Blue On Blue

by Dal Maclean

  He walked up the short front path, put his key in the lock and quietly opened and closed the front door. A hallway lamp shone from a console table against the right-hand wall, giving a warm glow to the polished wood floorboards and white-washed walls.

  Will eyed the closed lounge door. His chest felt tight.

  He might as well admit to himself that there was a reason why his entrance had been close to noiseless. Maybe . . . he wanted to see how the land lay.

  He clenched his jaw and pushed open the lounge door.

  A fire burned in the hearth and the TV was on, but the sound was low. The back of Will’s big comfortable oatmeal-colored sofa faced the door, and two people sat on it, one blond, one dark, focused on each other, not the TV. They were probably sitting too close together, but they were just talking . . . that was all.

  Will felt a slam of relief, almost nauseating in its intensity, closely followed by shame at his own insecurity.

  Tom despised cheating, not least because of his own family history. If he decided to move on, he’d be brutally honest about it.

  And, maybe . . . maybe Will had subconsciously been trying to help him on the way.

  The gruesome honesty of the thought froze Will in his tracks. And at that moment, the dark head on the sofa turned toward him. For a second, Will thought he read impatience or disappointment, before Cam’s eyes widened with exaggerated appreciation. He elbowed Tom in the side.

  Tom craned his head to look, then eyes wide, he sprang to his feet. Cam stood more slowly. They faced Will across the sofa then, side by side and Will felt like an interfering parent who’d interrupted the cool kids having a good time.

  He was very aware that his tie was at half-mast, shirt collar open, suit crumpled. He’d showered and shaved at the station before setting off for home, both to try to wake himself up enough to drive, and to try to look a bit less like roadkill for Tom. But he still felt as if he hadn’t washed or slept for days and that was only intensified by the almost ridiculous perfection of the other two men. Both wore T-shirts and denim jeans and no socks or shoes, but they couldn’t help looking like models pretending to be ordinary people.

  Will caught Tom’s eyes, and he thought he looked almost nervous. Why would Tom feel nervous because his boyfriend had come home?

  “Hi,” Will said. Oh brilliant conversational gambit there, Foster.

  “Hey,” Tom returned softly. His extraordinary eyes were fixed on Will’s face. Will stared dumbly back.

  Silence stretched.

  “I’m Cam Daley,” Cam said, in a sexy Californian drawl. “Thank you for letting me stay.”

  Will dragged his gaze over to him. Cam’s expression was as pleasant and bland as a salesman’s.

  “Will Foster,” he said. “No problem.”

  There was another awkward pause and just like that, Will’d had enough. He could barely think. He couldn’t hope to say the right things here.

  “Well I just wanted to say hello. I’m going to have to go to bed I’m afraid. I’ll let you get back to . . . um.” He gave up.

  Tom moved from behind the sofa. “D’you want anything? Something to eat or drink?”

  That was more familiar. They both fussed over each other a bit. Mark called it nauseating. Not that Mark had a leg to stand on, now he’d become Pez’s bloodhound.

  “Thanks,” Will said. “But I just need sleep. ”

  “I’ll try not to wake you when I come in,” Tom offered but it sounded subdued. “I won’t be too late.”

  The whole exchange, in front of Cam’s assessing eyes, was excruciatingly stilted. But Will had no more emotional energy left. He headed for the bedroom.

  When he opened the door he found both bedside lamps already on, throwing a warm glow over the gray walls of the room, and John, Tom’s cat, asleep on Tom’s side of the bed. It was unusual to find him in the bedroom alone. He was usually hovering where Tom or Will were, lured away only by the fire in the lounge. Maybe he didn’t like Cam. Or Cam didn’t like him. Either scenario gave Will a petty sense of satisfaction.

  He stripped with a clumsy lack of care, threw his clothes on a chair and went to brush his teeth in the ensuite. Then he headed for the bed and flopped back blissfully onto the mattress, before turning onto his right side, to face Tom’s pillow. He closed his eyes.

  John’s deliberate feline walk disturbed the duvet as he moved to lie beside him, purring as his lush fur pressed against Will’s bare chest and upper arm. The comfort of that followed Will as he dropped off the edge into exhausted sleep.

