The Complete Veterans Affairs Romances: Gay Military Romances

by A. E. Wasp

  “Say something,” Chris said.

  Jay-Cee reached for him, pulling him in for a kiss, but Chris twisted away.

  “No. Words. Say something.”

  “I’m sorry.” The words slipped out unintended.

  Chris’s expression hardened, and he took a step backwards. “That’s what I thought.”

  “No, Chris.” Jay-Cee reached out a hand to keep him from leaving.

  “No what? You’re not sorry?”

  Jay-Cee took a deep breath. “I’m sorry I lost control. I shouldn’t have.”

  “Why? What’s so bad about losing control?” Chris’s blue eyes flashed like sunlight on a frozen lake.

  Jay-Cee reached out slowly, trying not to chase Chris away. When Chris didn’t stop him, he traced a fingertip down the rapidly-fading marks of Chris’s nails. “People can get hurt.”

  Chris pushed Jay-Cee’s hand away in disgust. Jay-Cee couldn’t blame him at all. He was disgusted with himself, too.

  “People are adults and old enough to make their own decisions. I don’t think this is about people at all.”

  Running a hand through his wet hair, Chris gave Jay-Cee one last, unreadable look, then walked out. Jay-Cee didn’t try to stop him, unclenching his hands from the edge of the counter only after he’d heard the slamming of the apartment door.

  After Chris left, Jay-Cee took a cold shower and still didn’t feel clean. He wasn’t proud to say he spent the rest of the day in his apartment.

  He spent the rest of the week in a cloud of self-loathing and recrimination. What the hell kind of game was he playing? Even he didn’t know. This couldn’t last.

  Chris would be foolish to put his trust in Jay-Cee when Jay-Cee didn’t even trust himself. When he was around, all of Jay-Cee’s sense went out the window and his control crumbled to dust. The things Chris brought out in Jay-Cee scared him. He wanted to have him all the time. To mark him up, to make him cry and curse and give everything to Jay-Cee.

  It was fucking terrifying.

  The only thing more terrifying would be finding out Chris wanted it as well.

  The thing that kept Jay-Cee coming back again and again, a moth returning to the flame that had scorched him, was how he felt around Chris. Something about Chris made him feel safe in a way he didn’t trust. Like he might be able to show Chris all of himself, even the parts that Jay-Cee kept pushed down deep, and Chris might understand, despite the gulf of years and experience between them.

  Chris was young, inexperienced, and an addict. If Jay-Cee wasn’t in control, who would be? Who would put the brakes on? Jay-Cee needed to find a way to put an end to this stupid game of sexual chicken they had going on before one of them did something irrevocable. Today, Jay-Cee had come pretty damn close.

  11 – Sunday morning coming down

  Early the Sunday morning after the shower incident, Jay-Cee stood in a silent studio and handed Chris the keys to the work van. Outside, the sky threatened rain. Jay-Cee hadn’t turned on the lights as he came downstairs, leaving the studio shrouded in shadows.

  Chris’s platinum blond hair was a bright spot in the darkness. Usually teased into a mess of spikes, today it fell in soft waves over his eyes. He stood too close to Jay-Cee in the middle of the room. Tight faded jeans, ripped at the knees and the back of the thighs, hugged his legs. His t-shirt had a silhouette of a cowboy on it and read ‘Big Daddy’s Twink Ranch. Rope ‘em, ride ‘em, set ‘em free.’

  “Nice shirt,” Jay-Cee commented.

  “Thanks. My grandma got it for me for my birthday.” Chris fluttered his eyelashes.

  “Don’t be a brat,” Jay-Cee growled, voice still sleep rough. Nightmares had kept him up half the night.

  Chris’s eyes widened, his pupils dilating with desire. “Or what?” he asked, biting his lip in a failed attempt to hold back a smirk.

  Jay-Cee stepped forward and wrapped a hand around the back of Chris’s neck, pulling him closer. “Or—” Jay-Cee cut himself off, his index finger caressing the buzz of hair at Chris’s hairline. Chris’s pulse jackrabbited under Jay-Cee’s thumb.

  “What?” Chris whispered, pushing.

