His mind slipped back to a too-bright fall day and the pair of blue eyes that stole his breath. “I pledged a fraternity. I even pledged the old man’s fraternity, though I had no fucking intention of being a lawyer. Then I met a guy.” He huffed out a ragged breath. “How cliché is that, honestly? You change your major, change your life, because of ‘some guy.’” His voice softened. “His name was Evan Coldwell, and I met him at a party during freshman rush. I was the freshman, he was a junior, and I fell for him before he’d ever opened his mouth.”
Evan told him he hadn’t wanted to attend the stupid party, and he’d been putting away Solo cup after Solo cup of microbrew without ever getting sloppy drunk. Michael had been so impressed by his self-possession. He’d been pretty well toasted himself, and he let Evan pick him up. That night had been a turning point in a lot of ways; at eighteen Evan was the first guy Michael actually had sex with. He’d done a lot of making out and fooling around. But this was fucking, and some pretty spectacular fucking at that. It had changed his life. Or so he’d thought.
“Evan was living in an apartment off campus, and I ended up never moving into the frat house. Fortunately for me, the frat got itself put on probation the first weekend and wasn’t allowed to rush a freshman class. It was like a gift. It was move in with Evan or the dorms, and my parents were a whole lot more willing to pay rent than for some crappy dorm room. God forbid the son they spent eighteen years ignoring should sully the family name by living in a dorm.” He exhaled, and it was shaky. “Wow, Michael. Bitter much? I guess that’s the other thing you should know about me; my relationship with my parents sucks, and I’m a whiny bitch. Anyway, Evan.” He ran his fingers delicately over Gil’s arm, wincing anew at the bruises.
“I was young and supremely stupid, and I gave him… well, whatever he wanted. He’d found himself a meal ticket with a trust fund, and I thought he was as in love with me as I was with him. I never questioned it when he didn’t want to discuss his family; after all, I had issues with my parents. I had no trouble believing he had issues with his. We lived together for two years, made all of these plans for how our lives would be when I finally got out of school. He was going on to law school when he graduated, and I found it hilarious that my father would be getting a lawyer in the family, even if it wasn’t me. Anyway, the weekend he graduated, I’d planned a party for him. He’d mentioned in passing his family wasn’t coming, and I felt sorry for him.” He shook his head. “Stupid, so stupid.
“I went to commencement, so proud when he walked across the stage. He looked so handsome in his cap and gown. He told me we’d meet up at home, that he didn’t want to fight the rush to try to get to me in the crowd once the ceremony was over. I planned to pick up his graduation present and some stuff for the party, and then we’d catch up at the apartment. I thought we could maybe have a little private party before our friends got there.” He let his forehead come to rest gently on the back of Gil’s wrist, taking a shaky breath. “Have I reiterated enough that I was stupid?
“I got home carrying bags full of pretzels and chips and a small velvet gift box containing a truly awful University of Washington class ring inset with amethysts and a single diamond. Looking back, it was gaudy and so not Evan’s style, but then, I guess I really wasn’t either. When I unlocked the door to our place”—he remembered the shock, the disbelief, the cold that had spread from his face down—“everything was gone. I mean, all of it. Evan’s clothes, his pictures, his desk, everything. There were dents in the carpet where the furniture had been, but it was gone, like it vanished into thin air. Even the plates, the silverware, and the towels in the bathroom. Four hours before it had all been there, and now it was gone. It was mostly all his to begin with, but… I wasn’t thinking clearly, and I thought we’d been robbed. I went to the on-site property manager, hysterical, and he told me Evan had arranged for him to let the crew in, and he just assumed we were moving.”
Michael lifted his head, sniffing. He hadn’t noticed the tears until they were slipping down his cheeks and off his chin. He rubbed them away in irritation.
