Flying Free (Rough Love Book 8)

by Leighton Greene

  “Jesus, Xander, are you okay?” Jon asks, and Ben is grateful he did, because Ben feels like something is very, very wrong, but he couldn’t speak right now even if he wanted to. Xander has gone completely pale, his black hair standing out against his bloodless skin.

  “Leave us, please,” he says quietly. It would be impossible to disobey. Ben has never heard Xander use that tone outside the bedroom or the clubs, and definitely not to anyone who isn’t Ben himself.

  Oliver, Brandon, and Jon get up from the table immediately, and Ben moves too, only Xander reaches out to grab his hand. “Not you, Benjamin. Stay. Please,” he adds, looking up at Ben.

  There’s so much regret in Xander’s face that Ben collapses back into his chair immediately, his heart hammering. But Xander wipes the look off his face before he turns back to Landry.

  Landry wears a defiant expression, but he’s on the verge of tears again, and takes off his glasses to wipe angrily at his eyes. “So that’s what it took for you to recognize me?” he says, his voice strained. “You remember the collar but not the human being wearing it? Really, Xander?”

  Xander shakes his head, his lips parting. “I’m sorry,” he says at last. “You—you’ve changed a lot.”

  “Damn straight,” Landry spits. “Maybe now I’m good enough for you?”

  “You weren’t calling yourself Landry then, either,” Xander says, ignoring the barb, and Ben is relieved to hear his voice strengthen. “It was Stevie, wasn’t it?”

  “It’s all coming back now, is it?” Landry says sarcastically. “Landry’s my middle name.”

  “Um,” Ben breaks in, raising a hand to get the attention of both men. “What’s going on?”

  Landry raises a hand to his collar, a stiff, black leather band with a large round silver-dollar sized pendant hanging off it. He turns the pendant so Ben can see the engraving on the back of it: the XR stands out, deeply etched.

  Ben sits back in his chair. “Well, fuck,” he says, because he doesn’t know what else to say.

  “So it was you?” Xander asks. “The rumors? The photographs? Pete the PI?”

  Landry nods, his mouth trembling.

  Ben always pictured their stalker as a Machiavellian shadow-figure, hiding in dark corners and spying on the two of them. But Landry is just an awkward guy in his late twenties with a currently-runny nose and tears he’s trying to keep in check.

  Ben leans over, offering the clean hanky he keeps in his pocket. Landry glares at him, but then takes it and blows his nose.

  This is the guy Xander collared all those years ago.

  And then dumped.

  Ouch.

  Ben has to admit, he’s surprised at how unlike Xander’s usual type Landry is. And Elijah and Dean’s mocking comments come back to Ben, too: how Xander’s collared guy wouldn’t talk to them, wouldn’t make any decision without Xander’s approval…

  “I loved you,” Landry says tearily to Xander. “I loved you so much and you—you just ghosted me.”

  Ben begins to wish he had just left with the other guys. It might make things easier for Xander, at least.

  “I’m not sure what else to say, other than I’m sorry,” Xander says softly. “It was a shitty thing to do. And you know, everyone else thought so, too. It got me blackballed from a lot of places.”

  “I know,” Landry says. “You deserved it.”

  “Yes. I did. I was a complete jerk to everyone back then, and it was safer for everyone that I got banned from some of those places.” Xander leans forward then, and his voice changes. “But Landry, or Stevie, or whatever you want to call yourself—I don’t believe I did deserve the campaign of whispers and stalking and intimidation that you started recently. And Benjamin got caught up in the crossfire. He definitely didn’t deserve it.”

  “Nothing happened to you,” Landry says dully. “Nothing really happened, did it? And Benjamin’s doing just fine for himself.”

  Up until now, Ben has just felt bad for Landry, but the way he sneers Ben’s name like that… “I lost my freaking job,” he says.

  “But not Xander,” Landry says. “Never Xander. Nothing ever touches Xander. If anything, it’s just made him more famous, all those stories I planted.”

  “It’s been years,” Xander says helplessly. “I mean, I was barely at the legal drinking age when we got together, and we were only together for two weeks. Have you really been hanging on to this for all that time?”

