Laying back on the bed, he heard a door closing down the hall, heard the water running. He felt an urge to break into the bathroom and confront him again, tell him what an ass he was to ever make Ian fall in love with him, only to break his heart.
That didn’t happen, though. Ian’s entire body was in mourning of the love he’d lost. More than it had been nearly three years before, when Pat had left with Javi, and Ian was left to clean up the mess left by the Grail.
Well, that’s what they were both doing, but instead of doing it together, as a team,
they were as far away as they could be. And Ian had no illusions, he knew it was his fault. He’d broken Pat’s heart first, telling him that he’d never want to see him again.
Like a child, he moved up on the bed and clutched the pillow to his face, sobbing into it. All the sound was muffled into the pillow, so Pat wouldn’t hear his sorrow. He couldn’t face the man for the rest of the time they may be there, stuck together to be tortured by the presence of the one that broke their hearts.
He’d avoid him completely, coming out at night instead of the day, if Pat was asleep. When Javi returned, he’d get into the Jeep and flee, ready to be alone, if need be, rather than try to ever recapture in another the feelings given so easily with Pat.
Crying himself to sleep, he woke to the bed moving. He sat up, terrified, but, as his heart was still in his throat, blocking the scream, he saw Pat at the end of the bed by his feet.
He’d shaved and cut his hair. Back to the way he’d looked those years ago.
“Don’t say anything, Ian, please. Let me get this out.”
He nodded, complying with what he’d asked.
“See, Ian, I knew when your father asked me to keep it from you that he was ready to sacrifice himself to kill off the Grail, I knew you’d never forgive me. I knew that we’d built our relationship on trust as it’s foundation, and I was breaking that by keeping it from you.
“I reasoned, of course, that as someone who loved you, besides being your Dom, that maybe I was protecting you and that was where I had to focus. So, I did it, though deep down, I knew you’d see that as the ultimate betrayal.”
It took him a minute to continue, and Ian watched as he leaned over his lap, secure only on his elbows, rubbing his hands together, as if that would help to generate the words he needed to say.
“I went off with Javi after I saw your face when you told me you never wanted to see me again. Whether you meant it or not later, you meant it in that moment. I knew there would be no talking you out of it, and I didn’t feel I deserved to try. I felt the betrayal, Ian. I knew what I did. Just because it turned out for the best, that doesn’t mean much in the face of that breaking of trust.
33 Degrees of Separation (Legacy) Page 35