The Complete Veterans Affairs Romances: Gay Military Romances

by A. E. Wasp

  “Why is sex always the first place people go?” Sean shook his head. “When Davey goes out on a date, do you spent time thinking about what kind of sex he’s having with his date?”

  “No. Of course not.”

  “Then why is it different with Troy?”

  Paul shrugged, obviously uncomfortable. “I don’t know. It just is.” He sipped his wine, looking away. He turned back. “And you know what. It’s wrong of me. I’m sorry, Troy. Sean.”

  “Thanks, Dad.”

  “So, Dmitri. How did your parents take it when you told them? How’d we do?” Paul made an attempt at a smile.

  “It wasn’t really as much of a surprise for them as it was for me. I think they knew before I did. Plus we don’t really go to church, so that wasn’t an issue.”

  “You don’t go to church?” Theresa turned to him, eyes sighting on him like a laser.

  Uh oh. Abort, abort. That was a conversation Troy was not prepared for in the least. He thought quickly. “Speaking of church, isn’t it time for you to get going?”

  Mary checked the clock on the wall. “Oh, crap. It is. Go get your coats.”

  “Are we all still going?” Troy asked. “Should we?”

  “Why not?” Theresa looked perplexed.

  “Well, I’m sure Davey has spread the news through half the town by town. You want to take your gay son and his boyfriend to church on Christmas Eve?”

  Theresa compressed her mouth into a thin line. “We are family. I may not completely understand yet. But I’m proud of you. You are a good man, and you fought and almost died for your country. Anyone who has a problem with that can say it to my face. You love who you love and let me worry about everything else.”

  Dmitri’s hands jerked in what Troy was sure was an aborted clap.

  Troy grabbed his mother in a tight hug, rocking her and kissing her head. “I love you, Mom.” Tears made his voice rough.

  “I love you, too, baby.” She pulled away, wiping her eyes. “But tonight, you’re getting separate bedrooms. I can’t believe you let me put you two together like that!” She smacked him on the arm. “And you knew! I know gays can get married now, and there is no unmarried sex in this house.”

  “Fair enough,” Dmitri said. “I can sleep on the couch.”

  “It’s comfortable,” Paul commented. “God knows I’ve spent enough time on it.”

  “Oh, please. Now let’s go. We’re going to get bad seats if we don’t leave now and I don’t want to sit in the back with the crying babies and whining toddlers. I had enough of that when you lot were little.”

  chapter eight - merry christmas (here’s to many more.)

  Soft white light snuck through the curtains in the living room where Dmitri lay tucked up snug as a bug in a rug on the big sofa. Troy had given him a blanket, a pillow, and a chaste kiss when they’d gotten him set up in the wee hours of the morning after church.

  Christmas Eve Mass had been a magical thing for Dmitri. He felt like a little kid. Snow had started to fall, and light from the stained glass windows of the old stone church painted the trees and winter-dead grass in shades of red and blue and green.

  Inside it was all red velvet, a million candles, and a choir in red satin robes singing hymns. Pretty much everything Dmitri could have ever wanted. The beauty of it took Dmitri’s breath away. He clutched at Troy’s hand as they moved with the press of the crowd into the sanctuary.

  As a woman read the Christmas story from the pulpit, Dmitri felt for the first time the fear of a pregnant woman seeking for shelter on a cold night, felt the wonder of the shepherds as the angels of the Lord appeared to them in the winter sky.

  It wasn’t belief that moved him, but more a sense of history, a realization of how many times the story had been told on this night, and how many generations of families had gotten together in various ways all over the world to light candles against the darkness and bask in the warmth of family in the face of the cold.

  And he wanted it for himself. For him and Troy. Images of years of celebrating another year of survival and love with Troy, with their families and friends, rolled over him and he wondered if this was what it was to be an adult and in love.

  Dmitri had expected to be woken up by Troy’s parents or grandmother making breakfast. Apparently, Christmas breakfast was another Johnson family tradition. How they didn’t all weigh a thousand pounds was a mystery to Dmitri. But the house was silent. He reached for his phone.

  He texted Troy. You up?