  “We didn’t get together. You collared me. That’s supposed to mean something, Xander. It’s supposed to be a commitment.” He looks at Ben. “Don’t you get it? You think you’re so special because you tamed Dom X, but he’s only ever collared one guy. And that guy was me. Not you. What does that tell you?”

  Xander flinches.

  “It tells me that Xander has changed,” Ben says, happy to hear his voice is even and calm. “And Landry, no matter what everyone in the scene might try to tell me, I don’t need a collar to know that Xander is committed to me.” He stands up now, because if he listens to any more, he might end up hating Landry, or at least getting really pissed off, and Ben doesn’t want to live like that anymore.

  He puts a hand on Xander’s shoulder, and leans down to kiss him, briefly, on the lips. “I’ll give you a minute,” he says. “Unless you really want me here?”

  Xander shakes his head slowly. “I think Landry and I need to talk.”

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Oliver and Brandon are nowhere to be seen, but Jon is drowning his sorrows in a large, multi-hued, fluorescent drink at the bar. “Yowzers,” Ben says, when he sees it.

  “You look like you could use a yowzer, too. And I mean, are you really that attached to your liver?”

  Ben flags down the bartender. “Same as his.”

  Xander and Landry are in a booth across the room, but the place is small enough and quiet enough tonight that the occasional outburst from Landry carries over to them. Jon and Ben end up wincing several times.

  “I’m really sorry about that,” Jon says. “I didn’t realize he was…well, whatever he is.”

  “Lonely,” Ben guesses.

  “Yeah. We could probably have been kinder to him. You were, at least.”

  “Maybe,” Ben says dubiously. “Listen, on the subject of Xander’s exes—”

  Jon turns to him with a rueful expression. “He told you?”

  “He did.”

  “I was never sure if I should—”

  “Why should you?” Ben asks with a shrug. “I’m just glad you were okay. And that you convinced him back into the community. Thank you for that, by the way.”

  Jon gives his first real smile of the night, and raises his drink. “You’re welcome.”

  Xander’s long talk with Landry ends in a hug, to Ben’s relief. He really couldn’t handle yet another Adam.

  By this time, Ben and Jon have switched back to sodas, and are talking about how much blood would be too much in that final Blood Bond scene. They are in agreement, though: there can never be too much of a good thing.

  Xander puts his hands on Landry’s back and steers the guy over to where Ben and Jon are sitting at the bar. Ben sits up, tensing, just in case the guy is planning to throw a few more verbal punches. Jon pretends not to notice anything, turning back around to the bar, idly poking at the ice cubes in his soda.

  Landry is not wearing the collar anymore.

  Ben waits in silence, but all Landry has to say is a whispered: “I’m sorry.” He can’t even look Ben in the eye.

  Ben remembers all those sleepless mornings, all those suspicions he had about everyone—even Elijah, at one point, which now makes Ben feel like a total jerk—and losing his job, and how it felt to see his relationship with Xander reduced to sordid blind items and outright lies. And he wants to tell Landry exactly where he can shove that half-assed apology.

  But he also remembers what it was like when Xander broke up with him. He and Landry share that uneasy honor: the only two guys Xander has eve
r officially dumped. Ben knows how deeply it can cut.

  He catches Xander’s eye over Landry’s shoulder, and thinks about how far Xander has come with his demons. How far he’s come from his younger days, and how different Xander must have been back then compared to now. And how lucky Ben is, because he ran into Xander at a different time in his life.

  At the right time.

  He can’t tell Landry it’s okay, because it’s not, or that he forgives him, because he doesn’t. Not yet. But neither does Ben want to carry around resentment and regret, just like Landry apparently has been all these years.

  “I accept your apology,” Ben tells him.

  Landry starts crying for real, sobbing his heart out, his nose running like a tap. Jon wheels around on his bar stool and throws an arm around Landry’s shoulders. “Barkeep!” he hollers. “Your finest fluoro-drink for my friend here! And I bet my liver can handle one more, too,” he adds, winking at Ben.

  The bartender looks like he’s just tired of all the drama, and starts putting together the cocktails for them.

