by Peter Styles
Mark let go of his dick and sat up on the bed, his gaze still hot. “Nah, I was just passing the time.” He stood and crossed the room, coming up so close to me I could smell the sex on him. He leaned in and kissed me on the lips. “Hope you saved some hot water for me.”
He slapped my ass as he passed by and went into the bathroom to shower, and I picked up the clothes I had discarded earlier and slid the shorts on. I dropped the shirt onto the bed, smiling to myself.
Mark’s clothes. Mark’s apartment. I had never been so close to his life before, and now I was a part of it, if only for a short time. It felt surprisingly good. Even despite the hospital drama and the possibility of losing everything, my heart sang. It was hard to feel sorry for myself with endorphins buzzing around like fireflies in my system.
I went into the kitchen to make myself another cup of coffee, but before I could get there, the doorbell rang. I froze. Then, when my brain kicked back into gear, I hurried to the bathroom door.
“Mark, there’s someone at the door.”
The bell sounded again. Several rings in succession, as if whoever was on the other side was getting restless.
“Don’t answer it,” Mark said. “They’ll give up.”
With a sinking feeling, I ignored the next several rings and headed toward the kitchen again. Mark didn’t want anyone to know I was in his apartment; that much was clear. Was he ashamed of me? Could it be a lover out there who would get angry or jealous if they found me here?
I didn’t have to wait to find out the answer. When I was just outside Mark’s bedroom door, I heard a key turn in the lock. Panic seized me. The door swung open, and Mark’s mother breezed in. I jumped back into the bedroom to avoid being seen, my heart pounding like the bass drum in a parade march.
“Mark, are you here?” she called. “I saw your car in the parking garage.” Then she screamed. “Oh, my heavens! Where did this cat come from? And what happened to his eye?” I heard her moving toward the bedroom, high heels clicking on the hardwood floor.
Shit! Shit! Shit!
I wanted to dive under the bed, but it was too late for that. My feet were glued to the floor, the footsteps were getting closer, and my heart was going to beat out of my chest. And then, before I could formulate a solid plan or excuse for being there, I found myself face-to-face with Lyla Johnson.
I’d met her once before, briefly, when she’d been visiting a friend in the hospital and had stopped by the ED to see Mark. She was a thin woman—the kind of thin that comes from too much cardio and not enough food—and she carried the air of someone who believes they are truly superior to most of the people around them. Her long, dark hair was swept into a low ponytail, and she wore a silk blouse with lace accents and a pencil skirt that must have been shrink-wrapped onto her thin frame. Her face was equally thin, probably gaunt if not for the help of fillers and Botox.
Lyla screamed when she saw me, and I yelled in response. I could feel the blood rushing to my face, and I instinctively looked down to take in my state.
Mark’s shorts. That’s all I was wearing. And I was standing in her son’s bedroom with wet hair and a guilty look on my face.
Lyla gave me a cool once-over, then offered the most unconvincing smile I’d ever seen, as if she’d sucked a lemon and was trying to play it off. “Dr. Whitham,” she said. “I didn’t expect to see you here. Where is my son?”
Before I could answer, Mark called out from the bathroom. “Did you say something, J?”
“Ummm… yeah, you have company.”
“What?”
Lyla walked over to the bathroom door and positioned her red-glossed lips close to the crack between the door and the frame. “Your mother is here, dear. Hurry up and get out here.”
The water shut off immediately, followed by the frantic sounds of Mark shuffling around in the bathroom. Lyla avoided looking at me while she waited, choosing instead to study an abstract painting that hung in the small sitting area near the bathroom.
Mark emerged momentarily in a pair of ass-hugging jeans and a white T-shirt. His face was flushed, and droplets of water fell from his hair, soaking through the light fabric of his shirt. If his mother hadn’t been there, I would have been turned on at the sight of him. Well, I was anyway, but I shouldn’t have been.
“Mother, what are you doing here?” He asked breathlessly, his throat convulsively around a swallow.