  A few seconds later, his phone lit up. I am now.

  Come down at talk to me. I’m afraid to go to your room.

  You should be. My mom would hit you. She’s tiny, but she’s strong.

  A few seconds later, Troy crept silently down the stairs. He lifted Dmitri’s legs and slid under them. He dropped them down as he sat. “Merry Christmas.”

  “Merry Christmas. What did you get me?” Dmitri eyed the pile of presents under the tree.

  “You have to wait until after breakfast to open presents. It’s a rule.”

  Dmitri heaved an exaggerated sigh. “Well, that’s awful.”

  “Such a baby. We can do your stocking. That is mother approved.”

  “You mean I can watch you go through yours.”

  Troy smiled. “Check again.”

  Dmitri pulled himself up to look over the back of the couch at the fireplace. Sure enough, wedged on the fireplace next to Sweetie’s stocking was another one with Dmitri scrawled in black marker on the white fuzz. “What? How did she do that? I was sleeping in this room the whole time!”

  He dropped back down on the couch. “Maybe it really was Santa.”

  “Maybe it was.” With a quick look up the stairs, Troy crawled on top of Dmitri. “I’ve got one present you can have.”

  Dmitri’s hands landed on Troy’s hips, pulling them together. “Oh, just what I wanted.”

  Troy’s lips were warm and soft. His mouth opened against Dmitri’s, and his fingers curled through Dmitri’s hair. Dmitri never wanted to move from that spot.

  The kisses grew deeper, and Troy’s weight pressed down heavily on Dmitri. Dmitri spread his legs and Troy dropped down further against him. Dmitri groaned.

  “Shhh.” Troy put a finger against Dmitri’s lips. He started to sit up, and Dmitri whined, tugging him back down. Laughing, he landed on Dmitri.

  “We are not having sex on the couch.”

  “But it’s Christmas.”

  “You heard my mother, no unmarried sex in the house.”

  Dmitri gave Troy a soft smile and twined their fingers together. “How does she feel about engaged sex?”

  “Well, that might be okay. But even then she might object to it on her couch.” Troy frowned, then pulled away a little. Dmitri tightened his hold on his hand. “Wait? What?”

  “What do you say? Do you want to make an honest man out of me?”

  Troy pushed up on his elbows to better look Dmitri in the eye. “Are you serious?”

  Dmitri tried to get a read on what Troy was thinking, but his face was a blank slate. But Troy had been so brave last night, was always so brave. Dmitri owed it to them both to be honest.

  “Kind of. Yeah. I definitely am. You make me so happy. And I love your family. Most of them,” he qualified with a grimmace. “And I love you. And I want this to be our life. And our house and our tree one day. Well, not this house in particular. Our house. In Red Deer.” He was babbling. But Troy wasn’t saying anything so someone had to. He’d run away, but it would be awkward, what with Troy lying on top of him and all.

  Troy narrowed his eyes. “Are you just doing this so I’ll have sex with you?”

  “Only a little.”

  Troy’s smile spread to every part of his face; even his eyes crinkled up. “Okay then. Yes.”

  “Yes?”

  “Yes. I will marry you.”

  “Holy shit.” Dmitri’s cheeks hurt from smiling.

  “I still won’t have sex with you on my mothe
r’s sofa.”

  “But it’s Christmas.” He batted his eyelashes at Troy.

  “You can wait.”

  Dmitri pulled Troy tight against him, hooking his ankles over Troy’s rolling his hips up in a completely unfair manner. “If I have to wait until the wedding night, I’m dragging you to Vegas tomorrow.”

  Troy buried his head against Dmitri’s neck and bit down gently. “Tramp. You can wait until the first motel out of town, okay?”

  “You sweet-talker you.”

  Dmitri’s heart pounded as they kissed. It felt like only keeping him from flying off the couch was Troy’s weight against him. He couldn’t remember ever being happier and more terrified at the same time.

  “Let’s not tell anyone here just yet okay?” Troy said. “One bombshell at a time.”

  “Deal.”

  A door opened somewhere in the house, and Troy sprung up, adjusting himself with a glare at Dmitri that quickly slid into a wide smile. It was going to be hard not to look at each other like lovesick fools all day.