  “Come on, Landry,” Jon says kindly, helping him up onto the stool next to him. “Down two of these things and all will be right with the world, I promise.” He gives a thumbs-up to Ben and Xander behind Landry’s back. “I’ll take it from here.”

  The drive home is quiet. Ben doesn’t want to interrupt Xander’s train of thought, and he doesn’t really want to know what Landry had to say for himself (but at the same time, he really, really does). Xander pulls up in the driveway, and turns the car off, and then they both just sit there for a while.

  “I’m so fucking sorry about that,” Xander says at last. “So, so fucking sorry.”

  Ben reaches over to take his hand. “You’re not the one who should be sorry.”

  Xander gives him a look deep with despair. “When I turned up that first time to pick you up, and I didn’t recognize him, that’s what set him off. It was the first time I’d seen him since…Anyway, and there I was, there we were, so happy and content. He didn’t think I deserved happiness like that. And, well, maybe he’s right.”

  “Bull-fucking-shit,” Ben says at once. “Don’t you dare let him get to you like that.”

  “I literally did not recognize a guy I collared. What does that say about me?”

  “That you’ve changed,” Ben says, repeating exactly what he told Landry, because he believes it. “Besides, you said he looked different back in the day?”

  Xander nods slowly. “He had a buzzcut back then. He was…very femme. And I guess he wore contacts or something, I don’t know.”

  “So the Clark Kent glasses disguise really does work,” Ben says, trying for levity, but Xander’s look makes him drop it at once. “Hey,” he says softly. “You made a mistake. And now it’s resolved.”

  “I seem to have only made mistakes,” Xander says sourly. Then he squeezes Ben’s hand. “Except you, of course.”

  “Of course,” Ben says, grinning.

  Noah and Henry are waiting for them, so they head inside. Xander seems to be pondering his life, fate and the universe, so Ben decides he’ll attempt a late-night snack for them. He keeps it simple: shop-bought hummus and crackers. Even he can’t fuck that up, and he does need something to soak up the fluorescent yellow and pink in his stomach.

  They sit in the lounge room, and Ben puts on one of Xander’s favorite lo-fi track lists. “May I ask what you did with the collar?”

  “You may ask me anything in the whole world, Benjamin. Landry gave it back to me.”

  “He did?” Ben asks, surprised.

  “It’s…protocol,” Xander says briefly. “For some groups. If I’d been a good guy back in the day, I would have suggested an uncollaring ceremony, and taken it back officially. But, well, it was a cheap, shitty collar, and I didn’t care enough to…” He trails off.

  “Well, tonight you got a chance to make up for it,” Ben says, crunching a cracker for emphasis. “I was really proud of the way you didn’t take on his bullshit, either. You took responsibility for what you did, but not for his recent…” He casts around for a word. “Shenanigans.”

  Xander finally gives a chuckle, and goes for a double-dip, which he usually bitches out Ben for doing. “Shenanigans, huh? Is that what we’re calling it now?” Xander reaches into his back pocket and throws the collar onto the coffee table. Ben can see what Xander means; it’s poorly constructed, peeling in places, and the pendant is tarnished. “I’ll get rid of that in the morning,” Xander mutters. “He got my number from Jon, he said. Borrowed Jon’s phone once and forwarded it to himself. Planted those blinds through a friend of a friend.”

  “Sneaky little fucker.” Ben will allow himself that one last mean observation, and then move on. “I guess that’s the end of Gay Subs Club as we knew it,” he sighs. “Perhaps it’s for the best if I lay low for a while. Oliver and Brandon were pretty annoying about Hunter spoilers.”

  “And Jon is working with us still,” Xander points out. “But I don’t want you to feel like you need to cut yourself off from friends just because—”

  “I don’t,” Ben says firmly. “I’m not going to stop being friends with people just because of Landry. He’s a past mistake, sure, but your past is past,” Ben tells him. “Unless there are any more nasty surprises likely to pop up?”

  Xander fervently shakes his head no. “Pretty sure I’ve slain the last dragon tonight. Not that I haven’t done other shitty things, but I’ve laid the worst of it to rest.” He hesitates, and then asks, “Did you mean what you said?”

