Purgatory: Heaven Sent Extended Remix: Book Two

by Jet Mykles

  He got through his first two classes on autopilot. Luckily, he’d thought to prepare all his lesson plans on Thursday night so that the Friday and Saturday wedding events didn’t put him behind. It was also late in the year, just two weeks until summer break, so the kids were almost done anyway. Much of the time was review for their finals so it was welcome when he gave them study time in class.

  During a pop quiz in second period, he found himself sitting at his desk, doodling. The desire to sketch that had reared its head on Friday asserted itself when he picked up a ballpoint pen and decorated a scrap of ruled paper, sketching a portrait. Of Luc. His long, straight nose and sharply defined jaw. Those hooded eyes underneath sweeping brows. That mouth… oh, that mouth! Now he knew exactly how talented that mouth was. Good thing that he always set an egg timer to announce when the quiz was done; otherwise he would have gotten lost in his task and let his kids have the entire period to finish. When the timer dinged, he jumped and hastily turned the sketch face down on his desk and covered it with a textbook.

  The need for a caffeine boost lured him to the teachers’ lounge during first break. Despite the fact that they only had fifteen minutes, less if you counted travel time to and from class, the room was crowded and the line for the coffee pot was five people deep. Cradling his cup, Reese waved and smiled greetings. He liked most of the other teachers, some more than others. He was one of only five male teachers and only one of two who weren’t a coach. Sadly stereotypical. Part of him had wanted to volunteer to teach home economics, but the school had an after-school program for cooking and Debra Miller wouldn’t give that up for the world.

  Haley Greene, one of the office admins, sidled up to him, stirring her tea. “Reese! How was the wedding?” Haley was one of those women who couldn’t talk enough about weddings and babies. She knew he’d gotten off work early on Friday and even knew Reegan, though not well enough to have received an invitation.

  He smiled for her as he stepped forward in line for the coffee pot. “It was great.”

  “I’m sure she was beautiful.”

  “She was.”

  “I heard Heaven Sent was there! Is that true?” Haley was about his age, so there was no surprise that she knew about the band.

  Ah. So she hadn’t come up to him so much to talk wedding as to talk rockstars. “Good news travels fast, huh?”

  Two of the four other teachers turned their heads, showing they heard.

  “Does Reegan know them?” Haley demanded, stars in her eyes.

  “We both do. Or, used to.” Pride surfaced as more heads turned his way. “Reegan used to date one of them.” And I just fucked him last night. The silent addition sent a giddy thrill through him.

  “No way!?”

  “Which one?” Toni Butcher, one of the English teachers, demanded.

  “Luc Sloane.”

  He and Marty Glover, a history teacher, watched in amused horror as three grown women screeched like the pre-teens they taught.

  “Oh. My. God!” Haley swayed dramatically into him, forcing him to put an arm around her to support her weight. “He is the absolute end! Is there a more gorgeous man? I don’t think so.”

  “What about Johnnie Heaven?” Gira Reddy, the other math teacher argued.

  “What about your husband?” Marty asked.

  The women rounded on him with matching scowls.

  “Don’t you bring reality into my fantasy!” Haley warned him, pointing with menace. “Lucas Sloane is my exception and my husband knows it.”

  “Exception?”

  “I can sleep with him and Danny can’t be upset. Because, well—” she looked at the other women, who were nodding, “—he’s Luc Sloane!”

  At that, Reese cracked. Tears fell from his eyes and his ribs hurt before he could tame his laughter. He had to tell Luc when he saw him.

  He barely managed to fill his cup after the warning bell for break’s end sounded. He had to take his caffeine back to his room with him.

  During fourth period, he had to reprimand three of the girls for whispering incessantly. They were also giving him strange looks. He put the oddness out of his mind in favor of a lecture on algebra.

  At the end of the period, however, the three girls came up to his desk. Strangely enough, some of their classmates seemed to be dawdling as well. Since it was now lunch break, he knew something was up.

  “May I help you ladies?” he asked, looking up from his chair.