“I even thought maybe it was some sort of surprise. Maybe he’d moved us to a nicer apartment without telling me. But then I found my stuff in the closet and tossed in a corner of our bedroom. I tried calling him but got a recording, saying his phone was disconnected. I was frantic; I had no idea where he was or what happened. I mean, we’d made love that morning and he was fine, although in retrospect it seemed he was uncharacteristically gentle.” He cleared his throat roughly.
“I found out later that he hadn’t cut off his relationship with his family at all. I just wasn’t part of it. I stayed with friends that night, still trying to make excuses, to come up with rational reasons for why he’d just abandon me like that. I was so distraught that my best friend, Hayley, went online and did a search of Evan’s name, something I never thought to do. He’d told me he was from Champaign, Illinois, but there was no record of the family name there. Hayley is nothing if not thorough. She finally found him in Oklahoma City.”
He was so weary, his body felt like his bones were dissolving. The only other person he’d ever told this story to was David, and remembering the details of the day his life fell apart always exhausted him.
“The more Hayley found out, the more things began to make a horrible sort of sense. His family was prominent in Oklahoma politics. His dad was a city councilman and his mother, like mine, headed up a dozen charitable organizations. Evan apparently never came out to his family. As far as they knew, their big old straight son went to the University of Washington for four years of freedom before returning to the family fold and doing what all good sons do—finish grad school, pass the bar so he could enter the family firm, get married, and start working on those two point five grandchildren. He married his high school sweetheart within weeks of getting home. The Evan I knew was as big a lie as everything else about his life.” Michael was suddenly cold and wrapped his hands in the blanket.
“I made a decision after that. I decided if I could live with a man for two years and never know I was his dirty little secret, I couldn’t trust my judgment. I’d never let anyone close enough to make a fool of me again. And I haven’t. Except for David, but there was never anything romantic there, not from the beginning. We looked at each other and were just – best friends. Anyway, I graduated from the U with my degree in fine art and saw an ad on an industry Web page for the job where I met David. It did two things I needed for it to do—it gave me an income, and it got me out of Seattle and away from my parents. And that, as they say, is that.”
Michael took a deep breath, held it for a moment, then slowly released it. “So now you know why I wouldn’t let you close. You scare the living shit out of me, Gilbert. I’ve been fighting my feelings almost since the day we moved the stuff out of your dad’s house. But….” He rubbed the back of his arm across his eyes. “I don’t think I can do it anymore. Seeing you fall like that, seeing how badly hurt you were—are, I just….” His emotions were slipping out of control as his eyes filled again, and the tears he couldn’t stop streaked his face. “I love you, Gil.” He touched the battered face with gentle fingers. “You have to open your eyes. You have to wake up so I can give you grief for scaring the shit out of me like that. Because listen to me, you asshole. I need you. I need you to—”
He cut off his sentence when he saw movement behind Gil’s left eyelid. The right was still too swollen, but his left lid was definitely twitching, and his lashes were trembling. Michael’s heart rocked in his chest, abruptly hammering at the base of his throat. “Gil? Baby, can you hear me?”
Gil’s arms moved, and he made an odd noise, like the cross between a gasp and a groan. Then he coughed, and his left leg shifted under the blankets.
“Gil? Oh my God, Gil.” Tears streaked down Michael’s cheeks. His gaze was glued to Gil’s face, and slowly, his left eye opened. It rolled, as if he were searching the room, then stopped when he spotted Michael.
/> Michael smiled. “Hey,” he whispered, his voice breaking.
“Hey.” Gil’s voice sounded raw, like someone had abraded the inside of his throat with sandpaper. He closed his good eye, and Michael felt a moment’s panic. That couldn’t be it; Gil couldn’t pass out again, not when he’d just come back to him.
“Gil!” Gil’s eye immediately opened again, and his poor, swollen lips pulled up at the corners.
“You can’t take it back,” he rasped.
“Take what back?” Michael held Gil’s hand between both of his.
“I heard you, Michael. You said you love me, and you can’t take it back.”
Michael’s smile trembled and he pressed his lips to Gil’s knuckles, his tears wetting the bruised skin. “I won’t take it back, baby. I’ll take out an ad in the fucking paper if you want me to.”