  He was always pushing. His pushing was breaking down walls Jay-Cee had spent decades effecting. Last night, Jay-Cee had stood helplessly by as Chris died over and over in his dreams, and the images from the nightmares clung like cobwebs to his exhausted brain. His palms itched with the urge to give Chris exactly what he was asking for. He ran his hand over the denim-clad curve of Chris’s ass, squeezing hard when Chris whimpered.

  Jay-Cee stepped back.

  Chris exhaled sharply. “Well?”

  “Chris,” Jay-Cee licked his lips. “This isn’t –”

  Chris held up a hand. “You said I you needed me to know what I want. Well, I’ve decided. I want you.”

  “There’s so much you don’t know about me.” Jay-Cee was trying to do the right thing. He knew it was the right thing by how hard it was.

  Chris snorted. “There’s a lot you don’t know about me. So we learn. That’s how this usually works, I’ve heard.”

  Jay-Cee took a step back into the darker interior of the studio. “I am way too old for you. That’s never going to change.”

  Chris crossed his arms across his chest. “Don’t give me that bullshit. This isn’t about my age.”

  “Of course it is,” Jay-Cee said, not really believing it any more than Chris. “You can’t imagine the difference all those years between us make. You wouldn’t have liked twenty-two year old me.”

  “Good thing I’m not talking to him then.” He sighed. “Look. I’m not expecting happily ever after, not asking for some Harlequin romance. I just think we could be good for each other. I think we should give it a try.” Chris stepped up to Jay-Cee. Chris’s height always took Jay-Cee by surprise. He stood only an inch or two shorter than Jay-Cee. The slender strength of Chris’s body made him seem smaller somehow. “I think you’re scared.” He stabbed Jay-Cee in the chest with his finger.

  Jay-Cee grabbed Chris’s hand and held it pressed against this chest. “Scared of what?”

  Chris shook his head. Even in the dim light, Jay-Cee could tell he was taking this seriously. “I don’t know.” He yanked his hand away. “But you might want to figure it out. You want me; I know you do.”

  “What somebody wants isn’t always the best thing for them.”

  Chris barked a laugh, startling Jay-Cee. “Oh, really, sensei? You mean all that heroin I shot up wasn’t the best thing for me?” He shook his head, disappointment clear in his expression. “I don’t know what you see when you look at me, but you might want to take a second look. I’m not a naïve child, not some paragon of virginal innocence. I know what you like. I know what I need. Can you say the same?”

  Sunlight flooded in through the windows as the cloud cover broke briefly. Chris twirled the van keys around his finger. “Benny told me to say thanks for the van. I’ll bring it back tonight.”

  He turned and left without a backward glance. The slam of the door echoed in the studio. Damn it. Jay-Cee had screwed everything up. What made him think he could offer Chris any help when he couldn’t even control himself? Chris made him lose all his hard-earned control. He broke Jay-Cee down just by existing. Jay-Cee didn’t know if either one of them was ready for that.

  He should tell Chris once and for all that it was never going to happen. That Jay-Cee had been wrong to start it in the first place. Chris would be upset, but he would accept the decision as long as Jay-Cee held strong.

  Then it hit Jay-Cee like a blow to his head. He stopped in his tracks, the fog clearing from his mind as he replayed everything that had happened since that night in his hotel. They had both been acting as if they had yet to decide whether or not to be in a relationship when the truth was they were already in one.

  And Jay-Cee had been the one to initiate it. He remembered what he’d said at the hotel.

  “Do you trust me? Say it.”

  “Yes. I trust you. I wa
nt you.”

  “Okay, then. Strip.”

  From the second he’d told Chris to strip, he’d set himself as the dominant one in the relationship and then dropped Chris, left him there to flounder on his own. For God’s sake, he’d snuck out of the hotel the next morning. What must Chris have thought?

  No wonder Chris couldn’t say what he wanted. Jay-Cee had dragged him into a whole new world of power dynamics, taken something from Chris he might not have known he was giving, and then abandoned him, leaving him to navigate these new emotions without a guide.

  Chris had been right to call him scared. He was terrified of Chris, and he’d let his fear override his responsibility.

  Unforgivable. Jay-Cee stood in the dark, quiet studio let the acknowledgment of his failure settle in. Now he had to figure out what he wanted to do about it.