  Tina, a tall blond with luminous crystal-blue eyes, grinned at him, her manicured hands folded just under her chin. “Is it true, Mr. Schuyler?”

  “Is what true?”

  “Do you know Heaven Sent?”

  Ah! He sat forward in his chair, folding his hands on the textbook that covered his earlier sketch. “Where did you hear that?” Probably overheard the shrieking from the teachers’ lounge.

  Her glossed lips turned down at the corners. “It’s not true?”

  “I didn’t say that.”

  “Then it is true!” Her squeal was the kind to shatter glass. He seemed to be hearing that a lot today.

  Reese winced as her friends and a few of the dawdlers joined in with their own squeals and crowded around his desk.

  “How long have you known them?”

  “Do you really know them personally?”

  “What’s Johnnie really like?”

  “Is Darien really that sweet?”

  “Is Luc just amazing?”

  He laughed, waiting for the questions to die down. When they did, he was looking up into seven earnest female faces. He caught sight of a button with Johnnie’s smiling face on it pinned to one of the girls’ backpacks. “Yes, I do know Heaven Sent.”

  More squeals. One of the girls looked like she was about to cry.

  He held up a hand to forestall them. “I knew them a long time ago. Before they became famous.”

  “Oh, no way!”

  “I heard they were from here but… Omigod!”

  He held up his hands, trying to stop the flow. “Before this weekend, I hadn’t talked to them in years.”

  That fact didn’t seem to make a difference. The chatter started again, this time interspersed with comments on how cool it was that they knew someone who knew Heaven Sent.

  Reese fought to keep from laughing aloud. His students had never paid him much personal attention. He was told by some of the female teachers that there were girls who had crushes on him, but he never saw it. Truthfully, he couldn’t remember a non-school-related conversation with any of his students until today.

  It took some convincing to get the girls to leave and more convincing to assure them that he couldn’t get them in to see Heaven Sent at Purgatory. In the end, he had to promise to try and get autographs if they brought in the pictures they wanted signed the next day.

  He let out the laugh he’d been holding in when the door finally closed behind them. He leaned back in his chair and grinned at the ceiling.

  Not only had Luc barreled back into his life — however temporarily — but his mere existence had even given life to Reese’s boring day job.

  He should have predicted the presence of Mr. Ronald Tarkington at his door sometime that day. In truth, he was a bit surprised that it took until the end of his second-to-last class. Mr. Tarkington prided himself in being “in the know” when it came to the gossip and trends of the student body and the goings-on of his teachers. Personally, Reese thought he was full of shit, but he prudently kept that to himself.

  Tarkington stood just inside Reese’s door as students filed out. He had a smile and a word for most of them and reached out to pat a few shoulders as they passed him. Most of the kids, especially the boys, were taller than he. Reese wondered if any of them had the same burning urge he had to rub a palm over the man’s shiny, balding head.

  Suppressing a laugh, Reese propped his butt on the front of his desk, curled his fingers around the edge on either side of his hips, and waited. He hoped he didn’t look as worn out as he f
elt. Not enough sleep and too much sex the previous day.

  Okay, stop that! He didn’t need to sport a boner when talking to his boss.

  When the last kid had filed out, Tarkington came to stand before Reese. He busied his hands with meticulously folding the cuffs of his crisp, powder-blue shirt up above his elbows. “Schuyler, I hear you had quite a weekend.”

  “My sister got married, yes, sir.”

  “Yes, yes. And I hear some rock band played there.”

  Reese shook his head, wondering how many different versions of rumor were flying around the school. “No, sir. They didn’t play. They were just guests.”

  “Mmm. You know these people?”

  “Reegan and I were friends with the guys in Heaven Sent before they got their big break. We all grew up in Woodley.”

  “I see. I didn’t take you for a rocker, Schuyler.” His eyes twitched briefly to the plain silver hoop in Reese’s right earlobe.