“I came by to see my son.” She picked invisible lint off of her spotless skirt, then struck a defiant pose with one hand on her hip and nose in the air. “When you didn’t answer, I used my key.”
“I told you to only use that in an emergency. You just barging in here is an invasion of my privacy.”
“Well, you don’t seem to mind when I’m dropping off food. And besides, it could have been an emergency. How was I to know? Your car was here, but you weren’t answering the door. What if you’d slipped getting out of the shower and cracked your head open? You could have been lying helpless and bleeding on the bathroom floor.”
Her calculating gaze slid to me, and something in the depth of those dark eyes, so like her son’s, suggested that she would rather have found him helpless and bleeding than with the likes of me.
“I’m fine,” Mark said. “Is there a reason for this surprise visit?”
Lyla fiddled the lace bib of her top into place, then smoothed her already-smooth skirt. “I was going to talk to you about Belinda Trevayne’s fundraiser. It’s in two weeks, and she was expecting you to RSVP by now. Alex said you were vague about it the last time he talked to you.”
“I don’t know, Mother. I told him I’d think about it.”
“Well, you’re running out of time to think. Why don’t you just call him and accept the invitation? Your father and I wanted you all to come by the house afterward for a cocktail.”
Mark’s eyes narrowed. “Who is you all?”
Lyla glanced at me again. Daggers in those eyes. “You and Alex and his parents, of course. Oh, and his sister is home from college for the holidays. You remember little Ariel, don’t you? I don’t know if you’ve seen her lately, but she’s grown into quite a beautiful young woman. Anyway, your father has a new bottle of cognac, very expensive, and you know how much Lionel Trevayne enjoys a good cognac.”
Oh, so that was it. Even I could see through Lyla’s ruse. She was trying to orchestrate a meeting between Mark and Alex’s sister.
Mark pushed past her and into the living room, communicating irritation with his every movement. “Why don’t we have a cup of coffee in the kitchen? My bedroom is not exactly the best place for entertaining.”
Again, with the daggers pointed straight at me. Lyla Johnson was not a master of hiding her emotions. Either that, or she had no intention of hiding them. “Looks to me you’ve already been entertaining in here.” She breezed out of the room with that annoying clack of heels across the hardwood.
I took the opportunity to grab the discarded T-shirt from the bed and slip it on. When I caught up to the two of them, Lyla had deposited her rail-thin body into a chair at the table, and Mark was making coffee.
“Jason is staying here for a few days,” Mark was saying. “They’re doing some repairs at his place.” When he turned around to present the fresh cup of coffee to his mother, he glanced at me, and there was an unspoken apology in his eyes.
It didn’t help to soften the blow. Mark was a grown man; why did he have to lie about why I was in his apartment? Apparently, he needed his mother to think that there was a perfectly plausible excuse for me being there aside from friendship. Aside from him helping me through a difficult situation. Aside from us having sex. Because that was the bottom line, wasn’t it? Lyla Johnson would not approve of her son having sex with me, and Mark was purposely trying to steer her away from coming anywhere close to that assumption.
This was like a flashback from college and the bi-curious frat boys and jocks. Cocksuckers at night, and liars in the morning. But I had no one to blame but myself.
I’d known how it would be with Mark, and I’d started something up with him, anyway.
I was going to sleep with him; I hadn’t changed my mind about that. But the way he was handling this situation with his mother reminded me that I needed to be extra careful not to lose more than my virginity in the process. Like my heart or my dignity.
Lyla took a sip of her coffee and grimaced, her perfectly-lined red lips stretching so thin her mouth looked like a bloody gash. “Didn’t he have any other friends who would put him up? You don’t even have anywhere for him to sleep.”
“Mother, please. He’s standing right here. Don’t you have any decency?”
“Decency?” Lyla scoffed. “You’re one to talk about decency. You have no concern about protecting our family name. What if people start talking?”
“What if they do?” Mark’s irritation was coming through now. It was in the set of his jaw and the deep furrow between his eyes. “And what are they going to say?”