  Maybe a run would help him think. If he was going to be awake this early anyway, he might as well take advantage of it.

  Sweat poured down Jay-Cee’s body as he ran down the trail alongside the river, his feet thudding rhythmically against the ground. Through his earbuds, Kurt Cobain screamed about denial. Jay-Cee ran until his lungs burned and his calves cramped. Rounding a bend, the path opened on a wide spot by the river, and he slowed to a stop, breathing heavily.

  Calling it a river still seemed like a stretch. Maybe fifteen feet across at the widest part as it meandered through town, the river started high in the Rocky Mountains and flowed a hundred and twenty-six miles southeast until it joined the larger river out in the plains.

  At this spot, a large flat rock sat in the middle of the stream with a path of smaller rocks leading to it from the sandy edge. Jay-Cee hopped across the path and climbed up onto to the boulder. He closed his eyes and lay back with a sigh.

  The river gurgled quietly over the pebbled bottom. Clouds still hid the sun, and he wondered how the move was going. If he stayed on this path a few more miles, he would run right behind his old house. He’d rented it to Benny when he’d realized Benny could benefit from having somewhere quiet to live. Jay-Cee preferred the apartment above the studio anyway.

  Now Benny and his new boyfriend Mikey were moving in together after being reunited less than a month. He hoped it worked out for them.

  Jay-Cee sipped from his water bottle and watched the clouds blow across the sky. The music blaring from his headphones cut off as a phone call came in.

  He looked at the number. A 914 area code? A call coming from New York couldn’t be good. Only his family lived there, and he couldn’t remember the last time he’d talked to his parents. Already dreading the conversation, he answered the call. “Hello?”

  “James?” It was his mother, Elizabeth Anne Smythe Wentworth. Lizzie to her friends. Her voice quavered. She sounded older every time they spoke.

  “Yes, mother. It’s me. What’s wrong?” She only called when something was wrong.

  “I thought you should know your father is going into the hospital for a procedure. Nothing serious, but at our age, nothing is guaranteed.”

  Jay-Cee sat up, knees bent and feet flat on the rock. “You’re not that old.”

  “I’m seventy-two, James. Your father is eighty. Neither one of us is a spring chicken anymore.” He pictured his mother sitting at the table in the windowed breakfast nook in her large house. At 4,000 square feet, it was one of the smaller homes in the neighborhood.

  The house was much too big for two elderly people, but they had bought it back in the 60s with visions of a large family filling the rooms. Much to their disappointment, it had taken years to have even one child. Pregnancy and birth had been so hard on his fragile mother that the doctors had given her a hysterectomy to save her life. There would be no more children.

  Lizzie doted on Jay-Cee, but there had always been an edge of sorrow in her eyes when she looked at him that had taken years to recognize.

  His father had seemed uninterested in the whole child-raising process until Jay-Cee had turned twelve and continued to express interest in being an artist when he grew up. James Christian Wentworth Jr, had then bent all his formidable will to grooming his son and heir to following his footsteps into West Point and a life of service.

  “The General will be fine,” Jay-Cee assured his mother. “He’s too stubborn to die. Do you need me to come home?” He didn’t want to, but he would.

  “No, Sissy is coming to stay with me overnight. And Nathan and Juliana have been helping with the driving. I don’t like to drive so much anymore, you know.”

  Sissy was his mother’s sister, Cecilia. A year and a half older than his mother, Aunt Sissy was a hard as nails former ER nurse who had never married, and she was Jay-Cee’s favorite family member. Her gaydar had pinged on him early, and they’d had many secret coded conversations, before and during Jay-Cee’s time in the Army.

  Nathan and Julian were the children of one of Lizzie’s siblings or the other. Lizzie was the youngest of six siblings, and Jay-Cee had nine cousins on his mother’s side, all of whom were ten years or more older than him. He couldn’t keep track of who belonged to whom. His cousins on his father’s side were even older. Jay-Cee only knew them from the occasional Christmas or Easter gathering.