  Reese allowed himself a small smile, wondering what Tarkington’s face would look like if he’d seen Reese back in his heyday. Forget it if he knew about the tattoo. “I’m not anymore, sir. I’ve left those days behind.”

  “Have you?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Good. Far be it for me to tell you how to live, Schuyler, and the past is, of course, the past, but we can’t have that kind teaching our kids, you know. Just sends the wrong message and isn’t part of the charter.”

  Reese stared blankly at his boss, biting his tongue to keep back a dozen remarks he wanted to make. Standing before him was the main reason he had to keep things secret with Luc. Here he was warning Reese about knowing rockstars. One whiff that Reese could possibly be slightly gay, and Tarkington would find a way to not only get rid of him but to make sure that he didn’t work anywhere in the county again. To make matters worse, he’d have the backing of the board. The reason wouldn’t be homosexuality, of course. Oh, no. But they would find something, and he’d make sure all the parents knew so they could spread the word as well.

  “They’re just friends who are in town for a while, Mr. Tarkington. They’ll be back on the road by next week.” He ignored the little pinch around his heart at the thought.

  The man actually looked relieved. He wiped his palms down the front of his shirt. “Ah, good. I mean, not that it matters, of course.”

  “Of course.” Reese’s cell phone rang, and he pushed to his feet to circle behind the desk to retrieve it.

  Tarkington started toward the door. “Well, I’ll leave you to your next class. Please wish your sister our best when you talk to her next.”

  Reese picked up his phone. “I’ll do that, Mr. Tarkington.”

  “Afternoon, Schuyler.” He shut the door on his way out.

  Reese had to laugh when he saw the caller ID. He lifted the phone to his ear. “Hey, Luc,” he said into the phone.

  “Hey, tiger.”

  “When did you program your name into my phone?”

  Luc chuckled. “Yesterday. Thoughtful of me, wasn’t it?”

  Reese snickered, sinking into his chair. “‘Sex God’ is a bit much, don’t you think?”

  “Mmmm. But you knew who it was.”

  Reese shivered at the low rumble. “Yeah.”

  “You done for the day?”

  “I’ve got one more class.”

  “Good timing, then. Can I meet you at your place?”

  He moved a textbook aside. “What will the neighbors think?”

  Luc’s snort told him what the rockstar thought of the neighbors. “I take that as a no?”

  “Yeah.” He turned over the sketch he’d started earlier.

  “Come to me, then.”

  He’d kind of hoped that invitation was coming. “What hotel are you at?”

  “I’m not. I got a rental outside of town.”

  “Must be nice to be rich.”

  “Hey, gotta spend it on something. Come over and I’ll spend some on you.”

  Reese grabbed a pen and started shading in the sketch. “You don’t know how tempting that is to a starving teacher.”

  “I do know. I saw what you had in your refrigerator. Name your poison. I’ll buy you any dinner you want. I’ll send a driver out to come get you and have them scatter rose petals across the backseat.”

  Reese laughed. “Don’t you dare.”

  “Hmm, too girly?”

  “Yeah, a bit.”

  “I can send a truck driver with a cooler full of beer in the back.”

  “Your ideas suck.”

  “So does my mouth. Why don’t you get your dick over here and I’ll demonstrate.”

  Reese shut his eyes and shuddered. “Damn.”

  Luc laughed. “Should I send a car?”

  “No.” Reese traced the sketched line of Luc’s lower lip. “Text me the address. I’ll drive out.”

  “So you can escape when you feel the need?” His tone was light but Reese sensed the bitterness. Was it wrong that it warmed his heart even as he found it odd?

  “Some of us have to work in the morning.”

  Luc sighed. “Details. Okay, I’ll send a text. You’re coming now, right?”

  “I’ve got another class—” he reminded patiently, “—then I need to check a lesson plan for tomorrow. And I’ve got to go home and change.”

  Luc grumbled. “Then you’re coming.”

  Reese laughed. “Pushy.”

  “Horny.”

  “Didn’t get enough yesterday?”

  “Of you? Not nearly.”