Lyla set her coffee down on the table a little too hard, and a bit of coffee sloshed out. She snapped her fingers at Mark, who ripped a paper towel from the wall-mounted dispenser and handed it to her. She wiped slowly, soaking up the coffee, her face drawn tight. “You know very well what they’re going to say. People make assumptions these days.”
“Ummm… I’m just going to go watch some TV,” I said, feeling about as awkward as I ever had in my entire life. I wasn’t about to go into Mark’s bedroom again, and I hadn’t been invited to explore any of the other rooms. I couldn’t leave because Mark had kidnapped me and left my car at my place. That left the living room, which, as it turned out, wasn’t nearly far enough away from the kitchen. I could still hear most everything they said.
I turned the TV on but purposely kept the volume low. Not because I wanted to eavesdrop, but because I didn’t want to be a nuisance while they were trying to have a conversation. I tried not to listen, I really did. And I tried not to hope that Mark would take this perfect opportunity to come out to his mother.
“I don’t care what anyone else thinks,” Mark said defiantly.
“What about Dr. Rosenfeld?” Lyla asked. “I can’t imagine he would approve of this arrangement.”
I glanced up at that and saw the confusion on Mark’s face.
“What does Rosenfeld have to do with who I choose to have in my home?”
Lyla sighed in exasperation. “Are you really so daft, Mark? You’re making a terrible mistake.”
Mark didn’t say anything to that, and his silence was deafening in my ears.
“I think you should go, Mother. I have a lot to do today. I don’t get many days off.”
Lyla scoffed. “So, you’re just going to run me off before I’ve finished my coffee?”
“You’ve had that same swallow in the bottom of your cup so long it’s cold by now. Please, Mother. I’ll let you know about the fundraiser.”
“It would be nice for you to show your face. You’ve been ducking out of too many social functions lately. People are going to forget who you are, for heaven’s sake.”
“That might not be such a bad thing,” Mark muttered as he walked Lyla to the front door. His hand at the small of her back looked gentle but firm, and Lyla snagged one of her high heels on the rug as they passed me. She shot a hateful glare in my direction.
What did she think? That I’d tripped her? Used my powers of magic to cause her to stumble? Rubbed my mojo on her and given her bad luck? The lady was unbelievable, and one thing was for sure and certain. She did not like me, and she didn’t give a rat’s ass if I knew it.
“Ease up, Mark. You’re going to knock me down. Jeez, you’d think the place was on fire the way you’re hustling me out of here.”
“I’m just ready to get on with my day, and I don’t want to think about fundraisers and social engagements. I have more important things to concern myself with.” He kissed her tenderly on the top of her head. “I love you, Mother. See you soon.”
“I love you, too.” She stepped out into the hallway and turned a megawatt smile on her son. “RSVP about the event soon, okay? And don’t forget. Cocktails at our house afterward. We’ll have crab cakes. And I’ll call that bakery downtown and order those lemon petit fours you love. Mmmm…” She licked her red lips and laughed. “I know you can’t say no to those.”
“Okay, mother.” Mark closed the door before she’d even walked away. Then he turned to me and growled.
“What?” I asked, hoping he’d talk to me about what had just happened.
“Nothing,” he said. “It’s just that she’s got me wanting lemon petit fours now. Let’s put on some more winter-appropriate attire and head downtown? There’s a great little bakery down there. It’s my go-to when I’m feeling down.”
“Nothing like a bunch of sugar to chase the blues away,” I said with a smile I wasn’t quite feeling. Lyla Johnson had a way of turning a good day to shit. “Oh, and newsflash… you didn’t bring me any shoes.”
“Shit. I forgot about that. What size do you wear?”
“Eleven-and-a-half.”
“I wear a twelve, and I just bought a new pair of sneakers. They felt a little snug, so I was going to return them for a half size up. They’ll probably fit you perfectly.”
Mark led me into his cavernous closet and pulled a shoe box from a shelf above our heads. Inside, there was a brand-new pair of dark blue Nikes, and they still had that new shoe smell.
He tossed me a pair of jeans and a long-sleeve paisley button-up in shades various shades of blue. “These will be a little big on you, of course, but not too bad.”