  “So what kind of tests are they running on the General?” he asked. Jay-Cee had never been able to settle on what to call his father. He’d grown out of calling him dad by the time he was ten. Father sounded pretentious and calling him by his first name was out of the question. Once Jay-Cee was in the military, calling him by his former rank had seemed the easiest. Mostly, he avoided calling him anything.

  His mother cleared her throat. Jay-Cee heard the sound of her nails as they clicked across the pearl necklace she wore every day. It reminded him of the way Chris slid that damn lightning bolt across the chain when he was thinking. Sometimes he sucked on it when he thought no one was looking. So much for running getting Chris off his mind.

  “It’s his heart, you know. The scleroderma.” Her voice sounded thin, and Jay-Cee didn’t know if it was the connection, the distance, or age.

  The General had suffered from systemic sclerosis for years. All the connective tissue in his body, from his skin to his organs, was hardening. The irony of his father dying from a hardened heart was not lost on Jay-Cee.

  “Are you sure you don’t need me to come home, Mother?” He slipped off the rock carefully. Walking back in wet sneakers wasn’t his idea of fun.

  “No, darling. You keep working on your art. I know it’s important to you.”

  Jay-Cee rolled his eyes. His mother always managed to make him feel about sixteen years old. It didn’t matter how many successful raids he and his teams had pulled in Iraq and Afghanistan. It didn’t matter how much recognition his art got, she still saw him as a kid coloring at the table. It was like he was forever imprinted in her mind as a skinny eighteen-year-old headed off to West Point.

  The silence stretched. Jay-Cee and his mother really didn’t have much to talk about. She lunched, she shopped, and she visited with her friends. In the last few years, she had dropped off most of the boards and committees that had occupied her fifties and sixties.

  “I have to go,” Jay-Cee lied. “Please, keep me posted on the test results.”

  “You know I will, dear. I love you. Be well.”

  “I love you, too, Mother.” Jay-Cee tapped the phone against his thigh and contemplated his options. He could jog the few miles to his old house and check on Benny. But they hadn’t asked for his help, and it would feel like crashing a party.

  He tried to think of any friends he had locally and realized he had no one he could call simply to invite to lunch. When had he become a hermit? For fifteen years he’d had people around him constantly, whether he’d wanted it or not. People he had fought alongside, had killed with and seen die.

  After he had left the service, he’d needed the time alone, time to recover from a broken heart and the only life he’d ever known. His buddies would always be there for him. That bond was unbreakable.
Still, it didn’t give him anyone to watch television with on a Sunday afternoon.

  Somehow, the years had slipped by, leaving Jay-Cee alone.

  Slipping his headphones back on, he turned the music up loud and headed back to the studio, every step haunted by the image of his father and the hard shell he had literally grown around himself.

  12 – I’m as dead as you

  Sometimes Sunday afternoons were hard for Chris. They made him restless. This one seemed particularly bad.

  Jay-Cee had barely spoken to him the entire week. To be fair, Chris had avoided him as much as possible. Every time he’d thought Jay-Cee wanted to talk, Chris had suddenly had something important to do somewhere else. He had badly overstepped last Sunday. It was so hard to know what the right thing to do was. Why did he keep letting Jay-Cee get to him like this? Why did he keep turning into this begging, pathetic slut, when it obviously disgusted Jay-Cee?

  He’d gotten off on it pretty fucking good for someone who was disgusted, a part of Chris’s mind commented.

  He needed something, anything, to take his mind off Jay-Cee. His apartment had nothing to hold his attention, and he didn’t feel like painting. When he’d first left New York, he’d moved to the condo his mother had bought him in Denver. After he had started working for Jay-Cee, he’d gotten a two-bedroom apartment in an old complex on the edge of town. He’d started to decorate, but it still didn’t feel anything close to homey.

  When Benny suggested they go to an AA meeting together and then join the gang at Vincent’s restaurant for an early dinner, he jumped at the chance. Vincent’s was the unofficial gay bar of Red Deer. If Chris remembered the details correctly, Vincent, the eponymous owner, was the husband of Mikey’s boss, Kevin. It sounded like as good of a plan as any.

  In hindsight, Chris should have stayed home.

  As if the hot and cold shit he’d been getting from Jay-Cee wasn’t bad enough, the meeting had brought up other issues he’d been trying to keep nice and repressed.