Gil’s grip was weak when he turned his hand and caught Michael’s fingers between his, but it was there. “On Sunday, widest circulation day.”
Michael’s laugh was ragged. “You’re on.”
The corner of Gil’s lips curled up in a slight smile. “And I love you too.”
Michael kissed his poor bruised knuckles again, then dropped his forehead to Gil’s hand.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
EVENTUALLY MICHAEL got up from his chair to alert Pam, and then there was a rush of activity and he had to leave the room. Different doctors than the ones Michael had seen before moved in and out of the room, and he stood watching from the doors to the waiting room as he called David and ended up speaking to Jackson.
“He’s awake?” Jackson sounded as anxious as Michael had felt.
“Yeah, he is.”
“Is he okay?”
Michael knew what he was asking. They’d talked all around it, but from the moment Dr. Shumway had told them there could be repercussions from the injury to his head, they’d been afraid of what that could mean. Michael knew they weren’t out of the woods by any stretch. “He seems to be okay. He knew who I was, and he talked to me.”
“Thank Christ.” Michael heard the stark relief in his voice.
“Yeah. I’m not much for praying, but I’ve been doing a lot of it. In fact, I may owe God my firstborn.”
Jackson gave a ragged laugh. “Well, good luck with that.”
They moved Gil out of the ICU that night, and by morning he was in a room on a lower floor that at least had a view of downtown. Michael walked with them as he was moved and met the nurses who would be taking care of him on the orthopedic floor. The visiting hours were much looser outside of the ICU, and they didn’t seem to have any problem with Michael spending the night in yet another recliner.
Once he was moved, Gil was exhausted, and more asleep than he was awake, but when he did open his eyes he searched for Michael. He dozed, holding Gil’s hand, waking every time the nurses came in to check his vitals or bring him medicine. They assured Michael Gil’s exhaustion was absolutely normal, and the relief he felt every time Gil wakened was so complete he was almost light-headed with it.
Vern and Manny were there by six thirty, and their relief was reflected on their faces when Gil clearly knew who they both were.
“What the fuck were you thinking, Gilbert?” Vern demanded. He sounded stern, but Michael knew it was just Vern being Vern.
“Thought I could fly,” Gil answered.
“Well, I hope this disabused you of that notion. Because I can guarantee, your big old ass didn’t do anything but fall. And another thing, you jackass—you gonna scare ten years off my life, you need to start paying me better.”
“Don’t listen to him.” Manny smiled as he held Gil’s hand. “He’s just pissed off cuz you’re getting a vacation, and his tired old butt has to do all the patching and repair on the exterior of the O’Banyon place.”
“Damn straight,” Vern grumbled. “That fucking place is huge.”
“I’ll be back before you know it.” Gil’s eye drifted closed. “After a nap.”
Manny and Vern left not long after, and within an hour Jackson and David came through the door. While Jackson sat beside Gil, talking to him softly, David pulled Michael into the hall.
“How is he?” David caught Michael’s hand, squeezing it.
“Sleepy. I’m just so fucking relieved he’s awake at all….”
“I know. Listen, we need to talk about how much time you’re going to be spending here.”
Michael stiffened, withdrawing his hand. “Have the police found the guy who did this yet?”
David sighed. “No, not that we’ve heard.”
“Then I’m here.”
“Michael….”
“David. As long as someone is out there willing to sabotage his equipment”—Michael spoke through stiff lips, winding up—“and he’s as helpless as he is right now, I’m not going anywhere. I can keep working on procurement on my laptop—”
David reached out and grabbed Michael’s shoulder. “Stop. Will you let me talk?”
Michael pursed his lips, but subsided. “So? Talk.”
“Jackson and I have been talking about it, and you can’t be here all day, every day.”
“Watch me.”
“Oh God, you’re infuriating. Shut up.”
Michael arched one brow, waiting.