  Reese snorted, folding the sketch. “Like you can’t get a piece of ass by just whistling.”

  Luc whistled into the phone. “I happen to be craving your ass. Get it the hell over here.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “That’s better. What do you want for dinner?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Oh, come on. Sky’s the limit, and you can’t decide?”

  Reese laughed. “I’m a simple man.”

  “Right. You like sushi?”

  “Sure. Anything that’s not either slimy or that poison fish that could kill you.”

  “Gotcha. Hurry that lesson plan and get over here.”

  Chapter Seven

  The drive to the place Luc was staying was about a half-hour, taking Reese outside the city proper and almost outside the suburbs into a gated community within the hills that was nearly hidden by lush foliage. He hadn’t even known the secluded place existed, but then, he wasn’t wealthy enough to bother even looking at such areas. An actual guard took his name, made a quick call, then gave him directions as he opened the gate. She even smiled.

  The houses in the community were spaced, indicating that the people were wealthy. Reese wasn’t sure there was a plot that was less than two acres and some were more. The streets curved generously and were thickly lined with trees. Sidewalks were manicured and there was a gate at the end of every drive. At first, he could see the houses behind their fences, but many were obscured by more greenery. As he continued, the driveways got longer and the trees thicker until the only indication of a house was the fence and gate. One of these had the number that Luc and the guard had given him. He had to call up from a device mounted in a squat stone pillar.

  “You’re here,” came a familiar voice through the tinny speaker.

  “I’m here.”

  The gate was already rolling open. “Come on up.”

  This tree-shrouded drive took him up a sloped hill and around a corner to a surprisingly modest two-level house. He’d expected a sprawling mansion since it was toward the top of the hill with probably four instead of two acres of land, but it wasn’t all that big. Gorgeous, of course. Reese knew next to nothing about architecture, so he couldn’t have said what style of house it was, but to him it looked like a massive capital A. The wood paneling of the exterior had been weathered to make it seem older, which fit with the rustic setting. The entire front of the house was tinted glass. He supposed privacy came from the fact t
hat the house faced away from the hill, away from the community altogether to command a view of the undeveloped other side of the hill and the cityscape beyond. He parked his Nissan next to the silver Lexus in the covered carport, then followed a little gravel pathway to the covered front steps.

  Luc was on the small porch dressed in violet drawstring pants and nothing else but his loose curly hair and a hungry grin. As soon as Reese was within reach, he hooked a hand around the back of his neck and hauled him inside, pushing Reese’s duffel free to drop to the floor. Reese didn’t even get to see what the entryway looked like. No greeting. Well, none verbal. Luc’s hungry kiss was welcome enough.

  The bass player walked backward, pulling Reese with him. Reese stumbled against him, laughing, then yelped when Luc fell back. Well, not exactly. At least not by accident. Reese found that out when they both landed on a plush black futon set on the polished hardwood floor of the main room. Just the futon, no stand.

  Still laughing, Reese managed to pull from Luc’s grasp. He ended up straddling Luc’s hips, sitting on his thighs. “You freak.” Brushing hair back from his face, he twisted his head to look around. And whistled. “Whoa.”

  Luc busied himself with untucking Reese’s T-shirt from his jeans. “Cool, huh?” He slid his hands in to skim over Reese’s belly and sides.

  “I’ll say.”

  The setting distracted Reese for the moment from Luc’s hands. The room they were in soared up into the point of the A he’d seen from outside. Huge skylights and the wall of windows poured the last of the afternoon sun onto the cherry hardwood floors, reflecting ruddy warmth onto ivory walls. He was glad to see that there were thick blackout curtains that could be drawn but this place must be nightmare to heat. Good thing it didn’t snow in these parts. Cherry wood was predominant, continuing into a dining room and kitchen that could be seen through two open arches, and a flight of stairs led up to a second story. The hall of the second story looked down into this main room. He could see three open doors up there but the angle was bad to identify the rooms.

  Luc sat up underneath him, yanking the hem of Reese’s shirt to his armpits.