  He startled awake to the sound of hushed voices outside the bedroom door. The clock on Tom’s bedside table read 02:23.

  Will felt weirdly sharp, but he knew it was a false alertness created by habitual forced wakefulness, and the handful of hours of sleep he’d managed had been shallow and uneasy. He was too tired, too buzzed, to give in to it.

  The door opened, the voices murmuring on. It didn’t sound like a relaxed conversation.

  Will waited. The bedroom door closed.

  Silence. Then the sound of the ensuite door opening and closing. The shower running briefly. A few minutes later Tom walked, naked, into the golden pool of lamplight on the far side of the bed.

  Smooth golden skin over toned muscle. Tall. Strong. Achingly beautiful.

  Will let his eyelids drop closed, because now he knew Tom was here he could relax. But the feeling of being watched wouldn’t go away. And maybe he didn’t want it to. He opened his eyes, blinking against the light.

  Tom was still standing in the same position. “I could get you on a calendar. Hot naked man. Small furry animal.” But it sounded wrong. Distant somehow.

  “John is nature’s finest killing machine,” Will said. He felt suddenly very awake. “He’d have you know.”

  Tom’s smile flickered but didn’t quite catch light. But he slid under the duvet to settle on his back as John stretched with elaborate unconcern between them, a prelude to evacuation. When Will reached out to brush Tom’s bare arm, the cat took his cue from experience and jumped off the bed to head for the laundry basket.

  “Alone at last,” Will said.

  Tom didn’t pretend to misunderstand. He turned his head on the pillow toward Will. “I’m sorry.” He frowned. On edge. “I didn’t think you’d mind with a case on. I wanted to offer Cam a chance to save a few quid. He’s still getting out of hock to his agency.”

  Most models—male models in particular, who were much lower paid than females—took on a lot of debt to try to establish a career. Some did modeling jobs for nothing, trying to pay their agencies back. Some never managed. But Will would have thought Cam was successful enough to be solvent by now.

  “He wants a UK agent,” Tom went on. “To get some work out of London. Pez is interested.” He pulled a face. “So’s Nora.”

  “Oh. The ferret in Chanel strikes back.”

  Tom’s expression finally brightened with genuine amusement and he turned on to his side to face Will. “She calls Pez, ‘Peter.’ Occasionally, ‘Pete.’”

  Will winced. He thought he was putting up a pretty convincing try at normality. “She looks so harmless too.”

  “Noooo. They’re evenly matched. King Kong versus Godzilla.” Tom’s grin widened. He seemed to be relaxing too. “Cam hasn’t even started hawking himself round other agencies yet, so they could both lose out.”

  “Was it a spur-of-the-moment thing for him then?” Will asked at last. “Coming to London?”

  There was a flutter of wariness in Tom’s eyes as he met Will’s. He could see some other solid emotion in them. Something almost shifty, like embarrassment. Or shame.

  “Remember I mentioned he lives with the photographer on the Armani shoot? Ken Schuler?”

  “Yeah,” Will said. He could feel his nerves stretching like elastic. Waiting for whatever had put that expression in Tom’s eyes. “The guy who’s always jealous.”

  It was one of the many details Tom had mentioned about Cam on the ph
one. He remembered thinking it was an unfortunate character trait for someone seeing a model. And he should know.

  “Well.” Tom paused, then blurted: “Ken got the impression Cam and I are fucking. And they had a fight.”

  “A fight?” Fucking.

  Tom nodded, head still on the pillow. “Hotel security. . . yelling and scuffling in the hallway. . . PR rousted out of bed to stop the police getting involved. The whole nine yards. Fuck it was awful. Ken was out of control, screaming things . . . I mean Cam was fine—he trains every day. But after that, he wanted some space to let things calm down with Ken. He’d been planning to talk to London agencies anyway. So he tagged along when I left.”

  Will stared at him in disbelief. “So. Let me get this straight: Cam’s boyfriend thought he was cheating on him with you. So Cam thought the best plan, to ‘let things calm down,’ was to disappear abroad. With you. How is that calming anything down?”