“All I mean is that there are enough of us that we can… do it in shifts, or something.”
“David, the other guys are working on the mansion. We can’t put Richard and Lyle off.”
“We won’t,” David assured him. “But you can’t exhaust yourself by being here, never getting a decent night’s sleep. And you might as well resign yourself to the other guys periodically coming in and throwing you out. Jackson is insisting on it.”
Michael studied David’s resolute face. “Gil told me he loves me.” Michael wasn’t sure where that came from, wasn’t even sure he’d meant to say it, but there it was.
David’s frown faded, and his eyes softened. “Did he? And what did you say?”
Michael felt a tiny flare of giddiness in his stomach. “Actually, I told him first. I just didn’t know he was awake to hear me.”
David’s smile grew. “Is that right?”
“Pam, the nurse, said I should talk to him, that people who woke from comas told doctors they could hear. It was weird at first, you know? Just… talking? But—” He took a deep breath. “—I told him about Evan.”
David squeezed his arm.
“I don’t know if he heard that part, but I told him. And I guess I realized something.”
“What?”
“That in order to love someone, you have to let them in. I’ve been pushing him away since… probably that day at his dad’s house, because he scared me. Evan hurt me so much, I figured not allowing myself to care was the only protection I had. Then he fell.”
Michael shuddered, his throat growing tight, and David stroked a hand down his arm. “That had to be so scary.”
“It was. But you know what scared me more than watching him fall? The idea that I’ve spent months pushing him away, and I might never have a chance to tell him that I do love him. But he heard me. He told me I’m not allowed to take it back.” He laughed, feeling it wobble. “He wants me to put an ad in the paper, on Sunday, because more people read that day.”
David made a soft sound, then wrapped his arms around Michael, hugging him hard. “I’m so glad,” he said against Michael’s ear.
He squeezed David back. “I love him so much. So, when you fell in love with Jackson, and you told me it scared you? God, do I get it now.”
David leaned back, smiling. “Do you also remember me telling you that it would happen to you someday too?”
Michael groaned softly. “I knew that would come up.”
“Oh hell yes, it would. Have you any idea how nice it is for me to be able to say ‘I told you so’?” He laughed softly. “More than anything, I’m just so fucking glad.”
“Me too.” Michael smiled weakly. “Pissing myself, but glad
.”
David laughed and hugged him again.
AS THE days went by, Gil was more and more lucid. The physical therapy people had him sitting up in bed the second day, then moving cautiously to the recliner the next. The orthopedist was satisfied that his blood counts indicated he’d managed to dodge infection, and the neurosurgeon came in and pulled the tube from his head on the third day, pleased with his improvement. He also changed the dressing, and Michael cringed inwardly when he saw the two short incisions closed with staples. This man had drilled holes into Gil’s skull. Michael was so damned glad the doctor knew what he was doing, he didn’t think he could ever express it.
Dr. Pillai was pleased with the way the incisions were healing and that the swelling had gone down. He taped on a clean bandage, telling Gil he’d have to come into his office to have the staples removed. He also said there could be some side effects, but their severity remained to be seen.
“What sort of side effects?” Michael’s hands curled around the railing on Gil’s bed until his knuckles were white.
Dr. Pillai sat on a stool near the foot of the bed, setting Gil’s chart aside. “Well, first of all, allow me to reiterate how unbelievably fortunate Gil’s been throughout all of this. Falling three floors onto concrete, by rights, could kill you. So far I see remarkably few indications of long-term problems. But you need to understand; his brain got bounced around in his skull, and to think there would be no bruising is naïve.” He studied Gil’s face. “I expect there to be continuing headaches. If they increase in severity, you’re to come right back here. There could also be a general… malaise. The tiredness will probably continue. You may notice your balance is off, which is worrisome with your leg compromised. But since you aren’t exhibiting any other indications of more extensive injury to the part of the brain where the hematoma was, I have to say—” He shook his head. “You’re a very lucky man.”
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