  By the time, Theresa and Mary came down the stairs, Troy and Dmitri sat on separate pieces of furniture.

  “Merry Christmas, boys,” Theresa said with a smile.

  “Merry Christmas.”

  “You want some coffee?”

  “That would be amazing. I’ll help.”

  Troy hopped up to help his mom in the kitchen. Dmitri grabbed his cell phone and pantomimed to Troy that he was going to make a call.

  Grabbing a coat, he stepped outside. Snow dusted the cars, bushes, and trees; his breath steamed white into the cold air.

  With the smile that felt permanently affixed to his face, Dmitri punched in a text to Angel. Merry Christmas. I’m getting married.

  The phone rang a microsecond later.

  THE END

  PAPER HEARTS

  A VETERANS AFFAIRS NOVEL

  Red Deer, Colorado is a fictional town. Any resemblance to existing college towns in Northern Colorado is purely the result of the author’s love for the area. Many of the surrounding attractions are exactly as described. Some rivers, business, and streets may have been relocated to serve the story.

  The U.S. Military has a long history in Colorado, and Colorado’s Universities serve thousands of student veterans every semester.

  COPYRIGHT

  PAPER HEARTS: A VETERANS AFFAIRS NOVEL

  Copyright © 2017 by A. E. Wasp

  All rights reserved. Printed in the United States of America. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles or reviews.

  This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, organizations, places, events and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

  Cover design by Jay Aheer –Simply Defined Art

  First Edition: January 2017

  DEDICATION

  Special thanks go out this time to Shanna Henk for her incredibly fast beta-reading and eagle-eyed proofreading and constant cheer-leading. This book, in particular, couldn’t have happened without her.

  And to my roommates, who put up with my playlist being on a continuous loop and with me colonizing the kitchen table for my exclusive use.

  chapter one

  The gold-plated dome of the Denver Capitol building gleamed against a cloudless blue sky. The Rocky Mountains, still snow-covered at the end of June thanks to late spring storms, rolled off into the west in ever-deepening shades of blue. Benito Quintaña pushed his sunglasses against his face, pulled his straw cowboy hat lower over his eyes, and checked out the parade of humanity passing by his booth at the Denver Pride celebration. His t-shirt lay draped across the bust of some Greek goddess, a black flag of surrender to the heat. His friend and coworker Chris Dobbs, a scrawny platinum blond who at twenty-two had artistic talent and a body of work Benny could only envy, twirled a fake fox tail between his fingers as he continued his quest to get Benny laid.

  One late night when they’d been working non-stop trying to get Jay-Cee’s bronzes ready for a show, Benny had confessed that ever since he’d gotten clean and sober, casual sex had become orders of magnitude harder. Despite his horror of relationships, Chris had made it his mission to get Benny a boyfriend. It hadn’t worked out too well. This weekend, he’d switched tactics.

  “If you don’t find someone to screw by Sunday, I’m going to jump you myself,” he’d said. “A pity fuck, and it’s me I’m taking pity on. I can’t take all this celibacy any more. You’re giving gays a good name. What’s wrong with you? Think of the baby gays who look to you for guidance. You might as well be straight with that kind of attitude.”

  Benny had promised he would do his best. It’s not like he didn’t want to have sex again sometime before he died. And actually, hooking up with Chris wouldn’t suck. They’d done it once before, and it had been fun, but neither one was really each other’s type.

  “What about him?” Chris asked, blatantly pointing at a barrel-chested, bearded white guy wearing a leather harness and bright red hot pants roller-skating slowly down the path through the park.

  The guy saw them looking, smiled and did a little jump that had him skating backward past their booth. Chris clapped his appreciation and then blew the skater a kiss. The guy mimed catching it and slipping it down the front of his minuscule shorts.

  “Too athletic,” Benny answered. “He probably jogs before work. I like my sleep.”

  “More for me, then. You good here?”

  Benny gave an exaggerated sweep of the completely empty booth. Expensive bronze statues weren’t exactly a huge draw, and the hundred-degree heat wasn’t helping business any. “I think I can hold down the crowds.”