  “Gonna need something more specific there, Dragon Slayer.”

  “That you don’t need a collar to know I’m committed to you?”

  “Of course not,” Ben says at once. “Jeez, Xander. I know you’ve never really been into the collaring thing, and I get why. And all those symbols and traditions in the community are nice, but the only thing I really care about is what’s real between us. All the collars in the world mean nothing if there isn’t something real underneath.”

  Ben almost regrets saying it for a moment, since Xander’s mouth twists, and Ben guesses he must be thinking about what wasn’t there between him and Landry.

  “So fuck symbols,” he reiterates, and then points out with a smirk: “Besides, you show me how much you care about me every time you use the riding crop.”

  Xander smirks back, and moves towards him on the sofa, prowling like a panther towards him. “Every time I use the cane, too,” he agrees.

  “Every time you bite, especially,” Ben murmurs. Xander has reached him now, leaning over him, a hand threading into his hair and tugging gently.

  “Every time I cut,” he purrs. “And I want to cut you again. Soon. I’m tired of being thwarted at every turn. So no parties beforehand, next time. No going out with friends. Just you and me and the knife.”

  Xander has been bringing out the knife and just leaving it somewhere in view for a while now. He asked Ben ages ago about whether he could do that, if it was okay to do it out of the blue, and Ben had agreed with a niggling sense of irritation that Xander was so into negotiation these days that nothing would be a surprise anymore.

  That was absolutely not the case. The knife turned up unexpectedly, just sitting there on the bedside table or on the coffee table in the lounge, or in Xander’s car once when he asked Ben to get something out of the glove compartment for him, and Ben had to sit with it in his hand the rest of the way to the restaurant, his head buzzing, and Xander silent but satisfied beside him.

  Over the last two months, it’s been appearing with increasing regularity. In the bathroom. On the side table in the hallway—and Xander wasn’t even there when Ben saw it, just the knife, and Xander strolled back in ten minutes later like nothing had happened. He left it there again another day and poor, worried Elijah had seen it.

  Last week, the knife turned up in the sock drawer, which even Ben had to laugh at. A few nights ago it appeared on the kitchen counter out of nowhere, just s
itting there when Ben went to make them haphazard subs for dinner while they watched Netflix. Ben had stopped and stared at it, and when he turned, there was Xander in the doorway, arranged in a carefully casual manner with a hand in his pocket and one arm leaning up against the frame.

  “The…” was all Ben could say, and gestured behind himself.

  “Yes?”

  He drew a few breaths, trying to tame his fear response, even while Xander studied his face curiously. “You put it places. But you never cut me with it. Don’t you think about that? Don’t you want to?”

  “Of course.” Xander coming closer made Ben want to back up, and even as he thought it, he did it, vaguely surprised when his butt hit the kitchen cabinets. “Of course I think about it. But it’s so lovely just to watch you go all white and lick your lips nervously, yes—like that—perfect. And then you start getting your color back, up here in your cheeks.”

  Xander placed two careful hands on either side of Ben’s face and brushed thumbs gently underneath his eyes, back over his cheekbones. “And your pulse starts jumping in your throat.”

  Two warm fingers pressed into the side of his neck, and Ben was aware of his heartbeat thrumming into Xander’s hand in a staccato rhythm. “Just like that,” Xander breathed, and kissed him hard, as though he could taste the fear on his tongue.

  That’s as far as it went that night, and Ben figured it was because Xander was satisfied with the fear, and wanted to string him along even more. But just yesterday morning, Xander sat down opposite him at the kitchen counter while Ben was still half asleep and praying for his morning coffee to kick in, and placed the knife between them on the counter. He gave it a flick to make it rotate, like a crazy game of Spin the Bottle.

  “I want to make a picture,” Xander said. Ben thought about the last time Xander made a picture of his insides from bruises and scratches, and shivered. “Not like that,” Xander added, proving to Ben at least that he did read minds. “This will hurt, but not like that time, and it won’t be quite so confronting. And it’ll be on your back instead of your chest.”