“Thanks,” I said, feeling a bit like Cinderella trying on her stepsisters’ clothes. I hoped Mark wouldn’t start looking at me like I was some charity case or something.
“They suit you,” he said when I came out and modeled them for him. “I won’t be able to return them now, so they’re yours.”
“Are you sure? We could always swing by my place and grab some of mine.”
Mark waved the notion away. “I want you to have them.”
As we left the apartment and headed downtown, I tried to focus on the warm feeling of him giving me a gift instead of the other things that were nagging at my brain. It wasn’t an easy feat to forget the horrors I was facing. My career was likely over, and jail time was a very real possibility. Even worse, I might have been partly responsible for a man’s death. The icing on the cake was that I was getting intimate with someone who probably didn’t have the same depth of feelings for me as I did for him. Life was not going particularly well for me that week, and yet just looking over at Mark as he gripped the wheel and navigated the city streets ignited a little flame of hope in my heart.
Mark took me to a cute little bakery called Music City Pastry that served gourmet desserts. The place was cheerful and cozy, with bistro-style tables scattered around the dining area and watercolor paintings adorning the walls.
A stout man in a white apron stepped up behind the counter to greet us. “Well, look what the cat dragged in. Thought I might never see you again.”
Mark scoffed. “Oh, don’t be such a drama queen, Joe. It’s only been about a month.”
“A month is a long time.” Joe wiped his meaty hands on his apron. “Long enough for you to find some other baker and forget all about me.”
“Not likely. You know I’ll never be able to walk away from your petit fours.”
Joe chuckled and glanced at me. “It’s true. I do make the best petit fours in town.”
“I’ve heard a lot about them,” I said, reaching out to shake his hand. “I’m Jason Whitham.”
“Oh, I know who you are,” Joe said with a grin. “Heard a lot about you, too.”
I immediately thought of the Terwilliger scandal and winced. I supposed it wouldn’t be long before it was all over town.
“Don’t worry,” Joe said with a laugh. “Mark has had only good things to say about you.”
I whipped my head around and stared at M
ark, who gave a self-conscious chuckle. “Joe is like my therapist. Basically, I pay him to listen to my life story while he stuffs me full of sugar and bread.”
Joe nodded. “That’s about the gist of it. It’s like a barbershop around here.”
A young woman with strawberry-blond hair came out of the kitchen carrying a large platter with a variety of colorful desserts arranged on it. She beamed at Mark. “Tropical platter with white chocolate macadamia nut cookies and extra lemon cakes.”
“Perfect,” Mark said. “Add two large coffees to that, and we’ll be good to go.”
“This is my daughter, Sally,” Joe told me with a conspiratorial wink. “She’s good at figuring out what the regulars like.”
“Nice to meet you, Sally,” I stared wide-eyed at the loaded platter. In the center was a pyramid of petit-fours in orange, yellow, white, and pink, topped with one perfect ripe strawberry. Around the edge of the platter was a ring made up of alternating cookies and orange slices. “That’s a lot of food.”
Sally grinned. “Enough to take some home and eat later.”
“We’ll take the leftovers home to Bill,” Mark said. “Do cats eat cake?”
“You’ve got a cat?” Joe asked.
Mark flushed as if just realizing what he’d said. “It’s actually Jason’s cat.”
“For the time being,” I said. “I think Mark is trying to steal him from me.”
“I told you Bill said he wanted to go to my place. Who am I to ignore a cat’s pleas?”
“Uh-huh,” I said, aiming a skeptical look in Mark’s direction. “Just so you understand that when I leave, Bill goes with me.” The words unless I end up in prison rose to the tip of my tongue, and I bit them back. No sense thinking like that. If it happened, it happened, but some hopeful part of me refused to believe that fate would be so cruel.
Joe chuckled. “You boys fight it out. In the meantime, I have something for you.” He disappeared into the kitchen and re-emerged momentarily with a small white paper bag. “I’ve been experimenting with a new line of gourmet pet treats. Give these to Bill and let me know if he likes them.”