  Chris clipped the foxtail to the back of his Daisy Duke jean shorts, tucked in his skin-tight white tank top, and grabbed Benny’s hat off his head. “Later then. Besos!” He hurried after the man on roller skates.

  Benny backed deeper into the shadows of the canvas-sided booth. Dry heat or not, the sun burned through the thin mountain air, and even Benny’s olive skin would burn in no time. He checked his watch. Jay-Cee had said he’d be back after the parade to give Benny a break. Judging by the upsurge in sweaty, rainbow-drenched people wandering through the Civic Center Park, the parade had ended.

  The music had started again. The ever-present bass thumping was so much a part of the day that Benny felt it in his veins more than heard it.

  He people-watched idly from the shadows. The event drew all types, from crowds of young women with smiley-face pasties in lieu of shirts, to grey-haired couples holding hands, to presumably straight families with kids out being allies and enjoying the day.

  One such family caught Benny’s eye as they stopped where every single other family had stopped the entire two days of the festival: at the air-conditioned kitten adoption booth. Okay, to be completely honest, it was mostly the dad who’d caught Benny’s eye.

  A tall African-American man with long black dreadlocks pulled back into a low ponytail, wearing fitted dark blue jeans and a white-t-shirt, he was exactly the kind of man Benny liked. Not that he had anything against the hot pants and roller skate crowd. He’d been with many a guy who looked like that, and if you couldn’t get your freak on at Pride, where could you? But if asked with a gun to his head if he had a type, Benny would have to say yes. And Mr. Tall, Dark, and Straight over there was definitely it.

  Even with a gun to his head, Benny would never admit that he had always wanted children of his own. Something about knowing that this guy was a dad made him extra sexy. He couldn’t tell if the kid was a boy or a girl. You never could be sure with small children and especially at a Pride event. Let’s go with a girl; not like he’d ever have to worry about insulting her to her face. Her dreads were left loose around her face, and rainbow wings and a rainbow tutu e
mbellished her tiny dark jeans and white t-shirts.

  The kid and her stylish-looking mom walked into the Plexiglas-fronted booth. Mr. Unobtainable stayed outside for a second. He raised his arms up, giving Benny front row seats to the gun show, and lifted the heavy hair off his neck with a sigh Benny heard from across the path. The way he blew the air out of his pursed lips gave Benny a funny feeling in his bathing suit area. It also reminded him of something or someone. Someone he couldn’t place, but damn it felt familiar.

  Maybe he should let Chris try to find him a hook up for tonight. Bad enough he would be the only sober queer in the village, he didn’t have to be celibate as well. It would be nice to celebrate night 287 of sobriety with someone. (He always counted nights. Days were easy. Facing the nights sober was the hard part.)

  The crowd blocked his view for a moment. The parade was definitely over, and the people needed overpriced drinks and honey-lavender artisan ice cream. Benny wasn’t judging; that ice cream was the bomb.

  The hottie with the body across the way met Benny’s eyes through a break in the crowd.

  Damn, but the guy looked familiar. Could Benny have slept with a guy that hot and forgotten it? Now that would be a shame. But he hadn’t been black-out drunk since moving to Colorado, so he’s pretty sure he would have remembered.

  Before he could get a handle on the memory, the guy’s family came out of the booth - without a kitten - and dragged him down the path. Benny watched them until they got lost in the crowd.

  Benny shouldn’t be here. He knew it. But damn he was tired of being home alone night after night, and everyone he knew in this state was here. He adjusted his luchador mask, tugging the shiny silver nylon around so he could see better out of the mesh-covered eye openings. At least this mask kept his mouth free, so he didn’t feel like he was completely suffocating. A short cape fluttered from his otherwise bare shoulder. The outfit was a cliché, he knew, but it was all he had been able to find on short notice. Chris hadn’t told him it was a Masquerade until the last minute. It’s a good thing he wasn’t a particularly large guy. It looked like most of the other guys had also shopped at the Slutty Whatever section of the costume store. But then again, people in blue spandex shorts shouldn’t throw stones. Really it was the blue and silver wrestling shoes that sold his outfit.