  Tom frowned. “He wanted to get away.” His tone was stiff. “And I can’t blame him.”

  Tom had more than enough experience after all, of obsessed, jealous lovers. Will drew in a bracing breath through his nose and sighed it out. He may as well go for it.

  “Someone sent me a couple of photos of you and Cam. From a U.S. number. I admit I thought they came from Melanie, but now . . . my money’s on Ken.”

  Tom froze, before his expression closed. “Of me and Cam?” His tone was cautious. “Doing . . . what?”

  “Sleeping. Laughing. They looked intimate.”

  Tom frowned. “Intimate? Sleeping? Let me see!”

  Will groped for his phone on the bedside cabinet and pulled up the images. For a few moments they regarded them silently together.

  “Yeah. I can see why he sent them,” Will said. His voice was soft. “If he wanted to warn me. Or cause trouble for you.”

  Tom’s frown resolved to outrage. “Falling asleep on set . . . .” he scoffed. “It’s not exactly professional but we all do it if it’s taking too long to set up. Ken should know it means nothing. He’s totally paranoid!”

  The denial was so dismissive that something in Will wanted to challenge it, to point out that those photos, and both times he’d watched Tom and Cam interacting without knowing they were being observed . . . it was easy to see why an insecure man would draw those conclusions. Not least because Cam was obviously in pursuit, and Tom must know it, though he could be remarkably blind at times to other peoples’ feelings. Conveniently blind, Will used to think.

  He wanted to explain why Tom’s instant connection with Cam had rung alarm bells with him as well, when Tom had started to talk about him too much. And why the warning noise had got louder. Because Tom never made friends with other models, far less, hungry rising stars like Cam.

  He wanted to tell Tom what he’d just worked out himself: that maybe Cam was attractive to Tom because he personified the glittering alternate life Tom had now been reminded of. And through Cam, perhaps Tom was finally coming to admit to himself the life he really wanted, as the trauma of being stalked and manipulated dulled in his memory.

  Or maybe, Will was as paranoid and jealous as bloody Ken.

  He said instead, “The question is, how that guy would get the number of a British police-issue phone.”

  Tom’s brows knotted together, then he winced. “Shit. You’re down as my emergency contact. Address and phone number. Ken’d have access.”

  Which explained it.

  “What if he follows Cam over here?” he asked.

  Tom looked incredulous “No way. He’s too busy. Cam said he has back-to-back shoots coming up. In a week or two he’ll realize he made a massive tit of himself and beg Cam to come back.”

  Will thought again about the way Cam looked at Tom.

  “And will he go?”

  Tom gave a leonine stretch which rolled him on to his back.

  “I doubt it.” With his muscular slender grace, he reminded Will of exactly that—a lion, golden and lazy and sure of his power. “But Ken has lots of friends . . . lots of contacts. Influence.”

  “So, he’d go back to a possibly violent, sexually possessive man . . . to use his business clout?” How stupid . . . how venal was that?

  Tom shrugged dismissively. “If he went back, they’d be using each other.” It was cynical and matter-of-fact—like the old Tom—Will thought sickly. The Tom who’d viewed romantic love as a dangerous trap only idiots fell into. The Tom who’d left Will behind without a backward glance.

  On reflex, he snaked a hand down and grabbed Tom’s wrist. But Tom seemed oblivious to his turmoil. His eyebrows rose in surprise.

  “I thought you’d be too tired.”

  But Will could hear the caution there. Sense the ambivalence.

  For a second Will almost backed away, but something in Tom’s watchful expression made him slide across a few inches and lean up on one elbow, looking down at him.

  “I’ve got my second wind.” He pressed the erection he’d barely been aware he had, against Tom’s hip very briefly. To his relief Tom made a sound of surprised approval.

  There was a low level burn of apprehension in Will’s gut and it felt as if it had been there on and off since Tom had first started to talk about Cam too much. Will just wanted it gone.

  But it wasn’t his choice in the end. He couldn’t own Tom. No one owned anyone.

  To Will’s relief, Tom slid a hand round his neck and pulled him down into a kiss, and he went with it, moving his lips softly over Tom’s for a quiet moment. But the kiss leveled up to famished in seconds. It had been awhile. And Will could only feel gladness that Tom’s distance seemed to have evaporated; that his desire was evident.

  His hands lodged in Will’s hair to hold him still for his hungry tongue, and Will slid his hands under Tom’s arched waist to grope his magnificent arse. They snogged with no gentleness, as if they’d both been deprived of touch for months. Finally, Tom pushed up, still kissing, and tipped Will onto his back, straddling him in a smooth movement, bum on Will’s groin.

  It was part of who they were in bed, both wrestling for control, both ceding it; both, dominant and yielding.

  Tom ran avid hands over Will’s chest, up over his smooth shoulders and biceps, back down to his sparsely haired pectorals.

  “God,” he muttered. He grinned slyly up into Will’s eyes. “Still the prettiest.”

  It was an old joke from their first try at a relationship, tied also now to Will’s complex feelings of love and despair through their shaky, agonizing reawakening the summer before. Maybe Tom shared the nostalgia.

  Will dragged him down for another kiss, trying to drive away the melancholy the memories created, and Tom went with it enthusiastically. The kiss didn’t break even when Will braced his feet and rolled them over again, until he was on top.

  Tom’s voice sounded strained with arousal when he finally dragged his mouth from under Will’s “What would you like? A quick suck?”

  Will snorted. “Oh you old romantic, you.”

  Tom poked his side with a sharp finger. “Hey! I’m trying to be considerate,” he protested. He thought for a second. “Or you could just lie there while I have at it.”

  “Attractive as that sounds . . . .” Will grinned. “Can I fuck you?”

  He knew it may not be the best idea, given the roil of possessiveness and fear of loss in him. But he needed it. He really needed it.

  Tom’s eyes looked dark in the soft wash of lamplight, pupils almost concealing the paleness of his irises.

  “Well.” He looked suddenly very somber. “The truth is . . . .” He slid a hand round Will’s neck again and leaned up to whisper a difficult secret. “I’ve seriously missed your cock.”

  “Just my cock?” Will asked, equally solemn.

  “You know better than that,” Tom said tenderly. “I really missed your arse too.”

  Will barked another laugh and Tom flopped back, looking ridiculously pleased with himself.

  The feelings in Will’s ch
est crested and swelled. They were so good together, in bed and out; so much on the same wavelength. Why was he letting anything undermine it?

  “Onto your front.” His voice was hoarse with desire.

  Tom’s eyes widened. “Well . . . this is all unexpectedly energetic Detective Inspector. I thought Alec might have worn you out on the camp . . . .”

  Will rolled him over onto his front until his face was smooshed into the pillow, still trying to talk, his bum on tempting display. Then he fished a half-used tube of lube and a condom from Tom’s bedside table and threw them on the bed.

  Will sat back and took in the sight of him, his blond hair concealing his face; his flawless, muscular back, all wide, tanned shoulders and small waist. The unusually ample swell of his arse. His long, well-muscled thighs, lower legs covered by the duvet. Will couldn’t help but stroke both palms down that sleek perfect body like a masseur, over Tom’s back and into the dip of his waist and then over the smooth firm cheeks of his backside.

  “Hands and knees,” he said thickly.

  Tom obeyed at once. Will’s cock got impossibly harder. In reality, Tom was the polar opposite of submissive, or obedient. He fought life and love all the way. But they balanced perfectly. Neither of them was exclusively one thing or the other.

  In fact, Tom had never allowed anyone to fuck him before Will and he’d been on edge about it all through their first relationship. And when Tom left him, Will had tormented himself, imagining Tom with other men, in that act in particular; other men seeing Tom like that. Other men fucking him. He hadn’t been able to rationalize it, other than primitive caveman possessiveness. And when Tom told him after they got back together that he’d only tried it once with someone else, and he hadn’t liked it, it had soothed something raw. It meant something to Will that he was reluctant to name.

  But every time he had Tom, Will felt in those seconds of pure sex, as if he were claiming his place, and he’d never wanted anything as badly. Tonight more than ever, when some blind instinct kept telling him it was slipping through his hands.